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Pneumatic Tube Articles about "Tube"
The Zwietusch & Co. GmbH company"Stadt-, Hausrohrpost, Zettelrohrpost, Förderband- und Seilpostanlagen, Akten-, Paternosteraufzüge sowie Briefkastenentleerungsanlagen und Briefsortierwerke."
Pneumatic Tube System, Rohrpost, Buizenpost, Transport Pneumatique
Exhibition plant of pneumatic tube in operation at Burlington, New JerseyWhy should the mail service in cities be so slow? The pneumatic-tube system.
The communication systems at the Palazzo Madama, Rome ItalyThe Palazzo Madama in Rome is the seat of the Senate of the Italian Republic. From pneumatic mail to mobile phones: the evolution of communication systems within the Senate.
'La posta pneumatica' in ItalyPneumatic mail was created to speed up the sending of letters and telegrams: the first underground networks of pipes were built in Milan, Rome and Naples transporting cylinders containing up to 80 letters. But the spread of the telephone and faster postal services made its use less and less frequent: the service was permanently closed in 1981.
The Lamson Pneumatic Tube System at Jacksons of Reading UK"Installed at the store in the 1940s, the Lamson cash transfer machine remained in use until the store closed in 2013 and was the last operating system of its kind..."
FRITZ Radio Rohrpost JingleThey are short, loud and run between two songs: the FRITZ radio jingles! This jingle from 2010 is named "Zentrale - Rohrpost", translated it will be "Headquarters - Pneumatic Tube".
The Pneumatic Railway in the Grounds of the Crystal Palace10 September 1864 - "We give an Illustration of the Pneumatic Railway, invented by Mr. T. W. Rammell, C.E., a working model of which has, during the last two weeks, been exhibited in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. It extends from the Sydenham entrance to the armoury, near the Penge gate, a distance of nearly six hundred yards."
Pneumatic Despatch, a novel mode of sending parcels2 March 1863 - "The latest mode of sending mail-bags and parcels is by means of atmospheric air. This has been adopted in London by the Pneumatic Despatch Company, on a comparatively small scale; but the principle is capable of wide extension, and there appears but little doubt that, after a short time, a great deal of the merchandise of the metropolis will be sent from one point to another through underground tubes."
Underground works in the Euston-Road28 May 1864 - "... There is, first, immediately under the surface of the road, a double set of mains and pipes for supplying the district with water and gas. Beneath these passes, transversely iron tube belonging to the Pneumatic Dispatch Company, through which parcels are constantly being conveyed backwards and forwards, and occasionally the mailbags also, between the General Post Office and this district..."
The General Post Office's own Tube Railway for conveying mail matter31 January 1914 - "The General Post Office is about to start its own tube railway to facilitate the handling of mail matter in London; this in addition to the numerous miles of pneumatic tubes already in use."
The essential features of a Pneumatic Tube Line are four...17 September 1904 - "A suitable conduit, or tube; a carrier for passing through the tube; a transmitter, or device for dispatching the carrier; and a receiver, or apparatus for arresting the carrier and delivering it from the line."
Pneumatic Parcel Post, An Attempt To Supersede The Carrier17 September 1904 - "The present scheme to undermine London with pneumatic tubes for the conveyance of parcels and letters is a revival. A Pneumatic Despatch Company Act was passed in 1859, and between 1960 and 1865 tubes were laid down in Threadneedle Street, and from Euston Station to Camden Town and Holborn."
The Pneumatic Despatch, by S. J. Mackie1864 - "Underground London in the course of a few years will be quite as wonderful as London above ground."
The Pneumatic Despatch24 August 1861 - "A company has been formed, under the title of the Pneumatic Despatch Company, for establishing in the metropolis lines of pneumatic tube for the speedy conveyance of letters and parcels..."
The Shadow - Pneumatic Mail Tube System SceneThe Shadow is a 1994 American superhero film from Universal Pictures. It is based on the pulp fiction character of the same name created by Walter B. Gibson in 1931.
Pneumatic Tube BlowerThe driving force of pneumatic tube system is a blower. Due to the air flow the carrier will start to move in the transport tube. When the blower sucks into the tube, there will be a reduced pressure in the pipe and the carrier will move towards the blower. By blowing the carrier will be moving away from the blower.
Pneumatic Tube Air BreakAn air brake is build with two ducts and two air valves. If one valve is open, the other is automaticly closed. The pressure of the blower will do this automaticly, there is no need for an external control.
The Transport TubeThe pneumatic tube carriers move through especially for pneumatic tube fabricated (gray) plastic pipe. There are also transparent, aluminum and stainless steel tubes available. On first sight the plastic transport tube looks the same as sewage pipe. However, they are not interchangeable. The diameter of the transporttube is much more accurate than the sewage pipe, the carriers could seize on these constrictions in the tube.
Tube Switch, Pneumatic Tube SystemA tube switch is a mechanical or electronic switch that detects whether a carrier passes a pneumatic tube station or diverter. Using these signals, the central control system can control stations, dividers and blowers.
Pneumatic Tube Fire collarThe tubes of a pneumatic tube system run by different areas of a building. In the basement, the crawl space, in shafts, in the walls and above ceilings. In order to come from one area to another, there must be a big hole in the wall or floor.In connection to sound and heat insulation it is recommended that the open space around the tube is filled with insulation.
Do It Yourself Pneumatic Tube System"Our hardware department used a lot of paperwork throughout the day. Since our call center and office are on a different floor than our packing department the girls were having to climb up and down a big industrial staircase about 100 times a day. So Dave and Dane teamed up to make their own simple pneumatic tube system to save their legs..."
The Jetsons - Pneumatic TubeIn this episode from 1963 George Jetson uses a pneumatic tube to transport himself with great speed to the boss his office.
A self made Pneumatic Tube SystemFor his Master Thesis at the Cracow University of Technology (Poland), Igor Kozłowski made his own Pneumatic Tube System. The whole development and building process was filmed.
Grover Transitubes brochure"The economy and speed of Grover Transitubes have been more convincingly demonstrated in hospitals than in any other field. Their versatility, reliability and compatibility with hospital procedure have made them a virtually indispensable part of every modern institution." A brochure about Grover Transitube Terminals and more...
Airmatic Systems brochure"Today, AIRMATIC tube systems are dispatching all sorts of important items - written communications, data cards, test samples, small parts, medicines, bulky securities - to and from all parts of office buildings, industrial plants, hospitals, banks, libraries, even steel mills..."You read and see more in this 8-page brochure.
Pneumatic Tube Mail Amsterdam The NetherlandsWas there a Pneumatic Tube Mail system in Amsterdam? For a long time the only evidence was a quote at the German Rohrpost Wikipedia page referring to a photo from the C. Aug. Schmidt & Söhne company. This conclusion is doubtful in my opinion. But I did find real proof of existence!!
The C. Aug. Schmidt & Söhne CompanyC. Aug. Schmidt Söhne is a factory and installation company for technical equipment from Hamburg, Germany. Since 1866 they also built all over the world pneumatic tube systems.
United Store Service and Tube Company advertisementsIn this article I show you old Pneumatic Tube System supplier advertisements from the United Store Service and Tube Company.
Sturtevant Pneumatic Tube AdvertisementsIn this article I show you old Pneumatic Tube System supplier advertisements from the Sturtevant company.
Pneumatic Tube System - How it worksThe driving force of a pneumatic tube system is pneumatics. Pneumatics can be traced back to Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD.
Standard Pneumatic Tube AdvertisementsIn this article I show you old Pneumatic Tube System advertisements from the Standard company.
The sound of a pneumatic tube systemGet the pneumatic tube feeling. You hear blowers blowing and sucking, relays clicking, diverters turning and carriers passing by.
Airocam, a camera in a pneumatic tube carrierFrom Pneumatic Tube Systems to tomato cultivation. The flying camera from the Science Museum Delft in the Netherlands gets a new application with Biggreen. 'The original idea came about during a brainstorming session,' says industrial designer Dries Calcoen of the start-up Airocam.
French movie "Baiser Volés" or "Stolen Kisses"The underground pneumatic post of Paris from François Truffaut's 1968 film "Baiser Volés", also known as "Stolen Kisses".
Pneumatic Tube RenovationThe lifetime of a Pneumatic Tube installation is very long, but the moment comes when it needs to be replaced.
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Five Topline Initiatives for Telco Operators to Stay Ahead of the Game
March 01, 2017
Telco operators are facing a period full of challenges and opportunities. Competition will intensify, e.g. through eSIM, regulators will enforce new rules such as the roaming deal in Europe, and new markets like IoT/M2M will continue to emerge. Moreover, consolidation in the industry will persist, and operators will need to reassess their position in the market. That's why it's never been more crucial to focus on the right topics, stay ahead of the game, and meet the targets promised to investors. Based on the results of Simon-Kucher and Partners' Global Pricing Study and our insights from telco and IT projects, we recommend operators focus on the following:
- Designing an advanced IoT/M2M offer and price model
- Creating and implementing a digital go-to-market strategy
- Defining a sustainable price/offer model
- Taking the multi-play (FMC) strategy and bundles to the next level
- Investing in professional pricing
Designing an advanced IoT/M2M offer and price model
Digitalization is advancing rapidly, unlocking an entirely new market: The Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M). This opportunity comes as no surprise to leading operators, and hopes are high for this new growth area. In the words of Dr. Volkmar Denner, CEO at Bosch:
"All electronic devices have to be linked with the internet by 2020"
Yet the intense competition of the classical telco market has already spilled over into the new growth market. This can be clearly seen when comparing the strong volume (#SIM) growth rates to the under proportionally developing revenues. Besides the competitive pressure, the application of classical telco price models (prices scaled by #SIM and MB) has led to under proportional monetization in the IoT sector.
MB volume may be well connected to a provider's cost structure, but it's hardly linked to the customer benefits. For instance, tracking in logistics requires transmission of only very tiny data packages, but the real benefit comes from the continuous exchange of information and the arising actions.
The importance of connectivity for IoT/M2M is evident across the entire value chain, but telcos need to improve their offer and pricing so that monetization is prioritized according to importance. Furthermore, competitive pressure can also be alleviated by reducing comparability, introducing new offers and price models. Designing an advanced offer and price model that is closer to the customer needs pays off in two ways: First by increasing monetization, and second by reducing the competitive pressure. With experience from more than 200 projects during the last two years alone, Simon-Kucher & Partners supports its clients in successfully designing advanced offers and price models.
Creating and implementing a digital go-to-market strategy
Digitalization not only offers a new market, it also creates opportunities to improve and strengthen the operators' positions in the existing telco markets. Many companies still see offline and online as two separate worlds. As outlined in the white paper "Integrated strategy for digital revenue models" (Stadie/Zwirglmaier 2016), mastering the challenges and tapping into the opportunities that arise from a digital environment requires a seamless go-to-market approach. This became increasingly important with the introduction of the eSIM at the end of 2017, as this increased competitive pressure by making it easier and faster to change providers.
Developing a digital go-to-market strategy, holistically addressing offline and online aspects, is thus a must for telco companies to stay ahead of the competition. This means simplifying customer touch points and using the arising opportunities for real-time up-selling and cross-selling. The future ARPU of customers will not only be driven by the recurring charges and the already declining out of bundle usage, but also by special offers sold during the contract lifetime.
Defining a sustainable price/offer model
Most telco markets have drifted into the commoditization spiral. Operators are fighting for customers, outdoing each other with increasing GB volumes in their offers. Driven by competition rather than customer demand, they eventually cut prices. A good example is the Austrian telco market: After managing to escape the most intense price war in Europe, and with just two years of recovery, the market is again susceptible to price wars. Even Swiss market operators such as Swisscom, which successfully escaped this fight e.g. via speed differentiation, are slipping back into the spiral as speed levels in the entry tariffs become higher and higher. This ultimately results in down-selling and cannibalization of higher ARPU customers in the base.
We recommend operators move to the next level by changing their price model and offer structure. Potential avenues could be to price per item or segment rather than follow a more-for-more (S/M/L) based offer approach. Some operators, such as T-Mobile US, are already taking the first steps in this direction. This major change and challenge requires thorough preparation and execution. However, operators that dare to change the game have the opportunity to sustainably boost subscribers, revenue and profit. In recent years, Simon-Kucher & Partners has supported operators in reinventing offer propositions and successfully differentiating from the competition, helping them to grow by two digits in a more than challenging market environment.
Taking multi-play (FMC) strategy and bundles to the next level
With an increasing number of convergent products or, more accurately, multi-play offers that combine fixed and mobile products (FMC), operators face the tricky task of designing the bundle and offer strategy. Experience shows that selling FMC bundles is not a home run. The challenge is to combine multiple leader products in already penetrated markets and achieve true convenience with the actual bundles. The lack of a bundle inherent USP or purchase trigger requires significant bundle discounts, leading to a decline in ARPUs. Looking at some leading operators with a focus on FMC, this trend becomes obvious.
We believe the right FMC approach can have significant advantages. But there are prerequisites to unlock the opportunities:
- Defining the right FMC strategy (outlining objectives and the role of FMC)
- Mastering the bundling challenge (focusing on simplicity and customer needs)
- Creating a true convergence advantage (providing a natural benefit to bundle customers)
We at Simon-Kucher & Partners have developed a dedicated and proven FMC framework which supports our clients in taking multi-play/FMC to the next level and making it a success story.
Investing in professional pricing
Simon-Kucher & Partners' Global Pricing Study reveals that only 13% of companies invest in a professional pricing approach. The companies that make this investment end up with 27% higher profits than those who don't. Our six-step pricing excellence program is tailored to help our clients advance in professional pricing:
- Building awareness
- Developing a dedicated pricing strategy
- Establishing the right organizational framework and processes
- Providing methods & tools
- Conducting pilot applications for refinement
- Implementing the entire framework
The program establishes the capabilities needed to realize additional profits from professional pricing. The heart of this program is the Telecom Pricing Guide, our cloud-based software which enables employees and management to apply established pricing knowledge and monitor and review current and historic pricing measures. Simon-Kucher & Partners' Pricing Excellence program has proven very effective in enabling clients to achieve a project break-even just by implementing pilot decisions. Companies that implement the program experience a 3-5% increase in their EBITDA margins within the first 12 months.
We believe telco operators, MNOs, and MVNOs are set to face major opportunities and challenges. To prepare for the immense changes ahead and satisfy shareholders, tackling these topline initiatives will be key to success. Our experience from more than 160 telco projects during the past 20 years means our clients stay ahead of the game. Our dedicated Telco practice supports clients around the globe using insights from all industries we support. With Dr. Kajetan Zwirglmaier as a Partner in the Telco practice and a growing global team, we look forward to unlocking the potential with you.

