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[National: Commentary]
If you're a reporter, don't ask former Alaska governor Sarah Palin any questions.
She's not answering.
Palin stopped talking to the media shortly after getting a public flogging from a cartoon. In fact, it was such a clear, sound and substantial beating, rumors recently began swirling inside the Democratic Party that they might be prepping Marge Simpson for the ticket in 2012.
It began in early February when she decried a gag on the popular animated Fox sitcom Family Guy from an episode that depicted a character with Down's Syndrome. Her character was being pursued romantically by Chris Griffin, a teen-age character in the show voiced by popular actor Seth Green.
In the episode, Griffin asks his potential new girlfriend what her parents do for a living, and she replies, "My dad's an accountant, and my mom's the former governor of Alaska."
Palin, who's one-year-old son Trig has Down's Syndrome, reacted virulently by stating the joke was "another kick in gut," characterizing it as a dig against her infant son. Enter Andrea Fay Friedman, a veteran television actress who voiced the Family Guy character in question. She was not acting like a girl with Down's syndrome, because she actually has Down's Syndrome.
Friedman launched her acting career in 1992 on NBC's Life Goes On, a series that depicted the lives of several Down's Syndrome characters. She has since been on shows like Baywatch, Walker Texas Ranger, and Chicago Hope, each time portraying a capable, vibrant character who meets life's challenges as an individual, and not as an individual with Down's Syndrome.
After Palin's rant, including a Facebook message from her daughter -- a message that looks suspiciously like it was prompted by mom or one of her handlers -- Friedman issued a statement that showed more political skill than the politician's statement.
"My parents raised me to have a sense of humor," Friedman said. "My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes."
Since then, Palin's kept her rants on the subject to herself, and Family Guy's already strong ratings experienced a mild uptick both in first run episodes on Fox, as well as reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. And, not soon after, Palin's spokesperson resigned, and it doesn't look like the former Veep candidate is interviewing candidates to replace her.
Without discounting the fact that Friedman totally owned Palin with her response, Palin was barking up the wrong tree in the first place. Family Guy is no shallow contender in both public popularity and smarts. The show makes millions for Fox, and sells millions of DVDs every year, without even talking about the merchandising and branding.
Both Subway and Microsoft have used the show's characters as pitchmeisters. Plus, let's be candid -- the show is more consistently brilliant in its biting sarcasm than just about any other show on TV. A few seasons ago, series creator Seth McFarlane turned a rant about the FCC into a musical number that is now legendary on YouTube --it's from the episode PTV - look it up if you haven't yet. In this instance, Palin severely underestimated her target.
The ironies of this situation keep multiplying exponentially, like a combination of Octomom and the Duggars on acid. Palin is actually part of the media she keeps criticizing, with her own stint in the punditry provided by the conservative Fox News Network. Does that mean if she interviewed herself, she'd have her husband respond with a text message saying "no comment?" Compound that with the fact that Family Guy is one of the terrestrial Fox Network's top rated moneymakers.
I can hear Rupert Murdoch sending his assistant to Sam's Club for the BIG bottle of Advil.
And the icing on the cake is that Palin's political opponents, who seem stymied on how to squelch Palin's appeal to conservative Americans, are now taking their lessons from a cartoon.
Panaccio, Senior Campaign Strategist for EMSI Public Relations, is a 25-year veteran writer, marketer and producer in the entertainment industry, having worked with luminaries such as William Shatner, Stan Lee and Michael Uslan. email@example.com
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List of Branches
Zagreb Coach Terminal
Waste Management
City Cemeteries
City Pharmacies
City Gasworks
City Gasworks - Supplies
The City Housing and Municipal Services Company - GSKG d.o.o.
Real estate and facilities management
Goods Terminals
Vladimir Nazor
Project management
Water Supply and Drainage d.o.o.
Arena Zagreb
Zagreb Markets
Zagrebačka stanogradnja d.o.o.
Zagreb Roads
Zagreb Digital Citiy
About Company
Construction site in pictures
Supervisory Board of Zagreb Holding
Audit Committee
Socially responsible business
The Consumer Complaints Committee
Code of conduct
Beginning of gas consumption reading
ZET'S summer timetable for trams and buses
Working hours on public holidays in june
Zagreb funicular is running again from thursday, 15 june
Second tranche of notes presented to potential investors
Zagreb City Holding fully redeems eurobonds
Temporary traffic regulation- Slavonska, Branimirova, Kranjčevićeva
Standard & Poor's agency confirmed credit rejting to Zagreb holding
Ljubo Jurčić new president of the Supervisory Board of Zagreb City Holding
Sportfest 2017. on Zagreb Fair
44th Ambienta, International Furniture, Interior Decoration and Supporting Industry Fair
Healthy living fairs & Hunting and fishing days on Zagreb fair - 20.- 22. October
Signature of contract on direct funding through grants from European union funds
City Gasworks Zagreb -155th anniversary
Working hours on All Saints Day
Interliber, 40th International Book and Teaching Appliances Fair
Winter Road Maintenance Department in 2017/2018
Distribution of home composters
Reboot InfoGamer 2017 on Zagreb Fair
Ana Stojić Deban 2nd most powerful woman in croatian business
All types of public transport tickets from December 15th will not be available at Tisak kiosks
Beginning of gas consumption reading
13th Museum Night
City Gasworks Zagreb d.o.o. bought Elektrometal - Distribucija plina d.o.o
Working Hours on Easter
Robni terminali Zagreb celebrates the 65th anniversary
Working hours on International Workers' Day
Sign up for the 53rd Floraart
New system for automatic parking and mobile application ZgPark
Floraart is officially opened
Working hours on the Feast of Corpus Christi
Beginning of gas consumption reading
Working hours on Day of Anti-fascist Struggle on Friday, 22 June and on Statehood Day on Monday, 25 June
Project Bin2Grid — Result In Brief
140th Anniversary of the Zagreb's Public Waterworks
New parking charge devices support credit card payments
Outstanding debt write off for services provided by City waste disposal, Water supply and Drainage and zagreb city gasworks-supply
Go Gold for Kids with Cancer
Public tender for design of objects intended for consumption of Zagreb water
Zagreb City Holding a partner in the EU project "In-LoRe
Working hours on All Saints Day
New electronic services offered by Zagreb City Holding
November- a month devoted to diabetes
Winter Road Maintenance Department in 2018./2019.
Winter Road Maintenance Department - Contacts
Public transportation free of charge every advent weekend
Ana Stojić Deban - No. 1 among 50 most powerful CEO in Croatia
Advent in Zrinjevac subsidiary
Beginning of gas consumption reading
Sale of Christmas trees from 19th to 24th December at all city quarters
Working hours at Christmas and New Year
Information module for co-owner representatives available on the ZGH e-service interface
Traffic information
Bulky waste removal according to citizens' wishes
Ministry confirms: Prudinec-Jakuševec landfill among the most regulated in Croatia
Separate collection of bio-waste
The end phase of the plinification of settlements in Žitnjak
International Women's Day
New Appointment at City Gasworks Zagreb
New Appointment at City Gasworks Supplies
New appointment at subsidary Čistoća
Purchase of natural gas for the year 2019./20120 for buyers of the category of entrepreneurship
Working hours on Easter
Working hours on International Workers' Day
Switch to SEPA direct debit
Moody's changed the outlook of the Zagrebacki Holding d.o.o. to positive from stable
54th Floraart 2019.
Working hours on public holidays in June
E-account in public procurement on July 1st
Summer road works
Workin hours on Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian Defenders, 5. 8. and Feast of the Assumption, 15. 8.
Standards & Poors: 'B+' Rating Affirmed, Outlook Stable
Working hours on Independance Day
Working hours on All Saints Day
Zagreb City Holding- general sponsor of the 44th Croatian Innovation salon-Inova 2019.
Winter Road Maintenance Department in 2019./2020.
Successfully completed EU project In- LoRe with Zagreb City Holding as a partner
Advent in Zrinjevac
Working hours at Christmas and New Year
City Pharmacies an important part of Museum Night this year
Waste removal accounts at existing prices
On February 10th begins weekly removal of plastic, metal and paper waste
Operational communication department and patrol service
Precautions in Zagreb City Holding customer centers due to COVID-19
Important informaton for the citizens
Sunday working hours of city markets
Zagreb Holding ended 2019 with a positive financial result
Employees of the Zagreb Holding and the City Pharmacy of Zagreb were awarded the Medals of the City of Zagreb
Modernization of the monitoring and management system of the water supply of the city of Zagreb
Free parking for citizens whose buildings were damaged in the earthquake
New electric vehicles in the fleet of Zagreb Holding
New member of the Management Board of City Gasworks Zagreb – Supply Ltd.
Explore Zagreb - Capital of Croatia
Welcome to camp Veli Jože, Savudrija
Public parking and parking payment methods
New system for automatic parking and mobile application ZgPark
Tenders / public invitations
Complex Duga Uvala - hostel and camp
Savudrija - sale of a part of the land
Procurement plan
Register of publice procurement contracts and framework agreements
Conflict of interests pursuant to articles 75-83 of public procurement ( official Gazette 120/16)
Internet and mobile applications
Internet and mobile applications
Utility services
Public parking services in public open-air and underground car parks
Lease of distribution telecommunications canalization
Waste management
Maintenance of cemeteries and crematoria
Zagreb markets
Design landscapes and maintain green and other public spaces
Market Activities
Management and maintenance of buildings
Sales of flats and commercial premises
Warehousing and storage of goods, parking for freight vehicles and the services of Zagreb Free Zone
Reservations and sales of coach tickets
External Advertising
Organized Leisure for Children and Young People
Book shops, stationers, galleries
Waste disposal
Catering and tourism
Green market
Energy Activities
Gas supply
Gas distribution
Electricity production
Public water supply and drainage
Water Supply and Drainage
Drugs and Medical Products
Single Payments Documents
Open public calls
Closed public calls
Public call for expression of interest for vacant position of legal officer- Water supply and drainage
Public call for expression of interest
Public call for expression of interest for vacant position of traffic control signal specialist
Public call for expression of interest for vacant position- Senior Independent Referent
Right of access to information
Single Payments Documents
Single Payments Documents
Single Payments Documents
The organization of Zagreb Holding encompassing all the municipal companies in the City of Zagreb, required a new centralized data base. That is to say each company had its own database and each one issued its own separate bills. This system created huge costs. So, soon after the Holding was founded, a new project began to create a centralized database in order to unify data and develop an integrated database.
A unified database makes it possible, amongst other things, to optimize expenditure on maintenance and use, integrate business processes, supervision of the system and the introduction of single payment documents.
The introduction of unified bills for the entire area of the City, requires a great deal of time due to the need to organize the database. In 2007 a campaign was organized to go out into the field and align data with the owners of buildings. In the same year were issued the first uniform payment, while for the whole city will be introduced until 2010.
So far they cover the following payments:
Municipal tax
Water management fee
Housing reserves (for accommodation in buildings managed by the Zagreb Holding, City Municipal Housing)
Rent (for property owned by the City of Zagreb)
Fee for removal of municipal waste (City Waste Disposal)
Fee for use of water (Water Supply and Drainage)
The introduction of a unified bill brings several advantages to citizens too since it is possible to pay municipal fees in one place with no commission charge. Data processing has also been simplified, and is now simpler and quicker.

