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- MPS I Disease
- Treatment
- Living with MPS I
- Resources
- Patient Support
- HealthCare Professionals
ALDURAZYME® (laronidase) is a prescription only medication indicated for patients with Hurler and Hurler-Scheie forms of Mucopolysaccharidosis I (MPS I) and for patients with the Scheie form who have moderate to severe symptoms. The risks and benefits of treating mildly affected patients with the Scheie form have not been established.
ALDURAZYME has been shown to improve pulmonary function and walking capacity. ALDURAZYME has not been evaluated for effects on the central nervous system manifestations of the disorder.
WARNING: Risk of anaphylaxis.
Life-threatening anaphylactic reactions have been observed in some patients during ALDURAZYME® infusions. Therefore, appropriate medical support should be readily available when ALDURAZYME is administered. Patients with compromised respiratory function or acute respiratory disease may be at risk of serious acute exacerbation of their respiratory compromise due to infusion reactions, and require additional monitoring.
Anaphylaxis and severe allergic reactions have been observed in patients during or up to 3 hours after ALDURAZYME infusions. Some of these reactions were life-threatening and included respiratory failure, respiratory distress, stridor, tachypnea, bronchospasm, obstructive airways disorder, hypoxia, hypotension, bradycardia, and urticaria. If anaphylactic or other severe allergic reactions occur, immediately discontinue the infusion of ALDURAZYME and initiate appropriate treatment. Caution should be exercised if epinephrine is being considered for use in patients with MPS I due to the increased prevalence of coronary artery disease in these patients. Interventions have included resuscitation, mechanical ventilatory support, emergency tracheotomy, hospitalization, and treatment with inhaled beta-adrenergic agonists, epinephrine, and IV corticosteroids.
In clinical studies and postmarketing safety experience with ALDURAZYME, approximately 1% of patients experienced severe or serious allergic reactions. In patients with MPS I, pre-existing upper airway obstruction may have contributed to the severity of some reactions. Due to the potential for severe allergic reactions, appropriate medical support should be readily available when ALDURAZYME is administered. Because of the potential for recurrent reactions, some patients who experience initial severe reactions may require prolonged observation.
The risks and benefits of re-administering ALDURAZYME following an anaphylactic or severe allergic reaction should be considered. Extreme care should be exercised, with appropriate resuscitation measures available, if the decision is made to re-administer the product.
Patients with an acute febrile or respiratory illness at the time of ALDURAZYME infusion may be at greater risk for infusion reactions. Careful consideration should be given to the patient's clinical status prior to administration of ALDURAZYME and consider delaying ALDURAZYME infusion.
Sleep apnea is common in MPS I patients. Evaluation of airway patency should be considered prior to initiation of treatment with ALDURAZYME. Patients using supplemental oxygen or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) during sleep should have these treatments readily available during infusion in the event of an infusion reaction or extreme drowsiness/sleep induced by antihistamine use.
Caution should be exercised when administering ALDURAZYME to patients susceptible to fluid overload or patients with an acute underlying respiratory illness or compromised cardiac and/or respiratory function for whom fluid restriction is indicated. These patients may be at risk of serious exacerbation of their cardiac or respiratory status during infusions. Appropriate medical support and monitoring measures should be readily available during ALDURAZYME infusion, and some patients may require prolonged observation times that should be based on the individual needs of the patient.
Because of the potential for infusion reactions, patients should receive antipyretics and/or antihistamines prior to infusion. If an infusion-related reaction occurs, regardless of pre-treatment, decreasing the infusion rate, temporarily stopping the infusion, or administering additional antipyretics and/or antihistamines may ameliorate the symptoms.
The most serious adverse reactions reported with ALDURAZYME treatment during clinical trials were anaphylactic and allergic reactions.
In a 26-week, placebo-controlled clinical trial in patients 6 years and older, the most commonly reported infusion reactions regardless of treatment group were flushing, pyrexia, headache, and rash. Flushing occurred in 5 patients (23%) receiving ALDURAZYME; the other reactions were less frequent. Less common infusion reactions included angioedema (including face edema), hypotension, paresthesia, feeling hot, hyperhidrosis, tachycardia, vomiting, back pain, and cough. Other reported adverse reactions included bronchospasm, dyspnea, urticaria, and pruritus. In the open-label, uncontrolled extension phase of this clinical trial, the infusion reactions were similar, but also included abdominal pain or discomfort and injection site reaction. Less commonly reported infusion reactions included nausea, diarrhea, feeling hot or cold, vomiting, pruritus, arthralgia and urticaria. Additional common adverse reactions included, back pain and musculoskeletal pain.
In an open-label, uncontrolled clinical trial in patients 6 years and younger who received ALDURAZYME treatment for up to 52 weeks, the most commonly reported serious adverse events (regardless of relationship) in patients 6 years and younger, were otitis media (20%), and central venous catherization required for ALDURAZYME infusion (15%). The most commonly reported adverse reactions in patients 6 years and younger were infusion reactions reported in 35% (7 of 20) of patients and included pyrexia (30%), chills (20%), blood pressure increased (10%), tachycardia (10%), and oxygen saturation decreased (10%). Other commonly reported infusion reactions occurring in ≥5% of patients were pallor, tremor, respiratory distress, wheezing, crepitations (pulmonary), pruritus, and rash.
In postmarketing experience with ALDURAZYME, severe and serious infusion reactions have been reported, some of which were life-threatening, including anaphylactic shock. Adverse reactions resulting in death reported in the postmarketing setting with ALDURAZYME treatment included cardio-respiratory arrest, respiratory failure, cardiac failure, and pneumonia. These events have been reported in MPS I patients with significant underlying disease. Additional common adverse reactions included erythema and cyanosis. There have been a small number of reports of extravasation in patients treated with ALDURAZYME. There have been no reports of tissue necrosis associated with extravasation. Because these reactions are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to drug exposure.
In clinical trials, 99 of 102 patients (97%) treated with ALDURAZYME were positive for IgG antibodies to ALDURAZYME. In the 2 trials of patients 6 years and older, 9 patients who experienced severe infusion reactions were tested for ALDURAZYME-specific IgE antibodies and complement activation. One of the nine patients had an anaphylactic reaction consisting of urticaria and airway obstruction and tested positive for both ALDURAZYME-specific IgE binding antibodies and complement activation. In the postmarketing setting, approximately 1% of patients experienced severe or serious infusion-allergic reactions and tested positive for IgE. Of these IgE-positive patients, some have discontinued treatment, but some have been successfully re-challenged. The clinical significance of antibodies to ALDURAZYME, including the potential for product neutralization, is not known.
ALDURAZYME is available by prescription only. Please see the Full Prescribing Information including Boxed Warning (PDF).