subset: commoncrawl


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CLIF BAR x PELOTON: Bike Racing Meets Feminist Icon
Words and Images by James Startt
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Clif Bar & Company has built a reputation on its progressive DNA. With nothing short of a holistic work environment, employees at their headquarters in Emeryville, California, benefit from an in-house workout center and a day-care center, not to mention two restaurants. And the building itself—once home to the Grove Valve Manufacturing Company that furnished products for warships during World War II—has been totally repurposed by Clif with an innovative biophilic design that brings elements of the outdoors to the inside. Solar panels line the rooftop, numerous skylights guarantee an abundance of natural light and plants have a special place within the office space.
It came as little surprise then that the mood was high on a Thursday morning as the employees enjoyed a breakfast buffet before their weekly meeting. And there was added electricity in the air on this day brought by the presence of a rich variety of guests that included not only the Team CLIF Bar Cycling squad but also a certain Gloria Steinem.
But that is the way company founder Gary Erickson rolls, always eager to connect his energy-food brand with true life. Over breakfast, the Clif Bar team members mixed with Erickson and employees at the headquarters before moving into the main auditorium for a much-anticipated discussion with feminist icon Steinem. There, in front of a packed house, the 84-year-old writer, publisher and essayist looked back over the evolution of feminism as well as larger questions of equality, followed by a lively and engaging dialogue with the Clif Bar staff.
The riders too were enthralled by Steinem's magnetic presence and words. Needless to say, they were only too happy to meet with Steinem during the following book signing. But soon enough it was time for them to have some meetings of their own, as the annual meet-and-greet day at Clif provides a key moment for the team members to chart out their upcoming season.
"You know, every year is different in the way we interact with Clif Bar," said veteran team rider Zack Allison. "This annual meet-and-greet opportunity firstly gives us a chance to meet with new people at Clif Bar and connect with the vibe of the company, to feel as though we are part of it. I've been on a bunch of teams where there is a title sponsor and you never meet them and you never really know what your role is with them. But that is not the way it is here at Clif Bar. Here, we are integrated and it is really nice and gives us a better idea of who we are riding for!"
Throughout the day, the team met with different Clif staff members. They had PR and communications briefings as well as a detailed nutrition lecture focused on helping the riders maximize the nutritional and recovery characteristics of the various Clif products. It also provided the riders with a key opportunity to meet with other partners of the team, including Stages power meters and VYNL bikes, along with the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company's founder and CEO Ken Grossman, a lifelong cyclist and frequent cycling sponsor who has teamed up with Clif Bar this year.
"Getting to meet Gloria Steinem was just unbelievable," said Clif Bar team rider Allison. "But getting to meet Ken Grossman was also amazing. Sierra Nevada was one of the big domestic teams when I was growing up and to be associated with them now is just really great. Like I said before, meeting the sponsors really helps us understand who we are riding for."
While much of the day was lighthearted in nature, some seminars, like that on nutrition, were clearly more focused. "That was probably my biggest takeaway," said Owen Gillott, an Australian who is now in his second year on the team. "It was really helpful. Nutrition is something that I have paid attention to over the years, but I learned a lot in that meeting, especially when it came to protein. Until then the general consensus was to have protein after your ride and again at dinner, but today they suggest in a very convincing manner that it would be more beneficial to have three meals with protein, to spread it out more evenly throughout the day. That was a huge takeaway for me and I am excited to try it!"
Soon enough it was time to get out for a quick spin. After all, this was the first day of the team's pre-season training camp. After suiting up, the boys headed over the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island, eager to squeeze in a spin before heading over to Gary Erickson's farm north of Napa Valley.
This artificial island is named for the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, who briefly lived in San Francisco before getting married there in 1880 and honeymooning Napa Valley, just before starting work on the book. Treasure Island long served as a naval base, which was decommissioned in 1996, though it's still owned by the U.S. Navy. Everyone on the cycling team agreed it would be an ideal place to host an event in the USA Crit Series. Isolated from the traffic of San Francisco and Oakland, the island streets appear ready-made for a criterium. And as the team rolled around the island they enjoyed attacking certain corners or sprinting down the long straightaways. Clearly, they were ready for racing to begin!
But before attacking the US crit season, it was time to relax. Returning to the headquarters, the riders quickly changed and headed over to Sierra Nevada's Torpedo Room in nearby Berkeley for a quick beer with Ken Grossman. Tomorrow it was time for some serious training, time to build the foundations for a new season.


