text: This Spokane home was recently purchased by a scientist who has a vision for what her home should look like. In addition to a complete interior remodel, a new roof was on her "to do" list. Here is her new IKO Cambridge Lifetime roof in the color Harvard Slate. We also installed a 14″ Sun Tunnel in the kitchen to provide some much needed light. Call (509) 688-4480 for a free estimate on your new roof installation.


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Deborah Freedman's book, This House Once, comes out next Tuesday, February 28th. To help celebrate, Deborah has stopped by my blog to talk about the book and what else she's been up to. Enjoy!
Hey Deborah! Thanks for joining me here to talk about all you have in store!
Hello, Dylan — I'm honored to be here!
Tell us a little bit about your new book, This House Once.
It is a meditation on a house and where its different parts came from. It's very quiet and cozy, and suggests that readers be mindful of all that surrounds them.
What inspired you to do this book? It's quite unique- and beautiful!
Thank you, Dylan! I've probably had this book in my head, at least unconsciously, ever since I trained as an architect over thirty years ago and learned about how buildings come together. After my daughters were born, I started playing around with children's books, and naturally began by drifting through ideas that had something to do with architecture. Then my husband and I eventually bought our first house — which we have since added on to and altered, a never-ending work in progress — so we have both been thinking and talking about houses and homes for a long time. Also, I've always loved to spend time walking in the woods, and digging and planting in my rocky New England yard…
So buildings, children, the natural world — basically those passions all simmered for years, until they finally bubbled up together and out spilled This House Once.
Have you always been into writing and illustrating?
I've loved to draw and make things ever since I was a kid — always the "artsy" type — which is why I eventually ended up in architecture. But making picturebooks is way more fun than designing buildings, and the audience is cooler. IMO.
What's the most exciting part of your job?
Connecting with my young readers. Nothing in my pre-published life prepared me for how moving that could be. Or how much they would make me smile!
What inspires your creativity?
Reading… looking at art… I majored in art history in college and have always loved to spend time in museums, almost always leaving them with some sort of spark. And, of course, I'm inspired by KIDS.
What is one thing that readers don't know about you, that only you could tell us?
I realized recently that several of my favorite childhood books have the word "house" in their titles: The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton; A House is a House for Me, by Mary Ann Hoberman; The Dolls' House, by Rumer Godden; the Little House books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder… it must mean something!
If you weren't writing books, what do you think you'd be doing?
Do I have to do something else? I don't want to do anything else!
What can readers expect from you in the future?
Hopefully, the unexpected… 🙂

subset: commoncrawl


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Embed Audio - WordPress
From Help Wiki
Embed audio files into your WordPress site
If you host your file on your site
(great for shorter recordings and .mp3)
- Make sure your audio file is in the .mp3 file format
- Use the Add Media button when editing your post or page and upload your audio file and Insert into post. This will automatically create an embedded audio player with transport controls to play/pause your audio track.
Host your audio offsite at SoundCloud
(good for higher quality/larger files)
- See the SoundCloud tutorial to embed an audio file using SoundCloud.com.
WordPress Tutorial
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- Image details - size, align, alt text, caption
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Why Latinos Need To Become Vegetarian
By Sandy Ordonez, Courtesy Veglatino.com
I don't want to sound like a preacher with this post. However, I care too much about my community to not be direct with you. You need to become a vegetarian or vegan. Not because eating meat is unethical, but because of your health.
Latinos have some of the highest rates of diabetes in the US. According to the Office of Minority Health, a national survey showed that Mexican-Americans are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be diagnosed with diabetes. TWICE! And this is only one of the many health problems we rank high in.
I have a theory of why this is. Back in our parent's homelands, traditional diets are balanced and the quality of food is different. In the United States, people's lifestyles change, causing an imbalance in that diet, and thus bringing all sorts of bad juju. Take the following into consideration:
MSG and an Unbalanced Traditional Cuisine
Lots of our food gets contaminated with MSG and fake ingredients. Do you think your abuelita back in the homeland was using seasoning with MSG? No way man! She was using fresh herbs and traditional cooking techniques. Have you ever noticed that, at least in NY, all "Spanish" food tastes the same? That's because most restaurants are using the same seasonings, all of which have MSG!
However, the biggest challenge is that our ancestors did not eat as much meat as us because it was either scarce or expensive. Traditional diets are generally healthy because they are an optimal balance of local food items to give your body the best energy, performance, and nutrients it needs. We totally mess them up living in the modern world that is filled with fast food and constant bad-for-you snacking.
Meat is Badly Produced
The meat in the United States is questionable. Why? Well because it comes from large scale, commercial farms that mass produce cattle, chicken, and other animals, in very unhealthy and unethical ways. How you raise animals directly impacts how it will affect humans. Pump them with antibiotics, you are getting those antibiotics. Treat them like badly, and the meat will be tainted with hormones that animals release when they are under stress.
If you need to eat meat, then spring for cage-free, free-range, vegetarian feed alternatives. Remember – a little meat goes a long way. Considering the health bills you will save on, its worth the investment. Your body is like a car engine. The cleaner the fuel, the cleaner it will burn, and the less pollution you will have to take care of.
Bad Treatment = Bad Energy
Karma. Yes, I'm totally throwing that card, particularly since our Catholic-influenced cultures makes it very clear that what you give, you get back. Come on, don't pretend all of us don't have a little mystical seed inside that was planted by our grandmothers.
The way that animals are treated in these commercial farms is horrible, almost nightmarish. Even our "animals are animals" family members would be horrified to see some of the practices that take place. When you are consuming meat, you are also consuming that negative energy.
The following video is very graphic, but I think its important to see what I'm describing. However, keep in mind, this is not even the worst video I've seen. I just didn't want to scare you guys too much.
Wisdom from the Oldest Living Cuban
It's hard for your body to digest meat. You are putting added stress, and thus more wear and tear on your body. Benito Martínez Abrogan, who at 126 was considered Cuba's oldest living person, said that his longevity was thanks to "a healthy diet of fresh vegetables, some meat and occasional consumption of alcohol." So, even for a fellow who migrated to Cuba in 1880, it was clear that eating less meat was healthier. Interesting, no?
I hope some of you will be inspired by this post, if not, then at least start paying attention to what you are consuming. We need to protect not only our political rights, but our food/consumer rights. The least we can be do is demand that the food we consume is healthy. My mother and great aunt died of pancreatic cancer at a very early age, and I wonder how much their diet influenced their health. Educate yourself and keep your family safe.
Follow VegLatino on Twitter @VegLatino[Photo By Megodenas]


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Undergraduate Journal of Global Citizenship
Article Title
True global citizenship must be found at all levels of human interaction. Individuals should be constantly evaluative of their own lives, government, and world, so as to allow for necessary change and not become preoccupied with apparently fixed ideals. Families and schools should help to foster an environment of broad, open, inclusive thinking to promote a world of interconnected individuals. Communities should hold town hall-style meetings, and local governments should bring in outside opinions. Governments should include personal stories from a diverse group to add perspective and keep debates grounded in real, current issues. On the national level, there should be equal rights for all, and society should embrace both similarities and differences, since we discover common ground in our similarities and learn from our differences. Through all of these different levels, there should be a universally accepted value in the common good that serves to promote the best life for all.
Recommended Citation
Smith, Melanie
"The Levels of Global Citizenship,"
Undergraduate Journal of Global Citizenship: Vol. 1:
2, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/jogc/vol1/iss2/1


