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Annual awards were presented recently by the Fulton Soil and Water Conservation District office.
Andrew and Bruce Lauber of A & B Farms were named Cooperators of the Year.
The award is presented to the cooperator who puts into practice the best variety of conservation techniques that are evident when looking at the operation and property. The winner should have an attitude that shows dedication to conserving natural resources.
The Laubers began working with the Fulton SWCD in 2009 when they entered the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP). They operate a 260-head sheep operation on 36 acres of intensively-grazed pasture. The Laubers have installed 7,500 feet of wire fence to create a seven-paddock rotation grazing system. The pastures are seeded with grasses and legumes to maximize the sheep production and still protect the steep slopes of their farm from water and wind erosion.
They have drilled a new well for livestock water and installed a heavy use area to keep livestock off the pastures when the soil is saturated, thus preserving the soil and promoting good animal health.
They have installed 800 feet of road to facilitate easier access to the pastures without causing erosion and compaction by vehicular traffic.
The 2011 Booster of the Year award went to Walt and Donna Lange.
The award is presented to an individual or group that has greatly benefited the Fulton Soil and Water Conservation District by supporting and promoting the district's various programs.
From 1996 to 2003, Walt served as an associate supervisor for the SWCD Board of supervisors. From 2003 to 2005, he served as a supervisor on the Fulton SWCD board, and was chairperson in 2005.
Walt started attending the Fulton County SWCD meetings as a tree farmer interested in sustainable forestry and conservation in general. He took a tree farm sign to a meeting in early 1997 and suggested that the board might consider such a sign to advertise various conservation practices.
They expressed an interest and he volunteered to do the leg work to come up with a design using the board logo and a way to identify various practices.
In 1998 Walt suggested that Fulton SWCD sponsor a "Woodland Workshop" and one was scheduled at the Fulton County Sportsman's Club.
The program has expanded since the first workshop and now includes seven northwest Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Districts. It is known as the Northwest Ohio Woodland and Wildlife Family Festival.
In 2010, the Langes property was known as the Ohio Tree Farm of the Year.
The CREP Achievement Award is presented to the landowner who has implemented a variety of conservation practices within the CREP program. This year's winner is the Northwest Ohio Rails to Trails program with 17.5 acres in the CREP program. The practice installed is an oak savanna.
The trails group helped install trees and influenced others to enroll in the same program.
Bill Shininger and Todd Studenka were elected to three-year positions on the Board of Supervisors, beginning Jan. 1, 2012.


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Twitter Launched Long Awaited Retro Photo Filters For Mobile Apps
This from the Twitter blog:
Every day, millions of people come to Twitter to connect with the things they care about and find out what's happening around the world. As one of the most compelling forms of self-expression, photos have long been an important part of these experiences.
Starting today, you'll be able to edit and refine your photos, right from Twitter. The latest versions of Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android introduce a few new ways to enhance the images you tweet. We're grateful to our partner, Aviary, for powering our filters and effects.
Filters. Apply one of eight filters, ranging from black & white to vintage, to add a new look and feel to your photos.
Take a bird's-eye view. See how each filter would affect your photo in a single grid view, or swipe through looks to compare your options.
Frame the action. Crop and pinch to zoom in order to focus attention.
Auto-enhance. Make your photos pop with balanced light and colors by tapping the wand.
In June, 2011, we introduced the ability to attach a photo to your Tweet, a first step toward improving the entire photo experience on Twitter. Since then we've been making it easier and faster to share and discover and enjoy great photos on Twitter every day:
- You can expand Tweets to view photos from various photo services right on Twitter;
- You can preview photos directly in Discover and search;
- You can quickly swipe through images on Twitter with photo streams in profiles and search results.
Source – Twitter

subset: commoncrawl


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After spending the summer playing with the United States U-15 and U-17 National Teams, Crew Soccer Academy standout Benny Swanson has accepted an offer to participate in the US U-17 Residency program in Bradenton, Florida.
The 15-year-old Grove City native hopes his decision will help him secure a spot in next year's U-17 World Cup.
"It's a great opportunity. It was kind of hard to pass up," Swanson said. "The [FIFA U-17] World Cup is next year in Dubai. I would like to make that roster, hopefully. If I don't, I hope I just learn every day in training in that environment with that pro mentality."
"It's great for our organization," Crew Technical Director Brian Bliss said. "Obviously it's a little bit premature to be speaking about Benny as a future pro for the club, but he's on the right track. It gives credibility to our organization on the youth side as to what we're doing."
Bliss says residency can only help Swanson's promising skill set.
"Right now, he's only getting three or four days of training each week, he's going to get five or six days each week training with the top players in the country at his age [in Bradenton]." Bliss explained. "He's got the ability to break down players off of the dribble and create on his own. He works for the good of the team in terms of being a team player. He's got an eye for the pass and can deliver it. He's got a multitude of skills and being in that environment for the next year, it's going to make him a better player."
The young midfielder's drive and skill set reminds Bliss of a certain US Men's National Team mainstay.
"He's got a lot of things Michael Bradley had," Bliss said. "Bradley grew physically really quick at the end, but he was also undersized. [Bradley] had the ability to dribble, pass, create, and had the same attitude and hunger for the game that Benny has. There are some comparisons. They may be unfair because Michael is a full national team player and I don't want to put pressure on [Swanson], but he's got a lot of this same [skills]."
Being in the same sentence with Bradley and others who attended the U-17 Residencty previously such as Landon Donovan, Brek Shea, and Eddie Gaven is still surreal Swanson says, but he remains determined to one day don the Black & Gold as a professional.
"It's kind of surreal, but I've been working hard. That's where hard work will get you," Swanson said. "The Crew has helped me a lot to progress as a player and as a person."
"[Playing professionally for the Crew] would be a dream come true," he finished.


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The great leaders of our time know how to insulate themselves and focus on what matters most. One of them is Jim Collins. Last month's Economist recounted Collins's story to success. He rejected desirable careers as an academic and consultant and set out to go back to his hometown Boulder, Colorado and work on the sole question of 'what makes great companies tick.' He churned out bestseller books every four years (i.e. Good to Great, Great By Choice, How the Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In). He logs how much time he spends on creative work and mundane tasks. He spent his weekends mountain climbing, applying the same rigor to his hobby as his writing.
My ritual each December is to 'clear the clutter' in my life so I can stay true my core work and insulate myself in the New Year. Clutter clearing isn't only about cleaning my closet, it's about clearing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Offline? I'm clearing my closet, my drawers, my wallet, papers on my desk, etc. I'm clearing my old goal sheets and task lists and making way for new ones. I'm clearing my body with a detox (I sure need it after Xmas in the South) with veggies and coconut juice (see this 21 Day Cleanse).
Online? I'm clearing my inbox (see email ninja tricks for tips). I literally spent 2 hours today clearing out all the junk email listserves I was subscribed to. I cleared my Twitter feed and updated my Evernote files.
It feels really refreshing and spacious to clear my clutter. Successful leaders like Collins remind me how important it is to take the time to do this before the New Year.
So I hope each and everyone of you clears your clutter this holiday season! Here's to a warm New Year!
My challenge for you for 2012: Find out what you want to do and GO DO IT! Being a next generation leader is about DOING the work……that matters to you.


