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Joost Rietveld, Assistant Professor in Strategic Management at UCL School of Management returns to Department of Play with the second and final part of his look at the evolution of platforms – from digital game stores to the coming consoles. Part 1 can be found here. The insights presented in this series of articles are based on an academic study written by the author, and published in the Academy of Management Discoveries.
Hearing stories and analysing data about game sales or downloads can be a bit of a mixed bag.
On the one hand, platforms like Steam and iOS boast of ever growing success stories. For example, a recent study commissioned by Apple claims that the App Store was responsible for a whopping $519 billion in estimated total billings and sales of both physical products and services and digital goods in 2019.
On the other hand, developers that use these very platforms as marketplaces for their games and apps seem progressively disgruntled by their sales performance.
That's something that has been particularly evident, in the days this very piece was being written. Epic Games, Apple and Google have entered a high-profile dispute over the balance of power within the App Store and Google Play Store. It's a complicated and evolving situation that has seen Epic take the dominant mobile stores to task over the 30% revenue cut they take from games offered via their platforms. It all began when Epic introduced direct payments in its Fortnite mobile releases, circumnavigating the platform holders' revenue cuts.The fallout has seen lawsuits, the removal of Fortnite from both Apple and Android devices, and Apple preparing to sever Epic's access to iOS and Mac development tools.
There thus appears to be a mounting discrepancy between the overall value created by and on these platforms, and the value that developers are actually capturing for the games and apps they're offering over such platforms. How do sales patterns for games evolve over the platform life cycle? What is driving these evolutionary trends? And, how can game developers adjust their strategies accordingly to position themselves for success?
How games and app performance evolves over the platform life cycle
In-depth analysis of four market-leading digital platforms using both qualitative and quantitative data sources reveals three broad trends in terms of how app and game sales or downloads evolve as the platforms these products are released on solidify their positions in the market:
- Average demand for games and apps declines. First, while the value created at the overall platform level may increase over time (as pointed out by the Apple study earlier), research shows that the average demand at the individual game and app level actually decreases. On Steam, for example, my co-authors and I find that the median downloads for paid games declined exponentially during our study period. A typical paid game released in 2007 generated 713,959 downloads. This number dropped to 633,552 downloads for games released in 2011, and plummeted to 74,361 downloads for games released in 2015. On Kickstarter, too, we found that the monthly average success rates for creative projects decreased from 42% in 2014 to 35% in 2017, meaning that fewer projects reached their funding goals.
Data from The Coevolution of Platform Dominance and Governance Strategies: Effects on Complementor Performance Outcomes, by Rietveld J, Ploog J, Nieborg D. In press, Academy of Management Discoveries.
- Demand for games and apps becomes more concentrated. Second, the distribution of the demand for games and apps becomes increasingly skewed. That is, a small group of highly successful games and apps significantly grows their share of the total value captured in these ecosystems. This is illustrated by the figure below, which portrays the share of downloads for games released on Steam in a given year, broken out by percentage-based performance ranks as a function of the cumulative downloads by all games released in the same year. For example, the figure shows that in 2007 the top 20% most downloaded games accounted for approximately 66% of all downloads by video games released in that year. The share of downloads by the top 20% most downloaded video games increased to nearly 90% in 2016. In other words, out of the more than 4,000 games released in 2016, just shy of 900 games accounted for 90% of the 329 million downloads for all games released that year.
Data from The Coevolution of Platform Dominance and Governance Strategies: Effects on Complementor Performance Outcomes, by Rietveld J, Ploog J, Nieborg D. In press, Academy of Management Discoveries.
- Prices for games and apps decrease while (marketing) costs increase. Third, we find that app and game prices decline whereas the costs developers incur increase. On the App Store, for example, prices for apps have been in decline since 2009. The top panel in the figure below shows that the average price for game apps fell by 60%, from $1.37 USD in 2009 to $0.55 USD in 2016. While this trend can be partly explained by the increasing popularity of the freemium and ad-sponsored business models, research in marketing and economics has shown that consumers have lower willingness-to-pay for freemium apps and for apps with in-app advertisements. The bottom panel in the figure further shows that the cost per install, or the advertising expenses associated with one additional download by a loyal app user, increased at a much steeper rate than the average revenue per app user.
Data from The Coevolution of Platform Dominance and Governance Strategies: Effects on Complementor Performance Outcomes, by Rietveld J, Ploog J, Nieborg D. In press, Academy of Management Discoveries.
What is Driving These Trends?
Platform ecosystems are rather dynamic and comprise several moving parts (see part one of this article for a primer on platform economics). It is, therefore, virtually impossible to point to one specific cause for these sales and download patterns. That said, here are the most likely culprits:
- The platform sponsor adjusts its governance as the platform becomes dominant. The changes a platform sponsor enacts to manage its ecosystem can have significant impact on the performance and distribution of games and apps. As I discuss in more detail in my first article, platforms initially implement changes that are mostly beneficial to the developer community, such as new ways to generate revenues or enhanced information about the consumers on a platform (structural governance changes). These rule changes are followed by updates aimed at attracting more and more diverse developers to the platform, such as making it easier for developers to make their software compatible with the platform or the creation of new app categories for the platform (boundary spanning governance changes). Subsequent rule changes are mostly geared towards facilitating consumers, for example, by adding discovery algorithms or curated selections of promoted games and apps (redistributive governance changes). This shift from structural governance changes to boundary spanning and redistributive governance changes contributes to 1) an increasingly crowded marketplace, and 2) a progressively lopsided distribution of demand for apps.
- Shifts in consumer preferences and game quality. Another plausible contributing factor is a shift in the type of users on the platform. First, it is well known that early adopters of a platform technology tend to have a higher willingness-to-pay and be more risk seeking in their consumption patterns. This not only applies to the platform itself, but also to the apps and games released on the platform, resulting in relatively more and more diverse consumption choices early in the platform life cycle. Later on, when there are more late adopter-type consumers, we should expect to see convergence on a few key titles, but fewer average purchases per consumer (I studied this in another research project). Second, it may well be that as the platform solicits game submissions from a broader pool of developers that the average quality of games on the platform decreases, which should result in fewer purchases overall and more purchases for those games that are, in fact, of high quality. Changing consumer preferences and increased competition both contribute to lower prices for games and apps and higher marketing costs.
How Can This Inform My Strategy as Developer?
How can the aforementioned evolutionary trends and causal factors help inform developers' product-market strategies as they consider which platforms to join, and when?
- There is good value in joining a platform early in its life cycle. New platforms, such as the Epic Games Store and the impending consoles announced by Sony and Microsoft, may pose considerable risks due to a small installed base and an uncertain growth trajectory. On the other hand, they also pose considerable opportunity: Due to strong dependence on developers to be successful, a platform sponsor's governance will be more supportive of developers earlier rather than later. Moreover, consumers who are first to adopt a new platform are likely eager to spend money on games and apps and also to try new things.
- The platform life cycle informs content development and marketing strategies. Broadly speaking, given the above, different types of content and product-market strategies will be effective at different stages of the platform life cycle. Early on, new IPs and content that appeals to an audience of enthusiast consumers is more likely to succeed. Moreover, at this stage it may pay to pursue a 'gravel throwing strategy'. That is, release multiple products to see what sticks and then reiterate on the ones that are successful. Later on, however, sequels, tie-ins, and content that speaks to an audience of late adopters is more likely to succeed. Additionally, at this stage, a strategy of 'throwing rocks' is more likely to pay off. Put differently, the chances of (commercial) success are greater for those developers that release only one or a few products and heavily invest in marketing and promoting these.
- Be realistic and don't be blinded by outlier success stories. Hits and breakout success stories on platforms like Steam, iOS and Kickstarter are more an exception than the rule. Furthermore, the sales and download performance attained by such hit products aren't anywhere near what can be expected from a 'typical' release on these platforms. Average statistics and platform-wide performance totals are grossly inflated by a few outliers at the top. Rather than looking at averages, the median is a much more informative statistic, and developers need to be realistic when it comes to budgeting and planning for performance.
- It pays to develop good relationships with the platform sponsor. By way of their ecosystem orchestration efforts (such as the aforementioned governance changes), platform sponsors can have a tremendous impact on how much value is created in a platform ecosystem and who captures what share of that value. The platform's algorithms and curated promotions are often informed by higher-order strategic objectives (such as highlighting features that are part of the latest version of the iOS operating system). Knowing what the platform values and receiving preferential treatment from a platform (such as being part of an Indies Showcase), can boost sales performance exponentially, and make all the difference on a studio's bottom line.
This article is part of a series of two articles on platform evolution and game sales. You can read the first article here. These articles are based on an academic study titled 'The Coevolution of Platform Dominance and Governance Strategies: Effects on Complementor Performance Outcomes' published by the Academy of Management in the Academy of Management Discoveries. You can find the published version of the paper here, or you can download a pre-publication version of the paper for free here. This article and the academic paper are written by Joost Rietveld, an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at the UCL School of Management of University College London. Joost has a background of working in the games industry prior to joining academia, and much of his academic research is based in the games industry. This series of two articles was edited for clarity and readability by Will Freeman and published by the Department of Play.
About the author
Joost Rietveld
Joost Rietveld is Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at the Strategy & Entrepreneurship group of the UCL School of Management, University College London. His research interests are at the intersection of technology strategy and innovation management. His work seeks to better understand how inter-organisational dynamics, including platform-complementor relationships, alliances, and mergers and acquisitions, affect product-level outcomes. He is also interested in how digitisation facilitates new and innovative ways of doing business, including the freemium and platform-based business models. Prior to his academic career, Rietveld worked as a strategic manager and business consultant in the games industry.


