text:
__ DigiScent is here. If this technology takes off, it's gonna launch the next Web revolution. __
Joel Lloyd Bellenson places a little ceramic bowl in front of me and lifts its lid. "Before we begin," he says, "you need to clear your nasal palate."
I peer into the bowl. "Coffee beans," explains Bellenson's partner, Dexster Smith. "This is what they use in perfume stores. It's like the reset button."
Dutifully, I reinitialize my nose by sniffing the beans. I'm preparing for a sensory epiphany here, an epochal event in the history of art, smell, and computation. Bellenson and Smith claim they've developed a highly secret process to encode odors as digital data. Just as we can download digitized music and play it through speakers attached to a computer, we should soon be able to acquire online scent data that a little gadget can play back as smells.
Bellenson, who sounds edgy and looks sleep-deprived, has been pitching his new paradigm to me with the manic charisma of an infomercial host. The way he sees it, "scentography" is going to transform the entertainment-media spectrum, all the way from Web surfing to Hollywood movies.
"Now we're ready," says Smith, as I set down the bowl of beans. Like Bellenson, he seems tired and nervous. This is, after all, the first-ever demo the scent team has given an outsider. They're not even in beta yet.
We're sitting in Bellenson's immaculately renovated 1920s apartment in Oakland, California, overlooking a grand panorama of downtown and Lake Merritt. But no one's checking out the view. We move closer to an IBMThinkPad that rests on an ornate glass-topped table. Smith rolls the trackpoint, shifting the cursor arrow to a picture of some green grapes. He clicks on them.
Beside the ThinkPad, linked via serial cable, sits a black plastic box 3 inches tall, 2 inches wide, and 5 inches deep, about the size of an electric pencil sharpener. Somewhere inside it a little fan starts whirring, drawing in air at the back and blowing it over tiny vials of oils that are being heated selectively in response to signals from the computer. The air picks up the oily fragrance and wafts it out through a 2-inch vent.
All conversation ceases as I lean forward and inhale. There is a long moment of tense anticipation.
I straighten up and give Bellenson and Smith an apologetic look. "Uh, it smells like cheap perfume."
Bellenson releases a sharp, brittle laugh."Well, yeah. We were generating perfume earlier." He shakes his head. "It'll clear! Try again!"
Smith scrolls to a picture of oranges. He clicks on them.
Once more I breathe deeply - "Orange peel," I report. My hosts relax in their chairs, looking immensely relieved.
But the orange peel is just the beginning, a humble hors d'oeuvre. Marc Canter, sometimes known as the father of multimedia, joins us to serve the multiscented main course.
Canter is a big man with a deep voice and a brooding presence. Back in 1985, when he was founder, president, and chair of MacroMind (now Macromedia), he cowrote and launched the product that became Director and its playback module, Shockwave, still among the most popular tools for CD-ROM, DVD, and Web multimedia. He's now CEO of a startup called Broadband Mechanics, developing applications in anticipation of the era of true high-speed Internet access. If Canter has his way, broadband is going to be odor-enabled, and his company will be producing scent demos synchronized with movies, videos, and music.
Canter initiates a sequence of movie clips, and in a window on the screen we're transported to Oz. Dorothy, the Lion, and the Scarecrow are venturing into the forest, and its trees are not merely visible but sniffable. "Ahhhh!" Canter exclaims. "Smell that cedar!" And - it's true! A cedar fragrance emerges from the little black box beside the computer.
Now the Wicked Witch is mixing a poison potion over a crackling fire. "Oh, that wood smoke!" Canter cries with delight. Indeed, the box emits a smoky tang - without the smoke.
From Oz we jump-cut to Donkey Kong, watching the title character roll over a bunch of bananas. Their scent is undeniable. And now a scene in the Orient. "Mmmmm, that incense!" Canter says rapturously, like a chef over a rare truffle. It seems he has been waiting all his life for this sensory experience, advancing us beyond video, beyond audio, to - what should we call it? Odor-on-demand? Streaming naso?
Canter's montage lasts eight minutes, triggering 26 scents, all of them clearly discernible. "That sequence contains so much stimulation," he remarks at the end, "the first time I experienced it, literally my whole body was affected." He clutches his chest, emphasizing the heart-stopping power of aroma. "Luckily," he goes on, "we have a world-class sensory psychologist on staff, who'll be able to work out exactly the median time frame that is appropriate for refreshing the nostrils." He frowns, mentally critiquing the demo. "You know, I don't think the transition from wood smoke to bananas worked very well."
Bellenson shifts impatiently. Canter's aesthetic pretensions are all very well, but this is serious. Scentography promises a vast extension of sensory space, with profound implications. "We've lost touch, as a species, with our sense of smell," Bellenson says, speaking so rapidly that his words run together. "Like, our noses are not on the ground anymore, because we don't have to hunt for food. Scent became an art perpetuated by the big fragrance houses in Europe, and the average person was not empowered. You cannot create a new smell, communicate about it, talk about it. But now we can change that! Our mission is to make scent accessible to everyone! We're giving back to humanity our ability to communicate using scent!"
I examine the little odor synthesizer more closely. This first prototype is just a few days old, with an out-of-the-mold, rough-edged look. Still, someone has found time to paste a brand name on the side. I'm expecting it to say "DigiScents," the name of the company Bellenson and Smith have formed as partners. But the lettering reads "iSmell."
"That's the product name?" I ask. "For real?"
Bellenson emits another nervous laugh. "Yeah. Well, we think so. I mean, it's a powerful, in-your-face name. It's saying, 'Sure, I stink!' And that's its purpose - to create smell!"
Bellenson and Smith didn't set out to be the Prometheans of digitized funk. They met more than 10 years ago as Stanford undergrads, over a chessboard in a coffeehouse. Bellenson, who had grown up in California, was studying biology and international relations; Smith, who came from Florida, was doing industrial engineering.
__ "We've lost touch, as a species, with our sense of smell - our noses aren't on the ground anymore. Now we can change that!" __
By 1989 Bellenson had graduated and was running a lab at Stanford's Beckman Center, using early automated equipment to do DNA synthesis. "People would request DNA sequences for use in their experiments," he says. "We began charging fees against people's research grants, and bringing in millions of dollars."
In 1991, sensing an opportunity, he and Smith started Pangea Systems, a company that built genetic databases. Their software was customized to run on Macs and Unix boxes at major pharmaceutical companies. One of the packages, LifeSeq, was commissioned by Incyte to help it examine and compare genes in order to develop new drugs that could target specific diseases. LifeSeq was so far ahead of its competition that Incyte was able to resell copies to other companies for what Bellenson calls "a hefty subscription fee of a few million a year." Bellenson realized that he and his partner should market their own software instead of letting other companies do it.
In February 1997, after raising $10 million to transform Pangea from a consultancy to a product-oriented outfit, they conceived GeneWorld to automate genetic-database searches, then GeneThesaurus, which searches all public genetic databases simultaneously, sorting an incredible mass of data. Most genomics firms now use Pangea software. This fall Pangea announced DoubleTwist.com, a site where biologists will be able to use its search tools. "DoubleTwist is the first of several biotech and Internet plays we have in the pipeline," Smith says, alluding to a Web-based "personalized medicine" service.
By 1998, Bellenson and Smith had excused themselves from Pangea's day-to-day operations to focus on strategic planning. (Both remain on Pangea's board.) Meanwhile, they enjoyed the spoils of their success. Bellenson filled his 2,500-square-foot apartment with furniture from Africa, a grand piano, and Bowflex weight-training equipment. Some might have expected the two to take time off. But not them. "I'm a compulsive builder," says Smith. "Creating a new market is where the satisfaction is most intense."
They founded their own venture catalyst company, Libra Digital, to jump-start new businesses, including Marc Canter's Broadband Mechanics. Then, on a brief vacation in Florida, they noticed hordes of women wearing exotic perfumes. "It was an intense sensory experience," Smith recalls with a sly grin. "And since smell is a biological phenomenon, it was in our domain."
When Bellenson returned to California, he started investigating the role genes play in our ability to detect smells. He came across a recent experiment at Columbia University, which built on Harvard neurobiologist Linda Buck's 1991 breakthrough wherein she discovered the family of genes responsible for odor detection. In 1998, researchers in StuartFirestein's lab at Columbia engineered a virus to stimulate a rat's odor receptors, heightening its experience of smell and, theoretically, paving the way for the genetic "transplant" of receptors from one type of animal to another.
The explanation for this proved relatively simple. When odor molecules drift into the nose, each of them binds with a particular protein on the surface of a neuron. There are about 1,000 odor-matching proteins, each with a slightly different configuration, scattered across a human's 10 million odor-detecting neurons. (By comparison, a mouse has about 1 million neurons of this type, while a pig boasts 100 million.) When the shape of an odor molecule matches the shape of a protein, the molecules lock together, triggering the neuron, which sends a signal that the brain recognizes as a smell. DNA is relevant because its instructions - its genes - tell the body how to build the proteins that receive odor molecules and activate the neurons.
Bellenson started looking at promising gene sequences, then determined which proteins they would create. Here, he encountered a problem: No one knew the exact shape of these protein molecules; they were in a category that had never been modeled. Bellenson didn't want to spend the time and money on X-ray diffraction studies to create detailed models, so he searched for other proteins that might be similar - and found them in bacteria. This wouldn't have been close enough for a pharmaceutical application, he notes. But it let him create a smell index. He wrote software algorithms to simulate the binding of odor molecules with proteins, then used trial and error to fine-tune the odors, testing them on an odor output device he'd designed.
Ultimately, just as a computer monitor can display millions of colors by mixing different proportions of red, green, and blue, Bellenson wants to generate billions of odors by blending different proportions of just 100 to 200 "scent primaries." This is the only way to make the iSmell output device versatile and cheap enough for the mass market.
Initially, he wasn't thinking of building an odor synthesizer. He imagined applying his research to make foods and drinks smell and taste better. "Taste is 95 percent aroma," he explains. "Your tongue can only detect sweet, sour, bitter, and salty, plus the sensation you get from MSG. All other tastes are a function of the nose. That's why your sense of taste is degraded when you have nasal congestion. Also, it explains why elderly people don't taste things as well, because the ends of their chromosomes get chewed away."
Gradually, though, he developed a higher ambition - "to integrate scent with all media." DigiScents was incorporated earlier this year.
Because Smith and Bellenson are software people, they don't want to manufacture the odor synthesizer themselves. They plan instead to bulk-license iSmell to hardware companies. Also, anyone who wants to odor-enable a Web site will have to pay a licensing fee for the smell index, which reveals the correct proportion of iSmell scent primaries for a particular odor. "That's a business model very much like RealPlayer," Dexster Smith says.
The big question, though, is whether consumers will want iSmell as much as they want MP3. The device works; I can attest to that. But there's something funny about putting a computer-controlled smell machine on your desktop. The biggest challenge now facing DigiScents may be to figure out how to overcome this "wacky factor." Solving the marketing problem will determine whether the product becomes a favorite toy for millions or is laughed into oblivion.
Bellenson is well aware that he must convince people to take this seriously. The very notion of digital odor synthesis has been spoofed in several online hoaxes over the years. "Realaroma.com is a joke Web site," he says, "postulating a fictitious synthesizer and smell markup language. Then there was another Web site, sniff-and-cough, and an email message announcing WinSmell from Microsoft."
__ Just as PC monitors display millions of colors by mixing red, green, and blue, DigiScents aims to create billions of odors with just 100 to 200 "scent primaries." __
Yet using odors for artistic expression hasn't always been dismissed as a joke; it's just been a while since the concept was explored in any depth. In the late '50s, Americans were treated to two cinematic stinkfests, AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision. Behind the Great Wall, a documentary employing the former, included 72 scent cues, ranging from nightclub smoke to Oriental spice, synced to scents pumped through the theater's ventilation system. Smell-O-Vision was dispensed from under each theater seat.
Two decades later, filmmaker John Waters famously used smell as a self-satirical gimmick in the 1981 Polyester. Waters presented his film in Odorama, distributing numbered scratch-and-sniff cards to audiences. Earlier mass entertainment applications of smell, introduced as a way to compete with the popularity of TV, offered an enhanced experience without asking anything extra of moviegoers; Odorama was more in the tradition of those headache-inducing, cardboard-and-acetate 3-D specs distributed at screenings of '50s horror movies like Creature From the Black Lagoon.
Transcending this kind of gimmick stigma seems intimidating, yet it has been done. At 3-D Imax theaters, audiences have shown they are willing to pay a premium to wear headgear fitted with liquid-crystal lenses synchronized via infrared signals with the movie projector, which runs at twice the normal frame rate. These movie viewers plumb new depths in depth perception - they experience extreme realism. If smart technology can transform 3-D from a crude novelty to a genuine visual enhancement, why shouldn't a sophisticated odor synthesizer follow a similar path?
Certainly smell could be artistically important, because it bypasses our conscious brain and communicates directly with the limbic system. It's an opportunity for filmmakers, advertisers, and Web designers to evoke emotions that are literally uncontrollable. That's the power - and perhaps the danger - of communication via smell.
Bellenson foresees informational applications, too. "We can facilitate people experiencing a lot more of the world," he says with intense conviction. "The United States is bland with regard to smell, but the rest of the world is not. There are educational possibilities, because odor is so closely linked with memory. People will learn more about each other and communicate more effectively."
Perhaps more to the point, lucrative Web apps are possible. When you shop online, wouldn't you like to sample the bouquet of wines, the aroma of cigars, or the subtle fragrance of flowers before surrendering your credit card number? Surely more companies will want to aromatize their Web presence when they realize there's a device that can produce genuinely pleasing, authentic fragrances.
Likewise, in simulation games, golf software can create not just the click of club against ball, but also the heady aroma of fresh-cut grass. In the Nintendo/PlayStation universe, auto-racing games can reek of gasoline and burning rubber, while Duke Nukem may be enhanced with the tang of underarm sweat or the stench of alien flesh roasted by laser weapons.
Already Smith and Bellenson have commissioned a consultant to create a perfume for tomb raider Lara Croft, and they imagine a unique scent for each fire, water, and earth character in the Pokémon games. "We're in negotiations with [Tomb Raider publisher] Eidos," says Smith. "We're talking to Mattel, too. Imagine a CD-ROM where you pick outfits and activities for your Barbie doll - along with her perfume!" Yeah!
Nor does it end there. Aromatherapy can now go online. Though its healing powers are debatable, Bellenson maintains that some oils are definitely antimicrobial; they may not kill infectious agents in the bloodstream, but they'll certainly disinfect the room. Bellenson also believes that odors can play a significant role in affecting mental states such as depression - and sexual excitement. Pheromones, which seem odorless, Bellenson points out, "can make people feel sexy - or hungry." Thus gourmet-food distributors could induce cravings for their products, while XXX-rated Web sites could crank the user's libido.
By early next year, you should be able to seriously sniff around www.digiscents.com. With characteristic zeal, Bellenson & Co. promise online goodies such as free smell samples, ranging from chocolate and roses to "new car"; smell design tools that let you create your very own odors; movie scent tracks to run in sync with your favorite DVDs; and, of course, the iSmell box. (Assuming, that is, they have landed a manufacturer.) DigiScents plans to begin taking beta-user orders by Christmas, and aims to make the gadgets generally available by spring. There's even the prospect, unconfirmed at press time, of odor broadcasting. Smith and Bellenson have had preliminary talks with major US music-television and home-entertainment networks and Asian satellite television broadcasters. Adding odor to the broadcasts wouldn't steal much bandwidth: A typical scent, using the Bellenson-Smith encoding format, can be defined with less than 2 Kbytes of data.
In Bellenson's apartment, Marc Canter has been lying on a postmodern faux-leopard-skin couch with his eyes half closed, listening as Bellenson and Smith outline their grand vision. He rouses himself now, like a lugubrious guru, a veteran of more than half a dozen projects pushing the state of the art. He wishes to make a statement about trends that lie ahead.
"There is a new paradigm for tools," he says. "In the old days, they were shrink-wrapped pieces of software; you sat down and read the manual and used the tool. Nowadays, the tools are free. And what we need are scalable content tools. Look at Hollywood: They take a movie and amortize the cost among multiple forms, from cable TV to toys. On the Web, we haven't been able to do that, because it's just a delivery medium. But if all the content can be decoupled" - in other words, if it can exist separately from any particular format - "I can output a low-end Web site, a medium-res CD-ROM, and a high-end broadband version, all from the same ideas. In the smell world, this means 16-pack cartridges that do only a few smells, or big systems that do thousands."
"We expect to have low-end and high-end iSmell hardware," Smith agrees. "The low end may retail for under $200. The smell cartridges - even at the high end - will probably cost under $50." With moderate use, he guesses, they should last a few months.
"The key, as always, is the installed base," Canter says. "But there's so many different target markets. It'll be easy to get overwhelmed. You'll need a staff of 15 people just to answer the phones. We'll do the usual things - developers' kits, conferences, seminars, T-shirts, hats, all that stuff." The prospect seems to overcome him with ennui, yet he appears convinced it will work.
Currently, about 25 people are refining concepts and hardware for DigiScents, according to vice president of business development John Williams, the third member of DigiScents' four-man executive team. Williams, who has known the founders since their Stanford days, previously directed "bizdev" for Spray, now part of Razorfish, and Red Dot, which was absorbed into AnswerThink Consulting Group. By September, on behalf of DigiScents, he had entered into talks with not only Eidos but also Nintendo, Comcast, InterAct Accessories, and Sega. At press time no deals had closed.
__ Imagine: Online aromatherapy. Digitized party invites with exotic whiffs, not GIFs. Spam that smells like Spam. Kiss-off letters that smell rancid - or worse. __
R&D has been rapid: Just eight months have elapsed from concept to prototype. The exterior design of the unit may change slightly to make it resemble the kind of loudspeakers sold with multimedia PC setups - "Reekers, instead of speakers," Bellenson comments. The original iSmell demo unit, built by GeneMachines in San Carlos, California, contains just 36 wells of odor oil. The finished product should have at least 128 primaries, enabling, says Bellenson, 12850 odors. "Not the entire scent space," he adds, "but a substantial portion of it."
Odor output will be boosted automatically for users who live at high altitudes, where vapor dissipates more rapidly. Also, some people may choose to inhibit odors they don't like, just as audiophiles can use a graphic equalizer to fine-tune a stereo system to suit their tastes and perceptions. But I wonder if there's a liability problem here: Some odors could be intolerable to allergy sufferers. "We'll have product disclaimers, naturally," says Bellenson.
"I think aesthetic disclaimers will be more important," adds Canter. "You know, when PageMaker was first released, it created a lot of really ugly pages. I'll be surprised if 10 percent of the first smell output is bearable."
This is, after all, a totally new art form.
"We know when the first visual art was done, in cave paintings," Canter continues. "And the first musical art consisted of tribal people beating drums. Think of all the books written about musical and visual arts since then. Now show me the library on smells."
Avery Gilbert used to run a scent consultancy company named Synesthetics, and was vice president of sensory research at Givaudan-Roure, a division of Hoffmann-LaRoche. He also serves as head of scientific affairs for the Olfactory Research Fund. Gilbert has joined DigiScents to help establish some aesthetic guidelines. But, as Canter implies, odor generation and movie scent tracks won't be controlled purely by experts. Bellenson and Smith ardently believe that we should all gain the same kind of creative power over odor synthesis that we acquired when desktop publishing revolutionized graphic design. Thus, we will brew our own odors, save them as digital files, and email them as attachments - whiffs, not GIFs.
Imagine: Digitized party invitations could carry the aroma of food, wine, or more exotic stimulants. Kiss-off email can smell rancid - or worse. "Make money fast!" chain letters can arrive smelling of new dollar bills. And spam could smell of Spam - or perhaps emit a scent that's so irresistible, you'll let the text linger on your screen just to enjoy it.
On the downside, empowerment always brings an element of risk. Hackers will write their own iSmell software, with unforeseeable results. Virus designers may circulate smell files that cause computers to crank out odious odors for hours at a time.
Meanwhile, if DigiScents is a hit, it will spawn competitors. Already, a Massachusetts company called MicroChips has announced a chip containing many tiny compartments whose liquid, gel, or solid contents can be released individually. An early news item suggested using this system for odor emittance, but Bellenson doesn't think that's viable. "We called the company and asked about it because we thought maybe we could have our software work with their devices," he says. "But the amount of odor they could deliver is minuscule." Originally the MicroChips gadget was intended as an under-the-skin drug-release system, which still seems its most plausible purpose.
Other smell generators have been proposed, and prototypes have been built, but on a less commercial level. Scientists at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, for example, have a patent pending on a peripheral device, similar to a disk drive, that releases odors from an absorbent pad, but it's not as far along as the iSmell.
Bellenson sounds disappointed that serious competitors don't exist yet. "We want to license our software and our index to run with anybody's synthesizer," he says. "Let them come up with their own primaries, and we'll translate from theirs to ours. We're trying to grow a whole industry, not just our business."
And if it does catch the public imagination, where will it end?
DigiScents has no plans to scale the product for auditoriums. A movie theater would require huge odor synthesizers - and, in the era of multiplexes, elaborate ventilation equipment would be needed to clear the air before the next smell.
But since small-scale smell generation is possible, could it be followed by smell capture? Some of today's digital cameras can record a five-second sound clip with each photo. What would it take for a camera to store a digitized odor sample as well?
"There are a number of paths to a smell camera," Bellenson says. "Gas chromatography works by sucking air through a liquid, then analyzing the liquid. The big fragrance houses already do this. In rain forests, they capture scents from exotic flowers by sucking the air around the flower. Of course, today this process still costs tens of thousands of dollars."
Artificial noses already exist in a rudimentary form. Led by Paul E. Keller, an Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, developed a prototype nose in the early '90s that identified eight household chemicals: acetone, correction fluid, contact cement, glass cleaner, isopropyl alcohol, lighter fluid, rubber cement, and vinegar.
More recently, Marc Madou, who runs a microsensors program in the materials research lab at Ohio State University in Columbus, has developed sophisticated gas sensors attached to a neural network.
"Every major university has someone studying chemical olfaction," Bellenson says. A Caltech technology is at the heart of a company called Cyrano Sciences whose smell-sensitive polymers swell to provide a range of odor signatures. "These things are very useful for finding explosives or drugs, or bad batches of food on an assembly line in a warehouse," he adds.
So far, the synthetic nostrils don't know how to select - and capture - the odors we care about and recognize. But if this embryonic technology finds an audience, we could, among other things, create electronic scrapbooks filled with smell clips from our travels, stimulating intense nostalgic experiences. According to Bellenson, "A smell camera could be two to three years away."
In the meantime, while the whole field of smell-enabled computers remains untested, one application seems inevitable. Virtual reality already uses 3-D displays and tactile feedback from data gloves, vests, and chairs. Odor would be a natural extension of this experience.
The concept has long been discussed in academic papers. Woodrow Barfield and Eric Danas examined it in "Comments on the Use of Olfactory Displays for Virtual Environments," published in the winter 1995 issue of Presence. This year, in a paper for the University of Washington, Martin Zybura and Gunnar A. Eskeland discussed the challenges in "Olfaction for Virtual Reality," suggesting that merely wafting odors toward a VR user won't be enough, because "an olfactory interface would have to use head orientation and position tracking to present a localized smell. Further, a separate display for each nostril is required to provide internasal time and intensity differences."
There's at least one business plan out there that defines a commercial odor-enhanced VR environment - and is looking for investors. Digital Tech Frontier promises a Virtual Scentsations kiosk for amusement arcades with "up to three different virtual experiences that stimulate visual, aural, and even olfactory senses by delivering localized fragrances near the user's nose."
This sounds severely limited when compared with iSmell and its billions of primary-scent combinations. Considering the track record for breakneck R&D at DigiScents, and Pangea Systems' history of marketing unique biologically oriented software, DigiScents seems a good ways ahead of any possible competitors. As cyberspace matures into a totally immersive experience, I'm betting it will turn out to be fully odor-enabled.
Just clear your nasal palate with coffee beans before you jack in.