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Prayer puts you first in line at the throne room of God!
When you stand before the throne of our all-powerful and gracious God, pay attention to what's happening! When you have God's attention through prayer, treat the moment for what it is. You should boldly ask for grace and mercy and let your heart overflow with worship and delight for God.


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Hello and welcome to Day 3 of the Newton's Nook May release! Thanks so much for joining me today!
All the new May products will be available for purchase on Friday, May 22th at Newton's Nook Designs online store and other craft retailers!
Today I'm so happy to share with you new beautiful Hummingbird stamp set. In case you're interested, this set has the coordinating Hummingbird Die Set.
Giveaway alert!! NND is giving away Hummingbird stamp sets to a lucky winner so make sure you read all the way to the bottom of this post to see how to win!
Working on this card, I decided to focus on a limited color combo choosing the complementary mint green and cold pink as main colors. To start, I stamped on Neenah Solar White paper, die cut and colored with copic markers the hummingbird and the flower using Hummingbird stamp and die sets.
As always, I'm leaving you all the exact colors used on this project: RV0000-RV00-RV10-RV02; G40-YG11-YG41-G09; BG70-BG72-BG75; Y0000-Y00.
Next I proceeded working on the background creating the layout with a white tag die cut from Fancy Edges Tag Die Set, a strip of grass die cut from Land Borders Die Set and colored with a copic marker, a small white rectangle with the matching sentiment stamped from Hummingbird set and a light pink A2 size card base (5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″) embellished with a dry embossing made through Floral Lace stencil. I arranged all the elements on that card base with a bit of dimension and finished the card with a few sequins.
Would you like to win the "Hummingbird" Stamp Set? This stamp set will be given away to ONE lucky winner!
Here's how to win: Comment on the NND blog and Design Team blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective reveal posts. Make sure to check out each of their blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday May 21st at 9pm EST to comment — winners will be announced on the blog post on Friday, May 22nd.
Check out all the awesome Design Team Blogs below to enter:
Newton's Nook Designs
Ellen Haxelmans
Larissa Heskett
Samantha Mann
Zsofia Molnar
Naki Rager
Maria Russell
Andrea Shell
Tina Smith
Tatiana Trafimovich <— you're here
Amanda Wilcox
Thanks so much for stopping by and have a fantastic day!


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UGG Classic Clear Mini Violet Night Women's
- The UGG® Classic Clear Mini ankle boot is here so you can have a little fun with your look! Features a curly faux-shearling enclosed by a translucent TPU molded upper and rubberized graphic logo strap at side.
- Offers a round toe with an easy pull-on design and heel tab.
- Added warmth with 7mm of UGGpure™ wool linings and foam footbed.
- Cold-weather rated to -20°C.
- Treadlite by UGG™ outsole provides increased traction, durability, cushioning and flexibility.


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The objective of the "Green Climate, Green Economy Project" is to propose concrete policies for the advancement of Green economy in Turkey, based on the best practice policies that were successful in the European Union. This report discusses the fields that need to be prioritised, and the actors and mechanisms needed to tackle climate change in Turkey. It is a product of the participatory effort of the Green European Foundation, Green Thought Association, Istanbul Policy Centre and Civil Society Dialogue.
Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing humankind. Global warming causes growing economic, social, and ecologic losses. The challenges we face cannot be overcome by solely raising consumer awareness or by encouraging the private sector to adapt cleaner production practices alone. What we need is a system that will enable decision-makers of all levels, from individuals to international institutions, to act as a coherent whole on the path to achieve the determined targets.
Green economy offers a conceptual, theoretical, and practical framework that will enable this transformation. This report features Green economy policy recommendations for the fields of urban policy, land use, and energy. The mission of this report is to look at EU climate change mitigation and adaptation and its best practices in the fields of urbanization, land use, and energy in light of Turkey's current conditions.
The common characteristic of all innovative practices featured in this report, such as passive buildings, energy co-ops, community- supported agriculture (CSA), bicycle use for inner-city transportation, urban vegetable gardens, and regenerative agriculture, is that they create easy and widely applicable environmental and climate-friendly alternatives and provide new ways for private citizens to be directly involved in the economy and even generate income.


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ColoredKnob is a tweak that we covered in the past, and it was met with a fairly warm reception. We really liked it; in fact, the only thing holding us back from absolutely loving it was the limited amount of colors available in the initial release.
Apparently the developer heard our cries, because ColoredKnob has just been updated with a ton of new colors, making it much more appealing that it was before…
ColoredKnob is a wonderful way to customize your 'Slide to Unlock' nub because it doesn't require any theming apps like WinterBoard to work; all you do is install it and go.
Best of all, even with the update and the bevy of new colors, it's still free on Cydia's BigBoss repo.
If you haven't checked out ColoredKnob, check it out and let us know what you think about it in the comments below.


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United Way of Addison County: What It Is, and How You Can Help: November 22 and 25 Lunchtime Presentations
Everyone has heard of United Way. Have you ever wondered what United Way really does?
Have you thought, "What does United Way have to do with me?" , "How/why would I get involved?", "Is it going to cost me money?"
Involvement can take many forms; it may be through volunteering, through advocating, or maybe giving. Middlebury College is a large community within the larger community of Addison County; we will talk about the many ways that you can be an integral part of the amazing and hard work going on in the non-profit sector of our community and how to get started.
Please join us on November 22 or 25 in Axinn 100 at noon and find out! We will answer those questions and more. Yes, United Way does have something to do with you and there is a reason for you to be involved!
Bring your lunch. We'll provide dessert.
More information about United Way of Addison County can be found at their website.