subset: commoncrawl


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A few days ago I paid a visit to Deborah Boardman's studio. Having made my way up to Rogers Park, I walked down a side street into a neighborhood that brimmed with pre-summer activity; lawn mowers and birds both seemed endlessly active and I thought about how we'd all emerged for an after-winter stretch before the heat set in. On this street lies Boardman's house. At the front door I was greeted first by two dogs and then the painter. We climbed up the stairs to her studio on the third floor. Windows on all sides. Leafy, green trees billowed around us where they caught the wind and it was impossible to see the street below. I felt like I was in a green cloud. Boardman has been painting in this room for the last 15 years: a light-addled attic with one, tallest wall where she paints. Other walls are either interrupted by windows or fall at angles defined by the peaked roof. The floor is wooden, spattered with paint. There is a sink in one corner of the room and everything smells vaguely like turpentine. What struck me immediately was the way the light in Boardman's paintings matched the light in her studio. I understand that usually happens—paintings reflect the space they were produced in, but I always forget that light has variant qualities, depending on where and when it shines. This was a palpable, pervasive shim of light. I've never thought of light having density before, but in this room it did. And in Boardman's paintings the light also has body. It defines the space between lines and marks.
Her work is in constant communion with this place, whether literally depicting the studio as a subject, or by using its same palette and wind. Motifs repeat like patterns as she paints from life in oil, then transcribes that painting multiple times, again and again, with different variations into gouache on paper. While looking over her work, I began to learn the language she uses–to parse clusters of marks from other lines, differentiating what lines referred to the wooden trunk standing against another wall of the room and what series of marks described another painting. I was able to see how the depiction of the trunk lost it's literal authority as, time and time again, it was redrawn in ever increasing abstraction. Other motifs were similarly repeated—the sink, a bottle of dish soap, paint brushes, other paintings, photographs, books and vials. The most prominent window is also a regular image as are the objects it boasts: small vials, a meditation cloth, books and small, skeletal remnants of a bird, an entire crayfish, the jowl of a fish. Different paintings feature the tree outside with leaves or bare with winter. To start understanding Boardman's work is to spend time in this space, in her studio—a place so integral to her process it becomes not simply the location of work, but also its subject. She also paints patterns. Patterns are painted onto canvases and paper; where sometimes they stand alone, in other instances one pattern abuts another pattern, in still other instances a patterns lies, like a veil, over domestic landscapes. Sometimes those landscapes are represented simply, without a pattern, but there is a dialogue between those choices. It's a dialogue about seeing and how we see and how we locate ourselves within what we see. What follows is an interview I embarked upon with her. We talk about painting and the canvas and pattern and windows.
Caroline Picard: Can you talk a little bit about how your painting practice has developed over time? Do you notice a consistent investigation of themes or ideas?
Deborah Boardman: Definitely there are themes I return to over and over again. One is my relationship to painting in which it becomes evidence of my physical body and my hand conveys a kind of emotional warmth, no matter what image is represented. Another is my love of other people's paintings, whether artists like Watteau or Manet or Noland, or friends' paintings. I find the emotional timbre in the works of my friends gives me a sense of affirmation, like singing along to a great song. I often find myself connecting to the work of others by copying them, rendering these works as cluster of notes I am examining in my studio, including my own.
CP: I'm interested in how you talk about the canvas/painting as an emotive,
expressive front. I was wondering if you could describe more about what that
is like, for you. Does a painting inspire warmth for you? Or is it the act
 of painting? And, if it's possible to ask, why?–where does the emotion come
from for you and what is it for?
DB: I can say that both looking at painting and the act of painting elicit similar feelings of warmth, excitement and vigor. There is usually a struggle with self doubt in both circumstances…the great painting that I want to emulate, but can I and my own paralysis when faced with the unknown and what feels like sometimes overwhelming inadequacy.
Where it comes from is harder to answer. I think there is both a physical recognition through bodily memory, especially if the one looking at painting also paints, and empathy. Yet I know people who don't paint at all who have looked at my painting and got that physical recognition. It's a kind of resonance, a pleasure (and often pain) we feel in common.
CP: How do you think about pattern in your practice?
DB: Pattern is everywhere, sometimes it is more obvious to us. I love when painting reveals something fresh about the coherence in the world which sometimes I observe and sometimes is just subtle sensation. When I paint patterns, I focus on the color and the size and weight of the brush stroke, and the variances that occur when my hand wobbles, or when the water blurs, things that I try not to control and that surprise me. The focus painting patterns brings is very different than looking at my surroundings, which in some ways is more difficult, and requires greater discipline. I like combining the two in my studio paintings.
CP: I feel like this is a question I've been meaning to ask for a long time, actually. I started wondering about it when I noticed all of your paintings of your studio. I then thought about it again when Chicago was doing its city-wide studio investigations (via the MCA and Smart Museum). How do you think about the studio as a source of inspiration?
DB: Yes, quite a long time ago, I decided to counter my tendency to make very curvy, gestural images out of my head with attempts to ground myself in the present world. The most obvious place to start was my studio and that led me naturally to Matisse and his studio paintings. I also stumbled upon a painting by a student of David's one summer visiting the Louvre. The painting depicts about twelve of David's students painting in a small, dimly lit studio. I was so struck by the state of absorption and evident pleasure represented in the painting that I copied it many times and also researched other versions of artists in their studios, mostly from the 19th century. I think I found affirmation and reassurance through these paintings in what is often a lonely and doubt-ridden pursuit. I think the studio is a concrete stand-in for the self and ultimately what one deals with as an artist is the weight and sum of how to find meaning and connection to others through ones work.
CP: When you talk about the studio as being a representation of the self, I'm
immediately curious about what your physical experience is like, when you
enter your studio…like how does that feeling of being inside your studio
compare to being in a classroom where you teach, or a room in your house?
And then, too, what is it like for you to walk into the studios of others?
DB: My studio is deeply familiar and generally feels good to be in. Sometimes there are periods when I am working out of a particular palette that I end up disliking and crave the antidote. I make periodic purges of work, editing and cleaning out, which refreshes and opens up the space again.
My studio doesn't need to accommodate others, at least at this point, and in that way is very different from the spaces I share with others, like my family or students. I really dislike the classroom studios at saic, as they are overwhelmingly gray and anonymous. I tend to love the studios of friends and of artists I admire that I may not be close to, like Byron Kim. I love to see the ordering of the space, and what is prioritized and valued.
CP: What happens to the studio space when it becomes public? (whether being
presented in an exhibition, or in a painting or via an open studio?)
DB: The public studio space is less intimate, and becomes an artifact of itself, and therefore theatrical. An exhibition is always in some aspects, a version of the public studio space.
CP: How does a canvas relate to a window?
DB: While my canvases evoke the renaissance ideal of looking through a window into another world, they also remain very much objects in the physical world. I am less interested in the illusion of space than alluding to other spaces, while reinforcing the material and physical conditions of the body.
CP: How do you negotiate ideas of failure? I was thinking partly about *The Book of Faults* and the LaLaLa Singers, for instance—in that instance it seemed like an idea of failure became a collaborative performance that was then able to transcend itself…?
DB: It was such an epiphany to learn about Xavier Le Pichon's idea of geological faults being necessary to the health and wellbeing of the earth as a living being. He makes the analogy that human frailty is also necessary for our survival as a species and reveals to us our essentially interdependent nature. It is a very different model than the competitive, survival of the fittest, only the "best†artists or "best†anything deserve our attention. I love how Le Pichon's theory dovetails with the modernist idea of failure, as a kind of heroic risk taking one must experience despite of ones anxieties and belief that artistic perfection, let alone trying to make anything worthwhile, is impossible to realize in the modern world
What singing with the La La La Singers reminds me again and again, is that connecting with other human beings, singing in harmony is a kind of effortless, pure joy that creates the kind of warmth I crave.
I also find working with ED JR. relieves an enormous amount of the anxiety about self worth. It is easier to trust the instincts of our collective minds, and a heck of a lot more fun. That said, I am not giving up my "day job" as a painter in the studio, as I find the solitude and introspection it brings, also essential to my clarity and growth as an artist.
This Sunday, on May 29th, Deborah Boardman's collaborative group, ED JR (also Edra Soto, Jeroen Nelemans and Ryan Richey) will present their performance, Painting is Dead from 3-7pm at the Charnel House. With special guests Charles Mahaffee, Diego Leclery, Kayce Bayer, Chris Lin, Hannis Pannis, La La La Singing, Laughing Eye Weeping Eye (Rebecca Schoenecker and Patrick Holbrook). Painting is Dead is part of an on-going series called Five Funerals.
- Corresponding Between Found and Made: An Interview with Jessica Stockholder - October 5, 2016
- Plant Humans of the Future: An Interview with Saya Woolfalk - August 30, 2016
- Reading with My Whole Body: An Interview with Essi Kausalainen - August 29, 2016