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As developers and IT pros you need to do all the things everyone else does to prepare for a job interview such as update and focus your resume as well as work on your communication and presentation skills. However, you also have the technical interview to deal with.
The good news is if you make it this far in the interview process, you've likely got a good shot at the position. How you prepare for this (or not prepare for this) can cost you the job. We spoke with CEOs, recruiters and other industry experts who agree you simply can't just go in there and muddle your way through it. You've got to prepare in a number of ways.
[Hot Products from VMworld 2013]
Technical Interviews are, for many companies, used for only the top candidates. This is a time-consuming and expensive task for employers and a stressful addition to the interview process for the candidates. "If we have three finalists for a role, this is where we do a technical interview to see who is the most proficient," says John Reed, Senior Executive Director at Robert Half Technology.
It's a chance for hiring managers to evaluate how you approach real-world problems, how you problem-solve, and the depth and breadth of your knowledge on the skills you're being hired for. It can consist of coding challenges, word problems, peer discussions, puzzles and brain teasers.
"All of this takes a lot of everybody's time and, although it's expensive, it's still a lot cheaper than having them wash out," says Rick Endres, president of The Washington Network.
Some employers will give homework in the form of a programming or logic problems to do before the interview. This eliminates more people out before the technical interview, says Endres. "Most people just want to show up and hope they can make it through the interview. Requiring this ahead of time really cuts down on the amount of spam," says Endres.
If you're really serious about getting the job, however, a little homework isn't going to slow you down. Beginning a job search is like taking on a new job in and of itself. It's not easy and there are many roadblocks, but the payoff is going to a job you love. So let's get started.
Be Articulate and Communicate Clearly
In a technical interview, or any job interview for that matter, communication is a deal-breaker. Interviewers don't know why they should hire you. That reason is what you need to be able to articulate through your answers to their questions, the stories of your achievements and the questions you ask. "Companies want to see the candidate think in "real time" and while you may be brilliant at what you do, in an interview you have to be able to communicate this brilliance," says Ed Nathanson, director of talent acquisition with Rapid7.
A good practice, according to Nathanson, is to spend some time going over what you would like to cover and how you want to present yourself.
"You are selling you - so know your product and your audience, and have a plan going in. Study the job description, do some research on the people you will be meeting and definitely do some homework on the company beyond just their products," says Nathanson. Check out social media places where you can research the company and its people like LinkedIn, Facebook and Glassdoor.
Be Ready to Whiteboard
While whiteboarding isn't a standard requirement for technical interviews, it happens often enough that you need to practice a bit. "This is a key way to prepare, because it is often used to interview candidates. Practicing on the whiteboard and being prepared to do so ahead of the interview can often make a big difference, especially to those to whom this kind of interaction does not come naturally," says Nathanson.
Be Familiar With the Job Listing
The best resource is the job listing itself. Human Resources puts a lot of time, thought and energy into these, and they will give you a deeper insight into the technologies used at the prospective company and how you may best apply your knowledge and skills to the problems they face.
"If it's in the job description, it's important to be able to talk to it and how you may solve the problems they are looking to fix. Make sure you really understand the technical requirements outlined in the job description. They were put there to provide guidance on what the company is looking for to ensure candidates are the right fit," says Nathanson.
Refresh on the Core Principles and Basics
Brush up on any aspects of the prospective programming language that may be rusty to you, or perhaps you know only the broad strokes, but could learn more. Expect questions ranging from the fundamentals to some higher-level concepts and anywhere in between.
What you have to be prepared for as a candidate is that you are going to have to demonstrate your programming skills and there isn't a standard process. That said, if you are interviewing for job that calls for PHP developer skills, you will probably want to brush up on those skills, maybe take some online tutorials. "You want to read through and familiarize yourself with formal technical jargon and acronyms around PHP. This is a good idea because many times when you go in and you have the skills and can perform the tasks, what you call something may not match up with the formal terminology, says Reed.
Bring in a Portfolio of Your Work
It's always a good idea to bring in a notebook with your work or a portfolio to show interviewers. "Bring in your code; bring in your network design diagrams. It could include proposals you've written or the parts you've contributed. We're looking for writing ability and the ability to communicate technical thoughts and recommendations. In that work product that you bring is also about the tools in your tool bag. We want to know what tools you use and what your mastery of those tools are. What tools do you use to manage your technology and people?" says Endres.
Prepare Yourself Mentally
We all have bad days, but when getting ready for the technical interview, as with most other interviews, you need to mentally focus and put yourself at ease. The day of your interview you need to get yourself in the right mindset. This is different for different people but there are some things that work for many. For example, you could try working on logic problems, listening to classical music simply poring over your notes.
"Mentally preparing yourself is really important. A lot of it is in the mindset you carry into the interview from a preparation standpoint. If you have a morning interview, are you up early enough? Are you creating a quiet reflective environment where you can really start to get your mind going to prepare for what's coming ahead? Go over your notes and terminology, prepare some mental notes. Think about things you want to say in the interview that demonstrates your expertise and ask yourself how will I say that? Think about what questions the interviewer will ask you. Then think about what you'd say to that," says Reed.
Don't Be Afraid to Ask Questions
"If they ask you a technical question, make sure you understand it before diving in and answering. If you don't know the answer, that doesn't mean you're dead in the water," says Tracy Cashman, a technology search consultant with WinterWyman.
There are two things to do. First, you may actually know the answer but you're nervous and you forget. "Be honest about it. Just apologize and say something like, 'I just used that command last week, but if I was on the job here is what I would do to find the answer.' That way you're walking them through the problem and showing them you're resourceful," says Cashman.
Second, says Cashman, if it's something you really don't know, you can say something along these lines, "Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to work with C#; however, I have so much experience in VB.NET that I feel like I can transition easily."
Cashman adds, though: "Don't ever fudge it. If you're sure you don't know, don't pretend you do. Try and draw a parallel or make a connection between something relative that you have worked with." says Cashman.
You want to absolutely make sure you understand the question and then you want to finish up with a confirming question. Did that answer your question? Did I provide you with the answer you are looking for? Is there any part you'd like me to go into more detail on? "Don't assume, because many times there can be a disconnect, so ask them to confirm or clarify on the front end, answer the question and then confirm it on the backend," says Reed.
Have a Strong Closing
Many interviews end awkwardly or flat. Instead use this time to express your enthusiasm for the role and to let the interviewer know why you are the right person for the job. This is a great time to work in some of the points that you wanted to be sure you expressed to the hiring managers.
After the meeting, jot down any notes, thoughts or feedback you have while the memories are still fresh in your head. You should also write down the interviewers' names, roles and any other relevant information.
Follow-up and Send a Thank You Note
As with any interview, you want the interviewer to remember you for the right reasons and a thank you note with some additional details or thoughts will help do just that. Think about the interview and address any feedback you were given.
Prepare Yourself With These Sample Technical Questions
Cashman offers some actual questions and problems that employers use to qualify candidates. Each set of questions will be unique to the position and they will range from the core fundamentals to the higher principles, depending on the role at hand. However, these will give you some insight into what to expect. You can also look online to find some more of the common technical questions associated with your particular arena of knowledge.
Linux Engineer Questions
If a system fails and has to be rebooted what tool can we use took at monitoring and CPU usage for the past week?
If I need to set a U limit parameter higher than what the user is allowed, how do I do it?
If I want to make sure Init service does not come up at reboot, what do I do?
I'm adding disk space to a virtual system: How do I make it show up?
How do you extend a file system in LVM?
.NET Questions
What are the general page life-cycle stages for an ASP.NET page?
What is Polymorphism?
What are some of the advantages of Generics?
Design a many-To-many relationship between two tables
Design patterns: What are they, why are they used? Ttalk about a few of them and describe how you have used them in the past?
What are some of the available .NET collection types? Give a quick comparison of their differences and explain why you would want to use one versus the other?
OOP Design Type Questions
How would you design a file system using class diagrams? What datastructures would you use and why?
How would you design an account management system where each account could be an index or a client account? Each account has holdings, each holding has related security information and holdings can consist of multiple lots for pricing purposes. How would you model this?
How would you design a class structure for animals in a zoo?
Coding Challenge Sample
We are looking for a solution that is compact and runs quickly. What quickly means to us depends on the language you use, but it should take no longer than 500 milliseconds to run. Please use what language you are most comfortable with. However, please know that we do not have Visual Studio so C++ solutions should have the ability to compile with the standard G++.
Consider a word as any sequence of capital letters A-Z, not limited to just dictionary words. For any word with at least two different letters there are other words composed of the same letters but in a different order. For instance, stationarily and antiroyalist, which happen to both be dictionary words. For our purpose alianrostily is also a word composed of the same letters as these two. We can then assign a number to every word based on where it falls within an alphabetically sorted list of all words made up of the same set of letters.
One way to do this would be to generate the entire list of words and then find the desired ones, but this would be slow if the word is long. Write a program that takes a word as a command line argument and prints to standard output its number. Do not use the method above of generating the entire list. Your program should be able to accept any word 25 letters or less in length possibly with some letters repeated. It should use no more than 1 gig of memory and take no more than 500 milliseconds to run.
Some companies will have traditional processes and some will give you creative problems to solve. Some have gaming situations or puzzles and many times says Reed, "It's not about having the right answer, it's about gaining insight into how you understand a problem and how you approach solving that problem. There's as much insight there as there is in the question [and] answer?"
This story, "How to Prepare for (and Ace) the Technical Interview" was originally published by CIO.

subset: commoncrawl


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Today is the last day for all the amazing deals in July! DON'T MISS OUT!!
If you love Designer Paper, NOW is the time to stock up with the BUY 3 GET 1 FREE Sale
ALSO: you may now purchase the new colors added to the STAMPIN' BLENDS Markers
Click HERE to shop for the Stampin' Blends Markers
NOW is the best time to sign up to be a part of Christi's Creative Crew. Not only will get you get $125.00 in product of your choice for only $99 + Tax, you will also receive an added 10 Ink Pads in the color family of your choice.
We added two wonderful ladies to our team already this month!! Welcome Jeanne and Debbie!!
Click HERE to check out all the color families
You may also choose from the In-Color families HERE (2018-2020)
OR HERE for the 2017-2019 collection
And if that is not enough, if you join Stampin' Up! in July you can preorder this limited-time product promotion that will be available to customers in August. This is a fantastic bundle that includes more watercolor pencil colors!!
Check it out!! between July 11 and August 10 you can get 50% off your first month of Paper Pumpkin if you are a NEW subscriber!!
An added incentive to subscribing to Paper Pumpkin is that I hold a FREE class every month (3rd Thursday of the month) where we come together to put our kits together. It's great to bounce ideas off one another and this FREE class is open to anyone who subscribes under me or if you are on my team and have Paper Pumpkin Subscription. We just love to get together!!
Christi Waite, Christi's Creative Crew
Here is the list to my quick links to contact me or to shop with me...
Shop Stampin' Up! Christi's Store
Like my Facebook Page
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Join Paper Pumpkin with me
Shop the Clearance Rack - Save up to 60%
Thanks so very much for letting me be your Stampin' Up! Demonstrator


text:
Walworth County Parcel Search Application
Walworth County Parcel Information
Document Results
This is not official information. All official information is available in the Land Information office.
Click on the linked document numbers below to view additional recording information.
Copyright @ 2012 Walworth County Government. All Rights Reserved.
100 W Walworth, Elkhorn, WI 53121


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We've grown pretty accustomed to photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin topless, whether he's nonchalantly riding a horse or casually walking beside a mountain stream. But this time, the shirt is on the other torso. While visiting Hannover, Germany, to meet with European leaders, Putin was blitzed by three topless members of the women's rights group Femen, who shouted slogans at the Russian leader and called him a "dictator" before being escorted away. Still, the incident was just long enough to produce an unscripted and amazingly goofy reaction from the usually dour Putin, whose face expressed pretty much the same emotion as any human when presented with a lunging half-naked woman. As caught in Gawker's hilarious and probably not-safe-for-work GIF, the Russian leader immediately gave two thumbs up as he ogled the nude kamikaze protester. (He may not have been as big a fan if he could read the "obscene slogan" written in Cyrillic on her back, as the Telegraph termed it.)
Femen took credit for the protest on their Facebook page, according to the Telegraph, calling it an "antidictatorial attack on Putin." The group has previously targeted Putin over the arrest and conviction of members of the feminist punk collective Pussy Riot — two of whom are still doing time in Russian labor camps — after they performed an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral. The Russian President was also greeted later that same day with protests in Amsterdam over what gay-rights groups call Moscow's "institutional repression" of gays and lesbians, Reuters reported.
"Regarding this performance, I liked it," a grinning Putin said later about the topless protests, according to Reuters. "I did not catch what they were shouting. I did not even see if they were blondes, brunettes or chestnut-haired."