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Having followed the evolution of BlackBerry 10 since RIM CEO Thorsten Heins took the helm about a year ago this weekend, we have been seeing a textbook case of how to restore a faltering company and its brand to its former glory. On taking over the reins Heins' challenges included:
- sticking to the original product vision behind the QNX acquisition,
- restructuring and realigning the company to support a new operating system,
- recruiting and building a C-level executive team with world class experience,
- taking control of the message being propagated through the media, and finally
- building the infrastructure required for the successful launch of a new smartphone product into a very competitive and high profile market.
We are now eight days from the January 30 launch event date. And based on my previous experience with selling multi-tasking products, managing both hardware and software subsidiaries, participating in what was initially the successful restructuring of a NASDAQ-listed company and working with startups I want to share my outline of not only why BlackBerry 10 will be a success story but also why RIM will be able to vector off into a unique market positioning in the future.
This post is the first of a three part series that will go out this week covering: The Preamble, The Main Story and The Questions.
RIM's core DNA
It all starts with a Tweet I found last night that uniquely summarizes RIM's current DNA. For almost 30 years QNX has been developing a multi-tasking, multi-threading real time operating system robust enough to run nuclear power plants, power GM's OnStar service and replace Cisco's iOS in their routers. Meanwhile over the past 19 years RIM was building expertise in mobile technology, including not only efficient handling of wireless messaging and data but also doing it securely.
Two recent posts articulate why QNX is really the core to RIM's future:
In RIM – BB10 True End-Game is QNX & NOC!, Dono at Serious Mobile provides a comprehensive picture of why QNX is the core of RIM's future:
Some still are not sure why RIM chose to purchase QNX just over a 1.5 years ago. To them I say do a little research. QNX is a true, real-time OS! But [what] real-life benefits does QNX offer us? Most people do not see QNX let alone know it exists until RIM started using it in press releases about BB10.
QNX software is used in embedded systems all around us – yet it's not limited to embedded systems. Automobile (cars & trucks) CPU's and infotainment applications,medical devices, nuclear reactors/management systems, parking meters, credit card machines, ticket booths and much more which I'll get to shortly.
A post in RIM's own developer blog, You're Already Using BlackBerry 10: Living QNX, outlines specific examples of QNX deployment in today's market. The QNX Bentley concept car at CES 2013 gave a demonstration of what the future can be for automotive information, entertainment and control systems, demonstrating not only GPS but features such as video calling and self-diagnostics. In fact, they also demonstrated a BlackBerry 10 application capable of providing some "remote" interaction with the car's features:
|Bentley panel with GPS and calling.
Note the analog clock whose outside ring can actually server as a volume control
|BlackBerry 10 controlling locks, trunk, horn, sun roof, lights, temperature and music
The long term future for RIM beyond BlackBerry 10 lies with leveraging QNX for machine to machine interactions (M2M), including a significant role for BlackBerry 10.
The Fundamentals for Success
However, with that background, lots has happened in preparation for the BlackBerry 10 launch – the key foundation piece to realizing RIM's future. When I was involved on the restructuring management team of a utility software company we had five key assets:
- a well-known brand name (with a reputation for multi-tasking under DOS)
- an established and loyal customer base of several million users
- a restructured company team that was enthusiastic and committed to success
- an established distribution channel that could readily ship new product
- a new product under development that could be launched in a timely manner
Within six months the company was back to profitability. However, this was a much less complex situation than what RIM encountered. Their key assets include:
- a well known brand name and reputation (but challenged as a result of some recent product issues)
- 80 million users, of whom 60 million use a key "networking" or "bonding" feature called BlackBerry Messenger
- a strong loyalty within that customer base as demonstrated on Twitter, blog posts and even comments to posts in the media
- a visionary new product under development that could significantly change the user experience
- an established carrier distribution channel that can readily ship new products
- strongly focused leadership at the CxO level
- a very keen RIM team enthusiastically supporting the mission and vision
- $2.9 billion in cash
In summary – a startup's dream scenario.
In my follow up posts I'll talk about why I feel BlackBerry 10 will be a success story (along with a few caveats).
- BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Main Story
- BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Questions
Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of RIM shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in RIM organizations around the world.
Given that RIM stock has been on a tear for the past few days since I started drafting this series I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.
Related articles
- QNX shows what the future may hold – Some very amazing stuff! (crackberry.com)
- Dan Dodge shows off the QNX Bentley concept car at CES (crackberry.com)
- If BlackBerry 10 is a hit, a lot of credit will go to RIM's founders (business.financialpost.com)

subset: commoncrawl


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One of the charades that all too many Americans, especially conservatives, continue to subscribe to is the notion that the federal government is a "limited government" — that is, one whose powers are limited in nature and scope. They like to say that this is what distinguishes the U.S. government from totalitarian regimes.
Limited government was the original idea behind the formation of the federal government. To allay people's concerns about the new government becoming totalitarian in nature, the Framers set forth in the Constitution a small list of limited, specific, enumerated powers that the federal government was permitted to wield and exercise. If a particular power wasn't enumerated, the federal government didn't have it.
To make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people demanded the passage of the Bill of Rights immediately after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly guaranteed fundamental rights of the people from federal infringement as well as procedural rights and guarantees when the government targeted people for punishment.
The point is that our American ancestors didn't trust the federal government and the type of people that government power attracts into office. That's why they didn't call into existence a federal government with unlimited powers to do whatever its officials believed was "right."
Yet, consider the type of government under which we now live.
The president, the military, and the CIA wield the omnipotent power to assassinate any person anywhere in the world. That includes Americans.
One important example of this power was demonstrated in Chile in 1973. The CIA and the military participated in the assassination of two young American men, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. To this day we don't know if the military and the CIA did this on their own or on orders of President Nixon. It didn't matter. There was never any official investigation by U.S. officials, including Congress and the Justice Department, into the murders. Whether President Nixon gave the order or not was obviously considered irrelevant. What mattered was that the murders were committed as part of a "national-security" operation, which provided absolute immunity to the murderers.
Those two murders were committed during the federal government's global "war on communism." Since the nation was at "war," it was considered entirely legitimate to kill communists anywhere they could be found. Since Horman and Teruggi were sympathetic to the administration of Salvador Allende, a socialist-communist who had been elected president of Chile, that made them fair game for the U.S. national security state, especially since the U.S.-supported military coup that ousted Allende from power had "national security" implications for the United States.
Needless to say, the power to assassinate communists wasn't limited to Americans. Don't forget the repeated attempts by the CIA, especially as part of its partnership with the Mafia, to assassinate Fidel Castro, whose communist regime in Cuba never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. Since Castro held communist beliefs in his mind, that made him fair game for a "national-security" assassination.
The national-security mindset that legitimatized the murders of Horman and Teruggi and the attempted murder of Fidel Castro didn't expire with the end of the Cold War. Instead, it was carried forth as part of the federal government's "war on terrorism." After 9/11, it became openly legitimate for military and CIA officials to murder any American and any foreigners labeled a "terrorist."
The assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman come to mind. Just as with the Horman and Teruggi murders, there have never been any official investigations into the al-Awlaki murders. Federal officials have barely even acknowledged the killings. They don't have to. They wield the omnipotent power to assassinate anyone they want and don't have to explain or justify their actions, so long as they relate the killings to some "national security" event.
The principle, of course, applies to all Americans and not just to Americans who happen to be living or travelling overseas. Since the war on terrorism, like the war on communism, is global in nature, they wield the omnipotent power to kill anyone they deem is a threat to "national security" wherever the threat might be found, including right here in the United States. So long as they connect the killings to a "national-security" operation, the killers are absolutely immune from civil and criminal liability.
The military also wields the omnipotent power to take American citizens into military custody and hold them indefinitely as "terrorists" in military installations. It also has the power to torture them while in custody. That's what the Jose Padilla case was all about. It confirmed that when it comes to "national security," the federal judiciary isn't going to interfere with military round-ups and torture of American citizens. While it's true that such power isn't currently being exercised, that's doesn't mean that the power isn't now wielded by U.S. officials.
They also wield the omnipotent power to kidnap people and transfer them to partner totalitarian regimes for the purpose of torture and punishment. That's what that CIA kidnapping in Italy and the rendition of the kidnap victim to the brutal military dictatorship in Egypt was all about. Even though the CIA agents were convicted of the criminal offense of kidnapping in Italy, the U.S. position was that they were immune from liability given that the kidnapping was done as part of a "national security" event.
It's no different with respect to spying on the citizenry. The federal government obviously now wields the power to spy on and monitor the personal lives of every American citizen and to collect and maintain all the information it acquires. It has the authority to keep track of everyone's telephone calls, record their calls, sweep up and read their emails, watch what websites they visit, and maintain a gigantic database of everything it collects.
And let's face it: Nothing is going to happen to federal officials who do whatever is necessary to keep the people safe in the name of "national security." They can follow people, keep files on them, intimidate them, and blackmail them, just as they did with Martin Luther King. In fact, they can do everything they did with their secret Cointelpro program and if anyone finds out, everyone knows that no one is going to be jailed, fined, or otherwise punished for it, so long as he states that it was part of a "national security" event.
Now, I ask you: How can this type of government — a government with the omnipotent power to kill people, incarcerate them in military installations, torture them, kidnap and rendition them, and spy, monitor, and blackmail them — genuinely be considered "limited government"? Even if every other aspect of government has limited powers, it's quite irrelevant. All that's needed to make a government an unlimited one is one department or agency with unlimited powers.
It goes without saying that the federal government our ancestors called into existence had none of these totalitarian powers. Our ancestors were right to be concerned about the federal government they were calling into existence ultimately ending up with totalitarian powers. That's the fundamental change to our constitutional order wrought by the adoption of the national-security state, a change that all too many Americans, unfortunately, would rather not confront.