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NEWS- Déjà-vu: Group tries again to stop assaults
In the spring of 2003, when popular, mostly African-American, Charlottesville High students were charged– and later convicted– of beating up UVA students, a galvanized community met to take action. Concerned citizens gathered at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, committees were formed, and fundraisers held for the defense of the young perps.
Four years later, groups of white t-shirted teens are accused of randomly attacking passersby in what some believe is gang activity. Pastor William Coles has called upon the African-American community to respond, and some are wondering whether those efforts will be effective.
Coles, founder of the Thomas Jefferson Area African American Male Forum, insists the August 14 gathering to be held at the Loving Church of God in Christ at 1717-A Allied Street after the Hook's press time, is not a one-shot deal.
"The Forum was already in existence four months ago," says Coles. "We formed as a means of addressing issues important to African American males."
In meetings thus far, the group has come up with several objectives; at the top of the list was to prevent the incarceration of African American males. "Instead of saying something is wrong with the system, we want to keep them from getting into the system," says Coles.
With the current rash of random attacks upon strangers by gangs of younger teens, "What we hope to accomplish is one, the immediate cessation of this activity, and two, to prevent this in the future," says Coles.
The Forum currently has about 20 members, and Coles is recruiting at events such as a recent community day in Westhaven. Despite the gender- and race-specific name, Coles says the session is open to everyone, male and female, and he particularly wants leaders of nonprofits, churches, and those involved in the African American community to join.
NAACP president Rick Turner plans to be there. "I am so excited," he says. "I'm glad he's doing this. Anything to help stem this tide of violence of our young people."
Turner is aware that previous community calls to action have fizzled. "I think the Reverend Coles is a different kind of leader," Turner says. "I don't think he's the type looking for publicity like others. I hope people will be there for a sustained effort, not just a publicity stunt."
And what can the Thomas Jefferson Area African American Male Forum do to stop gangs of young teens from assaulting strangers?
"Before any problem is solved, I think you have to have a discussion," says Turner. "That's why I'm so excited about this effort and what kind of information might be forthcoming when you meet with a diverse group."
Police initially stressed that they had no evidence tying the recent crime wave to gang activity in the area, but they have not ruled that possibility out.
Turner has his doubts. "Anytime you see groups of African American youths, there's a tendency to assume it's a gang. We need to investigate that."
A recently released federal prison inmate has no doubt that gangs such as the Gangster Disciples, Crips, Bloods, MS-13, and DC Boys can all be found here.
"The police are really hiding the fact there's a lot of gang activity in Charlottesville," alleges TWS, the ex-con who asked to be identified by his initials only. "I walked about the Mall for two hours [August 11] and saw everything."
TWS cites his prison credentials as the source of his expertise on gangs. "I've dealt with these people a long time," he says. "I did some time with these people, and they're exceptionally hard core."
He says he spotted the "sur" neck tattoo of the Sureños, a southern California gang of Mexican Americans whose name means "Southerners," and Gangster Disciples (a.k.a. GD) with yellow flags "hanging off their asses," an activity Crips and Bloods are less likely to do these days, according to TWS.
Not that this area is immune from the best-known gangs. "Bloods are much better established on the East Coast than the Crips," he observes. "I would say there's more of them by a substantial margin."
Gangs have always been prevalent in the DC area, says the former inmate, and have moved into the Charlottesville and Harrisonburg areas with their potentially lucrative market of college students interested in drugs and hookers– at least according to TWS.
He's dubious about the success of the Thomas Jefferson Area African American Male Forum. "People involved in gang activity are doing it from peer pressure, not community pressure," posits TWS. "For many, the lure of gang activity is the respect of peers and making money." And he says the random striking out at strangers is a "very typical" gang activity.
"There are a lot of gangs, and ignoring them isn't going to make them go away," says TWS, predicting upcoming turf wars with "violence the likes of which [the city] has never seen before."
"To say we're downplaying it, that's the furthest thing from the truth," says Charlottesville police chief Tim Longo. "From 2002 on, we've said they were on the radar.... I think we've been forthright about it, and to say we've minimized it is inaccurate." Tagging, aka graffiti, indicates the presence of MS-13 and Gangster Disciples, says Longo.
City and county police are sponsoring a major initiative on gang awareness, and a community forum is scheduled for August 28. Longo calls efforts such as the Thomas Jefferson Area African American Male Forum "proactive" in addressing the greater issue, such as why 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old kids are out at two or three o'clock in the morning.
"It isn't just a police matter," says Longo. "If you think we arrest them and they're going to be detained and that takes care of the problem, that's naive."
The success of the Forum "depends on how many people are involved and whether they're in it for the long haul," says Longo.
Pastor Coles is undeterred by the difficulty of the long-range and short-term goals of his group. "We're trying to change the complexion of our community," he says.
4 comments
The very essence of head-in-the sand behavior is a preacher with a value system based on right, wrong, and a judgement day for sinners - who ignores the real world all around him. Sadly, talk is just talk and effective action has been proven by time to be beyond his grasp. Mr. Coles should continue talking a good talk and leave the gangs rain their havoc on their on parents who must live in fear of their own children. The judgement days has aready arrived for the parents of gangsters have had a false sense of persecution pounded into them so much that they seek alternate parentship in gangs of futureless bodies covered in disfigurement, hopelessness and yes worthless lives. How very shameful and sad for the "village" to be raising and obviously condoning such a future "village". Can you hear "hate crime" enough times to believe, or care, that its coming from the gangsters among you?
Did ya notice that the attacks stopped when football season started. Do ya think thers a link?
Talk about a lone voice in the wilderness - Nievety nails it in the very first post!
I know this chat is old, but why would anyone disparage a preacher or any person for that matter from doing work that might have a positive impact on our community? Nievety, what programs are you involved in that are more likely to increase gang attrition? It would be a help to parents afraid of their own children or gangsters looking for false parentship in destructive outlets.


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[Verse 1: Lil Wayne]
I got a whole lotta money, pop that pussy for me
My homie got that yopper, he'll bang it at a copper
Ay, gangsta party, gangsta party, gangsta party!
Stove on my waist, cook your ass up, gourmet
All-black .44, do you want foreplay?
I'm going at your face like Oil of Olay
No champagne, but you know my flag Rose
Swagger on steroids: Canseco, Jose
No Limit Records: We so 'bout it 'bout it
I'm higher than a bitch, feel like I climbed a fucking mountain
Illest nigga you know, my accountant's still counting
Shot hit him a minute ago but his body's still bouncing
Beam on the hammer, beam on your forehead
Gotta kill the witnesses cause Birdman car red
Hollygrove Monster, Eagle Street creature
Come to your funeral, kill everybody but the preacher
I live in Miami, nigga, I'll South Beach ya
Robin Leach, uh, that's how we ballin'
You know that I'm loaded, but please don't think its sweeter
Beat one of you bitch niggas up like John Cena
Them hoes on Young Money, tell them hoes we coming
Boy, we get it popping, we ain't saving hoes, we swapping
Yeah, gangsta party, gangsta party, gangsta party!
Big head Desert Eagle, call it "shotty"
How'd you get that money? Stunna taught me that
That Xan took me under, patron brought me back
I'm leaning on you muthafuckers like I caught a flat
And that Glock snap back like an old Starter hat
What the lick read? I'm in the big league
I'm a breath of fresh air "Let the bitch breathe!"
I'm trying to chillax but I had to do it, dev
I'm at the funeral like "I had to do it, rev!"
Mack you my big brother, I split a wig for you
Put that on their repeat until they bury me
Moment of clarity: yeah, that's my diamond game
I keep a fine bitch cause I like the finer things
Fuck with me slime
No brain on the whip, I've got nothing in mind
Carter 4, they ain't fucking with mine
I drop that Sorry 4 the Wait to make up for the time
[Verse 2: Lil B]
Yeah I do my thang, bitch what's up?
Young BasedGod, came in with the ballers
Iced out chain, bitch, I'm rich off that same shit
Sixty-five hoes on my dick, bitch, it's Christmas
Straight Westside, Bay Area bitch, I'll grave em
Pretty boy shit, Based God finna hang em
Armed like a cradle and you niggas can't stop me
Shouts out to Mack Maine getting rich and cocky
Bitch it's still West side, shouts out to Weezy
Young BasedGod with that 55 heater
187 bitch, I pull a 2-11 bitch
With that tiny shirt mane and the tiny pants mane
I'm on BasedWorld and I fuck with, Cash Money niggas
Don't understand, Maine, they gang like a chain
Woo woo! Swag, bitch, Brang-dang-dang-dang
Off the top, I'm a Wolfpack hitter
Man, my life just a painting and I paint you a picture, mane
This that stuntin' music; bitch, I just do's it
It's Lil B and I'll muthafuckin prove it


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NWO to introduce embedding guarantee for Veni and Vidi funding
NWO will ask candidates for an 'embedding guarantee' from the start of the new application rounds for Veni and Vidi funding. In other words, researchers can only submit applications for Veni and Vidi funding with the support of the institution where they intend to conduct their research. This measure stems from earlier measures announced by NWO and the agreements NWO has made with the Association of Universities in the Netherlands, the VSNU, all aimed at reducing the number of applications. It is expected to lead to fewer applications and be more consistent with the research institutions' personnel policy. Veni and Vidi are part of the NWO Talent Scheme: individual funding for talented researchers.