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The Way of the Joker
Little brother, Westbrook agitator, horse whisperer, dime-dropper, funnyman: Nuggets center Nikola Jokic has completed the come-up, from "awkwardly effective" Euro project to the next great big man. Is this what an NBA superstar looks like right now?In DenverNovember 1, 2017
A few words of advice, should you ever spend an afternoon at House Jokic:
Do not play indoor basketball, unless you're OK with getting tackled.
If the game is cards, plan on cheating. Your opponents will be.
Look up occasionally, so you don't get hit by a drone.
Look down occasionally, so you don't break your ankle on the remote-controlled car.
Bring ice, in case you need to calm the swelling.
Bring a bold sense of humor, and you'll get along just fine.
Oh, and keep an eye out for the rubber dog poop.
The brothers Jokic—Nikola, the precocious 22-year-old Denver Nuggets star; Nemanja, 33; and Strahinja, 35—love a good laugh, especially if it's at each other's expense. They love to compete and will go to extreme lengths to win, no matter how trivial the game. They are loud and boisterous and mischievous, and they just might be molding a new kind of superstar, here in the Mile High City, a long way from home.
The fate of the Nuggets rests with Nikola—their pass-happy, self-deprecating and rapidly blossoming Serbian center. And Nikola's fortunes rest largely with his rambunctious roommates, who happen to be his siblings. They are his fiercest advocates and closest confidants, and they are the reason no one around here worries much that Nikola will lose perspective on the road to NBA stardom.
So much has come so quickly for the once-anonymous second-rounder, a former "project" who slept through his own draft in 2014 but whose breakout performance last season launched the Nuggets into relevancy and made Jokic an instant darling among the basketball intelligentsia.
Except, well: He is a project no more, and the basketball intelligentsia's conventional wisdom for landing a franchise star—via free agency, trade or a top-three draft pick—has been smashed by Jokic (the 41st pick), much as it was by Giannis Antetokounmpo (15th) in Milwaukee and Rudy Gobert (27th) in Utah.
"It will come," Nuggets coach Michael Malone says of stardom for Jokic. "As soon as he starts to feel comfortable in that role, it will come."
It will come—the comfort, the results, the stardom—even if Nikola himself is too self-effacing to proclaim it. The talent and commitment are there, along with the full support and affection of his teammates. Because, really, who doesn't love a bruising big man who can lead the break, pass like Magic and deliver dry one-liners in an Ivan Drago baritone? Who doesn't like a guy performing spot-on impressions of the head coach, breaking into dance at random moments and ambling through the locker room wearing only Skittles-themed underwear?
"A funny dude," says former teammate Jameer Nelson. "He likes everybody to smile."
Except, well: "I don't think I'm that funny," Jokic tells B/R Mag, over lunch in early October. "I'm kind of normal guy."
A kind of normal guy from a small town in northern Serbia whose face happens to be plastered across the Denver metropolitan area. Who gets mobbed by selfie-seeking hockey fans every time he goes to see his beloved Avalanche play.
Back home, he is Serbia's second-most famous athlete, after Novak Djokovic. But in Denver, the kid they call Joker—a nickname hatched by former teammate Mike Miller, who couldn't pronounce YO-kitch—is hope embodied. He is the Nuggets' best young prospect since Carmelo Anthony arrived 14 years ago, but his brothers—perpetually in his orbit, peppering him with put-downs—are hustling to keep the hype in check.
"They're not going to allow him to change," Malone says. "Not that he would. But they wouldn't allow it if he ever tried."
To find Nikola Jokic at his most comfortable, you have to follow him home to Sombor, a quiet, slow-paced town of 47,000 in northern Serbia. To find him at his most contented, you have to follow him to the stable. You have to meet Dream Catcher, the racehorse he purchased last winter, fulfilling a childhood dream.
"I buy a friend," Jokic says of Dream Catcher. "He don't talk, but we can talk, you know?"
Like any hoops prodigy, Jokic spends countless hours in the gym. But it's the local stable where he feels most at ease. "His happy place," says Nuggets assistant coach Ognjen Stojakovic, a fellow Serb. Jokic started working with horses in his early teens, through a family friend, and it became his greatest passion outside of basketball.
When he's home in Sombor, Jokic still cleans the stalls at a friend's stable. When asked recently what he'd be doing if he weren't an NBA player, Jokic said, "I'd be a stable boy." And no one doubted his sincerity.
Malone is known for cultivating strong relationships with his players, and in late June he set out to see it all for himself, spending a week with Jokic and his family for the sort of journey a modern-day coach makes to bond with his young star. It proved an enlightening experience, though he was lucky to make it through the first night.
Nemanja, the middle Jokic brother, a former Division I basketball player and the most affable of the three, picked up Malone from the airport. Their first stop: a harness-racing track, to see Dream Catcher in action.
To that point, Nikola's pride and joy had only managed a couple of second-place finishes. So it was a profoundly thrilling moment for everyone when Dream Catcher burst through the pack to win that night.
"Coach," Nemanja said, turning to the jet-lagged Malone, "this is not a good sign."
Malone responded with puzzlement.
"That means," Nemanja said, "we have to drink all night tonight."
They headed straight for a local "kafana," where cigarette smoke and song filled the air. The night began with Jelen (a local beer), but then came the rounds of rakija—a fruit brandy and a traditional drink of Serbia.
"And every time your cup is empty, it's filled up," Malone says, snapping his fingers, "like that."
During Malone's stay, the mayor of Sombor invited them all over for a visit. On evening strolls down the main pedestrian corridor, Nikola was frequently hit up for autographs and photos—so much so that he sometimes feigned a phone call to ward off the crowds.
"He likes to be left alone," Malone says. "But he was more than appreciative of all the little kids, boys and girls, that were coming up to him. Because that was him many years ago."
Celebrity is an ill-fitting suit for Jokic. He prefers the peace and relative solitude of the stable, grooming and feeding the horses, shoveling out their stalls. The routine is, for him, like raking a zen garden. "That's kind of my getaway," he says, "from the people."
The trophy from Dream Catcher's big victory resides at home in Sombor. The accompanying red ribbon hangs next to Jokic's locker, 5,600 miles west, back in Denver.
Russell Westbrook is strutting in reverse, like a boxer retreating to his corner after delivering a decisive blow—which he just has, with a violent shoulder check that sends Jokic sprawling backward and landing with a thud in the paint.
Six months ago, Westbrook had thrown up that buzzer-beater to knock the Nuggets out of playoff contention, ending a Denver season in which Jokic had six triple-doubles, finishing only behind Westbrook and two of his MVP runners-up, James Harden and LeBron James. "He single-handedly gave us an identity last year," says Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas.
But now it's mid-October, and Russ is delivering an early message, and perhaps repaying Jokic for an incident in that April game. Westbrook gets hit with a flagrant foul, but Nuggets officials were more interested in how Jokic responded. He didn't. Which is good.
"His greatest challenge is from the neck up," Malone tells reporters afterward, alluding to past concerns about Jokic's emotional control. "I'm just glad his big brother Strahinja wasn't in the building tonight."
In April, it was Jokic who let loose with a flagrant foul of Westbrook, on an emotional night that saw Strahinja—furious with the officiating and ever protective of his baby brother—nearly rush the court.
There was no such excitement this night as Nikola shrugged off the retaliatory blow. He strolled through the locker room wearing nothing but a pair of Baywatch-themed boxer briefs, quickly dressed and then met the obvious question—"What happened with Russ?"—with a disarming reply.
"I don't know," Jokic said, allowing a pregnant pause before adding, "I flopped," which drew chuckles from the assembled media.
It's all still so new to him: the responsibility; the probing curiosity; the intense focus on every shot, pass and shove; and every quote. Most American-born NBA stars are identified as elite talents from their early teens, catered to and coddled through their AAU years, ranked by national outlets and stamped with outsize expectations and Instagram followers before they get their driver's licenses.
But Jokic was far off the radar in Sombor, a late bloomer with a bulging waistline and a poor diet. Still, scouts saw something special in his game. Stojakovic, the Nuggets assistant coach who was then coaching in Serbia, recalls seeing Jokic for the first time when Jokic was 16 or 17 years old, playing for Mega Vizura.
"Like mix of Marc Gasol and Dirk Nowitzki," Stojakovic says, citing Gasol's passing skills and Nowitzki's soft shooting touch.
The NBA has had its share of slick-passing big men, from Bill Walton to Arvydas Sabonis, Vlade Divac and Gasol. But they were all stationary passers, operating out of the low post or the elbow, timing their passes to backdoor cutters or shooters.
Jokic is different.
His assists come off the dribble. "I don't remember many guys that can lead a break and find a guy at 6'11"," says Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly. "I think he's one of the best passers, period"—as in, at any position.
He surveys the floor like a guard. And he was a point guard in his younger years. "A fat point guard," Jokic jokes.
Indeed, the skills and court vision were evident to NBA executives, but so was the lack of athleticism and mobility—the kinds of concerns that drop a prospect to the second round. The Nuggets tried viewing it all through another lens: They cued up old tapes of Gasol, Marcin Gortat and Nikola Pekovic at the same age, noticed the same deficiencies and decided it was too soon to write off this pudgy 19-year-old. Forty players were taken on draft night in 2014 before Connelly submitted Jokic's name.
"We knew we were getting a high-IQ guy from a basketball family," Connelly says. "Elite passer and a guy that was awkwardly effective." Plus, coaches and teammates "loved him."
Connelly, who had acquired the draft rights to Bosnian center Jusuf Nurkic earlier that evening, believed Jokic would eventually become "an effective backup."
The first hint of something more came the following season when Jokic, playing for Mega Leks, won MVP of the Adriatic League. If that breakout had come just one year earlier, Jokic would have been a certain first-round pick—and quite likely in a different NBA city. Connelly's gamble, taking Jokic a year early and leaving him overseas, paid off.
In the summer of 2015, the Nuggets brought their promising young prospect to the famed training center in Santa Barbara, California, to begin working on that doughy frame. After their first dinner, Nikola took out a gallon of ice cream and asked if anyone wanted some. When they declined, he sat down with the tub and spoon and ate it himself.
"I'm like, Are you kidding me?" recalls Karnisovas, the GM, chuckling at the memory. "I was like, You're gonna have to make a lot of adjustments when you come."
That visit was also team officials' first introduction to Nemanja and Strahinja, and their rather wicked sense of humor. An hour after dispatching scouting director Jim Clibanoff to meet with the brothers, a photo popped into Connelly's phone. The brothers Jokic had stuffed "Clib" in a shopping cart.
After returning from Serbia this summer, Nikola saw the casually dressed Connelly and cracked, "This is what a president looks like?"
Connelly, newly promoted to team president, in turn surveyed Jokic's off-day sweats and fired back, "This is what a superstar looks like?"
They both laughed, because the comedy here never stops. But it's true: Jokic doesn't spend his money on fancy clothes, the 6'10", 250-pound center says, "because I cannot fit into the fancy clothes." He did, of course, gift his 2016 Olympics jersey to Connelly last year, while advising his boss, "Here, don't sell this yet, it's gonna be worth a lot of money."
There is no outward ego in Nikola Jokic—his brothers knocked it out of him long ago—but there is a quiet self-assuredness and subtle signs of a more profound belief.
It's not that he lacks personal ambition—his competitive intensity is palpable, and his commitment evident from the day he arrived—but his basketball education came in Eastern Europe, where principles of team play and team success were primary. The selflessness that endears Jokic to teammates and coaches might also keep him from dominating the box score.
"I mean, if I could score 40 every game, then I would score 40 every game," Jokic says. "But I think I cannot score 40 every game, so I'm gonna pass a little bit, too."
On off days, Jokic and his brothers might ride rental bikes to Washington Park, or play Mario Kart at the Dave & Buster's, or play tennis with the Nuggets' front-office executives. But Connelly and other team staffers occasionally play three-on-three with the older Jokic brothers, too, while Nikola watches from the sideline.
Nikola delights in every hard foul, including the time Strahinja—the "bully" (says Connelly) who is a "serial killer" on the court (says Nikola) but a jester in and out of House Jokic—upended Connelly in midair, sending him crashing to the floor.
"He literally couldn't stop laughing," Connelly says.
"Tim got knocked down five times," Nikola says later, delighting at the memory.
It's much the same at the Jokic residence, a modest three-bedroom apartment in downtown Denver where the competition and hijinks go hand in hand.
The brothers claim to have ceased the rugby-style indoor basketball games (and the indoor drone flying), but they still go hard at 2K, Call of Duty and Mortal Kombat.
It can get intense. Strahinja has been known to crush PS4 controllers with his bare hands. "I gotta change my shirt when we play video games," says Nemanja.
It's worse when they play Uno.
"You have to watch the cards," Nikola says. "You have to watch everybody at the table, because everybody is cheating. You don't know who is the worst."
"I don't cheat," interjects Natalija Macesic, his girlfriend and the brothers' third roommate.
"I want her to cheat," he says, because it's the only way to beat Nemanja and Strahinja—who, according to Nikola, "are cheating all the time."
Natalija sighs. "They don't know how to lose."
Say this for the brothers Jokic: They always leave a lasting impression, whether they're conversing, cheering, competing or just making a simple introduction.
For Nikola's summer-league debut in 2015, the brothers drove to Las Vegas (to save money) and stayed at the Hooters Casino and Hotel. They spent their days hanging out at the Bellagio, where the Nuggets were staying. And they had a surprise waiting for Connelly on the day he visited Nikola's room to finalize his first NBA contract, a three-year, $4.1 million deal.
Connelly eagerly strolled over to the hotel-room desk…and recoiled at the glossy brown swirl sitting next to the contract. Was it? Could it be? Nah. Just a piece of molded brown rubber, a well-placed novelty item, a playful offering to consummate the partnership between the bright-eyed young team exec and his impish new Serbian friends.
The culprit? "Probably Nikola," says Connelly.
No, a chuckling Nikola tells B/R Mag the next day over lunch. It was Strahinja—the serial killer, the senior member of the tag team that keeps Denver's great Serbian hope grounded and steadily guides him through these big life moments with a simple ethos.
"We just thought," says Nemanja, of House Jokic, "it was funny."
Howard Beck covers the NBA for Bleacher Report and B/R Mag. He also hosts The Full 48 podcast, available on iTunes. Follow him on Twitter: @HowardBeck.