text:
|Data Projection:
|Classroom Computer:
|Video Playback:
|DVD & Blu-ray
|Sound System:
|Voice & Media
please click here for the seating layout of this room.
Data Projection
- A projector is installed in the ceiling. When activated, it can project either video or data.
- A Touch Screen Classroom Computer is installed within the media cabinet.
- A VGA cable is available on the media cabinet for laptop connection. A HDMI input is also available - HDMI cables can be checked out from Audio Visual Services before class time.
- If a laptop does not have either of these outputs, you will need to bring an adapter to use the data projector.
Video Playback
- A DVD / Blu-ray player is located in the media cabinet at the front of the room.
- A VHS player is available for checkout from Audio Visual Services.
Document Camera
- A document camera is available for use in the classroom. It is located in the ceiling in the area around the media cabinet and can be used with the moveable table.
Internet Access
- The room is designed for Wi-Fi availability for all students and faculty.
- An Ethernet jack is available on the media cabinet for wired connection.
- The Classroom Computer has its own connection and is already configured to the Classroom Network.
- For instructions on connecting to the Internet, visit the Classroom Network section.
Sound System
- Wireless lavalier microphones are available for check out, either on a daily or quarterly basis.
- There is one microphone input (XLR) available at the media cabinet.
- The Classroom Computer and video player are already connected to the system for sound support.
- A mini audio cable (1/8") is installed with the VGA cable to support laptops or additional devices.

