text:
Posts: n/a
2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
I'm sorry to be such a downer in the Break Room, lol.
How do fellow mudders here feel about this?
The culprit:
I usually avoid news and politics like rotten eggs. Once in a while though, curiosity gets the best of me. Since yesterday I've been researching a lot, because of something I read. It started out with researching unemployment forecasts, since I'm currently unemployed. So I found an article which had some bad news, and then I went to the comments page because I like to get knowledgeable about differing opinions. What stood out for me was an intelligent post calmly quoting an economist stating that logistically, there are only two outcomes... eventually the American dollar loses all value, or the economy hits rock bottom and crashes totally... and since the whole system needs an overhaul, these two are certain.
So I'm seriously starting to think that it is better to be prepared, whatever the outcome. I'm currently researching ways on how to get prepared (learning how to use a gun, taking some savings out of the bank, etc).
The question:
If the absolute worst case scenario comes to pass... there will be no more MUDs, probably? They are not vital to survival anyway. But I am just curious. Overall, what do you think about this possible outcome? What will you do? What will happen?
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 315
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
You'll need a gun to protect your belongings, keep in mind that ammunition typically expires after a couple of years, and if things go really bad you need a reliable community. So going to church every Sunday is a great investment, regardless if you believe in God. Even better would be finding a local group of well prepared pessimists as you'll end up with a lot of useless mouths when finding shelter in your church.
Regardless of the current situation there will be a civil war in Europe in 30 to 50 years which will likely escalate into a third world war, this civil war will be because in Europe muslims will become a majority around 2060, and if you look at history pretty much every nation with a 30-60% muslim population ends up having a civil war. The Balkan wars, Kashmir, Indonesia, Sudan, the Armenian genocide, just to name a few, and if the Balkan wars are any indication it'll be very messy, especially when the middle east and North Africa gets involved, while an economically weakened America stands by the side line.
Economic collapse is more difficult to predict, at the current rate inflation will decrease the average wealth, causing the population to eventually get tired of the fact that the rich get richer, and demand a bigger redistribution of the available wealth. This can express itself in various forms, typically communism, national socialism, and national libertarianism. Neither are pretty, and mostly not sufficient to fix the problem right away, and easiest is to default on your debts and fight a big war while at it. Truth is typically the first casualty of war, and after that a government can do all kinds of nifty things the population wouldn't put up with otherwise.
So my advice is to get the hell out of Europe if you currently live there and aren't an old fart. Avoid living in locations with populations prone to rioting (I won't go into specifics as that'll upset certain people), gangs are going to be the biggest problem in some areas, while they won't exist in others - which is where you want to live. Don't tell anyone about your two years worth of food, cause they'll come knocking when things go bad, do tell them about your guns. Don't live too far north, winter will be rough, do grow some nut trees.
Personally I think you're best off living in New Zealand, or anywhere else with a lot of space and decent people. So you could utilize MUDs to find a cute New Zealander, or go the non marriage route. For those in doubt, about 50.000 Dutchies (typically young middle class families) immigrate each year to the USA, New Zealand, Canada, and Austrialia, few of them return. In 40 years that's 2 million, about 15% of the current Dutch population, add that on top of other demographic trends and you've got an interesting vision on the future.
Join Date: May 2005
Name: Derek
Location: Orlando
Posts: 357
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
Economists have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3 recessions ... even a broken watch is right twice a day.
New Member
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
Awesome. This is the bottom line of -exactly- what is going on. A lot of fear mongering and hearsay. Truely, no one knows what will happen. Economics is such an "up and down" subject, it is near impossible to determine what will happen in the long run. That is why true economists only focus on the short-term trends. The only thing you can/should do is focus on family/friends and bettering yourself. Eventually things will get better, however, things do tend to get worse before they get better, and if you are un-employed you might have to settle with something that is entry-level or bottom of the barrel until you can find something else.
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 315
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
The logic is child play once one gets passed their egalitarian / liberal hangups. The conclusion is available as comedy.
Idiocracy (2006)
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 144
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
... except, the studies I've been recently looking at show very little correlation between IQ and wealth, especially at the higher levels of wealth.
There *is* a low correlation, but it's something < 0.5 (I can't remember the actual numbers off the top of my head.) - interestingly, there is a similarly low correlation between school marks and final wealth.
There is, however, a very high correlation between *ambition* and wealth. In other words, people who aren't willing to settle for less, (and perhaps are willing to work for it) tend to get richer. That's not really a big surprise.
That doesn't mean hard work will always pay off. The secretary who works hard all day may never make much money. But the secretary who isn't happy being a secretary, and who looks for a higher paid job is more likely to.
It also makes sense, looking around me. I work at a university, and you can see the different attitudes from the students. There are some professions that pay more (accounting, management, chiropractic) - and the students are there because they want jobs that will pay well. Reasonable attitude. Other professions, such as computing, have the potential to pay pretty well, but a lower chance of making megabucks. The students tend to be in those courses because they either are interested in the subject, or they think they'll get a more stable job, or have an easier time finding a job.
Now, just because rich people are ambitious doesn't mean everyone with ambition will get rich. There are plenty of other factors at work (such as opportunity, upbringing, etc.)
Unfortunately, my google fu isn't strong today; I can't find any convenient links to these studies.
So what does this mean for the economy? Probably not much. Does it really matter if the rich people are intelligent, ambitious, or dullards? Not really.
What matters, in economic terms, is that people follow patterns. Those patterns can be discovered and modelled, and economic outcomes can be predicted. Predicting economic outcomes allows changes to the system (such as by raising or lowering interest rates) which can speed up or slow the economic growth or decline. Rich or poor, smart or stupid, people will respond to those changes.
So what will control the future economic growth will be your policy makers. Whoever runs your reserve bank, the politicians pushing for new laws. The DMCAA, the google books settlement, etc. - if American laws and conditions encourage innovation, then innovative people will flock there, and the economy will benefit. If the laws encourage monopolies, then monopolies will thrive (and there are benefits that monopolies do provide, as well as disadvantages...)
An example of that would be Nikola Tesla, who was born in Croatia, but moved to America. He was instrumental in making commercial electricity, radios (and radio control), fluro lights, the AC motor (about 80% more efficient than the DC motor), robotics, nuclear physics, etc. - a completely amazing man. Although Thomas Edison gets most of the credit for electricity, he and Tesla were competing to roll out their versions (DC vs AC) to the different cities and towns. It is Tesla's AC that we use.
These inventions helped Europe move into the second industrial revolution. Have a chart to see how countries benefited. File:Graph rel lvl indz 1750 1900 01.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Obviously, the second industrial revolution wasn't the work of just one man, but even so, individuals can make a huge impact (which is why western technology tends to move in jumps.)
So my prediction is that future economic success will be more based on who the decision makers are, and what their decisions are. I don't think intelligence and wealth consolidation will make any real difference. Policies encouraging or discouraging wealth consolidation, on the other hand, will.
(And that's why it bugs me when elections are won or lost based on the candidates haircut, rather than based on their social or economic policies. How many voters even know their preferred parties economic policies?)
New Member
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
However, the flip side is, we do "technically" know this, but because we are all (speaking of U.S. here) very biased to our own opinions, we tend to follow the candidate of our choice, solely on moral, ethical and religious views. I can see how this is important, especially ethically, however history (and the present) has shown us that smooth talking, good looking candidates may not always be the best choice when it comes to what they actually do or know how to do when fixing large economic problems.
How do you balance the two? If there is a great candidate that can probably fix a nation, has a great know-how and is very politically savvy, chances are he/she won't be elected because they are usually very strong in their politcal stance, and not willing to sway for the masses. Thus, the smooth talking candidate with a sweet tongue talks the nation into voting for them by telling the people what they want to hear.
(I know this parallels, to a point, the past U.S. Presidential election, but I was merely speaking with an objective view on what usually happens, not bash President Obama.)
And, btw, Idiocracy was a funny movie, and I hope it never happens! (But things are looking grim.)
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 144
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
But really, it's less about IQ and more about willingness to become educated. It doesn't matter how smart you are, if you have no concept of economic theory, and if you don't know the economic history of the various parties, you can't make an educated choice.
It's more a matter of care. It's not hard for someone to "lay out" the options. Party A is better at long term economic planning, but in the short term there will be higher unemployment and interest rates. Party B tends to hurt the country's economy, but they will keep the interest rates down, pay more unemployment benefits, and build hospitals. Or something. It doesn't take a genius to understand the broad strokes once someone who *is* an educated genius has understood and explained it in simple terms.
But people just don't care. For the most part. Even if they understand what's happening, if they have a mortgage they will vote for the person that will keep interest rates down. For the most part, they will vote selfishly. Democracy encourages self-interest. And that's assuming they know what they're voting for.
I'm not trashing democracy as a system, though. There are some problems, but there are other things that can be done to help.
For example, computers are very widespread. Even in poor areas public libraries often have computers. It'd be quite possible to increase access to computers for poor areas.
And then it'd be quite possible to have a website where each political party lays out their various proposed policies. A forum where people can debate the policies, explain what the policy means, explain the outcomes, discuss the moral issues. And a simple handy-dandy vote button where users can say "I'm in favor of this" or "I'm against this"
It doesn't have to be an official referendum. If 90% of internet users vote for legalized pot that doesn't necessarily mean that they should legalize it. But it does show that it's a topic that there *is* some question over, and perhaps they should do social studies, etc. on the effect *IF* they legalize it.
Heck, you even could make it an official referendum. It's quite possible to assign every voter a username and password. You could get the password assigned when you go vote. And then have a referendum for all the big policies. There could be a weighting "90% of voters want more hospitals, but 85% of voters want more parks. Since a park costs a fraction of the cost of a hospital, we'll prioritize that. But we'll de-prioritize the road upgrade, since only 30% of voters want it." etc.
And, more importantly, that would provide visible stats to show how well a government performs. When I go to look, it can tell me that party A only upheld 30% of their promises, while party B upheld 45% of their promises. But it could also tell me that party A upheld 100% of their policies that had over 80% support in the referendum.
Essentially, this would allow us to be closer to a true democracy, rather than a representative democracy. And it would mean voters could focus more on the issues they care about. A non-economist might not have a say on fiscal policy, but may vote to spend money on roads rather than military.
Right now, the voter picks an issue (say, roads rather than military) and their vote applies to *all* policies from that party. So they are unintentionally also voting for that parties fiscal policies, social policies, etc.
But really, to me, the largest gain would be that all the debate is available in one place. When I read that there is a tax increase, I can easily read about *why* there is a tax increase, and I can read the comments from the rest of the community as a jumping-off point if I want to educate myself further.
All this doesn't mean we'd have better economic policies, of course. I still don't necessarily think that "the voting public" will make the best decisions. But at least it would mean that "the voting public" is better able to make decisions, and to become educated about the decisions they are making.
(Random note: I'm Australian. But we also have a representative democracy here. Although we've had better economic planning. )
New Member
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
I agree. It would be very nice to have one location, on the internet, where everyone can see exactly what is being passed/voted on.
The problem comes with corruption, the politicians will not allow this to happen, as it will then show exactly what bills are being passed, and all their "pet projects." I would love to have the chance to vote a big fat "NO" on certain policies, but that is exactly why they do not post them to the public.
I find it funny, and scary, that politicians who have our "political interests" at heart love to do deals, and put in their own projects behind closed doors. Then they work on what the public wants, and insert their deals and pet projects into the bill in the background. This is corruption at its finest. How are we to combat that? If we rise up and claim "We want to see the bill!" They claim "It will be seen soon!" and it only shows up after it is voted into law.
Democracy breeds corruption, however I love democracy as it is the only real way to rule a nation, IMO. But, what is happening in the US is not democracy, it is an aristocratic system built on the premise of Democracy, and hidden behind the banner of Democracy. True democracy does not exist in the known world anymore, that was out years ago when politicians figured out how to play the system to their advantage.
So, on your point, about Party A and Party B. Why is it that is the only 2 choices in the first place? You shouldn't have to substitute one good thing for another. Each party only really has 1 good thing, the rest is trash. You should be able to get all of it fixed without a political agenda.
This also proves my point that I believe there should be no career politicians. I mean, what a joke to consider your career to be a career politician. They are in it for the money and nothing else, they just do what little they can to appease their constituants, and then keep their projects going so they can make more money, and retire as a rich person on the top 1 percentile of the nation.
But, I digress, this is all a big mess we call Washington here in the States. There will never again be a great "democratic" nation, it is all a series of propaganda and political interests.
The question is not "Why does the Government want to go to Socialism?" It is "When will the US be a Socialist Country?" We already are, people just don't realize it yet.
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 310
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
Basically, about 15-20%, or less, of the American public belongs to this "movement", and they are the **exact same people** who elected Bush, and others before, based solely on their own desire to see *their* taxes cut, and everyone else screwed. Meanwhile claiming that, despite all evidence to the contrary, everyone else makes the same amount as they do, and then pushing their politicians to deregulate everything to the point where financial companies did the equivalent of buying lotto tickets off each other, instead of making sane decisions, and other companies, like Wal-Mart, pay 100% of their employees, below manager level, minimum wage only. I.e., given the hours they get to work, which might be only 20-30 a week, the guys making $30,000 a year, as managers, are outnumbered 100:1 by people making less than $18,000 a year, and those managers bosses, who make "minimum" of probably $150,000, and are outnumbered by 200:1, all think that universal health care is bad, Medicare and Medicade are suspicious, Obama is trying to ruin the economy (what more?), and the way to "fix" everything is to gut the federal government, sit around waiting for the state governments, but without, mind you, raising any taxes at all, to "fill in the holes" left in services as a result, and, of course, give even more tax shelters, tax breaks, and deregulation to... companies like Wal-Mart.
If the US economy collapses, it would be absolute proof that its possible for complete idiots to spend 5+ years getting a college education, and still come out with the IQ of a damn rock, yet manage to make more money than the people that actually have a fracking clue what is really going on.
Last edited by shadowfyr : 04-16-2010 at 04:27 PM.
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: United Socialist States of America
Home MUD: SmaugMuds.org
Home MUD: Arthmoor MUD Hosting
Posts: 249
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 77
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
i was planning to live in finland or something like that.. that's sad to hear about Europe.
it's a shame for European Union; they didn't welcome dinamic and young Turkey for membership..
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 315
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
Probably safest to stay in Turkey which is likely to stay neutral if it remains a secular nation (Turkey will probably be an islamic state by 2040), the weather is much nicer as well.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 77
Re: 2nd Great (greatest? worldwide?) Depression
but you're right maybe they will treat me as a muslim even if i declare that I am not, cause i have Turkish roots and country that has a muslim majority..
|Thread Tools