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Traditional Uses for Tibetan Singing Bowls
This question is a big one, and one we get asked almost every day. How do people use Tibetan singing bowls? Traditionally, there is only one way people used Tibetan singing bowls, and that was for meditation and ceremonial purposes. Monks used Tibetan singing bowls during their ceremonies, to start the ceremony, to end the ceremony, and sometimes to meditation and chant during the ceremony. Although the exact date when singing bowls were started is probably unknown, it is clear that singing bowls have been in use in Tibet for a very long time. (Though that is true, if someone tells you they want to sell you an old Tibetan singing bowl, please don't buy that bowl- while it is not certain that the bowl is not old, it is also not certain that the bowl IS old.)
Singing Bowls in Meditation
Now that singing bowls are becoming more well-known and popular, not to mention more affordable, everyone can use a singing bowl for their meditation practice. When you use a singing bowl for meditation, you can have someone else play the bowl while you meditate to the sound, but perhaps it is more of a whole body meditation when you play the singing bowl yourself. This is because, in addition to hearing the sound of the singing bowl, you can also feel the vibration of the singing bowl when you play it. Then the singing bowl becomes a whole body meditation. Many people come into our store and want to know whether they have to have a singing bowl cushion. Although the singing bowl cushion is a great tool musically for gonging the singing bowl or when you play more than one singing bowl at a time, it is not needed for meditation, because it is really best if you hold the bowl for meditation.
It is a less traditional use of a singing bowl, but one that is becoming more and more popular, to play a singing bowl for chakra cleansing. Doing so is a complicated practice, and if you are a novice to singing bowls and chakra cleansing, it is probably best just to pick a bowl you like and go from there. But if you want to use your singing bowl for chakra cleansing, we do have a section of singing bowls where the note and chakra is marked on the bowl so you can get the exact note you need to play for your chakra cleansing. However, it's not prudent to look at the chakra chart and think to yourself, I want to be more spiritual, and then go for the crown chakra to help with that. The process is more complicated than that, and you can't really self-diagnose the chakras.
Singing Bowls to Make Beautiful Music
The singing bowl makes beautiful music, and more and more musicians are using singing bowls. It's also a chance for musicians to have additional venues to play, as the singing bowl and live music in yoga classes becomes more popular. To play a singing bowl as a musician you can buy a variety of singing bowls in different sizes and with different notes, and play them all together. Hearing someone who is really great at playing the singing bowls is a lovely experience.
Singing Bowls in Yoga Classes, or for Healing Sessions
Practitioners are using singing bowls more and more in yoga classes and healing sessions. For yoga classes, the singing bowl can be used at the first of the class to get the class started, or during savasana at the end of class. I have also seen yoga teachers use the singing bowl at the end of a class by gonging the singing bowl. This can help the students come out of savasana or meditation. In a restorative yoga class, the singing bowl may be used during the entire class. Singing bowls are also used during massages, reiki sessions, and other healing sessions.
So you can see, the uses for singing bowls abound, and so there is no one right answer for the question, what are singing bowls used for?


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Woodworkers and home Do-it-Yourselfers (DIY-ers) often took up woodworking as a hobby because of a deep appreciation for the craft and sometimes, for the love of the wood itself. That reverence for the wood makes woodworkers conscious of recycling of the wood they use. While offcuts (> 4" or 10 cm) can often find uses in a shop (small drawer parts, handles etc.), shavings from handplanes or handsaws and dust from table saws, band saws, routers and other machines cause many woodworkers to wonder whether they're using the wood to its fullest capacity. There are a lot of things the woodworker/home DIY'er can do to keep these materials from ending up in the trash or landfill.
The most popular option for recycling sawdust is using it in the garden as a mulch—after all, the tree itself came from the ground, so returning its shavings and sawdust makes sense. There are a few things to remember when using shavings/sawdust for mulch in gardens and plant beds. Don't use pressure-treated lumber as a mulch. After all, treated lumber is designed to resist decay in contact with the ground. Additionally, some forms of treated lumber are still "CCA", or copper-chrominated-arsenic. CCA lumber was voluntarily phased out almost 15 years ago but some still remains. CCA treated lumber generally doesn't pose a health risk to humans if used as a mulch. This is due to the fact that copper, chromium and arsenic are all bound tightly by the soil itself so these elements tend to be rather immobile. Furthermore, copper and chromium are toxic to plants at levels far below the toxicity to humans, though repeated (chronic) exposure to arsenic could become problematic.
Black Walnut
Another type of wood to avoid using in a garden or as mulch is black walnut. This wood is poisonous to horses and also kills tomato plants. However, this plant toxicity can work for the savvy homeowner—used in driveway and sidewalk cracks, black walnut sawdust acts a natural and effective herbicide and prevents unsightly weeds and grasses from growing in these areas.
Nitrogen deficiency
Most other woods make good mulch or plant bedding materials. One thing to keep in mind when using sawdust for this purpose is that sawdust consumes nitrogen as it breaks down in the soil, leaving the plants with insufficient amounts of nitrogen. This nitrogen deficiency is characterized by the yellowing of plant leaves. To alleviate this problem, always mix sawdust with materials high in nitrogen content such as manure, nitrogen fertilizers, grass clippings, coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, etc.
Sawdust can mix with glue to form a filler material for dents, dings or scratches in a wood project. Combine the dust with the glue and apply it to the affected area and allow it to dry completely. Finish this repair the same way as rest of the project. Don't worry if the finish is a stain; normally, the high surface area of the sawdust would absorb much more stain than the surrounding wood and appear much darker. Since the dust is mixed with glue, which doesn't absorb stains, the end result is that the repair looks the same as the wood itself. Using sawdust as filler material doesn't utilize a lot of dust, though there are several bulk scale projects for sawdust and shavings. In the US, it's illegal to discard paints in the liquid phase—using sawdust immobilizes the paint and makes it suitable for disposal. Sawdust also makes a wonderful absorbent—you can use sawdust to clean up oil spills. Cedar shavings make wonderful additions to wardrobes/closets and sawdust also makes a wonderful filling for pincushions. Shavings from fruitwood trees (apple, cherry, hickory etc.) soaked in water and used in cooking impart a wonderfully rich exotic taste to grilled meats.
In short, there are plenty of options for the woodworker/DIY-er to make use of the sawdust or shavings produced when in the shop and little need to just send them to the landfill.


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We're Agile
We work with independent specialists in various design and web development disciplines and put together teams based on the specific needs of each individual client. The virtual agency approach gives the client the best of both worlds; scalable design, and/or development teams that welcome smaller design engagements.
Confident & Loyal
We believe personal interactions are key to successful design and development. We limit the number of projects to those we can effectively attend to, while still being able to bring in additional designers and developers to handle larger projects... and always maintaining the personal touch and the relationships we build. Oh, and we love dogs.


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Headlines across the Internet blared with the news over the past week that coffee could cut the risk of prostate cancer in half. It was an irresistible headline. But just how reliable was the finding?
What if I told you it was based on just over a dozen cancer cases.
You read that right. All those headlines leaping out at you, based on 14 prostate cancers among heavy coffee drinkers.
To get some perspective on this, we turned to Eric Jacobs, Ph.D., Strategic Director of Pharmacoepidemiology for the American Cancer Society. Here's what he told us.
"While the 53% reduction in risk of prostate cancer in Italian men drinking more than 3 cups a day observed in this study is certainly eye-catching, it need to be interpreted cautiously.
"First, while the study design is generally sound, it is an observational study, not a randomized trial. Second, it is based on small numbers, only 14 prostate cancer cases in men drinking more than 3 cups a day, so the amount of impact on prostate cancer risk, if any, is very uncertain.
"Third, this is one of many studies of coffee and prostate cancer. Previous studies have had mixed results, a meta-analysis of 9 previous cohort studies found about 10% lower risk of prostate cancer in men drinking moderate to high amounts of coffee, indicating that coffee drinking is unlikely to have a large effect on risk of prostate cancer.
The bottom line: there is not convincing evidence that coffee lowers risk of prostate cancer."
So enjoy your coffee with your morning news reading. Just don't rely on it to do much more than give your day a jump start.
Learn more about prostate cancer here.