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February 23, World Chechnya Day
No one and Nothing is Forgotten!
Winter of 1944
Like an extreme blade
In these years
Summer never arrived
Wounds of my bleeding heart have never healed Time is an eternity
But not a cure to forget
Our way and 13 years in Siberia!
February 23, 1944 is the most tragic date in the history of the Chechen-Ingush (Waynakh) people.
On February 11, 1943, the Politburo, the Communist Party's ruling executive committee (Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), discussed the idea of "liquidating" the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic and deporting the entire Chechen-Ingush nation based on the accusation of "collaboration with the Germans". This was declared despite the fact that "between 1941 and 1944, more than 40,000 Chechens fought in the Red Army," and "450 people with arms in their hands fought against the Soviets".
In the eviction operation of the Chechens and Ingush (codenamed "Chechevitsa" [Lentil]) that cost nearly 150 million Rubles (3.9 million Euros), up to 20,000 operatives of the NKVD, NKGB, and SMERSH participated, as well as 100,000 soldiers from regular army units.
As it was planned, on February 23, 1944, not individuals, not a group, not a part of the population, but the entire Chechen-Ingush nation: men and women, children and old people – all of them became victims of Soviet Russia's genocide! People were herded into unheated cattle trucks for a journey that lasted many weeks. The train stopped every 24 hours and the dead, who are sacred to the Chechens, were thrown down embankments.
But a mountain village called Khaibakh, which is at the heart of Chechnya, came to symbolize Russia's policy of genocide. On February 26, 1944, its 700 or so inhabitants, including pregnant women, centenarians and toddlers, were driven into a large stable and burned alive. The man responsible for the massacre reported his actions with a telegram:
To: People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the USSR Comrade L.P. Beria
For your eyes only
Given the impossibility of transportation and in order to complete Operation Mountains on schedule, I was obliged to liquidate over 700 residents of the village of Khaibakh.
Grozny, Dept. Internal Affairs,
Lieut.-Col. Gveshiani
And he was congratulated with the following reply from Moscow:
Following your resolute action while resettling Chechens in the Khaibakh area you have been recommended for state distinction with promotion.
PC Internal Affairs USSR L.P. Beria.
According to Soviet archives, in just a few days, 496,400 Chechen-Ingush people were deported into Central Asia and Siberia; and up to 250,000 people died during the eviction and exile; only half of them could return to their historical homelands after 1957.
There was such an incredible darkness and censorship that the world could learn what happened two years after this brutal incident! And in 2004, 60 years after the deportation, the European Parliament recognized the deportation of the entire Chechen people to Central Asia and Siberia on February 23, 1944 on the orders of Stalin, as constituting an act of genocide within the meaning of the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 and the Convention for the Prevention and Repression of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948.
Today, despite all efforts at prevention, the world community can learn about the genocide that the Chechen people have faced in the last two decades, but will the world's leading politicians wait another 60 years to say what happened in Chechnya?
We, Save Chechnya Campaign, ask that all governments of independent and democratic countries recognize Soviet Russia's "1944 deportation" and activities of the 21st century's democratic Russia, in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s as acts of genocide against the Chechen people, as well as to establish an special international war crimes court in which the perpetrators of the crimes committed against innocent Chechen civilians can stand trial!
Adv. Burak Oztas
General Director of Save Chechnya Campaign


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Disruption of intraflagellar protein transport in photoreceptor cilia causes Leber congenital amaurosis in humans and mice
Cilia volume 1, Article number: P83 (2012)
1086 Accesses
Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) is one of the most common forms of congenital blindness in young children. It is the most severe retinal dystrophy, characterized by strong visual impairment or blindness within the first months after birth. Despite its genetic heterogeneity, the clinical phenotype is highly overlapping, pointing towards a common disease mechanism. To gain insights into the mechanism, we compared the interactomes of wild type and LCA causing mutants of lebercilin by quantitative mass spectrometry using SILAC followed by MaxQuant based analysis. This revealed that the link of lebercilin to the IFT complex is disrupted due to LCA-associated mutations. The interaction of the IFT proteins with lebercilin was confirmed by GST pull-down from retina, the loss of IFT proteins from the complex of mutants by western blot. While the disruption of the lebercilin-IFT interaction does not lead to disturbed ciliogenesis in both, hTERT-RPE1 cell and in the generated lebercilin knockout mice, the light dependent translocation of arrestin and transducing is clearly impaired, as well as the transport of opsins to the outer segments of photoreceptors. As a consequence this results in improper outer segment formation and finally photoreceptor degeneration. These data suggest that the interaction of lebercilin with the IFT complexes is important for ciliary transport in photoreceptors and thereby for formation and/or maintenance of outer segments. Further, our findings demonstrate that the disruption of ciliary transport to the outer segment is a cause for LCA.
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Boldt, K., Mans, D., Won, J. et al. Disruption of intraflagellar protein transport in photoreceptor cilia causes Leber congenital amaurosis in humans and mice. Cilia 1 (Suppl 1), P83 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-2530-1-S1-P83
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-2530-1-S1-P83
- Retina
- Blindness
- Outer Segment
- Retinal Dystrophy
- Photoreceptor Degeneration


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Endon Roofing's highly knowledgeable services were requested by Sangwin Group of Companies to install a full warm roof construction to the newly built flat roof at Agriculture House, Beverley. The roof build up consisted of plywood deck, vapour control layer, flat board insulation and Alwitra Single ply membrane.
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New Delhi: Finance Ministry today said that the Indian economy grew 7.2 per cent in the first half of the current fiscal, retaining its position as one of the fastest growing major economies in the world.
The Ministry, in its year-end review, said that inflation has remained in "comfort zone" during the year with retail and wholesale inflation averaging 5.2 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively in the April-October period.
"The stress given to fiscal consolidation through expenditure rationalisation and revenue raising efforts and the focus on administrative measures for cooperative financial governance and also steps towards containing inflation have contributed significantly to macro-economic stability," an official statement said.
It said that during 2016-17, the economy has continued to consolidate the gains achieved in restoring macro-economic stability and despite the continuing global sluggishness and recent pick-up in petroleum prices, the economic growth has continued to be robust and inflation has remained "more or less stable" in the current year.
The statement also said that the fiscal deficit and current account deficit as percentage of GDP have improved, and the growth rate of the economy during the first half of the current fiscal is estimated at 7.2 per cent, which makes India one of the fastest growing major economies in the world.
The growth rates for agriculture and allied sectors, industry and services sectors during the six-month period are estimated at 2.5 per cent, 5.6 per cent, and 9.2 per cent respectively.
"Inflation measured in terms of Consumer Price Index and Wholesale Price Index has remained in comfort zone during the current Financial Year 2016-17," the Ministry said.
CPI (Combined) inflation for 2015-16 declined to 4.9 per cent from 5.9 per cent in 2014-15. It averaged 5.2 per cent in 2016-17 April-October period.
Food inflation, as measured by Consumer Food Price Index, declined to 4.9 per cent in 2015-16 from 6.4 per cent in 2014-15. It averaged 6.1 per cent in 2016-17 April-October period.
WPI inflation declined to (-) 2.5 per cent in 2015-16 from 2 per cent in 2014-15. It averaged 2.7 per cent in 2016-17 April-October period.