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Kyocera recently launched a new entry-level smartphone, the Kyocera Event. This handset runs on the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Operating System, however, it may or may not be upgraded to the newer Android 4.1 OS. The Kyocera Event is exclusively available for Virgin Mobile subscribers without any contract. This handset is specially targeted for those who are planning to jump from feature phones to smartphones. Check out the complete specs below.
Eric Anderson, general manager of global sales and marketing at Kyocera Communications, said,
"Kyocera Event on Virgin Mobile is the perfect device for the millions of people buying their first smartphone, or those who simply want a full featured, yet affordable phone without a contract. Whether it's the simple elegance of black or the stand-out-in-a-crowd confidence of RadioShack's exclusive red, Kyocera Event has style and performance far beyond its affordable price tag."
Kyocera Event features a 3.5 inch HVGA touchscreen display, sporting a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS, 1 GHz single-core processor, 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash and camcorder, 3G Connectivity, Wi-Fi b/g/n and much more.
Other features include a 3.5 mm headset jack, 4 GB internal memory, MicroSD card slot, 32 GB expandable memory, 512 MB RAM, GPS, Google Play Store, Stereo Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR, up to 8.7 hours of talk-time, up to 6.25 days of stand-by time and a 1500 mAh battery. This handset measures 4.5 × 2.4 × 0.46 inches and weighs 4.1 oz.
Virgin Mobile USA is currently selling the black version of Kyocera Event for $79.99 without any service agreement. A red version of the phone will be available exclusively at RadioShack from March 3, 2013.


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Missouri Program To Create Jobs For Youth With Disabilities
COLUMBIA - Imagine only 20 percent of the population is employed and your chances of obtaining a job are slim because of something you cannot change. Advocates say that is the reality for people with disabilities, but a new state program is trying to change those odds.
The Show-Me-Careers project launched this month to give eight pilot communities in Missouri the ability to create more job opportunities for youth with disabilities, ages 16-30. Columbia is one of the communities receiving the grant and it is getting the maximum amount of $65,000.
John Savage, the director of Alternative Community Training, is the chair of Columbia's board for the project. He said a major task for the program is to build partnerships with businesses that are willing to give people with disabilities a chance.
"We all have a pre-conceived notion of what disability means, including me," Savage said.
Savage said getting business owners to let go of those pre-conceived notions is key. One way the project will reach out to businesses is with the advice of board member Kat Cunningham, local business owner of Moresource, Inc.
Another board memeber, Michael Evans, is blind and said an employer would not hire him because of his disability. Evans, 23, is a student at Moberly Area Community College's Columbia campus and is furthering his education to improve his chances of getting a job.
"With my visual impairment, people believe that there's a lot of things that I can't do," Evans said.
Savage hopes Evans' personal experience as a youth with a disability will lend the board the perspective needed to improve Columbia's opportunities for workers with disabilities.
"We as service providers kind of get our head down and think we know what we should be doing and how we should be doing it and to get the perspective of an individual who's going through it from the other side can be very helpful," Savage said.
Once the project establishes business partnerships, it will focus on two other goals: preparing people with disabilities for work and better coordinating Columbia's service systems.
Preparing individuals for work is something many of the service systems already do, but Savage said this program focuses on youth for a reason.
"Helping students and other individuals in that 18 to 30 age range kind of devlop their skills and their knowledge of the job market so that they can better prepare to be apart of that job market is a big part of helping people become successfully employed," Savage said.
Jessica Fulton is one of 150 people with a disability employed through ACT's career services. Fulton is mentally handicapped and said she is thankful for the opportunity to help provide for her parents and siblings.
"I [needed] to get out of the house and not sit at the house so long," Jessica said. "This job pays the bills and puts food in the house ... and that's why this job was so important."
Other service systems on the board for the project include:
Boone County Family Resources
Vocational Rehabilitation
Services for Independent Living
Columbia Public Schools
The board wants to add at least 57 more entry-level job opportunities like Jessica's over the span of the next three years. Savage said job opportunities for people with disabilities should continue to grow after the grant ends in three years because business partnerships will be well establshed.


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Today's giveaway is courtesy of The Rabbit Hole, who is offering one of my lucky readers a $50 credit to their online shop full of vintage apparel! My personal favorite: this soft pink, full midi skirt.
To enter, simply visit The Rabbit Hole and comment below with your favorite item.
Like The Rabbit Hole on Facebook for an additional entry!
Entries will be accepted until 9 pm EST Monday, May 2nd. A winner will be chosen at random and announced in this post. Good luck!