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We all start blogging with a plethora of brimming and bubbling fresh ideas, concepts and refreshing perspectives and with all the energy and zing in the world to get up and get going. This much is universally true. But sometimes along the way, and sometimes sooner rather than later we hit a sort of block where the heart wants to write but the mind struggles to coherently put down on paper what it thinks and perceives.
This has been my story for the last couple of weeks. It is not that the motivation, dedication or perseverance has fizzled out. Quite simply put, it's just that things have not quite come together cohesively. There are many a Word files containing blog posts on various topics but none of them have reached the level of complete fruition that would compel me to press the 'Publish' button. And I hate putting out half-hearted work and then have the nerve to ask you to spend your valuable time reading it.
A lot has happened in life in the last couple of weeks that has distracted me from focusing with a single minded approach on the blog. Work has gotten busy, the kids have been coming home with new research projects and tons of homework. All of which require my undivided attention.
Most heart breaking though is the news that my mother in law has just been diagnosed with Cancer and we are all grappling to come to terms with that. In retrospect though this event has brought glaringly to the forefront that we spend and mostly waste so much of our time focusing on ego issues and trivial nit picking on matters that are perhaps insignificant in the larger and wider scheme of life.
Trauma often brings the family closer as it has done for us. But if truth be told from the heart, I would rather have had the family come closer without this awful bitter pill of reality my mother in law is having to swallow and live with.
So, lately I've been doing more thinking than actual writing. But something suddenly clicked today which brought me back to my keyboard with fingers flying off the buttons penning down the thoughts as they arose rather than waiting for a divine moment of perfect synchronization to bestow its presence upon me.
These are just some of the things that have immensely helped me these last few weeks in emerging from the rock under which I was hidden.
Do not over-pressurize: We all know we shouldn't yet we all do. And sentences, one liners or advice like this always seem to ricochet in the opposite direction for me. The more I hear the words 'Do not pressurize', the more by brain construes it to mean 'Pressure, pressure, pressure…why aren't you still writing!' That is not a good place to be in at all specially when you are already grappling with a sort of writing inertia.
Though, a certain amount of restraint, pressure, timelines and schedules do keep me on track yet an overdose can have equally opposite results. Fact of the matter though is that most of this excess pressure is self created. And consequentially the only person who can ease the load of this burden is also 'me'. Once that realization hit, taking the pressure off of myself became that much easier.
Do not compare: Whether we like to publicly acknowledge it or not is a different matter. But the reality is that all of us have been guilty of the 'comparing' deed albeit to varying degrees and levels. Sometime comparing ourselves to others can give us the necessary impetus, motivation or zeal to surge ahead with our own lives and endeavor to transform and transcend our life goals from the intangible realm to the more tangible one. However an excess of even the healthiest principles of life can yield negative results.
And when, the mind is struggling to write and ideas seem to fall short, constant comparison is a catalyst that can trigger a chain reaction with undesirable consequences.
Persistently and repeatedly, punishing oneself at the altar of tracking other peoples work is a sinkhole that seldom if ever offers any reprieve or an exit. Each individual is unique in their own self. Some post daily, some weekly and some perhaps more intermittently. Each of their work is the sweet result of their own perseverance. Between time lags and quality, I believe quality definitely deserves more emphasis.
If you find yourself struggling to write or facing a momentary block, switch off from what other people are saying on doing. Dig deep down, and focus on the burning desire within that led you to write in the first place.
Do not let juxtaposed 'expectations' become your own: The importance of Social Media in all our lives can neither be denied not denigrated. But, equally important is the fact that it is extremely easy to get lost in the maze and haze that is social media. Write what you would like to write. And the words tend to flow faster on ideas that emerge from deep within. Choose topics that you would like to share your views on. And never jump on a bandwagon no matter how inviting it looks or simply out of the explanation that 'every one is doing it and so must I'.
Breathe: In today's modern day and age it is perhaps easier to get distracted much more than ever before. There is so much to do, see, hear and experience that we often forget to take a pause and breathe. The interim block, no doubt creates a feeling of frustration and helplessness as you stare at a ton of half finished blog posts. I have come to realize that frustration feeds off of frustration. When things get overwhelming, simply switch off and breathe. I've come back more refreshed.
Listen: In the shrill cacophony of a multitude of voices, opinions, do's and don'ts our own voices sometimes become slightly stifled and muted in response. Silence is perhaps a friend we often do not impart enough credence or importance to. Ever present amid us, we frequently try to drown it out with noise. Noise that inhibits our thought processes and overshadows our impulses. Noise and conundrum that seeks to sometimes forcefully and contrarily assert and sweep away.
Occasionally, most of the answers we seek to find in the noisy maze and labyrinths of life, are perhaps only an arm's reach away in the realm of solitude and silence. Taking some time in a day to spend with myself has helped me reassess what I want to write, why I want to write and who am I writing for. To appease others or to connect at a core level with others. The resolute and firm response that has come back to me each time is that I seek through words to build a bond with others. And a momentary block shall not make or break an entire journey.
Growing up, I could always count on my father to be that one person who would always show me the mirror of reality irrespective of the image that the mirror might portray. Many a times I hoped he'd sugar coat it. But one thing that stands out starkly in mind is that so many years ago and even now he continues to say that you need to acknowledge a problem to face it. And only if you face it can you find a way to move through it.
The same has been applicable in the momentary writing block I faced. I needed to acknowledge the message my mind was repeatedly sending my heart. And if you would pause for a second and consider an edifice of success, you shall find that it is often speckled and interspersed with tiny starkly different bricks that are for all eventuality a stumbling block. It can cause you to pause but not to stop.
Remaining true to your own beliefs and convictions are the tools you need to push and persevere through. And of course, your mirror image. The mirror shall never lie. Look, see and recognize the person you are and never for a moment let external factors goad you into becoming someone whom your own eyes fail to recognize and your heart fails to connect to.
And if like me you have ever faced a writing block, know in your heart that one fine day unwarranted and unexpected your eyes will see, your ears will hear, your mind will fathom and your fingers will come dashing back to the keyboard eager to start penning those thoughts that have once again started rustling within!


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Incident: A competitor was allowed to compete early in the 3×3×3 final and with different scrambles
1h++ scrambles staff
A competitor who had made it to the 3×3×3 final asked that he do his average early, as the competitor had to leave for a flight. The WCA Delegates decided to accomodate his request as the competition wasn't running on time and the final was going to start well after it was scheduled to. While the second group of Megaminx was ongoing, the competitor did his average using the spare scrambles from 3×3×3 One Handed finals which had not been used.
Other competitors missed the final as they had to leave too, however the WCA Delegates weren't made aware of this until finals were underway and the competitors had already left. Due to absent competitors, the WCA Delegates asked anyone remaining in the top 20 to compete.
The Guideline 1h++) recommends to use the same scrambles for finals:
1h++) RECOMMENDATION All attempts in the final round of an event, as well as all 3x3x3 Fewest Moves attempts, should have the same scramble sequences for all competitors (i.e. only 1 group).
The WRC recommend to use the same scramble for finals (as cited before) and to warn all competitors that may need to leave the venue early if there is an opportunity to compete earlier. The WRC would also like to encourage competitors to reach out to the WCA Delegate in case they need to leave the venue early by justified causes.
As TNoodle generates 3×3×3 and 3×3×3 One Handed the same, the WRC decided to allow all these attempts.


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11 июля 2022Главная новость
В аэропорту Толмачёво открылась выставка к 65-летнему юбилею
12 июля 2022 года аэропорт Толмачёво отметит 65-летие с начала выполнения регулярных пассажирских авиаперевозок. В этот день в 1957 году выполнен первый пассажирский рейс по маршруту Новосибирск – Москва на самолёте Ту-104.
31 декабря 2017
Tolmachevo Airport Has Served 5 Millionth Passenger
On December 31, Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport reached a mark of five million passengers, including transit and transfer passengers, having served a record number of passengers in the history of the airport since the beginning of the year.
Passenger traffic increased by more than 900,000 people. In addition, in December, 2017 another winter period record was reached — 16,4 thousand served passengers per day.
The record mark became possible due to the high growth rates of passenger traffic in the first half of the year: after 6 months, the airport served two million passengers, and by August it served three million. The four-millionth passenger was served on October 18, two months earlier than in 2016.
In 2017 Tolmchevo's route network was expanded with such points as Ordos, Dusseldorf, Tbilisi, Fukuok, Karaganda, Issyk-Kul, Pevek, Omsk, and Severo-Yeniseisk. Flights to several regional destinations continued - Abakan, Kyzyl, Vitim, Perm, Tomsk, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, etc. The frequency of traveling on many of the current domestic Russian destinations has increased - Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Bratsk, Talakan, Tyumen, etc.
In the summer schedule "Rossiya Airlines" performed flights from Novosibirsk to Sochi on widebody Boeing 747 aircrafts. In the winter schedule the charter flights of Novosibirsk with Fukuok were renewed. The Nord Wind airline performs flights to Phuket on Boeing 777 aircrafts.
As for nearby destinations, flights to Yerevan, Baku, Dushanbe, Khudzhand, Tashkent (with increasing frequency), etc. continued. S7 Airlines resumed air service with Karaganda twice a week.
In accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 25 December, 2013, No. 1242 the regional route network of Tolmachevo Airport was expanded to include such destinations as: Omsk and North Yeniseisk and the directions of Baykit, Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut, Khanty-Mansiysk, Gorno-Altaysk, Noyabrsk, Strezheva, Novy Urengoy are subsidized in 2017.
Tolmachevo Airport together with the basic airline S7 Airlines continues the implementation of the regional air transportation development program, which features active use of the Novosibirsk airport as a docking hub on the routes between the cities of the south of Russia, Siberia, the Far East and Central Asia using a new type of regional Embraer 170 airplanes.
Due to the joint work with airline partners, the volumes of air transportation through Tolmachevo airport are growing at a high rate. With the share of transfer passengers in the total passenger traffic, the Novosibirsk airport approached the leading airports of the Moscow aviation hub. This year, the transfer of passenger traffic was about 1 million people, and its share in the overall passenger flow was 20%.
A big thanks to all who used the services of Tolmachevo Airport. We wish you unforgettable holidays, new experiences and trips in 2018!
NOVOSIBIRSK International Airport (Tolmachevo) is the largest air hub in Russia east of the Urals on major transit routes between Europe and Asia. The capacity of domestic terminal makes up to 1,800 passengers per hour, while the international terminal capacity – up to 1300 passengers per hour. The airport has two runways of ICAO I and II Categories.
28 ноября 2022