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RoGizz Presents Black Blago - What's His Name [Unsigned Hype]
"RoGizz presents "What's His Name" featuring Ladie Jae, April Showers & Carleasa. Meet Black Blago...the corrupt political pimp from Chicago and alter ego of rapper RoGizz. This is a hip hop tale about Politics vs. Principles, Purity vs. Pimpin', Honesty vs. Disloyalty, Love vs. Lust. "Black Blago" believes everybody gotta "Pay to Play". Maybe Rod Blagojevich didn't go to prison after all???"
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
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You wouldn't spend years sitting on the couch eating chips and expect your body to be in good health, would you? Would you also expect your car to be in good condition if you neglected it for years?
The truth is, we need to take care of our things. And you can save a lot of money by taking care of your car. Here is my top 5 list for saving money on car repairs (and keeping up your resale value.)
#1 Perform all scheduled maintenance
Air Filters, brake pads, transmission fluids, fans, alternators, oil filters, belts, fuses, lights, windshield wipers, spark plugs.... This is just a small list of the things that need to be maintained and that can easily fail. Having your car routinely checked out can save you on major headaches in the future.
#2 Keep it clean
Why would you spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle, just to use it as your trash heap? If your kids throw cheerios on the floor, pick them up! Or better yet, have a no eating in the car policy (that will keep your car clean and help your waistline!).
I have a friend that let her children stick gum all over the seats in her brand new minivan. Her husband ended up cutting the gum out of the seats. What a waste! Their car lost a tremendous amount of value when they cut apart the seats. And you lose value by letting snow and ice rust your exterior. Or dirt and grime cause chips and dents.
And your car loses tremendous resale value if it's filthy or smells inside. Even imagine the customers/friends you might lose if they step into a dirty mess of a car.
#3 Keep your gas tank and tires full
Running out of gas will cost you big time. It may destroy your engine, but it will certainly destroy your day. You'll be late. You'll have to pay a fine or a fee for assistance. Plus keeping your tank low, makes it harder to start your car in the winter - putting extra stress on the starter and engine.
Filling your tires makes sure you get the optimum gas mileage. And it means you're checking the tires regularly for damage. A few months ago, I noticed a bulge in one of my tires and $170 later, I was told that it was only a matter of days before that tire would have blew out.
I would have been stranded. My rims and axles could have also been damaged, and if I was on the freeway, it's possible I could have been involved in a collision or serious accident.
#4 Drive responsibly and respectfully.
If you drive like a maniac, it goes without saying that you are risking your life and the lives of others. But you are also guzzling more gasoline and risking damage to your vehicle. You are also risking a ticket from the police - and the resulting increase in your insurance premiums.
Driving is a privilege, not a right. Show respect on the road!
#5 Keep your Insurance up-to-date and make sure you have enough insurance!
Make sure you keep your insurance up-to-date and make sure you have enough coverage! I can not stress this enough. About 10 years ago, my sister was in a collision while driving my car.
You can also save by preparing for future needs by signing up for programs like the Allstate Good Hands Roadside Assistance program.
It's a service offering pay-as-you-go roadside assistance. You don't need to have Allstate insurance to use this service, there are no monthly fees (you only pay when you use it!) and it's easy to sign up. You can sign up for free below:
By pre-registering, you will receive a welcome kit in the mail containing a wallet card, key fob, and window cling with the phone number for roadside help. You'll have the help available in case anything comes up.
So what are you waiting for? You can sign up using the widget today! And even better - Allstate is offering one Suburban Jungle reader a $50 Amazon Gift Card.
To Enter: Share your best piece of advice for keeping your car in top operating condition. Leave your answer in the comments below - this is a mandatory first entry and must be completed before any other entries.
Bonus Entries:
- For 2 extra entries - Leave a comment when you Register for the Allstate Roadside Assistance Program (it's free - just use the widget above and enter your email address) below telling me that you signed up. (I will tally the entries)
- For 2 extra entries - Leave a comment when you Download the mobile app and comment that you downloaded it
- For 1 extra entry -Leave a comment and your tweet url if you tweet the following: {Just entered the Allstate #ghrgiftcardgiveaway via @suburbanjung Could win a $50 Amazon Gift Card. Your turn! http://tinyurl.com/3joag3z}
- For 1 extra entry - Leave a comment with your link url if you share this giveaway on Facebook (through the widget or by including this link)


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"Every thing here in the greatest confusion"
John Rogers Cooke, to Flora Cooke Stuart, June 15, 1861, photostatic copy, Cooke Family Papers, 1855–1871, Acc. 23896, Library of Virginia.
John Rogers Cooke, after resigning from the United States Army and accepting a commission in the Confederate army, described for his sister the conditions at the army camp in Fredericksburg in mid-June 1861. He requested that his sister, the wife of James Ewell Brown Stuart, send him one of the swords that Stuart had had when on duty with the United States Army earlier in the year at Fort Riley, Kansas. Cooke mentioned the engagement at Bethel Church, near Hampton, on June 10, 1861. Cooke served ably as a brigadier general in the Confederate army throughout much of the Civil War; his father, Philip St. George Cooke, served ably as a brigadier general in the United States Army throughout the Civil War.


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Facebook soars 8% on analyst upgradesNovember 26, 2012: 12:44 PM ET
Facebook's (FB) stock is finally starting to live up to the lofty expectations that many investors had for it back in May when the company went public.
Shares of Facebook rose more than 8% Monday after analysts at Bernstein and BTIG upgraded the stock. Facebook has now rallied nearly 50% since touching a low of $17.55 in early September. The stock, currently around $26, is trading at its highest level since late July.
Of course, Facebook has a long way to go before it gets back to its initial offering price of $38.
But some traders on StockTwits are excited about the company's prospects, particularly in mobile advertising.
z8angela: $FB, being upgraded, is pushed to seal its gap. Thanks for heavy users like us who like Instagram and others who are Face book mobile users!
optionbob: Market is still wrongly positioned in $FB. Rally will likely continue. I expect to see 28 before the end of the week. Long weekly 25.5 calls
Facebook did do a good job of silencing some of the skeptics about its mobile strategy following the company's third quarter earnings report last month. And the Instagram deal, criticized by some for its hefty $1 billion price tag, may pay off after all.
Another trader noted that the Facebook surge is even more impressive considering that many experts were predicting a huge plunge once a wave of shares and restricted stock units that were locked up as part of the IPO process were eligible to be sold earlier this month.
ivanhoff: $FB is up 27% since the biggest lockup expiration in world history. The obvious rarely happens, the unexpected constantly occurs
Very true. It's a bit surprising that insiders and employees didn't dump shares on the open market once they had the chance. Then again, many of these early Facebook investors may feel that the pummeling the stock took since the IPO was an overreaction. So it may make sense to sit and wait for the stock to rise further instead of selling at what are still depressed prices.
One prominent hedge fund has also been buying Facebook. That may be fueling the rally further.
firstadopter: That was some sentiment change on $FB off the Tiger Global 13F filing re-buying in size huh?
Investors are clearly following the lead of Tiger Global and its manager Chase Coleman. Tiger also bought shares of beaten-down daily deals site Groupon (GRPN) in the third quarter. The disclosure of those transactions helped push Groupon's stock up more than 30% last week.
But this wouldn't be a story about Facebook if there weren't some nay-sayers.
One trader thinks that the excitement about mobile could prove to be fleeting. Another noted that one research firm that just raised its target price on Facebook has also made a bold call on Apple (AAPL) that isn't looking great these days.
CapitalObserver: $FB putting ads on its mobile platform is not sustainable growth. Its a one time bump.
To be fair, mobile advertising is still a relatively young business. But it's true that mobile may be more about hype than reality at this point. Keep in mind that Facebook is still trading at a hefty 40 times 2013 earnings estimates while Google (GOOG), which has arguably done a much better job with mobile already, is trading at only 14 times profit forecasts for next year.
themissal: Topeka raising $FB price target from $34 to $36... didn't they have the $AAPL $1111 target?
That is correct. Although Facebook at $36 isn't as preposterous as Apple at $1,111. For one, Facebook "only" has to rise another 40% or so to get to $36. And it has traded at that level before.
Apple, on the other hand, would have to nearly double from current levels. And the company would be worth more than $1 trillion if its stock hit Topeka's quadruple 1's target.
Then again, Apple at $1,111 would still be a cheaper stock than Facebook at $36. Facebook's P/E (assuming no change to current earnings estimates) would be 55 at a share price of $36. Apple at $1,111 would be valued at 22.5 times estimates.