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2012 - bring on the learning revolution
I'm exhausted at the moment, but hugely excited. I've been spending evenings over the last three weeks, usually till the early hours, experimenting with a new development in online education.
The Open Courseware (OCW) movement started in 1999, in Tubingen, Germany, but quickly spread to the US. The idea is simple: Take the best educators at the top universities around the world, video their courses and put them online, for free, for anyone to watch. Over the last couple of years I've watched probably a dozen or so courses on subjects from human behavioural biology, to quantum field theory (admittedly this is a little late, being Sidney Coleman, who passed away before the videos were put online), to existentialist philosophy, from science and cooking to biology at MIT. Some of these may not fall under the umbrella of OCW officially, but the idea is the same: As of the last decade, there have been a wealth of amazing materials online for anyone to access. Open Culture keeps a pretty good track of the best of the courses online here.
These courses were often fantastic to watch and I learned a great deal, but there was always a large piece missing from these sets of audio or video materials, which is that they were very much uni-directional. You sat, as a viewer, and took in the information. It turns out that this sort of learning is pretty inefficient. Building up passive understanding of a subject is one thing, but building up a true working understanding of it takes exercise and effort. The act of letting it wash over you is not enough. In fact even going through the material yourself in 'revision' mode is pretty ineffective (there's a lovely paper here detailing precisely the effects of various types of learning methods).
So, come the end of 2011 things started to change. Two courses were offered online from Stanford whereby not only were there video lectures, but there were online exercises in the form of multiple choice problem sets and programming assignments, all of which were marked automatically. Suddenly you were forced to understand the material (though in the case of the hugely successful Machine Learning course I'd say that, given that this was a first run, the tests didn't actually examine how much you understood the material, but more the programing language - in this case Octave - this will change in future revisions I'm sure). The other course, on Artificial Intelligence, gained over 100,000 participants, and suddenly the whole thing exploded. Sebastian Thrun said that, having lectured to so many students, lecturing to a classroom full of 200 enormously lucky individuals no longer seemed terribly efficient (I'm misquoting and paraphrasing enormously) and from this vision of the future, Udacity was born. Some of the quotes can be found in the article here which gives more outline of his vision.
Udacity is one of several platforms which have started in the last few of weeks. Udacity aims, eventually, to give the material of an entire degree course in computer science. The modules are not coming online in a linear fashion but this means that whatever your knowledge of programing there will probably be something for you.
I'm taking part in the first two courses. CS101 teaches you to build your own search engine, and is really a very basic course in Python with some simple implementations of web crawling and web searching but for a beginner in Python it's perfect.
CS373 is a more advanced course and expects that you already have a good working knowledge of Python, although you could pick up what you need to know for this in a matter of a few hours. The course is based around programing a robotic car - like the car that Google used to win the Darpa Grand Challenge (a challenge whereby an automated car has to make its way through long and complex real-world road situations). In this course you learn a great deal about robotics and designing intelligent computer systems for navigating complex environments.
Udacity is going to be offering more courses starting in April. Each course, I believe, will last on the order of a couple of months and at the end you get a certificate based on the marks you get in your homework assignments. Typically there are an hour or so of lectures a week and the lectures themselves are built around solving problems for yourself - you learn as you move through the lectures by solving the puzzles as you go. Here is a screenshot from one particular programming assignment in the course - not homework, but just a question that is given as you move through the second unit. This is all done online and you program directly into the browser.
So, that's Udacity. At the same time, another organisation, Coursera has come online and is offering 15 or so courses on everything from Natural Language Processing to Anatomy.
Right now I'm taking part in Model Thinking, Probabilistic Graphical Models, Natural Language Processing and Design and Analysis of Algorithms 1. Each of these have several hours of lectures a week, so I'm downloading them and watching them with VLC at a faster speed, slowing down for the more complex ideas. The format is very similar to the Udacity courses, though the lectures are less active for the watcher on Coursera. Again, the emphasis is on plenty of exercises to make sure that you really build understanding as you go through the course. Here's a screenshot of the Natural Language Processing page:
and on probabilistic graphical models:
In addition to all of this, MIT, through MITx is offering their own format for an online course starting with MITx 6.002 Introduction to circuits and electronics. This really astounded me. Not only do you get the same extremely high quality video lectures, homeworks, discussion forums etc. but there is, built into the interface, a virtual electronics lab for you to experiment with and use for the assignments. For completeness I'll include a screenshot of this interface as well:
What is immensely important with respect to all of these online courses is that every one of them is completely free!
As of this year, and, I predict, in vastly increasing numbers, you can now get some of the highest quality education in the world, online, for free. Anyone, in any country, with an internet connection, can register, log in and learn with some of the best educators in the world. This is mind-blowingly powerful stuff! I'm hugely excited to see what this will do for the younger generation of students (high school included) who are dying to get immersed in all this stuff but up until now simply haven't had the resources (not only the material, but also the interaction that this will now allow).
I should add incidentally that TED is also getting in on the act, having launched TED Education this week:
A discussion of online free learning would not be complete (and this blogpost is certainly not that) without a mention of Khan Academy, another incredibly exciting venture which looks to have the potential to revolutionise highschool education:
Anyway, I highly advise delving into these courses and even if something doesn't pop out now that appeals, I think that within a very short space of time, the vast library of online, interactive information available will have something to tickle your brainbuds.
So, for now, I have a little more to watch and work through tonight (for the last weeks I've been working through from about 8-1 or 2am at home, after work). I've taken on a pretty big load with all of these courses and am not aiming at perfection but for now just exploring the landscape of possibilities, so far it's a lot of fun...
P.S. I've shared this before, but this is always worth putting out there for anyone who hasn't already seen it. Sir Ken Robinson is one of the most wonderful rhetoricists I've ever seen, and I've had the pleasure of seeing him live at a conference in London. Here describes how the current education system is badly broken and needs a massive rethink. Is education killing creativity?:
Also, find out more here at Learning Without Frontiers, about how disruptive technology may be able to shift the status quo.


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HOUSTON (AP) The Houston Texans were looking forward to enjoying a bye this week before beginning their work in the playoffs as the AFC's top seed.
Instead, a terrible month in which they lost three of four games dropped the Texans to the third seed. It has them in the exact same spot as year ago, hosting the Cincinnati Bengals in a wild-card playoff game Saturday.
The Texans wasted little time this week lamenting their missed opportunities, though, instead focusing on their next task.
``Would we like to be in a different situation? Yeah, but at the same time, it's the playoffs. It's the start of the playoffs. Everything you've done up to this point, it doesn't really matter,'' Houston's Andre Johnson said. ``It only matters what you do now ... we just have to take advantage of the opportunity we have now.''
They'll face a Cincinnati team that enters Saturday having won three in a row and seven of its last eight games. The Bengals are in the playoffs for consecutive seasons for the first time since 1981-82. Their last playoff win came Jan. 6, 1991 against the Oilers, the team the Texans replaced in Houston.
Cincinnati offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth said he isn't worried about the more than 20-year streak of playoff futility. He wants to focus on the improvement this young team has made.
``Last year, we did what it took to get into the playoffs when a lot of people predicted us to be 0-16,'' Whitworth said. ``This year, we got back in to the playoffs when a lot of people didn't think we could. We're here. The next step is winning a playoff game. Hopefully, we can let that be a chip on our shoulder.''
Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton was sacked four times and threw three interceptions in last year's 31-10 postseason loss to the Texans. Houston defensive end J.J. Watt returned one of those interceptions 29 yards for a touchdown that gave the Texans a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Dalton, who grew up in suburban Houston, believes he's grown since that game and learned from the mistakes he made.
``I definitely feel like I'm a better quarterback this year,'' he said. ``I've got more control of the offense. There's a lot more stuff that I'm doing at the line of scrimmage, and making checks and doing different things this year than I was doing last year. But that's helped me become a better player.''
Another player who has certainly improved in Year 2 is Watt. The defensive end led the NFL with 20 1/2 sacks this season, has 107 tackles, including 39 for losses, 16 passes defended and has forced four fumbles.
Bengals coach Marvin Lewis got creative this week when asked how he planned to stop Watt.
``I wrote a letter to the commissioner to petition for 13,'' Lewis joked. ``I figure if we put a guy on each side of him and a guy in front of him, we've got a good opportunity.''
Then Lewis got serious.
``He's been an incredible player and he's fun to watch if you're not preparing to play the Texans,'' Lewis said. ``He's a great model for young players to look at and be like. He really is something.''
Houston defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who has been coaching in the NFL since 1976, couldn't say enough about Watt's performance this season.
``This is the best defensive line play of anybody since I've been in football,'' Phillips said. ``He is by far the best defensive player. He should obviously be the defensive player of the year in the league.''
The AFC South champion Texans are also in the playoffs for the second straight year, the only two times in franchise history. Houston lost to the Ravens in the second round after beating the Bengals last January.
The Texans believe that experience will help them this time.
``I feel like we've come a long ways,'' Watt said. ``Obviously, this isn't new to us. This is something we've been through before. We're excited. We can't wait. We had a taste of the playoffs last year and we're really excited to get back in it this year and to go to work.''
Third-string quarterback T.J. Yates was behind center last year after injuries knocked out Matt Schaub and Matt Leinart. Now, Schaub, a nine-year veteran, will get his first postseason start.
He's looking to bounce back from a tough month in which he threw three interceptions with just one touchdown pass. He'll try to do it with two big weapons in Johnson and Arian Foster. Johnson led the AFC with a career-high 1,598 yards receiving, and Foster finished second in the AFC in rushing with 1,424 yards.
``They have three or four guys who have been playmakers in this league for a while,'' Bengals cornerback Leon Hall said of the Texans. ``It starts with Foster. Obviously, they have Johnson outside. It starts with knowing that we have to stop the run. If you don't stop the run, you're on your heels for the rest of the game.''
Schaub and Houston's offensive line will have their hands full with a defense that boasts two solid pass-rushers in tackle Geno Atkins and end Michael Johnson. The pair has combined for 24 sacks this season, and the Texans have given up three or more sacks in each of the last three games.
``Pressure and those types of things, we have our work cut out for us,'' coach Gary Kubiak said. ``We're going to have to play better than we have the past few weeks.''
Online:http://pro32.ap.org/poll andhttp://twitter.com/AP-NFL