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You control the cars in Trackmania 2 Canyon with the arrow keys on your keyboard. You can hit backspace to place your car back at the beginning of each track, or the Enter key to start from the last checkpoint. I often play the game with a cup of coffee in my other hand, or while sipping a soda. This is a simple game, but that's part of its charm.
The single-player portion of the game presents you with a series of tracks that start in the realm of the possible and slowly morph into designs from a fevered imagination. There will be huge jumps, and you will drive up the side of walls over huge drops. Most of the tracks can be finished in less than a minute, but it will take hours to get the best times on the higher-difficulty levels. The cost of failure is nonexistent, as a button press allows you to start over with no additional loading times or pauses. There is nothing here that will annoy you; you are always pushed to better your times and scores.
The competition is fierce, and you're always stacked up against someone. After each attempt you're told how you compare against others in your state, country, or in the world. You can race against cars that keep the pace required to get each medal, or you can download a variety of ghosts from your state or country to see how the fastest racers achieved those record-setting times. Right now I'm one of the best racers in Ohio, but I'm guessing I've been knocked down a number of pegs since the weekend.
The single player game is fun, but the real joy comes from joining a multiplayer server, where you can see dozens of other racers vying to get to the finish lines the fastest. If you fail, there is nothing to worry about; you can try as many times as you can fit into the server's time limit. It's a rush when you're playing against competitors who are seeing a user-created track for the first time, and you are all given five minutes to get the best time. You can't crash into the other cars, but seeing their paths and where they fail is a great way to learn the tricks of each track.
|Our Velocity Micro gaming rig
|Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
|Intel® Core i7 2600k processor, Hyperclocked
|Patriot 8GB 1600Mhz PXD38G1600LLK Memory
|Asus P8Z68-V Pro Motherboard
|Patriot 2 x 120GB Wildfire SATAIII SSD PW120GS25SSDR in RAID 0
|Optical drive
It's easy to learn how to use the included editors to change the looks of your car or to create new tracks, and the community is already filled with user-created content for the game. The game is pure arcade, mixed with a bit of eye-candy, but everything feels incredibly right when you're racing. When you play a game where the physics are so internally consistent, it creates a kind of alternate reality within the time you spend playing, and Canyon does a great job of teaching you what is and isn't possible on each track. By the time you scream through your first loop or shave a few seconds off your time by landing a tricky jump, you'll be hooked.
There is an unlimited flow of content, a robust community, beautiful graphics, simple but satisfying controls, and content editors included with your purchase. The game is available now on the PC for $25. If I had to dig deep to come up with a reason not to buy this, I would say that people who don't like racing games will most likely not enjoy this racing game. For everyone else, this is a wonderfully fun and insane adventure at a good price. I'll see you online, as I'm still trying to become the best racer in Ohio. After that? The world.


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The sponsor will be honored with an engraved plaque with their name listed as a Proud Sponsor and placed on a dog kennel, cat cage or small mammal cage.
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I took a bunch of bracketed photos of the train that stopped me on Southwest Boulevard. I liked the way this washed-out one came out.
Something a little more tame.
CARnage or Camar0wned? You decide. Sorry for the lack of quality. It's 4x digital zoom on top of 4x optical zoom. I caught it from the Frontage road west of I-35 and north of 75th St. This was all the way across the highway, probably more than 1/4 mile away.
I got my autographed copy of Schneier On Security today, too. He even left a little puzzle for me to solve. If you can't see it, zoom in. First one to post the correct answer in my comments gets a free pair of AMC Silver Experience movie passes. I've got a bunch of these things laying around and I don't get to the movies too often. If you want, email me via the form on the right after you've posted your answer, just so I have an email address to contact you with.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Stopped by a train (and a geeky contest)
I took a bunch of bracketed photos of the train that stopped me on Southwest Boulevard. I liked the way this washed-out one came out.
3 comments:
- Darius said...
"Enjoy the book"
- December 29, 2008 7:36 PM
- Noah said...
Pretty simple, wasn't it? We should just meet up sometime to get the tickets to ya.
- December 29, 2008 8:09 PM
- Darius said...
I don't really need the tickets... But would like to ride with ya sometime....
- December 29, 2008 8:15 PM
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The way things are going we seem to be going backwards on Brexit.
What does everyone think?
The way things are going we seem to be going backwards on Brexit.
What does everyone think?
Seem's just like any Divorce settlement , reaching a quick agreement needs both sides to say yes. Clearly those German business sorts who want to flog us BMW`s are so far not helping us.
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
Looks like Theresa blinked first.
you have to remember that Germany, the power behind the EU, just had an election . . . .
I think it is the remoaners who have been completely hoodwinked.
I have friends in France who sincerely believe that Brexit was a mistake because the EU has prevented another war.
For the EU politicians Brexit was not about high ideals and European unity.
Nothhing of the sort, for them it is about MONEY!
Withhout that £350 million who pays for two parliaments, god knows how many commissioners, officials, not to mention 700 odd MSP,s we don t need because we have 600 of own!
In any case British people voted on an immigragation and benefits issue.
What we ought to do is pull out of the single market and customs union immediately.
They will soon come running to us!
We had a common market anyway thirty odd years ago when I started passing through border customs all over Europe.
Jack Caley
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
All this ridiculous scaremongering, I know one thing the Caravaggis we deal with in Italy will still have our business, the French will still want our lamb, and so on.
It is as though the world is coming to an abrupt end!
Jack Caley
News today that The good old US of A has decided to impose a 220% import tax on any plane imported into the US of A from Bombardier in Ulster.
Try selling Caravaggio mills with a 220% import duty levied!
Much the same as a very populist policy (in the eyes of embattled French politicians) of imposing an import levy on imported lamb from the UK to France.
No matter how much you would like to do it, financially it will be impossible.
Boeing is also trying to sell Canada some used aircraft - maybe it is time for Canada to see what Russia or China have for MIGs
I remember a number of years ago talking to a farmer in PEI, and he told me that if there was a good crop of potatoes over the border, you just could not please the USDA as far as quality for export, even though at that time there was no bother out in the west.
You guys have a lot of natural resources there must be willing buyers other than Uncle Sam.
Too many "out of spec" taters, the shipment got rejected and they couldn't leave the island.
AND yes, we need to find other markets but it is similar to England - if you don't deal with the EU you are looking at going to other continents to get a market. Darned if you do and darned if you don't
Apparently Boeing used a national anti dumping law to have this tariff applied.....once it works through the system it will be dropped.
Bit of a nuclear early warning shot!
However you have hit on the crux of the matter for the UK!
First of all we might go on to WTO rules if ever the Europeans would allow it, (we should soon see the Europeans running to us for a free market).
Secondly our government will never impose tariffs, it would vastly increase the cost of living here.
That 220% duty will never happen!
As regards hard line brexiteers accepting a transition period, the only reason they pretended to go along with it is that they know full well now that the alternative is a Corbyn government.
Boris made his point before her speech, now he has to go with a disastrous flow.
I really believe if it were not for the blackmail by EU fat cats trying to keep their loot, we could quite easily go back to those old days of the common market when I just had my invoices stamped at every border.
Jack Caley.
PS Boris was quite right about the £350 million, just think it would be so easy, for a start he could save £60 million a week in single farm payments!
It's not like they have to toe the line with May. She's a lame duck PM who's only been kept on so they have someone to carry the can if it all goes belly-up.
But can you justify to me why we should pay something like a net £150 million to support fat cats in Brussels, not to mention people like Clegg, and Mr and Mrs Kinnock?
Jack Caley
She made two mistakes out of political naïveté, one was responding to the jibe from Sturgeon that she was not an elected leader, the other was underestimating the skill of Corbyn appealing to the self pity of people in coping with the mess still left by Blair, Brown and party. Likely to be repeated by Corbyn.
We all know that politicians have no ethics, especially when it affects their political ambitions. The conservatives are just as likely to stick a knife in her back, as did Gove with Johnson.
Jack Caley
The more uncertainty they create , the worse will be the European position.
Take for instance BMW cars, we will not be able to buy as many cars, BMW,s only solution will be to reduce the price and hence their profit 40% of which is supposed to come from the UK market.
Take for instance Cranswicks factory near here importing 40% of their meat from Europe to make sausages. Either Cranswick will have to make less sausages, or God forbid get more pigmeat produced in this country. Maybe even back to the 800,000 sows it was before Europe stole our market with unfair trading practices.
Jack Caley
The Tories messed up through arrogance. They thought it was all about Brexit and the voters would just run to them on the back of that. There are other issues in the country that are sod all to do with Brexit and the EU but they couldn't be a£$ed to run a proper general election campaign. All they thought they had to do was keep banging on about Brexit.
They wanted to run the Scottish Conservatives campaign from London. Ruth Davidson told them to pi$$ off and ran her own campaign. The results speak for themselves.
Yes, I think she was thinking only of the Brexit campaign, and mistakenly thought she could INCREASE her majority.
She had not reckoned on Corbyn political dexterity, appealing to peoples self pity because of austerity, promising students fees etc etc.
Trouble is all this argue bargie is doing the country no good, and the gloom and doom merchants will be proved right.
Jack Caley
I am glad that international trade is driven by experienced businessmen, and not by bitter defeatist politicians and remoaners.
I know I have mentioned this before but probably timely now to repeat myself in this discussion (it's not an argument please, it's a discussion or a debate) To a large extent I think the whole Brexit issue is an age thing. Jack and I remember when the U.K. was called Great Britain. That was probably a bit pompous but we did have the last vestiges of an Empire. The latter morphed into a Commonwealth, Great Britain became the United Kingdom although even that is starting to disintegrate now.
Jack and I thought that the Common Market was basically a good idea. If nothing else the basics meant that there was a fair chance of stopping another European war, maybe even another World war. And for a few years it was good. But it has grown like Topsy. And, in truth, the whole monolith has taken over large swathes of our lives. A lot of the Governance of the EU is unelected and people like Jack and I see people whoi have jumped on the gravy train which some people are wont to do if they find an easy passage through life. In my opinion we have plenty of our own MPs who couldn't run the proverbial in a brewery. In my view the U.K. is U.K. plc. It should be administered by people with business brains, acumen, and experience. Read what James Dyson says about Brexit. And I vehemently support that we must always provide an education and health system that is free at the point of delivery and a welfare system for those who need a bit of help.
But we have lost control of our borders and to a degree our judicial system, not to mention our governence. That for me is enough to want to be freed from the clutches of the EU.
What is really worrying is that we have become a very divided society. The haves & the have nots. There are those in inner city areas who have basically nothing, and yet look at house prices. Somebody is paying them or they wouldn't be the level they are. It's what is going to happen in this country in the future that we really need to be worried about and we need to have the ability to correct the imbalance without any interference from any Heinrich, Pascal, or Antoinette.
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.


