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What is your approach? Part 2
42 comments
Oct 28 2009, 10:39PM
Part 2 of the article posted just a few weeks go, titled "What is your Approach", that actually had nothing to do with in-game approaching. : )
It's a little awkward since this was just a long example of approaching one game with experience from another behind you, so while it's not as informative, and it feels totally disjointed when separated, it's still a good supplement.
It is also very important that you realize that this was never intended to be a guide on transitioning from Brawl to Melee; I just used that as an example. More experienced players will probably rip this apart (as will some scrubs), but I honestly don't care. If you're a scrub, not learning anything from this wont help you, and if you're better than me, you probably wouldn't learn much from this anyway since it's not really directed towards you.
Let's start with crossing over from Brawl to Melee, since it seems like many people started with Brawl and are possibly interested in picking Melee up.
Brawl to Melee: Where to begin?
First off, you absolutely need to just play the game and feel how different it is. Movement speed is faster, fallspeed is faster, you can cut your lag on aerials (L-cancel) causing game play to move even faster than that, there's no momentum canceling, there's more hitstun... lots of differences. Also, even if you play the same character in Brawl and Melee, the properties of his/her moves are different, so you'll have to relearn what they do.
Now that you have a feel for the game (and this should be natural by like the 2nd or 3rd time you've played, even if you're not perfect), you need to start working on improving your game play. Where do you want to start?
"Where do I want to start? I don't know where to begin!"
Well, you're on AiB, so you don't even have to go looking for a resource. I'll tell you what you can start with.
Technical skill
Tech/DI chasing (the closest to Yomi you'll get with Smash, Yomi being the act of mind reading)
Reaction time
Needs to be broken down a little bit further right? I'm sure you know what all of these are if you played Brawl (some of these are self explanatory too), but there are some huge differences.
Technical Skill
This is first because it seems like everyone starts here. Really, it's important, and if you're coming off of Brawl you probably could start here. However, technical skill is not the way to be the best - it's just necessary to bring your game to a certain level. Having the most technical skill around doesn't guarantee that you're good.
Or maybe you are good... and you're just showing off? : )
One time at a tournament I went to, I brought along a little adapter that allows one to use a PS2 controller on the GC (and therefore the Wii). I brought it for Guilty Gear, but we decided to mess around and try using it on Brawl/Melee. Pat attempted to use it and didn't like the feel, saying it was unresponsive, and having a difficult time performing moves that were quite technical but would normally give him no problem.
Then MikeHaze grabs the controller and consistently DSHLs with Fox for about 5 seconds straight. We all got a good laugh.
Now, MikeHaze is pretty damn good (and that feels like an understatement), but was he #1 at Melee? No.
But his manual dexterity and adaptation allowed him to deal with that situation with ease. He can pull off some amazing tricks, but that doesn't make you the best. You only need the skill to pull off what you need to do to win. Every extra option you have puts you a step closer to winning because you have more options that can work in more scenarios, but that isn't the end-all ability that makes you win consistently.
Let me put it this way. You need to L-cancel consistently to be able to perform many combos in Melee, and the reduced lag certainly doesn't hurt in keeping you from being punished, but do you absolutely need to L-cancel to play Jigglypuff effectively? I'm worse now that my technical skill has dropped, but my Jigglypuff is still fine - I'm in the air 90% of the time, and most of my other skills haven't deteriorated.
Or when I play Bowser... heh, what combos do I need to worry about. It's just like playing Brawl. : )
J/K, but you get my point. I'm not wavedashing much with Bowser (more now that I worked out some stuff messing around like a month ago, realized that you can fullhop Fair, double jump Fair, and then waveland if your timing is perfect - it looks sexy), and I don't need to focus too much on DI chasing or anything of the sort because you're just landing a hit, spacing, landing a hit... it's really a lot like playing Brawl, but faster.
If you want to practice your technical skill right away, you need experience with your fallspeed and moves to know how to L-cancel, but Link is a good character to start with to see if you're even doing it right. Wavedashing? Start with Luigi. Boost grabbing? Start with Kirby.
Technical skill is the sort of thing you'll get practice in as you go - you only need to go out of your way for at the beginning to make sure you're doing it right, or when you're trying out a new trick (such as that Fair Fair waveland thing I mentioned above, the timing is strict, and I'll never dream of using it in a match unless I can do it reliably in practice).
Playing even 20 minutes a day against comps is good enough practice for your technical skill when you're playing Melee. The comps might not DI properly, but you can work on stringing your moves together, you can work on not messing up those L-cancels, and you can work on powershielding projectiles just because you feel like it. Really, they might not DI in the best way possible to avoid follow ups, but when you play a match and your opponent intentionally DIs differently, what are you going to do? Miss the follow up because you didn't practice it because pros wouldn't do it differently? How stupid is that?
And if you played a character with some degree of technical skill in Brawl (Diddy infinite?), you might pick it up a bit faster in Melee, though I honestly think that playing Melee will help you to FIND technical skill in Brawl. I wouldn't be as good with the tires/bike as I am, without practicing regularly, if I hadn't used Link so much in Melee.
This doesn't apply in other games, and it's different in Melee than it is in Brawl. Everyone generally recovers better in Brawl than in Melee, but the approach is pretty much the same - just don't be reckless and get yourself killed in the process. Basically, you need to practice it, but you need to know when it's effective to do so - you can practice your crazy intercepts on comps, but don't bother picking Marth, standing on the edge, and using Dtilt/Fsmash until the comp dies - they wont recover past like 20% from this because they're idiots,
and the rest of your game will suffer
because of your easy wins vs. the comps. That said, you can still work on spikes and other techniques that really wont work, so long as you don't rely on them. Know that you could probably Uthrow to Dair spike a comp Falco at the edge with Marth if he DIs stupidly because it'll pwn newbs and help you beat them more consistently, but also know that attempting it against a competent opponent will get you punished.
Recovery is a lot different now, right? As you adjust to the differences in mechanics, you'll just get better at this. It's just one of those skills that builds up over time - you'll get better from playing competent opponents though - you'll learn to approach the edge in ways that'll mindgame them into edgeguarding poorly, and learn to approach the edge from positions where you have more options. If the same recovery always works, you'll never learn anything new.
Comps are relentless with this, but they're also pretty stupid about it. They'll perfectly time a jab as you come back to the edge just to piss you off, and yet, wont take opportunities to kill you because they don't know how.
You're on AiB, so check out the forums. You can also try out SWF if you want - look up the major differences (like crouch canceling) so that you can learn them. If you're still trying to momentum cancel while I'm crouch canceling everything, you're falling way behind. If you don't know that Peach's Dsmash comes out on frame 5, you're going to get punished by it a lot. If you didn't know that Fox's reflector has set knockback, you'd never think to try to shinespike someone with it. Learn all that you can - you can do this by spending time messing around, or by looking up what other people have documented on some forums like I explained above. This is a crucial step - you'll never catch up unless you know what others know, and you'll have a hard time surpassing them if you don't discover something they don't know. R&D is critical near the top of the metagame if you get that far, and it will certainly help if you find something useful even when you're nowhere near ready to win a tournament.
(Really, they demonstrate technical skill, but you need to know this is possible before you can do it right?)
Spacing is pretty crucial in any fighting game, right? Since Smash has so much freedom of movement, you really have to get used to your character's movement speeds. Jiggs is fast in the air, Fox is fast on the ground, Marth has disjointed range. You'll learn to space your attacks vs. comps, but proper positional spacing comes from playing other people. Comps just walk towards you, so they're worthless in this respect, but at least you can work on landing those tippers or finding out just how far away you can be and still land Pound. If your spacing is lacking, you need to make a conscious effort to move into the correct spot until it becomes natural.
Spacing is truly a key component of Smash. Proper spacing means the difference between a hit and a whiff, on both your end and the opponent's. Don't get hit, every time you land a hit, combo and reap the rewards.
As simple as this seems to be, spacing really is important. Smash might be one of the few games I know of where you can die without even getting hit once, but that probably wont happen in a tournament match. You have to land hits if you want to defeat your opponents, and you wont lose if you don't get hit.
Really, I would say the best spacing practice comes from playing other people, though that doesn't mean playing with comps will absolutely make you worse every time you do it. If you can't beat a comp, any human player you can beat is most likely not worth playing against.
Coming into Melee from Brawl, this will probably feel the most intuitive to you, and you should pick it up pretty fast, despite the physics being totally different. I would go as far as to say part of the reason my Jiggs hasn't deteriorated as much as my other characters is because I play Wario, who spaces kind of like Jiggs.
Tech/DI chasing
A crucial aspect of Smash, since most other fighting games have nothing like directional influence in any form (there are some - you can begin to DI a juggle in Soul Calibur 2 past 1 hit in the air). You have to learn how far they can go in which direction after any hit at any percentage... it's really a matter more of adaptation than memorization. You know it's possible to go for this or that, so you do what's appropriate based on the DI you see. Having the reaction time to see what DI your opponent used is one of the key components - did he go left or right or up out of my Dthrow? I better not mess up or I'll lose my chaingrab.
I just knocked my opponent onto a platform. Will he stand, or rolldodge to one side? I put myself in the proper position (spacing) and watch what he's doing (reaction time + tech chasing) and I'll land Rest.
Can you see how it's coming together?
Sometimes you don't have enough time to space to where it's going to work - now it's like yomi. You have to just know what they're going to do and punish accordingly - just don't always assume this is the case when you actually have the time to think about it, because you can mess up and miss your chance. You know when you watch someone like DSF play and he ALWAYS gets that punish or chaingrab? It's because he's not guessing every time the chance comes up...
Yomi does play a big role in other fighting games, but in Smash there are fewer circumstances where you have to make an educated guess to get your follow up since you can actually react. However, I'm sure everyone's seen some videos of tournament matches with hilarious mindgames... examples?
Reaction Time
A very helpful trait in any scenario, but having the fastest reaction time isn't enough - it just brings more to the table. This will improve as you focus during any serious match against a competent opponent, and your ability to react will improve as you become more familiar with the game. When you start playing Melee, moves like Fox's blaster just seem to happen, but as you keep playing, you'll see the startup an hour before the hitbox comes out, and now powershielding that lightning fast projectile isn't even hard (though there's little point if he fires more than one shot, it's pretty stylish if a Fox player tries to get that extra 2% tacked on at the end of a combo by firing, and you tech and powershield it).
You can go out of your way to learn to spot the parts of moves that are telegraphed - that falls under knowlege in all honesty, but combine it with your ever improving reaction time and you're moving up in the world - so much more becomes possible.
And with high end reaction time, you can go as far as to powershield Falco's SHL while wavedashing back and forth with Luigi. That won't make you the best player around, but damn will that piss off a Falco player. : )
It's a skill that comes with experience. The more you're familiar with, the easier you can adapt. If someone starts doing something you've never seen before, you're more likely to adapt if you can figure out what they're doing and why. When everyone plays by the book, even if they're a little quirky, it's not that hard to adapt to their playstyles. Spend some time messing around and doing your research - if you know a certain property or mechanic about the game that you didn't before, and you one day run into someone that can abuse it effectively, you're more likely to find a way around it.
Is this really going to help me out?
Try it and tell me if it did. -_-;
Do you notice how I left comboing out? It's certainly a specific skill when it comes to fighting games, but with Smash, it really falls under having the technical skill to actually have a window in which you can follow up, the reaction time to properly DI/Tech chase, and proper spacing so that you'll land that first hit. You put it all together and you can now make your follow up assault... and maybe keep it up.
In the event that you really want to focus on one skill over another, it can be hard to get into the swing of things since everything builds up. You're going to get punished for your bad spacing every time, so you'll never even have the opportunity to work on your tech skill. This will force you to learn better spacing, but let's say while you're working on that, you actually land a hit or get an opening for one. Now what? You can't L-cancel yet, so your reward is much smaller than it should be since you can't really combo.
You can work around it. Play Jiggs - you focus on your aerial spacing with little worry of technical skill. You land that hit? Great, keep flying at them with Bair and wall of pain. Landed a grab below a platform? Great, Uthrow and tech chase for Rest. Don't even have to worry about messing up that L-cancel.
Play Bowser - every hit is a freaking reward, and you don't really need to worry about follow ups. Worry about L-canceling that Fair and using upB out of shield properly. Play smart, develop those techniques. It's not like you're going to become the next Gimpyfish, but learning a character whose gameplay revolves around certain aspects will help you to learn those skills.
Then, you can play Luigi. Now you're working wavedashing into your game (he's got a damn good one), and L-canceling will help you to work on your combos.
It's less apparent in Smash how doing this will make a difference, but you'd notice if you played Guilty Gear. Millia has sexy Oki, May will rape you out of successful pokes though she's not very good at poking, Venom seems to have pretty amazing shield pressure options... coming into May out of playing Millia and Baiken, as well as having experience with Wario's bike/tires, I pretty much know how I want to space with May's dolphin hoops (Millia's strong Oki comes from using a delayed independent hitbox (like May's hoops, and this is a topic I'll get into with a later article) to pressure a guard (or another viable option to escape getting hit), and having multiple ways to punish those options). I'm still dropping combos, though I'll john that it's just from messing up inputs since I switch controllers too much (I prefer the GC control stick to the PS2 D-pad), yet I can keep up because I manage to land way more pokes than I should need to when playing May.
In the long run, if you see that a character is strong in a specific area, or relies on a specific area of gameplay, learning that character will make you better, either because it works, or out of pure necessity (you have to L-cancel when you play Bowser or you really wont stand much of a chance). On that note, if you actually do try to make that transition, it might be easy to start with a character that moves like your Brawl main (since you wont be overwhelmed by losing a stock due to getting comboed because of your bad spacing, every 5 seconds), until you experiment around and find the character you really want to play.
Anyway, this probably isn't as good a read as the last one, but that's because this chunk was cut out, and was barely altered after having a lot of it explained in the previous one. Part 3 is coming up soon to wrap it all up, and then we'll get into something more direct...
Competitive gaming
What is your approach?
106 comments
Sep 23 2009, 9:15PM
What is your approach?
It seems as if many of the people I talk to lack certain perspectives when it comes to learning something - that is, they haven't quite learned how to learn. When trying to get good at videogames, I see a lot of people do the same exact thing over and over again without any improvement (DERP), and wonder what's going wrong. I see it a lot when it comes to stuff besides videogames, but that's outside the scope of this website.
You can get quite far on just practicing and being gung-ho, but if that isn't doing it for you, break it down and actually THINK. I don't mean "what am I doing wrong?" You should already be thinking that, as well as "What am I doing right?" You need to think about every aspect of everything, really learn what you're trying to accomplish. When you're playing a videogame in competition, it's the same as playing football in the NFL, Curling at the Olympics, or playing Chess - know the freaking game. Know what your limitations are, know what the rules are, and learn every thing you can before you think you can win.
However, some of you make this sort of effort and are still having trouble. You put in time and effort, but no results. What's going wrong? Break it down. There are many aspects to each game - you'll learn faster from the start if you know what to learn, and you'll improve faster if you know what to improve on. Those of you that have prior experience are at an advantage.
Does knowing how to play other games really make a difference?
Yes. Your skills will transfer over. This is why TheMasterer in PurePwnage says "You must pwn at all games." Being great at Halo won't help you play Brawl as much as being great at Melee would, but at least you'll know what to look for. And if you ever play another FPS, you already know what to look for. When it comes to FPS, once you learn the properties of the weapons and the maps, the skill of getting a headshot is transferable. You can't transfer that over to Melee, but maybe your reaction time will have improved - that's a plus. Maybe you're experienced with mindgames/yomi at this point - they know you have a positional advantage if you do this, so they expect it and counter, so you move somewhere else to counter that counter - that transfers to other games. Maybe you played Starcraft? Different controller for sure, but your intense button micro should help you to pick up Melee faster. You can focus on the ins and outs of the game play without worrying too much about your technical skill holding you back since you'll pick it up quickly.
I want you to try thinking in terms of individual skill sets that you can practice, so that you'll realize what activities will help you to practice which skills, and what practice will do more or less for you in the long run - you'll be more efficient that way.
It is at this point that I want to tell you all that this article has been rewritten. As a whole, it was too long to be put on the front page because few people like to stare at a wall of text. For those of you that want to read the original version, you can go here:
Now, since my 2 examples of ways to approach learning a new game have been cut out (they will be posted at a later date on the front page, so don't worry), I feel that I need to give you something more substantial than "Don't be stupid, learn the game, suck less."
I wonder, what is the first thing you do when you pick up a new game that you intend to be really good at (like, top 10 tournament placing good)? Have you ever thought about it yourself? Do you just pick up the game and start playing? Do you go into training mode?
There's no right answer, but the best answer definitely depends on your prior experience. I do think you'll get more out of just starting the game up and playing it, but how long you're just messing around playing arcade mode or vs comps or whatever the hell you want to do is what matters. Once you've learned the basic barebones mechanics from playing the game, whether it be learning that you can airdodge in smash or learning what a burst is in BB, you need to at least look into the specifics. I don't mean reading framerate data for a few hours once you learn what the buttons do - I mean making an effort to learn that first character you decided you're going to start with, and at this point it doesn't even matter who that is or if you're going to change your mind in 30 minutes.
I'll just pretend we're picking up Brawl for the first time here, and that we've never played before (hard to imagine since I've been playing Smash since SSB64 came out). Let's go right into versus mode because we're assuming you want to get as good at the competitive aspects as possible, as fast as possible. You pick a character... let's say Link (because he's Link, and he's cool). You turn on a comp, set it to lvl 3 because that's the default. Turn off items because you know its convention, pick battlefield.
So if you're like most young kids when you start, you're just holding the analog stick towards the comp and pressing buttons because you want to win your first game. If you're trying to learn what you're doing, you're pressing the buttons to see what they do ("how do I jump? How do I attack? How do I shot web? O lookie, I can roll!"). You're probably getting hit by the comp every few moments, but you're probably hitting the comp back as you figure out what attacks you have. Maybe you notice you have F-tilt, your smashes, grab, and some of the B moves, but odds are you don't realize what's making certain things happen right away. You might just barely realize what tilts are by the end of the first match, and you've probably SDed at least once because you don't fully know how fallspeed and recovery work. You play again and start paying closer attention to what your character does and how the moves work. Now you start actually trying to kill the computer. You win a match, switch characters.
You pick Wario. The game starts and "Whoa, I move fast!" Yeah, compared to Link, you're moving pretty damn fast in the air. Then you notice that the comp Marth you're playing against keeps hitting you through your moves, and maybe you get frustrated. You know it's because he has a sword and you don't, but you don't know what his moves are like that well to be able to punish them, or what your own are to know what your best options are, so you start messing around again. Your tools are totally different, you move faster and are harder to control, Marth has his sword which is "cheap" compared to your bare hands (assuming you'd be quite scrubby if you've never played a fighting game before), and you have no projectiles. Wario sucks, let's pick someone else.
You go through the character roster looking for someone you like, and once you find that character, you just start playing. You want to be the best like no one ever was, but you're off to a slow start. That character you picked is working well for you, but you don't even know why. You just know that he/she is good, so you're trying to get good with him/her.
Let's say you start the game up having played some Guilty Gear and entered a few local tourneys. You don't know what Brawl is like, but you were competitive at another fighting game, so you have an advantage. No idea who you want to main, but you played Millia (just using her for a specific example since I actually know how she works), so you're looking for similar tools since that'll be familiar.
You pick Link at first, and you set up vs a lvl 3 comp because that's the default setting. You start up and hit each button once to see what they do, realize you've only done like 4 different moves (jab, neutral B, jump, and grab, besides blocking). Wow, there's a separate block button. WOW, I don't have hp??? Wtf, there's only one gatling (his jab combo) and they can escape it? No moves link together? Wtf is this? How do I kill the guy?
You you mess around until you learn the fundamentals of the game. You realize you win by ring out - not by damage. You realize that you have a dodge mechanic, and you realize that it's not the standard 2D fighter you're used to (instead of front/back movement, it's full on left/right).
So at the back of your mind, you think "I wonder if there's any move that I could use to kill at lower damage", and with good reason. You start trying to gimp the computer instead of working on your spacing game. You win because it's a stupid comp.
Now, you go into training mode. With a few minutes, you realize how tilts work, and you figure out your other B moves. "Ok, I have a projectile, and... oh lookie, Bombs!" You have a move that's a separate hitbox that you can throw upwards into the air and have it come back down as you're doing something else. "Oh dude, a boomerang?"
At this point, you realize you have something similar to Millia - her 236H move was an attack with delayed startup that you could activate and then have pressure while you did something else. You keep going and see how grabs don't have instant startup, and overall learn all your moves. You don't like Link because he's way too damn slow compared to Millia.
You switch to Wario to see if he's any faster (because you'd like a character that actually has endurance compared to Millia, lol). You jump around, see that he's freaking fast in the air (Millia is a rushdown character with 2 airdashes), so you decide to actually learn this character first. You go through and learn all of his moves. "Whoa, he has a motorcycle, that's pretty cool." You realize you can throw it into the air and it'll come back down and bounce multiple times, while staying an active hitbox. You figure this guy is perfect to start with because he fits the bill. He has an active hitbox which is separate from yourself (similar tools), he's fast in the air (like Millia), and he's heavy (cool bonus). You also notice his bite, which is a grab, and that it can be held out for a while.
You play another match with a computer, crank the difficulty up to 5 because 3 wasn't an issue, even though you didn't really know what you were doing. Now, things are quite different even though you have similar tools - you're not just trying to cause knockdown so you can set the bike up for pressure because no such method to do so exists for this character, and even if it did, you realize this game has teching in it. You're resourceful, so you get the comp off the stage, pull a bike, and throw it off. Success! The comp is too stupid to recover correctly, wastes its jumps trying to get past the bike, and dies. Repeat X2. Wow.
One more game, crank it up to 9 because this feels too easy. Now you're having a hard time getting the comp off the stage, and it's smarter, so it's not just getting gimped every time you do so. It seems to have perfect blocking and dodging, and it always punishes you. Maybe you shouldn't have cranked it so far so quickly, but you keep going, landing hits once in a while. At this point you've noticed that the comp isn't comboing you very much either - I guess that's just the way this game is? Instead of going for a safe poke and then getting the highest reward possible out of it, you have to build damage with whatever works, and then make an effort to send them past the blast line. However, you do notice that some moves do link together just barely, no matter how fast you try to airdodge away, so maybe some 2 hit combos are possible. The comp lives till like 200% because you're not used to it. You lose, but you took off a stock.
As you're playing this time, you notice that moves are doing less damage and knockback as you do them over and over (you're Dair spamming since it seems to work well vs the comp - they perfect block the first hit, but get hit by the rest, or if they keep their shield up, you Bite them), so you come to realize that's how the game works. Now you're looking closer at the moves, trying to see exactly what properties each one has. Maybe some have the ability to link into something else, maybe some do low damage but are kills, maybe some do high damage but suck for killing - you don't know yet, but you're working on it.
At this point, let's stop and break it down. With this prior experience, you're getting further, but for what reason exactly?
First off, you know that a crucial tactic is to find the safest way to deal as much damage as possible, or maybe in this case, the safest way to kill without doing much damage (why do damage when you don't have to?). You haven't found any combos, but you know they could exist. You've noticed that stronger moves tend to be a bit slower overall, but if you can combo into them, even if it's just that 2nd hit, it's rewarding - once they're ready to die, why risk that Dsmash by itself when you can Fair into Fsmash?
You know you punish shields with a grab, and you know you get around grabs with a dodge, but having played Wario, you know a more effective move - you use the bite instead of a grab, it punishes dodges too. You know you can throw the bike for that long lasting hitbox, and if they block, you can try to grab to punish anyway - though it is risky to pull the bike out.
The biggest difference here is that you had a feeling of where to start and where you were going next. You still have a lot to learn, but your foundation is solid from the first time you started playing.
Anyway, I have a feeling this is longer than it originally was, so I have to cut it off here. There are certain aspects to quick improvement that expand beyond seeing the basics faster and learning the game - if you know what okizemi is at the start, you know to look for tools to utilize it, and if you're playing a game that actually supports it (like transitioning from Guilty Gear to BlazBlue), the improvement is astronomically faster - you don't have to work at spacing right from the start to land hits if you know how to keep oki in your favor from your first knockdown. Think rock paper scissors, only guessing right gets you another combo, guessing wrong means you have to back off and approach again, and both of you guessing wrong could go either way (you see it faster and keep the advantage or your opponent sees it and takes it from you).
Think of it this way - if you don't know what moves you have to space around with, but you know how to knock the guy down repeatedly and continuously do damage, you're still winning. Once you learn to space, and that's your main focus at this point, you now know how to get that first knockdown. The whole match isn't dependent on you getting a single knockdown so that you have a chance to win - now it's an even match, but if you get a knockdown, you have a serious advantage. Make sense?
If you play Brawl (or any game) and are wondering why you're not getting better, I encourage you to take a second look at how you're approaching the game. The rabbit-hole goes much deeper than this... you'll get more info out of me in the coming weeks.
And if you want something to read while you wait, look up Sirlin's "Playing to Win".
Competitive gaming
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Fox helps students navigate 'Slippery Slope'
Meet Brian, a young, mildly successful middle manager at a private equity firm. Fresh-faced and eager to succeed, Brian is one day asked to hide some non-business expenses incurred by his boss from the firm's auditors. On one hand, Brian weighs the ethical and legal concerns. On the other, he weighs the promises given him of benefits and advancement if he plays ball.
Eventually, he decides he will do it.
Freeze. Did Brian break the law? Or was the "spirit" of certain laws simply violated? What's the difference between law breaking and value-breaking?
These were the questions posed to business students on Aug. 30 when The Fox School of Business kicked off its new ethics curriculum.
Temple undergraduates performed a play, "Scenes From the Slippery Slope," based on the real-life experience of a young manager named Brian at a private equity firm who was pressured into unethical decisions. At key points, the play stopped and the students were faced with a number of ethical questions and encouraged to discuss their thoughts.
"He's just being compensated for his trust," one student said. "He's moving up in the company and being accepted into the inner circle; he's looking out for himself."
"He's breaking the law," another countered. "He's covering up for his company's illegal actions. He's hurting himself."
The play, which was originally written for corporations to perform for their employees and has been performed for Columbia University's M.B.A. program, was designed to teach students that at any time they have the opportunity to make the ethical decision.
But "Scenes From the Slippery Slope" is just one reason why this innovative new program is special. Fox is one of only a handful of schools across the nation requiring an ethics course for their undergraduate students. The need for an intensive ethics curriculum has never been more glaring.
As Marjorie Kelly wrote in the fall 2003 issue of Business Ethics, "In the wake of recent ethics scandals, one might imagine that business schools would be deepening their attention to business ethics. But at many schools the reverse is happening."
Not here. The new, twice-a-week, three-credit course's model is unique: Once a week, students meet in a large class of around 200 students for lively guest lectures, films and debates. On the other day, students meet in a small class of about 25 to talk intensively about what happened in the larger class.
"Basically, my goal is to stay out of it and let the students carry the ball," said Terry Halbert, professor of legal studies and one of the new curriculum's designers.
She and fellow faculty members Lynne Andersson, Norm Baglini, Don Wargo and John Deckop, along with two doctoral students, Lisa Calvano and Sridevi Shivarajan, were aware throughout the process that a successful ethics course would have to be highly participatory. As a team, and with support from the Fox Dean's Office, they persuaded their colleagues that ethics education should be required at Fox. They began this effort at the time of the Enron scandal, more than three years ago.
"It's not enough to simply talk about the unethical things people do," Halbert said. "You can't teach people not to be sleazy. We assume that most people — and that includes most of our students — are good, decent people with honorable goals. But even really good people will cross the line when there is a lot of pressure. We're trying to simulate the pressures they will encounter someday and give them a chance to think about how they will react before they are really under the gun. We're aiming to strengthen their best instincts."
- By Mike Benner
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subset: commoncrawl


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The perils of a petro-loonie
The problem with a "new normal" is that it seems to take so long to get everyone's head around it. Change is always a tough thing for people to grasp, but given how common and how fast it has become, you might think we'd all be a bit quicker on the uptake.
Take the example of Canada's currency, which has recently hit four-year lows.
There's been much of the usual nattering about the benefit to the battered manufacturing sector (which, by the way, is having a pretty solid run, blowing past market expectations in November data).
There's also been more of the usual the "petro-dollar" commentary that we saw as the loonie attained its lofty height in the past few years. Given our strong reliance on energy exports (oil account for almost a quarter of Canada's total annual exports), Canada's economic leverage to the price of oil is considerable. And when world oil prices soften, as they have recently, "petro-dollars" take a hit.
Granted, the Bank of Canada's reluctance to move interest rates — and its alleged agenda of improving our competitiveness by letting the loonie languish — has also had a bearing on the currency's decline. So too, has the evidence that we're lagging the U.S. in terms of overall economic recovery. And then, of course, there's the perennial cloud of our historically high consumer debt levels.
With all those tidy and familiar explanations firmly in hand, most folks will now settle in and patiently wait for the loonie's return to strength and a repeat of the same cycle.
The thing is, the cycle to which we've all grown accustomed isn't likely to repeat: Too many fundamental shifts have taken place for us to remain on charted economic ground.
There is a geopolitical shift underway in North America and it remains to be seen how it will affect Canada, its currency and its economic future.
As the U.S. moves toward greater energy self-sufficiency (according to the International Energy Agency the U.S. could become a net oil exporter as soon as 2030 because of new oil discoveries, new technology and conservation efforts), the traditional demand for Canadian oil and gas will be curtailed.
The problem is, Canada only has one customer for its energy exports: the United States. Not only does the U.S. need less of our energy going forward, the pipes that transport it across the border to market are already at full capacity. And there's no indication that proposed mega-projects, like the Keystone XL pipeline, are going to get the green light any time soon.
(President Obama isn't likely to approve Keystone before the upcoming mid-term elections in the U.S. And after that, he's into his final year as president, and will probably pass the file on to his fortunate successor.)
That means Canada has to hustle to develop new markets and the means to access those markets. Asia is the obvious export destination for our energy — we're as close to major Chinese ports as Australia. In other words, there's no closer supply option.
However, Canada doesn't have the access it needs to diversify its customer base. Although Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal has won preliminary approval from the National Energy Board, it still has a long road ahead. That includes federal Cabinet approval (expected by June) and major negotiations with First Nations and other communities along the right-of-way.
All of this not only has a direct bearing on the money Canada earns and the jobs it creates, it also affects the willingness of foreign companies to invest in development. Even the longest-term thinker would balk at the prospect of sinking millions of dollars into projects that have limited market access. And Canadian companies don't have the money to proceed without any foreign capital.
Another part of that continental geopolitical shift relates to price. The U.S. already slaps Canadian oil with a discount — they know it's got nowhere else to flow. A growing number of states and regional municipalities are also imposing restrictions on oil imported from the oil sands.
As it is with pipeline construction into the U.S., each jurisdiction has its own rules and regulations. And that makes it much more expensive and time-consuming to do business.
Given that Canada is tagged with a "petro-dollar" and given the reality that our "new normal" looks relatively bleak, we had all better hope that manufacturing really kicks in big time. Because it could be a while before our oil-coated loon spreads its wings again.
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Description:IBM Intel Xeon Full Processor Option Kit w/VRM and heatsink E5520 Quad-Core 2.26GHz 8MB 1066MHz 80w L3CachePart Number(s)IBM Part# 46M1036
HP Processor Kits:
Manufacturer Part# 46M1036
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CategoryIBM Processor
Part Number46M1036
Products ID461782
Product TypeProcessor
Quickpath Interconnect (QPI) Speed5.86GT/s
Processor TypeXeon
Clock Speed2.26GHz
Processor CoreQuad-Core


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Archive for category Russia
The Russian-Ukrainian Trade Spat
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, EU, Russia, Ukraine on September 2, 2013
In mid-August, Russia blocked virtually all imports from Ukraine. Although the cross-border flows between the two countries have since resumed following a week of heightened tension, the issue is far from over. On the contrary, the trade spat was probably just the first warning shot in what could escalate into a full blown trade war, the ultimate aim of which would be to prevent Ukraine from signing an Association Agreement with the EU at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in late November, thereby preventing further economic integration with the European Union and steering it in a Eurasian direction instead.
It is in Ukraine's political interest to sign the Association Agreement, containing a free trade component, with the EU, while maintaining the existing free trade agreements it has with other post-soviet states, including Russia. Although a country can have multiple free trade agreements and such an arrangement would be a win-win situation for Ukraine, Russia is adopting a more zero-sum stance towards the matter. This is primarily due to the fact that, once Ukraine signs the Association Agreement with the EU, it will no longer the able to join the Russia-led Customs Union – or the proposed Eurasian Economic Union – due to the differing standards and tariffs in place. An EU-Ukraine free trade deal will mean greater access for Ukraine to the EU market through lower customs and non-tariff barriers, higher export quotas for certain sensitive goods, and the adoption of EU standards in a wide range of domains.
Until recently, Russia was relatively at ease, feeling secure in its belief that the EU would not sign the already finalised and initialled Association Agreement with Ukraine as long as former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko remained in jail, and that President Yanukovich was unlikely to release his main political rival a year and a half before the next presidential elections, due in early 2015. However, in the last few months there has been some progress made, with the European Commission putting forward a proposal for a Council decision on the signing of the Agreement, and the EU and its member states working more actively to seal the deal with Ukraine in Vilnius. Read the rest of this entry »
Ukraine's gas loop
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, energy, EU, Russia, Ukraine on July 16, 2013
For many years, most countries in central and eastern Europe – from Bulgaria to Latvia, from Ukraine to Hungary – have complained of their dependence on Russian gas. All have tried to reduce this dependence through a combination of the development of new infrastructure (interconnectors, compressor stations for reverse gas flow), frantic searches for alternative gas suppliers (Nabucco, Norway), anti-trust procedures against Gazprom (as launched by the European Commission), and regulatory changes affecting the sale of gas in Europe (the 'third package').
An interesting sideshow of this struggle is now occurring in Ukraine. While most analysts assumed that a decreased dependence on Russia would come from access to non-Russian resources – in the form of shale gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG) or Norwegian gas – Ukraine and the German energy giant RWE seem to have found a way to limit Gazprom's sway over Kiev, while continuing to consume Russian gas. Read the rest of this entry »
Updating Russia's repressive software
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia on August 16, 2012
The massive street protests, which started in December 2011, have proved a very considerable stress-test for Russia's autocratic political system, built and steered by Putin for over a decade. Russia-watchers in Europe and the US debated how the Kremlin would respond. A few months ago the usual cohort of useful wishful thinkers argued that Putin, swayed by the rising middle classes, would accelerate Russia's modernisation. In a sense they were right. Putin is modernising, but his efforts are directed at the repressive apparatus of laws and, possibly, institutions, rather than at the economy or the political system.
Tightening the screws
During 2005 and 2006 Russia adopted swaths of legislation designed to prevent events like the 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine or the 2003 Rose revolution in Georgia. Electoral laws were toughened in ways that strengthened the pro-Kremlin 'United Russia' and weakened potential alternatives; thuggish pro-Kremlin youth groups such as Nashi ('Ours') were established; new restrictions were introduced, seriously complicating NGO activities and election monitoring; and vaguely defined legislative provisions against 'extremism' that could then be used against opposition activists were adopted.
Under Medvedev's presidency the bulldozer of state repression was used with less enthusiasm. Sometimes it actually receded. Earlier this year it even seemed that the authorities might actually embark on liberalising the political system in response to the street protests. Instead, the protests seemed to have sparked a new round of attempts to tighten the screws and refurbish the repressive apparatus.
It started with the legislative software. Read the rest of this entry »
Putinism under Siege: on the nationalist-democratic alliance
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia on July 25, 2012
Journal of Democracy has just published a special issue on 'Putinism under Siege' with contributions from Lilia Shevtsova, Ivan Krastev & Stephen Holmes, Denis Volkov, Sharon Wolchik and I. My piece is on The Strange Alliance of Democrats and Nationalists .
The article looks at three broad themes:
1) How Russian nationalism is evolving from an expansionist, Eurasian, and imperial version into something that is primarily anti-immigrant, defensive and sometimes non-expansionist.
2) How nationalists started to adopt some pro-democracy rhetoric in the belief that a more democratic system based on majority-rule would make state policies closer to their policy prescriptions.
3) How some Russian democrats sometimes entered into ad hoc alliances with nationalist groups on an anti-Putinist platform, but also how a much deeper fusion of democratic and nationalist views starts to be espoused by various political players. This phenomenon is still in its early stages, but could be a sign of things to come. Read the rest of this entry »
Russia's lightweight government
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia on May 23, 2012
The last few months saw speculation of two possible behavioural models for Putin. The usual wishful thinkers were hoping for a Putin 2.0 (or maybe 3.0 or even 4.0) who was supposed to have got the message of the street protests and was supposed to engage in (swiping) reforms to modernise Russia and gradually and slowly liberalize the political system to let some steam off. The alternative camp of usual alarmists were saying that Putin will return with even stronger determination to tighten the screws and things will be much worse in terms of repression before they get better. And both camps waited for the new government to get a sense of what will come next. With the government announced here are a few things to note:
1. On the surface three fourths of the government were changed, but the changes were rather (and unsurprisingly) conservative. The composition of the new government suggest neither a strong reformist push, nor a centralising backlash, but rather more of the same. Especially given that several key former ministers just joined Putin in the Presidential Administration as his advisors, but are likely to exercise more influence over specific policies than many of the new ministers.
2. Overall the government looks unexpectedly 'Medvedievist' – in the sense of having a good presence of soit-disant 'liberals'. Read the rest of this entry »
Russia in Reverse
Posted by Nicu Popescu in China, Russia on May 8, 2012
Project Syndicate, 7 May 2012: Vladimir Putin has just been inaugurated for a third term as President of the Russian Federation. But the event's pageantry could not mask that his return to the presidency, after a four-year stint as Prime Minister, is far from triumphant. On the contrary, Putin, who has been in power since 2000, represents the specter of stagnation that haunts Russia – a specter that wants at least another two six-year terms as President.
The contrast between the transition at the Kremlin and China's upcoming – and strictly choreographed – power transfer could hardly be starker. This autumn, all nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee, including the country's president, Hu Jintao, and premier, Wen Jiabao, will step down, and at least 14 members of the 24-member Politburo will retire, making way for a new generation of leaders.
So, although China has the more authoritarian system, it is moving forward. The same cannot be said for Putin's Russia.
Unlike China, a one-party state, where real power is insulated from direct voting by layers of Communist Party structures, Russia has a multi-party political system, with regular elections at most levels of government. To be sure, not all parties or candidates are allowed to run, and elections can be manipulated. Still, there is more room in Russia than in China for opposition voices to express themselves.
Indeed, Russian civil society and protest movements are more assertive and politicized, while protests in China are crushed without remorse. The Russian media, particularly newspapers and radio, have more freedom as well, and openly disparage Putin, whereas Chinese journalists can take on issues like corruption, but may not criticize the Party. Likewise, the Internet is not censored in Russia as it is in China.
Given that China is significantly more authoritarian than Russia, it seems counter-intuitive that China's political system manages to produce some rotation of leaders, however imperfect and even tense, whereas Russia does not. In this way, China takes advantage of one of democracy's key benefits – leadership turnover – without the risk of popular accountability.
Read the continuation of this commentary on Project Syndicate
US-Russia: from reset to upset
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia on April 10, 2012
A year or so ago, while doing research for the post-BRIC Russia report, I spoke to a US diplomat dealing with Russia about the 'reset'. He sounded (naturally) very positive about its effectiveness. Among its two key achievements he mentioned cooperation on transit to Afghanistan and halt of anti-US propaganda on the Kremlin-controlled media and a subsequent decrease in anti-Americanism in Russia society.
With Putin's return, protests in Russia and the US elections all talk is now about the end of the reset. In the last few months anti-American propaganda made forceful comeback in the Russian media. Many thought it was just electioneering in the run-up to the March presidential elections. But that was too optimistic, it seems. In the last few weeks things became even more heated. NTV, a Russian TV channel owned by Gazprom Media, has been following US ambassador Michael McFaul pretty much everywhere, which lead to an outburst of indignation from McFaul, as well as accusations that his phone (and therefore calendar) is hacked, and a formal US State Department protest over the harassment of the US ambassador. McFaul also claimed that upon arrival to Moscow last January he felt like he was back in the Cold War and that 'it has been surprising that there was so much anti-Americanism, because we thought we were building a different kind of relationship, and it makes some people nervous that it could so quickly and reflexively go back to – in terms of rhetoric – an era that we thought was behind us'. Then, on a different occasion, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called McFaul 'arrogant'. In other words, the dismantlement of what was considered a key achivement of the reset is well advanced. Read the rest of this entry »
Rogozin's travails in Moldova
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Moldova, Russia, secessionist conflicts on April 2, 2012
Brussels might have started to get used to the sharp-tongued former Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin, but Moldova is only in the early stages of doing so. After a stint in Brussels, Rogozin moved back to Moscow last December to be appointed deputy prime-minister in charge of the military-industrial complex. Rogozin is a Russian populist nationalist politician with huge
(rumour has it that presidential) ambitions. A couple of weeks ago he was also appointed special representative of the Russian president on Transnistria (rather than on conflict settlement in Transnistria) and co-chair of the Russian-Moldovan intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. The move was badly staged. The Moldovans learned about it from the media. The appointment came in the same package as the nomination of two Russian regional governors (of Krasnodar Krai and North Ossetia) as 'special representatives', read overseers, for the adjacent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And Rogozin on the third day of his new appointment called Moldova a 'hencoop' on his twitter account.
The Moldovans are worried, the EU unimpressed and both irritated. Clearly the appointment of Rogozin shows a much higher Russian political interest in Transnistria. The trouble is that when Russia would rather put up a show instead of cooperating – Rogozin is the right person to (mis)handle dossiers. Given that in the last couple of months there have been some hopes regarding conflict settlement in Transnistria after the long-serving Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov lost power to the younger Evgeny Shevchuk and Moldova finally elected a president, the appointment of Rogozin is an ever bigger nuisance. Rogozin is likely to be more concerned with self-promotion than pursuing conflict-settlement. Read the rest of this entry »
Power and weakness in Putin's Russia
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia on March 14, 2012
The result of the Russian presidential election brought two months of euphoria to a shuddering halt. The expectation that Putin would return with a weaker mandate was crushed by his unexpectedly high 63% of support. And even allowing for massive fraud – a lot of it well documented – Putin emerged from this election stronger than many predicted. Most of even his staunchest critics concede that he probably obtained more than 50% of the vote even without the rigging. But while Putin is jubilant, the Russian opposition is more demoralised and disorientated than at any time since December. Between euphoria and depression, it is important to understand where Russia – its government and society – stands after this election.
The weakness of the strong
Putin is both weaker and stronger. He is stronger because he ran a successful election campaign, managing to mobilise his voters through a combination of bribing specific social groups and playing on their fears of instability and animosity towards better off Muscovites. He also (out)played the opposition at its own game by organising even bigger rallies and speechifying at meetings.
The institutions built up by Putin over the last 12 years may not be strong enough to fight corruption, improve the business climate, modernise Russia or fight forest fires, but they have proved capable of delivering vote rigging on an industrial scale, getting people into the street, and disorientating and discouraging his opponents. This machine has also learned to adopt the opposition's weapons, such as mass rallies, and reproduce them on a similar or grander scale. Read the rest of this entry »
Putin is weaker, but not weak
Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia on March 2, 2012
All authoritarian regimes are based on a mix of coercion and inspiration, fear and promise, trickstery and grand narrative. But to be successful, authoritarian leaders need to stand for something. The more convincing their ideational offer, the less coercion they have to use and the cheaper and more lasting the system is likely to be. Thus, the autocrats of this world routinely use various ideologies – from Islamism to communism and from monarchism to anti-colonialism – as their ideological foundations. But the moment they exhaust their ideational drive, their countdown starts. This is the situation Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, finds himself in.
What Putin stood for?
Over the years Putin became associated with a set of ideas he stood for and campaigned on. These ideas were convincing and appealing to most of the Russian public. When he came to power in 1999-2000 Putin's key selling point was the promise of wiping out terrorism and fending off threats to Russian territorial integrity. With a new war in Chechnya raging and bombings of apartments blocks in several Russian cities including Moscow this was both urgent and salient.
In the 2003-2004 election cycle Putin launched and then rode a wave of anti-oligarchic sentiment with promises to fight corruption, clean up the economic system and squeeze the super-rich. As part of that campaign Khodorkosvky was put in prison. The 2007-2008 campaign season was all centred on Russia's newly found geopolitical greatness and 'standing up from its knees', as the phenomenon was advertised by pro-Kremlin loyalists. It was all expressed through intense anti-Western hysteria invoking the dangers of US-sponsored a colour revolution and geopolitical encirclement. This is how over the years Putin chipped into the ideological profile of what could conventionally be termed as Putinism.
Reality Checks
But Putin has nearly run out of ideational appeal. He has preciously few new ideas to oil his frailing political system. Read the rest of this entry »


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With the first trailer dropping earlier in the week, excitement surrounding The Wolverine is reaching fever pitch. The perfect time then for Hugh Jackman to stoke the flames by mentioning Jean Grey's involvement…
The film is set after the events of X-Men: The Last Standin which Jean met a sticky end having been overtaken by the Phoenix entity. According to Jackman, its an event that still weigh's heavy on the hero's heart.
"There's no doubt that the most important relationship in his life is — we've seen through the movies — is his relationship with Jean Grey," says Jackman.
"Yes, we saw her die at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand, but in this movie, she has a presence which I think is vital to the movie, particularly for him confronting the most difficult thing within himself."
Which sounds to us as though Famke Janssen will be making an appearance (as glimpsed in the trailer), if only in flashback. Whether or not that leads on to a reappearance in X-Men: Days Of Future Past remains to be seen, but we can hope…
The Wolverine opens in the UK on 26 July 2013.
Source: MTV
Are you hoping for a Jean Grey cameo? Tell us, below!


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Was Sacred Heart Church,3432 sq. ft.,School has 3920 sq. ft. full kitchen,Mens & Ladies room & large hall. Rectory is full four bedroom possible six bedroom home with sitting room & currently three offices,full kitchen,natural woodwork,hardwood floors & leaded glass.
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Waves punch 15ft hole in shingle bank
A POWERFUL tidal surge punched a 15ft hole in the L'Eree shingle bank yesterday morning.
The gap was plugged by Environment contractors who used diggers to rake the shingle back into position.
La Societe Guernesiaise conservation officer Jamie Hooper inspected the damage and advised on how it should be repaired.
He said relentless bad weather had weakened that natural sea defence over a number of days.
'It's a soft defence, which means it's designed to be mobile,' he said.
'It benefits from that mobility, it's a natural ecosystem in its own right and it's only in extreme events that we need to intervene.'
See more weather stories in today's Guernsey Press


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Tag Results
7 posts tagged teen vogue
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This DIY comic book manicure, inspired by Tom Ford's recent designs, will leave you feeling like a nail art superhero »
Love love LOVE this!
Want to wear falsies but afraid to take the plunge? Check out our video tutorial on fake lash application and you'll be wearing them like a pro in no time!
We fell hard for Natalie Alcala last fall, when the LA-based writer and blogger spent a week guest blogging for us. In fact, we loved her posts so much that we asked her to be a contributing editor. In addition to blogging for us once a week, she'll also be writing for the Birchbox Magazine and keeping us up to speed on all things fashion, beauty, and fun.
Photos via Stop It Right Now, Eva Chen, Nasty Gal
As we've said before, Instagram is a beautiful thing. There's something about those fantastic filters that just make everything look so magical—it really is like looking at life through rose-colored glasses! When I'm not stalking Birchbox's amazing Instagram (are you following yet?), here are the accounts I turn to for mega beauty inspiration.
1. Stop It Right Now: This girl is so darn cool. Jayne Min's Instagram is a condensed version of her cult-favorite blog and features a mix of fashion, beauty, and lifestyle moments from her charmed life. I'm particularly fond of her crazy-amazing manicures (exhibit A, above).
2. Eva Chen: Teen Vogue's beauty director (and friend of Birchbox) is somewhat of a digital darling for her fantastic participation in various social media platforms, such as Twitter, Tumblr and, of course, Instagram. In addition to providing major beauty product envy, I love seeing what she does next to her super cute, short hair.
Here comes the New Year! The end of 2011 means we can start thinking about all the exciting things we want to add to our lives (new shoes!) and all the resolutions we have for the next 12 months (get more sleep!). With that in mind, we asked some of our favorite people in the industry to tell us what their beauty/health/wellness resolutions are for 2012. They gave us a peek into how they're planning on sprucing up their routines. Up today: Teen Vogue's fabulous beauty director, Eva Chen.
"My resolution is to be a stickler for regularity: make my next brow/cut/derm/you name it appointment as I leave the salon, instead of madly scrambling and wheedling for an appointment when I'm in dire need of it."
—Eva Chen, Beauty Director at Teen Vogue
For everything you need in between those appointments, check out the Birchbox Shop.
Teen Vogue beauty editor Eva Chen stopped by the Birchbox office yesterday, and in between talking travel (she's constantly bopping around the world) and social media (you must follow her on Twitter and Tumblr), she also gave us a foolproof at-home mani tip:
Foundations first! Chen says it's all about the base coat. She likes OPI Chip Skip, which is like a second version of acetone that dehydrates your nail (sounds scary but it's not!) before you apply your base coat. You can also try Orly Bonder, which is a rubberized base coat that sticks to the lacquer.
Now comes the hard part: What color polish? We're feeling blue — in a good way!
Forget the penetrating, hard-hitting questions — Lightning Round is a fun (and informative!) on-the-spot questionnaire series featuring someone we find particularly compelling.
If you're not a beauty aficionado, you might not have heard of Eva Chen, but we think she's a pretty big deal. As the beauty director of Teen Vogue, she's in charge of everything and anything beauty-related that makes it into the magazine (and she has a ton of fun doing it, as evidence by her recent Beyonce-inspired Rhythm Nation piece). Beyond being one of the glossy's driving forces, she's somewhat of a phenomenon on Tumblr and Twitter. We nabbed some time to interview her for this month's Birchbox Crush, plus an on-the-spot Q&A for our very first Lightning Round post. Here's what she had to say.
Foundation or tinted moisturizer?
Tinted moisturizer. If you take care of your skin, you don't need foundation. I also think young women should be wearing less foundation because you're aging yourself and you'll only have that youthful glow once.
Heel or flats?
Heels. Duh.
Lipstick or lip stain?
Lip stain, for sure. For me at least — I appreciate the look of lipstick, but I am such a hot mess.
what we wished our hair looked like today. where's our teasing brush??


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The Colorado Renewable Energy Standard Ballot Initiative: Impacts on Jobs and the Economy
Colorado's Amendment 37 will be the first opportunity for citizens in any state to vote on these policies directly. Amendment 37 would establish a renewable energy standard requiring the state's largest electric companies to increase their use of renewable sources from less than two percent today to 10 percent of electricity sales by 2015. The Amendment would also establish a funding mechanism for solar, using a rebate to building owners who install solar systems, similar to funding mechanisms established in many of the state renewable energy funds.
Colorado's proposed renewable energy standard is in the middle of what the other 17 states have already adopted. The proposed minimum rebate for solar systems is among the lowest of rebates currently available in 16 other states.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) analyzed the costs and benefits of the renewable energy standard as written in Amendment 37, using a modified version of the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) National Energy Modeling System (NEMS). Under the most likely scenario that primarily utilizes renewable energy technology cost projections from the Department of Energy's national labs, we found that by 2025 Amendment 37 would result in the following economic benefits for Colorado:
- $236 million in savings on consumer electricity and natural gas bills.
- 2,000 new jobs in manufacturing, construction, operation, maintenance, and other industries.
- $70 million in additional income and $50 million increase in gross state product.
- $709 million in new capital investment.
- $15 million in income to rural landowners from wind power land leases.
- $107 million in new property tax revenues for local communities.1
The Impact on Electricity Generation
Under the renewable energy ballot initiative, Colorado would increase its total homegrown renewable power by nearly 1,300 megawatts (MW) by 2025. Colorado's strong wind resources would power the vast majority of this development, with the remaining power coming from solar resources. This level of development would produce enough electricity to meet the needs of 620,000 typical homes. Early on in the forecast, renewable energy helps to displace natural gas generation. In the later years, renewable energy tends to displace more coal generation. Coal powered electric generation would still increase by nearly two-thirds compared to today's levels under the proposed renewable energy standard.
The Impact on Energy Consumers
Average consumer electricity prices would be virtually unchanged under the renewable energy standard proposal compared to business as usual. The impact on average monthly residential electricity bills between 2005 and 2025 would range from a savings of 4 cents for customers of municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives that opt out of the solar energy requirement to an additional cost of about 10 cents for Xcel Energy customers. Commercial and industrial customers of all utilities would see savings on their electric bills, even with the costs of the solar requirement included. The total impact on all consumers for electricity would be an additional cost of just $4.5 million, or one-hundredth of one percent increase, over two decades. This result is very consistent with the $12.6 million dollar impact on electricity bills for the most likely scenario presented in a recent analysis of Amendment 37.
Our analysis also found that the increased use of renewable energy under the standard would create competition with natural gas power plants, leading to reduced gas demand and lower prices. As a result, residential consumers who use natural gas to heat their homes would see gradually increasing savings on their natural gas bills under the standard. Savings on a typical winter gas bill for customers of Xcel Energy and other utilities would reach an average of $2.00 per month, or about 1.5 percent, from 2015 to 2025. Savings on an average monthly gas bill over the course of a year would reach $1.00 per month.
By 2025, consumers would save a total of $236 million as a result of the renewable energy standard. All sectors of the economy would benefit, with residential, commercial, and industrial customers' total savings reaching $97 million, $72 million, and $67 million, respectively (Figure ES1).
Natural gas costs continue to rise in Colorado. Xcel Energy recently informed its residential customers to expect to pay up to 26 percent more to heat their homes with natural gas this December compared to a year ago.Compared to December 2002, typical residential gas bills will be more than twice as high. Reducing dependence on natural gas for electricity by increasing renewable energy supplies can also provide a hedge against these volatile natural gas prices in the near term. For example, the Lamar wind facility is saving its consumers $4.6 million on their power bills, primarily as a result of hedging against higher natural gas prices, according to Xcel Energy's testimony before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June 2003.
If natural gas prices exhibit either short-term price spikes or long-term sustained increases beyond those currently projected by the EIA, or if the federal production tax credit for wind and other renewable resources is extended beyond 2005, consumer savings would be greater than reported here.
The Impact on Jobs and Economic Development
By 2020, the 10 percent standard would create 2,000 new jobs in manufacturing, construction, operation, maintenance, and other industries. In fact, the amount of renewable energy need to meet the requirement would create 2.8 times more jobs than fossil fuels—a net increase of nearly 1,300 jobs by 2020 (Figure ES2). It would also generate an additional $70 million in income and $50 million in gross state product in Colorado's economy.
Rural economies across Colorado would also receive a tremendous boost from the renewable energy standard. Many of the jobs identified above would be created in rural areas where the most of the facilities would be located. By 2025, the 10 percent standard would provide:
- $709 million in new capital investment.
- $107 million in new property tax revenues for local communities.
- $15 million in income to rural landowners from wind power land leases.
Renewable energy development has already demonstrated that it can create new high-paying jobs and other economic benefits in Colorado. During its construction phase, the Lamar wind facility employed nearly 400 people, and provided an economic boost to Prowers County. Today, the project provides 15-20 permanent jobs and nearly $2 million each year in funding for the county, local school district, and medical center. The farmers and ranchers leasing the land where the 108 turbines are located earn between $3,000 and $6,000 per turbine per year.
The Impact on the Environment
Increasing renewable energy use will reduce the amount of air pollution from power plants that threaten the people of Colorado's health by burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere and cause global warming, would also be reduced. The 10 percent renewable energy standard will reduce about 3 million metric tons (MMT) of power plant CO2 emissions per year by 2025—a reduction of 4.5 percent below business-as-usual levels. The renewable energy standard will also reduce harmful water and land impacts from extracting, transporting, and using fossil fuels and conserve resources for future generations.
Results From the Less Likely Scenario
Even with more pessimistic assumptions for renewable energy technology costs, the renewable energy standard would provide important benefits for Colorado's citizens and environment. This scenario would result in a similar amount of renewable energy development and economic development benefits, 1,550 new jobs, and greater reductions in CO2 emissions. Consumers would experience a small increase in costs. The impact on average monthly residential electricity bills over the 2005-2025 period would range from an additional cost of about 30 cents (or six-tenths of a percent) for customers of municipal utilities and rural electric cooperative to 50 cents (or about one percent) for Xcel Energy customers. However, residential consumers would also save an average of 63 cents (0.6 percent) per month on their typical winter natural gas bills from 2015 to 2025. Savings on an average monthly gas bill over the course of a year would reach 31 cents per month. The total impact of the standard on all energy consumers would be an additional cost of $139 million, or one quarter of one percent increase, over two decades.
1. Results are in cumulative net present value 2002$ using a 7% real discount rate. Job results are for the year 2020.


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2013 Christmas City of the North Parade
Friday, November 22
Friday, November 22
A Northern Minnesota tradition. The parade signals the beginning of the holiday season. Santa makes his first appearance along with colorful lighted floats, marching bands and pageantry.
The parade features nearly 70 groups including 20 bands, a dozen dance groups, various local royalty courts, plus the big guy in red.
The parade route begins at the KBJR 6 and Range 11 Studios at Lake Avenue South and Railroad Street in Canal Park. The parade travels up Lake Avenue to Superior Street and ends at 5th Avenue West. The 2013 Christmas City of the North Parade begins at 6:20 pm.


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A Terre Haute man has been arrested and accused of several charges including domestic battery, robbery, theft, probation violation and resisting arrest.
22 year old Brice Holden was involved in an altercation last Sunday and will make his first court appearance on these charges next week.
Holden was sentenced to two years in prison and the rest of his six year sentence on work release after pleading guilty in 2011 to robbing two men at gun point at the Greyhound bus station here in town.


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SaraChang says:
Hello Everyone,Motorcycle boots provide essential protection for your feet and ankles. Your feet travel near the speeding pavement or dirt, and taking precautions for their safety important. Tennis shoes aren't enough. There are many choices of boots as far as style and color. Boosts vary somewhat in function depending on whether you are riding a motocross or street motorcycle. Motorcycle boots are often stiff and uncomfortable, so you will need to break them in for a few days before they will feel comfortable enough to go for a ride safely.Thanks a lot!Sara Changbritishmotorcyclegear.com
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Dec 10
Posts: 11970
preunit says:
wrong fcuking continent love........
Oct 11
Posts: 3055
roseyeric says:
preunit, leave the poor lass alone.......
i'm only being cruel to be kind, she said she'd only spam once or twice and now look, 13 posts
She's now a mess and needs telling enough is a enough. Tis shite
Sara should post a picture of herself to help us to determine whether the spam (javelin) is worth it
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Aug 02
Posts: 3277
eatcs01 says:
You still haven't answered my question on one of your previous posts, so I'll ask it again.What colour panties are you wearing?
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Categories > Original > Romance > Winter star
Where am I?0 Reviews
bad words...nothing new....
"Will do!" He salutes me like a soldier would his comanding officer. "She wont be let by any window! Scouts honor!"
"Even though you haven't been a scout since you were in the 6th grade." I laugh at him as he shrugs off the comment.
"Just go. He should be coming. It's almost 10." He sighed, pushing me out the door and waving with a huge smile on his face.
I stick out my tounge at him then turn to my spot. I think of the first day we met. I wasn't scared when he just showed up out of the snow. I just said "Hi" to a stranger, which, is the poller opposite of what my mother told me to do. I guess I was a defient child too.
I drifted in my dream. Every sweet moment of it. This all feels like a dream. Ya know? All of it. I'm going to be pissed if I wake up one day and find out I was just in a coma all these years.
"Dreaming I see?" I know that voice. It always gives me a smile when I hear it. Winter.
"How'd ya know?" I ask my old friend as I stand to give him a hug. I get warmer as he hugs me back. He smells good again. I never know what he smells of. I just know it's good.
"You always have your head to the side when your day dreaming." He laughs as I do it again to rember if I really do it.
"Do I? I never noticed." I drift.
"There it is again! Haha. Well we have to get talking about something useful. Tonights my last night and it's always shorter." That's right... crap.
"Right. So what's bethina like?" I pull him down as I ask the hard question.
"Ugh. I told you already. Hateful and bloodly." He harshly stated.
"No, I mean what is the land like? The sky? The weather?" These are the things I want to know. Maybe it's pretty there.
"Where I live it snows 24/7 and it always flat. The sskys clear I guess. I don't pay attention. I stay inside most of the time so I don't get killed."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Not your fault. It's the greedy bastards fault." He mutterd.
"Why? Or how is it their fault?"
"They each want the others land. All of it. They wont stop until they have all of it. So many people have died for only that reason. I hate it."
"Can anyone stop them?"
"Only one peron. But They've been gone for hell knows how long."
"Why haven't you found them?"
"It says they'll bring peace when they have a good enough reason. I don't know the whole stor but thats what I know." He looks up. "It's time for me to go."
He stands and goes to the star. Just as the snow starts to tighten around him, I run and clutch onto him. He gasps as the snow presses us together and the light flashes.
Colors I never knew existed swirled around us. Blues, reds, pinks, greens, and purples misted through my hair and his. I looked in amazement. I couldn't believe my eyes. So bright so livly. Then it just stops and faded. The sight after was just as amazing.
Snow was on the ground and was still falling even though the sky was completely clear. I see planetes 100 times closer then they would be on earth. The sky is a light blue color and had many dim stars. It's beautiful.
A scream of sound broke me. Winter grabes my had as we start to run. I saw bombs fall right beside me. I stumble a bit but I work my way back up. We reach a palace. It looked like it was made compeletly out of ice.
We went from a back door. Every ting inside was too made of ice. Drops of frozen water hug from the ceiling like a chandelier. Tables were made from clear blue ice. Flowers somehow stay alive in the cold vase it was placed in. We pass even more ice doors. How do I not see every thing inside, vise versa?
A back hall way takes up to short stairs and a door. Winter unlocks it with something I can not see. He opens it and quickly shuts it as I come inside. The room is beautiful. A huge bed with silk hanging in mid air wraping around the piece, small stair case to lead to the platform where the bed is, windows that look out to the feild, crystel hanging from the ceiling in it's own fashion, and a small night table by the bed.
"I hope you like my room, your staying here till I have a place to hid you." Winter says by the door still pressed up agenst it.
"This is your room?! You live here?! How?! This is a palace!" I say in disbelief.
"I am a prince."
"YOUR WHAT?!" What the hell? 11 years. You might want to tell some one you've know for 11 years that your a prince.
"You heard me." He smuggly said.
"And you didn't care to tell me because?!" I bark as I put my hands on my hips.
"I didn't want to give you even more reason to come here. You saw how it was out there. We almost got killed just for standing outside." He replys.
"Fine! If your going to lie to me, take me home!" I demand.
"Why not?!"
"The was my last night remeber?" Shit. I stay quiet now. How will I get home? How will I tell my family i'm gone? What will I tell then when or if I get back?"Do you have that necklace I gave you?" I nod and scrable to fine it on my neck. I take it off, noticing its dimmer than it was before, and give it to him. "Fucken shit!" He yells.
"What?!" I ask jumping back at him anger.
"It's broken. It was made so you could come here and leave when ever you please. It's the only way I would let you come and now it's broken. Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" At that one I felt the ground move and saw the table topple over. A corner of it broke. He whisperd shit one more time under his breath, then took ahold of me again and threw me into a near by closet. "What the hell-" A shhhing noise came from him as he closed it close. In a few seconds, I knew why.
"Winter! Whats wrong?!" A beautiful women with the same hair color as winter came in the door. She had almost perfect skin, with the accpetion of a few wrickle you could barly notice as is, her white hair was down to her knees,and had a beautiful gown on. And she had the deepest green eyes I had ever seen.
"Nothing Mother. I'm fine." He reasures her.
"Then why did you yell? I heard you in the court yard." She breathes as she puts her hand on her collar bone.
"Um, Er-"
"And the table is knocked over! Ugh!" The women wined. She waved her hand and the tabled shot up right and the corner that was shatterd was put back together. I gave a gasp. "What was that?" Winters mother looked around.
"I didn't hear anything." Winter says quickly.
She held her hand up for quiet. "Don't insult my ears, boy. You know I hear very well." She looks around again. She gets closer and I gulp and shirver. I hold my breath when she is right outside the door. I have a mini heart attack when she opens the door.
"Who are you?! Winter! WHo is this?! And why is she in the closet?!" She screamed.
"This is Jordan. This is where I go every night..." He says.
She lifts an eye brow and pursed her lips. "Ah, I see. Get up child." I scrable to my feet. "So why have you brought her to this war land? I know where she come from, the soil doesn't thrive on blood." His mother asks him looking him in the eye.
"I didn't bring her here. She hitched a ride when I was coming home. Now, she can't go home. I'm not strong enoughto take her now." He glares at me for a second then stops.
"Why did you do that, Jordan?" She turned to me now. I'm on the spot and I never do welll when I am.
"I-um-just- um-wanted to-just-see it here. That's all." I shrug.
"Well now that you've seen, we have to hide you. Winters father and enamies wont like that your here. Well thats mainly my husband. Enamies will be thrilled. They'll hold you for randsome and kill you if word gets out." She very neatly stated. "I will forget I met you."
"Alright, but where will she go?" Winter asks for me.
"Don't worry. I have the perfect place."


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Choosing the subjects for study at Sixth Form is a big decision that you have to make in your school life. This area has been designed to help you make that choice.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pyromelter said...
8 seconds for an AoE root is an eternity, especially in pvp. And also, Water Elemental's Freeze does the same thing, with a 45 yard range.
In PvE, Frost Nova is the #1 reason why frost mages are gods at powerleveling - AoE grinding. Being able to plant a crap ton of mobs in one place and blizzard them down is a time-tested way to get a lot of xp fast.
Anyway, if they reduce the duration to 6 seconds, I think most mages can deal with that. If they reduce it to 5, it'll be tough, but manageable. At 4 seconds or below, that's a heavy nerf.
But make no mistake, the main point is a nerf to mage pvp.
Remember frost nova is now level 56. Which completely retardifies frost as a viable levelling spec.
Blizzard REALLY need to look at what levels classes are getting spells. Levelling these classes now just feels like they randomly chose which where going to get what when.
@Tasty: I hear you. I'm in the middle of leveling a couple of my paladins, and I got two healing spells at level 8. What the heck do I need two healing spells right then for? I don't play Holy, so just one healing spell is enough to make sure I can top myself off after every fight... then it feels like an eternity before I get any spells. I'm stuck on a Judgement/Crusader Strike/Wait for fifteen seconds rotation on every encounter, and it feels so annoying... I just want one or two more abilities that I can throw around while those two are on cooldown.
@Tasty: As Vaeku said, Frost Nova is at level 8. Also, I leveled my mage from 20-85 as frost, all after patch 4.0 dropped, so I disagree that it's not a viable leveling spec. I loved it then and I still love it today.
@Pyromelter & Cetha: On one hand, I went *frowniface* when I saw that because I PvE with my frostmage and love it. On the other hand, Pyromelter is right that it really doesn't have a bearing on PvE. I mean, when I use Frost Nova in a dungeon, it never lasts long enough for me to get Deep Freeze off, but that's not because of its duration - it's because the mob gets hit. That's just the way the cookie crumbles and why I don't often put it in my regular rotation. So... meh. I'll take that nerf if that's all we get.
As a devoted frost mage, though, I perked up when they mentioned that we *might* be low on the dps side. Whether they decide to buff our numbers or not, the fact that they are watching us means that they are no longer willing to just throw out frost as "not a viable PvE spec".
I find it interesting that you only took into account the nerf's impact on PVE. As much as I would like to disagree at times, Blizzard does spend a great deal of time balancing the PVP side of WOW. Currently, Frost Mages are king at control with: Nova, talented IB breaking, CoC, Pet freeze, Deep Freeze, Counterspell and a snare built into their primary nuke. Ask any Rogue, Death Knight, or Ret Pal, something needed to be done with Frost in Battlegrounds and Arenas.
vocenoctum said...
I've found in general while leveling my prot pali after the shattering that mobs tend to have shorter leashes and be more spread out in a lot of places. Rounding them up takes more time than just blasting through them usually. My frost mage was pre-shattering, but still plenty of times I went Arcane for superior single target.
I think either way though (and the aim of the designs) they were viable leveling specs and each had fun stuff to it.


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Beachcrest is a populated place located in Thurston County at latitude 47.108 and longitude -122.749.
The elevation is 148 feet. Beachcrest appears on the Nisqually U.S. Geological Survey Map. Thurston County is in the Pacific Time Zone (UTC -8 hours).
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Beachcrest, WA
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