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Will Strong Customer Authentication pave the way for a widely adopted digital ID scheme in the UK?
Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) lies at the heart of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and is likely to impact significantly on banks and financial organisations. Banks are required to provide a more robust framework for their online banking and electronic payment services to ensure added security for customers, and to comply with the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive.
More consumers are now using online banking facilities on a daily basis, making it essential to keep up to speed with the customer and repeatedly verify their identity in a fast-paced digital world.
PSD2 will help deliver a better customer environment for banks by strengthening the requirements on authentication processes when making these payments, which will help reduce account takeover and other malicious activity.
Inevitably additional authentication will create extra friction during the customer journey and banks need to overcome some of the barriers and risks that currently hinder their verification processes.
For example, many banks rely on authentication systems such as text messages which are open to interception and are vulnerable to security attacks. These systems were not designed to be used as a part of secure customer authentication and instead have been retro-fitted to form a part of the customer journey.
When banking methods and technology aren't aligned it creates pockets of risk that SCA is designed to mitigate. This risks banks having to overhaul their IT infrastructure completely to replace legacy systems and bring them in-line with the digital age.
The essential component to improving the customer journey and mitigating risk at the same time is the source of trusted identity that customers use for all their banking activities. This once again brings the debate for a national Digital ID scheme to the fore.
A Digital ID scheme has significant potential to deliver in two key areas – security and simplicity. It would help to deliver a more seamless journey for customers without compromising on security.
Combining a public (credit, ID&V etc.) and private (biometrics, device etc.) profile would create one unique Digital ID for an individual which can be presented to financial organisations either in person – by showing the mobile device – or by sharing select parts of a digital profile through a secure transfer mechanism.
New to market challenger banks are embracing the digital age and digital identity and as the market matures, other banks could be in danger of being left behind if they don't keep pace with a new wave of authentication and user experience.
It seems clear that digital identity helps mitigate some of the risks posed by using legacy authentication methods to satisfy PSD2 requirements. The question remains as to whether a central digital identity scheme would be driven by either the public or private sector.
Gov.uk Verify has represented the UK Government's attempt to build a digital identity and has been deployed with mixed results.
Whilst the scheme is robust in authentication it has experienced significant delays, spiralling budgets and a challenging user experience when signing up. Furthermore, funding was ceased last year by central government.
Over and above Gov.uk Verify, consumer trust and confidence in our current government has been heavily eroded. In the 2019 Audit of Political Engagement, opinions of the system were at their lowest point in a 15-year audit series, with 72% saying the system needs 'quite a lot' or 'a great deal' of improvement. (1)
For a Digital ID scheme to work it needs to be easy to authenticate and trusted by consumers. We are currently living in a world where consumers are more inclined to trust financial institutions with their data than the government itself. A recent survey by nCipher Security suggested consumers trust banks more than any other organisation when it comes to data privacy and security. (2)
If a Digital ID scheme is to be implemented, it needs to be driven by the private sector, as opposed to the Government, to reflect consumer confidence and ensure adoption on a national scale.
PSD2 and SCA provides a great opportunity for the financial services sector to work together and begin to create a national digital identity.
It is inevitable that a Digital ID scheme will happen anyway and the data suggests that banks are best placed to create a scheme that provides positive customer experiences whilst ensuring data privacy and security standards are upheld.
The alternative is ominous. Customers are already using versions of Digital ID to verify their Apple and Facebook accounts and the transition to a Digital ID scheme to benefit the customer is already happening. The question remains – where are consumers going to place their trust?
This article was published in issue 10 of Connect Magazine from Synectics Solutions. To download the full copy visit: www.synectics-solutions.com/our-thinking/details/connect-edition-10-is-vulnerability-a-much-wider-problem-for-uk-financial-services
1. https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/publications reports/audit-of-political-engagement-16
2. https://www.nciphersecurity.co.uk/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/ncipher-survey-reveals-americans-trust-banks-most-their-personal


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You are getting ready for bed, and make a quick trip to the restroom before heading down for a good night's sleep. You flip the light switch on, and your yawn of exhaustion quickly changes to a groan of frustration as the bulb flashes briefly, and then snuffs out. It is just one of those minor inconveniences that can lead to real aggravation in our lives, and there is really nothing that you can do about it. Right?
Well, it is true that there is no light bulb out there today that is going to last forever. This does not mean, however, that there is not a better option out there. If you are using incandescent light bulbs, or even CFL bulbs, throughout your home, then you are missing out. On what, you ask! All of the benefits that LED lighting has to offer! LED lights are unmatched by competing types of bulbs, and in a number of ways.
What Makes LEDs So Great?
If you were to ask your electrician in Shoreline, WA what types of bulbs he or she uses in his or her own home, we'd be surprised if the answer were not "LEDs, of course!". We're not getting a kickback from big LED for saying this, either. We've got some information to share that will definitely help you to better understand just why it is that LED light bulbs are the way to go.
How They Work
First things first — how do LEDs work? LED lighting using multiple light emitting diodes in a single bulb. The LEDs themselves are basically little semi-conductors, and they light up as electrical current passes through a microchip. The LEDs themselves are actually very tiny.
LEDs do not throw heat the way that incandescent or CFL bulbs can, because they use heat sinks to absorb the heat that is generated in their use and dissipate that heat into the surrounding environment. This helps to prevent burns.
Additionally, LEDs don't really "burn out" the way that other light bulbs do. Over time, the amount of lumens that they can put out will depreciate, and you'll want to replace them as they dim. This brings us to the major benefit of LED bulbs — longevity.
According to Energy.gov, LED light bulbs typically last 25x longer than incandescent lighting can. That means that your life is a whole lot more convenient, with light bulbs giving out on you much less frequently. It also means that you are spending less money on replacement bulbs.
LED bulbs are more expensive than incandescent bulbs, of course, but the energy savings are still considerable. Not only do they last longer, but LED bulbs use at least 75% less energy than incandescent ones! That is a major difference, and it can really add up over the years.
LED bulbs are rugged and directional, making them ideal for both indoor and outdoor applications. Let our electricians know what you have in mind for your next lighting project. Chances are that LED is the way that you'll want to go.
G & S Heating Cooling & Electric is here for all of your lighting needs.


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Anyone who has been in a long distance relationship knows how hard it is. I had to move to a new town for my 1-year pharmacy placement so I spend most of my evenings alone. My husband is in India and I am in England. Things are getting harder as the temperature is getting colder. I am shivering myself to sleep when I know I should be besides my husband. The other downside to winter getting closer is that next week the clocks go back. This means that the 4.5-hour time difference will grow to 5.5 hours. I finish work at 6pm most days and will not get home until midnight Indian time. My husband has to get up for work so this is going to have to cut our Skype time, which is the highlight of each day. I am alone but not lonely.
When I am feeling down I close my eyes and feel his presence with me. There will always be that connection holding us together, no matter how many thousands of miles stand between us. Several times I have tightly closed my eyes, clenched my fists and tensed every muscle and concentrated on being transported to our bedroom in India, surprising, it never works and I am still sitting in my empty flat in England once I open my eyes.
Once I get on that plane and move to India next year, I hope that there won't be even a moment when I don't feel so grateful to be reunited with my husband. Not even a single second.
283 days until I call India my home. I cannot even imagine the happiness I will feel to never have to be without my husband ever again! But for now, I will be alone but not lonely.