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What do I mean by "fake food?" Perhaps fake food is best described by first defining what I mean by real food.
Suppose a young steer is put out to pasture. It grazes on the pasture's grass, eating the food that its body is built for. It has access to clean water. Maybe there's a grove of trees for the steer to use for shade when the sun gets too hot. It's a calm, clean, low-key life for this steer. It's not stimulated by growth hormones. It's not fed antibiotics and would only be given antibiotics if it got a bacterial infection. Its urine and feces are naturally recycled into the land. It lives a good life until one day it is led quietly and gently into a low area filled with odorless carbon dioxide, and it painlessly passes out from lack of oxygen. Then, unconscious, it is killed. Butchering takes place in clean and sanitary conditions. The various cuts of meat go their separate ways and the leftovers (horns, hooves, hide, bones, intestines, etc.) are sold off.
One of the cuts of meat is a top sirloin steak. This steak is aged in ideal cool conditions for 21 days, long enough for the flavor of the meat to be enhanced by the actions of enzymes naturally present in the meat. This is also long enough for some of the intercellular collagen and other tough materials to soften, rendering the meat tender as well as flavorful.
You or I go the supermarket or butcher and buy this "organic, grass-fed, aged" steak. The meat has all the flavor it's supposed to have, but without any chemicals, antibiotics, pesticides, fattening grains, or other unnatural additives—including water. Did you know many meats, especially pork products, are pumped full of water? Up to 30 percent of the weight of some hams is water, sold to you at many dollars per pound.
Our grass-fed steak has much more of healthful conjugated linoleic acid—a beneficial essential fatty acid—than ordinary beef. It tastes great. This is real food.
Fake food looks like the real thing, but it's not. Because the steers are raised in confinement pens, they are routinely given antibiotics because they live amid deep pools of their own waste. The grains they are fed have been grown with pesticides and herbicides, chemicals that can pass into their bodies and lodge in their fat. These grains fatten up the animals, filling their tissues with hard fats that cause cardiovascular disease in humans. The meat is flushed into unnaturally weak growth by hormones. Slaughter is efficient, but not easy. Butchering is often quick and sometimes unsanitary. I know. I've seen it.
Back on the farm, that organic steer's life and death have left no permanent scars or depleted, eroded soil. The steer may have eaten annual or perennial grasses nearly to the ground, but the grasses' roots continue to hold the soil together during winter rains. All the animals' wastes are sparsely spread in the pasture, and washed by rains into the soil where they fertilize next spring's crop of fine, clean, green grass.
But back in the feedlot, the concentrated pools of fecal matter are washed into the groundwater where they foul wells, hyper-fertilize streams, ponds, and lakes, forcing the growth of clogging, oxygen-depleting algae, and causing the eutrophycation of the water. Fish die. Chemicals used in the feedlots wash into waterways, further damaging them. The feedlot is a stinking mess that is spread to the surrounding watershed. The conventional steak you buy looks real, but it's not. It's a commodity, processed using modern technology and much of that technology has unintended consequences that are detrimental to our health.
The bottom line is taste. Which steak do you think tastes best? Even if you couldn't tell a difference, knowing how the steak came to be would enhance its flavor.
Now multiply these kinds of insights throughout our food supply. Compare how an organic potato, strawberry, or head of broccoli is raised with how they are grown conventionally. Be aware that researchers in both the U.K. and U.S. are finding major diminishment of mineral levels and declining levels of other nutrients in common vegetables grown conventionally. But not in organically-grown vegetables. One scientist at UC Davis did a 10-year study and reported, in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, that organic vegetables contained up to 30 percent more phytochemicals than conventional vegetables. Phytochemicals is a scientific term for natural nutrients created by plants within their own tissues. They are the goodies that are so good for us.


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Cakespy: Leftover Eggnog Gingerbread Pudding Recipe
Quirky, cute, sometimes controversial, always delicious recipes from Jessie Oleson.
Jessie Oleson (aka Cakespy) drops by every Monday to share a delicious dessert recipe. —The Mgmt.
Christmas is over, over, over.
But what to do with all those holiday leftovers?
Resist the urge to do anything rash like start New Year's Resolutions early. Instead, make the best of the rest of the year by combining your leftover eggnog, gingerbread, and some butter and eggs to form a delicious GingerBread Pudding. It's easy as can be to make, and very forgiving with substitutions. Want to make it with cinnamon rolls or doughnuts instead of gingerbread? Go ahead, sweet stuff! As Tiny Tim might say, Merry post-Christmas, every one!
- Yield:6-8
- Active time: 5 minutes
- Total time:40 minutes
- 3 cups cubed leftover soft gingerbread
- 2 cups eggnog or cream
- 2 beaten eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons butter (cold), plus extra for buttering dish
Butter an 8x8-inch baking dish or pie plate.
Cube your carbohydrate of choice. Place in the buttered baking dish or pie plate.
In a small bowl, whisk the two eggs. Mix with your eggnog or cream. Whisk with vanilla. Gently pour over the cubed carbs. Let this soak while you let your oven preheat to 350 degrees.
Using a vegetable peeler, peel the cold butter directly onto the top of your casserole before baking so that the butter will melt on while it bakes. No, this is not strictly necessary, but so delicious.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden and slightly crispy on top.


