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text:
Edgar Cayce on Earth Changes
Our Fascination with Cataclysmic Change
Kevin J. Todeschi
In 1974 I began my involvement with the Edgar Cayce material. In that same year I became convinced that I needed to be living and working in Virginia Beach, Virginia, no later than December 31, 1982. My justification for moving within that time-frame was what I thought at the time were Cayce's earth change prophecies coupled with an astronomer's prediction of "the Jupiter Effect" – a planetary alignment that was expected to place excessive strain on continental-plates and fault-lines already stressed to the breaking point.
During the eight years between 1974 and 1982, I became focused on "when and how" I would finally make the move from Colorado to the beach. My friends and family became confused, concerned, even frustrated about my complete determination. But there was no convincing me otherwise; I had to get to Virginia Beach. My conviction about the impending "Big One" was so complete that I remember telling a number of individuals that a car I had purchased in 1980 would be "my last car" since the world as we knew it would soon cease to exist. (I have replaced my automobile many times since then.)
I made several visits to Virginia Beach before the actual move. I even made an aborted "move" to the area for a brief two months in 1980. Finally I achieved my goal within the self-imposed time-constraints and landed at the Norfolk, Virginia airport on December 26, 1982. I started work as a member of the A.R.E. staff the very next day.
Shortly after I joined the staff, I began talking with people on the phone about their own "sense of urgency" in regards to the impending disasters. At the time I was eager to send out as many "Moving to Virginia Beach" packets as were requested. I (like many others) was still convinced that the "Big One" was just around the corner. Even though the long-awaited Jupiter Effect had come and gone – without apparent physical happening – I just knew the time was short. Since then I have come to recognize this feeling of urgency to be more of a call-to-change rather than a call-to-move.
For the next several years I continued to be convinced that the quakes were coming. In time, however, I began to grow frustrated by the number of people who were not only convinced that the era of the big quakes was upon us, but who also seemed to be looking forward to them. In fact, I was surprised at how many of us involved in this type of work were eagerly waiting for God to somehow "wipe the slate clean" so that we could just simply start all over.
Kevin Todeschi is A.R.E.'s Executive Director and CEO. As both student and teacher of the Edgar Cayce material for thirty years, he is the author of over twenty books, including his most recent, God In Real Life: Personal Encounters with the Divine, and the bestselling Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records. Known for his ability to explain complex subjects in a straightforward and easy to understand manner, Kevin is popular for his insight and his sense of humor.
Copyright 2009, Kevin J. Todeschi

subset: commoncrawl


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Circle Fitness 6000 – Indoor Cycle
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The Sport Series 6000 – Indoor Cycle is designed by work-renowned designer Thomas Hawk for a beautiful and flawless construction that is ideally used for light commercial use.
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- Handlebars stem is alloy hexagon tube hexagon stem and stem and sliding tube with scale.
- Multi-position handlebars features multiple position hand grips including racing handles.
- Chromoly ultra strong axle 20mm D with SKF #6004 bearing and heat treated ball bearing parts.
- Plastic with pop cover right cover.
- Hutchinson/ France 5PK belt.
- Dual functions design of magnetic device for resistance force adjustments.
- 31 lbs. cast iron with alloy ring wheel, fixed wheel with chromoly ultra strong axle flywheel.
- Includes a micro-adjust safety knob with emergency stop.
- Built and warranted for corporate fitness centers, hotels, condos, Police & Fire departments, and all other vertical markets.
- Saddle and handlebars are infinitely adjustable fore/aft and vertically for perfect fit.
- Thomas Hawk design
- 10 Years Frame
- 6 Years Parts
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Shipping and Installation are additional and you will be contacted by one of our Business Development Representatives.
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Researchers say they are rapidly closing in on new types of materials that can throw a cloak of invisibility around objects, fulfilling a fantasy that is as old as ancient myths and as young as "Star Trek" and the Harry Potter novels.
Unlike those tales of fictional invisibility, the real-life technologies usually have a catch. Nevertheless, limited forms of invisibility might be available to the military sooner than you think.
"We're very confident that at radar frequencies, these materials can be implemented on a time scale of 18 months or so," John Pendry of Imperial College London told MSNBC.com.
Pendry's research team is one of two groups whose results were posted Thursday on the journal Science's Web site in advance of print publication. The two papers lay out different theoretical methods for creating invisibility, not only for radar but potentially for optical wavelengths as well.
Still more teams are out there with ideas to make things invisible — using methods ranging from superlenses that cancel out the light from nearby objects to actual cloaks onto which video can be projected as a moving camouflage. The most exotic technologies involve "metamaterials," blends of polymers and tiny coils or wires that twist the paths of electromagnetic radiation.
"There are recipes for controlling metamaterials," explained University of Pennsylvania electrical engineer Nader Engheta, who published his own invisibility recipe last year. "Metamaterials are very interesting products."
The latest research papers describe how metamaterial could be fabricated to bend light in carefully curved paths around the object to be hidden, so that an observer would see right through it — or more accurately, right around it — to the other side.
Pendry told MSNBC.com that the cloak wouldn't reflect any light, and wouldn't cast a shadow either. "It would be like Peter Pan had lost his shadow," he said, referring to the fictional character who had to have his shadow stitched back on.
Dreams come true, with a few catches
Theoretically at least, the metamaterial could work like the helmet of invisibility celebrated in Greek myth, or the cloaking device that hid Romulan and Klingon vessels in the "Star Trek" series, or the invisibility cloak that came in so handy for Harry Potter in J.K. Rowlings' novels.
"Fiction has predicted the course of science for some time. ... Maybe these Harry Potter novels were ahead of their time," Pendry said, half-jokingly.
Of course, there are some scientific catches that the tale-tellers never had to worry about:
- For a total invisibility effect, the waves passing closest to the cloaked object would have to be bent in such a way that they would appear to exceed relativity's light speed limit. Fortunately, there's a loophole in Albert Einstein's rules of the road that allows smooth pulses of light to undergo just such a phase shift.
- The invisibility effect would work only for a specific range of wavelengths. "There is a price to be paid if you want a thin cloak, in that it operates only over a narrow range of frequencies," Pendry said.
- The cloak could be made to cover a volume of any shape, but "you can't flap your cloak," Pendry said. Moving the material around would spoil the effect.
- The tiny structures embedded in the metamaterial would have to be smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic rays you wanted to bend. That's a tall order for optical invisibility, because the structures would have to be on the scale of nanometers, or billionths of a meter. It's far easier to create radar invisibility, Pendry said: "You're talking millimeters" — that is, thousandths of a meter.
The radar application is of great interest to military outfits such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which funded Pendry's team. "Radar is a defense technology, and if you wish to hide from it, this sort of cloak would be a good way of doing it," he said. Such a technology would be "far superior to stealth," he said.
If optical cloaks could be designed, that would be of interest to the military as well. "One obvious thing would be that you could construct a hutch in which you could hide a tank, and the hutch would make it appear as though the tank wasn't there. ... You could also think of weightier things, like submarines or battleships, where you might want to put some of this stuff," Pendry said.
Civilian applications, too
There'd be plenty of applications in the civilian world as well, even for rudimentary cloaking devices. For example, you could create receptacles to shield sensitive medical devices from disruption by MRI scanners, or build cloaks to route cellphone signals around obstacles. "You may wish to put a cloak over the refinery that is blocking your view of the bay," Duke University's David Schurig, another of Pendry's co-authors, was quoted as saying.
While Pendry's team proposed constructing all-over cloaking devices, the other research paper published Thursday describes a simpler method that would involve shaping the metamaterials into cylindrical cloaking devices. The method could also work to block sound waves — like the cone of silence on the "Get Smart" TV show, but not as silly.
The catch here is that the invisibility effect would work only if you were on the same plane as the hidden object. "You could look on top of it, and look inside the cloak," said the paper's author, Ulf Leonhardt of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Leonhardt told MSNBC.com that "potentially a mixture of the two schemes will lead to a practical design." He said the paper from Pendry's team gave him some additional ideas to work with.
"I read it for the first time just last Friday, and I've come up already with something new," he said.
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints


text:
One CEO's struggle against a culture of excess
Chip-maker Seeq Technology, launched in 1981 with bushels of venture capital, has had to learn the hard way that good business involves more than a parking lot full of German cars.
By the time the current CEO, Dan McCranie, took over, the money was gone and bankruptcy was imminent. His mission? Remake the way a whole company thinks about resources. -- E.O.W.
As the applause welled up around him and he surveyed the roomful of expectant faces, Dan McCranie said to himself: I'm not sure I'm ready for this.
He was -- had been -- a salesman. He knew nothing about finance. His engineering degree had collected 12 years of dust. And now they wanted him to run a company that made state-of-the-art semiconductors. This, he thought, was crazy.
J. Daniel McCranie had just been made the chief executive officer of Seeq Technology Inc., a San Jose, Calif., company of once-spectacular promise that now had come to rest at the brink of Chapter 11. Between 1981 and 1985, Seeq Technology had raised close to $70 million. But instead of saving Seeq when the company met the market, that lucre nearly killed it.
Gordon A. Campbell, Seeq's first CEO and a cofounder, was a charismatic leader who knew how to motivate people and run through cash. He put up a fancy building that looks more like an airport than a factory. Ray Charles entertained at the Christmas party one year. Beer busts, contests, and companywide celebrations were commonplace. So, too, were missed schedules.
Campbell's firing by his venture capitalists in October 1984 blew a hole in Seeq and depressurized the dream state in which the company languished. Campbell was followed by M. R. MacPherson, an engineer with no taste or flair for leadership. In nine months MacPherson was gone, to be followed by a three-man "office of the president," headed by one of the company's venture capitalists.
That was how Seeq had drifted down to this bittersweet day in March 1986, and Dan McCranie's ascension. To what? To the head of a comatose company that had used up $70 million in capital in just five years. A company that had proclaimed itself a leading-edge techno wonder but was now consigned to turning out commodity memory chips that cost more to make than they took in. In 1986, Seeq would lose $24 million on sales of $30 million.
Inside Seeq, the sense of destiny had died. McCranie knew that. He saw the people "sleepwalking toward oblivion." He spoke for 10 minutes that day. His message was charged yet simple; your basic Silicon Valley rallying cry. Seeq was a rocket at one end of a runway. At the other: a brick wall. The way to clear the wall was to stomp on the accelerator. If you hit the wall, fine. At least you'd go out in glory. His message, clichéd yet compelling, suggested at least that Seeq had a future, that redemption lay within its grasp. The people liked it.
The book on Dan McCranie had always been that he was a man of rough edges and thin skin. He swore too much to be a good CEO. When he got mad, it showed. Yet there were ambiguities about him, too. Yes, McCranie the salesman grabbed you by the throat and wouldn't let go -- but no one ever accused him of overselling. His self-confidence emerged in the way he spoke with punch and humor in front of a crowd. Those who knew him best remarked on his humility. McCranie was ambitious, but he had shied away from the CEO's job when it came open. It scared him.
Maybe in this newly anointed schizoid Seeq had found an idiot savant who could return it to glory. Dan McCranie wasn't sure. He saw his rise as an act of simple justice, a recognition that "one of Seeq's own, a worker," was getting a chance to lift the fallen angel. His appointment that day in March signaled a casting off, an exorcism even, of that which had come before: the reign of the profligate prince, the caretaker status of the well-meaning technocrat, the troika installed by an outside regime.
The company's fall from grace had come to serve as a parable of the place and time that spawned it. In the Silicon Valley of almost a decade ago, when Seeq was founded, the boulevards seemed lined with gold. Seeq's founders saw their path to riches assured even before they began. What they did instead was turn their company into an emblem of excess.
Such was the tattered legacy passed down to Dan McCranie.
To understand how Seeq ended up where it did in 1986, you have to return to 1981, when Seeq was founded by a group of Intel Corp. middle managers and engineers who claimed to have seen the future for memory chips. In the 1970s, with its development of the EPROM (erasable, programmable, read-only memory chip), Intel had come to own the program memory chip market. The natural follow-on to EPROMs were EEPROMS, electrically erasable memories. Dubbed E2 technology by the trade, it represented an elegant shortcut -- Seeq's founders believed -- that the world would want. Erasing and reprogramming the circuit on an EPROM required physically removing it from a circuit board and passing it for 20 minutes under an ultraviolet light. EEPROMs could be reprogrammed instantly in place with a five-volt power source, thus presenting the user with significant savings in time and labor.
On January 5, 1981, Campbell and his followers submitted their resignations, dismayed by Intel's lack of initiative in going after the E2 market. Seeq was incorporated a week later. That goosed Intel. Within a month, Intel sued.
Intel's aggressive move gave Seeq a charge. Gee, maybe we've really got something here. Seeq went on to raise a princely $50 million in venture capital and another $18 million from a public offering of stock. The reputations of its key backers, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the Hillman Co., only heightened the blue-chip appeal. Gordon Campbell was Seeq's CEO. And Gordie, as everybody called him, was a real pied piper. People walked through walls to follow him.
When Seeq's founders went out to lease space, they found an adequate building, but a stockyard stood down the street. In the founders' minds, cow chips and the silicon variety didn't mix. So Seeq found more gently scented land, hired an architect, and raised a building with a swayback, cantilevered roof and soaring plate-glass windows. They filled it with modular furniture that cost three times as much as the basic bulletproof Steelcase stuff you usually saw around the Valley. Fussing over this monument cost Seeq six months getting to market. And it wasn't that long before the stockyard was gone.
The faithful at Seeq, meanwhile, buried a time capsule in the lawn out front. Among its contents was the prediction that by 1992 Seeq would be a $1-billion company. (Seeq did $45 million in sales last year.) Human-resources director R. Steven Gonia recalls Seeq's early days as a "glorious time. It was a high-profile place, intensely fast, very exciting." The best and the brightest wanted to work for Seeq, and Gonia was in hog heaven. "We could cherry-pick.'
Even outsiders caught the fever. In a national marketing campaign, the company offered a Porsche to the designer who could devise the most ingenious application of Seeq's E2 technology. Thousands responded. When informed that the ovens to bake the chips typically took about six weeks to install and get running, Seeq challenged the Thermco Systems Inc. crew: do the job in two weeks and we'll buy you dinner anywhere in the Bay Area. Soon the Thermco team was working nights and weekends. Recalls Gonia: "It worked so well the best Thermco guy became our maintenance manager. 'The hell with Thermco. I want to work for Seeq.' '
Dan McCranie didn't want to work for Seeq. The pied piper, however, had other plans. Campbell had sold chips alongside McCranie in Minnesota back in the mid-1970s. He contacted McCranie in early 1981, when Dan was working as a group vice-president of sales for Harris Semiconductor, in Melbourne, Fla. "I had barely heard of start-ups," recalls McCranie. Gordie to him was just another salesman. McCranie said no.
Campbell flew McCranie out to California to meet the team at Seeq and his lead venture capitalist, Frank Caufield. The answer, again, was no.
Weeks later, McCranie's phone rang -- Campbell again. He was flying out to find McCranie in Florida. McCranie kept shaking his head. Campbell was admiring a watercolor. Who painted it? McCranie's wife, Kathy, sighed: Dan did, back in the days when he had time to paint. No problem, said Gordie. If Dan comes to California, he'll have plenty of time to paint. Kathy perked up. Is that right?
In September 1981, McCranie was hired as Seeq's director of sales, with the express mission of cracking open the E2 market. He wondered what he'd done. He had taken a 40% pay cut for a minuscule equity position in a shaky start-up. But strangest of all, the company had no E2 chips for him to sell -- and wouldn't for another 18 months.
That didn't matter to Campbell. By 1983, E2 technology was the talk of the Valley. Sixteen companies had announced their intentions to build the chips. Dataquest, the leading research house in the Valley, fed the fever by issuing a report predicting that the E2 market would grow to $1 billion by 1987. But the technology was complex and held its secret close. An E2 still cost five times as much as an EPROM to make. The market for them remained small.
While Seeq was grappling with E2 technology, it needed to find a revenue stream. It fell back on EPROMs -- the passé product its founders had scorned Intel for dwelling on. EPROMs were fast turning into a commodity product, something best mass-produced by a giant like Intel, not a start-up like Seeq. Making EPROMS suggested a patricidal urge in the collective psyche of Seeq. Make one better than Intel. Blow Intel away and declare our independence. The time capsule, after all, had contained a prediction of what year Seeq would surpass Intel in sales.
Why not diversify the product line instead, find revenue in nonmemory technologies? That idea was debated within the company in 1983 and rejected. Campbell believed in betting on good people and letting their vote guide the group. The vote was to make memory chips. McCranie was torn. He was loyal to Campbell, but he was disgusted by the poor yields and ramp-up glitches the company was running into with EPROMs. This was supposed to be bread-and-butter stuff. If Seeq couldn't make a decent batch of EPROMs, how could it hope to execute with EEPROMs?
McCranie, meanwhile, was out on the road discovering the hard way how small the E2 market was. McCranie would jump on a jet and call on targeted customers. The typical response was: Who are you? What established companies are in this market? Good-bye. McCranie banged on Pitney Bowes, in Norwalk, Conn., for three years. (Today every Pitney Bowes postage meter has a Seeq chip in it.)
When McCranie dragged himself home to Seeq he found people living in a "fairyland." People didn't want to hear how tough the E2 market was to crack. They didn't want to confront the fact of the low yields on EPROMs. And the gilded life inside Seeq began to cloy. McCranie's father had been scarred by the Great Depression. He'd schooled his son in the virtues of thrift. At Seeq, thrift was a dirty word. "We were always rewarding ourselves for things that didn't count," recalls McCranie. "Every other week there was a champagne party for some weird thing -- the Tandem computer came in today. Well what does that mean? It means you've got to start paying the lease on it.'
While Silicon Valley toasted a booming EPROM market in 1984, Japan Inc. was cranking up to flood the world with chips. Then, just as suddenly, demand collapsed. Between the last quarter of 1984 and the third quarter of 1985, the price of a standard 128K EPROM went from $15 to $2. Seeq, reliant on EPROMS for 75% of its revenues, was making them for $5, and would struggle to get the cost down to $3. Life in fairyland was coming to an end.
When Seeq began to fray around the edges, the chairman of its board, Frank Caufield of Kleiner Perkins, asked for help. He invited one of his partners, E. Floyd Kvamme, a founder of National Semiconductor Corp., to attend a board meeting in September 1984 and critique Seeq's annual business plan. Kvamme, a tall, bespectacled man whose courtly manner and professorial presence veils a sharp technical mind, peered at Seeq's EPROM and saw an immediate flaw. The chip had a fancy quartz lid on it. Seeq had farmed this work out and thus lost leverage over 75% of the chip's cost. This kind of chip should have been made by a vertically integrated giant, not this gilt-edged boutique. The closer Kvamme looked, the more he saw the chip as emblematic of a top-heavy, misguided company. What was Seeq doing in a building big enough to block out the sun? Why did it think EPROM users would embrace the E2? These were two different markets. "The EPROM thing," concluded Kvamme, "was a disaster waiting to happen.'
But Gordie Campbell felt good in 1984. Seeq's sales were booming from $9 million to $43 million. The company would turn its first profit in the third quarter of the fiscal year. Campbell, for the first time in his career, felt as though he had arrived. He had a hot company and a hefty stock position. This was sweet.
Frank Caufield didn't think so. He wanted Seeq to stop burning money and start making it. From late '82 on he'd seen a succession of missed schedules, delays, and poor yields. Caufield knew where the company was weak -- operations. Come on, Gordie, let's change some of these people. Campbell dragged his feet.
Why was Caufield leaning on him? Maybe, thought Campbell, he had given his venture capitalists too much of the company. Why don't they go nurture their younger start-ups and stop tinkering with Seeq?
Campbell wanted the chairmanship. He saw his forte as reaching out to the larger world -- forging strategic alliances, raising even more money. He wanted to bring in an operations chief under him. OK, Caufield said, but he found Campbell's candidates potentially subservient.
Soon after the September meeting with Kvamme, Campbell played a higher card in his bid to be chairman. He submitted, then later withdrew, his resignation. Campbell had thrown down this gauntlet during a dicey time for high tech. A lot of high fliers that had gone public in '83 were going into the tank in '84. Kleiner Perkins had taken 10 companies public; not one had failed. With Seeq, the once brightest star, it wasn't really the money that mattered. Kleiner Perkins had already distributed its shares. The firm's name was on the line.
A few weeks later the board met at Seeq around noon. Campbell resurrected the resignation issue. It was accepted. By 2:00 p.m., on October 17, 1984, Campbell was out the door for good.
Seeq now drifted into the twilight zone. Campbell's successor, Bob MacPherson, Seeq's vice-president of operations, was a man who enjoyed poring over chip designs, not stirring up the troops.
For McCranie, who had come to see Seeq and Campbell as indivisible, Campbell's leaving cut the heart out of the place. But was that really true? McCranie himself had risen in an unspoken way to rival Campbell. It surfaced at company meetings in the form of lively repartee between the two men; Campbell challenging McCranie to sell every chip he made; McCranie chiding back that Campbell couldn't make enough. The employees warmed to this clash of egos. They found something to hew to in the form of the alternative set of values McCranie put forth. In McCranie, Gonia saw "a sense of reality." McCranie was tough but fair. He strived to meet schedules; he kept his word. He recognized individual effort. Campbell's was a more forgiving, elusive presence.
From January through June 1985, sales dropped to $17.2 million from $22.7 million for the same period the year before. Worse, losses rose to $7.8 million from $900,000. Layoffs ensued. They came in waves, only affirming the fear that the company was in a free-fall. People kept wondering when their numbers would be up. In July, MacPherson's was. He was let go and succeeded by a three-man office of the president that would operate on an interim basis: Floyd Kvamme, Gerald Robinson, and Dan McCranie.
The troika was an artifice, a stopgap imposed from outside while Seeq looked for a CEO. They spent a fortune on headhunters, but no one would touch this pariah.
Kvamme thought maybe McCranie could. The two had little in common; one the techno-philosopher, the other the gun for hire. Yet for all McCranie's bravura, a measure of doubt lay close to the surface. Kvamme liked that after Campbell's brazen assurance. The more he studied the man, the more he saw Seeq's next CEO.
McCranie's father's Depression experience had taught McCranie to play it safe, yet that was only one resonance from his past. McCranie's grandfather, a farmer, had traded commodities. Cotton futures. There was appetite for risk as well. McCranie's hunger grew when he confronted his private horror: ending up 60 years old, camped out in the lobby at Hughes Aircraft, trying to sell chips to "some 27-year-old snot-nosed engineer." It was time to jump at the job.
Dan McCranie is a dark-haired man of medium height and boyish charm, ardent about staying in shape. He walks on his hands to exercise his upper body, routinely covering 100 yards before the blood rushing to his head makes him dizzy.
When McCranie was thrust into the presidency of the company, all he had known was the business equivalent of putting one foot in front of the other -- sales. But selling Seeq out of its dilemma wasn't going to cut it. By May 1986, Seeq, the company that had raised nearly $70 million, had $13,000 in the bank. In its most recent quarter it had reported losses of $4 million on sales of just $8.5 million. Overhead was so high that for the year it would spend $54 million on the way to revenues of only $30 million. A rigorous restructuring was in order, but when McCranie looked in the mirror he saw a "fiscal midget." He needed to learn to walk on his hands again.
He closeted himself with books on finance and listened intently to the "tutorial" given him by the company's chief financial officer. McCranie got a few customers to pay their bills ahead of time to tide Seeq over, and then -- reflexively -- he hit the road, hat in hand, looking to sell as much of the company as people would pay cash to buy. "The Valley syndrome always had been: 'You get into trouble, you ask for more money.' " This time the ploy didn't work. "One investment banker told me my case was hopeless -- at any price." At least he was honest. A lot of the money men would string McCranie along, tell him maybe and tomorrow when they really meant no. That made him mad; they were wasting his time. He was more comfortable with customers. At least they spoke his language. Or used to. . . .
McCranie was livid upon receipt of an internal Xerox memo that discussed eliminating Seeq chips from Xerox products. He felt betrayed. He flew to Xerox and confronted management -- to no avail. After a similar Hewlett-Packard memo surfaced, McCranie fired off a letter to company president John Young, earning him an audience with HP's top engineers and a reprieve. McCranie had spent years cultivating these people, soliciting their loyalty, and now they were ducking him.
One of his best customers, Howard Charney, a vice-president of 3Com Corp., a computer networking systems company, saw McCranie's books every month. He was worried Seeq was going under and wanted to be the first to know. Charney saw the Valley as littered with victims -- people unable to guide their fates -- but McCranie was never among them. "No matter how bad things got, Dan always had a plan. 'OK, here's where we stand today on this. Here's what we're going to do about it.' '
What appeared to Charney as coherent action was McCranie's "dither theory" at work, by which McCranie proposed as many credible plans as entered his head. These ranged from selling more chips to new customers this quarter to selling the company. "It was manic depressive," he recalls about the summer of '86. "I'd have a victory and couldn't stand how happy it made me feel. Then something would go wrong and I'd wonder, why am I doing this? At one of these places I gave my pitch, and in the middle of it one of these guys was giving me a funny look. I said, 'What's wrong?' and he replied, 'To tell you the truth, Dan, we're not interested in buying your company. We never have been. We just wanted to see how you were holding up.''
Dan McCranie's bias all along had been to preserve Seeq's customer base at any cost; keep moving EPROMs. If he abandoned them, then there was no honor. Floyd Kvamme believed Seeq's EPROM customers couldn't have cared less about the company. To them, Seeq was no better than their number-four supplier of a commodity chip. What Seeq did have that was unique was its E2 technology. For this, people would pay.
At a key meeting back in mid-1985, Kvamme had said they weren't going to cut R&D; they were going to focus on getting out the 256K CMOS E2 chip. There were easier targets -- another type of technology or a lower-density chip. But Seeq needed a talisman that would signal revival.
In 1985, McCranie, then still just one-third of Seeq's interim "office of the president," hadn't seen what Kvamme was getting at. After all, one investor had come in, put his feet up on the conference table, and said that the only way to save the company was to cut R&D. But a year later, CEO McCranie shared Kvamme's vision. The 256K E2 was almost done. It looked like a winner. Close on its heels came a new family of breakthrough chips, the 128K and 512K Flash E2. These were single-transistor E2 chips, costing one-quarter of what the full-featured E2 cost.
But just when it looked as though the technology was coming around, the company was running out of money. Before the July Fourth weekend, after only three months at the helm, McCranie gave "another fire-and-brimstone speech on how to lower expenses and raise revenue" to his executive staff. But this time, like some candidate on the stump too long, he only "half believed" the words coming out of his mouth. McCranie thought Seeq was through. The vultures would descend and rip the ripening technology from the body.
As McCranie walked out of that meeting, his controller, Ralph Harms, followed him. Harms was a shy man, but now he spoke boldly. I don't think we've done enough, Dan. We have to do something really tough. What do we make money on? What don't we make money on? We have to think of this company with half as many people as before, he said. McCranie went home for the weekend and heeded this other quiet but insistent voice.
At its peak, Seeq had employed 700 people. By mid-1986 that number was down to 400 -- rock bottom, according to company dogma. The dogma also had it that Seeq could sell itself out of the EPROM disaster. But McCranie came back from the holiday and said the company would lay off another 130 people and get out of EPROMs. He told his managers how many people to cut and told them to do so this afternoon, not next week.
In the first couple of months after the layoffs, meetings were held to analyze why Seeq had screwed up so badly. Some turned tearful, others turned into shouting matches. When people said they had done their best, McCranie replied I know that, but that's not what I want to hear. I want to know how we can stem these losses.
In time, his people turned on him, accusing him of poor sales turns and being a lousy market forecaster. He protested. Then he realized he was reacting as defensively as everyone else in the room.
The rap on Campbell had been that he wasn't tough enough, and there was resistance on the board to giving McCranie the job for the same reason. He was a salesman, after all -- a glad hand for everyone. McCranie knew he had to expunge that perception; he had to atone for the sins of another's past. Besides, he was convinced Seeq needed the "hard negative feedback" it had never received; it needed to stop being a place where "people were afraid to criticize." That era began the day an operations supervisor stopped McCranie in the hall and said, "Boy, I never realized what an asshole you could be.'
McCranie thought, that makes two of us.
McCranie's commitment to being tough was connected to something more than Seeq's needs -- it was connected to his ego. When the money men snubbed him, he was hurt. He wanted to show them that though they didn't care about his company, he did. He would do whatever it took to avoid the mark of Cain he would carry through the Valley should Seeq fail. There goes Dan McCranie, the guy whose company died under him.
Restructuring the company also turned into a game that appealed to his tactician's instinct. Before him he saw a succession of wins and losses. How would he artfully play them off one another so as to ride a middle course? The July layoffs had cut Seeq's weekly payroll from $310,000 to less than $200,000. McCranie was able to keep his best people. That was nice. But morale took a hit. Experienced research-and-development technicians were relegated to rote work in wafer fabrication. As a result, productivity jumped. McCranie told these employees their sacrifice meant that the company would survive.
Others had told him the company would now crack. You can't squeeze any more blood from this stone, Dan. That intrigued him. McCranie spent a lot more time in the manufacturing area to better understand what he, the impatient and unschooled CEO, could demand of production. The move made him visible among the rank and file. Tough, yes, but maybe also caring. The company stopped buying new wafers for machine setup and replaced them with used ones. Maintenance on machines less crucial to the process was scaled back; the maintenance crew was reduced to working odd, staggered shifts that blurred the line between night and day. The employee badge numbers -- emblems of seniority -- were collapsed, eliminating this vestige of those who had come and gone. Here stood the hard core, the Seeq survivors.
These small changes began to offer the look and feel of a different company. That spilled over into McCranie's perception as well. The past and all its rosy optimism no longer mattered. What McCranie sought to do was "zero base" the operation. He called it "washing your brain." Each month McCranie told his people: we want to end up with more money than we started with. What can we bring in this month in revenue?
In mid-1986, McCranie figured the company could do $7.5 million per quarter in sales. And at that level Seeq could have positive cash flow, provided he could get overhead under control. That would take a big harpoon. Campbell's legacy was the rent. Leasing plant and capital equipment accounted for 35% of Seeq's total outlays, about $1 million a month. Assuming sales of $7.5 million a quarter, McCranie calculated that even if he got direct labor and materials free, Seeq would still lose money at the rate of $4 million a year. He needed a break from his lessors. Otherwise, everything else would mean nothing.
Many of Seeq's leases had been signed when interest rates were touching 20%. Some were for as long as seven years. Yet the customer base for E2 and Ethernet chips was solid. Flash was coming on. The industry was in a slump. Good timing. If lessors yanked their equipment out of Seeq, what were they going to do with the stuff? Sell it to the navy for anchors? McCranie figured they'd be lucky to get 10¢ on the dollar. They decided to ask for an extension of the leases, effectively reducing payments by 50%.
Seeq had six major lessors, some of them more sympathetic to the company's plight than others. Any one of them could scuttle the deal. McCranie decided to work the group, rounding up the more compliant ones and moving them in the direction of the more recalcitrant.
A series of individual meetings in the summer led to a final meeting with all the lessors, most of whom by then were on board. At that meeting McCranie arrived with two sidemen, Seeq's corporate counsel and its "junkyard dog" insolvency counsel. One bore the bankruptcy papers, the other the restructured lease agreements. McCranie's lessors were free to choose which set of documents they wanted to sign.
McCranie knew that to pull this deal off, they had to come up with a carrot. That they did, in the form of warrants allowing the lessors to buy stock in the company. McCranie reasoned that that was only fair. Seeq had signed those leases and was asking for forgiveness.
By mid-October the lessors had fallen into line. That made other pieces fit. Seeq's early investors, General Electric Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and the Hillman Co., agreed to give Seeq an additional $2 million convertible into preferred stock, in the hope that the company could restructure successfully. In November, Monolithic Memories Inc., another chip maker, bought approximately 14% of Seeq for $4 million and agreed to a four-year joint-technology program. This gave Seeq not only cash but a way to diversify the E2 technology. (A similar deal was made last year in which Seeq exchanged the Flash technology for access to National Semiconductor's manufacturing muscle. Seeq started to ship Flash chips in December, and it currently has about a two-year lead over its competitors in the Flash market.) The CMOS 256K E2 chip started selling briskly in the last quarter of the fiscal year, which ended September 30. In fiscal year 1987, it accounted for 25% of Seeq sales.
In late 1986, McCranie told his board he expected the company to turn a profit in the third quarter of calendar 1987. It started making money in the first quarter and has done so ever since. In fiscal year 1987, Seeq earned 22¢ a share, compared with a loss of $9.48 a share the previous year. It now has $33 million in the bank.
The chairs in the Seeq boardroom are a soft, glovelike leather. Spaced around the expansive slab of a table are enough of them, it seems, to seat the entire U.S. Cabinet. Late on a Friday afternoon Dan McCranie sits alone at the table, dwarfed by the space. "The biggest worry I have is how many guys with a sales and marketing background are at the top of very large, successful semiconductor companies. This is a fast-moving situation. There are new processes coming along all the time. If something downstairs doesn't work, I'm useless. I'm useless, other than marshaling the forces to fix it."
McCranie's wife calls, wondering when he is going to be home. He tells her soon, says "I love you, baby," and hangs up. I tell McCranie I'm out of questions, giving him an out. He seems to want to stay and talk. He is leaving for Hawaii tomorrow for a week, his first family vacation since the turnaround two years ago. He says he intends to beat his daughter every morning at tennis. He has arranged to be part of a conference call on Friday. The man won't let go. Or can't.
Faster and faster he must now run. In its first seven years, Seeq built 12 basic chip designs. In the next two, it will introduce 18. There now arise again the expectations of investors, employees, customers. There a