text:
Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will Favorite posts | Manifold podcast | Twitter: @hsu_steve
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Twins reared apart
For those interested in studies of identical twins reared apart, see IQ Similarity of Twins Reared Apart: findings and responses to critics, Bouchard (1997). A question sometimes raised by critics concerns the extent to which twins reared apart actually experienced different environments. Norms of reaction, GxE interactions, and other (conceptually trivial but potentially obfuscatory) topics are also discussed.
Susan Farber wrote a 1981 book that was critical of twin studies. Click below for larger image.
See also Heritability 2.0.
Friday, September 26, 2014
The luck of the Irish
More Conor McGregor. More Bill Evans.
Posted by Steve Hsu at 12:43 PM 1 comment:
Monday, September 22, 2014
Piketty on Capital
Piketty on EconTalk (podcast) -- a lively discussion between Russ Roberts and guest Thomas Piketty. See earlier post here.
Piketty: ... to summarize very quickly our conclusion, we feel that the theory of marginal productivity is a bit naive, I think for this top part of the labor market. That is to say when a manager manages to get a pay increase from $1 million a year to $10 million a year, according to the textbook based on marginal productivity, this should be due to the fact that his marginal contribution to the output of his company has risen from 1 to 10. Now it seems a bit naive. It could be that in practice individual marginal productivities are very hard to observe and monitor, especially in a large corporation. And there is clearly strong incentives for top managers to try to get as much as they can.
... Now, when the top tax rate is 82%, now of course you always want to be paid $1 million more, but on the margin when you get a pay increase of $1 million, 82% is going to go straight to the Treasury, so your incentive to bargain very aggressively and put the right people in the right compensation committee are going to be not so strong. And also your shareholders, your subordinates, maybe will tend to tell you, look, this is very costly. Whereas when the top tax rate goes down to 20, 30% or even 40%, so you keep 2/3rds or 60% of the extra $1 million for you, then the incentives are very, very different. Now, this model seems to explain part of what we observe in the data. In particular, it's very difficult to see any improvement in the performance of managers who are getting $10 million instead of $1 million. When we put together a data base with all the publicly traded companies in North America, Europe, Japan, trying to compare in the companies that are paying their managers $10 million instead of $1 million, it's very difficult to see in the data any extra performance.
... But let me make clear that I love capital accumulation and I certainly don't want to reduce capital accumulation. The problem is the concentration. So let me make very clear that inequality in itself is of course not a problem. Inequality can actually be useful for growth. Up to a point. The problem is when inequality of wealth and concentration of wealth gets too extreme, it is not useful any more for growth. And it can even become bad, because it leads to high perpetuation of inequality over time, so it can reduce social mobility. And it can also be bad for the working or for the democratic institutions. So where is the tipping point--when is it that inequality becomes excessive? Well, I'm sorry to tell you that I don't have a formula for that.
... In the United States right now, the bottom 50% of the population own about 2% of national wealth. And the next 40% own about 20, 22% of national wealth. And this group, the middle 40%, the people who are not in the bottom 50% and who are not in the top 10%, they used to own 25-30% of national wealth. And this has been going down in recent decades, as shown by a recent study by Saez and Zucman and now is closer to 20, 22%. Now, how much should it be? I don't know. I don't know. But the view that we need the middle class share to go down and down and down and that this is not a problem as long as you have positive growth, I think is excessive. You know, I think, of course we need entrepreneurs. I'm not saying, look, if it was perfect equality the bottom 50% should own 50% and the next 40% should own 40. I am not saying that we should have this at all. I'm just saying that when you have 2% for the bottom 50 and 22 for the next 40, you know, the view that we cannot do better than that [[ because ]] you won't have entrepreneurs any more, you won't have growth any more, is very ideological.
... I am actually a lot more optimistic than what some people seem to believe. I'm very sorry some people feel depressed after they read my book because after all this is not the way I wrote it. In fact, I think there are lots of reasons to be optimistic. For instance, one good news coming from the book is that we've never been as rich in terms of net wealth than we are today in developed countries. And we talk all the time about our public debt, but in fact our private wealth as a fraction of GDP has increased a lot more than our public debt as a fraction of GDP, so our national wealth, the sum of private and public wealth, is actually higher than it has ever been. So our countries are rich. It is our governments that are poor, which is a problem; but it raises issues of organization and institution but that can be addressed.
Ivy admissions discussed by parents of gifted kids
At this link you can find pages of discussion about Ivy admissions, stimulated at least in part by Pinker's recent article (see here and here), among parents of highly gifted children. Most of the discussants realize that there is a lot of room in the tail beyond the SAT ceiling. (Hint: parents of gifted kids tend to be fairly sharp themselves ... I wonder why? ;-)
I am not one of the commenters on the thread. Bonus points if you click the link above and read through to the Bezos quote ;-)
I suspect the 10 percent comment means something along the lines of 10 percent have been Intel semifinalists, have published significant research, qualified for USAMO, etc. That doesn't mean that the other 90 percent are dumb jocks and clueless legacies. The 90 percent probably includes some very bright, gifted kids, but they haven't cured cancer (not yet at least).It means that 5%-10% are selected on academic merit alone. The rest are selected on a combination of factors. They may (mostly) have quite high academic merit, but other factors are considered, and so the overall academic merit of the class, though high, is less than it would have been if academic merit played a larger role in admissions. Students are admitted who are less academically meritorious than some who are rejected.
Regardless of what colleges supposedly should do, and what they do do, there is still the inescapable fact that SAT/ACT test have too low a ceiling, and the colleges are missing a huge amount of information about the academic ability of their applicants, and there is no excuse for them not actively pushing for harder tests.
They have a very good reason for refusing harder tests--it restricts their freedom. The first goal for colleges are self preservation and growth, hence the preference for legacies and athletics, both of which fuel alumni donations. But once self-preservation and growth has been achieved, college believe themselves to be forces for social engineering, helping right what they see as wrong in society.
Maybe it isn't about a harder test. Let's say that current perfect scores get you a group at a top school with IQs of 135+. Maybe it is 140+. With a different test, do you get 150+. But do you get a group that you want? Do they have the social skills to have a good mix, good clubs? There are factors that you want to have a certain type of school whether you are Harvard or Penn State. Harvard doesn't want a whole school that could pursue graduate work in Physics. They want fencing teams and rowing and a football team to play Yale. So for those of you wishing for a harder test, what does that mean to the student body, the college experience if you don't take into account all the other things. Because how much does it change if your roommate has an IQ of 175 in math, but 125 in ELA or 145 overall? I can see MIT wanting the 175 in math but Ivy's? Do you really want your kid going to a school where they just sit and have deep discussions about theories with other students?
But that assumes that those people are only interested in their peculiar "pointy" things. And that PG people lack social skills. Which is where my A versus B archetypes came from to begin with. Assume that they are BOTH HG+.
HG+ people come in a lot of different varieties there.
Just because someone has a FSIQ of 150+ doesn't mean that s/he is necessarily passionate about particle physics. It might mean that s/he is capable of learning it, but even that probably depends on the individual.
[[ IIUC, PG = Profoundly Gifted ; HG = Highly Gifted ]]
Do you really want your kid going to a school where they just sit and have deep discussions about theories with other students?Where they just talk about big ideas? No. But I suspect that no one talks about nothing but big ideas, so the question is exaggerated.
As for a place where talking about big ideas is a normal part of the culture, yes, absolutely. Isn't that supposed to be the point about being at a place that calls itself a top-tier university --- that the people there are very bright and interested in big ideas in science, philosophy, history, and so on?
Saturday, September 20, 2014
How to build the future
I just bought 10 copies for my team at MSU. More here. The book is based on Thiel's Stanford class CS 183: Startup -- see course notes.
Earlier posts on Thiel.
Earlier posts on Thiel.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Excellent Sheep and Chinese Americans
Two recent podcasts I recommend. I disagree with Deresiewicz on many points (see my comments on Steve Pinker's response here and here), but the discussion is worth a listen.
Do the Best Colleges Produce the Worst Students?
As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways, argues William Deresiewicz. When he was a professor at Yale he noticed that his students, some of the nation's brightest minds, seemed to be adrift when it came to knowing how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose in life. Deresiewicz explains why he thinks college should be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success, so they can forge their own path. His book Excellent Sheep : The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life addresses parents, students, educators, and anyone who's interested in the direction of American society, exposing where the system is broken and presenting solutions.
Chinese Americans and the American Dream
In many ways, Chinese Americans today are exemplars of the American Dream—moving from indentured servitude to second-class status and outright exclusion to economic to social integration and achievement. But this narrative leaves a lot out. Eric Liu, author, educator, and entrepreneur, pieces together a sense of the Chinese American identity and looks at what it means to be Chinese American in this moment. His new book A Chinaman's Chance: One Family's Journey and the Chinese American Dream is a collection of personal essays that range from the meaning of Confucius to the role of Chinese Americans in shaping how we read the Constitution to why he hates the hyphen in "Chinese-American."
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Harvard admissions and meritocracy
Motivated by Steve Pinker's recent article The Trouble With Harvard (see my comments here), Ephblog drills down on Harvard admissions. The question is just how far Harvard deviates from Pinker's ideal of selecting the entire class based on intellectual ability. Others raised similar questions, as evidenced by, e.g., the very first comment that appeared on The New Republic's site:
JakeH 10 days agoI don't know exactly how Harvard admissions works -- there are all sorts of mysteries. But let me offer the following observations.
Great article. One quibble: Pinker says, based on "common knowledge," that only ten (or five) percent of Harvard students are selected based on academic merit, and that the rest are selected "holistically." His implication is that "holistic" consideration excludes academic merit as a major factor. But that's surely not the case. Even if Harvard only selects ten percent of its students based on academic factors alone, it seems likely that academic and test score standards are high for the remaining 90 percent. We don't have enough information on this point, because, I suppose, it's not available. (To solve that problem, I join Pinker's call for a more transparent admissions process.)
1. Pinker claimed that only 5-10 percent of the class is admitted purely on the basis of academic merit (see more below). The 5-10 percent number was widely reported in the past, including by scholar Jerome Karabel. No one knows what Harvard is up to at the moment and it's possible that, given the high demand for elite education, they have increased their academic focus over the years.
2. IIRC, the current SAT ceiling of 1600 (M+CR) corresponds to about 1 in 1000 ability (someone please tell me if I am mistaken). So there are at least a couple thousand US kids per cohort at this ability level, and several times more who are near it ("within the noise"). A good admissions committee would look at other higher ceiling measures of ability (e.g., performance in math and science competitions) to rank order top applicants. The 800 ceiling on the math is not impressive at all -- a kid who is significantly below this level has almost no chance of mastering the Caltech required curriculum (hence even the 25th percentile math SAT score at Caltech is 770; in my day the attrition rate at Caltech was pretty high -- a lot of people "flamed out"). The reduced SAT ceiling makes it easier for Harvard to hide what it is up to.
4. My guess is that Harvard still has a category, in the past called S ("Scholar"; traditionally 5-10 percent of the class, but perhaps larger now), for the top rank-ordered candidates in academic ability alone. Most of the near-perfect scorers on the SAT will not qualify for S -- it is more impressive to have been a finalist in the Intel science competition, written some widely used/acclaimed code, made (or nearly made) the US IMO or IPhO teams, published some novel research or writing, etc. Harvard sometimes boasts about the number of perfect SAT scorers it rejects each year, so clearly one can't conclude that a 1600 on CR+M alone qualifies for the S category. Along these lines, one even reads occasional stories about Harvard rejecting IMO participants.
5. In remaining categories Harvard almost certainly uses a more holistic approach that also weights athletics, extracurriculars, etc. Some of the people who score high on this weighted measure might not have qualified in S, but nevertheless are near the ceiling in SAT score. It has been reported in the past that Harvard used a 1-5 scoring system in academics, sports, leadership, music, etc. and that to have serious consideration (outside the S category, which is for real superstars), one needed to have two or more "1" scores -- e.g., valedictorian/high SATs + state-level tennis player + ...
From the comments above, it should be clear that one can't simply use the percentage of near-perfect SAT scorers in the class to determine the size of the S category.
See here for discussion of meritocratic test-based systems in other countries. For instance, the Indian IIT, the French Ecole Normale Superieure, and the Taiwan university entrance exams, have in the past explicitly ranked the top scorers each year. (The tests are hard enough that typically no one gets near a perfect score; note things may have changed recently.) I know more than a few theoretical physicists who scored in the top 5 in their entire country on these exams. Mandlebrot writes in his autobiography about receiving the highest ENS score in France.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Embrace the Grind
Talent, hard work, and success in jiujitsu. "Show up every day and keep pushing through."
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
What is best for Harvard
I highly recommend Steve Pinker's The Trouble With Harvard in The New Republic.
... Like many observers of American universities, I used to believe the following story. Once upon a time Harvard was a finishing school for the plutocracy, where preppies and Kennedy scions earned gentleman's Cs while playing football, singing in choral groups, and male-bonding at final clubs, while the blackballed Jews at CCNY founded left-wing magazines and slogged away in labs that prepared them for their Nobel prizes in science. Then came Sputnik, the '60s, and the decline of genteel racism and anti-Semitism, and Harvard had to retool itself as a meritocracy, whose best-and-brightest gifts to America would include recombinant DNA, Wall Street quants, The Simpsons, Facebook, and the masthead of The New Republic.Pinker's position is similar to that of some of his distinguished predecessors on the Harvard faculty (see below). The ideal school Pinker is describing is called "Caltech" :-)
This story has a grain of truth in it: Hoxby has documented that the academic standards for admission to elite universities have risen over the decades. But entrenched cultures die hard, and the ghost of Oliver Barrett IV still haunts every segment of the Harvard pipeline.