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Cruising is such a great value holiday as your fare includes accommodations, all main meals onboard ship, onboard daytime activities, and night-time entertainment including live stage shows. One reason cruising is good value is because you'll know what most of your holiday will cost before you go. Generally your only extra onboard expenses could be your beverages (though these are sometimes included on luxury ships), optional shore excursions, personal services such as spa treatments, and any purchases at the gift and duty free shops.
The entertainment on board comes in many different styles and formats but is always included in the cruise fare. In the evening there are shows in the main show lounge (except small ship cruising). Typically there are two sessions a night so, depending on your dinner time, you can always catch the show. The style of these shows changes daily. Some nights it will include all of the ship's entertainment crew with a Las Vegas style production. Other nights there may be a guest entertainer or comedian. There is something for everyone.
The entertainment doesn't stop with the nightly performances. Each night the ship provides a newsletter detailing all the activities that will take place the following day. These activities may include dance classes, arts and crafts, table tennis, live music, tournaments, trivia quizzes, recent release movies, and other deck games and deck parties. The great thing about a cruise is that you can do as much or as little as you like. If your idea of a holiday is sitting back with a good book, you can do that. If you like to be entertained there is no shortage of entertainment.
The chances are you will not get seasick. On a cruise most people do not suffer from motion sickness. However, if you are going to get seasick then it is likely to happen in the first 24 hours. If you limit the amount of alcohol you consume and activities you do in the first 24 hours you can reduce the chance of this happening. Another thing you can do is select a midship cabin on a lower deck. A cabin in the middle of the ship (midship) will experience the least amount of movement.
There are a number of other precautions/medications you can take, and these can be purchased before you travel at a pharmacy or health shop. Otherwise you can buy them on board.
The best thing you can do if you feel seasick is visit the ship's doctor. They can give you an injection that will give you relief from your seasickness within 30 minutes. You have planned and saved for your holiday, don't ruin it by feeling sick. Visit the doctor for the injection and get it treated straight away. If you have travel insurance then you can claim this back.
IMPORTANT: A visit to the doctor on board will cost you money so we strongly recommend you get travel insurance before you depart on your holiday.
Shore excursions are pre-organised tours & sightseeing options that you purchase on board for when your ship is in a port of call. Every ship has a "Shore Ex" desk with qualified staff who can advise you of different excursions available, what's best to do and generally help you with information on the particular region your ship is visiting.
Shore excursions can be booked on board your ship however some cruise lines allow you to pre-book and pay for excursions online. If there is a tour you really want to do then we recommend you pre-book it as popular tours do sell out.
Tour costs vary depending on the activity, itinerary and inclusions. There is always a wide variety on offer for all age groups and abilities that can start from as little as $25.
Sometimes you can book your tour, when you arrive at your port, direct from the operator at a much cheaper price. However, this comes with a buyer beware warning. The operators used by the cruise line are trusted professionals so you will not be ripped off. Also, if something goes wrong on your tour, the cruise line knows where you are and will take the necessary steps to pick you up if your vehicle has broken down. In extreme cases they will even hold the ship's departure for you if you are late returning from a tour booked through the ship. They will not wait if you go direct through the operator, as they will not know where you are.
Cruise lines around the world do not all operate using the same onboard currency. The currency varies from cruise line to cruise line with the most common currency being US dollars. P&O Cruises Australia, Carnival Spirit and the Sun and Dawn Princess all use Australian dollars as their onboard currency.
Many cruises on our websites come with onboard credits. This could be from a special promotion that is being run by the cruise line or because of the relationship we have with the cruise lines that allows us to select certain cruises to receive onboard credit. The amount of onboard credit does normally depend on the length of the cruise.
If your reservation receives onboard credit we will confirm this with you in writing and then your onboard account will automatically be in credit for the amount we have confirmed to you. This credit can be used towards any onboard expenditure that is charged back to your cabin. It is important to note that if you do not spend all of your onboard credit it will not be refunded to you in cash so it is best you spend it all while on board.
The rules surrounding where you can smoke on board a cruise ship vary from cruise line to cruise line. However, none have taken steps to ban smoking completely. Most only allow smoking in designated areas on the open decks. Many have banned smoking on cabin balconies as this poses a fire risk.
All your main meals are included on a cruise. Typically for breakfast, lunch and dinner there is an a la carte option (order from a menu) or a buffet option. There is so much choice available, and the food is excellent. However, your cruise doesn't always just include these 3 main meals. You can in fact eat non-stop for 24 hours a day if you like.
Most cruise lines also offer specialty dining as an alternative option to the main restaurants. There is typically a small cover charge for this. However, the food is well worth it, and the specialty restaurants are normally smaller and more intimate than the main restaurants so they make for a great place to celebrate a special occasion.
One of the main reasons for a cruise making such a great family holiday is the "kids club" facilities offered on board, and they are all included in your cruise fare. Typically the kids clubs are broken into 3 different age groups - 3 to 6 years, 7 to 12 years, and 13 – 17 years. In these dedicated children's facilities they are looked after by trained staff and the facilities are open from 9am – 10pm. Parents can check their children into the "kids club" whenever it suits them. Children love these facilities as it is "their space" aboard the ship.
NB Each cruise line has limited space on board the ship for children as the kids club facilities can cater for a limited number of children, and any child booked onto a cruise has access to the kids club. If you are planning on taking a cruise during the school holidays then you need to book early as the children's space will sell out. Also, while most cruise lines have kids club facilities there are some exceptions (not common) so you should check this at time of booking.
Do not let the idea of formalities put you off going on a cruise. Unless you are travelling on a 5 star + cruise ship, formal does not mean a tuxedo.
On a standard 7-12 night cruise you may find there are two formal nights, one being the Captain's Welcome Cocktail Party and the other being the Captain's Farewell Cocktail Party.
But even then, formal is only the "suggested dress". Please don't feel you have to get dressed in a tuxedo or evening dress. For men – a jacket & tie (tie is optional) will suffice, for the ladies a cocktail dress. Should you not wish to attend either of the planned formal evenings you can opt to dine in an alternative restaurant or even order room service from your cabin.
On non-formal nights, men usually wear a shirt & trousers and women a tidy dress, skirt or dressy trousers & blouse. Many ships today operate a more casual dress code to limit the amount of dressing up – after all you are on holiday.
During the day, dress for the weather outside, however you will be required to wear shoes into the restaurant.
Shore excursions are not compulsory, you are free to go ashore and return to the ship as many times as you like.
When you go ashore it is important to note:
You must take your cruise I.D. card (ticket) as proof for re-embarking.
The city or town you are visiting may not be close to the port where the ship is docked, cruise lines normally organise shuttle buses (at a minimal charge) throughout the day to and from the city centre.
You must return to the ship at the stipulated time as the ship WILL NOT wait for late passengers.
Unlike airlines, there are no luggage restrictions on a cruise. However you need to consider that you need to store it in your cabin for your holiday. There is plenty of storage space in your cabin but if you are travelling in a quad cabin you may want to impose your own restrictions.
NB It is important to remember that airlines have different luggage restrictions, so if you are flying either pre or post cruise then you may want to keep within their allowances.
Cruising is a cashless society which means when you purchase anything on board you do not pay for it in cash. When you board the ship it is like checking into a hotel, you can either give a credit card imprint or the cruise line will take a cash deposit of approximately $300. You are then given a "cruise card". Your cruise card is your door key (on most ships), has your dinner table number on it (for traditional dining), and it is used for making any purchases aboard.
When you make a purchase with your cruise card, it is swiped and a receipt is printed that you will need to sign. The cost of the purchase is then added to your onboard account which you settle at the end of your cruise.
Tipping/gratuities are a big issue for a lot of Australasian cruise passengers as it is not our custom to reward good service in this way. What cruise passengers need to consider is that outside of Australasia, the remuneration for personnel in the service industry is quite low. Hence, to keep up a high standard, employees have the incentive of earning additional income via the tips they receive. At the end of the day, how much you tip is up to you.
The most common way cruise lines suggest tipping, is that they add a suggested amount to your daily onboard account. You can choose to keep that on your account or you can ask the purser to remove it. This suggested amount is divided out amongst your cabin steward, your dinner waiter, your assistant waiter, your wine steward, and maitre d'.
Some cruise lines ask passengers to wait until the end of the cruise and they discreetly leave an envelope in your cabin in which to place the appropriate amount. Some cruise lines state that the fare you have paid includes gratuities. Some cruise lines ask that you pre-pay the gratuities with your cruise fare prior to your holiday departure.
Again, the amount you tip is up to you (unless it is prepaid) and it isn't intended to have a negative impact on your holiday. Do what feels most comfortable to you.
Many cruise lines have rules restricting you from taking your own alcohol on board your cruise ship. If you have pre purchased duty free alcohol the ship will take it off you when you board and store it away for you. This alcohol will be delivered to your cabin the night before you disembark. The same applies if you purchase it when you are in port. Any purchases made on board will also be delivered the night before you disembark.
However, Princess Cruises will allow you to bring a bottle of wine aboard which you can drink at dinner or in your cabin.
These restrictions were put in place to create a safer environment on board your cruise ship, where people drink within a controlled drinking environment.