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SS7 hack explained
Technology is, in its nature, developing based on current progress. Sometimes it is worth going back to the blue box era to discover something in today's world. More or less recent scandals involving NSA's practice to track, listen, and intercept communication without authorisation made a splash, but not many took the time and effort to understand the magic behind. Kudos for Washington Post: they went looking into this.
After little research taking me 50 years back in time, I will explain the technology behind and demonstrate that one does not need NSA resources or an army of hackers to repeat the trick on you.
The calling protocol that is used for one network to "talk" to another was developed in 1970's and is called SS7. The protocol was somewhat refined around 2000 with a SIGTRAN specification, which made it IP network environment friendly. This, however, meant that all the weak links on the upper level of SS7 infrastructure were carried over.
Picture that the communication is made possible not by one, but in fact several hundreds of links, which result a chain that triggers phone on the other end of your call ringing. Referencing back to my earlier post on "Evolution of Authentication", I would like to demonstrate that the same principle of security level assessment applies here: the chain is as safe as it's weakest link. Consider WhatsApp hacking methods, message virus trends, phone number exploits, Skype lock services.
During my time in Deutsche Telekom Consulting, I was involved in review of a number of networks (fun times included climbing down sewers following copper lines laid there in 50s-60s-70-s, which were used by corporations and governments in 2003-2004 and likely still to be in place). The hardware and software providers vary from network to network and are extremely segmented, which leads to a simple result: they have to keep their chains wide open to make sure that the next chain link can integrate.
So did anyone know about these vulnerabilities until 2013? In short: of cause. First reference I have discovered dates back to a report published in 2001, which I (admittedly) could not read to full extent due to my neglected Swedish. Google Translate may help you.
It was also made public by Tobias Engel during a Chaos Computer Club Congress held in 2008, when Tobias made a live demo of tracking abilities:
SS7 Hack Video by Tobias Engel
A white paper on SS7 hack SS7: locate track manipulate (pdf file; original here)
And, of cause, it was most widely reported during NSA scandal involving Edward Snowden, that revealed how NSA was exploiting the weaknesses of SS7 to create a very intelligent and complex series of solutions enabling them to simultaneously track and analyse millions of citizens without their nor carrier's knowledge or approval.
SS7 hack software
So what does one require to make this work? The list is quite short:
- Computer
- Linux OS
- SDK for SS7
Apart from the computer itself, remaining ingredients are free and publicly available on the Internet.
It may have slipped under your radar, but apparently now there is a legal way to use this technology to track anyone worldwide, and NSA is not involved at all: the service offering is open to public and provided by a NASDAQ listed Verint Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNT). In their product description, which was made public, they refer to the system as "Skylock". During search I even stumbled upon a certification of encryption capabilities of this product by NIST (certificate scan).
Verdict? Abandon illusions of privacy if you still had them.
- A study of Location-Based Services including design and implementation of an enhanced Friend Finder Client with mapping capabilities (Aug. 2001)
- Uncut video of Tobias Engel's speech "Locating mobile phones using signalling system #7" at 25th Chaos Computer Club Congress (12/27/2008 21:45:00)
- Skylock product description (2013)
- Skylock NIST certification
Disclaimer: this article is a warning to regular citizens about low technological barrier protecting their privacy specifically in relation to mobile phone hacking using ss7 protocol. It is not a guide to hack-a-phone. I will intentionally leave a few aspects uncovered. I urge all readers NOT to use this technology and hope that the solution to restrict this ability to track phones will be implemented soon.


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Tiger Woods faces the golf media Monday before his long-awaited 2010 debut at the Masters. The public inquisition will be one of his tallest hurdles since revelations of his marital infidelity sparked a stunning downfall in recent months. If you had a seat at the news conference at Augusta National, what would you want to know? Well, Woods' peers on the PGA Tour have some questions of their own. Some simply are eager to have the world's No. 1 golfer back inside the ropes. Others were a bit more curious:
• Brad Faxon: "Which putter are you going to use? I know that all the other questions that you would want to ask, he's not going to answer anyway, so that's what I would ask. Sorry to ruin your bubble."
• Hunter Mahan: "There are quite a few questions. I would try to go factual. I wouldn't ask him about the family or anything. I would ask him why were you taking Vicodin. I mean, why wouldn't they let Elin in the room? I think that he has to answer those questions. I mean, it's public kind of knowledge. So it's not like you can run from that stuff. So it should be, you know, I think that that's what I would ask, somewhat artfully."
• Jay Williamson: "Are you remorseful?"
• Davis Love III: "If he wants to go to the PGA Tour bible study with us on Wednesday. Because that's the first question I'm going to ask him. I've been trying to talk to him, and I haven't talked to him in forever. There's so many people, all they care about is when is he going to play and how well is he going to play. And will this affect his game. I'm more concerned with, here's a friend that I didn't do well by. We didn't know he was having a problem. It doesn't matter if the guy's got cancer or has a drinking problem or whatever it is. We didn't know, and we couldn't help him. That's the part that hurts me. Some of my other friends are like, what we've got to try is to bring him into a group that he can hang out with and have some support. I know the best therapy for him is to hang out with Zach Johnson and Ben Crane and guys out here that care about him as a person and not really looking to get anything out of Tiger Woods."
• Luke Donald: "Well, he's not going to answer anything personal, by the sounds of it, so I don't know what I would ask. Is he worried about not being able to compete, having taken such a long layoff? It would be interesting just to know what kind of therapy that he had, what kind of things he's learned from it. It's a tough one. You just hope he's learned from the whole experience and how can he become a better person. Or maybe I would ask him how's he going to react around fans now. Is he going to sign more autographs? Is he going to be more touchable?"
• Martin Kaymer: "Well, why did he decide to come back at the Masters? What was the reason why the Masters and not before or later? That would probably be my question."
• Shaun Micheel: "I played with Tiger a few times. He has incredible pressure on his shoulders each and every week. I feel for him a little bit because of how he's going to be received out there. I think all of us worry about that. From a fan's perspective, I think people would like to see him be a little bit more human, a little bit more approachable. But Phil (Mickelson) does a great job of signing; he'll sign an hour. Tiger has maybe twice as many fans as Phil, and Phil's got a lot. I think this is going to humanize him a little bit and humble him a little bit. I just would be interested to seeing the question, How are you going to handle some of the pressures that come from outside the ropes? Because that's what we all know, and he doesn't see any of that."
• Adam Scott: "How many more tournaments he thinks he'll play this year. That's what I would like to know."
• Michael Allen: "The only thing I look forward to seeing is if he's going to still stay with his wife. Is that what's going to happen? How is that going? I'm not worried about his golf. He's always beaten me. I would love to beat him one day. I'm not the guy to ask, I guess, because I don't really have any questions like that. I'm so tired of listening to it, to be honest with you. And it's just, it's all about his privacyand he screwed up."
• Justin Rose: "How did you manage it?"
• Lee Westwood: "How did you ever get to stay World No. 1?"
• Y.E. Yang: "How did you manage to find time to do any practice?"
• Padraig Harrington: "What is the state of your game?"
• Stuart Appleby: "Do you think you can win this week, Tiger? And if I was Tiger and I got asked that question, I'd get up and walk out of the room."
• Martin Laird: "I wouldn't ask him any question. Rather, I would say to him 'welcome back.' "
• Rory McIlroy: "I don't think I would ask any question, because whatever question you ask, I don't think you will get a straight answer out of him. It's just like the last 10 years in that he says a lot without saying anything. So I don't think I wouldn't bother, as everything seems to have come out. But then if I had the chance, I would ask him a straight golf question, and that is, How many events is he planning to play this year?"


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A Tour of Noah Purifoy's Outdoor MuseumThe Arts
I would have liked to have been welcomed by Noah Purifoy in person to his desert home and outdoor art museum. But sadly, Mr. Purifoy died in 2004 and I visited the museum in the spring of 2016. Approaching his two-acre lot along dusty roads in the sparse landscape felt invasive. Solitude is a gift the desert offers, but with that comes loneliness, and sometimes anxiety when encountering strangers in the sparse landscape.
I imagine the artist, elderly, wearing a captain's hat, as I now know him from photographs, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with toilets and barbed wire, waving a hand indicating where to start the tour of his museum. I wouldn't expect him to be especially talkative. Instead, hyper-focused on an unusual task like anchoring a tower of old toilets with stakes in the ground. Because the museum—his solitary work for the last 30 years of his life—felt so alive and personal, the desire that came about due to the absence of any other person created a space for the specter of Purifoy to appear.
Mr. Purifoy's museum is located in Joshua Tree, CA, a desert community of less than 10,000 where the economy is based primarily on the nearby Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center—a simulacrum of an Iraqi village where all Marines train before being deployed to the Middle-East. The Joshua Tree National Park is a popular destination for eco-tourists. In the time since Purifoy began assembling his museum in 1989, a small community of artists has gravitated towards the Joshua Tree, but it remains a desolate place. Unmarked dirt roads cross sandy plains, dotted with abandoned shacks and concrete foundations where small cabins once stood. Until the mid-part of the last century inmates from the state prison were bused to the area after they were released and left to eek out an existence on land that no one else wanted. Remnants of the prisoners' reintroduction into society still exist in the form of slapdash architecture and black market economies.
The location is important. The language Purifoy communicates with is difficult to translate into museum settings. What has been shown outside of Joshua Tree is typically work that has to do with his identity and civil rights. The thing he is most known for are his assemblages made from detritus found after the Watts Riots. An element of political activism is present at his outdoor museum, but it is not the focus. More so, the discontentment that spurs political activism occurs unselfconsciously in the strange world he sculpted toward an imaginary future.
His sculptures are idiosyncratic, perhaps extraterrestrial, but the materials are familiar, almost entirely comprised of discarded household items from the mid 20th century. Many of Purifoy's installations consist of small structures that you can walk through, and contain elements that make them appear lived in. The pieces are untitled and scattered about the property, but order is implied either by footpaths marked in the sand or the way in which the artist designed his pieces, with curves and angles that encourage the body to move in specific directions around the property.
The first piece I encountered was a home. It contained a bed, a television, and a pile of non-functioning toilets; the toilets perhaps representing a homeless hoarder's dream of one day having indoor plumbing. The resident of this home may have been industrious and crafty, but their building materials are items that are worn and damaged, likely discarded by their original owners. I imagine we are invading a private space of someone living in our own world with little to no resources. Or perhaps this is an imagined future, after global warming has created catastrophic environmental damage and the only materials available for construction are those that were produced in excess during the 20th century.
There are several structures in the museum with utilitarian purposes—an outdoor theatre with folding chairs in front of a stage painted with stars and stripes; a music studio equipped with computers, electric pianos, percussion and strings constructed of found objects; a cemetery with graves marked by wooden crosses. Sculptures sprout between the larger structures much like the desert plants or derelict vehicles in the surrounding landscape. A tower of toilets grows awkwardly with thick sinewy branches, slightly resembling the Joshua Trees the town is named after. A gravity defying assemblage of cafeteria trays slithers upward like a snake about to strike its prey.
It's a part of the desert as much as it is a private theme park. As the cartography of American art has become so thoroughly detailed by digital proliferation, this spot in Joshua Tree, where one man made his mark for the last 30 years of his life, may be a frayed edge in the map where art can be experienced in a pure form.
*All photos taken by Forrest Muelrath
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Art, Noah Purifoy, Joshua Tree


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Book of Marvels: The Orient
Richard Halliburton
Publisher: Publishdrive
Written for students but loved by all ages, Marvels of the Orient takes you on a journey to some of the marvels of our world. Visit wonders both natural and man-made, places you've heard about, and others you won't believe you didn't know about before. In this book you will- • Climb the Great Pyramid • Search for the Ark of the Covenant beneath Jerusalem • Fly a Prince over Iraq • Hide in the Taj Mahal for the night • Climb Mount Fuji • Explore lost cities ...and so much more!