At the admissions end, it's common knowledge that Harvard selects at most 10 percent (some say 5 percent) of its students on the basis of academic merit. At an orientation session for new faculty, we were told that Harvard "wants to train the future leaders of the world, not the future academics of the world," and that "We want to read about our student in Newsweek 20 years hence" (prompting the woman next to me to mutter, "Like the Unabomer"). The rest are selected "holistically," based also on participation in athletics, the arts, charity, activism, travel, and, we inferred (Not in front of the children!), race, donations, and legacy status (since anything can be hidden behind the holistic fig leaf).
The lucky students who squeeze through this murky bottleneck find themselves in an institution that is single-mindedly and expensively dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. It has an astonishing library system that pays through the nose for rare manuscripts, obscure tomes, and extortionately priced journals; exotic laboratories at the frontiers of neuroscience, regenerative medicine, cosmology, and other thrilling pursuits; and a professoriate with erudition in an astonishing range of topics, including many celebrity teachers and academic rock stars. The benefits of matching this intellectual empyrean with the world's smartest students are obvious. So why should an ability to play the bassoon or chuck a lacrosse ball be given any weight in the selection process?
The answer, ironically enough, makes the admissocrats and Deresiewicz strange bedfellows: the fear of selecting a class of zombies, sheep, and grinds. But as with much in the Ivies' admission policies, little thought has given to the consequences of acting on this assumption. Jerome Karabel has unearthed a damning paper trail showing that in the first half of the twentieth century, holistic admissions were explicitly engineered to cap the number of Jewish students. Ron Unz, in an exposé even more scathing than Deresiewicz's, has assembled impressive circumstantial evidence that the same thing is happening today with Asians.
Just as troublingly, why are elite universities, of all institutions, perpetuating the destructive stereotype that smart people are one-dimensional dweebs? It would be an occasion for hilarity if anyone suggested that Harvard pick its graduate students, faculty, or president for their prowess in athletics or music, yet these people are certainly no shallower than our undergraduates. In any case, the stereotype is provably false. Camilla Benbow and David Lubinski have tracked a large sample of precocious teenagers identified solely by high performance on the SAT, and found that when they grew up, they not only excelled in academia, technology, medicine, and business, but won outsize recognition for their novels, plays, poems, paintings, sculptures, and productions in dance, music, and theater. A comparison to a Harvard freshman class would be like a match between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.
Defining Merit:Some have quibbled with Pinker's assertion that only 5 or 10% of the Harvard class is chosen with academic merit as the sole criterion. They note the overall high scores of Harvard students as evidence against this claim. But a simple calculation makes it obvious that the top 2000 or so high school seniors (including international students, who would eagerly attend Harvard if given the opportunity), ranked by brainpower alone, would be much stronger intellectually than the typical student admitted to Harvard today. (Vanderbilt researchers David Lubinski and Camilla Benbow, mentioned above by Pinker, study a population that is roughly 1 in 10k in ability. About two hundred US high school seniors with this level of talent are available each year; adding in international students increases the total significantly.)
[The Chosen, Jerome Karabel] ... In a pair of letters that constituted something of a manifesto for the wing of the faculty favoring strict academic meritocracy, Wilson explicitly advocated admitting fewer private school students and commuters, eliminating all preferences for athletes, and (if funds permitted) selecting "the entering class regardless of financial need on the basis of pure merit." The issue of athletes particularly vexed Wilson, who stated flatly: "I would certainly rule out athletic ability as a criterion for admission of any sort," adding that "it bears a zero relationship to the performance later in life that we are trying to predict." He also argued that "it may well be that objective test scores are our only safeguards against an excessive number of athletes only, rich playboys, smooth characters who make a good impression in interviews, etc." As a parting shot, Wilson could not resist accusing Ford of anti-intellectualism; citing Ford's desire to change Harvard's image, Wilson asked bluntly: "What's wrong with Harvard being regarded as an egghead college? Isn't it right that a country the size of the United States should be able to afford one university in which intellectual achievement is the most important consideration?"E. Bright Wilson was professor of chemistry and member of the National Academy of Sciences, later a recipient of the National Medal of Science. The last quote from Wilson could easily have come from anyone who went to Caltech! Indeed, both E. Bright Wilson and his son, Nobel Laureate Ken Wilson (theoretical physics), earned their doctorates at Caltech (the father under Linus Pauling, the son under Murray Gell-Mann). ...
Defining Merit: ... Bender also had a startlingly accurate sense of how many truly intellectually outstanding students were available in the national pool. He doubted whether more than 100-200 candidates of truly exceptional promise would be available for each year's class. This number corresponds to (roughly) +4 SD in mental ability. Long after Bender resigned, Harvard still reserved only 10 percent of its places (roughly 150 spots) for "top brains". (See category "S" listed at bottom.) ...In the end, however, I have to agree with old Wilbur Bender, the Harvard admissions dean who fought off idealistic faculty committees in the the 1950s. A Harvard that followed Pinker's advice would, after a generation or two, be reduced in status, prestige, and endowment size, to a mere Caltech or Ecole Normale Superieure. (Both schools, by some estimates, produce Nobel Prize winning alumni at a rate several times higher than Harvard.)
Typology used for all applicants, at least as late as 1988:
1. S First-rate scholar in Harvard departmental terms.
What is good for our nation, and for civilization as a whole, is not what is best for Harvard.
Monday, September 08, 2014
Common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance
This is a follow up to earlier papers by the SSGAC collaboration -- see First GWAS Hits For Cognitive Ability and SNPs and SATS. Effect sizes found are typically ~ 0.3 IQ points. Someone with 50 more good variants (similar to these) than the average person would be about 1 SD above average in IQ.
Note among the authors names like Pinker, Visscher, Plomin, McGue, Deary, etc. Thank god it wasn't the sinister Chinese who got there first! For more on this topic, including the status of the BGI study, see Genetic Architecture of Intelligence (arXiv:1408.3421).
Note among the authors names like Pinker, Visscher, Plomin, McGue, Deary, etc. Thank god it wasn't the sinister Chinese who got there first! For more on this topic, including the status of the BGI study, see Genetic Architecture of Intelligence (arXiv:1408.3421).
Common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance identified using the proxy-phenotype method (PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1404623111)
We identify common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance using a two-stage approach, which we call the proxy-phenotype method. First, we conduct a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in a large sample (n = 106,736), which produces a set of 69 education-associated SNPs. Second, using independent samples (n = 24,189), we measure the association of these education-associated SNPs with cognitive performance. Three SNPs (rs1487441, rs7923609, and rs2721173) are significantly associated with cognitive performance after correction for multiple hypothesis testing. In an independent sample of older Americans (n = 8,652), we also show that a polygenic score derived from the education-associated SNPs is associated with memory and absence of dementia. Convergent evidence from a set of bioinformatics analyses implicates four specific genes (KNCMA1, NRXN1, POU2F3, and SCRT). All of these genes are associated with a particular neurotransmitter pathway involved in synaptic plasticity, the main cellular mechanism for learning and memory.
Saturday, September 06, 2014
GameDay: Spartans vs Ducks
The Spartans hung in there (amazing that they were leading at the half) but ultimately the Ducks were too much.
I started out in the Spartan section but I went up to the Oregon President's box at halftime.
My t-shirt says "Spartan For Life" -- didn't go over very well with the Oregon fans! I took abuse everywhere except in the elitist box.
This is very Eugene: a human traffic jam crossing the footbridge over the Willamette river.
I started out in the Spartan section but I went up to the Oregon President's box at halftime.
My t-shirt says "Spartan For Life" -- didn't go over very well with the Oregon fans! I took abuse everywhere except in the elitist box.
This is very Eugene: a human traffic jam crossing the footbridge over the Willamette river.
Friday, September 05, 2014
Back in Eugene
New UO science building:
Setting up for ESPN College GameDay:
Across the river to the stadium:
Ducks and Spartans play tomorrow:
I'm wrestling with divided loyalties. I've been a big Marcus Mariota fan since he came to UO, and I'd like to see him win a Heisman and a national title.
Craft brewing mecca:
Setting up for ESPN College GameDay:
Across the river to the stadium:
Ducks and Spartans play tomorrow:
I'm wrestling with divided loyalties. I've been a big Marcus Mariota fan since he came to UO, and I'd like to see him win a Heisman and a national title.
Craft brewing mecca:
@ Amazon
I was at the Amazon campus in Seattle yesterday to give a talk. Unbelievable construction and development in this part of town.
This is the famous Bezos "door desk" :-)
This is the famous Bezos "door desk" :-)
Wednesday, September 03, 2014
Did you miss out on the next big thing? :-) See also Bitcoin dynamics.
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With 2016 ending I thought I would do a rundown of all the great anime of the year. This year was a good year; it did have some standout shows and a lot of mediocre to horrible anime. There are some rules to this list: first, I must have seen the anime for it to make the list (pretty obvious right), and I didn't watch every single anime this year, so some of your favorites might not have made the list because I didn't look at them.
And second; no movies or OVA series are to be included, so Kimi no Na wa or Kizumonogatari will be incorporated in this list, as this is strictly for TV series only. Third only anime starting in 2016 are eligible; it might end in 2017 but if it started this year it counts. And lastly, this list is my opinion and is based on what I like, so your list is most likely going to be different from mine.
10. Re:Zero –Starting Life in Another World
Now Re:Zero has been one of the most talked about anime this year, and for a large part, it deserved all the praise it was getting. The story of Re:Zero was dark and bleak, and never watered down its content to appeal to a larger audience. Some point of the series left me feeling that this series could be the second coming of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but sadly those moments were brief and far in between. Re:Zero wasn't as great as it could have been, but it was still a good show.
9. Alderamin of the Sky
This show made my list of Top 5 anime to watch in the summer season, and although it didn't meet all my expectations I did enjoy this a lot. It had great characters, a gritty military world which showed the pain and suffering that war bring, not only for the people but the soldiers as well. I think if this series had 24 episodes instead of just 13 it could have been in my top 3 this year.
8. Flip Flappers
This series has some of the best art I have seen in a while. With art and animation similar to FLCL and Gurren Lagann, this show was destined to make the list. The main characters Cocona and Papika are a delight to watch and all the references the show puts in from The Shinning to Dragon Ball Z are watch made this series a standout this year.
7. Haikyū S3
I loved Haikyū S1 and S2 is one of my all-time favorite shows, so there were no ways S3 wouldn't have made this list. This was my most anticipated series for the Fall season, and the final match between the 2 main schools for who gets to go to Nationals was fantastic to watch. The animation was solid; the characters were better than ever, and the overall tone of the series was tense, and in line with what was at stake for each team.
6. Shokugeki no Souma: Ni no Sara
I marathoned the first season of Food Wars all in one 10 hour sitting, this show has almost perfected everything I love about shōnen anime, and taken out everything I dislike about it. Season 2 had the thing I love most about shōnen anime: Tournament arcs, and Food Wars did not disappoint at all with theirs. Even though I did find some aspects of S2 to be predictable, it was still a joy to watch. I did write my own review of the series (here)
5. Amanchu!
This was my most surprising anime out of the summer season, and it is evident to see why. Amanchu had some of the best characters this year, even better than the lovely duo of Cocona and Papika were the 2 main characters from Amanchu! This show had everything going for it; the atmosphere; the art; the characters, and the story was simple enough to allow everything else to shine.
4. Yuri on Ice
This is my most surprising anime this year. I love sports anime, but Yuri on Ice is more than just a sports anime. The beauty of this show is the characters, as you see why all of them have decided to be male figure skaters, and what motivates them to be the best at what they do. Having one of the most unique uses of sakuga I have seen in anime, as well as making me use a term I don't usually use when critiquing anime: cinematography. I don't know how Studio Mappa did it, but Yuri on Ice has the best camera movements I've seen in anime. All of this combined with great comedy and a touching story and Yuri on Ice gets the number 4 spot without a doubt.
3. Flying Witch
I think you have an understanding of my tastes from this list already, and Flying Witch was the perfect series for me. A great iyashikei (soothing) anime that I can watch and just relax to. If I had done a winter anime roundup, Flying Witch would have been my most surprising anime of the season and the best anime of the season. J.C Staff has won anime studio of the year for me, as they have made 3 of the ten shows in this list: Food Wars S2, Amanchu and Flying Witch. This anime in as few words as possible is Kiki's Delivery Service the anime. I also have my own review of Flying Witch (here).
2. Mob Psycho 100
This was the best anime of the summer season, and honestly one of the best anime I have ever seen. Mob Psycho 100 might be one of the most experimental anime this decade, as Studio Bones have accumulated an amalgamation of high young talent to make this anime and it shows in every aspect of it. All the characters are likable and bring their unique sense of comedy, to the animation being some of the best animation that I have ever seen. My review of Mob Psycho 100 (here).
- Hibike! Euphonium S2
I know what you're thinking… How can this beat Mob Psycho 100? And it is simply, Sound! Euphonium S2 destroys every single anime that came out this year. This is the most visually impressive show this season, has some of the best sound design anime has to offer, and the best cast of characters this year. Season 1 of Sound! Euphonium was in my Top 10 anime of all time, and someway somehow Kyoto Animation have made a sequel that surpasses the original in every aspect, which I didn't even think was possible. Asuka's arc which takes up the bulk of the series is one of the best character-driven narratives I have ever seen in anime. This anime goes above and beyond in everything it attempted to achieve, and that is why it is, in my opinion, The Best Anime of 2016.
2016 has been a diverse year for anime, and this top 10 list shows just that. The scoring range from this Top 10 is rather wide ranging from low 7s up till mid 9s. Now as I said in my introduction, this is MY list and everyone will have different opinions on what they think should be the best of 2016. So, what are your top 5 or even top 10 anime of 2016? Write them down in the comments below.
Just some nigga on The Wired (Anime Reference for the serious Otaku's out there).
I write when I get free time for GI about anime news or recommendations, I also run my own blog where I cover more about anime by giving reviews, recommendations based on the amount of anime you've seen and long essays regarding interesting anime topics like: NGE's characters and My Issues with Shōnen anime.