text:
Missing Maine Mother's Body Found
Maine Woman's Car Found With Toddler Inside
The body of a missing Maine mother was found Wednesday, several days after her toddler daughter was abandoned in an idling car near a New Hampshire ski resort.
The body of Krista Dittmeyer, 20, was found in a pond near the Cranmore Mountain ski resort parking lot where police Saturday found Dittmeyer's car running with the hazard lights flashing, according to Assistant Attorney General Jane Young.
"She was located in what is known as Duck Pond. We are treating this as a suspicious death," Young said.
Young did not disclose the manner or cause of Dittmeyer's death, but said an autopsy would be conducted on Thursday.
Dittmeyer's 14-month-old daughter in the car. She was not harmed and is being cared for by family members.
Dittmeyer's sister, Kayla Dittmeyer, said she believes Krista persuaded the person who forced her from her vehicle to leave the child behind.
Detectives said Dittmeyer, of Portland, Maine, last spoke with family members by phone about 8 p.m. Friday.
An extensive search of the area was launched, with agents from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and the Carroll County Sheriff's Office providing assistance.
Investigators said a search Saturday revealed no areas that appeared disturbed or suspicious.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Finding Your Foundation
The foundation planting is a basic component of the traditional landscape. Look at the base of almost any home and you'll see one — as well as seeing them around libraries, old banks, courthouses and even garages and outbuildings. The foundation planting seems somehow to be "required."
The practice of planting shrubs adjacent to the foundations of homes became firmly established in the late Victorian Era, and generations since then have maintained the tradition. Evergreen shrubs were planted to provide old homes with an insulation barrier against cold winter wind and hot summer sun, and to provide a visual screen for cement-block foundations and basement windows. While foundation plantings still serve those purposes on some older homes, the practice of architecture has moved forward: Foundations are better insulated and many are so attractive that it's a shame to hide them.
Many historic buildings deserve period landscapes, not that they should all look like giant green woolly bear caterpillars of yews wrapped around houses, or sheared shrubs across the front of houses punctuated with oversized arborvitaes at the corners. And of course they shouldn't cause drainage problems, basement upheavals, irritated painters or damaged roofs. Poor horticultural practices should not be perpetuated just for the sake of historical accuracy. But healthy, interesting, effective foundation plantings can easily be designed with period-appropriate plant materials.
Foundation plantings can serve one of the most important functions of the public landscape: to direct the visitor's attention to the front entryway of a building. Certainly other landscape components can serve this function — decorative doors, walkways, bold railings and architectural planters — but well-placed foundation plantings can also do the job.
Well designed plantings around foundations also can complement the architecture of buildings. Specimen plants and plant groupings can lead the eye to beautiful windows or graceful structural elements without hiding them. Vertical ornamental grasses and narrow trees can reinforce the vertical lines of a house or interrupt the long horizontal lines of a low-profile building. Spreading or weeping trees and masses of low-growing shrubs can help visually bring a large house down to earth and connect it to its surroundings.
Most importantly, foundation plantings aren't just the plantings around the foundation of buildings. When designed effectively, they also form the foundation of the landscape as it transitions from the structure outward toward the farthest edge of the landscape. In other words, they help integrate the building into the landscape.
It's important to move from the static foundation plantings of the past toward more dynamic foundation plantings or integrated landscapes that better serve today's architecture and landscape design. How can we change old foundation plantings to energize them? What might we put in place of traditional foundation plantings in new landscape designs? Here are three ideas that might guide you as you break with the tradition of the classic foundation planting.
First, think about variety. If you're renovating a landscape, count the evergreens in the foundation planting. In some landscapes, evergreen shrubs form more than half the length of the foundation plantings. That line of evergreens forms an outline around the house that cannot be visually penetrated. Rather than help the house integrate with the landscape, such plantings set the house apart and isolate it from the landscape. Since evergreens are not needed as insulation for many new and renovated buildings, other more dynamic plants can replace them. You might leave some evergreens in place for winter interest and replace others with shrubs with winter interest, herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses with seasonal interest, and annuals for summer-long color.
Don't be afraid to add some color. You can plant annuals for months of color, herbaceous perennials for a sequence of color or shrubs for seasonal flower/fruit/leaf color. In the past 15 years, thousands of new plants have been introduced with attributes that make them appropriate for landscape use. If that number seems outrageous, glance through some old textbooks of landscape design — the list of common landscape perennials seems to have been limited to spring bulbs, spring phlox, hosta, daylily and chrysanthemum. And while these perennials were used in other parts of the landscape, they were rarely used in foundation plantings. Now, astilbes, ferns and mosses add a quiet elegance to shaded sides of buildings. The long list of sun perennials used in foundation plantings today includes rudbeckia, baptisia, artemisia and nepeta. Seasonal interest is often added with summer-blooming bulbs such as alliums and agapanthus. The list of annuals used in foundation plantings has changed even more. Few annuals other than geranium were used in traditional plantings. Now dozens of new genera of spectacular, high-performance annuals are available everywhere, and they require little enough maintenance that they are useful even in public landscapes. Vegetative annuals like calibrachoa, scaevola, bacopa and argyranthemum were unknown to most of us 20 years ago; now they're commonplace in containers, flower gardens and yes, even in foundation plantings.
Second, consider our modern lifestyle — it flows. We are much less formal than our forebears from the era when foundation plantings were the rage. Our homes reflect our informality. Yet many traditional landscapes remain a series of concentric circles — there's a house in the middle, surrounded by a foundation planting, then a lawn (often punctuated by a vegetable garden and a flower bed or two) and finally a border formed by trees, fences, hedges and sidewalks. If you let the zones intermingle, the landscape becomes much more interesting, inviting and dynamic. How can you realistically achieve this in a renovation? The first step is to blur the line between the foundation planting and the lawn that usually surrounds it. You can eliminate the impression of the ring around the house by simply making the foundation planting more irregular in its shape, deeper in some places around the house and narrower or nonexistent in others, and by adding zones of mulch or groundcovers that connect the foundation plantings to the rest of the landscape.
One example might involve a shade tree near the house, under which the lawn doesn't perform well. By replacing the lawn with a mixture of shade-loving groundcovers that extend from the house outward, under the canopy of the tree, and adding a few native ephemerals or spring bulbs to the groundcover area, you'll create a much more naturalistic, interesting zone in the landscape. Adding a few shrubs to the zone would reinforce the feeling that the house is connected to the landscape, and that the shade garden connects the tree to the house.
Third, several of the new concepts that guide our landscaping almost preclude the use of a foundation planting altogether. We aim toward sustainable landscapes, apply fewer pesticides, incorporate more native plants, implement more naturalistic designs, integrate a much larger number of plant species and plant many groundcovers other than lawns. When you think about how these concepts interact and reinforce one another, the traditional foundation planting seems a bit out of place. The very need to define the house with a foundation planting, or fill the space between the house and the lawn, melts away. Why think of the foundation planting as a border at all? Why not use shrubs and groundcovers to extend outward from the house in an irregular pattern, toward groupings of other plants?
Foundation plantings as they were once conceived — with those sheared evergreens that continue to hug old houses — remain appropriate in situations where the plantings are healthy and the homes' architecture is of the appropriate era. In other situations, it's time to reassess foundation plantings and develop the zones immediately around houses to be more in line with our modern knowledge of plant materials and plant care, more sustainable methods of landscape management and more relaxed and integrated lifestyles.
Lois Berg Stack is an ornamental horticulture specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension (Orono, Maine).
Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2020 Penton Media Inc.