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Remember this?
What else did I see with that die? (besides it's intended use?)
When I cut one out with Whisper White Card Stock I saw a chef's hat...
Our 17 year old grandson, Tyler, started a job at the Great Lakes Brewing Co. Working in the kitchen with his dad who is the top chef there.
So proud of him - too bad he got a nice (nasty) little burn on his finger from the pizza oven on his very first day.
Tyler is a "ginger" (redhead) so I brayered some TERRACOTTA TILE Ink onto Whisper White Card tock, then punched it out with a 1-1/2" circle punch. I chose to do it this way so that the hair color would be more true and not so stark. I certainly did not want to use real red card stock...LOL!
I used the NEW BRICK & MORTAR 3D embossing folder for the top layer of the card with Crumb Cake Card Stock, then I grabbed the restaurant image from on line and sized it to the size I needed.
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Robert Smart Menswear
Robert Smart Menswear is a prestigious, independent family run menswear store situated in the historic centre of the beautiful City of York, located in Low Petergate, midway between the Minster and The Shambles. Established by Robert in 1967, we can now boast over 40 years experience in the retail of menswear. We believe that every one of our customers directly benefits from the wealth of knowledge in men's clothes and fashions that we have accumulated over the years, right up to today's current trends. Our ethos is the same today as it was when the shop first opened its doors. We aim to offer an efficient and professional service, treating our customers with respect and courtesy at all times. We feature collections by leading designer brands, attracting customers with an impeccable sense of style who wish to dress in quality, fashion orientated clothing no matter their age or status.
Smart Country
Smart Country is a classic outdoor and countrywear specialist housed in a Grade II listed building at the centre of Historic York. We are located next to the Robert Smart shop.
We are Barbour stockists and are based on Low Petergate, next to Robert Smart. We have a wide range of country clothes for both men and women including Viyella shirts, RM Williams, Anatomic & Co., Stetson, Olney and Magee among others.


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The National Weather Service has issued a wind-chill advisory as the snow tapers off, winds increase and bitter cold results.
The snow continued to fall Friday morning as salt-and-plow trucks scoured the highways. But this latest round of winter weather had closed no roads nor summoned emergency responders to even a handful of weather-related fender-benders.
"We have all 23 trucks out. They've been out since 3:30 a.m.," said Eric Rehfus, highway superintendent with the Stark County Engineer's Office.
Only one truck sustained damage, but it was only out of service for about 20 minutes. Rehfus said the hydraulic line was quickly repaired and the truck was back in service.
"People just need to slow down," he said, noting the snow-covered roads and cold.
Since the snow began falling Dec. 31, nearly 6 inches has fallen in Stark County, according to the National Weather Service.
John Mayers, meteorologist with the weather service's Cleveland office, said the Akron Canton Airport reported 1.2 inches on Dec. 31, 0.7 inch on New Year's Day and 4 inches Thursday.
The snow was still falling Friday morning, but it was listed as "light to moderate" at the airport, he said around 7:30 a.m.
"That should let up throughout the morning," he said. "This is just some lake-effect snow that's occurring. The winds are out of the north-northeast right now and, around 1 o'clock, when the winds shift to out of the west, it should taper off."
But snow isn't the only hazard facing northeast Ohio.
The weather service has issued a wind chill advisory for all of Ohio, parts of Michigan and western Pennsylvania. Wind out of the north were expected to blast through the area at up to 20 mph resulting in wind chills up to 15 degrees below zero until mid-morning, the weather service said.
"A wind chill advisory is issued when strong wind will combine with cold temperatures to create dangerously cold conditions for exposed skin," the weather service's website said at www.erh.noaa.gov. "The wind will make it feel like it is 10 degrees below zero or colder for a period of several hours." The advisory is aimed at helping people avoid frostbite and hypothermia.
The wind chill in Stark County was listed on the website as 11 degrees below zero during the day Friday with winds out of the west at up to 13 mph and less than an inch of new snowfall. The temperature was expected to dip to an overnight low of 7 degrees Friday night and rise to 30 degrees on Saturday, but Saturday's wind chill was expected to be 10 degrees below zero.
Then the snow returns.
"Now it looks as though we might have something in the works for Sunday," Mayers said. "Right now we're thinking 3 to 5 inches of widespread snow. But it's still a little bit early to tell because we're not 100 percent certain of the track of the snow yet."
Reach Lori at 330-580-8309 or on Twitter: @lmonsewiczREP


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Carr was given a one-match suspension by the Football Association after the incident at the end of the corresponding fixture last season.
It was the climax to a volatile clash with Blues defender Roger Johnson fined ¦pound;5,000 for criticising match officials over the controversial penalty which earned Villa a 1-0 win.
"I'll be behaving myself this time. I'm not going through that again sitting in front of five men (FA disciplinary commission) talking to me like a child again," said Carr.
"I'll be keeping my hands to myself. Do I regret now what I did? No, that's life. Do you know what I mean?
"At that time I was quite emotional. You shouldn't regret it, that's life. It's not good but you can't regret it. I went in front of the five men for the first time and hopefully it will be the last as well. I had to apologise basically. I didn't want to but there's not a lot you can do is there?"
Carr admits the Blues players are determined to make amends for last season's setback.
He said: "The players were angry last time because we put a lot of hard work into the game, played really well and for a bad decision to take the game away is very disappointing.
"But it's gone now and it's a new season and hopefully we will go there and get a result. We were a bit unlucky last time. If we go there and do what we did last time, I'm sure we'll come away with the result.
"I love derby games. I can't wait for it. The atmosphere and everything is brilliant. I'm really looking forward to going there. A derby game is special at any club. It's what it means to the fans with the bragging rights until we play them again.
"At the end of the day, for the players it's about getting points on the board. It's a different thing for the fans obviously, but we understand that. It's another game for us that we need to get a result from."
Source: PA
Source: PA


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Lohan could serve 90-day rehab stint in jail
They say she has to go to rehab. She says, No, no, no -- because there appears to be no "lockdown" rehabilitation facilities in New York, despite what the judge in Lindsay Lohan's conviction on vehicular misdemeanors and probation violation had envisioned when he handed down Lohan's sentence on March 18.
Now Los Angeles prosecutors are discussing their options, TMZ.com reported Sunday, suggesting that those choices are either to recommend to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Dabney that Lohan serve the 90 days in jail that lockdown rehab was intended to be in lieu of, or that she serve 90 days in a rehab facility that allows her to come and go.
Nor do there appear to be lockdown rehab facilities in California. Addiction counselor and reality-show star Dr. Drew Pinsky told TMZ, "There is no rehab that will hold you against your will, unless they feel the person is a suicide risk, and in that case they can hold the individual for 72 hours."
Lohan, 26, faces a May 2 deadline for whatever incarceration the court orders.
The "Liz & Dick" star, who reportedly created a troubled production during a guest appearance on the Charlie Sheen sitcom "Anger Management" days ago, seems outwardly unworried about her legal future.
During an appearance for John John Denim in Brazil over the weekend, Lohan said in a video interview for the magazine Caras that she plans to record a new album in New York "because I live there now."
E! News says Lohan remains scheduled to appear on the "Late Show with David Letterman" on April 9.