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February 15, 2019
If you've ever dreamed of adopting a puppy that was once owned by a Pro Bowl wide receiver, you have weird dreams — and you're in luck.
Green Leaf Pet Resort, a New Jersey pet daycare in Millstone Township, Monmouth County, has 10 puppies up for adoption right now from Odell Beckham Jr.'s dog, Eris, a two-year-old canary mastiff.
The puppies were born on Dec. 4, according to Green Leaf, and they all have new names — for identification purposes, according to the daycare's website — but unfortunately none are named Eli.
Anyone interested in adopting one of Beckham's puppies can apply through Green Leaf's website with their name, phone number, email, and an explanation of why they would be a good owner.
Here's a video of the extremely good pups:
This time, your stance on the Eagles vs. Giants rivalry doesn't matter: Those are good dogs.
And, if you need to clear your conscience about (distantly) supporting a Giants player, a portion of the proceeds from the sales will go towards Prisoners Assisting Warrior Services, a foundation training rescue dogs in Louisiana.
The jury is still out on whether these dogs can make incredible one-pawed catches, or will try to attack a kicking net.
Follow Adam & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @adamwhermann | @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Add Adam's RSS feed to your feed reader
Have a news tip? Let us know.


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What is your current job and how long have you been doing it for?
I work as an analyst at BWCI Group as part of an actuarial team focusing on pension schemes. I've worked at BWCI for 3 years.
What does a typical day at the office look like for you?
My work generally revolves around doing actuarial calculations, checking actuarial calculations and drafting reports for clients. Over the past 6 months I have also started to assist with new business development and marketing.
Some days can be spent entirely with numbers others can be spent emailing and attending meetings. It depends how the day is going as to which I prefer!
If you weren't doing your current job what would you like to do?
Astronaut. But I'm keeping my options open.
What was your first job?
Compliance assistant for a local stockbroker.
How long have you been involved in YBG and what have you got out of being a member?
I have been a member for 1 year now and helped out with the Christmas parade before joining. The thing I most enjoy is talking to people from other industries outside finance. It's interesting to learn of all the other great business in Guernsey.
What is your favourite thing to do in Guernsey?
Watching the sea. If I am having a bad day just sitting watching the waves break for 5 minutes makes everything seem better.
Which three people would you have at your dinner table and why?
Queen Elizabeth I – One of the most powerful women in history and the last of the Tudors. She reigned during an interesting point in world history and I always found her life fascinating, I'd be interested to see what she was like.
Michael Palin – I love Monty Python and his travel documentaries always inspired me to find out more about other cultures.
Sundar Pichai – He is the CEO of Google. I'd be interested to see what he thinks the future holds and any tips he has on leadership.


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Welcome to the Writing Center's self-paced APA modules. These modules cover APA reference formatting and citation formatting and style rules, as well as an overall introduction to APA style:
Click "I'm ready to start learning!" to begin a module.
Watch the module preview video below to learn more about what to expect in the Introduction APA Style module!
Note that this video was created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.
In this module you will learn why Walden students use APA style and how APA style helps writers create clarity and cite sources in their writing. This module is a good fit for students new to academic writing or APA style.
This module should take you 20 minutes to complete.
If you have questions or technical issues at any point, review the instructions for accessing modules and e-mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Didn't find what you need? Search our website or email us.


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Video Traffic Genie Review
Firstly let me point out that this product Video Traffic Genie is from a guy I respect, Paul Venables, but these days to have a really successful launch many marketers feel the need to partner up with a Video Guru ( make of that what you will) in this case: Joshua Zamorra.
I don't give a darn! I buy a product, test it and, if I like it, it shows up here.
OTO's AND SALES FUNNEL DETAILS
- All Features of VTG Pro
- Unlock our Powerful Whale Finder
- Unlock our Powerful Whois Checker
- Unlock Unlimited API Keys
- Unlock all our Syndication Integrations
I'm unclear as to why this is necessary. Guess I missed something – at around $47 as a quarterly recurring payment.
The next 2 Upsells are J. Zamorra products:
OTO 2 – SyndLab – $27/Month or $77/Bi-yearly)
OTO 3 – SyndBuddy – $147-$197)
Which, as I understand them, are Social Media apps to increase web presence. I don't see how they are relevant to Main Offer but no reason why they should be I guess.


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By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series kicked off the final race day of the 2018 season with a pair of practice sessions on Friday morning at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Championship contender Johnny Sauter paced the opening 50-minute practice session in the No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a lap at 170.465 mph as 30 trucks recorded a time. Fellow championship contender Brett Moffitt was third in the No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota. Justin Haley was sixth in the No. 24 GMS Racing Chevrolet and Noah Gragson was 11th in the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota.
Final practice was paced by Haley at 167.141 mph with Gragson close behind in the second spot at 166.898 mph. Moffitt was 16th on the chart with a lap at 162.935 mph with Sauter 20th at 161.449 mph. 31 trucks turned a lap in the final session.
"I have some things we can work on, but we're good boys," Haley radioed the team as they wrapped up the final practice session.
As for Gragson, he tweeted on Friday morning, saying: "November 16th, 2018. The biggest day of my career thus far. Today is not about me, but about Safelite, Toyota, Kyle Busch Motorsports and all the people who have helped get me to this point in my career. Today is for you guys. Let's go get this trophy."
2018 ARCA Racing Series champion Sheldon Creed was fourth quick in the No. 2 GMS Racing Chevrolet. Creed is making his fifth Truck Series start of the season and is slated to run the full schedule with GMS in 2019.
Don't put too much stock in practice speeds though as not all teams made mock qualifying runs during the sessions. Qualifying is two rounds and will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET to set the 32-truck field.
Coverage of Friday night's Ford EcoBoost 200 will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1 with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Stages 1 and 2 will be 30 laps each with the final stage distance of 74 laps.
Full practice results from both sessions can be found below and Motorsports Tribune will have live coverage of all the championship action from Homestead-Miami Speedway throughout the weekend.
First Truck Series Practice Results


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Zebra Medical Vision, an Israel-based startup that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help read medical scans, will collaborate with
HealthNet Global (HNG), a part of the Indian hospital network Apollo Hospitals Group, to deploy its technology across the country and jointly develop applications suitable for the Indian market, including screening for tuberculosis.
Both the companies have also received funding grant from India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F), which was announced in July 2017 to promote joint R&D projects for the $4.9 million project.
HNG and Zebra will co-develop an AI-based chest X-ray interpretation tool for Tuberculosis (TB) which can help doctors better screen for the disease. The collaboration will provide clinical validation, and evidence of the efficacy of radiology Al based tools in India.
The final developed project will be able to assist as a primary screening method for major diseases in large scale screenings. For example, World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 3.6 million people with TB are missed by health systems every year and do not receive adequate care. This is primarily because patients with TB may present with mild or no symptoms, particularly early on. Many affected people arrive at clinics too late with advanced disease or multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), which is difficult to treat and more likely to cause death. One of the key strategies to tackling TB is early diagnosis. Unfortunately, sputum testing is only 50% accurate and frequently misses the disease in its early stages. Both companies will focus on development of AI-based Chest X-ray interpretation tool for TB which can help address the gap.
Speaking of the initiative, Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals said, "When it comes to health, the promise of AI to provide access and improve outcomes in very intriguing. There is a critical need to provide good healthcare access in remote and rural communities, and we believe this initiative will allow us the opportunity to make significant advances in this area. Apollo's clinical and scientific depth and Zebra-Med's expertise in AI complement each other perfectly. This project is part of our continuing endeavor to design new tools to improve healthcare access and deliver best outcomes to patients at lower cost."
Eyal Gura, Co-founder and CEO of Zebra, said, " We are excited to partner with the leading healthcare services provider in India and to help bring AI to India at such a scale. When we met the Indian team for the first time few years ago we found common ground and similar dream of scaling healthcare from millions to billions of patients. We are honored that the two governments have placed their trust in us and we are committed to utilize this opportunity to impact millions of lives."
Zebra Medical Vision was founded in 2014 by Eyal Toledano, Eyal Gura, and Elad Benjamin and funded by Khosla Ventures, Marc Benioff, Intermountain Investment Fund, OurCrowd Qure, Aurum, aMoon, Nvidia, J&J, and Dolby Ventures.
To recall, last year in August Israel's Sasha Infrastructure had joined hands with BSE Institute, a wholly owned subsidiary of leading stock exchange BSE, to promote startups and entrepreneurs in the domain of water conservation and technology.
Source - Business Wire , Zebra Med Blog