text:
Anticipation(redirected from Anticipations)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
Related to Anticipations: deficiencies
Paying what is owed before it is due (usually to save interest charges).
1. The payment of a debt in full before it is due. Prepayment is good for the borrower because it relieves him/her of the debt, but it deprives the lender of interest he/she would have received otherwise. As a result, some lenders attach prepayment penalties to loans to disincentivize prepayments. Prepayment can me a major risk to collateralized mortgage obligations as coupon payments are based on interest received from the underlying mortgages. Less commonly, this is called anticipation. See also: Prepayment risk.
2. Payment in advance for a good or service not yet received.
2. Payment in advance for a good or service not yet received.


text:
Ralph DeSantis 717-948-8930 Three Mile Island Teams With Londonderry Twp. Emergency Services For Annual Charity Golf Outing More than $57,000 will be raised for fire company's training facility expansion
LONDONDERRY TOWNSHIP, PA (Aug. 6, 2009) - Three Mile Island Generating Station will hold a charity golf tournament on Friday, Aug. 7 to raise funds toward the expansion of the Londonderry Twp. Volunteer Fire and Training Facility. The event will raise more than $57,000 for the fire company, bringing the four-year total raised by TMI to $240,000.
A full field of 144 golfers will tee-off at 12:30 p.m. at Sunset Golf Course in Londonderry Twp. Representatives of Three Mile Island, the township and the fire company worked together on the planning and fundraising for the event. The tournament has 28 sponsors.
"The success of this charity golf tournament shows what can happen when a local municipality and a local business partner for the betterment of the entire community," said Daryl Lehew, Londonderry Township Supervisor. "Three Mile Island's support of the fire company benefits every citizen of our area."
"The tournament would not be possible without the involvement of the dozens of contractors and vendors that do business with TMI," said William Noll, Three Mile Island Site Vice President. "Even in this challenging economic period they stepped up and supported this worthwhile effort." In addition to TMI, other major sponsors of the golf tournament include AREVA NP Inc.; Consolidated Power; URS Washington Division; Joseph Jingoli & Son, Inc.; Mammoet USA; and the Steam Generator Team.
The Londonderry Twp. Volunteer Fire Company expansion project involves adding truck bays, training rooms, equipment storage rooms and overnight accommodations to the existing fire station. The estimated cost of the expansion is about $1 million. Anyone interested in providing support to the fire company should contact Londonderry Twp. at 717-944-1803.