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Colby Hampton (16-Year-Old Bilingual Rapper) - Rack City Freestyle [Unsigned Hype]
Colby Hampton (Mr. BeyOnd It) a 16 year old bilingual rapper does a freestyle to Rack City.
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
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Shaun Ross changes the standard of beauty @nyfw
Casting the outcast at Fashion Week
By Sarah LeTrent, CNN
updated 11:54 AM EDT, Tue September 2, 2014
(CNN) -- By definition, a model is an archetype, an example to emulate.
Within those standards, Shaun Ross is a model of imperfection.
The 22-year-old was born with albinism, a congenital disorder that results in the production of little to no pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. The condition affects an estimated 1 in 17,000 people in the United States, according to the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, and puts people at risk for persecution in some parts of the world, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
During this New York Fashion Week, which runs until September 12, Ross appeared in presentations for brands Third NYC and Monsieur Belange. He previously walked the runway in Berlin and appeared in music videos for Katy Perry and Beyoncé. His most anticipated project is an upcoming short film entitled "Tropico" with Lana Del Rey.
Ross, who describes his look as "euphoric," is one of a growing number of anti-cookie-cutter models. He said his smile "isn't the prettiest," but illuminating; his face is "very disoriented," but edgy.
"I challenge photographers," he said.
Interactive: The look of NYFW
Ross said his condition doesn't confine or define him -- it has just always been there.
The 6-foot-1 model came into the world the same way he did the modeling industry: in an unlikely fashion. Ross's mom gave birth to him on the highway on the way to the hospital.
"The nickname my parents always called me was Nissan," Ross said with a laugh.
But growing up in the Bronx borough of New York, Ross said he was called everything from "Casper" to "Powder" to "white bread." In seventh grade, the teasing culminated when a boy stabbed him in the back six times with a pen.
"I was always the outcast, but a confident outcast," Ross said. "I just had to accept it. I'm going to be me; either you're going to accept it or you're not."
Ross, in part, credits his confidence to his mother, who never dwelled on his differences.
"It's really weird to say, but I never thought about my skin being weird. I just knew that's what it was. I never asked myself why I didn't look like my parents," Ross said. "My mother has showed me you have no fear. You let people judge you, but who gives a f—k?"
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To him, beauty is confidence.
While the runways this week continue to be dominated by waif-like bodies, angular faces and symmetrical, round eyes, Ross arrived on the scene just as the modeling industry is abuzz about what it means to be beautiful.
Fashion Week's first plus-sized designer
The New York Times recently declared it the season of the quirky model.
"It girl" of the moment Cara Delevingne sports full, bushy brows and self-deprecating, goofy Instagrams to match. She also suffers from psoriasis, an autoimmune disease that often results in splotchy red patches on the skin. A recent flare-up served as an accessory to a red Versace gown during Milan Fashion Week in February 2013.
"It only happened during Fashion Week!" Delevingne told W Magazine.
"Which is, of course, the worst time of the year for me to be covered in scabs. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, and I'm sensitive. Kate (Moss) saw me before the Louis Vuitton show at 3 a.m., when I was being painted by people to cover the scabs."
Meanwhile, Lindsey Wixson with her "bee-stung lips" and gap teeth glided down the runway for top designers Rebecca Minkoff and Zac Posen, among others, during New York Fashion Week.
Ukrainian model Masha Tyelna's otherworldly eyes pierce the cameras, while Andrej Pejic continues to push limits with crossover between menswear and womenswear. Charlotte Free rocks pink hair, while Saskia de Brauw sports a short, grunge haircut -- and challenges the notion that models must be in their late teens by continuing to work at age 32.
High fashion, minus the labels
Some argue there isn't enough racial diversity in modeling, such as model-turned-activist Bethann Hardison, who sent a memo to Fashion Week organizers on behalf of the Diversity Coalition, an advocacy group that champions diversity on the runway.
"Eyes are on an industry that season after season watches fashion design houses consistently use one or no models of color," Hardison wrote to the Council of Fashion Designers of America, as well as to the British Fashion Council and the governing fashion week bodies for Paris and Milan.
"No matter the intention, the result is racism," she continues; the memo went on to call out specific designers who featured zero or only a couple of black models during their last season.
CNN Explains: New York Fashion Week
Fashion Week's first plus-sized designer
Go inside New York Fashion Week
According to Noah Shelley and Angus Munro, two of the most influential casting directors during New York Fashion Week, one part of casting is a designer's aesthetic: Does it make sense to put a rock 'n' roll girl in a romantic gown?
But the majority is based on instinct.
"When an 'it girl' arrives, to an untrained eye, you wouldn't give her a second glance," Munro told CNN after Opening Ceremony debuted its spring collection at Fashion Week, where models were juxtaposed with flashy sports cars and Justin Bieber and Rihanna watched from the front row.
"Models are supposed to be aspirational, unreal characters," Munro said. "The fact that they are abnormally tall, perfectly proportioned and have amazing skin, it's because we're creating a picture. It entices someone to buy something."
Shelley said that when he and Munro make casting decisions, there are a limited number of diverse models. They have seen a growing number of Asian models, as that area of the world has become one of the fastest growing markets for luxury goods.
"All the shows essentially want the best of the best," Shelley said.
In a statement, the British Fashion Council said the lack of ethnic models is also a multitiered problem, from who the agencies decide to sign to what designers request.
"The British Fashion Council does not organize model castings for London Fashion Week, although, as its governing body, strongly asserts that all participating designers should recognize that London is one of the most multicultural cities in the world and should consider reflecting this demographic at their shows and presentations," it said in its response to the Diversity Coalition's memo.
This season, Munro and Shelley say that personality and quirk appeals because of the intensity of model turnover.
During the era of the supermodel, the faces of Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell transcended the runway -- often into mainstream media -- for years.
Now, a model's look can be in and out of vogue in a matter of a few seasons.
A day in the life of a model
It can be a matter of a model having the right look at the right time, whether heroin chic, like Kate Moss in the 1990s, or the androgynous look spurred by Agyness Deyn in the mid-2000s.
"The world has to want what that girl offers at that exact time," Shelley said.
But Shelley and Munro try not to cross the line from quirk into novelty.
"There's a fine line between an interesting event and a spectacle," Shelley said. "It's a spectacle when it becomes more about people wanting to identify with the strange."
Ross, the model with albinism, is a tricky one to cast, Munro said.
"That guy is unbelievably good-looking in an unbelievably bizarre way. But many designers haven't thought that way," he said.
Ross summed up his attitude with a hashtag he uses to his growing social media following, #InMySkinIWin, which he says promotes a level of comfort with yourself. He started it to raise albinism awareness, but has since expanded the meaning to just loving who you are.
"It's the DIY generation," Ross said. "Kids are becoming muses because they understand that what it takes to be successful is to be desirable and confident."
Follow Sarah LeTrent and on Twitter and Instagram for dispatches from New York Fashion Week.


text: Nate McMillan played 18 minutes before leaving with an as-yet unidentified leg injury. Frankly, I think it hasn't been identified because it doesn't exist. I think Mac wanted attention and Lord knows he wasn't going to get it on the Supersonics – the best team that no one really wants to watch. This won't affect […]Please, blog, may I have some more?


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Help for Venues
SpaceFinder NYC is a matchmaking tool for renters looking for creative space, and spaces looking to promote their rentals. Powered by nonprofit Fractured Atlas, SpaceFinder NYC is free to list or search for space.
Fractured Atlas' friendly support staff are available Monday thru Friday via firstname.lastname@example.com or 888-692-7878 X228.
For "quick fix" answers see frequently answered questions below.
Additional resources can be found in the SpaceFinder Knowledge Base.
I forgot my password, how do I reset it?
No problem! Click here: Reset My Password
How do I list my space?
Go to this link to get started.
My account was created by someone else at my venue who is no longer there, how do I get access?
Rather than starting a new account from scratch, contact Fractured Atlas and we'll update the Admin access on the existing SpaceFinder account for your space.
I have multiple spaces, can I just create one listing for my whole facility?
You could, but you are missing out on a smart (and free) marketing opportunity to promote of each individual space and be matched to renters search. We have a handy "clone" listing option, to save you time creating multiple listings.
For details, check out Using Clone to Create Multiple Listings
How much does it cost to list my space?
It is 100% free to list your space, upload a calendar, and accept online bookings. If you choose to secure payment from renters upfront, there is a fee for processing payment.
How can I boost my ranking in the directory?
SpaceFinder rewards boosted ranking to the listings who are offer more convenience to busy renters looking for space. Specifically uploading a calendar, enabling space requests, and accepting credit card payment are all ways to both offer convenience and boost your visibility.
For details, check out: How to get Boosted in Search Results
How do I upload a calendar to display up-to-date availability?
Uploading a calendar is a smart way to advertise your unbooked times to those actively looking for space. The most common online calendar people use on our system is Google, but you can also use Yahoo, Outlook, and MindBody. It's an easy copy and paste of the calendar web address, just takes a few minutes and the calendar displayed in your listing automatically updates daily.
For details, check out: 3 Steps to Uploading a Calendar
How does online booking work?
Online booking is a great way to streamline rental requests, payments, receipts and automatic reminders to renters.
For details, check out: Booking Engine Features & Benefits


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Can money really buy power? Looking at this year's congressional campaigns, it sure didn't hurt.
Millions of dollars are poured into tight Congressional campaigns in the hopes that more money, and in turn more advertising, will help candidates win elections.
Out of the 10 top Senate campaigns nationwide, the top spenders in eight won reelection, according to a Hearst analysis of the top most expensive Congressional elections nationwide. That goes down to six in the House.
Here's a breakdown of the most expensive campaigns and the top Senate and House spenders who won, or didn't.
1. Massachusetts at $70,535,860
Big spender: Democrat Elizabeth Warren with $35,694,573
Winner: Warren
2. Connecticut at $52,483,032
Big spender: Republican Linda McMahon with $36,072,245
Winner: Democrat Chris Murphy, who only spent $8,611,343
3. Texas at $50,105,888
Big spender: Republican Ted Cruz with $10,949,578
Winner: Cruz
4. Missouri at $32,912,609
Big spender: Democrat Claire McCaskill with $17,443,642
Winner: McCaskill
5. Ohio at$32,483,713
Big spender: Democrat Sherrod Brown with $19,530,017
Winner: Brown
6. Virginia at $31,685,776
Big spender: Democrat Tim Kaine with $18,624,299
Winner: Kaine
7. Pennsylvania at $30,522,844
Big spender: Republican Tom Smith with $17,377,924
Winner: Democratic Sen. Bob Casey who spent $10,711,395
8. Wisconsin at $28,028,723
Big spender: Democrat Tammy Baldwin with $11,681,969
Winner: Baldwin
9. Florida at $23,501,053
Big spender: Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson with $12,492,376
Winner: Nelson
10. Michigan at $19,755,340
Big spender: Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow with $12,076,286
Winner: Stabenow
1. Minnesota District 06: $20,819,409
Big spender: Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann $19,290,861
Winner: Bachmann
2. Ohio District 08: $20,001,287
Big spender: House Speaker Rep. John Boehner with $19,992,465
Winner: Boehner. (He also ran with no major party opposition.)
3. Florida District 18: $17,299,333*
Big spender: Republican Rep. Allen West with $13,772,741
Winner: Democrat Patrick Murphy who spent $3,432,203
4. Connecticut District 05: $11,846,055
Big spender: Former state Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., with $2,753,460
Winner: Esty
5. California District 30: $10,338,894
Big spender: Democratic Rep. Howard Berman with $5,364,071
Winner: Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman with $4,928,158
6. Texas District 33: $8,115,551
Big spender: Democrat Marc Veasey with $1,007,382
Winner: Veasey
7. California District 33: $7,817,931
Big spender: Independent Bill Bloomfield with $5,654,105
Winner: Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman with $1,761,263
8. New York District 27: $7,524,128
Big spender: Democratic incumbent Rep. Kathy Hochul with $3,651,659
Winner: Republican Chris Collins who spent $982,093
9. Virginia District 07: $7,226,255
Big spender: Majority leader Rep. Eric Cantor with $6,608,256
Winner: Cantor
10. Washington District 01: $6,915,275
Big spender: Democrat Suzan DelBene with $4,118,983
Winner: DelBene