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Mocha Brown Weave - Beach Wave - Remy Human Hair
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Miellee Hair Extensions are CUSTOM MADE in small batches using real authentic natural human hair. Our hands-on process allows us to create the most natural looking hair extensions that blend seamlessly into your hair. We use only the highest quality salon grade Virgin Remy Human hair to create all of our products and we are pleased to offer such luxury quality at affordable prices.
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In February 1967, the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) urged NASA not to neglect lunar exploration during its planned Apollo Applications Program (AAP). In response to the PSAC's concerns, NASA Headquarters created an ad hoc lunar mission study group and enlisted aid from its Apollo planning contractor, Washington, DC-based Bellcomm.
Bellcomm planners wrote a pair of memoranda in June 1967 that looked at how the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) spacecraft might be used during AAP missions to explore the moon's surface from lunar orbit. One memorandum examined basic issues of CSM life support, electrical power generation, and Reaction Control System (RCS) propellants usage during six possible AAP lunar missions. The other proposed candidate sensor locations on the CSM.
Bellcomm used as its mission-planning point-of-departure a baseline Apollo design reference mission NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston had published on 30 October 1966. The design reference mission was, as it turned out, very similar to Apollo 12 and Apollo 14. Three astronauts would cross the 238,900 miles separating moon and Earth in 79 hours (about 3.3 days), then the CSM would orbit the moon for 49 hours. Two astronauts would separate in the Lunar Module (LM) and spend 35 hours on the moon. Surface mission completed, they would then lift off in the LM ascent stage and rejoin the Command Module Pilot (CMP) on board the CSM. Return to Earth would need 88 hours (about 3.7 days), bringing total reference mission duration to 216 hours (nine days).
Bellcomm found that the amount of oxygen required for the Apollo reference mission - taking into account astronaut respiration, pressurized cabin leakage, power generation using fuel cells that combined oxygen and hydrogen to make electricity and water, and a 190-pound reserve - would total 640 pounds. Hydrogen required would come to 56 pounds, while food would total 46 pounds, and lithium hydroxide (LiOH) for absorbing carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts would amount to 80 pounds. Fully loaded with the necessary consumables, the Apollo reference mission CSM would have a mass of 23,562 pounds.
The first AAP lunar mission Bellcomm examined was a lunar-orbital survey of the moon's entire surface. The mission, the only one which would not include an LM or LM-derived spacecraft, would see two astronauts travel from Earth to lunar polar orbit, direct a suite of sensors at the moon for 672 hours (28 days, or about one lunar day), and then return to Earth.
In this and all subsequent AAP lunar missions, the Apollo spacecraft would need 125 hours (about 5.2 days) to transfer from the Earth to the moon and 110 hours (about 4.6 days) to return to Earth. The slower transfers - as compared with the Apollo reference mission - would conserve propellants that the CSM would otherwise burn to capture into and depart from lunar orbit. Mission duration for the AAP lunar-orbital survey would total 907 hours (about 37.8 days).
Total oxygen required for the lunar-orbital survey mission would come to 1976 pounds. The two astronauts would also need 193 pounds of hydrogen, 152 pounds of food, and 264 pounds of LiOH. Adding RCS propellants to enable the spacecraft to maneuver throughout its long mission would boost CSM mass to about 27,900 pounds, making it the heaviest CSM in the six missions Bellcomm considered.
Bellcomm's second AAP lunar mission, the Extended LM (ELM) mission, would see a CSM orbit the moon for 86 hours (about 3.6 days). During that period, two men would separate in an ELM and descend to a lunar landing while the CMP turned sensors toward the lunar surface. At the end of their 72-hour (three-day) lunar surface sojourn, the moonwalkers would return to the CSM, then the three astronauts would return to Earth.
Adding in the Earth-moon and moon-Earth transfers would bring total AAP ELM mission duration to 321 hours (about 13.4 days). Oxygen required on board the CSM would total 834 pounds; hydrogen, 75 pounds; food, 66 pounds; and LiOH, 115 pounds. With extra RCS propellants added, CSM mass would total about 24,000 pounds. Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 resembled this AAP lunar mission.
For Bellcomm's third AAP lunar mission, the Augmented LM (ALM) mission, a CSM would orbit the moon for 206 hours (about 8.6 days), during which time two men would separate in an ALM and spend 192 hours (eight days) on the moon. As before, the CMP would spend his time alone exploring the moon with CSM-mounted sensors. Adding the Earth-moon and moon-Earth transfers would bring the total mission duration to 441 hours (about 18.4 days). Oxygen needed on the CSM would total 1060 pounds; hydrogen, 99 pounds; food, 76 pounds; and LiOH, 132 pounds. After adding extra RCS propellants, ALM mission CSM mass would total about 24,600 pounds.
Bellcomm's fourth AAP lunar mission, the Lunar Payload Module (LPM) delivery/lunar-orbital survey mission, would see an automated LPM based on the LM design separate from a two-man CSM in lunar orbit and land equipment and supplies at a site designated for future piloted exploration. After they completed their LPM delivery duties, the astronauts would turn CSM-mounted sensors toward the moon. They would orbit the moon for a total of 350 hours (about 14.6 days, or about half a lunar day). Adding the 125-hour flight from Earth and the 110-hour return from the moon would yield a total LPM delivery mission duration of 585 hours (about 24.4 days). Oxygen needed would total 1341 pounds; hydrogen, 128 pounds; food, 98 pounds; and LiOH, 170 pounds. With added RCS propellants, CSM mass would reach 25,900 pounds.
Bellcomm's fifth AAP lunar mission was the ELM with LPM mission. The CSM would orbit the moon for 302 hours (about 12.6 days), during which time two men would separate in an ELM and land next to an LPM dropped off during an earlier LPM delivery mission. The surface crew would spend 288 hours (12 days) exploring their landing site before they returned to the CSM. The orbiting CMP, meanwhile, would explore using the CSM sensor suite. Earth-moon and moon-Earth transfers would bring total mission duration to 537 hours (about 22.4 days). Oxygen required on board the CSM would total 1240 pounds; hydrogen, 118 pounds; food, 84 pounds; and LiOH, 147 pounds. With added RCS propellants, CSM mass would total about 25,100 pounds.
Sixth and last was the ALM with LPM mission. The CSM would orbit the moon for 350 hours (about 14.6 days) while two astronauts separated in an ALM and landed near a waiting LPM. The moonwalkers would explore their landing site for 336 hours (14 days) while the CMP explored the moon from orbit. Mission duration including Earth-moon and moon-Earth transfers would total 585 hours (about 24.4 days). Oxygen needed on board the CSM would amount to 1331 pounds; hydrogen, 128 pounds; food, 88 pounds; and LiOH, 154 pounds. The CSM's mass with added RCS propellants would total about 25,200 pounds.
Bellcomm offered three candidate locations for its proposed 1000-pound CSM sensor suite. Sensors proposed included film cameras, a magnetometer, a radar altimeter, a gamma-ray spectrometer, and micrometeoroid collection plates.
Bellcomm's first sensor suite location, a new spaceflight module it dubbed an "Intermodule," would provide the most volume for sensors of the three locations. The Intermodule would be launched from Earth docked with the docking unit on top of the mission's ELM, ALM, or LPM. The LM-derived landers would ride inside a streamlined Spacecraft Launch Adapter linking the bottom of the CSM to the top of the Saturn V launch vehicle's S-IVB third stage. After the S-IVB propelled the CSM and LM-derived lander out of Earth orbit toward the moon, the CSM would detach and flip 180° so that it faced the Intermodule, then would dock with it. Bellcomm was not specific about how the Intermodule would be stowed during launch of its first AAP lunar mission, the lunar-orbital survey, which would include no LM-derived lander.
A tunnel through the center of the Intermodule would enable astronauts to pass into the docked ELM or ALM. In lunar orbit, the ELM, ALM, or LPM would undock to begin its descent to the lunar surface, leaving the Intermodule attached to the CSM's nose. Data tape, film, and meteoroid collection panels could be retrieved from the Intermodule without depressurizing the conical Command Module (CM), the CSM's crew volume.
Bellcomm judged that its second candidate CSM sensor suite location, the side of the cylindrical Service Module (SM), was the least promising because the addition of windows for cameras would demand extensive spacecraft modifications. In addition, the SM location would be tough to reach; an astronaut would have to spacewalk outside the CSM, open instrument covers, and transfer film, tape, and collection panels back to the CM cabin, which would have to be depressurized for the spacewalk.
Finally, instruments could be mounted within the CM cabin and pointed at the moon through existing CM windows. Bellcomm suggested that, for its lunar-orbital survey and LPM delivery AAP missions (that is, missions 1 and 3), the sensors might occupy space in the CM cabin normally set aside for lunar rock boxes. The company noted that both missions would include only two astronauts, making available even more volume for sensors.
Jettisoning the sensor suite just before leaving lunar orbit would reduce the CSM's mass and thus the quantity of propellants it would need to burn to return to Earth. This would make available additional propellants for CSM maneuvers in lunar orbit. Bellcomm proposed using the extra propellants after the ELM, ALM, or LPM undocked to maneuver the CSM into an orbit that would carry it multiple times over a prime lunar scientific target. If its mission included an ELM or ALM, the CSM would then return to an orbit in which it could rendezvous with the ALM or ELM ascent stage to retrieve the astronauts after they had completed their lunar surface mission.
NASA did not carry out missions resembling Bellcomm's AAP missions 1, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Only two months after the company completed its June memoranda, Congress slashed AAP's budget from the $455 million President Lyndon Baines Johnson had requested in January 1967 to a mere $122 million. Faced with an unpopular war and domestic unrest, President Johnson felt that he lacked the political capital to defend his initial request. A hoped-for funding restoration in FY 1969 did not materialize. By late 1968, it had become abundantly clear that AAP would include no lunar missions. If any missions would include CSM-mounted sensors, they would need to take place within the Apollo Program.
The Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 CSMs each included an SM-mounted Scientific Instrument Module (SIM) Bay (see image at top of post). CMPs Alfred Worden (Apollo 15), Kenneth Mattingly (Apollo 16), and Ronald Evans (Apollo 17) mapped the moon using SIM Bay sensors while their crewmates were away on the lunar surface. The SM included no instrument windows; instead, the CMPs each ejected a panel to expose their SIM Bay. This limited the amount of CSM redesign required. After the CSM left lunar orbit for Earth, the CMPs spacewalked from the CM to the SIM Bay to recover exposed film. The three SIM Bay spacewalks are the only deep-space spacewalks humans have conducted to date.
"CSM Requirements for Extended Lunar Missions," TM-67-1012-7, Case No. 232, D. R. Valley, Bellcomm, 22 June 1967.
"Potential Use of the CSM for Lunar Orbital Mission Work - Case 232," C. Byrne, et al, Bellcomm, 4 June 1967.