subset: commoncrawl


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You've had plenty of time to play with the two new versions of Pokémon; now it's time to get serious. The 2011 Pokémon Video Game Championship series kicks off next month, with fans across the U.S. and Europe gathering to prove they have what it takes to be the very best in Pokémon Black and White.
As I discovered last year, the Pokémon Video Game Championships are a big deal, bringing families together and then tearing them apart in the fiery heat of battle. Now a whole new roster of Pokémon enters the ring as Black and White become the focus for this year's festivities.
Fresh pocket monsters being played on fresh Nintendo handhelds. Don't you love the smell of Pokéballs in the morning?
Here are the U.S. dates for the championship series:
May 14th, Seattle, WA- Washington State Convention Center, Hall 4B
May 21st, San Jose, CA - San Jose Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 2
May 28th, Dallas, TX- Arlington Convention Center, Grand Hall
June 4th, Atlanta, GA- Gwinnett Center, Hall A and B
June 11th, Washington, D.C.- Dulles Expo Center, South Hall
June 18th, Newark, NJ- Meadowlands Exposition Center
And for our European friends:
June 4th, Birmingham, United Kingdom- National Exhibition Centre, Hall 8
June 11th, Rome, Italy- Fiera Roma, Hall 12, Ingresso Nord
June 18th, Madrid, Spain- IFEMA, Hall 1, Feria de Madrid
June 25th, Paris, France- Espace Grande Arche, Parvis de La Défense
July 2nd , Cologne, Germany- EXPO XXI Köln GmbH, Gladbacher Wall 5
Those events lead up to the 2011 Pokémon World Championships, held August 12 through August 14 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego, California.
For more information on the rules, regulations, and other Pokémon-related rigmarole, keep an eye on the Pokemon Video Game Championships website.