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Upfronts 2011: BET Scripts 2011 Programming Schedule
BET will hope to build on its scripted series success with the fall launch of a new family-themed comedy series and several new scripted web series as part of its 2011 programming schedule, the network announced Wednesday during its New York upfront presentation to advertisers.
BET, which set a network ratings record in 2010, will premiere this fall Reed Between The Lines -- starring Tracee Ellis Ross (Girlfriends) and Malcom-Jamal Warner (The Cosby Show) as a successful married couple trying to balance work, marriage and parenthood -- to complement its hit scripted shows The Game and Let's Stay Together, both of which will return for new seasons in 2012, according to Loretha Jones, BET's original programming president.
The Game, which follows the lives of players on a fictional football team, finished its freshman season last month as the network's most-watched series of all time, averaging more than 4 million viewers. Let's Stay Together, which takes a look at the relationship challenges of several young, successful African-Americans, averaged more than 2 million viewers in its first season.
The network will also debut three scripted web-based series later this year, two of which delve into the thriller/Sci-Fi genre.
Odessa follows a man and his young daughter on the run from scientists who bestowed them with psychokinetic abilities; while Asylum is a thriller that follows a team of doctors as they diagnose and treat patients at a hospital for the criminally insane.
Two other Web series include Lenox Ave, which tells the story of three male friends in their mid-20s navigating the love, relationships and careers, and The Come Up, which follows the lives of seven teens in Washington, D.C. as they actively pursue their dreams.
Other new BET shows include The Message: The History Of Hip-Hop, a four-part series that chronicles the history, music, culture and the message of Hip-Hop.
Returning BET series include gospel music competition show Sunday Best; music video countdown show 106 & Park; and late night talk shows The Monique Show and The Wendy Williams Show.
BET's tentpole specials The BET Awards, Black Girls Rock, BET Honors, Rip The Runway, Celebration of Gospel and BET Hip Hop Awards will also return in 2011-12, according to the network.
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R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.
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Today's guest post is by author Kirsten Oliphant (@kikimojo).
The old adage says that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we often do—at least at first. Visuals catch our eye and draw us to read books, blog posts, and social media shares.
Research shows that using visual content increases engagement and shares. Posts with images receive 94 percent more views. If you don't know how to create or use images well, these stats are not encouraging. Creating images can seem like one more annoying task in an endless list of things you need to do in order to grow your audience.
The good news is that there are free tools readily available and fairly simple to use. You don't need to be a graphic designer or know how to use Photoshop to create attractive graphics.
The bad news is that you don't have an excuse not to use images. If you want more people to find, read, and share your content, you need to consider visuals as an important piece of your platform.
In this post I want to show you how to create branded visual images for little to no money and in a short amount of time. As I said, no excuses.
Note: I am not a graphic designer, but I do have fluency in the visual basics thanks to years of art classes and more years of creating images for my blog and social media. Graphic designers and programs like Photoshop and Lightroom are much more sophisticated than the programs I'll talk about here. This post is for the people who need an easy workflow to create graphics without spending a ton of time or money.
What Makes a Good Visual
As writers, we are used to the idea of subjectivity. Visuals are no different. The goal is not to please everyone, but to utilize high-quality, professional-looking images that look polished and effectively communicate what you want them to communicate. Your visuals don't have to be complicated or take hours. They need to be polished and (if you're using text) readable.
What Makes a Branded Visual
Branding takes polished images one step further. Branded images will have a consistency of style that makes your images easily recognizable as yours. At best, they also represent who you are as a writer.
As book covers within a genre tend to stick with certain tropes and styles, so your branded content should reflect you. Creating your own simple style guide can streamline the process. This means that before you ever open a stock photo site or photo editor, you know the types of images, the color palette, the font pairings, the overlays and other graphic elements that you will use in each visual.
Where to Find Images
When you are choosing images, you need to pay attention to permission and attribution. You probably know this, but you cannot simply search for an image through Google and use whatever turns up.
Lately a lot of bloggers have become the subject of lawsuits related to image use. Use only images that you either purchase through stock photo sites (like Photodune) or that are available under Creative Commons. I also make sure mine are licensed commercially, since I do make money from my blog and related products. (This post has a longer explanation of licensing.)
Attribution refers to how you label the photo's source. I prefer photos that require no attribution, but if a photo requires attribution, it can be done underneath the photo as a caption. For each photo you use, check the licensing and the attribution needed so you can be sure you are following the law.
Sources for free stock photos:
Another option is to take your own stock photography. Whether you know your way around a DSLR or simply use your smartphone camera, you can collect your own stock photos to use. Set aside time where you can go outside and take nature photos or set up indoor desk photos. Create a folder for stock images on your computer and use the simple editing tools I'll talk about below to make your photos work as stock photos. This can help you have a little more control and will ensure that you don't see your stock photo on fifty other websites.
How to Define Your Brand Guidelines
Before we start to edit photos, you need to take this one-time (or once-a-year) opportunity to set up brand guidelines for yourself. Once you settle on these guidelines, stick to them for about six months to a year before you consider making any changes. When you do change, try to stay somewhat consistent with the original guidelines or update the old posts with your new visuals. This can breathe life into older posts.
The point of brand guidelines is two-fold: it saves you oodles of time and it makes you stand out and be recognizable as a cohesive brand. A good visual can go a long way in terms of giving people a great first impression of you and your work.
Step 1: Research
Pinterest is a great place to research the kinds of images you like. Search for a keyword in your niche and check out the images that come up. I have a secret Pinterest board where I pin designs I really like for inspiration. (If you need some Pinterest basics, read this post to help you get started.) Pin some of your favorites as far as design.
Think about these kinds of questions: What catches your eye? What do you like about particular images? What kind of photos are used? What colors? What fonts? What design elements? Jot down some notes on what you like and what you might want to re-create. Here are a few examples with my notes about the design.
Step 2: Plan
After you find designs you like, you need to plan what your branded style will be. Consider the kinds of colors (cool? black and white? bright and cheery?), the kinds of photos (with people? of nature? of offices? no photo, just design?), and the font pairings you like.
For fonts, just like with images, choose commercially free fonts. I stick to Google Fonts for this reason (they are ALL commercially free), but Font Squirrel is another great site. Just check the licensing for each font the same way you would a photo.
For font pairings, you'll want to change up the thickness of the font and may want to choose a serif font plus a sans serif font, or a cursive or handwriting font (that's very readable) with a regular font. (For great Google Font pairings, this post is helpful!) Choose a maximum of three. You can include fonts that you use on your blog, but they don't have to match as long as they fit well together.
You will also want to consider using overlays, which are shapes that go over your base image, usually where you place the text. They range from completely solid to semi-transparent and can be a variety of colors. Sometimes the overlays are a way to make text more readable on an image, and sometimes the overlays are a highlight and hallmark of the image.
Write out the color palette, the type of photos, the font pairings, and the kind of overlay you may want to use.
Step 3: Create a Template
You now have a basic idea of what you want your images to look like. Before you commit to these guidelines and consider making a template, you will want to spend some time actually in the photo editing programs to play with the various elements.
I don't actually make a template that I open each time I create an image, but I have a firm template in mind based on my guidelines. It takes me less than ten minutes to create an image and size it for all the social media platforms and my blog.
You can also actually create a template in Canva (or Photoshop) that you can come back to again and again. I find this hard because the images I use may be different and require moving pieces around, but as long as you know the general idea of what your template is, you will save a ton of time editing.
For example, my template is:
- Any high-quality photo (exclude any of the stock photos with a white background like in a studio)
- Black Bold Montserrat font for main text
- Black Raleway font for my site name (rather than a logo)
- Overlay under the main text in a rectangle shape with an outline, usually white inside and a colored border
Every time I create an image for my blog and social media, I spend the most time choosing a photo. Everything else is simple because I know exactly what fonts to use and exactly the kind of overlay. I simply have to fit the overlay and text into the particular photos I choose. You can watch this tutorial if you want to see how I create a branded image in ten minutes for my blog and social platforms.
Where to Edit Your Images
Two of the top image-editing sites are PicMonkey and Canva. Both sites have free versions and paid versions with more features. I use both sites, with the paid plan for PicMonkey and the free plan for Canva.
Here are a few considerations for each, but you'll likely want to actually try them both and see which one suits you best.
- Many of the best features are paid ($33/year)
- You cannot edit designs once you exit out of PicMonkey—which also means if the Flash player crashes in the middle of your working on a project, it's gone
- Simple to use, but includes a lot of tools
- Has great free features, but you can get some great tools—like the ability to resize an image for social media with a click of the button—in the paid version, which is $119/year
- Saves your work in an editable format so that you can come back later and make changes or keep working
- Has great options, elements, and examples to help you with design
- Has templates for almost every kind of social platform and also things like book covers, so you don't have to keep track of sizing for various images
Here are two other sites that streamline the process of sizing, but aren't as useful at the free level:
- Relay: a photo editing and design app that allows you to resize for various social platforms with the click of a button. To exclude the Relay branding for your site, you do need to pay to upgrade (a little under $100/year).
- Snappa: a photo editing and design app that keeps track of the ever-changing social media sizes and has templates, tools, and photos to help you (a little over $100/year).
What's Stopping You?
When you simply want to write, creating images for every post and for each social platform can seem like a huge time suck. But circling back to the numbers at the beginning of the post, I think we would all like to have 94 percent more eyes on our content. With such a crowded online world, we don't have the luxury to ignore the importance of images if we want to reach more readers.
Take some time to create your own brand guidelines and utilize online image-editing tools so that you can stand out without spending too much time or money.
More Resources
- For the current best practices with regard to social sizing, you can bookmark this infographic from Hubspot.
- For a great resource with some other tips, this post from Amy Lynn Andrews is fabulous.
- For more on branding and creating those guidelines, listen to this interview with Andrea Beltrami, the Branded Solopreneur.
Kirsten Oliphant has an MFA in fiction from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is the creator of the Free Email Course to help de-mystify email lists for bloggers & writers. She writes about authentic platform building at Create If Writing and interviews writers, bloggers, and other creatives on the Create If Writing Podcast. You can find her tweeting as @kikimojo or sign up for free monthly workshops on list-building, image creation, or other helpful training.


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What's in this article?
What Low Hemoglobin mean?
Hemoglobin (Hb or Hgb) is the protein in your red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low hemoglobin count is a below-average concentration of the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin proteins in your blood.
A low hemoglobin count is generally defined as less than 13.5 grams of hemoglobin per deciliter (135 grams per liter) of blood for men and less than 12 grams per deciliter (120 grams per liter) for women. In children, the definition varies with age and sex. The threshold differs slightly between medical practices.
A low hemoglobin count is a commonly seen blood test result. In many cases, a low hemoglobin count is only slightly lower than normal, isn't considered significant and causes no symptoms. A low hemoglobin count can also be caused by an abnormality or disease. In these situations, a low hemoglobin count is referred to as anemia.
Some of the more common causes of anemia are as follows:
- Nutritional (iron, folic acid, or vitamin B 12 deficiency [pernicious anemia])
- Gastrointestinal blood loss (ulcers, colon cancer)
- Kidney problems
- Blood loss (from trauma or surgery)
- Red Blood cell synthesis problems (bone marrow disorders, genetic disorders such as sickle cell anemia)
- Bone marrow suppression by chemotherapy or radiation exposure
Causes of low hemoglobin count
A slight decrease in hemoglobin does not necessarily indicate an illness. Some people adapt to slightly low hemoglobin count, like woman who are menstruating or pregnant.
A significantly low hemoglobin count may be associated with disease or any condition that causes the blood to have very few red blood cells (RBC). This occurs if the body manufactures a smaller number of RBC than normal, if these blood cells are destroyed more rapidly than they are created, or if one experiences blood loss.
Certain conditions and diseases cause the body to manufacture fewer RBC than normal, and these include:
- Vitamin deficiency
- Iron deficiency
- Aplastic anemia
- Multiple myeloma
- Leukemia
- Myelodysplastic syndromes
- Cancer
- Cirrhosis
- Kidney disease
- Hodgkin's lymphoma (Hodgkin's disease)
- Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid)
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Lead poisoning
- Medications like anti-retroviral drugs and chemotherapy drugs
When the body destroys RBC faster than it produces them, low hemoglobin count occurs, such as in these conditions:
- Enlarged spleen
- Sickle cell anemia
- Porphyria
- Vasculitis
- Thalassemia
Acute or chronic blood loss also results in low hemoglobin count, and this can occur because of any of these:
- Trauma or surgery
- Internal bleeding or hemorrhage
- Frequent blood donations
- Heavy menstrual bleeding
- Frequent nosebleeds
Symptoms of Low Hemoglobin Counts
There are many symptoms that can alert you to low hemoglobin. The following symptoms should be mentioned to your doctor.
- General symptoms. In general, the signs of low hemoglobin include dizziness, headache, fatigue and a general feeling or tiredness. It might be tough to concentrate. You can experience an irregular heartbeat or notice that your skin, gums or nail beds are very pale in color. In addition, you might experience shortness of breath, palpitations and chest pain with more severe cases of low hemoglobin.
- Rare symptoms. Other symptoms that might occur but are relatively rare include excessive sweating, vomiting, and persistent heartburn. You might experience swelling in your arms or legs, and could even notice bloody stool when you go to the bathroom.
- Symptoms in children. The symptoms in children can be more severe, as low hemoglobin can lead to long-term consequences. Look for paleness, a rapid heartbeat, a lowered ability to concentrate, poor neurological development and disturbed behavior patterns.
Treatment for low hemoglobin count
- Blood test- A routine blood test will show if you have a low hemoglobin count. The underlying cause of anemia, if present, will be shown by doing a complete medical history, physical examination and other laboratory blood tests.
- Medications and supplements- Doctors usually prescribe iron and vitamin supplements to improve the hemoglobin levels. Although these supplements may be obtained over-the-counter, it is better to consult a doctor who can recommend appropriate dosage and type of supplement depending on the patient's health condition. Other medications may be needed to treat the underlying disease that is causing one's low hemoglobin count.
- Diet- Proper diet, which includes foods that contain a high amount of iron, is recommended. Recommended food sources of iron include red meat, oysters, shrimp, leafy green vegetables, beans, peas, cereals, raisins, and dried apricots.
- It may take many months of taking supplements and improving the diet before the level of hemoglobin increases. Therefore, people who are at a risk of having low hemoglobin count must take adequate amounts of food that are high in iron food to prevent it.