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The EMP-vulnerability of our electric grid, our machines, transportation systems, tools, and homes is probably the most glaring "acute-impact" threat on our horizon.
This is serious and sobering stuff.
The Electric Infrastructure Security (EIS) Council agitates for better infrastructure protection against electromagnetic threats. EMPACT America is a bipartisan, non-profit NGO for citizens concerned about protecting the American people from a nuclear or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP) catastrophe.
To be clear, we face other dangers of a chronic nature, for example the need to develop sustainable energy to escape dependence upon foreign oil-masters and to possibly save the planet. Educating a smarter generation and rescuing our decaying infrastructure also matter a great deal, over the longer time scale.
But acute-impact threats fall into another category. They are events that could possibly knock us flat in a single day, or instant. Those of us with memories of the Cold War know how it feels to be constantly aware of a Damoclean Sword, hanging overhead…
By that standard, an EMP calamity ranks higher than anything else visible on the horizon—unlike the trumped-up panic and distraction that were foisted upon us over 'terrorism'.* (We could have suffered a 9/11 hit every month for the last ten years and still maintained a vibrant, healthy civilization. Our parents suffered worse in WWII. It was one long scam.)
There are two possible ways that we might be hit by an EMP pulse strong enough to cripple a continent.
1) Natural cycles can apparently lead to the sort of solar flares that did little to disturb our ancestors - other that creating scary-gorgeous aurorae - but that could devastate an electricity-dependent civilization. For example, the "Carrington Event" of 1859 and another large solar storm in 1921 show that such things happen fairly frequently, and we've been lucky, so far.
Even lesser events can wreak havoc. According to a report in IEEE Spectrum: "In March 1989, such a geomagnetic disturbance took down the entire Hydro-Québec power grid, leaving six million customers in the Canadian province without electricity for 9 hours, and also knocked out power stations in the Northeastern United States. That disturbance occurred at one peak of an 11-year solar cycle,"
A Congressional EMP Commission report recently estimated that a once-in-a-hundred- years solar flare could cause $1-2 trillion worth of damage, if the electric grid went down for weeks. Worse, if most truck transport failed, millions of Americans might simply starve.
2) A devastating electromagnetic pulse can also be man-made. Already, more than half a dozen nuclear-armed nations have missile capabilities that- - now or soon—would tempt them to try knocking out Pax Americana with a single blow. Just one warhead, detonated high over North America, could cause untold amounts of EMP chaos. Weighing the scenarios, this is a no-brainer. Sending such a missile to take out one US city would be a nasty hit, but it would leave us almost intact and ready for vengeance. But knocking us back to the stone age? Far more tempting, whether it is realistic or not.
With the number of nuclear armed states rising, is that a temptation we really want to be left on the table?
At recent congressional hearings on the matter, several agency heads agreed with the assessment that "it is now a matter of if, but of when." According to Lifeboat Foundation member Paul Werbos: "One official said, after looking at the report, that $1-2 trillion was a ridiculously low estimate of the risk. 'Yes, we have three months food stockpiled, but with electricity out for more than three days, it will all go bad. And how long can we live without water?"
"So there was serious talk of the end of civilization (their words) and of more than half the US population dying (and likewise other nations), and so on. Franks, a staunch conservative from the oil business, basically said "hey folks, this is no CO2 thing, this is real…"
Werbos continues: "And so stakeholders will take strong and vigorous action. In the face of 2012, there will be stakeholder' s meetings. And maybe some education campaigns. And a few more spare transformers. But will anyone install the relatively simple isolators to protect transformers? Will the planning include anyone who knows what a transformer IS? And all of the usual complex ways of doing nothing useful all come into play, in all the usual myriad of ways. It will be interesting to see whether a few meager bits of light can help…. maybe…"
Now, in full disclosure, let me say that I haven't really pored through the thousands of pages of material, and there is certainly a lot I still have to learn about this topic, as it has evolved since I last studied it.
But I have been talking about this general danger for 30 years, urging that a very small annual investment—perhaps as little as fifty million dollars a year, plus some arm-twisting with industry—could equip our grid and our vital tools to bear the brunt of such an event.
The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now.
* That is, other than a contractor greed-fest and wasting a trillion dollars on draining, debilitating "nation-building" land wars of attrition in Asia.
David Brin Ph.D. is a scientist and best-selling author whose future-oriented novels include Earth, The Postman, and Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. David's newest novel - Existence - is now available, published by Tor Books."


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Breethe: Sleep & Meditation
- Android, iPad, iPhone
- Free
- age 18+
App Details
Life Skills
In-App Purchases - No
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Download Breethe: Sleep & Meditation
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Publisher's Description
De-stress & sleep better in only 5 min with your personal mindfulness coach!
Choose from a wide variety of content to help you get the restful sleep you need: sleep music playlists, nature sounds, guided meditations, bedtime readings, hypnotherapy sessions, etc
Deal with life's challenges with guided meditations series, inspirational talks and masterclasses from mindfulness coach Lynne Goldberg & New York Times bestselling personal growth experts.
Bring more happiness and peace of mind into your life with soothing music, short meditations, calming videos and breathing exercises you can use anytime anywhere.
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Selected Best New App by Apple in 95 countries.
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"There are plenty of meditation apps out there, but this is one of our favorites." Goop
"Without a doubt the best and most comprehensive meditation app available in the App Store." Apppicker.com
" A well thought-out app, fun but serious, playful and helpful.. and very appealing." Mindful .org
¥ Hours of carefully selected music & nature sounds to help you relax, meditate, focus & sleep more soundly.
¥ Curated music playlists for various moods and occasions and the ability to create your own playlists.
¥ Bedtime stories and inspirational books narrated to lull you to sleep.
¥ Bedtime visualizations to absorb healing and positive messages while falling asleep.
¥ Hundreds of guided meditations and series for whatever you're dealing with in your life.
¥ Short meditations you can do on the go, anytime, anywhere; at work, commuting, in lines, walking, etc.
¥ Alarm clock & morning meditations to start your day on the right foot.
¥ Full 12-week daily program to learn to meditate and progressively bring more calm and clarity into your life.
¥ Mindfulness program for kids and teens
¥ Inspirational talks and masterclasses from some of the greatest personal growth teachers of our time to help you enjoy your life better.
¥ Hypnotherapy sessions to help you tackle life's challenges and sleep better.
¥ Breathing exercises and calming videos you can use to calm down in a few minutes.
¥ Great practical tools such as saving favorites, setting up reminders, adjusting background music volume levels!
¥ Available on your phone, tablet or computer. Your progress is synced across all devices.
¥ Use the Free version as long as you want or unlock all content with a Premium Membership!
¥ Adds mindful minutes to your Apple Health app thanks to an integration with the Apple Health kit.
Contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Premium membership unlocks all content and features for the duration of the subscription.
Monthly: US$ 12.99 per month & Yearly: US$ 89.99
Free trial, Monthly and Annual subscriptions automatically renew at the rate secured at the time of purchase unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period.
Auto-renewal can be turned off easily at any time by selecting Manage Subscriptions in the user's Account Settings after purchase.
2 year: US$ 149.95 does not auto renew.
Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to the app


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Cocktail 101: Knives You Need for Making Drinks
All the basics of the bar.
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The cooks, kitchen scientists, and food wonks at Serious Eats love their knives, so we thought it was time for the Drinks crew to step up and show some our cutlery some affection as well. And rightfully so. Knives are just as important behind the home bar as they are in the kitchen. Good knives, carefully kept honed and sharp, are crucial tools in making cocktails and other fine libations.
The home bartender, however, doesn't need very many knives, so today we'll run down the necessities of bar cutlery. If you have a well-stocked kitchen, you'll probably find you already have most of what you need.
I use two knives regularly in working at my home bar: a Santoku knife and a paring knife. Sometimes, when I want a curly twist of citrus zest, I'll use a channel knife for that purpose. But since that happens only when I'm fancy for company, I don't use the channel very often.
Channel Knife
My model is a wood-handled Victorinox, which I bought in a set with a matching paring knife a few years ago. Other models are available, in a range of prices, so it's worth shopping around.
Getting a feel for the action of carving a long, thin strip of zest off a piece of citrus takes some practice, so hang in there. It probably won't come naturally at first.
Santoku Knife
A good quality Santoku knife (or a chef's knife) is crucial for working with large fruit and even for juicing citrus. If you can afford to do so, it's convenient to purchase a separate knife just for your bar. If you're not also using it to chop vegetables, slice meat, and smash garlic cloves, the blade will stay sharper for longer.
When selecting a Santoku or chef's knife for the bar, apply the same rules as when buying one for kitchen use:
- Try out a number of knives at various stores, and see what fits well in your hand. Don't select something that's too heavy to use comfortably.
- Pay attention to the material used to make the blade: you definitely don't want your knife to rust.
I use mine for halving large lemons, oranges, and grapefruit prior to juicing. I also use it when carving up larger fruit, such as fresh pineapple.
Paring Knife
Now here's the important stuff. A great paring knife is a bartender's best friend. In the kitchen, a paring knife may be second in command behind a chef's knife, but I think the opposite is true at cocktail hour.
I use my paring knife often behind my home bar, and I keep one around especially for that service. I use it to cut swaths of zest for twisting over cocktails. I cut lime wheels and citrus wedges with it. I use a paring knife to prepare other garnishes, such as slices of apple or pear to perch on the rim of a glass.
I use it to prep berries and fruits for use in syrups and homemade cordials. I use it to peel ginger, trim mint and basil, and prepare savory garnishes for bloody marys.
For tips on selecting a paring knife, I can't hope to improve on Kenji Lopez-Alt's advice.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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I know some of the links aren't working on the top of the page. I will get to it soon, but life is BUSY. And my finger is broken. See?
In the meantime, if you need a particular recipe, use the links on the side. The search bar works. If you can't find what you're looking for, email me. I'll try to get everything fixed soon.