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TACOMA, Wash. — Thousands of images seized from the home of Susan Powell's father-in-law show the missing Utah mother as she walks in public and sits in her car, apparently unaware that someone is taking her picture.
The photos — some of which are sexually suggestive — were obtained under public-records laws Thursday by The Associated Press, three years after Powell went missing.
Authorities uncovered the files while serving a search warrant last year at the home where her husband, Josh Powell, and father-in-law, Steve Powell, were living. Josh Powell killed himself and the couple's two young children earlier this year.
Some of the images seized during the search, including those of bathing young girls who lived next door to Steve Powell, were used earlier this year to convict him of voyeurism charges.
Other photos show a variety of women apparently unaware that a camera is focused on them as they walk along sidewalks, at the park or into the mall.
Steve Powell was not charged with any crimes related to images of Susan Powell, but the files show she was often the focus of his lens. In a folder labeled with her initials, SMP, there are images of her walking through parking lots or sitting in her car. It appears the photographer is taking the pictures from another vehicle.
Some images zoom closely to Susan Powell's crotch or her backside, including a set of photos taken through blinds as she's bending over and doing laundry. None of the pictures, which were found on a disc in Steve Powell's bedroom, show her naked.
The folder dedicated to Susan Powell contains nearly 4,500 images.
In journals that authorities have also made public, Powell describes himself as a "voyeur" and Susan as an "exhibitionist." He talks about using a mirror to spy on her under the bathroom door, and he writes about taking sexual pleasure in looking at images of Susan Powell that he kept on his computer.
Powell talks in his journals about taking lots of video of Susan during a trip to Silver Falls in 2009, and a folder of images from the trip shows only photos of her backside as she's walking.
In one entry, dated a few months before Susan Powell disappeared, Steve Powell wrote that he had just woken up "from a most pleasant dream about Susan." He described a sexually charged dream in which Susan asked him, "'Do you think I would make a good wife for you?'"
Anne Bremner, an attorney who represents Susan Powell's parents, said the images support the family's assertion that Steve Powell had a concerning attraction for his daughter-in-law.
"When you look at those pictures, it's clearly surreptitious. It's clearly obsessive," Bremner said. The family believes Steve Powell knows something about Susan Powell's disappearance, and authorities have described him as uncooperative.
Mark Quigley, an attorney who represented Steve Powell in the voyeurism case, did not return a call seeking comment. Powell is in prison, serving a sentence of more than two years.
Susan Powell disappeared in Utah in December 2009. Records have shown that Utah investigators handling the case focused their attention primarily on her husband.


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Dear Em,
I don't expect to write more than a few lines for we are waiting to have our feet inspected and after that I am going to be very buisy getting ready to leave this place. I have to take a shower (you know how long it takes me to bathe) and then I have to wash out all my things, including a pair of pants, suits of underwear, two pair of socks, an o.d. shirt, and some hankerchiefs. Then Ive got to get my traveling kit together and pack away all the things I will leave behind. I've also got to sew two sets of shevrons. (sergeants stripes on a couple of o.d. shirts so you see I will be pretty buisy from now until taps tonight. There we go for feet inspection, I'll finish this later.
Well I just found out that I will have to wear a size ten. If I ever hit the ocean I will sail home, what? Every thing is hustle-bustle now, that is Companies L & K. The rest of the Regiment are going some where else but I don't know when or where.
I just heard my name called at the head of the street, and what luck. It was a letter from you and one from Mary. It is just as you say, these letters do bring us pretty close together.
I always start the other page first, well I'll get wise when I write a few more letters. I just found out that we are to move about seven miles from here, and you would think the boys were going on a vacation, but I know that it wont be long before they find out that it is going to be anything but such. It is going to mean one day patrol and the next day gaurd, for fifteen days steady.
I am writing pretty fast now before it gets dark and I might get careless but I know you will overlook any error. Send your letters to the same place and I will get them all right.
The money I was going to send home will be delayed now, for a couple of the fellows went broke, and knowing that I had some they hit me and hit me hard. But I will get it next pay day and I will try my best to railroad it home. I am sorry I can say no more, also that I can't answer the letter Little Mary wrote but I will write a real letter soon.
© Copyright 2008 by Richard Landers, All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without permission.


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State Tournament Run
Posted 10 February 2015 - 02:30 PM
Posted 10 February 2015 - 07:04 PM
Posted 11 February 2015 - 01:42 PM
106 Assaf Def
113 Hunter Elida, Lucas LLC
120 Lantow Def
126 Bell Ver, Uhlenhake Coldwater
132 Grunden Def, Seibert Coldwater, Copeland Wapak, Hennon LCC
145 Ambros Wap, Stonehill Bath
152 Kulman Shaw
160 Bowers Def, Brodman Carey, Kohlhorst Shaw, Beemer Ottawa, Vonderwell St John
170 Newman Wap, Heitcamp St Marys, Windle Ada
182 Hall Wapak, Foust(maybe 195) Del Jeff
195 Major Indian Lake, Derringer Ver, Buettner St John, Huffman LCC
220 Lhamon Bath, Gigandet Ver, Schulte St Johns
285 Siebert Def, Vandemark Spencerville
Anyone else belong, missing, wrong weight class?
Edited by Wildcat19, 13 February 2015 - 01:27 AM.
Posted 11 February 2015 - 06:45 PM
Posted 11 February 2015 - 07:36 PM
Posted 12 February 2015 - 02:39 PM
Hunter, Lucas
I dont know enough about the 26's
Grunden, Copeland, (I dont think hennon makes it even after taking the easy way and going to LCC)
Bowers (Bowers will be the only one from that long list to make it)
all 3 170's have a good chance to make it
Hall and foust should make it.. I think Huffman will be at 182 as well and make it placing high (top 5)
Derringer and Buettner both placing top 4 is my guess
i think lhamon is the only one at 220 that has the slightest shot
and siebert maybe
stonehill might make it who isnt on the list
Posted 13 February 2015 - 01:19 AM
along with his teammate Derringer who might win it.
Edited by Wildcat19, 13 February 2015 - 01:28 AM.
Posted 13 February 2015 - 11:43 AM
I don't know anything about Gigandet
Posted 18 February 2015 - 02:24 PM
Let me start by saying the D2 Oak Harbor sectional is going to be brutal. There will be a lot of kids left home that would normally be a shoe in for District Qualification.
District Qualifiers
106 Assaf (Def), Guilford (Ayersvillle), Cunningham (LCC),
113 Hunter (Elida), Lucas (LCC), Palomo (OG) Rassman (Wayne Trace)
120 Lantow (Defi), Clemens (WT), Hefner (Wap) Sumner (Ada
126 Grunden (Defi), Bey (Ver), Uhlenhake (Coldwater), Caprella (AE), Goeltzealeuzhter (WT)
132 Seibert (Coldwater), Copeland (Wapak), Hennon LCC, Chavez (Def)
138 Crites (Celina), Obringer (CW), Smith (Spencerville), Barajas (Def), Hammond (Van Wert) Mendoza (Kenton)
145 Ambos (Wapak), Stonehill (Bath), Clellan (Defi), Eisele (LCC), Showalter (WT)
152 Kuhlman (Shawnee), Plaugher (Wapak), Soules (AE)
160 Bowers (Defi), Cook (Kenton), Beemer (OG)
170 Newman (Wapak), Heidtkamp (St. Mary) Windle (Ada), Dietrich (Paulding), Fry (Ayersville)
182 Hall (Wapak), Castle (Kenton), Huffman (LCC)
195 Derringer (Ver) , Buettner (St John), Gross (Bath)
220 Lhamon (Bath), Morris (Defi), Gigandet (Ver), Schulte (St Johns)
.285 Seibert (Defi), Cantrell (Van Wert), Gibson (OG), Hughes (Shawnee), Rudasil (Bath)
I tried to cover the Lima Area teams and threw in some names mentioned earlier.
Edited by reversehalf, 19 February 2015 - 12:18 PM.
Posted 18 February 2015 - 05:05 PM
Strong (District 1-3 place)
106 Guilford (Ayersville)
113 Hunter (Elida), Lucas (LCC)
120 Clemens (WT)
126 Grunden (Defi), Bey (Ver)
132 Copeland (Wap) Seibert (Coldwater)
145 Ambos (Wapak) Showalter (WT)
152 Kuhlman (Shawnee)
160 Bowers (Defi)
182 Hall (Wapak) Huffman (LCC)
195 Derringer (Ver), Buettner (St. Johns)
Moderate (4-6 place) Bracketing will play a huge factor
106 Assaf (Defi)
120 Lantow (Defi), Hefner (Wap)
126 Uhlenhake (CW)
145 Stonehill (Bath)
170 Newman (Wap) Fry (Ayersville)
220 Lhamon (Bath)
285 Seibert (Defi)
Good luck to all the wrestlers next weekend. Prove me right or prove me wrong depending if you see your name in here or not.
Posted 18 February 2015 - 05:54 PM
From your work, Wapak has good chance of 4, LCC, WT, Versailles and Defiance with 2; no one else with more than one - not that that is a bad thing getting a kid to State! If Defiance gets a couple of its edge kids to go, they and Wapak would be great representatives of the area. If that happens and Bath gets a couple, Elida and Shawnee come through, that could be a record year for the WBL.
I see no NWC schools represented; is that really the case? I cannot think of any off the top of my head; that speaks volume to the down year the NWC seems to have had. Is the league young; are they ready next year?
Posted 22 February 2015 - 03:59 PM
In the sport of wrestling there are skin issues that you have to deal with, you take them to Dr and get meds for them and you sit out till you are cleared, you don't go tell the entire and yes i said entire faculty (elementary, middle and high school) that there is an out break of herpes on the wrestling team. Then to top it off have some of the faculty members ask the kids in class if they were one of the kids with herpes in front of there fellow students. Put your child in this situation and see if you would want to take the easy way out and leave!
Posted 23 February 2015 - 02:25 PM
An apparent skin issue and how it was dealt with
Better education (even though Shawnee is highly respected in this area)
Following Sanchez bc the kids wrestled for stomp
An easier route to state
Or scared of someone they lost to at state last year
….. and do you really pay almost 7,000 dollars, bc there are ways for the admission to be discounted, a kid from where I a from looked into transferring and the cost was a main issue until he was told that the cost could be cut down, he ended up staying bc he did not want to be accused of taking the easy way out and he did not want to leave all of his long time friends.
Posted 23 February 2015 - 03:09 PM
Edited by Porkbutt, 23 February 2015 - 03:14 PM.
Posted 24 February 2015 - 06:03 PM
Why do you not believe the guy when he tells what the tuition is? He clearly said he was paying it, which makes a parent of one of the kids who transferred. You underhandedly call the guy a liar, and use a kid from your school who chose not to move as the foundation of your belief that some under-handed and shady deals are made for special people. You also indicate the skin issue was "apparent" which means you don;t think it happened. It really happened, and Shawnee should be ashamed and embarrassed!
All of my brothers and sisters attended LCC, I attended LCC, all of my children have attended LCC, and all of my nieces and nephews have attended, and I have had family members work at LCC. The tuition is what porkbutt says. Families that attend a Catholic parish in Lima can receive limited tuition assistance; St. Charles parish currently pays $800 a year, but the students have to attend Mass and sign a card at Mass and drop it in the collection basket to demonstrate their attendance. I am uncertain what St. Gerard and St. Rose provide for support, but I think it is less than St. Charles.
Families that can demonstrate financial need can apply for need based assistance; this program is run through an independent company called FACTS; applicants have to submit tax returns and W-2's. The school has a fund that is typically around $60,000 per year that is distributed by the FACTS decisions; the average award per family which applied two years ago was around $800; some got more, some got less, but no one went free. There is the chance that a student who attended a qualifying elementary school in the Lima City School district can earn an Ed Choice voucher through the State of Ohio. The reality that no one wants you to know is that close to half of the voucher students at LCC were originally enrolled in a Catholic school, moved to a qualifying elementary school, then moved back to the Catholic schools. I believe this has to happen by 5th grade, because none of the Lima City Schools junior highs or the high school are eligible for the voucher program. Getting a voucher requires planning - it does not happen because someone decides to transfer late in their high school career. The kids that came from Shawnee and Bath are paying a significant amount of money to attend LCC. That tells me they were unsatisfied in their previous educational experience. Perhaps you should ask why a family would sacrifice do that, rather than take cheap shots about avoiding kids and taking the easy route out. The easy route is staying in a program that does not meet the needs of a student and keeping your money in your pocket.
If you would like to accuse Lucas of avoiding someone in DII, do you really think he would go to DIII and challenge either Mattin or Hoskins, who are about as good a locks to win state titles as there are in Ohio this year? If Lucas wanted to win a title this year, he should have transferred to Lima Sr., assessed at 106 and challenged the kid from Mason.
Your post was filled with rumor and innuendo; you act like you know something when you really don't know sh!t
I have always heard that one should not hit "send" after creating this type of post, but what the heck, this may be my last post ever!
Posted 24 February 2015 - 06:38 PM
Posted 25 February 2015 - 01:48 PM
and its no secret that D3 is not as difficult as the other 2 divisions
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Edouard Vuillard's stunning painting, from 1893, is now in a show called "Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard" at the Phillips Collection in Washington. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) The photograph beside it is one of several snapshots that Vuillard took of his family and friends, and that influenced the domesticity in his art. In the Vuillard survey at the National Gallery in 2003, the link between paintings and photos was a big revelation. The Phillips now tells the whole story, for Vuillard's whole generation.
For a full visual archive of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.