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Court Decision Could Lead FCC to Redefine Internet
A federal appeals court in D.C. earlier this week threw up a roadblock to the Federal Communications Commission's plans for the future of the Internet in America. The details of the case were relatively straight-forward: Comcast was caught interfering with traffic by customers using the cumbersome file-sharing application BitTorrent, flouting a 2005 FCC Internet policy stating that Web users are entitled to access the content and applications of their choice.
The FCC tried to sanction Comcast. Comcast sued. And on Tuesday — to the surprise of no one who has been following the case — the court ruled that the FCC doesn't actually have the authority to enforce its Internet policy.
At stake now is not just that 2005 document, but also the future role of the FCC in regulating the Internet, the FCC's ambitious national broadband plan, released just last month, and the very idea of how the Internet should be classified and controlled in the U.S.
"A lot of what the FCC was trying to do, both with respect to net neutrality and to the broadband plan, is now in danger," said Barbara van Schewick, director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. With two other professors and several advocacy groups, van Schewick filed a 2007 petition alongside the initial complaint against Comcast urging the FCC to clarify its Internet policy (and, more specifically, that Comcast's behavior constituted a violation of it).
"Moving forward without clear authority would be a gamble — every single time the FCC wanted to do something regarding the Internet, it would have to go to court and show that it has ancillary jurisdiction," she said, referring to the legal test the FCC failed this week. "And that has just become a lot more difficult."
The FCC now has three options. Congress could grant it the explicit authority over the Internet the courts currently say it doesn't have. Congress could outright enact its own net neutrality laws (the least likely scenario, given hefty opposition from the well-financed telecom lobby). Or the FCC, by a majority of its five commissioners, could reclassify the Internet from an "information service" to a "telecommunication service," opening it up to the much more stringent regulatory regime already in place, for example, around telephone services in the U.S.
The last option certainly sounds simplest.
"It's also the option the network providers hate most," van Schewick explained. "They have already started to frame this as a bad option, saying, 'The FCC will try to regulate Internet services like traditional telephony. This is heavy-handed regulation that is totally unsuitable.'"
The FCC, in fact, would be required to abandon any regulations that don't logically apply to the Internet. But one game-changing rule would apply: Network providers would have to offer open access to their infrastructure. Independent ISPs, for example, would be allowed to use Comcast's network of "pipes."
If you can recall dial-up Internet days, van Schewick says, you may remember that you had any number of options for Internet service providers. The ISP sold by your telephone company was just one of them.
"Whereas today, where I live, the only choice I have is between the Comcast ISP service and the AT&T ISP service. There's no independent option," she said. "The only way to actually get this would be to force network providers to let independent ISPs on their network. This is a separate policy debate that's really important."
Net neutrality refers to the concept that network providers should not be able to discriminate among the information that moves through the system (whether that means loading Comcast's home page, YouTube, or a Google search). Open access, on the other hand, would mean any ISP should have access to that system, whether parts of it were physically built and owned by Comcast or AT&T.
To take a step back: If the Internet today is not classified by the FCC in a way that treats it like a telecom service, what are we treating it like? The answer, van Schewick says, is that we treat the Internet like Facebook, or gmail, like an individual application.
The analogy produces a certain cognitive dissonance, like equating cars with roads, and it hints at policymakers' underlying challenge in defining the fundamental nature of a relatively new technology.
"There is an important difference," van Schewick suggested, "between the Internet as a general platform that is used by applications, and the applications themselves. The Internet is a basic infrastructure, like the electricity network, or the roads. We usually treat the electricity network different from toasters."


text:
OTHER CATEGORIES IN Audio
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The SGM-3416 and 3416L are broadcast-spec high quality shotgun microphones. Designed for video and audio professionals, the super-directional electret condenser microphones offer wide frequency response and low noise. Each microphone is tested before leaving the factory and comes with its own frequency response chart. External phantom power between 11 and 52 VDC is required to operate the microphones. The microphone barrel is die cast metal and provides superior performance over standard stamped aluminum. A custom carrying case, flocked foam windscreen and shock-mount microphone holder are included.
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- Connector: 3-Pin XLR


text: Christian Avril skrev: > Hi, > > Yes, you are right. JDOM delegates schema validation. > Sorry for this error, and thank you for this information. > Then, I was looking at my xerces.jar , but it's the same as online's > xerces.jar 937 Ko 2004-Feb-04 ) > > But if it is a xerces's problem, what should I do ? with xerces and > Apache I mean. > First make sure what the spec says. According to your original filtre declaration, <filtre> is declared without any type information. Maybe in that case the schema spec allows arbitrary attributes. I find the spec sometimes diffcult to decipher. You'll get better answers here: http://xml.org/xml/xmldev.shtml /pmn


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German GEO Publishes ADP Project on Snowy Owls
German GEO Publishes ADP Project on Snowy Owls. Last summer I joined Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute in the field to document his project on snowy owls. My photographs of last summer's shoot were recently published in the March issue of German GEO, a highly respected European magazine. My first essay on snowy's first appeared in the December 2002 edition of National Geographic.
In July of 2014, I returned to Alaska as part of my work with the Arctic Documentary Project to help Denver collect video footage to highlight his ongoing snowy owl studies. As many of you know, I've started shooting much more video along with
my still photographs and I've been documenting my experiences changing from traditional DSLR's to the new Lumix hybrid system made by Panasonic. For those who are new to the Blog, we have an ongoing chronicle of my experiences with the Lumix system I call The Lumix Diaries.
Take a look at the video above to see what it was like sitting in a mosquito-infested blind used to capture the images I shot which appear in the German GEO article.
There are 6 comments on this post…
Christine MarmonnierOn Mar. 19th, 2015
Elena AdamchykOn Mar. 16th, 2015
Eugene McLaughlinOn Mar. 12th, 2015
I noticed your link via Photography News.
I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right kit to hand. I managed to take a few shots of a magnificent snowy owl in New Hampshire , which I understand are not a regular resident of the area.