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Humorist Alphonse Allais once went to collect his pay cheque from the newspaper he wrote for. "I would like my wage" he said to the cashier.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Allais," remarked the cashier, surely you know that the correct word is wages."
"Well," replied Mr. Allais, "for such a small amount I did not think it necessary to use the plural."
During the question period following a lecture, the poet Ogden Nash was asked, "How do you know when you have written something that is successful?." Quick came the reply: "When I get a cheque from the editor."
"How can I ever show my appreciation?" gushed a woman to Clarence Darrow after he had solved her legal troubles.
"My dear," replied Darrow, "ever since the Phoenicians invented money there has been only one answer to that question."


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SUNNYVALE, CA – February 3, 2015 – Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (NYSE: RKUS) announced today that Selina Lo, president and CEO, and Seamus Hennessy, chief financial officer, will be presenting at the Goldman Sachs Internet and Technology Conference in San Francisco, CA on Thursday, February 12, 2015.
The presentation is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time and will be available through a webcast, and can be accessed at the Ruckus Wireless Investor Relations website, https://investors.ruckuswireless.com. A replay will also be available on the website following the event.
News Media Contact
Ruckus, and Ruckus Wireless are trademarks of Ruckus Wireless, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other product or company names may be trademarks of their respective owners.


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| 5.3°C Belfast
Amanda Redman has revealed she worries about ageing.
The 56-year-old actress admitted she has fears about growing older.
"I'm fearful about losing my mobility, I'm fearful of losing my brain, or my marbles, like other friends' parents have, I'm fearful of becoming dependent on people for things that you just don't want to be dependent on people for, so that I think," she said.
"And also I'm fearful of mortality as more and more friends and members of family die, frankly. I know that's a downer but it's the truth. I think as you get older mortality starts to really hit you in the face. So all of that I don't like at all."
Amanda, who played Tommy Cooper's wife Gwen 'Dove' in ITV drama Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This, admitted she doesn't like watching herself back on screen with an audience.
"I'm very critical, but I think that you can't possibly learn unless you watch yourself. But I don't watch it with other people, because it'd be hideous," she said.
"So I sit there and talk to the screen and say things like, 'Oh you silly cow. Why have you done that? I don't believe you'. But you can only learn by doing that, otherwise you just carry on doing the same old thing."
She also shrugged off her tag as a sex symbol, saying: " I never have! Those labels get put on you. You shouldn't believe in them anyway."


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Liz Mitchell is a singer songwriter, who also happens to be an emergency physician.
She has worked for 20 years in major trauma centers, writing songs in moments carved out between shifts and family life.
Her songs have been featured on radio stations across the country and internationally.
"not the whether of summer" is available on CDbaby, Riverwide Records, and itunes!
Her new CD "Pretty House" is available for purchase.
Semi-Finalist in the 2011 International Song of the year Competition for "Holidays"
Liz is one of 5 winners of the 2009 Song of the year constest. Her song "my bags are packed for france" was chosen as an "outstanding achievement in songwriting in acoustic/folk."
Liz was the 2nd place winner of the 2008 Great Waters Folk Festival Songwriting Contest,
A recommended artist on the song of the year contest in 2006, runner up in 2008, and honorable mention in 2009 (song of the year link).


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http://play.beatport.com/contests/inner ... gn=bp_play
Contest Details
It's not everyday that Play users get to remix a bonafide Detroit techno classic. But today that's just what we've got: Inner City's "Good Life," a track that is synonymous with techno in its purest, earliest form. Reconstruct Kevin Saunderson's amazing pads, leads, and drums, along with Paris Grey's inimitable vocals, and you could join in the song's legacy, too, as the winner will have his or her remix released on KMS Records and will also take home a Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol S4, and a custom Beatport branded Orbit Concepts Jetpack Remix bag. So get started now and be a part of the history of one of Detroit techno's most famous tracks.
So far my remix isn't turning out bad. It's mostly software FM synthesizer on the percussion and melody. I re-did the melody, stabs and bassline parts and kept the vocals.
Inner City - Good Life (Remix Competition)
Discuss musical topics that are not directly 808 State related.
Moderators: Pob, markus, nickking, Ancodia
Post Reply
2 posts • Page 1 of 1
Re: Inner City - Good Life (Remix Competition)
Here's my remix. 100% software FM synth + plug ings excluding vocals.
http://play.beatport.com/contests/inner ... 35e350facc
http://play.beatport.com/contests/inner ... 35e350facc
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2 posts • Page 1 of 1