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Arts & Recreation
For County Wide North Mason Chamber Members Click Here
300 E Country Club Drive East
Union, WA 98592
(360) 898-2560
From local Northwest specialties and ethnic cuisine to great bakeries and ice cream parlors, there is no shortage of great dining experiences to be had.
The majestic beauty of Union and Hood Canal provide the perfect backdrop for a weekend get-a-way. If your idea is a cabin nestled in the woods or a four star resort and spa, we have it all here in Union.
Art and nature is drawn together in Union. Your adventure awaits, from majestic hikes to world class golf.
Union provides that "small town" feel. But the businesses that call this community home are as vast as the area itself. It's no wonder why so many people call this place home!


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The much discussed release from Harper Lee. It has had many tongues wagging, from rumours of shady dealings by lawyers and publishers to fears that it will taint Lee's legacy. Now that it has been released we can finally see for ourselves.
26 year old Jean Louise "Scout" Finch returns to Maycomb from New York to visit her family. Her visit comes at a time when many changes are happening in the country, particularly regarding race relations. But on this return trip she discovers that all the small changes that she has been witnessing in Maycomb are but a precursor to the sweeping social shift that will affect everyone, including her much loved and admired father, Atticus.
It is difficult not to make comparisons with To Kill a Mockingbird, Watchman being an earlier incarnation. The most apparent difference is that Watchman does not have the charm of its successor. Gone is the child narrator, and although the mix of folk tales and tall tales that so enlivened Mockingbrid are here, these whimsicalities are only shades, with the dialogues and tales that would, in subsequent rewrites, become the exchanges that gave Mockingbird its uniqueness and heft apparent only in sketches.
The South's struggle with segregation is still present, but where Mockingbird focused on the personal Watchman deals with the political dimensions. Its treatment of Atticus is more complex, Mockingbird being, after all, Scout's reminiscences of her heroic father. In Watchman this idolisation is replaced with disillusion. He may have upheld Tom Robinson's rights, but that does not mean this old Southern gent isn't worried about Southern heritage, including all the fears of miscegenation, worries about state's rights and individual liberties, and a mistrust of outside forces like the federal government and NAACP that go along with the Southern mentality. But even these passages are often laden with stereotypes and awkward phrasing, giving reminders that Watchman, even in published form, is a draft, both in how it handles its subject matter and also in its flow.
Despite its short comings it is not the death knell of Lee's reputation. When viewed alongside Mockingbird it provides a unique study not just into the creation of a much loved classic, but of an author who began with an admirable if muddled story and was able, with some help from an editor, to craft it into a fascinating tale.Andreas


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This is my home for things that don't, for one reason or another, belong to Twitter, Facebook or my other blogs. Here you will find my thoughts and musings on topics ranging from climate change and energy issues to mobile & IT technologies, reviews on things I read/see and from cultural commentary to photos. In other words, the topics are all over the place - so if you're looking for a blog with a consistent focus on a single issue, keep looking :)
Tag Archives: data-driven
Data-Driven Bad & why we need to raise our game
The term 'data-driven' is today used almost exclusively in a positive tone; perhaps because it implies logic or decisions that are somehow based on impartial facts (nb. even though data != facts nor is it impartial). But there's a substantially … Continue reading
Posted in ICT-stuff Tagged action, analytics, Big Data, data, data-driven, insight Leave a comment