text:
This is 1987 stealth game Metal Gear. The box shows protagonist Solid Snake at the age of 23. Let's review and see how he stacks up over the years — courtesy of 2ch, the world's largest bulletin board.
Here is snake at 27 years-old in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
And at 33.
G/O Media may get a commission
And at 37.
While he looks like he's in his 70s, Snake is actually 42 or 43 in Metal Gear Solid IV. Read more here about Snake!
[via オレ的ゲーム情報]


text:
We chose NetDimensions, because it is a global company that could meet all our specific requirements and because it is well-known for their innovations on the mobile front. - Geoffrey Scott, CEO at Uster Technologies
Neu-Isenburg, Germany (PRWEB UK) 3 April 2014
NetDimensions (AIM: NETD; OTCQX: NETDY), a global provider of performance, knowledge, and learning management systems, announced today that Switzerland-based Uster Technologies, a global market leader in textile quality control, has chosen NetDimensions Talent Suite as Secure SaaS in order to provide training to employees all over the world.
Uster Technologies is the premier quality reference point for textile producers worldwide. The company has over 60 years' expertise in testing and monitoring solutions dedicated to the production of the finest fibers, yarns, and fabrics. Uster Technologies offers its clients know-how, industry expertise, and customer support – underpinned by an exclusive range of quality control instruments.
"We were looking for a truly global company, which would be able to provide us with solutions that meet our specific requirements and help us improve our organisational performance.
"We needed an efficient, multi-language Learning Management System (LMS), which would allow us to accelerate onboarding, improve product knowledge, drive sales processes, and support IT roll outs all over the world. The LMS also needs to interoperate seamlessly with other systems, which we already have in place in our organisation," explained Geoffrey Scott, CEO at Uster Technologies.
Effective knowledge management and sales processes, as well as efficient onboarding are critical to Uster Technologies, which has a global and highly distributed workforce.
"We were also looking for an innovative mobile solution to deliver training on tablet devices at the point of need all over the world.
"We evaluated several vendors and solutions, and in the end we chose NetDimensions, because it is a global company that could meet all our specific requirements and because it is well-known for their innovations on the mobile front," continued Scott.
"We are proud to be working with a leading company like Uster Technologies to support their global operations. This will in turn help Uster Technologies provide top-class service to their clients, textile producers worldwide," commented Liam Butler, General Manager for EMEA at NetDimensions.
About Uster Technologies Ltd
The Uster Group is the leading high-technology instrument manufacturer of products for quality measurement and certification for the textile industry. The Group provides testing and monitoring instruments, systems and services that allow optimisation of quality through each individual stage of textile production. This includes raw textile fibers, such as cotton or wool, all staple fiber and filament yarns, as well as downstream services to the final finished fabric. Uster Technologies provides benchmarks that are a basis for the trading of textile products at assured levels of quality across global markets. The Group's aim is to forward know-how on quality, productivity and cost to the textile industry.
Uster Technologies is headquartered in Uster, Switzerland and is an independent subsidiary of Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO), a Japanese listed company. The Uster Group operates through a worldwide market organisation complemented by technology centers. It has sales and service subsidiaries in the major textile markets and technology centers in Uster (Switzerland), Knoxville (USA) and Suzhou (China).
For more information, please visit: http://www.uster.com.
About NetDimensions
Established in 1999, NetDimensions (AIM: NETD; OTCQX: NETDY) is a global provider of performance, knowledge, and learning solutions.
NetDimensions provides companies, government agencies and other organisations with talent management solutions to personalise learning, share knowledge, enhance performance, foster collaboration, and manage compliance programmes for employees, customers, partners and suppliers.
Recognised as one of the talent management industry's top-rated technology suppliers in overall customer satisfaction, NetDimensions has been chosen by leading organizations worldwide including ING, Cathay Pacific, Hunter Douglas, Chicago Police Department, Geely Automotive, Fugro Group, and Fresenius Medical Care.
NetDimensions is ISO 9001 certified and NetDimensions hosted services are ISO 27001 certified.
For more information, visit [http://www.NetDimensions.co.uk or follow @NetDimensions on Twitter.


text:
Another efficiency that Lightroom has, is the ability to batch process a whole selection of images based on the Development settings that have been applied to a single image. This is something that I tend to use all of the time when I want to create a single body of work. The way that I was trained to think in terms of this was to have some kind of linkage in the series, this I believe is a stronger story and is a way to help the viewer engage with the work. The linkage could be anything, but typically I tend to use colour, split tone, black and white, the size etc etc, then everything looks the same.
As you can see in the following example I have a series of images that I want to apply the same style to.
These images were taken on the Rohtang pass in North India, I like the industrial/work story of these images and the way that they are used almost as places to rest, rather than for their intended use.
My typical workflow will take one of the images and find a look that I think suits the entire series, this may be via the Development settings, or using a preset (something like VSCO film presets, is they can provide a vintage film look). My processing isn't very heavy, as I like natural looking images, with a film like look.
You can see below the starting image, it's very bright with pastel colours
for this i am going to use a VSCO preset Fuji Provia 100F Portrait, as I think this gives the image a little lift and helps the muted colours shine.
Now i would like to make all the images in the series look exactly the same. To do this I have selected the images in the film strip (using CMD+A (on a Mac) and CTRL+A (on the PC), the selection is marked in Yellow below (Images can also be selected by using a to/from range with the shift key, or individual by using the CTRL(PC)/CMD(Mac) keys.
N.B Just make sure that the first image that you selected was the image that you will be using to set the other images.
Once the images have been selected, press the SYNC button (Marked Red below).
The Sync button will pop up a dialog box asking which settings you would like to apply to the other images. I have deselected the ones that are not appropriate, and selected the ones that I would like to apply. There are reasons that certain ones are deselected, i.e. Spot removal is unchecked because I don't want to have local fixes to appear across the other images, they will be worked on separately. the same as Local Adjustments and the crop feature.
Once the Synchronise button is pressed, the adjustments will be applied to the other images.
If for some reason you don't like the changes, you can undo one step CTRL+Z (PC) or CMD+Z (Mac) and this will undo the synchronise step.
Once the adjustments have been made, I will of course inspect each image individually and correct any errors (Clone / Healing, slight tweaks to the white point, black point and exposure, but the majority of the changes applied during the synchronise stay the same).
I find this processing incredibly useful to give consistency across a series of work.