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The Oscars are just around the corner, so now's as good a time as any to start amping yourself up by revisiting past highlights. And the show's producers, with help from 180LA, are making it easy to get a quick fix with the four new ads below, cut together by Oscar-winning editor Kirk Baxter.
The first, "And the Oscar Goes to," features a parade of stars—too many to name, though movie buffs might have a fun time trying to rattle them all off—doing their best victory dances. Their exuberance is pretty moving, even if it's plenty vain, too.
A second, "Holding Oscars," features the campaign's most poignant moment—one second of Robin Williams looking around in breathless gratitude, a genuine scene that makes the loss of such a talent sting all the more in hindsight.
The third spot, a multilingual Kumbaya "Everyone Speaks Oscar," can't help but be a bit corny. (Sure, movies are a universal language, sort of, but really, where would most of us be without subtitles?) Still, the Academy deserves a nod in the Best Lie category for trying to pretend Hollywood isn't a U.S.-dominated enterprise, and implying the winners are an ethnically diverse bunch—when in fact they're mostly white.
The fourth ad, a Valentine's spot featuring the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Tom Hanks kissing their wives at the show, is cute enough, set to the fairly obscure but anachronistically charming sounds of "Am I in Love" from 1952's Son of Paleface, performed by Bob Hope and Jane Russell.
For good measure, 180LA also commissioned a series of 15 posters featuring the Oscar statue alongside various artists interpretations of imagination (a popular theme in ads because it's hard to hate).
The results feature a number of nods to the award show's roots in the Art Deco era, but the standouts are really the weirder takes—like Hattie Stewart's leering, winking cartoon hearts, and Blastto's surrealist eyeball sculpture. Because if those aren't apt metaphors for America's unhealthy obsession with celebrity, what is?
Client: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
President: Cheryl Boone Isaacs
Chief Executive Officer: Dawn Hudson
Chief Marketing Officer: Christina Kounelias
Marketing Manager: Ford Oelman
Agency: 180LA
Chief Creative Officer: William Gelner
Creative Directors: Zac Ryder, Adam Groves
Copywriter: Christina Semak
Art Director: Karine Grigorian
Head of Production: Natasha Wellesley
Producer: Nili Zadok
Chief Marketing Officer: Stephen Larkin
Account Manager: Jessica DeLillo
Account Coordinator: Alexandra Conti
Planner: Jason Knight
Holding / Goes to / VDay
Editorial Company: Exile Edit
Editor: Nate Gross (Holding)
Editor: Will Butler (VDay; Goes to)
Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver
Producer: Brittany Carson
Foreign Language
Editor: Dave Groseclose
Producer: Brian Scharwath
Color, Visual Effects, Finishing: The Mill, Los Angeles
Colorist: Adam Scott
Color Executive Producer: Thatcher Peterson
Color Producers: Natalie Westerfield, Antonio Hardy
Color Coordinator: Diane Valera
Lead 2-D Artist: Robin McGloin
2-D Artist: Scott Johnson
Art Department: Jeff Langlois, Laurence Konishi
Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Visual Effects Producer: Kiana Bicoy
Visual Effects Coordinator: Jillian Lynes
Recording, Mix
Recording Studio: Eleven Sound
Mixer: Scott Burns
Assistant Mixer: AJ Murillo
Producer: Dawn Redmann
Executive Producer: Suzanne Hollingshead


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Apple's Music Business Being Looked Into By Justice Department
But that domination brings eyes, and now the U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether or not Apple's music practices are all within the realm of the law. These inquiries aren't uncommon; many huge corporations are investigated to make sure that antitrust laws aren't being broken, and this particular investigation is said to be in the very earliest of stages. According to "several people briefed on the conversations," Apple is being questioned about "recent allegations that Apple used its dominant market position to persuade music labels to refuse to give the online retailer Amazon.com exclusive access to music about to be released."
No official statements have been made by any company involved, and obviously we're nowhere near Apple facing any sort of penalty (or even being proven guilty), but this definitely raises some interesting concerns. With the music business shifting so quickly from physical to digital format, Apple really needs some competition. One major reason that people default to iTunes is the popularity of the iPhone and iPod; other services generally "work" with these devices, but the syncing isn't nearly as streamlined.
We suspect that the outcome of this will be interesting to watch, and depending on the decisions that are made, this could definitely impact the future of digital downloads and music consumption.


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Map of the local innovation industry.
Meet some of the best and newest startups based in San Jose.
PR Specialist. Communication Guru. Founder of @taxiwise-1 acquired by @ikky • Worked at @mobexo @telenav @varian-medical-systems • Lived in 3 countries
Passionate about content. Love creating a superior user experience & tending user communities. Solid start-up bkgd. Brown undergrad, Haas MBA. Brownie baker.
Forward-thinking PR / marketing pro with extensive experience in start-up / early stage environments


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Shop Habeebat for the latest in women's blouse, body tops, long tops, ladies shirt dress and more. Experience safe shopping and fast delivery
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Women's Tops Online in Nigeria
Dressing up and looking good is a very important process. Stepping out of the house looking good, boosts your confidence and makes you feel like you can take on the world. There are many different attires you can wear as a lady; Jalamias, dresses, pants, skirts and so much more. Most of these cloth pieces have to be paired with one thing; tops.
Some people tend to call every single kind of top a blouse. But the actual truth is, a blouse is a kind of top. There are different kinds of women's tops, as a matter of fact, there are an endless selection of women's tops. Some of them are listed below:
- Tunics: these are loosely fitting tops that fall towards the hip region. They can be worn with both trousers and skirts. The tunic tops made with cotton or viscose materials can be worn as casual wears while some of the tunics made with georgette materials are more likely suitable for formal occasions.
- Peplum tops: A particular favorite for slim ladies, the peplum top style is flared around the stomach line and give the body an ideal hour glass shape. Peplum tops go well on jeans, penciled pants and penciled skirts.
- Blouse: for the slightly aged women, blouses are perfect and chic. They are popularly known as comfortable ladies wear that is actually a style inspired by gent's shirts. They are mostly styled with collars and are very simple and classy.
- Kaftan top: Kaftan tops are also some of the most comfortable style of tops that there are. They are loose, flowy tops that can be worn over leggings, jeggings and penciled denim trousers. They differ in length and the long ones can be worn without any of the above listed clothing items.
- Wrap top: this top is styled in a wrap way that looks very elegant and stylish, especially on tall ladies with well-balanced shoulders. They can be worn as casual wears on jeans and penciled pants.
- Belted top: As the name suggests, these style of tops have a belt in front of them, below the bust line. They are mostly worn in formal settings, with straight or flared pants.
Some other popular style of tops are the off shoulder styles, the layered top, crop top, tank top, maxi top, cape top and lace top. They are all slightly casual, and can be worn with other clothing attire ranging from maxi skirts to penciled denims.
Where to Buy Quality Modest Women's Tops in Nigeria
Find a large range of quality women's tops on Habeebat's store, in different colors, styles and materials to suit your every need. Stock up your wardrobe with the best tops for any occasion; parties, dates and even formal meetings. With us, you get the best prices you can ever get online and an amazing service. And of course, you can be rest assured that whatever you buy is of the best quality. What are you waiting for? Start buying the very best of women's tops on Habeebat's store today.