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The "Protecting Consumer Privacy" framework report is available: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2010/12/101201privacyreport.pdf They ask a lot of questions (and looking for feedback) on pages 94 to 99, such as: - Are there reliable methods for determining whether a particular data set is "linkable" or may become "linkable"? - What technical measures exist to "anonymize" data and are any industry norms emerging in this area? And for "do not track": - How can such a mechanism be offered to consumers and publicized? - How can such a mechanism be designed to be clear, easy-to-find, usable, and understandable to consumers? Perhaps the authors should be invited to: http://www.iab.org/about/workshops/privacy/ Cheers Renato Iannella http://renato.iannella.itReceived on Thursday, 2 December 2010 03:52:25 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Friday, 17 January 2020 16:46:22 UTC


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The rapid rate at which many startups rise, fall then disappear into entrepreneurial oblivion can be attributed to a number of different reasons.
Perhaps the company failed to solve a real problem or maybe a primary investment fell through. However, one of the most if not the most prominent reasons a startup may never live up to its potential is through failing to become essential.
Companies that are unable to rival their competitors will always be destined for short shelf lives and that is why Dror Ginzberg, the CEO and co-founder of Wochit designed an offering that could not be surpassed.
Wochit, an online video creation platform, was founded in 2012 and has been embraced by some of the world's largest media companies since its inception.
Ginzberg explains what specific tactics have allowed Wochit to thrive and what it takes to become essential.
With the quick and rampant rise of video, how has Wochit successfully utilized this momentum and integrated itself into the narrative?
I've been working with online video really since its advent, which enabled me to get ahead of this momentum and use it as a wind in our sails. We identified social video as our focus and, with the big social networks prioritizing it, it has become a priority for every publisher and media company. We've been keeping an eye toward the future and always aim to be first-to-market with new features that allow our customers to leverage trends that drive their growth.
The need for video content spans across many industries and professions. However, is there one specific sector Wochit tries to reach out to and attain users from?
Wochit is primarily a platform created for media companies and other larger content publishers who are looking to produce engaging content at scale that can be distributed across owned and operated sites as well as channels like Instagram and Facebook, where posts can easily be modified to fit the "right" format for each.
We work with a lot of large publications like USA Today and the full suite of Time Inc. brands such as HelloGiggles. We're also seeing more brands of other varieties. For example, non-profit organizations like The Salvation Army and Change.org use our platform, and increasingly we're having conversations with consumer brands for whom video is an increasingly essential tactic in their content marketing strategy.
Our sweet spot is short-form, info-bite-type content with either narration - a service we provide - or text overlays, also part of our toolset. The content in our library, all pre-cleared so that publishers don't need to chase legal approvals or jump through red tape, covers areas like news and entertainment, and we're increasingly adding material from international providers to meet the needs of organizations worldwide.
With this aforementioned widespread appeal of Wochit's offering, which of the company's many value props are most highly advertised and spotlighted?
I'd have to say our most valuable value ad is everything we do and provide around social. We have specialized tools that make optimization for distribution easier, an otherwise daunting proposition given the range of formats and other nuances that vary from platform to platform. In 2016, we added social content to our library. Now that a single tweet can set the news agenda for the week, seamless, real-time access to this content is a huge bonus.
Our first social content integration was with Twitter, and now over 25 percent of all videos made on our platform include at least one tweet. The most shared so far is the AP tweet declaring Donald Trump the next President of the United States. That one tweet was used by a lot of our publisher partners.
How is Wochit able to compete with companies offering similar services?
Again, we've really differentiated ourselves with our social-related toolset and our content library, but perhaps even more importantly is the way we approach automation. While other platforms have gone totally automated, it's our opinion that the videos resulting look the same. We refer to our offering as semi-automated. This allows for a publication's brand personality to show through. As so many of their videos will be viewed off branded sites, brands view this custom feature as critical to brand recognition - regardless of where it is viewed - and ultimately audience growth. All brands, newsrooms and journalists offer their own signature spins - our platform explicitly encourages this type of unique production.
What would you say to entrepreneurs whose startup focuses on a very on-trend offering in terms of how to best capitalize on its current popularity?
Well, I'm hoping they started the startup before the offering was on trend, as first mover advantage is exactly that - an advantage. Still, there are plenty of examples of companies who weren't first that end up being the leader in their area. Facebook might be the best possible example of this. And what did Facebook do that made them take over the Friendsters and MySpaces who preceded them in the on-trend social networking space? They made themselves invaluable to their users.
Any entrepreneur should always be thinking about what he or she can do to make their customers happier and their service more essential. The more your users incorporate whatever product or service into their lives, the harder it will be for them to leave you for a competitor.
What can we expect to see next from Wochit?
More and easier everything? Really, our development focus is across a couple different lines. Automation - in the form of AI - is already present in our platform and continues to be a priority where it proves to benefit our clients. We are especially committed to help publishers take advantage of the social video trend in the various social networks. Plus, we continue to increase our library of assets - images, videos, social posts and whatever the future brings. This enables more media companies from around the world to leverage our platform to make content relevant to their audiences.
Third, we look to support publishers and media companies, for example another area we're working on is mobile journalism. When journalists are on the field with only their cell phones, we'd like to make their job easier and facilitate the availability of great local content in real time - on video.
Dror Ginzberg has over 25 years of experience in technology with a focus on video and related technologies. As CEO of Wochit, the video-creation platform he co-founded in 2012 that's used by journalistic storytellers such as newsrooms, media brands, publishers and professional bloggers, Ginzberg is enabling production of high-quality content at the scale and speed needed to meet today's rapidly-increasing demand.


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Maintaining cleanliness in offices, factories and industrial settings is as important, if not more, as is keeping your homes clean and tidy. Cleanliness is not just important for the sake of hygiene but also important for maintaining proper workplace safety. Read on to know more about how you can use different industrial cleaners to effectively maintain cleanliness in your factories, ...Read More »
Home » Tag Archives: industrial cleaners


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The F-15 Eagle is the latest jet fighter to receive the alternative fuels treatment, flying October 22 on a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and an alternative—in this case made from specially processed animal fat: beef tallow bio-jet fuel.
Already, nearly the entire fleet of 40-plus aircraft flown by the U.S. Air Force has been certified to fly on jet fuels made from natural gas or coal—the exceptions being the drone aircraft that have been too busy abroad to be tested at home. The goal: "by 2016, to be able to replace up to half of the fuel used Air Force wide with an alternative blend that was both cost-competitive and had no worse greenhouse gas footprint than petroleum products," says Jeff Braun, chief of the Air Force's alternative fuels certification division.
Nor is the U.S. Air Force alone in this effort. The U.S. Navy has flown its F-18 Hornet on jet fuel derived from the oil seeds of the camelina plant—a weedy flower related to mustard. And the U.S. Army hopes to turn its trash into fuel in an effort to cut down on vulnerable supply lines. "This effort is very harmonized with not only other services but also commercial airlines," Braun says. "As much fuel as we burn, we only represent a small commercial airline."
The new fuels perform as well or better than conventional fuel in terms of energy density and other metrics, though they lack the aromatic compounds of conventionally derived kerosene. The aromatics in petroleum-derived kerosene help swell shut seals in conventional engines and the bio-jet fuel's lack of them, among other things, necessitates blending with conventional jet fuel. Nevertheless, the alternative jet fuels are fully interchangeable in fueling infrastructure, according to Betty Rodriguez, chief engineer of the Air Force's alternative fuels certification division.
In fact, the problem with the U.S. military's efforts seems not to be the alternative fuels themselves but rather the production of such fuels from oils and crops in the volume necessary to replace a fraction of the 800 million gallons consumed by the U.S. Air Force alone. "We don't have control over whether people are going to grow camelina," says chemical engineer Tim Edwards of the Air Force's research lab. "Asking for 1,000 gallons of fuel scares people off."
Plus, biofuels come with their own issues, such as displacing food crops. And turning animal feed into cow fat and then turning that beef tallow into a jet fuel is an energy-inefficient process; it takes roughly three kilograms of feed for a cow to gain less than half a kilogram in weight.
Regardless, the Air Force has already requisitioned roughly 40,000 gallons of the bio-jet fuel (known as hydrotreated renewable jet or HRJ) as well as 700,000 gallons of fuels derived by the Fischer-Tropsch process from natural gas or coal. The ongoing testing of the HRJ will require flights in an F-22 and a Global Hawk, to test the fuel's ability to withstand both the hot flying of a fighter jet and the long, cold sorties at 60,000 feet favored by unmanned aircraft. Not to be outdone, the Navy tested on October 22 a boat fueled by a blend of conventional diesel as well as "Green Diesel" made from oil derived from algae such as the boat might otherwise plow through.
"Fatted Eagle" Joins "Green Hornet" in U.S. Military's Alternative Fuels Fighter Fleet
Can the military go green with jet fuel?
The F-15 Eagle is the latest jet fighter to receive the alternative fuels treatment, flying October 22 on a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and an alternative—in this case made from specially processed animal fat: beef tallow bio-jet fuel.