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A Lomita chef who said he loved his missing wife and hoped she returned home safely was found guilty Thursday of murdering her and cooking her body in boiling water to destroy any trace of the crime.
The panel in Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles took about five hours over three days to convict David Viens of second-degree murder, a crime that carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.
"My opinion is if he was innocent he wouldn't have jumped off a cliff," said juror Tal Erickson, 46, of West Los Angeles.
The 49-year-old owner of the defunct Thyme Contemporary Cafe stared straight ahead and appeared to look toward the ceiling as the court clerk read the verdict. As a bailiff wheeled him from the courtroom, Viens gestured to his mother, Sandra Viens, that he would call her.
His mother, contacted later by the Daily Breeze, refused to comment and hung up the phone.
The verdict brought an end to a three-year mystery that began when 39-year-old Dawn Viens disappeared. She was last seen on Oct. 18, 2009.
"It's very, very difficult trying to find the words to express what this ordeal has been like," said Dawn Viens' sister, Dayna Papin, who sat through the two-week trial, listening as prosecutors played a recording of Viens' confession, describing how he bound and gagged her sister with duct tape, and later boiled her body for four days.
Detectives had told Papin and her family about her sister's horrifying fate more than 15 months ago. She was unable to tell anyone until it was revealed during Viens' trial.
"My family, it's very difficult for them to understand this situation," Papin said after the verdict, drinking water to calm nausea. "It's so surreal. This experience has been so surreal."
The mystery of "Where is Dawn?" began in October 2009, when Dawn Viens suddenly vanished, failing to accompany her friend, Karen Patterson, to a doctor's appointment. Patterson had just learned she had cancer, and her friend vowed to see her through the treatment.
Patterson went looking for her friend at the restaurant, where Dawn Viens worked as a hostess in the family business. She found David Viens agitated, sweaty, with a bandage covering a burn on his arm.
Three weeks later, Patterson, her husband, Mike Wade, and Papin filed a missing person report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Nobody at the time knew that Dawn Viens was already dead, her body liquefied in boiling water and poured into the restaurant's grease trap, her skull and jawbone hidden in his mother's attic.
Days passed. Months passed. Viens took on a new girlfriend, Kathy Galvan, a Thyme waitress who stepped into Dawn Viens' job at the restaurant. Viens refused to do interviews. An attorney told the Daily Breeze he would not talk because "the husband is always considered a suspect."
In April 2010, a Daily Breeze reporter confronted Viens outside his kitchen. He spoke of his wife in the past tense.
"I loved my wife. I miss her," he said. "I want to put up a cash reward, but I'm broke."
Viens said he expected his wife to come home one day, probably when ski season was over. Asked if he wanted his wife of more than 15 years to return, he said, "I want her to be safe."
In August 2010, a sheriff's department missing person detective — unable to find any bank transaction, traffic ticket or anything else to prove Dawn Viens was alive — handed the case to homicide detectives to investigate.
Viens and Galvan moved to Torrance, allowing detectives access to the Lomita house Viens once shared with his wife. They found blood spatter in a bedroom and a blood stain in the bathroom.
Suspecting Viens had killed his wife, investigators put Viens under surveillance, placing a camera on a pole outside his restaurant and wiretapping his cellphone.
Trying to see what Viens would do, the detectives supplied information about the blood and their suspicions about Viens to a Daily Breeze reporter, figuring a news story might "stimulate" their suspect into making a phone call or doing something incriminating while they were listening and watching. The reporter informed Viens that an article would appear the next morning.
At the same time, a homicide detective was in South Carolina, talking with Viens' daughter, Jacqueline Viens. Jacqueline Viens knew the truth, just not everything.
She told detectives that while drinking with her father one night in Los Angeles, he admitted to accidentally killing his wife. He said he covered her mouth with duct tape because she was "raising hell" when he wanted to sleep. He took an Ambien and went to sleep. When he awakened four hours later, she was dead.
He told her he put her stepmother's body in a trash bag and tossed it into a garbage bin behind his restaurant.
And, she told detectives, her father had once joked that if he had to ever get rid of a body, he would cook it.
"I'm a chef," he told her.
The next morning, Feb. 23, 2011, Viens awakened early and went out to pick up the newspaper. The headline declared him a "person of interest" in what detectives believed was a homicide. Viens returned home upset, crying and apologizing to his girlfriend, admitting he had killed her.
"No one will believe me," he told her.
A despondent Viens drove his girlfriend toward Rancho Palos Verdes, receiving a call from his daughter telling him she had talked. Deputies, who had been watching Viens and listening to his phone calls, pulled in behind him. Galvan grabbed the steering wheel as Viens drove up to 80 mph toward the cliff, fearing he was about to drive over the edge.
Viens stopped next to the cliff, got out and climbed a fence. Galvan and a deputy tried to stop him from jumping, but he leaped feet-first, his arms outstretched, screaming as he fell.
Rescued quickly, and without any head injuries, Viens survived the 80-foot drop that shattered a leg, his pelvis and other bones, and put him in a wheelchair. In the hospital six days after the plunge, as deputies and coroner's officials dug up his restaurant in search of his wife's remains, Viens confessed to detectives.
"Duct tape," he said, explaining he threw her body in the garbage.
Two weeks later, Viens asked the detectives to return. He wanted to talk again. He had something to get off his chest. He explained how he disposed of his wife's body, boiling her at night for four days in his restaurant kitchen. During the day, while the restaurant was open for customers, he wheeled the huge pot with her body inside to a storage shed at the restaurant's rear, detectives said.
When he was done serving customers during the day, he spent the nights cooking his wife's remains.
Viens told detectives he hid his wife's head and jawbone, the only thing that could identify her, in his mother's attic. They have never been found.
In court this week, Viens' attorney, Fred McCurry, told jurors that Dawn Viens' death was an accident, not a murder. Viens had gagged his wife before and did not intend to kill her.
But homicide Sgt. Richard Garcia and Deputy District Attorney Deborah Brazil did not believe the death was an accident. The night Dawn Viens died, Viens told a friend he suspected his wife of stealing a few hundred dollars from the restaurant. "I'll kill the bitch," he threatened.
And, Patterson testified, Viens had choked his wife previously, causing marks to her neck.
For two weeks, jurors listened, faced with the decision of premeditated first-degree murder, a lesser second-degree charge, or manslaughter. An acquittal was unlikely, although Viens' attorney told jurors they should disregard the confession Viens made describing his gruesome body disposal.
Erickson, the juror, said the panel considered first- and second-degree murder, and settled on second "based on the evidence." The threat Viens made to kill his wife was not enough for first-degree, he said, adding plenty of people have made similar threats.
Jurors used Viens own words from his confessions to convict him, Erickson said.
"His testimony basically said what he did," the juror said. "He was read his Miranda rights. Everything you say can be used against you in a court of law."
Some jurors, he said, had trouble sleeping after listening to the disturbing confessions.
"I think he has anger management problems," Erickson said. "He's shown no remorse, no apology, nothing."
Papin said she started crying the minute the jury buzzed the courtroom three times at 10:30 a.m. Thursday to indicate they had reached a verdict.
She bowed her head and wept as the verdict was read.
Papin later thanked the detectives, prosecutors, jurors, Patterson and Wade, and others for their work in pursuing Viens and bringing justice.
"It means he has to pay for what he did," Papin said. "He tried to get away with it."
Patterson, who often socialized with the Vienses with her husband, and helped design his restaurant kitchen, said she "loved Dawn like a sister."
"My good friend murdered, my good friend," she said.
Patterson said she remains upset that she chose not to call the police when Dawn Viens told her about the domestic violence incidents, including one where she had locked herself in the bathroom. Dawn Viens had told her not to.
"We all need to listen to friends who reach out to us," she said.
Patterson said she might visit Viens in prison to tell him how much his wife loved him.
"Through all of this he is still my friend," Patterson said. "I hope he knows that the week before he killed her, Dawn loved him so much."
Judge Rand Rubin scheduled sentencing for Viens on Nov. 27. Viens, who has been behind bars since his suicide attempt from the cliff, previously served a short prison term in Florida for drug dealing.
Reprinted with permission. email@example.com.