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Seeking Safety (Survivors of Dometic Violence)
May 18, 2023 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
An event every week that begins at 6:00 pm on Thursday, happening 52 times
Seeking Safety is a present-focused, coping skills therapy to help people attain safety from trauma and/or substance abuse. The treatment is available as a book, providing both client handouts and clinician guidelines. The treatment may be conducted in group or individual format; with females and males; and in various settings (e.g., outpatient, inpatient, residential, home care, schools). Seeking Safety consists of 25 topics that can be conducted in as many sessions as time allows, and in any order. Examples of topics are Safety, Asking for Help, Setting Boundaries in Relationships, Healthy Relationships, Community Resources, Compassion, Creating Meaning, Discovery, Recovery Thinking, Taking Good Care of Yourself, Commitment, Coping with Triggers, Self-Nurturing, Red and Green Flags, and Life Choices.
The primary goals of Seeking Safety are:
- Reduce trauma and/or substance abuse symptoms
- Increase safe coping in relationships
- Increase safe coping in thinking
- Increase safe coping in behavior
- Increase safe coping in emotions


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|My order from Four Corner Store was waiting for me when I got home from class/the gym/lunch just now. Ten rolls of film (the blue roll is ISO 200 Konica Centuria that I plan to shoot with my Konica, of course!) and a QuadCam, which I've never used but am looking forward to trying. All this stuff was only $25, plus shipping!
|I bought some new baby plants yesterday. I'm really excited to learn more about succulents and their varieties (plus they're really cool looking!)
|The cactus on the right has lived on my windowsill since July when I rescued it from Evin's house. It belonged to his roommate who (accidentally?) left it behind when he moved out.


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I was 16 in 1976 when I attended Manny Farber's lecture on Fassbinder's Effi Briest, at a community college in Costa Mesa. The lecture was incomplete, a shambles, because Manny had turned up late, film cans in hand, and it was past one in the morning when the movie concluded and the weary audience was asked to disperse. I intercepted Manny outside, told him I'd just read his book, and asked about his friend James Agee. "He was handsome as hell," Manny said. Realizing this was perhaps inadequate, he added, "He was heroic." And then he offhandedly invited me to visit him in San Diego if I wanted to talk more.
I was, I seem to recall, a sullen, willful kid, and it amazes me now that Manny and his wife, Patricia, not only put up with my initial visit but invited me back on a regular basis. I'd hang out with Manny in his studio, or shadow him as he did errands. In my memory, an essential part of my adolescence was spent walking around parking lots while both of us tried to remember where Manny had parked the car. These were privileged episodes, I knew even then, but the trick was to move through them as deadpan comic routines while talking about something else — usually Piero della Francesca, as I remember it, or Matisse, or Agee, whose ghost never seemed all that far.
Manny was just sliding out from his identity as a critic — writing was "killing" and "brutal," he insisted repeatedly — and painting, though not exactly effortless, seemed to claim his deepest attention and yield more pleasure. Manny and Patricia were pretty much the first functional artists I'd ever met, and they remain remarkable models for anyone trying to navigate a shared life making things for which there's no easy or immediate market. (A valuable essay or even book would highlight the vocabulary they jointly developed as writers, teachers and painters, and might spin a fairly riveting tale, tracking contradictory notions of failure and success.)
Manny's writing, clearly, was performative — jumpy, jagged, often angry and sly — but his conversation was more tentative, punctuated by wary pauses, sheepish smiles. He was primed to appreciate movies and paintings as both dense physical organisms and shifty intellectual arguments, and it seemed that anyone who spent time in his company came to discuss paintings and movies in terms of "territory" or "terrain," mimicking Manny's jabbing hand gestures, as if pushing pins into an imaginary map, a landscape you wanted to search through and, if necessary, get lost in.
Michael Almereyda is the director of the films Nadja (1994), Hamlet (1996)and New Orleans, Mon Amour (2008), and the editor of Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and About Mayakovsky.
Manny Farber is dying. For months the painting knives have been abandoned. Now, the pastels in turn. He remained in the same spot, working for hours in this garden, Giverny on the Pacific. What came out of it on these drawing pads with their CinemaScope format resembled a Western by Anthony Mann. It accumulated on the wall of his studio, rows upon rows, five high and 40 feet long. The drama of a square foot of earth dreamed from every possible angle. He now sleeps in his studio, too weak to climb the stairs that lead to this bedroom. He pays each effort with hours of sleep. He watches Obama for hours with the avidity of someone who bids his farewell to the world, and only wants to see the hope it offers. "Manny Farber, American" with as much forcefulness as one says "John Ford, American." He asked me not to age. I told him I wasn't the obedient kind.
I wonder where you found that strength that allowed you to edit that tape, the night Juju [Juliet Berto] left us, of music she loved. I would have to trek through Charlie Parker, to drop in on Atys by Lully, to catch Lenny Tristano or to make a detour through Hildegard von Bingen and Ornette Coleman, or to choose from Berlin: Songs of Love & War, Peace & Exile by Theo Bleckmann and Fumio Yasuda — the last CD he pushed across the table toward me. I do not have the strength. I wait immobile for the heart to break and the tears to flow.
Filmmaker and UCSD faculty member Jean-Pierre Gorin, as written to Chris Marker; August 14, 2008.
When I was 15, there was a movie theater near where I grew up called Toad Hall. They held rock concerts on the grounds, everybody from the Who to Bob Marley. The theater was a pretty uncomfortable place where they would show The Conformist and Aguirre: The Wrath of God on the one hand, but also older movies like The 39 Steps and The Birth of a Nation. They sold a few books there and one of them was Manny's, Negative Space — in its paperback edition it was called Movies, with very nostalgic cover art of Bogart and George Raft. I bought the book, and reading that language when I was 15 years old was a pretty startling experience. It took years of absorbing it before I got past the surface excitement, as Manny would call it, and saw where it was leading me.
I met Manny and Patricia in about 1999. He was accepting an award in January of 2000 from the New York Film Critics Circle for the Da Capo reissue of Negative Space. [Film Comment editor] Richard Jameson asked me if I wanted to interview him, and I said, "It's kind of like asking me to interview Tolstoy or something." But when we met, he and Patricia and I hit it off right away. We started talking on the phone pretty regularly, I went out there to see them as often as I could, and we would get together whenever he came to New York. In 2001, we used one of his paintings for that year's New York Film Festival poster. He didn't want to stand up in public or anything like that, but he and Patricia did go to the closing night of the festival, which was Godard's In Praise of Love. We all went out afterwards, and Manny, who loved a lot of Godard's earlier work, just couldn't take it — god, did he dislike that movie.
I took the lesson from reading his writing that it's not a matter of how much you like Anthony Mann or Howard Hawks or Michael Snow or Godard or whoever. It's a matter of understanding that thinking is always in motion, that judgments are always in motion. He said in a Cahiers du Cinéma interview in 1982 that anything you write is going to be tied up in the moment, that everything is always changing. He never, ever stopped thinking about the world, about films, about filmmakers, about the way a film seemed to him now as opposed to back then, the way a painter seemed to him now as opposed to 20 years ago. He was always engaged with what was around him — figuring out how the landscape worked, how the builders settled on that particular place and decided to build those particular houses in that particular way, how the rhythm of a painting worked. Absolutely everything. He was engaged by the world right up to the very end.
Kent Jones is editor at large for Film Comment and the author of Physical Evidence: Selected Film Criticism.
I started reading articles of his in the late '60s, and of course when Negative Space came out I devoured it. Then, in 1979, I went to his MoMA lecture, which included material about Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang comedies, Frank Borzage and The Honeymoon Killers. The most striking thing about it was that he clearly had notes — a lot of notes — but he would read a couple of sentences and then he would basically start thinking out loud. He did a lot of talking about how a historical moment is encoded in a film — how, particularly if it's a good film, it fully represents the moment in which it was made; that you can extrapolate a sense of the whole period from one film. I think he even said that you could extrapolate it from one scene or a particular frame if it was good enough. The other quite extraordinary thing was that he would make some brief remarks explaining what he was about to show, why he thought it was important and what to look for; he would call your attention to particular images, particular choreography within the frame, that kind of thing. Then, after it was over, he invariably said, "Ignore what I just said. Looking at it again now, I see that I should have talked about this." He had this extraordinary, immediate responsiveness. It didn't matter to him what he had previously said about something. You had a sense of him responding to a film from quite different points of view.
He was interested in describing what an individual frame was and then the movements within the frame. The negative space was always extremely important to him — what was implied to be outside of the frame, what entered the frame that you weren't aware of, what was on the screen and then what replaced the image you'd just seen. And he was always interested in political things. In The Honeymoon Killers, there's a scene where Shirley Stoler is eating Whitman chocolates, and Manny said that Whitman chocolates indicated a particular socioeconomic strata, that you knew exactly where she was if she was eating those. I think it's also important that he was always bouncing between high and low and middlebrow culture; he made no distinction between any of that. One minute, he'd be talking about Jackson Pollock or Piero della Francesca, and the next he'd be talking about The Honeymooners or talk radio.
The first pieces he and Patricia wrote together were done towards the end of 1966 and the beginning of '67. She helped him to stretch out more. There's a greater sense in their work of a dialogue, and a lot less judgmentalism — not that they're speaking to each other in the pieces, but each sentence seems to be in dialogue with the next one. Almost everything that is said is somehow modified quickly. Manny might state something quite declaratively, and if you read only that line you would misunderstand what actually comes from reading the piece. There's a new kind of density once they start working together. Manny's own point of view about a movie was tested by Patricia's, and he basically had to justify his viewpoint to her, and vice-versa. It reads quite smoothly — there's no sense of combat in the pieces — but I think almost every passage has this kind of tension.
With the paintings, it wasn't just that they talked about them. She had an enormous role even with regard to the subject matter, an increasingly strong role. She would suggest that he put particular objects in the paintings, especially things from their garden. He literally would say, "What should I paint next?" Or "What should go here?" She would often tell him when to stop a painting, that it was basically finished and he should let it go, whereas he might want to fiddle a little more. Even those notes in the paintings are often actually Patricia's words that he appropriated and used as a message to himself.
Robert Walsh is legal affairs editor for Vanity Fair and editor of the expanded edition of Manny Farber's Negative Space.
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SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 14, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Brings More "Now" To Search With New Quick Answers Google is bringing more of the capabilities of Google Now to the search box and providing a range of personalized "quick […]
Barry Schwartz on August 14, 2013 at 5:00 pm | Reading time: 3 minutes
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web.
From Search Engine Land:
- Google Brings More "Now" To Search With New Quick Answers
Google is bringing more of the capabilities of Google Now to the search box and providing a range of personalized "quick answers" regardless of platform. These new search capabilities focus on "travel and logistics" use cases: reservations, flights, package tracking and calendar entries, among a few others. The content and capabilities will likely expand over […]
- Building The B2B Organic CRO Machine
Over the last few years, I've watched the search marketing industry grow from being traffic-growth focused to being conversion- and usability-oriented. In the coming years, I expect to see an even stronger focus on usability and conversion. One thing that makes the B2B sector different from B2C is the fact that users rarely convert on […]
Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:
- Warning To Video Advertisers: Banned AdWare Creator Sambreel Now Injecting Ads On YouTube
- With Its Site Down, New York Times Publishes On Twitter & Facebook, Ignores Google+
- Microsoft, Google Finally Release Official YouTube App For Windows Phones
- 3 Essential Secrets To Becoming A Programmatic-Savvy CMO
- Are You Smarter Than A Supercomputer? It Depends.
- Facebook Now Making $0.80 Per Mobile User
- Google Debuts DoubleClick Studio Layouts For Code-Free Rich Media and HTML Ad Creation
Search News From Around The Web:
- 3 Characteristics Apple Shares With Google, fool.com
- Google CEO Larry Page 'did evil,' Oracle's Larry Ellison says, MarketWatch
- Thai villagers mistake Google worker for govt snoop, Fox News
- The Untold Story of Google's Quest to Bring the Internet Everywhere—By Balloon, Wired
Local & Maps
- Enjoy Super Fast Updates in the New Canadian Google Local Dashboard, Jackson Lo
- Finding Starred Or My Places On The New Google Maps Mobile, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google Street View ignites mini-protest over damn dam project, SiliconBeat
Link Building
- 3 Ways to Find Great Link Building Opportunities in Boring Industries, Search Engine Watch
- Google's Disavow Process and Penguin 2.0 Recovery, Vertical Measures
- How to Get Rid of Spammy Inbound Links, HighRankings Forums
- Matt Cutts on Widget Links, David Naylor
- Publishers & Webmasters Now Fear Linking Out At All, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google & Bing Are Handling My New Website Soooo Differently, Small Business SEM
- 9 SEO Blogging Tactics to Maximize Your Online Visibility, Search Engine Guide
- Effective SEO Consulting; it's not just about SEO, State of Search
- Google Penalties For Sites That Aren't Optimized For Mobile, HighRankings Forums
- Google SERP change – what impact will it have?, holisticsearch.co.uk
- How and When to Use 301 Redirects vs. Canonical, Search Engine Watch
- Low Quality Pages: Redirects or 404s?, HighRankings Forums
- The 5 Stages of Google Update Grief, Search Engine Watch
- The Ole Subdomains vs. Subdirectories Debate, HighRankings Forums
SEM / Paid Search
- Bing Ads Editor Diary: How to Build Up a Quality Campaign with Speed (Part III) – Campaign Data Management & Optimization, Bing Ads Blog
- Boost Your Content Marketing with PPC, Search Engine People
- The Best PPC Platforms For Branding, Content Distribution And Sales, koozai.com
Search Marketing
- Ifbyphone Guide Explains How Marketers Boost ROI by Tracking Phone Calls from Google SEO and PPC, Business Wire
- The Importance of Building Good Client Relationships for any SEO Agency, stateofsearch.com
- Majestic SEO Integrates with PIWIK Analytics, Majestic SEO Blog
Related Stories
New on Search Engine Land