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After a brainstorming session and some feasibility research via YouTube, the firefighters came up with a design and scared up as many barrels and scrap building materials as they could. They're planning a test run before the big day — conducted away from prying eyes, of course, so as to preserve the element of surprise.
Cabe did, however, release one big clue.
"The only hint I'll give you is that you never know what you'll see float down the river, including a fire truck," Cabe said. "You may even see a fire truck float down the river."
That's the kind of enthusiasm that Lisa Leatherman, a Franklin Rotary Club member, was hoping for when she first floated the idea for a river festival in Franklin. She'd gotten the idea from a similar event in Asheville organized by RiverLink, a regional nonprofit supporting the French Broad River. She recalls seeing a "really fun" photograph of two women in an inflatable raft, all decked out for the contest, and wondering if something similar could succeed in Franklin.
"We see this as having a potentially positive impact on the community, on Franklin," Leatherman said, "draw people in and have this be an annual event the club can sustain."
This year's event will feature a 5K run on the Little Tennessee Greenway, a duck derby race for prizes, an array of local vendors and, of course, the raft race.
Contenders in the raft regatta will start off from the Tassee Shelter boat launch on Lake Emory and continue about 1.5 miles downstream. Leatherman has no idea what to expect from the entries — the possibilities are, quite literally, limitless — but she's hoping to see a lot of creative ideas. Though any vessel can float in the race, only craft made from items not commercially sold for floating or boating will be eligible to win a prize.
"We're volunteers and we help the community, but we also enjoy the community we work in," Patton said. "We see this as a fun activity."
And the winner's glory won't just go to captains of the fastest rafts. Titles up for grabs include Most Creative Vessel, Green Machine for use of recycled materials, Unique Design for best engineering and Most Entertaining Entry in addition to a prize for the first to cross the finish line. Those titles will come with prizes totaling $1,500.
The Rotary Club is also hoping to make money on the deal , because the festival will double as a fundraiser to fund the club's support of a slate of local and international charities.
"Most of the funds will stay here in the local community, but within Rotary we do support an annual international project," Leatherman said. That project usually focuses on providing clean water in India or Africa.
Leatherman's other goal for RiverFest is to draw some attention to the recreational resource running straight through Franklin — that is, Lake Emory and the duo of the Little Tennessee and Cullasaja rivers. That's a goal that Cabe supports.
"The Franklin Fire Department saw the opportunity to use this as a team building effort for our folks, and we think it's a good event for the community and it will bring awareness to the resources that actually go through the town of Franklin," Cabe said.
Leatherman's hoping to see this inaugural year, which received funding from the Franklin Tourism Development Authority and the Franklin-Nantahala Tourism Development Commission, have enough success to return to Franklin every year around this time, the fourth Saturday in August.
"There's a lot of enthusiasm around this," she said.
When you go
8 a.m.: Registration opens for RiverFest 5K at Tassee Shelter
9 a.m.: RiverFest 5K begins at Tassee Shelter
10 a.m.: Vendors open at Big Bear Shelter
10:30 a.m.: Duck Derby begins at Town Bridge Raft Regatta registration opens at Tassee Shelter
12 p.m.: Raft Regatta begins at Tassee Boat Launch
3 p.m.: Festival ends


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Product description Goldwell StyleSign Ultra VolumeCharacteristics
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Apply to dry hair. Style as required.
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All Goldwell products are designed to be highly effective and easy to use, from shampoos and hair conditioners to hair masks and oils, leave-in hair treatments, hair colourants and styling products. The company pays special attention to hair health, providing amazing results without damaging hair strands in the long run. In collaboration with the best hair stylists, Goldwell continues to develop new formulas to fulfill their customers' every wish and make exceptional hair care available to everyone.


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Shakespeare Williams eBooks
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later.


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Hope College continues its strong showing in national and regional college and university guides.
Hope remains in the first tier among the nation's best liberal arts colleges as determined by "U.S. News and World Report," ranking 88th in the publication's 2009 "America's Best Colleges Guide." The college also continues to be included among the 33 select institutions listed in the publication's "Programs to Look For" section in the category singling out schools that are outstanding for "Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects."
The college is also one of the approximately 310 schools included in the latest "Fiske Guide to Colleges" as "the country's best and most interesting colleges and universities." The 2009 edition notes that "Hope's academic and athletic programs continue to grow and prosper," quoting one senior as observing that "Hope is a place where students are challenged to become better students, but, more importantly, better people."
Hope is one of 159 schools receiving "Best in the Midwest" designation from "The Princeton Review." In addition, Hope ranks 166th nationally on the new "America's Best Colleges" guide that has debuted on Forbes.com, placing third among the 15 Michigan institutions included in the listing.


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Don Williams is a prize-winning columnist, blogger, fiction writer, sometime TV commentator, and is the founder and editor emeritus of New Millennium Writings, an annual anthology of stories, essays and poems. His awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan, a Golden Presscard Award from Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists, a best Commentary Award from SDC, Best Feature Writing from the Associated Press Tennessee Managing Editors, the Malcolm Law Journalism Prize from the Associated Press, Best Non-Deadline Reporting from the United Press International, Best Novel Excerpt from the Knoxville Writers Guild, a Peacemaker Award from the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, five Writer of the Month Awards from the Scripps Howard Newspaper chain, and many others. In 2011 he was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. His 2005 book of journalism, Heroes, Sheroes and Zeroes is under revision for a second printing, and he is at work on a novel and a book of journalism. His columns appear at Opednews.com and have been featured at many other well-known websites. To run his column, gratis, at your website, post this link to a dedicated spot: http://www.mach2.com/williams/. Need a speaker, panelist, tv commentator or teacher for your group or to lead a writing workshop, in your town? Email firstname.lastname@example.com.
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3 membership options are available...one is just right for you!
Emeritus ($94.00 US) - Emeritus status is reserved for current Academic or Executive members who have been a member for 10+ consecutive years and are retired and without full-time employment. Emeriti pay reduced dues, retain full membership benefits, and are entitled to vote in all Academy-related elections.
All membership categories are entitled to membership in (2) divisions and/or interest groups. Our divisions and interest groups reflect a broad range of member interests within 26 management disciplines, with each division offering a range of services tailored to their specific management discipline. We encourage you to review the individual domain statements for each division/interest group to find where your primary interests lie.
Additional divisions/interest groups can be purchased above the (2) complimentary selections at time time of joining the Academy or later in your membership term through your member profile by accessing your Academy Profile tab. You may also change your current selections at any time through your member profile.


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Moon over Courthouse
The Moon brightens the daytime sky over Courthouse Butte in Sedona
Out with the Teton Hiker 3700
Out hiking in Sedona with the Teton Sports Hiker 3700
Looming Butte
A section of Red Rock looms majestically against the sky
Sedona Snow
A Snowy Vista framed by vibrant greenery
Bell Rock
Bell Rock, one of the best known Sedona rock formations.
Teton in Sedona 4
Hiking Sedona with the dependable Oasis 1200
Spaceship Rock
Another lovely Sedona formation known oddly as Spaceship Rock.
Fall is Coming
Snow on the peaks of Sedona peeking above the woods
Sedona View
Sedona from the East
Sedona Trails
Out on the trails in lovely Sedona in spring. Cactus blossums and vibrant red and green everywhere!
Out for a ride
Out on my Seven Cycles Sola in Sedona on a favorite trail
Walkies Rule
My dog, always up for walkies.
Possibly the most beautiful place to build a town ever
Start of another great Sedona ride
Beginning the Big Park Loop in Sedona, at the foot of Courthouse Butte
Fall Colors
Snow on the Mesas
Courthouse Butte
The incredibly beautiful Courthouse Butte. One of the great landmarks of Sedona
Sedona with my Remedy 7 Answer
View of Sedona while out hiking with my Remedy 7 Answer backpack
Trickling Waterfalls
For a brief period after a rainfall, you can see and hear lots of tiny waterfalls pouring down the sides of the giant sandstone and limestone buttes
Justins at Bell Rock
My Justin boots continue their trek around the most beautiful locations in the SouthWest
SouthWest Vista
Sedona is one of the few places in the SouthWest that truly give you the sweeping vista of red rocks and desert landscape that so capture the hearts of artists and tourists alike
Red Rock Spires
Red Rock formations are visible from all over Sedona, some larger and more famous than others.
Hiking in Sedona
The amazing red backdrop of the SouthWest makes a trip through Sedona truly breathtaking
Phone Trail
The trailhead for the Phone Trail "Extension" as it's sometimes called. Great views of the valley and Horseshoe Mesa
Lovely Trail
The trails in Sedona are mostly quite clear and lovely, winding through a variety of vegetation and terrain. They can be a bit muddy or dusty though!
Sandstone Spires
Sandstone and red rock spires rise sharply from the ground in Sedona's Secret Wilderness
Views from the Phone Trail
Magnificent views of Red Rock Limestone and classic desert vegetation
Painted Rocks
"This isn't the Old West, because the New West has never arrived. It's just the West, like Wyatt Earp died yesterday." Michael Martin Murphy
Biking Sedona 2
Mountain Biker out enjoying Sedona's Red Rocks
Inviting Path
One of the many inviting paths in Sedona
Courthouse End
Passing the tail end of Courthouse, one of Sedona's most breathtaking formations
Moon over Sedona 4
The moon setting right in a beautiful Sedona rock formation. Timing and location are everything
Lee Mountain 2
Lee Mountain, Sedona
Bell Courthouse Panorama
An attempt to capture the feeling of the Bell Pathway
Oasis in Sedona 4
Out on the Spring Sedona trails
Red White and Green
Sedona peeking out from under a coat of snow shows all the colors more vibrantly
Reflecting at the 7 pools
Backpacking with the Remedy 7 Antidote 1
Schnebly Vista
Another great view of Sedona's Red Rocks from Schnebly
View through the hills
View of Sedona through the hills
Backpacking with the Hiker 3700 7
Backpacking with the Hiker 3700 - this time doing the full load with tent.
We tested both packs with and without the tent on them.
Cathedral under Snow
The Cathedral and Bell rock formations in Sedona covered in snow
The Red Rocks stretch out over the valley
Seven at Courthouse
My Seven Cycles Sola SL on one of its first rides in Sedona.
Travelling with the Teton Sports Oasis 1200
An excellent and versatile bag
Sheer Walls
Sheer walls of sandstone rising up out of the forest with trees, lichen, and scrub clutching to every crevice they can find
Lost in the clouds
The tops of the Red Rocks lost in the clouds
Mountain Biking Sedona
A pair of mountain bikers enjoying a day out on one of the relaxing and beautiful trails in Sedona
3 Sedona Peaks
3 Sedona Peaks in the early morning light


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So far in this year's fashion retrospections we've covered Nike with Maria Sharapova, Fila with Kim Clijsters and Stella McCartney by Caroline Wozniacki, and now we're proceeding with Venus Williams and her own clothing line EleVen.
Due to her autoimmune disease, Venus started the season late, in March, at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, when she relaunched EleVen and introduced us to her Spring 2012 collection with words "strong, simple and iconic" in mind, leaving the outrageous clothes behind her:
In the past, my designs were an experiment – a study. I wanted to have fun and go crazy. It was an extension of what I was wearing on the court. The Spring 2012 collection for EleVen, on the other hand, is more classic and more wearable for a greater number of people. I want people to feel they can express themselves with EleVen, no matter what their body shape is.
2011: Shocking EleVen dresses and wardrobe mulfunction
2010: Fashion focus on EleVen clothing line
2009: EleVen throughout the season
2008: All the Eleven outfits of the year
At her first four tournaments of 2012, i.e. until the French Open, the American wore her recognizable geometric print, shown in the first photo. She alternated the print on Geo Star tanks and shorts combined with solid black or white garments. There were also the clean lines of color-block dress with minimalistic palette of black, white and pale pink and an artistic print in one quarter of the item.
Geometry remained current through the French Open, as seen in the dress above, while at Wimbledon Venus didn't experiment with acceptable level of color, unlike her sister Serena who pushed the Wimbledon rules to the edge with purple shorts and headband. Subtle elegance was Venus' choice this time, which was far from the case last year!
At the 2012 London Olympics, Venus wore a navy dress with a gold EleVen logo, red straps on the back and white lines shaping the silhouette, and a top and skirt combo in the same color palette.
Venus' style was spiced up with long decorated hair, unique nail art and bold makeup.
At the US Open Venus brought back the spring geometric pattern, this time in pink.
As well as the pink version of the dress from Venus' season beginning.
Moreover, at the US Open Venus launched the EleVen Women's Fall Rose Garden Dress, which she also wore during her Luxembourg title run (her first title since 2010).
Are you a fan of Venus Williams' designer work? Do you like how her tennis clothing is evolving? In my opinion, this is so far the best year for EleVen. Her 2012 outfits are much more flattering then her over-the-top experiments in the previous years. (photos: Tim Schofield, fotostelefonorojo, renricks, RobynVC, Second Serve, mirsasha, angela n, matt. hintsa)


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London Bee Men's Cotton Poplin Printed Pyjama/ Lounge Pant MPLB0137
Rs. 849.00
Rs. 1,299.00
Perfectly stitched Pyjama from London Bee in Printed 100% Cotton Poplin of top quality in attractive prints and colors. Very soft hand feel. you can be assured that these will be the favorite. Can be worn at home or as sleepwear Fully elasticated on the waist with a superior elastic and with a drawstring for extra comfort .
Comes in 4 Sizes M , L , XL ,XXL
Color - Navy
Material - Cotton
Pattern - Printed
Wash Care - Machine Wash & Hand wash
Size Chart - Please refer Measurement Chart Image


text: 3 years & up. Mold, shape, and sculpt Shape it! Sand acts and feels like wet beach sand, but it never dries out and is always reusable. It is gluten-free, dust-free, and allergen-free. Can be sanitized, simply pick out foreign debris, spread it out, mist with sanitizer, and allow to air dry. 5 lbs. Non-allergenic.


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Traveling while Baldwin — it's more dangerous than it seems.
Stephen Baldwin was arrested in New York City Thursday while driving in Harlem, TMZ reports.
Check out photos of Stephen Baldwin
Baldwin, 46, was pulled over shortly after 5 p.m. for making an illegal U-turn. However, cops noticed Baldwin was driving with a suspended license during the stop and he was arrested and charged with aggravated unlicensed operator [of a motor vehicle].
The actor is scheduled to appear in court in October to be arraigned.