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I am heading north out of Los Angeles on Interstate 5, bound for a meeting with Richard Sandrak. His name sounds like that of a double agent from the Cold War. Who is he? Just a few years ago it was claimed that Sandrak was pound-for-pound the most powerful human being on Earth. A documentary entitled The World's Strongest Boy brought him briefly to the attention of the British public in 2004. In the film we see footage of Sandrak on a Las Vegas stage, posing and flexing his muscles like a junior Mr Universe. He sports an eight-pack abdomen that looks as if it has been constructed in an engineering plant. Every sinew of his tiny frame seems pumped to the point of exploding. He is also a master of karate, and can do the splits and bend his body into unfeasibly contorted positions. It is said that he has less than 1 per cent body fat, which is fatally, lethally low. He can bench-press three times his own body weight. All this at just eight years of age.
The documentary is dispassionate, objective, sceptical, but mostly it is disturbing. Though it was aired in the UK when Richard was 12 and beginning to look less strange, it features images that are testament to a certain kind of child abuse. We are used to the cheesy Americana of child beauty pageants, but this is something else: a child's body that has not just been prettified, or even sexualised, but transformed into an anatomical freak show. It is impossible to watch without wondering about the sort of suffering or torment the little boy had endured to become a mini-Schwarzenegger.
Medical experts argued that such muscular development would require levels of testosterone that were simply not present in a child under 10. They speculated that steroids must have been administered, which Sandrak's mother strenuously denied. There was talk of six- or seven-hour training regimes, of thousands of press-ups, and it was revealed that the boy did not attend school but was instead 'home tutored'. In the background, his father, Pavel, lurked as a suspiciously malevolent presence.
After a stint doing the talk-show rounds, Richard and his parents, who originally come from Ukraine, dreamt of Hollywood fame and fortune. Pavel attempted to market his own fitness supplement. Then Richard's trainer and manager, Frank Giardina, fell out with Pavel. Giardina suspected that Pavel's unconventional parenting bordered on the criminal, and in turn Pavel, according to Giardina, threatened to kill him. They went their separate ways and not long afterwards Pavel was imprisoned for beating up his wife, leaving her with a broken wrist and nose. It was Richard who called the police - asking them not to use sirens, for fear of how his father would respond.
That was an awful lot of experience for a small boy to process. As I drive into the parched scrub of the Californian hinterland, I wonder what sort of character I am going to meet in a gym in the characterless outskirts of a small town called Santa Clarita. Will Richard have grown into a muscle-bound monster? An embittered adolescent? An alienated and angry youth? Or will he turn out to be some psychologically damaged former child star with only a history in front of him?
The 15-year-old I find in the gym is almost disappointingly normal. Short with a puppyish face, he is wearing shapeless basketball gear and looks thoroughly unremarkable, the kind of kid you would pass on any Californian beach without noticing. Now reunited with Giardina, Sandrak goes about his work out with minimum fuss, neither enthusiastic nor reluctant, but rather as if he is fulfilling a mindless but not unpleasant chore.
He trains five times a week, 90 minutes a session, but only when he has to get in shape for a part. After a year off, he is back on a strict diet and exercise regime, although nothing as daunting or all-consuming as that which adulterated his childhood, when he was urged to eat nothing but lima beans, for their protein content.
I speak to Giardina as Sandrak yanks on a column of flat weights. This being California, he fast-tracks the conversation to his celebrity client list. He has trained Elton John 'when he was on drink and drugs', Rod Stewart, 'a total gentleman' and Sylvester Stallone, 'a complete asshole'.
You get the impression that Giardina has much the same opinion of Sandrak's father. He tells me that Pavel was recently released from his prison sentence but is currently being held under psychiatric guidance. 'They're looking at whether they can deport him.'
Giardina first met Sandrak when the boy's parents brought him to one of his gyms. The couple had come to America in 1994 when Sandrak was two. They settled in Pennsylvania, where they began working on the boy's strength and flexibility while he was still an infant. They then headed to California, like countless thousands before them, with the intention of breaking into show business. It was to Giardina they turned for help in gaining publicity for their son.
Giardina was amazed at what he saw and realised immediately that he could turn the boy into a media sensation. Later, when I speak to Sandrak's mother, Lena, she tells me that she 'never thought about going to the media. It just happened.'
It's just one of a number of grey or disputed areas. A lot of the uncertainty stems from Lena's attempt to play down the weirdness of her son's early years. She refuses to speak about the abusive relationship she had with Pavel and, though she says she was 'concerned' about her former husband's treatment of their son, she insists that nothing untoward took place. The boy apparently started lifting massive weights simply because he enjoyed it and not due to any parental pressure.
'I've never been forced to train or do anything against my will,' Sandrak confirms. 'My parents used to train all the time and I wanted to join in. It was mostly my choice. It's just what I grew up doing. I was never forced. It was never an issue.'
But he seems to protest too much. His father made him sleep on the floor to maintain a perfect posture. This, too, Sandrak dismisses as 'no big deal'. He says the media hyped it all up as if he had been tortured. 'But it was just a phase trying out something different. Nothing important.'
The fact is, though, Sandrak was not allowed to mix with other children till he was 10. According to Giardina, he was forced to repeat intense exercises as punishment if he got something wrong. With Giardina's help, he was also turned into a bizarre spectacle for public consumption.
Yet when I ask him who his heroes are, he says: 'I have to say my parents are my heroes because they've helped me develop throughout my life.'
Does he mean his mother and father?
'Yeah, well ... '
'His father is no longer in the picture,' his manager, Marco Garcia, suddenly intervenes.
'Yeah,' says Sandrak, as if taking a cue, 'I meant my mom.'
It seems Sandrak was referring to Garcia as one of his 'parents', but I am informed that Lena and Garcia are not a couple, even though they may live in the same house. Lena herself is extremely guarded about her life, refusing to tell me what business she worked in. No doubt some of her caution is attributable to a fear of ever being 'found' by her former husband.
Still, there is a strong sense of evasion and denial from Garcia, Giardina and especially Lena. Garcia himself appears to have been influential in normalising Sandrak's life, or at least bringing it back within Californian standards of normalcy. Sandrak now knows what a pizza tastes like, and is also familiar with that defining teenage experience of doing absolutely nothing all day. Neither of which he could have dreamt of when his biological father controlled his life.
Though his background is in real estate, Garcia, like many other inhabitants of LA, is also something of a film producer. He has made Little Hercules in 3-D, which stars Sandrak alongside an unlikely cast list that includes Hulk Hogan, Judd Nelson, Robin Givens and Elliott Gould (as Socrates). 'Some really good players,' as Sandrak phrased it. And Garcia is also behind Sandrak's new project, whose working title is Fancy Moves: 'kind of like The Karate Kid with some hip-hop'.
It's for his part in this film that Sandrak has returned to training. Giardina tells me that within four weeks he will have his young charge looking ripped and in action-hero condition. This, it seems, is to be Sandrak's rather more tolerable future: periods of inactivity followed by intense spurts of getting fit for the screen.
'For now I just want to go out and make more movies,' Sandrak tells me. Then, switching to beauty-queen mode, he embarks on an unprompted speech about how he wants to help the world. 'What I've noticed a lot,' he says with a solemn smile, 'is childhood obesity. It's become such a big problem, especially here in America, that I feel I have to do something. Kids are going to be adults. They're going to be our future. Right now one out of three has a potential of dying before their parents. I want to get them eating right and doing sports one hour a day.'
I nod in sober agreement and then ask him how, as a Californian teenager, he resists peer pressure to drink and take drugs. 'I think of it this way: the kids that do that, how do they end up? They don't end up with successful careers in any good business. They end up working at McDonald's, and that's not a life I want for myself.'
And with that he leaves, followed, just like any other self-respecting minor celebrity, by his manager, his personal trainer and, of course, his mother. No longer the strongest boy in the world, he is just another kid looking to survive in Hollywood, making a fast buck but not eating the fast food.


text:
6. Estimated arrival of new gains
You can subscribe to funds via the following steps:
1. Deposit money into your FUTU account
2. Choose the fund that interests you
3. Go to the Detailed Quotes page
4. Click the Buy button
5. Fill in the subscription amount
Day T refers to the trading day when fund companies process investors' subscriptions, redemptions, and other requests. Day T varies across funds because fund companies have self-determined cut-off times.
Assume a fund company's cut-off time is 12:00.
● If an investor submits a subscription/redemption before 12:00 on Monday, the order will be processed on Monday (T).
● If an investor a subscription/redemption after 14:00 on Monday, the order will be processed on Tuesday (T+1).
● If an investor a subscription/redemption after 14:00 on Friday, the order will be processed next Monday (T+1).
You can redeem the funds via the following steps:
1. Go to Brokerage Account page
2. Click the fund to enter the Position Details page and click the Redeem button
3. Fill in the redemption units
For bond funds and equity funds, investors can only apply for redemptions until the units are confirmed. It normally takes five business days to post the amount into your account after the redemption (time may vary across different funds). The posted amount can be used to trade stocks, subscribe to IPOs or funds, or make a withdrawal.
For cash withdrawable time after the redemption, please check the trading rules on the Detailed Quotes page.
It normally takes five business days to post the amount into your account after the redemption. You can check the redemption progress by clicking the Transactions icon on the Fund Management page.
The trend chart displayed on the Detailed Quotes page indicates the fund's net asset value trend in a given period. Therefore, investors can assess the fund's volatility, historical performance, etc., based on the chart. The chart, along with the NAV, is updated at the end of every trading day.
Gains will be generated once the units are confirmed and will be distributed after 21:00 HKT/SGT every trading day. Please refer to the actual arrival time of gains.
Gains will be accumulated and distributed on the next trading day of weekends, holidays, and other non-trading days.
For details about the estimated arrival of new gains, you can check:
● Timeline on the Subscription Completed page after you submit a subscription
● Trading rules on the Detailed Quotes page
Subscription: There is a minimum investment amount.
Redemption: For bond and equity funds, investors can only apply for redemption when the units are confirmed.
Fund companies will charge a certain amount of money as the management fee. The fee will be deducted from the fund's net asset value. There is no need for investors to make extra payment.
After submitting a subscription or redemption, you can cancel it before the fund company begins processing your order.
Cancellation allowed: before 11:30 on day T
Types allowed: bond funds, equity funds, and balanced funds
You can cancel your orders via the app by clicking Brokerage account > Transactions > the order you'd like to cancel > Cancel order.
● If you submit a subscription at 11:00 on a trading day, you can cancel the order before 11:30 on the same day. The order will be processed by the fund company after 11:30 and cannot be canceled since then.
● If you submit a subscription at 12:30 on a trading day, you can cancel the order before 11:30 on the next trading day.
● Orders cannot be canceled if they are submitted between 11:30 and 12:00 on a trading day.