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Athabasca Basin and beyond
Uranium news from Saskatchewan and elsewhere for September 27 to October 3, 2014
by Greg Klein
Next Page 1 | 2
Fission continues PLS main zone's perfect score, gets conditional approval for TSX listing
In a week that saw Fission Uranium TSXV:FCU win conditional approval to move up to the TSX big board, the company maintained this season's 100% hit rate at Patterson Lake South's R780E zone. All seven holes released September 29 returned wide mineralization. The main zone now boasts 61 successes out of 61 summer holes.
The results come from a hand-held device used to measure drill core for radiation. They're no substitute for assays, which are pending.
Among the most recent batch's highlights, hole PLS14-290 revealed intervals totalling a composite 97.5 metres of mineralization, the shallowest beginning at 113.5 metres in downhole depth. PLS14-298 showed a composite 84 metres, with the shallowest intercept starting at 146.5 metres. PLS14-296 came up with a 94.5-metre composite, with one interval starting at 96 metres. True widths weren't available.
An innovation to the summer program has been angled drilling from barges over the lake. Now Fission's emphasizing three "scissor" holes, each sunk north to south at an opposite azimuth to a south-to-north hole. The purpose is to "provide geometry control and confirmation on the mineralization." PLS14-290, for example, "intersected well-developed mineralization … in an area that had previously only seen moderate results."
By far the biggest of four zones along a 2.24-kilometre potential strike, R780E shows a continuous strike of 930 metres and, at one point, a lateral width of 164 metres. The project's mineralization sits within a metasedimentary lithologic corridor bounded to the south by the PL-3B basement electromagnetic conductor.
Still to come are assays to replace the summer's radiometric results, as well as assays for the final dozen of last winter's 92 holes. December's still the target for a maiden resource.
Fission greeted October 3 by announcing conditional approval for a TSX listing. The company anticipates big board trading on or about October 8, retaining its FCU ticker.
In an interview posted by Stockhouse October 3, Fission chairperson/CEO Dev Randhawa contrasted Saskatchewan's stability with that of other uranium-rich jurisdictions like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Namibia and Niger. Verifying his intention to sell the project, Randhawa told journalist Gaalen Engen, "We have about six or seven Asian and North American companies in the midst of due diligence who are interested in doing private placement and/or taking over the company."
The previous week Fission closed a $14.4-million private placement and released regional PLS drill results.
Field work and drilling approach for Lakeland Resources' Star/Gibbon's Creek flagship
Announced September 29, the termination of an option with Declan Resources TSXV:LAN gives Lakeland Resources TSXV:LK full control of its 12,771-hectare Gibbon's Creek project, which features boulder samples up to 4.28% U3O8 and some of the Athabasca Basin's highest-ever radon readings. Three days later Lakeland released rock and soil sample results from its adjacent Star property, showing gold, platinum and palladium, as well as some rare earths and low-grade uranium. Especially when considered for their proximity to a structural lineament that runs through both properties, the results show similarities to major Basin discoveries of high-grade uranium, the company states. With the two properties on the Basin's north-central margin united as one project, Lakeland has additional field work planned for autumn. That leads up to a drill program slated to begin this winter, if not sooner.
Jody Dahrouge, president of Dahrouge Geological Consulting, told ResourceClips.com of geophysical data showing "a major regional structural lineament that's about 30 or 40 kilometres in length, and it's been reactivated many times over 100 million years or more. This is a key ingredient to every uranium deposit in the Athabasca Basin…. Having it reactivated time and time again allows multiple generations of fluid to flow along that structure and deposition of perhaps multiple ore bodies."
He identified three mineralizing systems within five to 10 kilometres of the structure. The Star uplift, a basement outcrop about 700 metres by 350 metres, was the location of many of the samples showing gold and platinum group elements, along with some rare earths and low-grade uranium.
A massive alteration zone about a kilometre south had historic drill results up to 1,500 parts per million uranium. A few kilometres farther sits the boulder field that graded up to 4.28% U3O8. "Clearly something's going on and clearly it's related to the structure," Dahrouge said.
With drill permits in place, road access from a nearby community, shallow depths, high ground that can be worked year-round and a healthy treasury, Lakeland now plans the next stage of an extensive exploration program for its flagship.
Read more about Lakeland's Star/Gibbon's Creek project.
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Warning: This column contains references to flatulence and 14th century poetry. Steel yourself.
On to the questions:
Q: During occasional lunches with my company's president and vice president, both would invariably complain about the poor work product of the administrative assistant we three shared. After the assistant botched yet another important project, I politely encouraged her to take more time and double-check her work. She later went to the president to complain. He called us both into his office and proceeded to chew me out in front of her. What should I have done differently? How should I have responded to the president?
— Anonymous, via email
A: Ouch. The old Big Boss Double-Cross. (I don't know if that's actually a thing — just made it up.)
What you've presented is a perfect example of what happens when people in the workplace fail to properly communicate up and down the chain of command.
I ran the scenario by Janet Letourneau, a career coach, organizational behavior expert and founder of Massachusetts-based Peak Performers.
"What we have here is three people who are all at fault," she said. "Nobody did a good job of managing relationships."
First off, the person asking this question clearly didn't do a good job of setting expectations for the administrative assistant. Letourneau said the first thing any manager should do is make sure an employee knows what is expected, understands the manager's quirks and habits, and feels they can approach the manager if confused or frustrated.
Second, the administrative assistant should never have gone over her manager's head. It's incumbent on an employee to "manage up," to make sure she understands what her boss wants and expects and to feel comfortable taking criticism and asking direct questions when there's a problem.
"Both sides need to manage the relationship," Letourneau said. "The boss isn't perfect. You're expecting them to be almost like God and manage the relationship, but you have as much responsibility as they do to make sure things work."
Lastly, the president did a lousy job of managing his relationship with the person who wrote in. If criticizing an administrative assistant's work is a no-no, the middle-manager had a right to know that and shouldn't be yelled at in front of the assistant.
This was a triangle of failed communication, but hopefully there's a lesson to be learned.
"In the workplace, we're not thinking about how critical those relationships are to help us ultimately in our productivity," Letourneau said. "Everyone in an office needs to take responsibility for properly managing their relationships."
Q: How do you deal with a toxic co-worker or manager?
— Anonymous, via email
A: Because you can't "unfriend," "unfollow" or "delete" a person you cross paths with each day — and because laser guns have yet to be invented — a bad-seed colleague is a nettlesome and common problem.
Dorothy Tannahill Moran, an Oregon-based career development expert and founder of a company called Next Chapter New Life, gave me some of the more smart and pragmatic thoughts I've heard on wrangling with toxic co-workers.
"For the majority of people that you're going to encounter at work, standard operating procedure for behavior is just fine: Just be yourself," she said. "But then you're going to have outliers where that's just not fine. That means you have to adapt, and you need to be smart about what you're adapting to."
Here's where it gets sneaky!
Moran suggests observing the behavior of the problem person, understanding the circumstances that trigger undesired behavior and the type of response the person has to those situations. In essence, know your enemy.
The better you understand how that person behaves, the more skilled you can be at working around him or her.
"All too often we get hooked into emotional responses, and that continues to perpetuate the problem," Moran said. "You need to rise above it and think, 'What is this person doing that's tweaking me, and what are the situations where this happens?' Then you can problem-solve."
Try various approaches to dealing with the person. Make a game out of besting the toxic person with stealth.
And if that doesn't work, laser guns can't be that far off.
Q: How does one handle a situation where a female employee passes audible gas anywhere in the office, including in other colleague's offices and sometimes even during conversation, and doesn't acknowledge it in any way?
—Colleen, via email
A: Like most 40-year-old men, I have the comedic sophistication of a 12-year-old. And so it was with unparalleled excitement that I finally received a question about passing gas.
Listen, I'm not ashamed to say that I think farts — yeah, I did it, I dropped the f-word — are hilarious. They're the foundation of comedy, dating to Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," in which a character unleashes a "fart as loud as it had been a thunderclap."
Quite frankly, Colleen, your co-worker has given you one of the all-time great office stories. I think you should let her keep doing what she does so the story can live on. Maybe start a blog about it.
On the practical side, however, you have two choices.
If someone in the office is friends with this woman, they need to take her aside and gently make her aware that her habit is being noticed. It won't be an easy conversation, but it clearly needs to happen, for her sake and the good of the office.
The second, and probably better, option is to take the issue to your boss. Managers are paid more because they occasionally have to deal with people who pass gas uncontrollably.
The boss must handle this situation carefully, as there may well be a legitimate health problem involved. It will take a delicate touch and should be approached from the standpoint of sincere concern for the employee.
In other words, no jokes.
Leave that part to me.
TALK TO REX: Ask workplace questions — anonymously or by name — and share stories with Rex Huppke at firstname.lastname@example.com, like Rex on Facebook at facebook.com/rexworkshere and find more at chicagotribune.com/ijustworkhere.


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HW's Classics Series 2-1969 Dodge Charger-Slate Blue!!
Description: This is for a Hotwheels Classics series car. Car pictured is car received. Any questions please email first. Car is mint and card is good.
Seller Accepts: PayPal, Money Order, Checks.
Payment/Shipping Policy: I ship to main 48 states,anywhere else must email first.I do ship out of country but email BEFORE you buy for a shipping quote!! This is a must! Any questions feel free to ask first. I do combine shipping.I ship first class with delivery confirmation, if you want priority you can pay extra. Thanks
Seller: vwdan
Price: $4.99
Shipping: $6.00
Location: NAPLES, FL
Date Listed: 05/21/2019
Will Ship:


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Liyun Wang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware, knows the serious consequences of osteoporosis.
Two of Wang's aunts have suffered from the insidious bone-thinning disease, and one aunt died within a year after falling and fracturing her hip.
Wang is now leading research that will shed light on how osteocytes--the cells encased inside your bones--sense external stimuli and communicate with cells on the surface, signaling them to either build more bone or remove existing bone.
The five-year, $1.6 million project, ranked in the top 5 percent of research proposals recommended for funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this year, holds promise in unveiling the mysteries of bone and joint diseases afflicting people worldwide.
The results may not only help scientists home in on the cause of osteoporosis and arthritis, but also develop more effective drug therapies to treat the debilitating bone and joint diseases.
The project will involve an interdisciplinary team of investigators at UD, including Prof. Mary C. Farach-Carson and Associate Prof. Randall Duncan, who hold primary appointments in biological sciences with joint appointments in mechanical engineering, and John Novotny, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
"Bone and joint disorders affect almost half of all people over 50 years old, at a cost of $250 billion annually in the United States," Wang said. "A third of the people who suffer a fracture due to bone loss end up dying within a year."
The embedded bone cells, or osteocytes, that Wang is studying, act like the bone's "brain."
"The osteocytes are very smart," Wang says. "They can tell whether a person is using his or her bones or not. If the person is physically active, the osteocytes tell cells on the surface that it's okay to put on more bone. Otherwise, they signal the surface cells to remove bone at a rate that can be as high as 3 percent bone mass per month, which is the case for patients confined to long-term bed rest and for astronauts," she notes.
The osteocytes lie in tiny pits or holes, called lacunae, within the bone. These living cells have many long arms that connect them to surface bone cells and the bone's vascular system. The narrow channels housing the osteocyte's arms (canaliculi) and the lacunae form a network through which a mixture of water, nutrients and other bioactive molecules flows.
"Although it is hard as cement, bone is actually like a stiff sponge," Wang says. "It's porous and has water inside. When we have mechanical loading, when you run, for example, a part of the leg bone is compressed, and water is pushed through gaps, less than a micrometer in size, between the osteocytes and the bone cement that surrounds them."This powerful wave of fluid keeps the osteocytes happy and functioning well, Wang says, delivering nutrients to them from nearby blood vessels and quickly dispersing signaling molecules, such as calcium ions, from one cell to its neighbors.
Using a novel microscopic imaging method that Wang developed, which is based on fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), the research team hopes to do what no one has done before: see inside living bone and determine how rapidly these signaling and nutrient molecules are transferred between the cells when a bone is at rest and when it is at work.
A high-powered laser-scanning microscope will be used to assess the movement of molecules in the tibia of an anesthetized mouse. A harmless green fluorescent dye, tagged to various-sized proteins, signaling molecules and cell nutrients, will be injected into the animal's bloodstream.
The dyed molecules will be subjected to a flash of intense light, temporarily photobleaching them black, leaving a distinct black sector surrounded by green. Thus, if the molecules diffuse into one another's territories, they can easily be tracked by color.
Video of a three-dimensional network of osteocytes observed from the bone surface to ~50 microns deep into an intact bone using a laser scanning microscope. The cells are labeled with green fluorescence. Courtesy of Liyun Wang.
Using similar techniques, Wang is investigating the communication between bone and cartilage in the development and progression of osteoarthritis, one of five projects in an $11 million NIH grant led by Thomas Buchanan, professor and chairperson of the UD Department of Mechanical Engineering. The UD effort includes a unique mentoring program for women scientists.
Wang says she is grateful for the mentoring and support she has received from her colleagues at UD since she joined the faculty in 2005, as well as from her doctoral advisers at the City College of New York, including Profs. Susannah Fritton, Steve Cowin, and Sheldon Weinbaum; and Dr. Mitchell Schaffler, with whom she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
Currently, Wang's laboratory group includes Wen Li, a graduate student in biomechanics and movement science, Xiaozhou Zhou, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, and undergraduate students Ben Keller and Laura Schultz, who are both working on degrees in mechanical engineering, and Samantha Nigro, who is pursuing her degree in biological sciences. Research associate Jun Pan will join the group at the end of this year.
"My students have been excellent," Wang says, smiling. "They are well-organized and eager to learn how to do research. They are very motivated, and that is important. We have exciting work ahead of us!"
Wang is seeking two additional doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher in the areas of biomechanics, orthopedic biology or mechanical engineering to join her research team. For more information, contact Wang at [firstname.lastname@example.com].
Article by Tracey Bryant
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson


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Sorry, AndreaSOS, but I beat you by about 5 minutes. The latest entry was THORP in msg 8953. You can either edit your post and change it or you can delete it and post a new one.
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Beatification Bound
Looking ahead to the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, scholars are gathering in Pittsburgh to hear a deacon cured by his intercession.
PITTSBURGH — When Deacon Jack Sullivan gives the homily during a Mass at the start of a conference on Cardinal John Henry Newman in Pittsburgh in early August, his relationship to the man who will be beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in England this September can be explained in one word: miraculous.
Sullivan experienced severe spinal pain in 2000 caused by a condition that could have led him to become paralyzed. Before undergoing surgery to alleviate the pain, however, he watched an EWTN program on Cardinal Newman. At the end of the program, the producers asked viewers to contact the postulator for the cause of the cardinal's beatification if they received any divine favors after praying to him.
"With all my heart, I prayed: 'Please, Cardinal Newman, help me to walk so that I can return to classes and be ordained,'" Sullivan said.
Sullivan, who is from St. Thecla Parish in Pembroke, Mass., was in the middle of the diaconate formation program for the Archdiocese of Boston, which he couldn't finish if he couldn't walk.
The next morning he woke up with no pain. The surgery was canceled, and he was able to complete his third year in the formation program.
But about a year later, the debilitating pain returned. He had surgery this time, and his recovery was estimated to be between four to six months, which would have not allowed him to complete his formation program. But while recovering in the hospital, he implored Cardinal Newman's intercession again. He said he felt tremendous heat, a strong tingling sensation throughout his body, and a great sense of peace and joy. More importantly, the crippling pain disappeared.
"Recovery took place in a moment," he said, adding that he was able to complete his formation to become a deacon.
Last year, after years of assessing the recovery, the Vatican announced that Sullivan had experienced a healing based on Cardinal Newman's intercession, which paved the way for the cardinal's beatification on Sept. 19, which will be presided at by the Pope.
Sullivan's homily at the start of the Aug. 5-7 conference in Pittsburgh, sponsored by the Newman Association of America, will center on his healing and how perseverance in faith in the midst of pain and suffering is necessary in order to grow spiritually, he said.
'Unfailing Search for Truth'
Cardinal Newman's life was filled with suffering. He was born in London in 1801 and was raised as an Anglican. He was educated at Oxford and was ordained as an Anglican clergyman. However, he later organized what came to be known as the "Oxford Movement," which sought to bring the Anglican Church back to its Catholic roots. After much prayer and study, Newman was received into the Catholic Church in 1845. Friends and family either broke off relations with him or kept him at arm's length after his conversion.
"Such conversions are not a matter of much significance now, but for people to get a grip on this, it would be like Billy Graham becoming a Muslim," said Damon McGraw, executive research fellow at the National Institute for Newman Studies in Pittsburgh.
McGraw added that what's significant about Cardinal Newman is "his unfailing search for truth." He said that Newman swam against the tide of culture and sought God and truth even when institutions and authority figures failed him.
"He continued to have faith that if he followed the light that was available to him that more light would be revealed," McGraw said.
Cardinal Newman's life and writings will be brought to light during the Newman Association of America-sponsored conference, which is being hosted by the National Institute for Newman Studies. More than 25 speakers will talk at the conference, which is titled "A Reflection on the Life, Work and Spirituality of John Henry Newman in Celebration of His Beatification." Keynote addresses will be given by Father Ian Ker of Oxford University, Terrence Merrigan of the Catholic University of Leuven, and Cyril O'Regan of the University of Notre Dame.
According to the website of the National Institute of Newman Studies, the founders "envisioned a center where scholars could study Newman using the most extensive collection of Newman materials in North America, exchanging thoughts, ideas and discoveries about the nature and relevance of Newman's ideas in today's world. With the assistance of many generous and helpful friends in Pittsburgh and throughout the world, they saw their idea grow into the National Institute for Newman Studies. The first Newman Scholar was welcomed to rented facilities in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh in August 2003."
Father Drew Morgan, director of the institute, said the conference will be a celebration of the recognition that Cardinal Newman has achieved in the universal Church because of his beatification, but it will also be a way for people to discover him and pray to him for intercession.
"We still need another miracle," Father Morgan said, referring to the fact that the next step in the canonization process for sainthood requires proof of a second miracle. "Miracles won't come because people just study his life or acknowledge the relevance of his ideas for the contemporary Church. Miracles will happen when people develop a devotion to Cardinal Newman."
A Man of Relationships
One of the speakers at the conference, Robert Christie, a professor of religion and philosophy at DeVry University in North Brunswick, N.J., said one way to get to know Cardinal Newman is to understand his relationships. In studying the cardinal's non-theological writings, Christie found an interesting pattern in his letters to friends and family members: There was an emphasis on his affection for them.
"In theology one can easily get lost in abstractions," Christie said. "But one of the beauties of being exposed to Newman is that Newman actually starts from the experience of deep interpersonal relationships that had a profound affect on him, and from those relationships he drew his insights into theology and, most particularly, to bring that full circle, that is what led him to understand very deep theology."
His Latin motto when he became a cardinal, for instance, was Cor ad cor loquitur — "Heart speaks to heart."
Christie continued: "What's so beautiful about that is that it captures not only what Newman was trying to say throughout his life, but also how he lived. He lived in experience. He lived in relationship, and he saw how relationship was the key to understanding God and our relationship to God. He was every bit a man of the heart as he was a man of the head, and I think that is something for all intellectuals to reflect upon."
Carlos Briceño writes from Naperville, Illinois.
(412) 681-4375
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- August 1-14, 2010


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Saturday, July 28, 2012
Faith, hope, and charity
Faith, hope, and charity are sculpted in human form on the Adams monument at Spring Grove Cemetery.
Look closely: two of the personifications hold their common symbols: a cross (faith) and an anchor (hope).
Spring Grove Cemetery, Hamilton County, Ohio
4 comments:
So beautiful!ReplyDelete
What beautiful sculptures on the gravestone. What year is it from?ReplyDelete
Regards, Jim
Genealogy Blog at Hidden Genealogy Nuggets
I so Love Love Love your creative genious in naming this blog. I even had to tweet bout it.ReplyDelete
Your so cleaver.
I to at times take some photos for FindAGrave. Cool you are doing something extra with your experiance.
DuSyl of dusyl.blogspot.com
It's all about the great stories!!!
Very nice--Faith, Hope, and Charity. This is a great blogging community. It was fun sharing "An Early Christmas Gift" with them.ReplyDelete
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758 Rappahannock Drive, White Stone, Virginia, USA
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text:
Why The Firm, Simple Declaration Against ACTA
Read more about TPP and take action!
ACTA (1), a treaty designed to attack the rights of computer users in some 40-odd countries -- and others later -- is encountering increasing opposition. ACTA threatens, in a disguised way, to punish Internet users with disconnection if they are accused of sharing, and requires countries to prohibit software that can break Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), also known as digital handcuffs (2).
In advance of a secret meeting of government representatives to plan the attack, New Zealand citizens organized their own public meeting, PublicACTA, to criticize it. The attendees published the Wellington Declaration, calling on the ACTA negotiators to reject several injustices that they suspected might appear in the treaty.
This event was a milestone in the fight against ACTA. But even though I would support each of the declaration's objections to ACTA, it makes two major concessions that I cannot put my name to.
The Wellington Declaration properly condemns the plan for ACTA to prohibit devices that can break digital handcuffs. It then undermines that position by suggesting that a limited prohibition, along the lines of Article 11 of the WIPO Internet Treaty, might be acceptable. This limited prohibition would give government backing to certain kinds of digital handcuffs. To accept this much -- without even a fight -- almost begs the ACTA negotiators to try for more.
The decision might have been intended to minimize the alteration requested in ACTA. That approach would be appropriate for a different kind of situation, but not for this one.
When we ask a favor of someone that doesn't owe us one, it behooves us to make it as small and easy as possible. That also usually increases the chance it will be granted. But that is not the case here. When we oppose ACTA, we are not asking our governments for a favor. Defending our freedom is their reason for being, and we demand it by right. We should not "compromise" by volunteering to cede some of our freedom so that they have less to do.
The other point I cannot bring myself to accept is the declaration's praise of WIPO as a "public, inclusive and transparent" forum for negotiating agreements about copyrights and various other unrelated laws. I don't recall seeing WIPO become a force for good in the world.
It is true that WIPO's procedures are not as bad as ACTA's mostly secret negotiations, but that's the best thing one can say about WIPO. Its use of the propaganda term "intellectual property" (3) reflects its tendency to frame issues with a view towards restricting people more. Its actions follow that tendency: WIPO treaties about copyright in recent decades have specifically targeted the freedom of people who use published works. To transfer the ACTA negotiations to WIPO would perhaps make the result less bad, but would hardly ensure it is good. Let us not ask to be taken out of the fire and put back into the frying pan.
Any time there is a proposal to change things for the worse, the obvious way to oppose it is to campaign for the status quo. To campaign for the status quo suggests the approach of singing its praises; thus, praising WIPO is a natural way to highlight how ACTA is a step for the worse.
However, where there have been previous changes for the worse, lauding the status quo tends to legitimize them. The past 20 years have seen global waves of harmful changes in copyright law -- some promoted by WIPO. To confront a further assault by presenting the status quo as ideal means we stop fighting to reverse them. It means that our adversaries need only propose a further affront to our rights to gain our acceptance of their last affront.
Instead of making the status quo our ideal, we should demand positive changes to recover freedoms already lost. For instance, many countries already have laws restricting devices that can break digital handcuffs; these must be repealed. WIPO treaties demand such laws; countries that have signed these treaties must withdraw from them. To stop ACTA from requiring such laws is just one battle in the fight to eliminate them.
The two points mentioned above are the only substantive points I disagree with, but they are very important points.
Aside from these points of substance, there are also points of wording. The Wellington declaration repeats some of the copyright industry's propaganda terms; it says "protection" for restrictions, for example referring to digital handcuffs as "technical protection measures". In spelling out the official name of WIPO, it repeats the term "intellectual property" without anything to reject its implications. These points of terminology are not as important as the substance, but they influence the public's thinking, and that makes a difference.
They also affect the tone of the declaration. Use of these terms caters to the way the supporters of a repressive ACTA frame the issues. The overall tone avoids a forceful confontation with the politicians who seek to impose unjust laws through ACTA.
Those politicians serve the big music and movie companies. They intend to impose what those companies want -- first on 40-odd countries, then on the world. They won't heed civic-minded suggestions offered in a reasonable spirit that assumes their good will; their response to the Wellington Declaration shows that. We will have to stop them. To build a movement to stop them, we need to say, "Join us and fight!" Therefore I have written a firm and clear declaration of opposition to the aspects of ACTA that threaten our freedom.
Whether or not you have signed the Wellington Declaration, I invite you to sign this declaration calling for firm, simple limits on ACTA.
Part of ACTA is intended to take stronger action against commercial international trade in goods that infringe copyrights or trademarks. I am not in general opposed to that. Other parts of ACTA propose repression against the public. That must not be allowed.
Current copyright law is too restrictive, and so in some fields is patent law. They interfere with or prohibit activities that ought to be allowed. We must aim to abolish these restrictions, but if ACTA stays away from these issues, we can let it pass.
Thus, this declaration calls for removing the repression from ACTA, or rejecting it entirely.
See and sign the declaration here.
ACTA's official name is "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement", but the term "counterfeiting" in this context is a distortion of the word and a misrepresentation of the issues. Copies of files made when users share may be prohibited unjustly in some countries, but they are not "counterfeit" in any sense. We should not legitimize that misrepresentation by referring to ACTA by its official propaganda name. Therefore I refer to it only as "ACTA".
For the campaign against Digital Restrictions Management, see DefectiveByDesign.org.
For an explanation of the propaganda term "intellectual property" and why we should reject the term, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.


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Reviewed By Michael B (FOREST HILLS, NY) Reviewed for a 2010 Volkswagen CC —5/15/2014 11:00 AM
The main reason why I went with this intake instead of other, more popular ones for VDubs, like APR is because it comes with an entire pipe down to turbo. Other intakes at this price range come with a pipe only up-to the MAF sensor. The sound of this intake is very noticeable. It definitely lets the engine breath better, resulting in more aggressive growls, turbo spools that sound like a blow off valve and etc. So far I am very please with the intake, it seems to do what it should.


text:
What are kits?
A "kit" is a presentation on a single topic produced on a slide, filmstrip, video, or computer software. Titles in chemistry, biology, physics, and general science are available. For instance, a student may watch a video about the periodic table to reinforce information previously introduced in a lecture or textbook. Most kits have worksheets (which must be completed in the SLRC) that consist of a number of questions about the material in the corresponding kit.
Professors in some courses suggest certain kits for further self-study by the student. Other instructors assign kits for students to complete for credit.
How do I use a kit?
Tell the SLRC assistant at the front desk which kit you want. The assistant will give you the kit materials. Watch the program and then return the materials to the attendant on duty.
How do I know which kits are available?
The SLRC assistant has a master list of all kits available in the SLRC. The assistant can tell you the title of the kit, which discipline is involved (biology, chemistry, physics, etc), and on which format(s) it is available (slide, filmstrip, video, or computer software program).
Which kits should I use?
If your instructor has assigned kits for credit, the SLRC will post your instructor's list from which you may choose kits. If you want to do a kit for self-study, simply choose from the master kit list which is available from the SLRC assistant.
How long does it take to use a kit? What if I start one and don't have time to finish it?
Running time on the kits varies widely, but the real amount time needed to complete a kit depends on the speed at which you work. If you ever start a kit and run out of time before finishing it, simply make a note of where you stopped and start from there the next time you are in the SLRC.
All SLRC kits and worksheets are for use on premises only and may not be removed from the SLRC!
What if I start a kit and have no clue about how to finish it?
If the material has been introduced in class, then ask a tutor to help you get started or work with another student from your class. If the material in the kit has NOT been discussed in class, choose another kit . The SLRC kits are designed to complement existing instruction, not introduce an entirely new topic.
What should I do if the equipment or kit material is not working correctly?
Notify a SLRC assistant immediately. The assistant will either fix the problem or provide you with working equipment or materials. DO NOT attempt to correct the problem yourself!
Page last updated 4:08 PM, January 4, 2017


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Today's art graduates aren't limited to the gallery or the studio: our training can prepare you for positions as diverse as movie-effects specialist, medical illustrator, book or set designer, and teacher. You'll have access to courses throughout the School of Humanities and Sciences and our professional schools -- communications and business, for example -- allowing you to pursue career goals beyond the reach of most art programs.
Our art programs, the bachelor of arts and the bachelor of fine arts, provide tutorials and small studio classes that foster close interaction with our accomplished faculty. And our facility accommodates a variety of studio art areas, including drawing, painting, computer graphics, printmaking, and sculpture.
The art major is complemented by a strong art history department, which provides opportunities to research the development of art and architecture. If you're interested in teaching, you can take advantage of our new program leading to initial New York State teacher certification.
A personal interview with a member of the department and submission of an art portfolio are optional for entry to the program.