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Efficiency and beyond
The efficient-markets hypothesis has underpinned many of the financial industry's models for years. After the crash, what remains of it?
Illustration by Brett Ryder
IN 1978 Michael Jensen, an American economist, boldly declared that "there is no other proposition in economics which has more solid empirical evidence supporting it than the efficient-markets hypothesis" (EMH). That was quite a claim. The theory's origins went back to the beginning of the century, but it had come to prominence only a decade or so before. Eugene Fama, of the University of Chicago, defined its essence: that the price of a financial asset reflects all available information that is relevant to its value.
From that idea powerful conclusions were drawn, not least on Wall Street. If the EMH held, then markets would price financial assets broadly correctly. Deviations from equilibrium values could not last for long. If the price of a share, say, was too low, well-informed investors would buy it and make a killing. If it looked too dear, they could sell or short it and make money that way. It also followed that bubbles could not form—or, at any rate, could not last: some wise investor would spot them and pop them. And trying to beat the market was a fool's errand for almost everyone. If the information was out there, it was already in the price.
On such ideas, and on the complex mathematics that described them, was founded the Wall Street profession of financial engineering. The engineers designed derivatives and securitisations, from simple interest-rate options to ever more intricate credit-default swaps and collateralised debt obligations. All the while, confident in the theoretical underpinnings of their inventions, they reassured any doubters that all this activity was not just making bankers rich. It was making the financial system safer and the economy healthier.
That is why many people view the financial crisis that began in 2007 as a devastating blow to the credibility not only of banks but also of the entire academic discipline of financial economics. That verdict is too simple. Granted, financial economists helped to start the bankers' party, and some joined in with gusto. But even when the EMH still seemed fresh, economists were picking holes in it. A strand of sceptical thought, behavioural economics, has been booming. There are even signs of a synthesis between the EMH and the sceptics. Academia thus moved on, even if Wall Street did not. Nonetheless, the extent to which politicians and regulators trying to reform finance can trust financial economists is an open question.
The EMH, to be sure, has loyal defenders. "There are models, and there are those who use the models," says Myron Scholes, who in 1997 won the Nobel prize in economics for his part in creating the most widely used model in the finance industry—the Black-Scholes formula for pricing options. Mr Scholes thinks much of the blame for the recent woe should be pinned not on economists' theories and models but on those on Wall Street and in the City who pushed them too far in practice.
Financial firms plugged in data that reflected a "view of the world that was far more benign than it was reasonable to take, emphasising recent inputs over more historic numbers," says Mr Scholes. "Apparently, a lot of the models used for structured products were pretty good, but the inputs were awful." Indeed, the vast majority of derivative contracts and securitisations have performed exactly as their models said they would. It was the exceptions that proved disastrous.
Mr Scholes knows whereof he speaks. Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), a hedge fund he founded with, among others, Robert Merton, a fellow Nobel laureate, skidded off the road in 1998. Since then, he has been pointing out dangers ignored or underestimated in the finance industry, such as the risk that liquid markets can dry up far faster than is typically assumed. (That did not stop Platinum Grove, the latest hedge fund in which he is involved, taking a big hit during the recent meltdown.)
He has also been "criticising for years" the "value-at-risk" (VAR) models used by institutional investors to work out how much capital they need to set aside as insurance against losses on risky assets. These models mistakenly assume that the volatility of asset prices and the correlations between prices are constant, says Mr Scholes. When, say, two types of asset were assumed to be uncorrelated, investors felt able to hold the same capital as a cushion against losses on both, because they would not lose on both at the same time. However, as Mr Scholes discovered at LTCM and as the entire finance industry has now learnt for itself, at times of market stress assets that normally are uncorrelated can suddenly become highly correlated. At that point the capital buffer implied by VAR turns out to be woefully inadequate.
Even as financial engineers were designing all sorts of clever products on the assumption that markets were efficient, academic economists were focusing more on how markets fall short. Even before the 1987 stockmarket crash gave them their first real-world reminder of markets' capriciousness, some of them were examining the flaws in the theory.
In 1980 Sanford Grossman and Joseph Stiglitz, another subsequent winner of a Nobel prize, pointed out a paradox. If prices reflect all information, then there is no gain from going to the trouble of gathering it, so no one will. A little inefficiency is necessary to give informed investors an incentive to drive prices towards efficiency. For Mr Scholes, it is the belief that markets tend to return prices to their efficient equilibrium when they move away from it that gives the EMH its continuing relevance.
Economists also began to study "institutional frictions" in markets. For instance, the EMH's devotees had assumed that smart investors would be able to trade against less well-informed "noise traders" and overwhelm them by driving prices to reflect true value. But it became clear that there were limits to their ability to arbitrage folly away. Andrei Shleifer, a Harvard economist, among others, pointed out that it could be too costly for informed investors to borrow enough to bet against the noise traders. Once it is admitted that prices can move away from fundamentals for a long time, informed investors may do best by riding the trend rather than fighting it. The trick then is to get out just before momentum shifts the other way. But in this world, rational investors may contribute to bubbles rather than preventing them.
In the early years of the EMH, researchers spent little time worrying about the workings of financial institutions—a weakness of macroeconomics too. In 2000, in his presidential address to the American Finance Association, Franklin Allen, of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, asked: "Do financial institutions matter?" Lay people, he said, "might be surprised to learn that institutions play little role in financial theory." Indeed they might. Mr Allen's explanation was partly that the dominant theories had been shaped at a time when America, especially, was spared financial crises.
Illustration by Brett Ryder
In the past decade or so, financial economists have been paying more attention to institutional questions, such as how bankers should be paid. Many of these researchers broadly accept the EMH, but see their role as uncovering sources of inefficiency that can be addressed to make markets more efficient.
However, a second branch of financial economics is far more sceptical about markets' inherent rationality. Behavioural economics, which applies the insights of psychology to finance, has boomed in the past decade. In particular, behavioural economists have argued that human beings tend to be too confident of their own abilities and tend to extrapolate recent trends into the future, a combination that may contribute to bubbles. There is also evidence that losses can make investors extremely, irrationally risk-averse—exaggerating price falls when a bubble bursts.
Behavioural economists were among the first to sound the alarm about trouble in the markets. Notably, Robert Shiller of Yale gave an early warning that America's housing market was dangerously overvalued. This was his second prescient call. In the 1990s his concerns about the bubbliness of the stockmarket had prompted Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, to wonder if the heady share prices of the day were the result of investors' "irrational exuberance". The title of Mr Shiller's latest book, "Animal Spirits" (written with George Akerlof, of the University of California, Berkeley), is taken from John Maynard Keynes's description of the quirky psychological forces shaping markets. It argues that macroeconomics, too, should draw lessons from psychology.
"In some ways, we behavioural economists have won by default, because we have been less arrogant," says Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, one of the pioneers of behavioural finance. Those who denied that prices could get out of line, or ever have bubbles, "look foolish". Mr Scholes, however, insists that the efficient-market paradigm is not dead: "To say something has failed you have to have something to replace it, and so far we don't have a new paradigm to replace efficient markets." The trouble with behavioural economics, he adds, is that "it really hasn't shown in aggregate how it affects prices."
Yet EMH-ers and behaviouralists are increasingly asking the same questions and drawing on each other's ideas. For instance, Mr Thaler concedes that in some ways the events of the past couple of years have strengthened the EMH. The hypothesis has two parts, he says: the "no-free-lunch part and the price-is-right part, and if anything the first part has been strengthened as we have learned that some investment strategies are riskier than they look and it really is difficult to beat the market." The idea that the market price is the right price, however, has been badly dented.
Mr Thaler also says that only some of the recent problems were behavioural. Many were due to things that are open to non-behavioural economics, "like better risk analysis, how we identify hidden correlations." It will be no surprise if, thanks to the catalytic power of the bubble and market meltdown, the distinctions between the two camps disappear and a new paradigm emerges.
One economist leading the effort to define that new paradigm is Andrew Lo, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who sees merit in both the rational and behavioural views. He has tried to reconcile them in the "adaptive markets hypothesis", which supposes that humans are neither fully rational nor psychologically unhinged. Instead, they work by making best guesses and by trial and error. If one investment strategy fails, they try another. If it works, they stick with it. Mr Lo borrows heavily from evolutionary science. He does not see markets as efficient in Mr Fama's sense, but thinks they are fiercely competitive. Because the "ecology" changes over time, people make mistakes when adapting. Old strategies become obsolete and new ones are called for.
The finance industry is in the midst of a transformative period of evolution, and financial economists have a huge agenda to tackle. They should do so quickly, given the determination of politicians to overhaul the regulation of financial markets.
One task, also of interest to macroeconomists, is to work out what central bankers should do about bubbles—now that it is plain that they do occur and can cause great damage when they burst. Not even behaviouralists such as Mr Thaler would want to see, say, the Fed trying to set prices in financial markets. He does see an opportunity, however, for governments to "lean into the wind a little more" to reduce the volatility of bubbles and crashes. For instance, when guaranteeing home loans, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, America's giant mortgage companies, could be required to demand higher down-payments as a proportion of the purchase price, the higher house prices are relative to rents.
Another priority is to get a better understanding of systemic risk, which Messrs Scholes and Thaler agree has been seriously underestimated. A lot of risk-managers in financial firms believed their risk was perfectly controlled, says Mr Scholes, "but they needed to know what everyone else was doing, to see the aggregate picture." It turned out that everyone was doing very similar things. So when their VAR models started telling them to sell, they all did—driving prices down further and triggering further model-driven selling.
Several countries now expect to introduce a systemic-risk regulator. Financial economists may have useful advice to offer. Many of them see information as crucial. Data should be collected from individual firms and aggregated. The overall data should then be published. That would be better, they think, than a system based solely on the micromanagement of individual institutions deemed systemically significant. Mr Scholes favours relying less on VAR to calculate capital reserves against losses. Instead, each category of asset should have its own risk-capital reserves, which could not be shared with other assets, even if prices had not been correlated in the past. As experience shows, correlations can change suddenly.
Financial economists also need better theories of why liquid markets suddenly become illiquid and of how to manage the risk of "moral hazard"—the danger that the existence of government regulation and safety nets encourages market participants to take bigger risks than they might otherwise have done. The sorry consequences of letting Lehman Brothers fail, which was intended to discourage moral hazard, showed that the middle of a crisis is not the time to get tough. But when is?
Mr Lo has a novel idea for future crises: creating a financial equivalent of the National Transport Safety Board, which investigates every civil-aviation crash in America. He would like similar independent, after-the-fact scrutiny of every financial failure, to see what caused it and what lessons could be learned. Not the least of the difficulties in the continuing crisis is working out exactly what went wrong and why—and who, including financial economists, should take the blame.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Efficiency and beyond"
From the July 18th 2009 edition
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|David Kastrup
|Re: Since AUCTeX installation, Gnus won't post on any Usenet group
|Tue, 04 May 2010 15:45:12 -0000
|Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.92 (gnu/linux)
Merciadri Luca <firstname.lastname@example.com> writes: > On Apr 18, 5:32 pm, Ralf Angeli <dev.n...@caeruleus.net> wrote: >> * Merciadri Luca (2010-04-18) writes: >> >> >> >> > The only thing I have changed in my whole Emacs & Gnus config. is that >> > I installed, some days ago, AUCTeX. Everything went right, and, even >> > the installation's day, Gnus accepted to send articles on Usenet. Now, >> > it won't do anything like that. Why? I changed nothing. >> >> > Here is what I appended to my .emacs after having installed AUCTeX >> > with preview-latex. (I have also tried by removing these lines from >> > the .emacs, which does not change Gnus' behaviour.) >> >> > == >> > (setq load-path (cons "~/auctex-11.86/" load-path)) >> > (setq load-path (cons "~/auctex-11.86/preview/" load-path)) >> >> > (load "~/auctex-11.86/auctex.el" nil t t) >> > (load "~/auctex-11.86/preview/preview-latex.el" nil t t) >> > == >> >> It should not be necessary to add the `preview' subdirectory to >> `load-path' if you installed AUCTeX correctly. Since preview-latex.el >> is still in the `preview' subdirectory, I presume you did not run `make >> install' as described in the installation instructions of AUCTeX. > I did what was necessary: ./configure, make, make install. I just > added these directories because I thought they were necessary. That sounds like you added the compilation directories of AUCTeX to the load path, a really bad idea. And that you manually loaded the AUCTeX files from the uninstalled files in the compilation directories. Also a really bad idea. Is there a reason you don't follow the installation instructions? > Actually, I think that AUCTeX is redefining some commands and > shortcuts that are also used in Gnus. How could I modify the AUCTeX's > shortcuts? I don't think that is the case. You could try M-x list-load-path-shadows RET in order to see whether you borked your installation with duplicate files. -- David Kastrup
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CGH Earth's Visalam, a passionately-restored 19th century palatial home, is ideal for those who want to experience a period-style milieu. Located in the Kanadukathan village of Chettinad region in Tamil Nadu, this home is built with features that encapsulate the cultural facets of Chettinad. The mansion showcases the life and times of the wealthy trading community of Chettiars and was built with traditional grandeur by KVAL Ramanathan Chettiar for his eldest daughter, Visalakshi, over a century ago.
At Visalam, every little detail of the past is carefully preserved. You'll be welcomed by its ornate doorways, marble platforms, woodworked ceilings and patterned Athangudi-tiled floors. Visalam's rooms are large in size with high ceilings and adorned with period-style furniture that's flawlessly crafted from the finest Burma teak. Walk a few steps around the mansion, and it begins to feel like a place that revels in its stillness. Today, Visalam is a celebrated residence of character that transports you into a period bygone. Thanks to many skilled and specialized artisans of the Chettinad region like tile-makers, weavers, carpenters, stone workers – who with their talent and knowledge have helped restore the glory of this 100-year old mansion.
Chettinad cuisine's unique character comes from its blend of south-east Asian spices and Indian ingredients. On your visit, don't miss the famed Chettinad Thali. At Visalam, the ritual of cooking is nothing less than a celebration. The food is cooked by the local chefs in century-old brass vessels that were originally bought to be given away as dowry to the groom's household. Guests can partake in the interactive cooking demonstration conducted by the expert Aachi (grandmother) in Visalam's kitchen during their stay, and even pick up culinary secrets that lie behind this famed South Indian cuisine.
Chettinad regales the world with its brilliant architecture. Owe it to the fact that it is home to numerous disintegrating mansions that were built many decades ago by prosperous merchants, who generally lived overseas, but built in their home area as a sign of their affluence. While the mansions are one facet of the town's architecture, the other is its temples.
Visalam's earthy lanes are lined with temples that embody the majestic architecture of the era of the Chola kings. Most notably, the ancient 1800-year old Pallayiar Patti temple is a short ride away. The effort that's gone into creating these relics is conspicuous in the intricate carvings on pillars and colourful idols of Gods. What you'll find interesting is, most of the village activities are centered around the temple.
Whether it's the mansions or the temples, the best way to get familiar with them is by going on a cycle ride or hitching a ride on a bullock cart. So as you wander through the town, you'll find yourself journeying back in time, through a heritage that's in its full glory.
As you go about discovering, there are many stories you can be a part of, in Chettinad. You can also make some great buys and bargains on handicraft, jewellery, sculpture and woodwork, that are even today the cultural leitmotif of this dynamic merchant community.
Visalam is 85 km from Tiruchirapalli International Airport and 90 km from Madurai Airport. On that note, Visalam is not just a mansion of the past, but a story that one could blend in.
To know more about Visalam, visit www.cghearth.com/visalam or write to us at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow CGH Earth on Facebook, Instagram &