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Is there someone, in a magical realm, writing fantasy stories based on us?
By Hope Ann
Fantasy equals a sword, a bow, and a golden prophecy, right? Wrong. Do you honestly think that the realm in which you live contains the smartest, most advanced people? Of course, 'advanced' can have plenty of definitions. That aside, you might be surprised to find the realms which people in this land deem as 'fantasy' have a few tricks of their own.
What is technology after all? A thin device which carries words and pictures. An invisible thread in the air which connects the aforementioned devices. A globe of glass which glows. A chest which keeps things cold. A metal box which hurtles across the country at high speeds… It's not quite so grand as some like to think.
View original post 467 more words


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Backyard Adventures
Rain pelted the windshield; the air was heavy and damp. It was a lousy day for cruising, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the man beside me at the helm. Humming one of his legendary happy tunes, his shoeless, wool-socked feet were kicked up on each side of the wheel.
I couldn't help but recall the last time Capt. Bill Pike and I had spent long hours sitting side by side. It was a similarly rainy day driving from Connecticut to Maine to inspect the Bertram 35. As we drove along the coast, Bill confessed that he was at a crossroads: He was weighing the decision to purchase a 1988 Cape Dory 28 -Flybridge. As Bill debated the pros and cons, our conversation weaved like an old Maine highway.
"Bill, this might be the most expensive car ride you've ever taken," I joked as I helped him convince himself that he would regret not getting back into boat ownership. (Editor's note to Bill's wife, BJ: I apologize. Again.) As you already know, he would go on to buy the boat, ship her to Florida and christen her the Betty Jane II.
Like you, I've been following Bill's two-year rehabilitation of the Betty Jane II with intense interest. I've enjoyed our regular Monday morning calls. The goal of the calls is to organize our work for the week, but inevitably Bill debriefs me about his various adventures with the boat—and just as often, misadventures. His dedication to his little cruiser is something we can all learn a thing or two from.
As much as I enjoyed hearing about and learning from his projects, I'm looking forward to the day I get a spotty call from him from some remote anchorage or out island. Our most recent adventure—a four-day cruise from Jacksonville to Cumberland Island, Georgia, to test gear and electronics—was a step in that direction.
Our time cruising aboard the Betty Jane II was action-packed. While traveling north we were joined by Digital Director John Turner and Managing Editor Simon Murray. Together we tested and conducted video reviews of a PFD (see "Float On" on page 28), a new Garmin chartplotter, SiriusXM's Marine Weather service (see "Sirius-ly Cool" on page 26) and other gear for future issues. We also tested each other. We're a close team and we get along well, but boats have a funny way of shrinking as days go on and the humidity rises. I'd be lying if I said we didn't test each other's patience at some point.
Gallery: Betty Jane II Cruise to Cumberland
It's a funny thing but I believe it's the challenges we encounter during a cruise that make them more memorable. You don't often remember the time you slept in an air-conditioned master stateroom, but trust me, you—and your back—will certainly remember cramming into a 3-foot by 5-foot salon bench for a few nights, which is what I had to do in the modest cabin. It's the challenges we faced that made the last part of our trip, a hike through Cumberland Island (see Simon's story, "The Island that Time Forgot" on page 54) that much more special. Standing beside the rubble of a mansion from the Gilded Age as wild horses ran across a field was the moment I knew our short adventure was worth it.
Along the way we ate at some incredible restaurants that we'd travel hours to return to, and others we wouldn't visit again if you paid us. We argued. Laughed. Argued. Caught up on each other's lives in the kind of way you can only do on the water. We enjoyed the simple joy of watching dolphins play in our wake and brought the Betty Jane II and ourselves back to the slip no worse for wear.
We met loyal Power & Motoryacht readers at various stops and, hopefully, gained a few too. I hope you'll all join me in keeping an eye out for a Cape Dory 28 with a flag-blue hull. You can't miss Capt. Bill. He'll be the one humming. Be sure to stop him, say hello, and if you're lucky, he may even offer a tale or two.
Our short cruise on a benign stretch of water reminded me that you don't need to go on a particularly long trip to have an adventure. All you really need is a good boat, a willing crew and a desire to break free from the ordinary.
See more from our adventure here ▶


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Freedom Forum Institute > How are exemption requests evaluated?
States generally apply one of three standards for evaluating religious-exemption requests.
1. Parents requesting the exemption must be a member of a recognized religious organization that is opposed to vaccination.
2. Parents must demonstrate a sincere and genuinely held religious belief that opposes one or all vaccinations.
3. Parents must simply sign a statement confirming that they are religiously opposed to vaccination and would like an exemption.
Category: Freedom of Religion


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The firm likes to highlight people inside the organization to show the talent behind the scenes. Today we will be hearing from Ruby Fa'Agau. Ruby is a law student at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She is an artist hailing from the bay area. She loves to help people and will be using her legal skills to advocate for people in the courtroom. She will be taking about Keva Tea leading to a DUI arrest.
I learned about kava in my childhood watching my Polynesian uncles drink kava tea, share laughter, talk about life, and preserve our culture.
A few years ago, I saw on the news that a man was arrested for a DUI after drinking kava. This surprised me because I wouldn't normally associate tea with impaired judgment. However, I figured that kava had relaxing properties because the men seemed so relaxed when they drank it.
This raises a couple of issues. On one hand, kava is hard to detect for an officer because it's a tea; it will not be picked up on an alcohol screening test. On the other hand, slow bodily movements and slow driving will reveal that the driver is under some type of influence.
I don't drink kava myself, but I hope when others enjoy the tea that they are at home for the night.
See the original article below:
Kava tea leads to DUI arrest for Boynton Beach man
A judge later threw out the charges
Napoleon Samuels mumbled barely above a whisper inside his SUV, propped up on a sidewalk in front of a concrete pillar, the engine revving.
He sweated profusely, deputes said. His body swayed like a willow tree whenever he tried to stand, and he alternated between staring up at the sky and falling asleep as he miserably failed one field sobriety test after another.
A Breathalyzer test showed no alcohol in his system. The 46-year-oldBoynton Beachman — several years off a prison stint for burglary and cocaine possession — swore he was clean.
Samuels told deputies all he'd had to drink that night were a couple cups of kava tea at a bar someone from his drug recovery group had suggested he try. The friend said the tea's relaxing properties made it a good, clean way to take the edge off.
Though kava is not considered a controlled substance, deputies arrested Samuels anyway.
Palm Beach Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp threw out the case against him last week, but by then he'd spent eight months in jail on the probation violation caused by the new arrest and a charge of driving on a suspended license.
"It made me sick," Samuels told Rapp of his kava experience. "I didn't like it at all."
Samuels' arrest last year joined him to the rare group of people charged for driving under the influence of kava, a natural herb used by Pacific Islanders for centuries that has recently become the theme for trendy new bars cropping up across the country and especially in South
Published reports show several cases of kava DUI in California, but most were dismissed.
Most of those cases involved Pacific Islanders, who use the tea in traditional and religious ceremonies.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, kava is a perennial pepper shrub whose only presence in the U.S. is in Hawaii. Drinkers tout its ability to relieve anxiety, insomnia and menopausal symptoms, but in recent years there has been some debate as to whether it may cause liver damage.
The number of kava bars in South Florida has jumped recently, and there are now at least three such places in Palm Beach County, including Kavasutra, the Lake Worth bar Samuels said he visited the night of his arrest.
Jim Scianno manages the Purple Lotus Kava bar, which was the first of its kind in West Palm Beach. He says though it is possible to drink enough kava to impair motor skills, it's not an easy feat.
"You'd have to have gallons of it," Schianno said. "It hasn't happened to anyone that's come in here in the eight years we've been here."
For Samuels, whose probation was reinstated, the end of his kava experience came with strict words from the judge.
"Don't drink that tea anymore," Rapp said.
Hire a Proactive, affordable, and quality defense when you are facing San Diego DUI charges. Whether you have been charged of a San Diego DUI, Poway DUI, La Mesa DUI, Santee DUI, Mission Valley DUI, Clairemont DUI, Point Loma DUI, La Jolla DUI, Carmel Valley DUI, Mira Mesa DUI, Pacific Beach DUI, Del Mar DUI, Carmel Valley DUI, Encinitas DUI, Oceanside DUI, Ocean Beach DUI, Escondido DUI, Vista DUI, San Marcos DUI, Carlsbad DUI, El Cajon DUI it is vital you need to hire an attorney who knows how to defend your rights and can determine if the government can prove their case. Contact the Law Office of Mark Deniz now for a free case evaluation 858-751-4384 or send an email to [email protected].


text:
Its simple looks are also offset by its price. But what you're paying for are all the internal goodies. Besides offering killer computing and mobile graphics performance, the P150HM gives you 256GB of fast SSD storage and a Blu-ray drive to boot. Indeed, this machine could ably serve as a primary computer.
Author: Katherine Stevenson
April 21, 2011
See what components went into this custom computer build:
Clevo Notebook Graphics Modules:
Radeon™ HD 6990 2GB GDDR5 Mobile Graphics Card for P150HM
DDR3-1333 SODIMM Memory:
8GB Kit (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz, PC3-10600, CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V, Non-ECC, SO-DIMM Memory
SATA Notebook Hard Drives:
1TB Blue WD10JPVX, 5400 RPM, SATA 6Gb/s, 8MB cache, 2.5-Inch HDD
Clevo Notebook Warranties:
1 Year Standard Parts and Labor Limited Warranty for Clevo Notebooks