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Super Monkey Ball
tells you a lot about itself right there in its name. Not only is it all about a monkey in a ball, it's also super - as in, Super Nintendo. It's simple, bright, fast, and fun - core tenets which, despite the odd pitfall, the series has done pretty well to stick by.
If you're not familiar with the franchise, the concept is simple: much like a giant game of Labyrinth, your goal is to get your monkey-in-a-ball to the finish line, by tilting the world to make your beglobed primate roll. The levels start off super simple, with fences to prevent you falling to your demise. Of course they quickly escalate to moving precipices which you must somehow navigate - all the while collecting elusive bananas - on your way to the goal at the end.
It does get rather hard.
Much has been added to this solid core over the years, with many party games and modes jockeying for your time. Banana Splitz, exclusive to the Vita, is no different; there's loads of stuff to do here and some of it's even quite good. Some of it, however...
The good stuff, outside of the core puzzle levels, includes the return of fan favourites like Monkey Target, in which you must launch your chimp champ from a big ramp, before gliding (by opening your ball) with great skill in order to score big points. It's fun, if on the simple side - successful, perhaps, because it sticks to those core Monkey Ball tenets.
Less successful is Monkey Rodeo, a game that challenges you to guide your bumbling baboon through bareback combat (on inflatable horses) by touching the back screen. If that sounds clumsy, be warned; it's even less fun in practice.
Still, for its highs and lows, the party mode has plenty of distractions on offer for those times when the main challenge mode gets too hard (and that will happen, a lot). You can also play it online, should you choose to, with ad-hoc and even single-system multiplayer options that will let anyone enjoy a game with a mate (so long as you have one, of course).
The game also sports a level creation system, which sounds good... but really isn't. All it does is generate a random level based on a photo you take with the Vita. If that sounds odd, you also have to shake your console during the process - much like developing an old Polaroid photo, perhaps. It's quirky, sure, but not in a good way; the chances of you stumbling into a level that's actually fun to play (or even resembles your subject) are pretty remote.
If you do find a level you like, you can share it online; but again, as has been the theme with the game, don't get carried away. You can only download levels made by people you're already PSN friends with (or know the IDs of), completely eliminating the chance that any LittleBigPlanet-like community will emerge. The same goes for the ability to save and share replays; it sounds cool but is quite underwhelming to actually use, and will almost certainly be resigned to the "ah well" corner of your game collection.
Visually, the puzzle levels are the most successful, but even there it can be somewhat lacklustre to look at. The colours are vibrant and really pop, thanks largely to the outstanding Vita screen perhaps, but the levels lack detail - especially in the area surrounding the bits you actually play on. Still, it all moves at a good clip (it feels like 60fps - silky smooth, all the time), which is super important for a reaction-based game such as this.
The worst part of the visuals are to be found in the interface; it looks fine, but for some reason the transition between each part of the complex structure has an associated (and slow) animation. It gets old very quickly, and you'll soon be longing for a snappy way to choose how you want to play today.
Structure is another part of the experience that seems to be sticking to tradition regardless of the practicalities afforded by the platform. The Vita, you see, is a portable device; used largely in bursts, for a few minutes here and there, as and when you have some time to play a game. Super Monkey Ball's core mode, however, is made up of 10-level segments; aborting one in the middle will mean you'll have to restart it next time from the beginning. Being able to pick and choose any level you'd unlocked would have worked better, perhaps.
On the controls front, you have the option of tilting your console to move your monkey around, or you can use the analog stick. It's nice to have the choice as, while I found the tilt controls to be pretty good, that method would often lead to difficulty actually seeing the screen in most situations.
If you've read this far, you'll have noticed a lot of negative comments, and you might be wondering how this text could be associated with the score I've given the game. It all makes sense; my gripes almost entirely fall outside of the core part of the game: the puzzles. While they're not implemented perfectly, with the camera in particular a challenge in some situations, this is very definitely where the real genius of the game is to be found.
The difficulty ramp is well designed, with occasional spikes to tease you with what the designers have planned for you later, and to a level, the game is fun to play. It's occasionally infuriating, but never frustrating; if you fail, you know it's because you need to perfect your technique, not because there's something fundamentally wrong with the game.
It's just a pity that the rest of it feels so rushed and poorly thought out. With a decent budget and some time, the core of Super Monkey Ball could still support a brilliant package.
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Classification: G
Rating: 3.5/5


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What is Eco Friendly Construction
A new home is every person's dream, however, it always brings high costs so you must use a reputable company. Building a home is not inexpensive regardless of the type of construction you choose but it is the type of construction which plays the key role in the overall costs of a home and surrounding luxuries and its impact on the environment. It is important to be aware that the costs of a new home do not come to an end with its construction and that the greatest expenses of most homes is energy used for heating and cooling, running home appliances, etc. Buildings that are not constructed with the necessary attention to energy efficiency are therefore more expensive even if their initial cost was lower, not to mention that they are eco-unfriendly.
Any non-efficient use of energy increases the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which in turn increase the greenhouse effect. For that reason eco friendly construction uses materials and technology which help optimize energy efficiency of a home and reduce its harmful effect on the environment at the same time. By choosing an eco friendly construction, you will not only reduce the costs of your home in the long run but you will also help reduce the harmful effects of human actions on the environment.
There are several ways how to build an environmentally friendly home or place of work and reduce the consumption of traditionaly inefficient use of products such as business electricity. Carefully plan your recycling where possible. Use recycled timber when choosing your furniture such as and garden patio furniture and dining sets. Make an effort to reduce waste and use reclaimed materials that can be integrated into the building. The construction technology is constantly being developed and improved but every environmentally friendly building technique typically follows five basic principles – eco construction, eco design, eco maintenance, eco renovation and eco demolition with an aim to reduce the building's influence on the environment as much as possible. How this is achieved depends on the chosen type of construction but it most often includes the use of eco friendly construction materials and design which at the same reduce the consumption of energy and other non-renewable resources such as water.
Environmentally friendly houses do not offer any less comfort, safety or durability than conventional homes and often do not look any different from the existing buildings although some eco friendly construction designs also focus on integrating the buildings into the surrounding environment as much as possible. But there is one major difference between conventional and eco friendly buildings – energy efficiency. A well-built eco home uses as much as 30% less energy than most conventional homes. What is more, the use of environmentally friendly construction materials and techniques eliminates the risk of exposure to potentially harmful materials at any point of the building's life-cycle making eco friendly homes a healthier place to live in. Ensure you use a reputable company for the disposal of your waste who are environmentally conscious when disposing of waste. Or use a company with a zero landfill record where 100% of the materials are recycled.
Eco friendly construction is often associated with high costs, however, green building has evolved tremendously over the last three decades and you do not have to be rich to own an environmentally friendly home. Which type of eco friendly construction to choose depends on where you live, your personal preferences and of course, your budget. But every eco friendly construction method is a much better choice than the conventional building techniques for both the environment and your health as well as "your pocket" as all eco friendly buildings provide better energy efficiency.


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Headteacher: Miss Karen O'Donnell
School Business Manager: Sue Thompson
Athelstan Community Primary School
Milford Road
Tel: 01977 684 037
Email us: please use our contact form
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Athelstan Community Primary School
Milford RoadSherburn in ElmetNorth YorkshireLS25 6QN
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We hope you find all the information you require about our school from the web site, but we also hope that you will be able to come and visit Athelstan in order to experience for yourself the truly special atmosphere, caring ethos and great pride in which we hold our fantastic school.
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Enjoy this delicious kosher brisket recipe from the new gourmet kosher cookbook from The Guardians of the Los Angeles Home for the Aging. This cookbook is a great Passover Gift Idea as well as a great way to give tzedakah to this wonderful cause!
Apricot and Honey Easy Kosher Brisket Recipe
by :Danielle Ames-Spivak
- 5 pound brisket
- 1 packet onion soup mix
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 cup dried apricots
- 1 jar of apricot jam
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 bottle of dark beer
- Pepper to taste
Instructions: Place brisket in large pan. Coat with onion soup mix and cover with tin foil. Cook on 300 for 3 hours. Add lemon juice, ginger, apricots, jam, honey, brown sugar, beer and pepper.
Support The Guardians of the Los Angeles Home for the Aging Young Women's Division by pre-ordering their Taste of Jewish Heritage 2011 cookbook. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to the Los Angeles Jewish Home. The book is a compilation of recipes from The Guardians and the Home's residents. It is available for $41 and will be ready to ship by Chanukah. A perfect CHANUKAH GIFT!!!
To purchase a copy click this link: http://www.laguardians.com/Cart/EventDetails.aspx?ID=128 For any questions please firstname.lastname@example.com
Related articles
- Joan Nathan's Juicy Brisket Braised in Pomegranate Juice (thejewishhostess.com)
- Gourmet Challah Recipe with Eucalyptus and Wild Flowers Honey From Israel (thejewishhostess.com)
- Panzanella on a Stick- A great new Summer Recipe! (thejewishhostess.com)
- Easy and Healthy Blueberry Yogurt Muffins (thejewishhostess.com)
- Apricot Almond Cookies with Amaretto Icing (thejewishhostess.com)
- Unbelievable Shabbat Brick Roast with Wine, Cranberry Sauce, and Portobello Mushrooms (thejewishhostess.com)
- Rosh Hashanah Ground Lamb on a Cinnamon Stick by Debbie Gindi (thejewishhostess.com)
- Great Granola Winter Snack (thejewishhostess.com)


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There is no escaping the fact that mobile commerce has been experiencing considerable growth. Recent research from Deloitte suggested that mobile devices would influence £3.5bn of retail sales this Christmas.
As well as understanding the anticipated growth of m-commerce, it is also important to recognise the devices that are fuelling this growth.
With targeting capabilities evolving, it is possible to segment audiences based on the device they are visiting through and advertisers are able to capitalise on this through targeted promotions.
At Affiliate Window we have been monitoring mobile activity across the network for over two years now. In this time we have seen exceptional growth in terms of the amount of traffic and sales that have come through mobile devices.
While we have included tablets within our definition of mobile activity, if we strip this out to focus on mobile handsets, our latest monthly stats indicate that traffic through handsets is almost a double digit figure.
In addition to that, just under 5% of all sales generated through the network originated from a mobile handset.
We have been able to look at this data on a more granular level to identify the handsets that are fuelling this growth. From our stats it is evident that the iPhone has typically been the driving force behind mobile commerce with the largest share of our mobile handset sales over the year (currently standing at 58.5% of all sales through handsets).
Android devices have been lagging behind with just under 30% of handset transactions, but it is extremely important that advertisers do not neglect consumers using these devices.
Android is typically the driving force behind the growth of smartphone penetration. While Apple users are commonly early adopters, Android handsets are often the standard option when upgrading.
This means that Android devices are owned by a new generation of users, perhaps those that would have been less inclined to transact using a mobile device. Given the higher barrier to entry in terms of the cost for the iPhone, the users potentially have higher incomes that advertisers are keen to tap in to.
This is certainly the case with average order values that we have seen through our advertiser base, with iPhone users typically spending more. There is perhaps also a sense that iPhone users have fewer reservations when it comes to transacting over a mobile device although this is purely anecdotal.
The graph below shows Android clicks and sales as a percentage against the iPhone.
If we look back to January 2012, traffic through Android made up 30.56% and sales was slightly lower at 28.45%. By November, these figures had increased to 36.37% and 38.47% respectively. As well as being indicative of the share of Android sales increasing, it also highlights that Android conversion rates have been improving at a greater rate.
We are now seeing Android convert at 2.57% while the iPhone is slightly lower at 2.35%.
While advertisers may be seeing greater returns through the iPhone at present, the growth rates in traffic and transactions we have seen across Android have outstripped the growth we have seen from the iPhone, although it is important to note these growth figures are based on a lower initial base.
The graph below indicates the month of month growth in transactions through each of the devices.
Both of the devices have experienced growth in the run up to Christmas with Android showing a 40% growth in November vs. October. This came on the back of a 26.5% growth in October.
While the iPhone is the dominant force at the moment, the number of Android owners is increasing rapidly. As these users become more confident in using their devices to transact rather than to simply browse, we can fully expect the share of Android sales to increase.
It is essential that advertisers and retailers capitalise on this growth.


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My wife has iPhone 3G and I recently bought iPhone 4 for myself. Since we can easily manage charging for both of our phones from just one wall charger, I actually never unpackaged mine and data cable is still packed as well.
But few days ago I noticed that my phone refusing to sync with even older data cable (from 3rd gen iPod nano) although iPhone 3G does sync with it.
So that got me thinking, do I missing something by not using updated accessories? Faster charging time or data sync maybe? Any thoughts?


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60. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 1, 2012 10:57 AM (in response to dan.j.allen)
Hi again,
I had been struggling with making the integration test working with Spring 2.5.6 for last two days. Finally I have manage to make them work and successfully run on JBoss AS 6 and 7 (previous versions like 4.x and 5 will be tested soon - but it quite likely that the will work without any changes in the code). As already mentioned in previous posts the Spring 3.x extension works well with JBoss 6 and 7.
As for the Spring 2.5.6 I found quite weird behavior. I wasn't able to make context: component-scan working it seems that this is more related to the spring version, because the Spring 3 works perfectly well here, but I found here interesting information in the Spring reference:
Note that the scanning of classpath packages requires the presence of corresponding directory entries in the classpath. When building jars with Ant, make sure to not activate the files-only switch of the jar task!
I was wondering how does the ShrinkWrap archives behave here and is there a way to include in them full directories paths?
61. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 1, 2012 12:13 PM (in response to jmnarloch)
After discusion with Marius today, he point me that I should use SnowDrop for class path scanning, so I'm going to give it a try and modify the code a bit.
62. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 1, 2012 11:50 AM (in response to jmnarloch)
Couple of thoughts from todays discusion with Marius,
From functional aspects the fallowing should be added into the extension:
- Snowdrop for Spring 2.5.6
- Registering custom context classes.
- Additional tests and especially working examples that would demonstrate the usage.
The plan is to make that happen within next 2-3 weeks and then publish the version as the first milestone.
In long therm additional transaction support should be added.
63. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 1, 2012 11:55 AM (in response to jmnarloch)
For registering custom context classes I would introduce seperate annotaction, let's say:
The usage will be limited to @SpringConfiguration and @SpringAnnotatedConfiguration and will allow to instantiate the custom context classes.
64. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationmarius.bogoevici May 1, 2012 11:58 AM (in response to jmnarloch)
How about adding an attribute to current annotations? I think it would make the configuration easier to read.
65. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 1, 2012 11:59 AM (in response to marius.bogoevici)
Consider it done.
Marius Bogoevici wrote:
How about adding an attribute to current annotations? I think it would make the configuration easier to read.
66. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 1, 2012 2:11 PM (in response to jmnarloch)
I had implemented the mentioned attribute for @SpringConfiguration, this will be especially usefull for running the test with Spring 2.5.6 in JBoss due to it's incompatibility.
For example, instead of using Spring ClassPathXmlApplicationContext test could use Snowdrop's VFSClassPathXmlApplicationContext.
@SpringConfiguration(value = {"service.xml", "repository.xml"}, contextClass = VFSClassPathXmlApplicationContext.class)
public class XmlConfigurationTestCase {
I had also modfieid the configuration for arquillian-spring-2.5 extension which now allows to automaticly include snowdrop with deployments:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<arquillian xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://jboss.org/schema/arquillian http://jboss.org/schema/arquillian/arquillian_1_0.xsd">
<defaultProtocol type="Servlet 3.0" />
<extension qualifier="spring">
<!-- The version of Spring artifact, will be used for auto package the spring-context and spring-web,
default is 2.5.6 -->
<property name="springVersion">2.5.6</property>
<!-- Whether to auto package the dependencies, default is true -->
<property name="autoPackage">true</property>
<!-- Whether to include the snowdrop in test deployment, default is false -->
<property name="includeSnowdrop">true</property>
<!-- The version of the Snowdrop artifact, default is 2.0.3.Final -->
<property name="snowdropVersion">2.0.3.Final</property>
67. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationdan.j.allen May 2, 2012 2:49 AM (in response to jmnarloch)
I'm excited to read about your progress, Jakub. And thanks Marius for providing some key guidance. It's great to this effort be able to tap into Snowdrop, something that can really bring this extension full circle to offering something *more* for Spring developers.
I'm going to plant a little gossip that might pique your motivation to keep going strong. I picked up that the Spring camp is working on a DBUnit extension for Spring tests, duplicating in part the work of the Ace on the Arquillian persistence extension. As your extension starts to take shape, we can pair it up with the Arquillian persistence extension and, voila, Spring developers now have the same kick-ass persistence extension as non-Spring developers (the beauty of Arquillian). Winning.
...and, of course, if you need to clear your head and want to mess around w/ the Arquillian persistence extension, you know where it is
68. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 2, 2012 8:28 AM (in response to dan.j.allen)
I see that we are thinking the same, the support for Arquillian persistence extension is my long term goal and quite likely I'll get back to this idea.
69. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationdan.j.allen May 2, 2012 12:11 PM (in response to jmnarloch)
Excellent. We'll be with you all the way.
70. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationbmajsak May 2, 2012 1:41 PM (in response to dan.j.allen)
first of all I must say you are doing astonishing work for Spring integration. This topic is recurring in almost every talk I'm giving about Arquillian so having Spring support as first class citizen would be definitely a huge advantage for us. And will save me from answering "springy" questions with "we will have it, it's already work in progress"
Since I was called by Dan I just want to add that you can count on me with regards to APE + Spring any time. Just ping me and I'll be summoned.
Speaking about spring-dbunit project, I saw that one already few days back and it's offering all what we (and Unitils) offers. Maybe DataSetLoader (or any kind of data provider in our case) is something we should consider. To give the end user more flexibility in this area. I already have some initial sketches for entity provider similar to the concept of data provider from TestNG. Another thing to look at is configuration stuff - maybe I'm missing something in APE. But to be honest I'm really wondering why they* came up with it if they have Unitils for ages which is designed with Spring in mind.
* I think it's more side project of VMWare / SS employee rather than Spring module or sth like.
71. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 3, 2012 3:07 AM (in response to bmajsak)
Hi Bartosz,
I woudl appreciate You help with the project.
Currently I got two ideas that I think would be worth realizing:
1. First would be transaction support, similar to those that Spring Test provides. I think that this would be easy to achive, although the APE API would need to provide some extension points in order to implement e.g. seperate transaction manager, then I could simply prepare a TransactionWrapper that would delegate to Spring Platform AbstractPlatformTransactionManager.
Configuration could look like similar:
<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager">
<property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory" />
The test then could use that transaction manager:
public void SomeTestCase {
// test code
2. For second thing, I do know that there is no similar functionality but I would like introduce support for using data sources configured within Spring. In my opinion that would reduce greatly the needed steps to set up the tests.
For example:
<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">
<property name="driverClassName" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}" />
<property name="url" value="${jdbc.url}" />
<property name="username" value="${jdbc.username}" />
<property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}" />
That could be simply configured within the tests
public void SomeTestCase {
// test code
What do You think about it?
72. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationbmajsak May 3, 2012 2:57 AM (in response to jmnarloch)
That's definitely something worth to implement on the SPI level. I'm anyway starting to work on SPI modules (also for different "data providers" such as Liquibase), so I will aim to expose transaction and datasource handling as well. I will keep you updated. From the timeline perspective however, I don't expect to have it before July. I hope you will still be busy with other things around the core Spring extension
73. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 8, 2012 12:33 PM (in response to bmajsak)
Hi again,
I had moved the integration tests into the main repository (https://community.jboss.org/thread/199135?tstart=0).
I think it is high time to ask for a code review of my work. At least for I can not think anything worth implementing that wouldn't be already there. (except of course of the APE integration).
All comments will be welcome
74. Re: GSoC - Arquillian Spring Integrationjmnarloch May 8, 2012 11:26 AM (in response to jmnarloch)
One more thing.
I tried to run the tests with embedded Glassfish but I'm getting the fallowing error:
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.jboss.arquillian.container.spi.client.protocol.metadata.ProtocolMetaData.getContexts(Ljava/lang/Class;)Ljava/util/Collection;
at org.jboss.arquillian.protocol.servlet.BaseServletProtocol.getExecutor(BaseServletProtocol.java:61)
at org.jboss.arquillian.protocol.servlet.BaseServletProtocol.getExecutor(BaseServletProtocol.java:35)
at org.jboss.arquillian.container.test.impl.execution.RemoteTestExecuter.getContainerMethodExecutor(RemoteTestExecuter.java:136)
at org.jboss.arquillian.container.test.impl.execution.RemoteTestExecuter.execute(RemoteTestExecuter.java:119)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
Don't have idea how to fix it.


text:
Torrealba switches to heavier mask
DENVER -- Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba has looked a little different behind the plate since his return from the concussion that cost him eight games last month.
Rockies head athletic trainer Keith Dugger convinced Torrealba not to wear his state-of-the-art mask with silver titanium bars and lightweight padding. Instead, he is wearing one of fellow catcher Wilin Rosario's masks -- with the company logo covered, since Torrealba has an equipment deal with another company. The purple bars are old-fashioned steel, and the padding is heavier.
Dugger and Torrealba are operating under a theory that the titanium mask might have been too strong and too light. The bars are so strong, the theory goes, that there is no give, which means all the impact is transferred to the catcher's face, and the padding isn't enough to cushion the catcher's face.
There was a recent run of head trauma injuries to catchers, many occurring as Torrealba's did, on a foul tip. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported this week that Twins catcher Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit were wearing titanium masks when they suffered concussions, and at least three other injured catchers were wearing the material. Torrealba was one of them.
Torrealba said it will take some time to get used to the old-time mask.
"Honestly, I don't really know," Torrealba said. "The titanium, I like it. It's light and I see a lot of players using it. But I might be one of the cases where the mask was too strong. But I don't know that."
Dugger said some of the steel masks would bend on dramatic impact. Not only could the bending help cushion the blow, it could be a warning that the bars are worn and must be changed. Titanium, he said, doesn't show wear that way. It just breaks eventually.
Neither Torrealba nor Rosario wear the hockey-style mask that many catchers wear -- one that's required at the high school level. Both catchers and Dugger like the idea of the stand-alone mask over a helmet, because the mask usually shakes loose from the skull at impact. But in Torrealba's case, the mask stayed put, which made the blow more blunt.
"Yes, the titanium can take more force, but that force has to be transferred somewhere else," Dugger said. "I'm not saying it's bad. I'm sure they have tests that show it's safer and better. What I'm saying is based on observation, not 100 perent science.
"But even some of the older umpires, they feel like the force is a little stronger because there's no give. But I will say one thing: Those titanium masks last longer."


text:
10 Formal Complaints
Free Burton Snowboard
Missing Missy
Obvious Foggot
Too Cool For School
Overdue Account
Permission Slip
I wish I Had a Monkey
Simon's Pie Charts
Shannon Eats Lunch
Party in Apartment 3
Flash Drive Infringement
Shopping with Simon
Strata Agreement
Blockbuster Late Fees
Lifesize Lucius
Web Genius
Working Out With Jeff
Nigerian Sex Scam
1000 Characters
iWank Pro
Magic 8 Ball Wednesday
New Hope for Thomas
Grubby Tenant
Anyone for Tennis?
The Oprah Interview
Investment Opportunity
Flight Commander
Roz Loves Adelaide
Monarto Zoo
Sign & Print Here Please
Bob's Artwork
Twelve Coffee Cups
Level 46 Dwarf
Kaleth the Adelaide Gothic
Love Letters from Dick
Sponsor a Black Boy
Lesley the Lesbian
Thomas Brady
Bill's Guide to the Internet
Photography Tips
The 27b/6 Xmas Album
Will Draw for Food
Lillians Mouse
Tom the Sad Caveman
Free Big Screen Plasma
More Articles
"There are any number of alternatives to Antarctica such as skiing or being in space."
Since the release of the first book by Penguin, I am occasionally asked for advice regarding the publishing industry. Which is like asking a five-year-old child to explain Gene Ray's Timecube theory. I generally just wing it and see what happens; regardless of the outcome, it is usually at least interesting and there is far too much wank involved to take it seriously.
The decision not to publish the second book with Penguin was based on timing, not on any dissatisfaction. Working with a large publisher like Penguin has benefits, such as a marketing budget, but the process from initial contract to release of royalties is. so. slow.
When the second book was released a couple of weeks ago, the cover featured a penguin giving the finger. It ambiguously made sense with the title, was cute, and... I had no marketing budget.
: Donald Snadek
: Wednesday 14 March 2012 3.23pm
: David Thorne
: Trademark Infringement
Dear Mr. Thorne:
Your use of our Penguin mark on the book's cover and your website is an infringement of our trademark. Our parent company, Pearson plc, and our affiliate, Penguin Books Limited, which is the registered owner of the mark, demand that we strictly enforce our trademark rights. We therefore must insist that you immediately remove all images of the book's cover from the Internet, and that you also immediately cease selling copies of the book with that cover.
Please confirm in writing that you will take the required steps by no later than Friday, March 16, 2012. This is not an idle threat. If you don't comply, we will take legal action against you, which will include seeking recovery of our attorneys' fees.
Donald K. Snadek
: David Thorne
: Thursday 15 March 2012 10.18am
: Donald Snadek
: Re: Trademark Infringement
Dear Donald,
I have received your email in regards to the infringement of Penguin's trademark. Am I to understand that despite using the same image of a penguin giving the finger (which has at least a thirty degree difference in the angle of the flipper to Penguin's logo) to promote the first book without any issue, now that I am using it to promote the second book, which is not published by Penguin, it is now suddenly a trademark infringement?
Regards, David.
: Donald Snadek
: Monday 26 March 2012 3.55pm
: David Thorne
: Trademark infringement and dilution
Dear Mr. Thorne:
Please see the attached letter.
Donald K. Snadek
: David Thorne
: Wednesday 28 March 2012 2.14pm
: Donald Snadek
: The big letter
Dear Donald,
I have received your letter and, as I could probably list ten thousand things that would be more fun than facing the grey tweedy wrath of Penguin's lawyers in court, (starting with 1. making long lists), I will capitulate to your demands and change the cover.
Regards, David.
: Donald Snadek
: Wednesday 28 March 2012 4.52pm
: David Thorne
: Re: The big letter
Dear Mr. Thorne:
Thank you for your message. Penguin appreciates your cooperation in this matter.
To avoid any misunderstanding, however, I want to remind you that our March 23 letter demanded not only a change in your book's cover but also of all materials on which the infringing logo appears. This includes the book's title page and promotional materials, such as the T-shirts and mugs displayed on your web site and offered on online stores. It also includes not only your web site but also any display of or link to the infringing logo on your Facebook, Twitter or other personal social network pages.
Our March 23 letter demanded that these sites be changed by March 30. Please confirm that you understand this.
Donald K. Snadek
: David Thorne
: Thursday 29 March 2012 10.21am
: Donald Snadek
: Re: Re: The big letter
Dear Donald,
Yes, the version of the letter I received was predominately in English. Even with my reading disability (my bedside lamp is only 25w) and skipping to the pictures after page two due to its length, I was able to understand the gist of "We are angryface and would like you to use a picture of a cat or something instead of a penguin."
Regards, David.
: Donald Snadek
: Thursday 29 March 2012 12.04pm
: David Thorne
: Re: Re: Re: The big letter
Yes, a cat instead of a penguin would be acceptable.
: David Thorne
: Thursday 29 March 2012 12.17pm
: Donald Snadek
: Re: Re: Re: Re: The big letter
What if a penguin is riding the cat? Perhaps in a race.
: Donald Snadek
: Thursday 29 March 2012 3.19pm
: David Thorne
: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The big letter
That would not be acceptable.
: Donald Snadek
: Tuesday 3 April 2012 11.32am
: David Thorne
: Penguin trademark
Dear Mr. Thorne:
In your March 29 email, you stated that you "understood the gist" of our March 28 email: namely, that your infringing penguin logo was to be changed no later than March 30. As of today, four days beyond the deadline, your book now features a penguin holding flowers, despite your email stating that you would change the penguin to a cat.
We demand, no later than the close of business on April 4, that you comply with our demands. If not, Penguin will seek injunctive relief and damages. You will not receive further warning before Penguin takes legal action.
Donald K. Snadek
: David Thorne
: Tuesday 3 April 2012 12.54pm
: Donald Snadek
: Re: Penguin trademark
Dear Donald,
As I understood from your letter, your main concerns were that the penguin cover was
making a rude gesture,
presented on an orange background, and
recognisable as the Penguin logo and the association with Penguin that brings.
The redesigned penguin is now
making a kind gesture,
presented on a background devoid of any colour,
with a quick glance, perhaps in a room lit by a 25w light globe, could be more immediately mistaken for the work of a shy British vandal than the Penguin logo in question, and
not racing a cat.
Surely Penguin does not claim ownership to all penguin related imagery. If so, are you intending to send the same email to Linux, McVitie's, Otmar Guttman, and Amundsen-Scott Station?
Regards, David.
: Donald Snadek
: Wednesday 4 April 2012 11.06am
: David Thorne
: Re: Re: Penguin trademark
Dear Mr. Thorne:
As stated in our most recent email, your current penguin logo (holding flowers) is not acceptable.
The test of infringement is not whether your logo is identical to Penguin's logo or even whether your logo is likely to be mistaken for Penguin's logo. The test is whether your logo sufficiently resembles Penguin's logo to cause confusion about the relationship of your book to Penguin. Your use of a penguin logo is likely to cause members of the public to believe that Penguin publishes your second as well as your first book, and that Penguin has designed or authorized this variation of its usual Penguin logo. We already have evidence that such confusion has occurred.
Furthermore, trademark law has a "safe distance" rule that someone who has previously infringed (as you have) must stay further away from the plaintiff's trademark than one who has not previously infringed.
For these reasons, we repeat our demand that, by the close of business tomorrow, you permanently change the design of your logo to something that is not a penguin.
Donald K. Snadek
: David Thorne
: Wednesday 4 April 2012 1.47pm
: Donald Snadek
: Re: Re: Re: Penguin trademark
Dear Donald,
Understood. Can you please check with Penguin if something along the lines of the attached would be acceptable to them.
The sticker flash thing hides the fact that it is a penguin, with the word 'cat' included to convince those suspicious that it may be a penguin otherwise. This solves both Penguin's issue with the book cover and my issue with having to do anything that requires actual effort.
I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience and hope we can put this matter to a close.
Regards, David.
: Donald Snadek
: Thursday 5 April 2012 10.04am
: David Thorne
: Re: Re: Re: Re: Penguin trademark
Dear Mr. Thorne:
This matter will come to a close only when you comply to our demands. Your proposed "cat" is instantly recognizable as a penguin by anyone who has seen your current or original penguin cover, and by anyone else who knows that black and white "cats" do not have webbed feet.
This is my last correspondence with you before we proceed with legal action.
I strongly suggest you change the image immediately. Your book does not contain any articles about penguins but many about cats. I understand the title suggests a cold environment but there are any number of alternatives to Antarctica such as skiing or being in space.
Donald K. Snadek
to view the revised cover.
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Christopher S. Nickard (1961-1994), Study for Survival in the Time of AIDS, Gene, 1992; ektacolor photograph, 19 1/2 x 13 1/8 inches (Frame: 27 x 20 3/4 inches); Gift of Gary L. Nickard, 1995
Needing Green Space, Seeking Solace
On View Friday, May 9–Sunday, August 31, 2014
Needing Green Space, Seeking Solace is an exhibition of photographs organized by SUNY Buffalo State graduate students in museum studies and their instructor, Nancy Weekly. The Collection Study Gallery exhibition coincides with Burchfield Botanicals, which will be on view in the adjacent Burchfield suite galleries June 13 through November 9, 2014. Public and private gardens, gardeners, and flowers as metaphorical subjects comprise the theme for selections from the Burchfield Penney Art Center's collection, with a special focus on the work of Marion Faller, who made a significant donation in 2012 that represents the range of her life's work. To complement Faller's photography, the students have selected works by Western New York photographers Justine Kurland, Janelle Lynch, Arnold Mesches, Christopher Nickard, and Milton Rogovin.
The exhibition was created by graduate students in the museum studies course, "Researching and Presenting Museum Collections," who include: Megan Barr, Margaret Coghlan, Alana Fajemisin, Brittney Jimerson, Karrie Myers, and Allison Spongr. They worked with Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Penney Instructor of Museum Studies at SUNY Buffalo State, who is also Head of Collections and the Charles Cary Rumsey Curator at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. The students selected images, researched the subject matter, and wrote label texts for adults and children. Their written texts have been collected in a binder and will be kept in the museum's document files for future reference.


text: My left sidebar widgets appear at the top of the page, and the right ones appear at the bottom of the page. I have a Facebook "like" button, a slideshow of photos and a tag cloud. Below is a link to an example (with left widgets inactive...scroll to the bottom to see the right one)


text:
American Hustle screened last night. Jennifer Lawrence was not there in person...but they felt her presence. What great timing. Or, perhaps they strategically chose the date of the New York Film Critics Circle's announcement of their winners to make their premiere.
The NYFCC named American Hustle and NOT 12 Years A Slave as Best Picture giving the Oscar race a major shakeup. It's not like American Hustle wasn't expected to come in for a nomination, but calling it the class of a very strong year is a big, big love, positioning it as more of a contender than most people expected at this stage in the game. Hustle collected three awards in total including Best Screenplay and Supporting Actress for Lawrence while Twelve Years director Steve McQueen won Best Director. My etalk executive producer Morley, who considers himself an Oscar expert, is worried this might be another Brokeback year. Let's not fret too much about it yet. We have 3 more months of this to go. And besides, the NYFCC went with Zero Dark Thirty last year.
Anyway, here's Amy Adams last night and I wish she wasn't wearing one of those dumb sheer skirts. Also Jeremy Renner.


text:
The three winners are Babak Davoudi from California, Ruben Castro Castillo from Spain and Kimberly Jeffries from Hawaii. Here are their pictures and stories.
Kimberly & hammerhead shark
By far the biggest myth people say about sharks is they are mindless, man eating monsters. Nothing could be farther from the truth. These are beautiful, majestic, sentient creatures that actually appreciate and return for affection over and over and over again. Jim Abernethy - Tales by Light - Happy Earth Day everyone 🌏 。 。 。 。 #shark #travel #freedive #rebreather #savesharks #subal #conservation #neverstopexploring #ocean #freediving #yourshotphotographer #oahu #explore #teamcanon #extinction #photo #hawaii #scuba #photooftheday #marine #marineconservation #photography #underwater #padi #galapagos #hammerheadshark #hammerhead #wild #suuntodive #earthday
"Hammerhead sharks are among some of the most amazing ocean animals. Their head shape has evolved to act as a hydrofoil underwater and their bodies are capable of extreme maneuverability. They're absolutely beautiful to see moving underwater. Sadly, despite evolution, Scalloped hammerheads are considered endangered, with their population having decreased around 95% in the past thirty years due to over fishing and shark finning."
"This particular photo is of a scalloped hammerhead off Darwin's Arch, Galapagos. Schools of sharks will gather to be cleaned by fish and to find mates. It's beautiful to see untouched nature like that."
"Although this photo was shot in the Galapagos, I'm lucky enough to call Oahu home. We have crystal clear diving all year round and every island in Hawaii has a little different flavor so it's always an adventure in the water."
–Kimberly Jeffries, California, USA
Ruben & angel shark
Ruben's angel shark video (The same video was also shared on Instagram)
"I went diving again today and was lucky enough to meet an angel shark. They are fantasic creatures and it's always good to see them. I think we have to protect them, and the best way to educate and teach people is through videos and images."
"I am from Madrid, Spain, but live in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Usually I dive in the Canary Islands."
–Ruben Castro Castillo, Gran Canaria, Spain
Babak & sea turtle
My favorite dive buddy of all time! Throwback to an amazing experience, diving in #turtlecanyon #Oahu and encountering with many of these giant #seaturtle #honu The average shell length of an adult honu is 3-4 feet and they weigh ~250 pounds, but they can grow to a weight of 500 pounds and their average life span could reach 80 years. #suuntodive #hawaii #scubadiving #paditv
"The picture is from my trip to Hawaii, Oahu, Turtle Canyon dive site, right after I got my open water certification and I was so excited diving in Hawaii. We saw a lot of these huge sea turtles surrounded by small fishes cleaning them. It was my first time seeing turtles that big. They are so calm and the way they swim and glide in the water looks like they are flying. Looking at their faces make me happy and smile. To me they look like ancient and prehistoric creatures."
"I live in Irvine, California and normally dive around here in Catalina Island, Shaw's Cove, Channel Islands and sometimes going on trips to another places. I dove in Dubai, Hawaii (Molokini and Oahu). I'm getting more serious about diving, it's been my dream since I was a child to dive and it became true when I moved here to California."
–Babak Davoudi, California, USA
Congratulations to the winners and thank you for participating and sharing your stories, everyone!
The three winners got easy-to-use, nitrox-capable, large-displayed Suunto Zoop Novo dive computers to accompany them on their future adventures.
Main image by Stephen R Woods / Suunto


text:
Baca Manga Online Komik Naruto Chapter 581 580 - Terbaru. Baca Komik Manga Naruto Indonesian is Presents By Mangacan, Scanlation FIVEMANGACAN. No Download or Registration Required its FREE (Gratis). Oyeah also available Spoilers Raw Cam Pictures and Summary, and many Translation language 日本語, English, Portugis, Italia, Germany, Japan Raw, Bahasa Indonesia, Spain, French, Francais, Arabic, Filipino, ITA, Italiano, Deutsch, Polski, Romanian, Czech, Nederlands, Espanol, Malay And Brazil. Naruto Uzumaki is a young boy who has the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox sealed within him. Twelve years before the start of the series, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox attacked the ninja village Konohagakure, slaughtering many people. In response, the leader of Konohagakure and its ninja military – the Fourth Hokage – sacrificed his life to seal the demon inside Naruto when he was a newborn. Konohagakure, however, regarded Naruto as if he were the demon fox itself and mistreated him throughout most of his childhood. A decree made by the Third Hokage, who replaced the Fourth Hokage after his death, forbade anyone mention the attack of the demon fox to anyone. Years later, Naruto is tricked by the renegade ninja Mizuki into stealing a forbidden scroll, but is stopped by his teacher, Iruka Umino. When Iruka almost dies while protecting Naruto from Mizuki, Naruto defeats Mizuki using the power from the scroll, which develops the supernatural ability Jutsu Shadow Clone Technique that creates clones from himself. That encounter makes Naruto realize he was the container of the demon fox. Naruto Shippuuden Characters: Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Kakashi Hatake, Madara Uchiha, Pein Nagato, Yahiko, Conan, Tobi, Kisame, Zetsu, Sasori, Deidara, Orochimaru, Itachi Uchiha, Hidan, Kakuzu, Orochimaru, Kiba Inuzuka, Akamaru, Shino Aburame, Hinata Hyuga, Kurenai Yuhi, Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka, Asuma Sarutobi, Guy, Rock Lee, Neji Hyuga, Tenten, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Minato Namikaze, Tsunade, Danzo Shimura, Gaara, Kankuro, Temari, Iruka Umino, Konohamaru, Jiraiya, Shizune, Chiyo, Sai, Yamato, Killer Bee, Motoi,Akatsuki. Indowebster Ziddu 4shared kitaupload bebasupload ugm.upload 2shared,Read Naruto English Scan Online, Download Naruto ,Naruto raw manga,Naruto Spoilers,Naruto Confirmed,Naruto Summaries, Naruto zip,Naruto rar,Naruto megaupload,Naruto hotfile,Naruto depositfiles,Naruto rapidshare,Naruto spoilers,Naruto prediction,Naruto blogspot,Naruto wordpress,Naruto mangastream,Naruto mangahelpers,Naruto onemanga,Naruto ,Manga Scan.
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text:
Tag: Neville MacDonald
0 SKIN – Breaking the Silence (2010)
When I first discovered the UK band SKIN in the summer of 2009, I never expected that the band would release new music. I absolutely loved their debut, so when I received the press release about SKIN's latest effort, Breaking the Silence I decided right away that that I would spend the extra money to have the CD imported. After playing the heck out of this CD the last couple of weeks, I can certainly say that SKIN's Breaking the Silence was worth EVERY penny. I didn't know what to expect with this CD being an independent release by the band. I have to give major kudos to guitarist Myke Gray who wrote the majority of the songs on Breaking the Silence. Not only is Gray a talented guitarist, but his song writing skills shine on Breaking the Silence. This CD is a good mix of upbeat rockers, and solid classic rock numbers. I can happily say that there isn't a bad song to found on this CD anywhere.
Nev MacDonald has to be one of the most under rated vocalists in the UK today. His vocals are fantastic on this disc. Music this good needs to be heard all over the world. As for now SKIN might just be the UK's best kept secret.
Sadly, SKIN has announced their farewell tour which is taking place this December. Breaking the Silence could easily be considered "The Comeback album of the Year". I can only hope that it isn't SKIN's "Swan Song". If so, the band is certainly going out on a high note!
You can purchase SKIN's Breaking the Silence in the band's webshop at this link. I Highly Recommend it!
For more information on SKIN, check out the band's website.
Rating: Out of 10
Track Listing:
1- Good To Be Back
2- Don't Call It Love
3- Stronger
4- Can You Feel It
5- The Book Of Your Life
6- When I'm With You
7- Trigger Inside
8- Indestructible
9- Redemption
10- Bad Reputation
11- Born To Rock & Roll
SKIN is:
Nev MacDonald – Vocals
Myke Gray – Guitar
Andy Robbins – Bass Guitar
Dicki Fliszar – Drums
Additional Musicians:
Colin McLeod – Keyboards & Hammond Organ
Jackie Gilbert – Backing Vocals on "Born To Rock & Roll"," Bad Reputation", "Stronger", "When I'm With You", and "Redemption"
Bob Marsh – Trumpet on "The Book of Your Life"
A band that I recently discovered through the live streaming of the Download Festival a couple of weeks ago is the band SKIN. I enjoyed their live set, and had to learn more about this band.
Who is SKIN? Myke Gray and Andy Robbins are former members of the bands, Tokyo Blade and Jagged Edge. Neville MacDonald is the former singer from the band Kooga. When these guys got together to form SKIN, there was no market for this type of music. This is probably why I missed them the first time around. Nonetheless, I am glad to hear them for this first time in 2009. This is a really cool band that has a sound that reminds me of a cross between Thunder and possibly Extreme. Neville MacDonald has an awesome voice that truly powers the songs on this disc.It blows my mind that I have not heard him sing before now. Myke Gray's guitar work is a pleasure to listen to as well. If you listen closely, you can even hear current Warrant front man, Robert Mason signing back up vocals on this CD.
The Bottom Line: You won't find a bad song on SKIN's debut. If you like the videos below, you need to seek out a copy of this disc. You wont be disappointed. There are several great songs including "Colourblind", "Look But Don't Touch", "Tower of Strength" and "Raised on Radio".
For more information on SKIN, check them out on myspace at this link or at the band's website here. The only place I could find a copy of this CD at a semi reasonable price was through Amazon France. It is well worth the import price! Highly Recommended!
Rating: Out of 10
Track listing:
1. Money
2. Shine Your Light
3. House of Love
4. Colourblind
5. Which Are the Tears
6. Look But Don't Touch
7. Nightsong
8. Tower of Strength
9. Revolution
10. Raised on Radio
11. Wings of an Angel
Skin is:
Neville MacDonald – Vocals
Myke Gray – Guitars
Andy Robbins – Bass/Vocals
Dicki Fliszar – Drums/Vocals