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Below are some images of what new stamps for the U.S. Postal Service are going to look that honor people who have earned the nation's highest honor for valor and courage. There aren't many left but the Postal Service wants to honor those earned the MOH in World War II who are still living. Good idea.
Here's the Postal Service's Press Release:
More than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War II; 464 were singled out to receive the Medal of Honor. Of that, nearly half died as a result of their heroic actions to receive the honor posthumously. Only nine are alive today. The Postal Service is issuing the stamps depicting the Medals of Honor and including photographs of the living recipients on the stamp sheet as an appropriate way to recognize the living while still paying respect to all 464 recipients whose names are included in the Medal of Honor World War II Forever stamp prestige folio.
Pictured (clockwise from top left) are Charles H. Coolidge of Chattanooga, TN (video); Francis S. Currey of Selkirk, NY; Walter D. Ehlers of Buena Park, CA (video); John D. Hawk of Bremerton, WA (video); Daniel K. Inouye of Honolulu, HI;Robert D. Maxwell of Bend, OR (video); Vernon McGarity of Memphis, TN;Nicholas Oresko of Creskill, NJ (video); Wilburn K. Ross of Dupont, WA; andGeorge T. Sakato of Denver, CO (video), all of whom served with the U.S. Army.Arthur J. Jackson of Boise, ID (video); and Hershel W. Williams of Ona, WV (video); served with the U.S. Marine Corps.
Sadly, Senator Daniel K. Inouye and Vernon McGarity died before the stamps could be issued, as did Nicholas Oresko, who died after the stamps were printed. Their photographs are still included, as they remain among the last representatives of a remarkable group whose courage and devotion we honor with this issuance.


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All modern web browsers (the programmes used to access websites) let you zoom in and out of the page in a similar way (see below). You can also adjust the size of the text without zooming the whole page, and each browser has different steps for this.
Zooming in/out of webpages (PC and Mac)
- Press [Ctrl] + [+] (plus) to zoom in.
- Press [Ctrl] + [-] (minus) to zoom out.
- Press [Ctrl] + [0] (zero) to reset to 100%.
On the Mac use [⌘] instead of [Ctrl].
Adjusting text size only (PC and Mac)
Internet Explorer 9
- Press [Alt] once to make the menu bar visible.
- From the menu bar, select View > Text Size… and your desired size option.
- From the menu bar, select View > Zoom > Zoom Text Only.
- Use the usual zooming controls to change the text size.
- Repeat step 1 to deactivate text zooming.
- From the menu icon (three horizontal lines top right), select Settings.
- Click Show advanced settings, near the bottom of the page.
- Under the heading Web content change the Font size using the drop down menu.
- From the menu bar, select View > Zoom Text Only.
- Use the usual zooming controls to change the text size.
- Repeat step 1 to deactivate text zooming.
Reading view (Tablets and Mobile)
Some mobile devices, for some websites, offer 'reading view'. This is normally indicated with a green icon near the web address bar either as a book or spectacles icon. Clicking this icon will attempt to focus in on the main text on a web page and remove extraneous clutter. The following Apps we've found include reading view:
- Firefox App (grey open book icon next to web address)
- Opera and Opera Mini Apps (within settings, choose 'single column view')
- In-built browser for Android (green R icon next to web address)
- In-built browser for iOS (Safari on iPad and iPhone) (grey Reader button next to web address)
- Amazon Silk browser for Kindle Fire (green spectacles icon next to web address)
Useful links
- Text Guide: Making text larger on web browsers


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MISSOULA — A black bear has been spotted near Washington Grizzly Stadium on the University of Montana campus.
The University of Montana Police Department (UMPD) sent out an alert about the incident at approximately 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
A UMPD officer saw the black bear along Campus Drive headed toward the stadium.
The animal does not appear to be acting aggressively, according to the UMPD alert.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) will be informed of the incident.