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Could the microbes that inhabit our guts help explain that old idea of "gut feelings?" There's growing evidence that gut bacteria really might influence our minds.
"I'm always by profession a skeptic," says Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But I do believe that our gut microbes affect what goes on in our brains."
Mayer thinks the bacteria in our digestive systems may help mold brain structure as we're growing up, and possibly influence our moods, behavior and feelings when we're adults. "It opens up a completely new way of looking at brain function and health and disease," he says.
So Mayer is working on just that, doing MRI scans to look at the brains of thousands of volunteers and then comparing brain structure to the types of bacteria in their guts. He thinks he already has the first clues of a connection, from an analysis of about 60 volunteers.
Mayer found that the connections between brain regions differed depending on which species of bacteria dominated a person's gut. That suggests that the specific mix of microbes in our guts might help determine what kinds of brains we have — how our brain circuits develop and how they're wired.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the microbes are causing changes in brain structure, or in behavior.
But other researchers have been trying to figure out a possible connection by looking at gut microbes in mice. There they've found changes in both brain chemistry and behavior. One experiment involved replacing the gut bacteria of anxious mice with bacteria from fearless mice.
"The mice became less anxious, more gregarious," says Stephen Collins of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who led a team that conducted the research.
It worked the other way around, too — bold mice became timid when they got the microbes of anxious ones. And aggressive mice calmed down when the scientists altered their microbes by changing their diet, feeding them probiotics or dosing them with antibiotics.
To find out what might be causing the behavior changes, Collins and his colleagues then measured brain chemistry in mice. They found changes in a part of the brain involved in emotion and mood, including increases in a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which plays a role in learning and memory.
Scientists also have been working on a really obvious question — how the gut microbes could talk to the brain.
A big nerve known as the vagus nerve, which runs all the way from the brain to the abdomen, was a prime suspect. And when researchers in Ireland cut the vagus nerve in mice, they no longer saw the brain respond to changes in the gut.
"The vagus nerve is the highway of communication between what's going on in the gut and what's going on in the brain," says John Cryan of the University College Cork in Ireland, who has collaborated with Collins.
Gut microbes may also communicate with the brain in other ways, scientists say, by modulating the immune system or by producing their own versions of neurotransmitters.
"I'm actually seeing new neurochemicals that have not been described before being produced by certain bacteria," says Mark Lyte of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Abilene, who studies how microbes affect the endocrine system. "These bacteria are, in effect, mind-altering microorganisms."
This research raises the possibility that scientists could someday create drugs that mimic the signals being sent from the gut to the brain, or just give people the good bacteria — probiotics — to prevent or treat problems involving the brain.
One group of scientists has tested mice that have behaviors similar to some of the symptoms of autism in humans. The idea is that the probiotics might correct problems the animals have with their gastrointestinal systems — problems that many autistic children also have.
In the mice, many of their autism behaviors were no longer present or strongly ameliorated with probiotics, says Paul Patterson at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. His research will be published soon in the journal Cell.
Experiments to test whether changing gut microbes in humans could affect the brain are only just beginning.
One team of researchers in Baltimore is testing a probiotic to see if it can help prevent relapses of mania among patients suffering from bipolar disorder.
"The idea is that these probiotic treatments may alter what we call the microbiome and then may contribute to an improvement of psychiatric symptoms," says Faith Dickerson, director of psychology at the Sheppard Pratt Health System.
"It makes perfect sense to me," says Leah, a study participant who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She agreed to talk with NPR if we agreed not to use her full name. "Your brain is just another organ. It's definitely affected by what goes on in the rest of your body."
It's far too soon to know whether the probiotic has any effect, but Leah suspects it might. "I'm doing really well," she says. "I'm about to graduate college, and I'm doing everything right."
Mayer also has been studying the effects of probiotics on the brain in humans. Along with his colleague Kirsten Tillisch, Mayer gave healthy women yogurt containing a probiotic and then scanned their brains. He found subtle signs that the brain circuits involved in anxiety were less reactive, according to a paper published in the journal Gastroenterology.
But Mayer and others stress that a lot more work will be needed to know whether that probiotic — or any others — really could help people feel less anxious or help solve other problems involving the brain. He says, "We're really in the early stages."
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
Today in Your Health: How the bacteria in your gut may affect your brain. Doctors have long had clues that there may be a connection between what's going on in our heads and what's going on in other parts of our bodies.
MONTAGNE: We all know, for example, that we can get pretty down when we're feeling sick and that our moods lift when we get better. Well, scientists are starting to think about this brain-body connection in a whole new way. And that's because of something we've been hearing a lot about lately: the microbes that live in the human body.
INSKEEP: Turns out you really can have a gut feeling about something, because evidence has been mounting that those microbes in the body may be important for our emotional health as well as our physical health.
NPR's Rob Stein has been exploring the role that our microbes play in our lives in a series of stories over the last few months. And in the final installment, Rob brings us this report about our microbes and our minds.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: It's early on a Monday morning at the UCLA brain scanning center and Dr. Emeran Mayer is getting ready to peer into someone's brain.
DR. EMERAN MAYER: We're standing in the control room here. The patient is inside the scanning room, not in the scanner itself yet.
STEIN: The patient isn't really a patient at all. She's Pria Tewari, a healthy 29-year-old who volunteered for Mayer's research.
PRIA TEWARI: Growing up in India we believe that what you eat influences your thoughts.
STEIN: So she's here today to help Mayer explore this notion that the microbes that eat what we eat influence our minds.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Can you hear me OK?
TEWARI: Yeah.
STEIN: A nurse helps her get into the giant MRI brain scanner.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: OK, Pria, so take a nice deep breath for me, hon. In and out through your mouth.
STEIN: Once she's settled in and the MRI is all set up, the scanning begins.
MAYER: So the first image that was taken, that we just saw on the computer screen, will allow us to extract information regarding, it's what we call the brain signature.
STEIN: A signature of the overall structure of the brain, which Mayer hopes will help answer some provocative questions: Do the trillions of microbes that live in our bodies help mold our brains as we're growing up? Do they continue to influence our moods, behavior and feelings when we're adults? It's something, Mayer says, that has never really been explored before.
MAYER: It really happens rarely in science that you sort of stumble into an area that all of a sudden opens up this completely new frontier.
STEIN: A frontier that could help explain that old idea of gut feelings. And Mayer thinks he already has the first good clues this may be true, after analyzing about 60 volunteers like Pria.
MAYER: We found that the type of community you have, of microbes you have in your gut, is reflected in some ways in some basic architectural aspects of the brain.
STEIN: The brain connections of people whose microbes are dominated by one species of bacteria look different than those of people whose microbes are dominated by another species. That suggests that the specific mix of microbes in our guts helps determine what kinds of brains we have, how our brain circuits develop, how they're wired.
MAYER: The brain circuits obviously determine certain ways of how we perceive the world and react to the world outside of us.
STEIN: This could help explain why some people are born with brains that don't work the way they're supposed to, causing problems like autism, anxiety, depression.
MAYER: It opens up a completely new way of looking at brain function and health and disease. I think that's, you know, kind of a revolutionary concept.
STEIN: So Mayer is scanning hundreds of volunteers like Pria to see if what he's found so far holds up.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Ready to go?
STEIN: They move onto the next scan.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: So your instructions for this scan are to close your eyes and rest but don't go to sleep. OK?
STEIN: They want to get a picture of Pria's brain when she's doing absolutely nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: During that scan, did you have any pain or discomfort at all?
TEWARI: No, slight itching there.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Slight itching. OK.
STEIN: Now, the obvious question about all this is: How? How could bacteria in our bodies affect our brains? Well, the first clues came from experiments conducted in Europe and Canada.
STEPHEN COLLINS: My name is Stephen Collins. I'm a professor of medicine at McMaster University Medical School in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
STEIN: Collins is among the researchers who did these experiments. It's hard to study this stuff in humans. So they used mice. They did things like replace the gut bacteria of anxious mice with bacteria from fearless mice.
COLLINS: And this resulted in a change in behavior. The mice became a little bit less anxious, a little bit more gregarious.
STEIN: It worked the other way around too. The bold mice became timid when they got the microbes of anxious ones. Aggressive mice also calmed down when the scientists altered their microbes by changing their diet, feeding them probiotics, or dosing them with antibiotics.
COLLINS: We saw changes in the brain chemistry in a region called the hippocampus, which is part of the brain that's involved in emotion and mood and so forth, and found that a very important chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor was increased.
STEIN: Finally, these scientists figured out how the microbes in the guts of the mice were communicating with their brains - by sending signals up a big nerve known as the vagus nerve.
All this is raising the possibility that scientists could create drugs that mimic these signals. Or just give people the good bacteria - probiotics - to prevent or treat problems involving the brain.
Researchers in Baltimore, for example, are studying one probiotic. Faith Dickerson is a psychologist at the Sheppard Pratt Hospital who is leading that study.
DR. FAITH DICKERSON: The idea is that these probiotic treatments may alter what we call the microbiome and then may contribute to an improvement of psychiatric symptoms.
STEIN: Symptoms like mania in patients suffering from bipolar disorder. Patients like Leah, who ended up being hospitalized after one manic episode. We agreed not to use her full name.
LEAH: I had really bad anxiety and I took Xanax and I took too much Xanax.
STEIN: While she was recovering, Leah heard about the probiotic study and decided to volunteer.
LEAH: It makes perfect sense to me. You know, your brain is just another organ. You know, it's definitely affected by what goes on in the rest of your body.
STEIN: It's too soon to know whether the probiotic being tested in that study is helping. But Leah suspects it might be.
LEAH: It seems like, you know, maybe it helped me because, you know, I'm doing really well and like, I'm about to graduate college and I'm just, you know, doing everything right.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: All righty. So we are going to move on to the final scan, OK?
STEIN: Back at UCLA, Mayer's team is almost done scanning Pria Tewari's brain.
STEIN: While they're finishing up, Mayer explains that he's also been studying the effects of probiotics on the brain. He gave healthy women yogurt containing a probiotic and then scanned their brains, and found subtle signs that the brain circuits involved in anxiety were less reactive.
MAYER: It's the first time that it's been demonstrated in a controlled study that if you alter the gut microorganisms or microbes, that this affects the brain in a fairly profound fashion in healthy people.
STEIN: Mayer says a lot more work will be needed to know whether the probiotic they used in that study - or any probiotics - really can help people feel less anxious.
But Pria Tewari, the volunteer getting scanned today, was in that study too. She thinks maybe, just maybe, she might have noticed something. She was going for her Ph.D. at the time and thought she'd be totally stressed out.
TEWARI: I'd say I definitely, like my anxiety levels were low considering my, my own personal thing that I was going through.
STEIN: It's clear scientists still have a long way to go in all this. But the evidence that's starting to emerge suggests that we probably can't ignore the possibility that our microbes may be affecting our minds.
Rob Stein, NPR News.
INSKEEP: For more about this series including an animation about our friendly microbes - something for your microbes to think about - go to npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Jerry Tubbs is systems development manager for DST Systems.
DST Systems' large development group of about 1,200 people over the years adopted a hodgepodge of tools, processes, and source code control systems. It didn't have a single central repository for source code nor one developer toolset shared across the organization. Some teams used Serena PVCS, others didn't. Some tools worked in Eclipse, others were standalone. Moving between tools was cumbersome. Many processes were manual and time consuming, especially if they involved Excel spreadsheets or Word documents.
Development teams complained regularly about the tools they had to work with. Managers had difficulty answering basic questions about who was working on what and determining the status of a particular asset, because they had to look in so many places to get answers.
This situation became a serious problem as we looked to accelerate the development cycle for DST Automated Work Distributor, business process management and workflow software that's been around for nearly 20 years. Financial services companies use AWD to process financial transactions. Healthcare organizations use it to process insurance claims. It's a mature, sophisticated product with lots of features. But moving it through a traditional waterfall methodology -- from design to coding to testing to integration -- was taking two years for each major release. To remain competitive, we needed to speed things up.
So after decades of using waterfall methodologies, we switched last year to the Scrum Agile software development methodology. In a short time, we achieved some impressive results. Our developers accelerated software releases by a factor of four, reducing the software release cycle from 24 months to 6 months. We also boosted developer productivity by at least 20%.
But getting there wasn't easy. Running Scrum sprints with our existing tools caused immediate problems. Processes broke down, and our disparate tools and manual processes kept Scrum teams from reaching their objectives. We knew that Agile was a team-based approach to software development. But to make it work, we quickly realized that we needed an easy-to-use, comprehensive development environment that would put tools and data within easy reach of everyone on the team.
The Right Approach
We put together a product evaluation team to identify the right development environment in mid-2008. It considered about a dozen application life-cycle management (ALM) products, including tools from CollabNet, IBM, MKS, and Serena, as well as several open source options. We settled on three finalists and ran pilot projects with each.
Cost-effectiveness and ease of adoption were key selection criteria. We also examined feature-effectiveness, assessing whether the core features were packaged in a way that made them immediately accessible. We wanted to be able to easily make use of each feature without extensive training that would impinge on productivity. Whichever product we chose, we needed to adopt it quickly so we could continue developing and supporting products in a competitive market. We were, in effect, changing the tires while the car was moving.
7 Key Factors: Effective Development Teams Start Here
1. Common Purpose Get everyone on the same page.
2. Commitment Do what's necessary to get the job done.
3. Trust Establish trust,because it's mandatory even when you don't always agree.
4. Understand The Process Master the tools and processes before coding begins.
5. Communication Share knowledge and information constantly.
6. Resources Have adequate resources at the outset so team can focus on the project, not the tools.
7. Leadership Ensure leaders are in place to make technical or business decisions.