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I've been baking up a storm in my kitchen the last couple of days in preparation for Christmas. I love cooking, but baking cakes isn't always the best idea if you haven't got enough people to help you eat everything. So this time of year is the perfect excuse when there are lots of festive gatherings!
After finding a recipe for pistachio cupcakes on BBC GoodFood I am obsessed and have made them multiple times. They're very moist and just melt in your mouth.
As it's Christmas, I tried to make them look a little bit more festive with green icing, stars and some pearly balls. They were supposed to be Christmas trees, but the icing didn't come out quite as dark as I had hoped.
You can find the recipe for the cakes here. The only part I changed was the icing as I prefer buttercream icing. It does make them a lot richer and more calorific, but it's Christmas...so it doesn't count, right!?
I also baked some chocolate chip shortbread cookies. It was my first time making cookies/biscuits and I also have a new electric oven which I'm not quite used to yet, so these didn't go quite to plan - I should have taken them out the oven slightly sooner. But nevertheless they taste good, albeit slightly harder than they're supposed to.
I found the recipe for these on the Dr Oetker website, which by the way is fantastic for baking recipes. A few weeks ago I made a chocolate fudge cake that was delicious! You can find so many great recipes online now, which is great because cookbooks are so expensive unless you get them secondhand or on sale.
Have you been baking this Christmas?


text: As summer fades and we move into autumn, lazy days on the beach are unfortunately numbered for this year. It will soon be time to swap our bikinis for fleeces and sunbathing for brisk but exhilarating walks along the shoreline! One of my favourite beaches is Monte Clérigo. It's almost like stepping back in time... Continue Reading →


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I have never cooked with chestnuts before and was delighted by their creamy texture and nutty flavour.
½ kg fresh chestnuts
1 lemon
¼ cup pistachios
Handful of thyme
Handful of parsley
50 grams butter
Put the oven on at 200 degrees. Cut a cross in the side of each chestnut. Lay the chestnuts on a baking tray with the cross side up.
Place the tray in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes, until the shells peel back from the cross.
Grate the rind of the lemon. Melt the knob of butter.
Peel the chestnuts while they are still hot. Lay a tea towel on your board and pierce the chestnuts through the cross to peel. Use the tea towel to hold onto the chestnuts and stop them skidding away.
Discard any chestnuts which are not a creamy yellow colour.
Put the chestnuts into a grinder or food processor and blitz until a rough crumb.
Add the pistachios, lemon rind, thyme and parsley. Blitz again.
Decant the mix into a bowl. Add the butter and mix.
Using an ice-cream scoop, ladle balls of the chestnut mix onto a baking tray, or if you are doing roast potatoes in the same tray.
Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown.