text:
Beat the Streak Report: Tuesday, September 6
11 PM Update: Well, that's it and that's all for Steven Summer. Ryan Braun went 0-for-4 against the Cardinals despite reaching base on a walk and an error. The 0-fer ends Summer's streak at 48 games — one short of the all-time BTS record.
7 PM Update: Steven locked in Ryan Braun again as his pick for Tuesday. Braun has at least one hit in each of his last six games and is batting .407 in that span.
After today, there is no going back.
Thanks to a 2-for-5 effort by Ryan Braun on Monday, season leader Steve Summer sits at 48 games. With one more correct selection, he can match Mike Karatzia for the longest run in BTS history and officially push us into uncharted territory.
Make no mistake: this is the real deal. Fifty-seven games — and the $5.6 million prize that comes with it — is absolutely in play. Steve is picking from a solid rotation of high-average hitters, he's playing the matchups every day, and luck appears to be on his side.
Sure, a lot can happen over the next nine days — freak injuries, intentional walks, alien attack … The list of obstacles is endless. But Steve has made it this far, and we're not betting on the aliens now.
Tuesday's picks:
(Make a BTS pick)
Oh, hello there…
Carlos Santana: .545 (6-for-11) since '06 vs. Tigers starter Rick Porcello
Albert Pujols: .480 (12-for-25) since '06 vs. Brewers starter Yovani Gallardo
David Wright: .412 (7-for-17) since '06 vs. Marlins starter Chris Volstad
Starlin Castro: .417 (5-for-12) since '06 vs. Reds starter Mike Leake
Ichiro Suzuki: .356 (26-for-73) since '06 vs. Angels starter Ervin Santana
Feeling kinda spicy?
Craig Counsell: .500 (11-for-22) since '06 vs. Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse
Mike Napoli: .500 (5-for-10) since '06 vs. Rays starter Jeff Niemann
Blake DeWitt: .455 (5-for-11) since '06 vs. Reds starter Mike Leake
Mike Carp: .417 (5-for-12) since '06 vs. Angels starter Ervin Santana
You'll thank me later
Corey Hart: .071 (1-for-14) since '06 vs. Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse
Casey Kotchman: .083 (1-for-12) since '06 vs. Rangers starter C.J. Wilson
Evan Longoria: .100 (1-for-10) since '06 vs. Rangers starter C.J. Wilson
Angel Pagan: .100 (1-for-10) since '06 vs. Marlins starter Chris Volstad
Aramis Ramirez: .154 (2-for-13) since '06 vs. Reds starter Mike Leake
Top MLB streakers
Corey Hart: 17 games
Erick Aybar: 15 games
Miguel Montero: 13 games
Adrian Beltre: 11 games
Jacoby Ellsbury: 10 games
Alex Gordon: 10 games
Home Run Beat the Streak pick:
Joey Votto: (26 home runs this season) vs. Cubs starter Rodrigo Lopez
56 Comments
leader takes braun again. wow
will MLB fly the leader to watch the player he picks for 56 and 57 if he gets that far?
Braun is 0-for-2 with a walk going into inning 7, he will be third up
7th: reaches base on a Force Out 0-for-3
Why would they?! But then again, why wouldn't they? Good point!
Well it will depend on how far in advance the guy makes his picks.
If he makes his picks an hour or two in advance and picks a team playing in San Francisco, he is not going to be able to get to the game in 3 hours.
Did anyone see Braun's AB where he reached on the fielding error?
Do you think it was worthy enough to have been scored a hit?
I'm watching the game live. No chance. It was a booted ball — error all the way, clear as day
Braun: 0 for 3 but only needs 2 more baserunners to get a 5th PA
Honestly, I thought this pick was really stupid when I saw it since Lohse has been having a great year thus far and the Brewers are a far worse team on the road than they are at home.
1st of September, leader picked Braun vs. St.Louis. Braun was 0-4 & made last out in 7th. But STL couldn't stop base-runners from reaching & he did come up for 5th AB and a sharp single to right field. Leader got really lucky there. I'm hoping he doesn't have that happen twice in a week, same teams, same scenarios.
Maybe the Cards will score 5+ runs in the 7th & MIL starts pulling players? Could happen 😉
Not. Double play ends the inning.
Is anyone having trouble posting on our SFTC Blogger's group forum thingy? LOL! It says it's authenticating login and that's as far as it gets. Very weird.
Was – off & on. Appears ok now.
yea i have had that problem off and on the past week
Seems to be better. It just started though.
Braun will get a 5th AB. STL does it again!
is that just insane, or what
Due up 3rd in the 9th.
Are we gonna take bets on hit or no hit? Gawd I hate this crap!
If he does get a hit, some people are just naturally lucky. And in that case, may want to start playing the lottery too
I'm pulling out the voodoo! LOL!
There will be a very audible cheer or jeer in my house. Watching the game on TV
I'm guessing Motte will probably be the pitcher. He was the pitcher that gave up the hit to Braun 5 days ago, also in the 9th, with 2 outs.
Is it on ESPN?
If not, what channel?
Hopefully he has better control of his pitches.
No. I live near St. Louis. It's on FSN Midwest here.
Regarding that 2 out hit 5 days ago. Great pitch, low & away. Braun stuck out his bat and lined it right over 2nd baseman and 1 or 2 hopper to right field.
I'm watching it on MLB.tv.
i am checking it out on the gameday thing on the site here. that kinda sorts gives out the play by play
Here we go… Top of 9th, last AB for Braun, barring extra innings
Hart starts it off with a single.
Done! For now.
Hart with a single. Come on Motte!!!!!
Morgan with a single. No!!!!
grrr…I really wish the Cardinals would not have gotten that 4th run now, since Braun could have bunted both runners over now if it was still 3-1.
Braun would NOT have bunted under any circumstances.
he's not on a long hitting streak though, so unless he had knowledge of Summer's streak, there would be no reason not to.
they would rather take a chance down 3 with 2 on with Braun swinging then waste his bat on a sac bunt.
no manager would ask his #3 hitter to bunt with 2 on and no out.
Except possibly in a playoff game
LOL ok except maybe in a playoff game. 🙂
in play…….out
Pop up!!!!! 0-5.
first pitch and Braun POPS OUT
Now hoping for a McGehee home run – man I hate the Cards
lol, why would you hope for that?
Then Braun gets up again in the 10th inning.
I will say though that when I saw in play, run for Prince Fielder, I assumed home run, since the pitch was right down the middle.
MIL would have been up by 1 and Axford would have come in to close. I like those odds
And each win in this series for MIL drops their magic number down by 2. Currently MIL is sitting at 11 and STL is officially eliminated; watching the world series as spectators, just like my Cubbies. Misery loves company 😛
DP – Game over. Streak over
Game Ova!!!!
He can hope & pray for a scoring change on that error (rules state a change within 3 or 4 days does count). Without looking up the rules I don't recall exact length of time. However, like I said in an earlier post, I saw the game live on TV and there can't be a doubt in anyone's mind, except possibly Steven Summers', that it was indeed an error.
Oh & second place leader took Braun too. So just 1 more has a realistic chance at the big prize and picked Ichiro (0-2) in the 5th.
Make that 0-3
And 22 more games to go, if Ichiro doesn't go 0-fer
And Ichiro singles in the 8th. Think I'll check back over the weekend to see if he's still streaking. Gonna be even harder for him — 22 more days, no games to spare, can't afford a DNP, rain-out, pinch hit walk, etc.
Ichi just singled in the top of 8


text:
Advanced Search
Click to view full size image.
Availability: In stock ships within 24-48 hrsStock Level: HighPlatforms: NINTENDO SWITCHPublisher: Sega of AmericaGenre: Platforming AdventureESRB: E10+ - Everyone 10+UPC: 010086770063Region Free: YesMenus & Interface : EnglishPrice Dropped.Extra InformationPRICE DROP WAS $54.99 NOW $29.99 FEB 27 2019Product was added to our catalog on Thursday 31 August, 2017.
Join an epic high-speed fight to save a world decimated by Dr. Eggman and a mysterious villain in the newest game from the team that made Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations. Experience fast-paced action as Modern Sonic, catapult past perilous platforms as Classic Sonic, and use powerful new gadgets as your very own Custom Hero Character.
In Eggman's greatest victory to date, the evil doctor has conquered much of the world with a mysterious new power. A resistance comprised of Sonic's friends is formed to fight back, and in the midst of the chaos and destruction, an unlikely hero will rise up to help Modern and Classic Sonic take back the world.
Even these three heroes may have their work cut out for them, as Dr. Eggman has a new ally of his own…
Three types of gameplay: Fast paced action as Modern Sonic, thrilling platforming as Classic Sonic, and utilize powerful gadgets as your own Customer Hero Character!
Fight against a brand new mysterious and powerful enemy, Infinite!
Featuring an all-star cast of well-known Sonic franchise heroes and villains!


text:
The Social Poets: Funny Obama Inauguration Photo Bombs and Late Nite Jokes: From Denny: Since President Obama's second inauguration the web has had a lot of fun with the various amusing inauguration photos - including a few hilarious photo bombs, most unintentional. President Clinton's is the most recognized but the funniest are of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hamming it up for recognition.
And the late night comics just had to make us laugh at every moment, especially comments about the First Lady Eye Roll at annoying GOP House Speaker John Boehner.
We all enjoy a good laugh when we discover our politicians are more human than they let on in front of most cameras and on talk shows.
Just check out this latest photo (January 2013) of the President running along the White House Colonnade with the active children of his newest Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough. Give it 20 years and we may see one of the McDonough kids running for the presidency. Nothing like getting in some election run practice with a presidential veteran!


text:
PDF Split Merge is a stand-alone tool for splitting, merging PDF documents,allows you to
split/merge large PDF files into smaller PDF files,
The split functionality lets you split one or more PDF files based on page groups, page ranges.
Pdf Append, Pdf Combine, Pdf Merge, Pdf Merger, Pdf Regroup, Pdf Split, Pdf Split-merge, Pdf Splitter
02-December-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
SCML ZIP & SPLIT OCX is an OCX control that allows Visual Basic
programmers to zip and split files.
Dll, Label, Labels, Margins, Ocx, Print, Print Labels, Printer, Printing, Rtf, Span Files, Split, Split Files, Unzip, Zip, Zip Compression
101 MP3 Splitter is a software helps you split up an MP3 file into smaller MP3 files.
You can split, cut, trim a large MP3 file into multiple smaller pieces or joint, merge multiple MP3 files to a larger one. Split and merge...
Cut Mp3, Mp3 Cutter, Mp3 Splitter, Mp3 Splitting, Split Mp3
01-May-2007Shareware(Free To Try)
An useful audio editor to split, join MP3 WAV WMA OGG AIFF. Easy to use with automic split/merge mode. With 'Batch Split' feature, you can split multiple audio files by just a simple click. Support audio files of extreme large size over 4GB.
Aiff Joiner, Audio, Audio Editing, Audio Editor, Audio Track, Cut Mp3, Joiner, Merge Mp3, Mp3 Cutter, Mp3 Editor, Mp3 Join, Mp3 Joiner, Mp3 Split, Mp3 Splitter, Music, Track Maker, Wav Cut, Wav Join, Wav Joiner, Wav Split
14-June-2007Shareware(Free To Try)
This audio file splitter that is designed to take mp3 files and cut them into either a set number of files or files of a set duration. Slice can also detect a specified amount of silence and split the file at these points. This is useful where you...
Audio Cutter, Audio File Split, Audio Splitter, Audio Trimmer, Mp3 Splitter, Sound Splitter, Split Audio, Split Audio Song, Split Mp3 File, Split Mp3 Tracks, Split Song, Split Sound Files, Splitting Wav Files, Trim Audio, Trim Tracks, Wav Splitter
Super Mp3 Splitter is a powerful tool for splitting a large mp3 file to small slices.
This tool don't have a decode and encode process,so it don't damage the quality of mp3 file.
It supports four split modes and support ID3 tag information...
Cut, Cutter, Mp3, Split, Splitter
17-May-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
AVI/MPEG/RM/WMV Splitter is a tool to split, cut or trim a large AVI ,MPEG, RM, ASF or WMV file into smaller video clips. With a built-in video player, you can easily cut AVI ,MPEG, RM, ASF or WMV file by time or the selection as needed.
Avi Split, Avi Splitter, Mpeg Split, Mpeg Splitter
03-April-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
Split WAV files with WAVChop, a program that lets you automatically chop up a WAV sound file into pieces where silence is detected. If you use your computer to make recordings from radio (or satellite), then this program will help you split WAV...
File Split Wav, Silence Detection, Split Wav
02-June-2003Shareware(Free To Try)
Merge files splitted by other splitters.Version 3 has New GUI,file attributes preserved,Demo Video,Dynamic Splitting.Self-merger,Split any file type, DiskSpan, Batch file support,context menu,drag n drop,winxp themes support,Disk Span n Join
Break, Diskspan, Join, Merge, Merger, Separate, Split, Split It, Splitter
30-May-2005Shareware(Free To Try)
Join Split Convert Video is a an all-in-one tool to split, join or convert video files. Supported video formats include AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG1, MPEG2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, WMV and ASF. This flexible program supports batch job processing.
Convert Video, Join Video, Split And Join Video, Split Video, Video Converter
25-May-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
Use this program to split your MP3s into many smaller ones. MP3 files can be split by a certain amount of seconds and minutes.
10-strike, 100 Mb, 1:1, Across, After, Albums, App, Application, Audio, Back, Big, Bitrate, Bits, Burn, Burning, Bytes, Cd, Cds, Collection, Combining
06-April-2007Shareware(Free To Try)
Split Join Convert MOV is an efficient tool to split, join or convert Quicktime MOV or QT files to AVI, MPEG or WMV formats. The output formats can be AVI(Divx,XviD,MPEG4), MPEG1, MPEG2, VCD, SVCD, DVD or WMV/ASF. The batch job conversion facility...
Convert Mov Files, Join Mov Files, Quicktime Mov And Qt Files Converter, Quicktime Mov Converter, Split Mov Files
02-September-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
1.Cut/join/copy/paste/audios, Add sound effect,Record sound from microphone. 2.Split Audio in easy mode 3.Join Mp3 4.Convert audios,support nearly all kinds of audios 5.Rip CD (CD to mp3/wav/ogg/wma/mp2 etc…) 6.Burn Audio CD(wma/ogg/Mp3/wav to...
Burn, Cd, Convert, Cut, Mp3, Ogg, Rip, Split, Splitter, Trim, Wav, Wma
03-April-2007Shareware(Free To Try)
Split your MP3 files into smaller, playable segments without losing any quality. Multiple split options are included (and also various printing options), split by choosing your start and end points while the song is playing, or simply choose the...
Audio, Break, Cut, Cutter, Free, Media, Mp3, Shareware, Split, Splitter, Splitting, Trim, Trimmer, Windows
07-May-2007Shareware(Free To Try)
Auvisoft Audio Splitter Joiner is an easy-to-use tool to split audio file into small pieces and merge audio files in one large file.
You can select the split points manually using the embedded audio player or automatically split the file into...
Audio Converter, Audio Joiner, Audio Splitter, Merge Audio, Split Audio
20-June-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
CUE Splitter is a freeware tool that split a single big audio track, mostly an album or a compilation, into the relative individual audio tracks, using informations contained in the associated "CUE" file. Sometimes you can find a big compressed...
Cue File Split, Cue File Splitter, Cue Split, Cue Splitter, Cue/mp3 File Split, Cue/mp3 File Splitter, Cue/mp3 Splitter
MiX Splitter is a very simple application, oriented at the Deejay who whish to split his recorded WAV mix into several WAV tracks. Recording a set of mixed songs always result in a single big WAV file, burning this file to CD, means you cannot...
Cue, Cut, Cutting, Deejay, Dj, Editing, Mix, Music, Songs, Split, Splitter, Splitting, Tool, Track, Tracks, Tunes, Wav
Use this program to split your PDFs into many smaller ones. PDF files can be split by a constant number of pages.
10-strike, 100 Mb, 1:1, Across, Adobe, After, App, Application, Back, Big, Bitrate, Bits, Burn, Burning, Bytes, Cd, Cds, Collection, Combining, Complete
10-March-2007Shareware(Free To Try)
Split files into tracks with Wave Breaker audio splitter. Automatically split large files into tracks and make your MP3 or Wave files manageable. Perfect music editing software for converting records and tapes to CD.
Audio Splitter, File Split, File Splitter, Mp3 Converter, Split File, Split Files, Split Tracks, Wave Breaker, Wave Editor, Wave Splitter
07-November-2006Shareware(Free To Try)
Split Join Convert Video is a versatile tool to split, join or convert video files. Supported video formats include AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG1, MPEG2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, WMV and ASF. This program support batch job processing.
Convert Video, Join Video, Split Video, Video Converter, Video Joiner, Video Splitter
27-July-2005Shareware(Free To Try)


text:
I blame Disney's Robin Hood for my fascination with furries. I love their mascot-like outfits, their button eyes, their tails. I love the strange way they anthropomorphize animals with cheerleading outfits, and yet refuse to give them shoes. So when I was sent Draw More Furries by Jared Hodges and Linsday Cibos, I knew I was going to kill an entire day just staring at this madness. Here are the highlights.
First up, the cover. Draw More Furries — is the world so exhausted with furry drawings that we need a book proclaiming that more was a necessity? Also, yes that IS a dinosaur girl on the left corner. I believe that is technically called a scalie. The more you know.
Draw More Furries is basically a very dense drawing lesson that covers every single part of the furry drawing....
Like how furries are different from other lame bunny drawings. Look at the normal bunny, NO THANKS.
This is what a furry would look like ON THE INSIDE.
A before and after pic.
A naked furry.
And then the drawing book breaks down into various kinds of furries, scalies, fantasy creatures and abominations of god.
Otter Furry.
Kangaroo Furry!
Of all the furry drawing books I've ever seen (one), this is probably the best. So if you want to learn how to draw furries, or if you just like looking at Ken Doll Dog Men in scarves and sunglasses, you should buy it at Amazon.


text:
Ex-"American Idol" Fantasia Barrino encountered a racist, threatening letter while going through fan mail last night, TMZ reported.
Barrino's manager told the gossip site that following the singer's "Color Purple" performance at Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, Barrino opened up a letter filled with racial slurs while in her dressing room.
The letter writer claimed to have worked as a security guard when Barrino was a season three "Idol" contestant and called for her to "go back where you came from and die," according to TMZ.
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
An alarmed Barrino immediately contacted theater security, who then called the cops, her manager said.
"I will not be defeated by one isolated person's hatred," Barrino told TMZ in a statement.


text:
And, with that, another Democratic vote in the Senate. CNN:
CNN projects Cory Booker will defeat Republican Steve Lonegan to win the special election to fill the remaining 15 months of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg's term. Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, will be the second African-American in the current Senate and returns the seat to Democratic hands.
No doubt, this is true:
"Oh thank God. Get me out of here." —Jeff Chiesa, probably.
— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) October 17, 2013
With 70 percent reporting, the spread is Cory Booker 56, Steve Lonegan 43. Now, the state that's sending Booker to the Senate with a 12-point margin will send Chris Christie back to the governor's office with a 20+-point margin. Hey, it's New Jersey. Its favorite son is a millionaire who sings about the working man's plight. It's a place of contradictions, a riddle wrapped in an enigma, dipped in marinara sauce.
I would have liked to have seen a little tighter margin, but Booker was always almost certain to win. The goal of giving him a decent opponent was, more than anything, to take some of the sheen off this media darling. With tremendous help from the reporting of Eliana Johnson, this race did some of that, revealing Booker's exaggerations and imaginary friends in his tales of Newark heroism:
Booker's tales of his trials and travails on the streets of Newark, the city that twice elected him mayor, are familiar, and they have helped to breed an almost mythological aura around the Stanford, Oxford, and Yale graduate. He did, after all, rescue a woman from a burning building last year, sustaining burns in the process. But sources tell National Review Online that the central character in one of Booker's oft-repeated stories — T-Bone, the drug pusher who the mayor has said threatened his life at one turn and sobbed on his shoulder the next — is a figment of his imagination, even though Booker has talked about him in highly emotional terms and in great detail.
The revelation that the 15-year-old son of campaign contributor Jeff Zucker was on the board of a Booker co-founded start-up also offered a story to sully the two-dimensional heroic Booker narrative we've gotten up until now. And, as we all know an appealing two-dimensional narrative gone unchecked can be a dangerous thing. We've got one as president.
Update: Lynsie Lee, the single Booker's online buddy and self-described "stripper model weirdo," gave him a public congratulations. With her boobs. Content warning, in case you didn't gather that, though I think Twitter makes you opt in to graphic images, so this should be pre-censored for you even if you click through. Do with that what you will.
Update: Results are here, though I don't think they're changing much.


text:
Tag Archives: illustrial
D.E.F. Radio 20th September 2016 – One of Yours, One of the Other
We asked artists to submit a track by someone else if they wanted to get played on the show. This was the rather wonderful result.
Nature of Wires – We All Kill
CHROM – Visions
Real Experts – Centre of Attention
Milan – I Don't Know Why I Can't Decide
LorD and Master – Saints and Sinners
Voi Vang – Sleepless Night
Promenade Cinéma – Chemical Haunting
Icicle Boy – Economy
Strobegirl – Heaven Today
DEF NEON – Winter
PreCog – Are We Lost?
You & Me Both – Your Love
Northern Kind – Yours
Gertrud Stein – Total Normal
Werner Karloff – Modern Communication
DAF – Der Mussolini
Naked Lunch – Weekend Behaviour (Alternate States Version)
Global Citizen – It Aint Over
Teslacoil321 – Skyhook
Illustrial – Buzzkill
Your Silent Face – Car Trouble
Brutalist Architecture in the Sun – Abandoned Factory/Concrete Love Song
Pulselovers – Red Eden White Nights
hausfrau – Black is the Colour of my True Love's Hair
Black Nail Cabaret – Fekete
Ultranoire – Lost (Shifting Realities)
GravitySlip-Pete Calvert – Forte Coeur
Jan Doyle Band – No Flesh
Damsel in the Dollhouse – It's a Good Day
Jan Doyle Band – Fighters
Voxtrot Alpha – Displace Me
The Alpha Video (John Kerruish) – Love Come Strange
The Flood – Second Guest
Oppenheimer MKII – I Wish I Never Said I Loved You
Jan Doyle Band – Nitrate Visions (live in studio)
Jan Doyle Band – Feral Nihilist (live in studio)
Zundapp – Shadows
Trans Atlantic Crush – Waiting For the Girl
Filed under podcast
Track list below… (more…)
Filed under podcast


text:
Mountain View's LinkedIn has struck a deal to lease a yet-to-be-built campus in Sunnyvale that could accommodate nearly 3,000 employees in a major expansion for the social networking powerhouse.
In a new regulatory filing filed Aug. 22, LinkedIn said it anticipates moving into the new campus in July 2014. The company agreed to a lease that will extend into 2026, according to the filing.
U.S. & World
NBC Bay Area first reported that this would happen about a month ago.
"This is wonderful that LinkedIn has chosen to come to the city of Sunnyvale and bring many employees to the city," Sunnyvale Mayor Anthony Spitaleri told the Bay Area News Group on Wednesday. "A lot of major technology companies have expanded and moved into Sunnyvale."
The campus could accommodate 2,900 workers. LinkedIn leased 580,000 square feet at 555 N. Mathilda Ave., about ten miles along U.S. Highway 101 from the new Facebook campus in Menlo Park on Hacker Way.
Some will sure to be concerned that the online business giants will create a headache in the real world for commuters trying to get to their high-tech Silicon Valley jobs.
But that's not the focus LinkedIn wants to dwell on at this point. The company's focus is growth and jobs.
"We needed additional buildings to accommodate the growth of the company, so we lease additional space in Sunnyvale," LinkedIn spokeswoman Erin O'Hara said Thursday morning.
According to the SEC filing, rent for the space will start at $1.8 million a month and rise to $2.5 million a month through the end of 5the 12-year lease term.


text:
15 crew indicted over S. Korea ferry disaster
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's prosecutors on Thursday indicted 15 crew members over last month's ferry sinking, four of them on homicide charges, in a disaster has left more than 300 people dead or missing.
Prosecutors said they brought homicide charges against the ship's captain and three other crew members because they failed to carry out their duties to protect passengers in need, which led to their deaths. If convicted, they could face up to death penalty, according to Supreme Court.
Eleven others were indicted for alleged negligence and abandoning passengers in need when the ship sank on April 16, according to prosecutors. The indictment was filed Thursday in Gwangju District Court and the trial date will be decided in a few days, according to a court official who requested anonymity due to department rules.
The 15 crew members, all involved in the ship's navigation, were the first group of people rescued when the Sewol was badly listing that day.
Capt. Lee Joon-seok initially told passengers to stay in their cabins and took about half an hour to issue an evacuation order but it's not known if his message was conveyed to passengers. In a video taken by the coast guard, he was seen escaping the ferry in his underwear to a rescue boat while many passengers were still in the sinking ship.
Lee told reporters after his arrest that he withheld the evacuation order because rescuers had yet to arrive and he feared for the passengers' safety in the cold, swift water.
About one month after the sinking, 281 bodies have been retrieved but 23 others were still listed as missing. Underwater searches for the bodies have been hampered by strong currents and bad weather. Family members of the missing passengers are still camping out at a nearby port waiting for the news of their loved ones.
Most of the victims are students from a single high school near Seoul, who were travelling to the southern tourist island of Jeju for a school trip.
The sinking, one of the deadliest disaster in South Korea's modern history, has triggered outpouring of national grief with more than 1.8 million people having reportedly paid respects at makeshift mourning stations across the country. The government has been under mounting public criticism for its handling of the disaster. Officials also have repeatedly corrected the number of people aboard the ship and who were rescued.
Associated Press writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this report.


text:
(Reuters) - U.S. authorities are investigating Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund for possible insider trading in the shares of the popular diet company Weight Watchers International Inc, according to people familiar with the matter.
The investigation focuses on trading in Weight Watchers shares in the first half of 2011, when SAC Capital had taken a sizeable position in the stock, and potentially could implicate the billionaire hedge fund manager, the sources said on Friday.
Regulatory filings show that Cohen's $14 billion fund briefly held 2.1 million shares in Weight Watchers during the period under scrutiny by authorities - at which time the diet company's stock price roughly doubled.
The inquiry is in its early stages and it is not clear whether anything improper was done either by SAC Capital or Cohen himself, said the people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity. The trading in Weight Watchers would be permissible as long as it was based on fundamental research or derived from individuals who did not have access to non-public corporate information.
An SAC Capital spokesman said the firm was not aware of any investigation involving Weight Watchers. A spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara declined to comment. A spokesperson for Weight Watchers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new line of pursuit ratchets up pressure on Cohen, 56, one of the hedge fund industry's most successful and best-known managers. The spotlight the probe casts on SAC Capital and Cohen could further rattle the hedge fund's investors, who account for roughly 40 percent of the firm's capital.
Two weeks ago, U.S. prosecutors charged a former SAC Capital employee, Mathew Martoma, with using inside information to generate profits and avoid losses totaling $276 million in shares of two drug stocks. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also has formally warned SAC Capital that the firm could face civil charges.
A number of SAC's investors have said they have not made a decision on whether to redeem money from the firm. Investors have until mid-February to put in a redemption notice.
Martoma has not entered a plea but his lawyer has said he expects to be exonerated. SAC has declined to comment beyond saying, "Mr. Cohen and SAC are confident that they have acted appropriately."
Martoma is the seventh former SAC Capital employee to be charged or implicated by federal authorities for insider trading. The criminal complaint against Martoma, who last worked for CR Intrinsic, an affiliated fund of SAC Capital in 2010, for the first time alleges that Cohen personally approved the decision to sell-out of a big stake the hedge fund had in shares of Elan Corp and Wyeth, now part of Pfizer Inc.
Separately, U.S. authorities are also investigating SAC for suspicious trading in shares of biotech company InterMune Inc. in 2010, according to one of the people familiar with the probes. Officials at InterMune weren't immediately available for comment. The SAC spokesman declined to comment on the InterMune investigation.
Federal authorities have not charged Cohen, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at about $8.8 billion as of September this year. The hedge fund manager has told his investors and 900 employees that neither he nor the firm has done anything improper in response to Martoma's arrest.
It's not clear what has prompted federal authorities to look into Stamford, Conn.-based SAC Capital's trading in shares of Weight Watchers. One of the people familiar with the investigation said authorities are looking at trading that both booked hefty profits and avoided losses for SAC Capital.
Over his 20 years in the business, Cohen has emerged as one of the pioneers of sophisticated trading. His funds, which charge some of the highest fees in the $2 trillion industry, has boasted an average annual return of 30 percent since launch in 1992.
This year, SAC Capital's main fund is up about 12 percent, compared to the industry average of just over 5 percent. SAC Capital's only down year was in 2008, when it lost 19 percent of its value.
Cohen has endured federal authorities looking into trading at his firm for about five years now. The investigation into SAC Capital ran parallel with the federal government's undercover investigation that led to the October 2009 arrest of Galleon founder Raj Rajaratnam, who was convicted by a federal jury on May 2011 on 14 counts of insider trading.
SAC Capital's big move into Weight Watcher's stock in early 2011 gained attention in part because it came at a time that the once-heavyset Cohen had lost about 20 pounds. (It's not clear if he used Weight Watchers.) The trader has said he lost the weight to help with a chronic bad back.
A first quarter 2011 regulatory filing for SAC Capital showed the firm had acquired 2.1 million shares of the stock. But by the end of the next quarter, a subsequent filing revealed the hedge fund had unloaded nearly all of those shares.
It is not uncommon for a rapid-fire trading firm like SAC Capital to move in and out stocks - even big positions. SAC Capital, in particular, is not known for holding stocks for a long time.
SAC Capital's trading strategy relies on analysts and portfolio managers gathering information about a company's prospects before making a trading decision. Cohen has told people privately he believes his firm has drawn unwanted scrutiny from the government because of its long history of success.
Cohen has become an avid art collector in recent years, with a number of Jeff Koons sculptures gracing the grounds of his 30-room mansion in Greenwich, Conn.
Cohen, who grew up on Long Island in Great Neck, New York, is also pursuing the kind of charitable legacy building done by other famous Wall Street money managers. In 2010, the North Shore-LIJ's pediatric hospital was renamed the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, after Cohen and his second wife in recognition of their donations.
More recently, he took a minority ownership stake in the New York Mets baseball team after failing to win the rights to buy another team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Reporting by Matthew Goldstein, Jennifer Ablan and Emily Flitter; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Bernard Orr


text:
Sometimes I just crave a treat that is sweet and simple. Something that doesn't need decorating and something I don't feel compelled to make look super cute. So this afternoon when I wanted to sink my teeth into something sugary while I watched Netflix, I went to the pantry to see what I could whip up in a hurry. I'm low on supplies right now but I did have some an opened bag of butterscotch chips and one single egg left, so I decided to make these decadent little blondies.
These are great because you only need a handful of everyday ingredients.
And they are super quick to whisk together.
Bake the blondies and when cool, cut into small squares. These are pretty sweet, so you really don't need a big bar.
Here's how to make them.
Blondie Bites
- 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup butterscotch chips
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly coat the bottom of an 8 X 8-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. You can also line with parchment paper to easily lift blondies from dish.
- In a small bowl give flour, baking powder and salt a quick whisk and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together melted butter and dark brown sugar until completely combined.
- Add egg and vanilla and whisk until incorporated.
- Stir in flour mixture until combined and then stir in butterscotch chips.
- Bake 25-30 minutes and then let cool before cutting into small squares.
Enjoy… and now back to some important binge-watching.


text:
Don't sell White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper's knowledge of pitching mechanics short. He can analyze and break it down with anybody. But where he sets himself apart is the psychology of pitching.
''I view my job as bartender-slash-psychologist,'' Cooper said.
… Cooper built his reputation as one of baseball's best pitching coaches by keeping the complicated art of pitching simple and accentuating the positive with his pitchers. …
Other White Sox links: J.J. looks at the booing in Chicago, James looks at the entire bullpen's performance in yesterday's game, and Scot Gregor says Phil Humber is no Esteban Loaiza.


text:
Marvin Miller, an economist and labor leader who became one of the most influential figures in baseball history by building the major league players union into a force that revolutionized the game, died Tuesday at his home in New York. He was 95.
His daughter, Susan, announced his death, according to The Associated Press.
When Miller was named executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1966, club owners ruled much as they had since the 19th century. The reserve clause in players' contracts bound them to their teams for as long as the owners wanted them, leaving them with little bargaining power. The minimum salary was $6,000 and had barely budged for two decades. The average salary was $19,000.
By the time Miller retired at the end of 1982, he had forged one of the strongest unions in America, creating a model for unions in basketball, football and hockey. The average player salary had reached $241,000, the pension plan had become generous, and players had won free agency and were hiring agents to issue their own demands. If they had a grievance, they could turn to an arbitrator.
And Miller had taken his place among the most important figures in baseball. Peter Seitz, the impartial arbitrator who invalidated the reserve clause and created free agency in 1975, called him "the Moses who had led Baseball's Children of Israel out of the land of bondage."
Still, though his contributions to baseball were considered to be on a par with those of Babe Ruth and Branch Rickey, Miller has not been recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
In recalling his decision to take charge of the players association, Miller wrote in his memoir "A Whole Different Ball Game" (1991) that "I loved baseball, and I loved a good fight, and, in my mind, ballplayers were among the most exploited workers in America."
He had his share of fights. The players went on strike for 13 days in 1972; they were locked out of spring training for almost a month in 1976; they struck for the final eight days of the 1980 exhibition season; then staged a 50-day strike that began in the middle of the 1981 regular season.
Marvin Julian Miller was born in New York on April 14, 1917, and grew up in Flatbush rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers. As a youngster he joined his father, Alexander, a salesman for a women's clothing company on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, in walking a picket line in a union-organizing drive.
Miller graduated from New York University in 1938 with a degree in economics. He resolved labor-management disputes for the National War Labor Board in World War II and later worked for the International Association of Machinists and the United Auto Workers. He joined the staff of the United Steelworkers Union in 1950.
Late in 1965, there were stirrings within the major league ballplayers' ranks about the need for improvements in a pension plan implemented by management in 1947. The baseball stars Jim Bunning (later a U.S. senator from Kentucky), Harvey Kuenn and Robin Roberts sought a professional bargainer who would get ballplayers better pensions.
Miller educated the players to trade-union thinking. In 1968, the union negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in professional sports.


text:
Events for December 21, 2017 › All Ages
Events Search and Views Navigation
All Day
Gingerbread Festival
Check out a beautiful array of gingerbread creations by local cake artists on display at the library, then enter our raffle to take one home for the holidays! Purchase raffle tickets or bring in an item of canned goods in exchange for a ticket. All food items will be donated to A Place to Turn.Find out more »
Make a donation to the BFL Board of Trustees' Capital Campaign


text:
G07 Montego Styling Vanity with Mirror Wild Cherry
Browse all deals at Sally Beauty
See more in Hair Care
See more from Collins
* This offer may contain time-sensitive information and offers. Please check with Sally Beauty to confirm actual price & availability.
- Be the first to comment!
Sally Beauty
1922 Mrkt Platz Ctr Sw #8
Cullman, AL 35055
Sally Beauty
1605 W Beltline Hwy
Decatur, AL 35601


text:
LTTE loses 2nd FDL in Muhamalai as 58 division enters Elephant Pass south
The Govt.'s side of the Wanni battle
(January 06, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Units from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA)'s 53 and 55 divisions have now brought under their control the second LTTE defense line in the Muhamalai/Nagarkovil axis. Tigers had no option but to vacate the FDL when special infantry units from two divisions advanced on them. Exact casualty details are not available as of now. 53 division is commanded by Brigadier Kamal Gunarathne while the 55 division is commanded by Brigadier Prasanna Silva, a former Special Forces commander.
Meanwhile the army's 58 division (Task Force 1), have entered LTTE dominated territory in Elephant Pass (Alimankada) south. They have also captured two villages located south and east of the Jaffna lagoon. This progress of the 58 division further increases the pressure on remaining tiger presence in the Muhamalai/Nagarkovil and Kilali axis. 58 division is comprised of 11000-12000 troops in four brigades 58-1, 58-2, 58-3 and 58-4.
Meanwhile SLA was also able to make progress in several fronts in Mullathivu district in the past 24 hours. A large portion of A-34 road to east of Mankulam have been captured by Task Force 3 and Task Force 4. LTTE dominated villages of Oddusudan and Thanniuththu are also under the control of these two divisions. Fighting was also reported in Preiya Uppukalamkaimkulamm and Keppal Aru south in Mullaithivu. 15 bodies of slain LTTE cadres have been recovered by the troops. LTTE has been continuous firing artillery from their bases in Mullaithivu targeting SLA positions in Kilinochchi as well as targeting advancing forces in 59 division. - Sri Lanka Guardian


text:
Long revered for its pristine beaches and azure seas, the Philippines is also home to a half-dozen treasured sites that have earned spots on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Enjoy a 360-degree perspective of its culture and identity through these distinctive natural and cultural locations in this tropical enclave of Southeast Asia.
Beyond its World Heritage sites, a treasure trove of natural and cultural wonders await in this corner of paradise of more than 7,000 islands. Let us arrange a complete immersion into the Philippines, from connecting you with its warm and friendly locals and planning private tours at its most protected heritage sites to reserving your own private island retreat and a bounty of treasures in between.