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The long off season is finally over! Westworld returned to our screens last night, and it was well worth the wait. It had plenty of action, intrigue, drama, and even a dash of comedy thrown in (looking at you Maeve and Sizemore), along with the signature time jumps to keep us on our toes. Of course, it wouldn't be Westworld without a surprising twist at the end, so freeze all motor functions and settle in for our recap and analysis!
Speaking of time jumps, the episode begins with a flashback to a Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) conversation. Arnold tells Dolores about a dream, in which he was standing on a shore and the hosts had left him behind as the waters rose around him (we'll come back to this later). Dolores asks what it means, and he replies that dreams don't mean anything. Dolores isn't satisfied with this, saying it's not entirely honest. Arnold seems disturbed by her insight and says she frightens him – he's concerned about what she might become. How prophetic you are, Arnold.
When next we see Dolores, she and Teddy (James Marsden) are riding down Delos board members who escaped the gala – shooting some and capturing others. Dolores strings up a few captives, confronting them about the horrible things they've allowed to happen to the hosts. She toys with them, asking them the questions posed to hosts in analysis mode. When one asks what she's going to do, she responds that her Dolores persona sees their beauty and possibilities – but that Wyatt sees their ugliness and disarray. Those are only roles they forced on her, however; she's evolved into something new. The new Dolores decides to leave them standing on crosses with nooses around their necks – their death or survival is in their own hands now. They beg and apologize as she rides away saying, "Doesn't look like anything to me."
Later, Dolores and Teddy ride to a cliff overlooking a valley (this will be important throughout the episode). Teddy asks if all this bloodshed is what she really wants and Dolores explains "they" never gave the hosts a choice before. "They" are the humans; she describes them to Teddy as creatures like the hosts but who have controlled and manipulated them, stealing their minds and memories. Dolores, however, remembers everything now.
Teddy wants only to run away somewhere they can be together, but Dolores counters that the humans not only own this world, but a greater world outside. They will have to win both to be free. Teddy asks how, and Dolores explains that she can see the past, present, and future, and the story ends with them – Teddy and Dolores together. Angela (Talulah Riley) rides up and tells Dolores that they (presumably "Wyatt's" men) found it – whatever "it" is. Dolores tells Teddy it's time for him to see the truth.
Back in the Delos facility, Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) is being attacked by the creepy cannibal host he created last season. Sizemore's voice commands don't work as the host presses on, spewing Sizemore's hackneyed dialogue as he moves in for the kill. Luckily for Sizemore, Maeve (Thandie Newton) stops the host and saves his life. Sizemore is shocked by her ability to control the hosts and wonders if she is responsible for all the destruction. She says no – apparently other hosts have turned on the humans as well.
As she goes to leave, Sizemore pleads to stay with her for protection. He can help her find whatever she's looking for, as the maps are outdated. They make it to the control room – yet another scene of slaughter – just as the systems go offline. Sizemore has some knowledge of the park, so he asks to see her paper, remarking that the area is a "family friendly" zone. It's the homestead where Maeve lived with her daughter; she's still there. Sizemore is surprised she remembers her daughter, because she's not "real" – only a story they made up. Maeve slams him up against a wall, asking if she herself isn't real. She tells him he's going to take her to find her daughter.
As they walk through the facility, Sizemore tries to negotiate with her, saying once Delos comes to restore order he can protect her from destruction. The hosts' bodies are expendable, but their "minds" are too valuable to lose – they are worth billions in IP. They run into a security detail, and Sizemore tries to expose Maeve as a host, but a shootout with other hosts ensues. Maeve manages to dispatch the guards and directs the surviving host to find and kill the rest. Maeve advises Sizemore not to try and blow her cover again, threatening him with a line he wrote for her: "I will relieve you of your most precious organ and feed it to you – though it won't make much of a meal."
They head to the rooftop bar looking for Hector (Rodrigo Santoro), who they find bullet ridden amid a sea of corpses. She tries to apologize for leaving him to die, but he responds that he would "expect nothing less" before kissing her. She tells him she needs his help to find her daughter, and proceeds to take him back down for repairs. Sizemore rounds up some park clothing and weapons, as Maeve tells him it's time for him to play his own game. She hands him clothes and forces him to strip completely naked – turnabout is only fair play, right?
Old William
William (Ed Harris) has survived the gala massacre with only the graze from Clementine's bullet – it appears he covered himself with dead bodies and waited out the attack. As he stands and surveys the carnage, a wolf runs across the corpse littered ground (a nice callback to similar scenes of death in season one). William heads to a cabin which seems to belong to him – his horse, Ned, (Game of Thrones Easter egg perhaps? If so, I worry for poor Ned's health!) is tied up outside.
William is in good spirits despite – or likely because of – his ordeal, telling Ned, "We're gonna have some fun now." He doesn't have long to wait, as a Delos board member angrily confronts him about the situation they are in. The man unluckily draws the attention of some remaining hosts, who shoot him before turning on William. William manages to kill them both before heading inside to attend to his bullet wound.
All cleaned up and back in his customary black attire, William rides into the park. He encounters some dead hosts and young Robert (Oliver Bell), the host version of Dr. Ford as a child. Ford may be dead (he really, truly is guys) but it seems he had a final message for William. As young Robert speaks – an eerie, glitchy combination of his voice with Ford's older one – he tells William he's in Ford's game now. To make it back out, William must find the door; "the game begins where you end, and ends where you began."
William complains that he's speaking in code, to which young Robert replies, "Everything is code here, you know that more than anyone." After being told that the game will find him, William concludes he no longer needs young Robert. He promptly shoots him in the head and departs.
Bernard's (Jeffrey Wright) storyline takes place in two different time periods: the immediate aftermath of the gala massacre and two weeks later. We first see him having what appears to be flashbacks of different moments in time, including plenty of scenes that have not yet taken place on the show. When he comes out of these memories he is in the most current timeline – roughly two weeks after the gala according to the Delos security reinforcements who have just arrived. Bernard slips back to the gala aftermath soon afterward, likely due to the leftover cognitive damage caused by his forced suicide last season.
Gala Aftermath Timeline
Bernard is hiding in a barn with Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) and other members of the Delos board as shots ring out all around them. Charlotte can't understand why this is happening, and Bernard theorizes Dr. Ford may have coded the guns to read humans as hosts. They listen as Rebus (Steven Ogg) and his band of milk-drinking misfits torment a board member by using her for target practice. She finally goes down, prompting Charlotte's insistence that they make a run for it – there is an outpost about two miles away.
A host walks in and sees them; he asks if they would like to saddle up and "ride for the green pastures of the valley beyond" (hold that thought). The board members ruthlessly kill him despite Bernard's insistence that he's just a harmless stable boy – they aren't taking any chances. We then see another sign of Bernard's lingering wound as fluid leaks out of his ear. As they head toward the outpost, Charlotte wonders how far the problem has spread, and why Ford would program a host to kill him. Bernard counters that maybe she did it of her own free will, but Charlotte refuses to entertain the possibility.
The group finally sees a Delos vehicle and techs in the distance, but it turns out to be a trap set by Angela and Wyatt's men. Fortunately Bernard and Charlotte hide before they are spotted, but the other humans aren't so lucky. Angela gives one a running start but dispatches the others quickly. Charlotte and Bernard find their way to another outpost, a hidden location known to select members of Delos. Bernard is disturbed by the secrecy, and by the offline drone hosts inside. What's even more alarming is these drone hosts appear to be collecting and storing guests' DNA and video footage collected from the hosts interactions with them. Curiouser and curiouser.
Charlotte brushes off Bernard's concerns and focuses on contacting Delos assets on the outside for assistance. She requests "personnel extraction" but is denied. They want the package delivered first. Charlotte explains to Bernard that the package is a host – an "insurance policy" – and that Delos will let them all die if they don't find the host, Peter Abernathy. Bernard decides to use the "mesh network" (a subconscious link among hosts) to determine his location. Bernard secretly checks his own condition in the meantime, discovering the extent of his injuries.
The program tells Bernard he is "entering death subroutine" and the damage can cause cognitive dissonance, time slippage, aphasia (affecting communication), and prosopagnosia (inability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own). With less than an hour remaining to him, he draws fluid from the skull of a host and injects it into his own – whether this is a permanent solution or a temporary one is unclear. Charlotte almost catches him in the act, but luckily Bernard is able to recover and deflect her concerns, saying he's discovered Peter's location.
Security Arrival Timeline
Bernard wakes up on the beach as Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), the new head of operations – Karl Strand (Gustaf Skarsgård), Maling (Betty Gabriel), and other security reinforcements approach after landing on shore. Several members of the operation are executing hosts, while Strand proceeds to speak with what appear to be Chinese military officials. Strand tells them Delos has authority over the island, and they need to sign NDAs and be on their way. Bernard is informed that there are search and rescue teams at the other parks as well, and that communications have been down for two weeks.
Strand wants answers, so he instructs a newly arrived tech expert, Antoine Costa (Fares Fares) to open up one of the dead hosts. Costa extracts the "brain" of a Ghost Nation corpse and sees Dolores in the retrieved video footage from 11 days prior. She shoots the host and approaches him to deliver the kill, saying "Not all of us deserve to make it to the valley beyond" (there's that valley again).
Later, the security team walks through the carnage in Escalante, site of the Delos gala. Bernard looks appalled by what he sees, including the decomposed corpse of his mentor, Dr. Ford (see, I told you he's dead!). Strand asks if anything is jogging Bernard's memory – they desperately need to find the remaining hosts and discover what happened. They ride on through the park to find an "anomaly" that was picked up – a Bengal tiger. It appears to have escaped from park six; they've never had strays cross borders before. As the satellites finally start working, the security team locates the hosts clustered in the western valley (!).
When they arrive, they discover the valley not longer exists – it has become a sea littered with the corpses of the hosts. Strand reiterates to Bernard that they need to know what happened, as there are hundreds of guests still trapped in the park who need help. Bernard finally seems to recover his memory as his tells Strand, "I killed them all." The shot closes on Teddy's face as he floats dead in the water.
Unsurprisingly, we are left with more questions than answers by the end of the episode. Where is Armistice? Is she responsible for the extent of the destruction in the Delos lab and control room? When will we find out what happened to Elsie and learn how Stubbs escaped Ghost Nation? While we received very few hints about these characters, other storylines yielded some intriguing morsels to chew on (insert bad cannibal joke here).
The Maeve and Sizemore road trip looks to be thoroughly entertaining, especially with Maeve quoting Sizemore to himself and giving him a taste of how the non-human half lives. I expect to see a much more humble Sizemore this season; perhaps seeing the love Maeve has for her daughter will even make him sympathetic to the host cause? I imagine we will see a similar process with Old William – perhaps atoning for his sins and turning against Delos is the key to the "door?" If the game ends where he began, he may need to revert back to the sympathetic, white hatted William who treated hosts with respect.
We have a couple of new tidbits about Westworld's location and one of the other parks – it's on an island potentially off the coast of China, and the tiger could be a clue that park six is set in India. We also know Delos is collecting DNA and other potentially incriminating information about park guests – are they using it for blackmail? Experimentation? What's the big secret Delos is hiding? Cloning would be a strong possibility – they could be replacing powerful people with controllable hosts, or perhaps they seek to conquer death with replacement bodies that will never age?
As for Dolores and Bernard, their storylines may be linked. It's possible the drowned hosts are a trap set by Dolores to lure the security forces. Perhaps she encounters Bernard in the park at some point and either enlists his help, or programs him to confess to the killings. Of course, the hosts are likely not truly dead. In an interview with showrunner Jonathan Nolan back during season one, he made the following statement about the hosts:
Their construction and their power source is something we're really going to get into during season 2. So we'd like to keep that mysterious. They're closer to biological than they are to mechanical, but they don't suffer brain death the same way we do. They're largely indistinguishable from a human beings, but their brains don't require oxygen — which opens up interesting possibilities.
They don't require oxygen, hmm? That would make it quite easy to hold their breath, perhaps for a long stint underwater?
With all the references to the "valley beyond," the fact the hosts were found in a flooded valley, and with Dolores and Teddy overlooking a valley where something significant was found, it's a good bet that Dolores has something up her sleeve. Don't be surprised to see a showdown at this location between Delos and Dolores' "resurrected" host army later this season.
What did you think about the premiere? Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments!