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That weird anchor in the little quartz pocket is on Holy Land/Reverb... and drives me nuts. Sorry BW but that is a ridiculous spot for a bolted anchor... stand in the pocket and drill atshoulder height! The rope pulls like crap due to the angle on the rings... but ah... 1st world problems...
Can anyone tell me where, in relation to the tree-hole pool, the proper anchor for Holy Land is?
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Are you fly or batch sparging? You can add water - and yes you'd subtract that from your sparge water. If you are batch sparging, just drain and add hot batch sparge water.
That's what I've been doing. Draining the cooler and then adding ~185F water to bring the temp up to ~168-170 for the batch sparge. Is that right? Or should I use 168F water to batch sparge?
A lot of purist will resist this comment but you can absolutely skip the mash out step. It may slightly increase your overall efficiency and lower the lag time on the boil slightly but you aren't going to get much else benefit from it.

subset: commoncrawl


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Alan Belcher has been hinting for a while with tweets like the one above that he will soon be returning to the UFC.
"The Talent" has been sidelined since sustaining a career-threatening partially detached retina last summer while training for his UFN 22 bout with Demian Maia, but according to one of his Remix MMA students he has been given the OK by his eye specialist to compete once again and is eyeing (no pun intended) a May or June return to the Octagon.
Here's what amateur fighter Rodney Derouen said about the situation on MixedMartialArts.com's Underground forum today:
A Maia redo or a scrap with Bisping both sound good to me. Discuss.


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I vote all courses(whichever we play) need to be in Championship Layout(aka- hardest pin settings). Shooting even should be killing it.
Would 2 courses at Smithville be out of the question?
How about Legacy and Wilbur Young? For Missouri. Two great tracks where plenty can happen.
Quote from: white mccoy on September 27, 2013, 01:28:33 PMI vote all courses(whichever we play) need to be in Championship Layout(aka- hardest pin settings). Shooting even should be killing it.I can make SMP set up so that 54 is almost 1000 rated. Just say the word.
I typically do 2 long and 2 short. This is for everyone in the club, not just the 995+ players. SMP and Lakeside will likely be the KS courses used this year for Saturday. Sunday will be on the MO side and I have yet to decide.
This is for everyone in the club to have a chance at being CLUB CHAMPION which should be determined by challenging the members to the most difficult settings. As tough as that may sound it is equally as FAIR. If others (995+) players have an advantage due to their established skill level than more power to them in their quest to get their name inscribed on the trophy but don't "dumb down" the courses for "FUN'S" sake, we already have enough events to suit that group.And PLEASE let me re-iterate that first and foremost I would like to Thank You


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TIFFIN, Ohio – Headed into play on Saturday, the football team at Heidelberg University led the nation in total offense. And, while the offense deserved many of the headlines it gathered, the Heidelberg defense had quietly put together a remarkable season.
That success continued on Heidelberg's Homecoming, as the Student Princes shut out the Cardinals of Otterbein University, 21-0. Both teams entered the contest undefeated and ranked tied for #25 in the latest D3football.com poll.
Linebackers Dawson Gore (Bellevue) and Craig Sykes (Centerburg) had 10 tackles each. Defensive linemen Stephen Fejedelem (Ravenna) and Ben Poirier (Canton, MI) each recorded two sacks.
Heidelberg scored on the opening possession of the game. Running back Cartel Brooks (Kokomo, IN/Galion) found the end zone from three yards out. The touchdown capped a seven play, 61 yard drive.
Otterbein tried to answer on their first possession, as they drove the ball down to the Heidelberg 10 yard line. A holding penalty and a sack pushed the Cardinals back to the 23 yard line, where kicker Nick Ganus missed a 40-yard field goal attempt wide right.
The missed field goal seemed to ignite the Heidelberg defense, which would intercept two passes from Otterbein starter Aaron Kingcade. On the next play after an interception by Chadd Williamson (Land 'O Lakes, FL), Heidelberg quarterback Michael Mees (North Ridgeville) connected on a 28-yard pass to Nate Hasse (Crown Point, IN) for a score. Dan Kilger (Novi, MI) kicked his second extra point to push Heidelberg's lead to 14-0.
In the third quarter, Heidelberg's defense continued to stymie the Cardinal offense and forced a pair of punts.
Mees found C.J. Powell (Detroit, MI/Bishop Foley) for a 22-yard touchdown strike in the third quarter. Powell finished with six catches for 115 yards.
Trailing 21-0, Otterbein drove deep into Heidelberg territory in the waning moments of the third quarter. Heidelberg's defense stood tall and preserved the shutout, as they forced an incompletion on 4th and goal from the eight yard line.
In the fourth, the Heidelberg offense was able to grind seven minutes off of the clock before being forced to punt. Punter Colin Bultinck (Lafayette, IN/Jefferson) watched as his punt bounced inside the 10 yard line and was downed at the one.
On the ensuing drive, the Cardinals converted on two third down plays to move the ball into Heidelberg territory. On 3rd and three from the Heidelberg 36, Sykes and Andy Lovins (Clinton Township, MI/Lake Shore) sacked back-up quarterback Ben Sizemore for a 10-yard loss.
After Otterbein punted, Heidelberg ran out the clock.
"It's a rewarding day," said head coach Mike Hallett. "Otterbein brought a lot of thunder, and I think our guys weathered the storm."
The shutout is the third time this season that the defense has not yielded points. The first was in 45-0 win at Alma in Week One. The second, three weeks later, came in a 56-2 win at Wilmington.
"Shutouts don't happen too often," said Fejedelem, the reigning OAC Player of the Week. "This is our second one this year. We love it."
Brooks was held to 109 yards, his lowest output of the season. The balanced Heidelberg attack was bolstered by Mees, who found seven different receivers. Mees finished 18-of-24 for 240 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
"I didn't take many hits today," said Mees, who was not sacked on the afternoon. "Our line made their blocks up front and gave me time to find our targets."
With the win, Heidelberg (6-0, 5-0) retained the Rhine River Cup, given to the winner of the Otterbein-Heidelberg game. The trophy commemorates the 1992 game between the schools, played in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Student Princes will host Muskingum on October 20 at 1:30 p.m. The game will be the 1,000th varsity football game in Heidelberg history.


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Mariners' Saunders lands on DL
Seattle, WA – The Seattle Mariners placed outfielder Michael Saunders on the 15-day disabled list prior to Thursday's game against the Texas Rangers due to a sprained AC joint in his right shoulder.
Saunders sustained the injury while crashing into the right-field fence as he caught a fly ball off the bat of Houston's Jose Altuve during the first inning of Wednesday's 8-3 loss to the Astros. The British Columbia native was batting .286 with one home run and five RBI through Seattle's first nine games.
The Mariners purchased the contract of veteran outfielder Endy Chavez from Triple-A Tacoma to take Saunders' spot on the active roster. The 35-year-old signed a minor league contract with Seattle on March 24 after being released by Kansas City, and was hitting .429 with a .462 on-base percentage in six games with the Rainiers.
Chavez will begin his second tour of duty with the Mariners, having been the team's Opening Day left fielder in 2009. He hit .203 with two homers and 12 RBI in 64 appearances with Baltimore last season.
Pitcher D.J. Mitchell was designated for assignment to make room for Chavez on the 40-man roster.


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Bayern Munich midfielder Javi Martinez has demanded cautiousness from his team-mates ahead of the clash against Valencia on Tuesday, and is expecting a tough encounter at Mestalla.
The Bavarians defeated Mauricio Pellegrino's men 2-1 on matchday one of this season's Champions League, but the versatile Spaniard is adamant that they will have a harder time in his homeland.
"It is a difficult ground for a visiting team," the 24-year-old explained to the club's official website.
"The home fans support their team strongly, it is a compact stadium. I like it a lot, I enjoy playing there."
The hosts are undefeated at Mestalla so far this term, but Martinez has set sights on breaking their unbeaten run.
"I played the [2009] Copa del Rey final there with Athletic Bilbao. I am looking forward to it and of course hope they get dealt the first home defeat [of this season]."
The Spain international went on to praise Che forward Roberto Soldado and singled him out as the opposition's main threat.
"He is a very agile striker, who moves well and can score a goal any time. He scored a lot of goals already. I think that he is the soul of Valencia," Martinez concluded.
Kick-off at Mestalla is scheduled at 20.45CET.


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Streak in jeopardy? Heat face tough task in Chicago
After getting past some of the league's mediocre teams, the Miami Heat will face a formidable foe Wednesday against the Chicago Bulls.
The Heat, of course, are riding a franchise-best 27-game winning streak and opened a four-game road trip with Monday's 108-94 victory over the Orlando Magic. LeBron James led the way with 24 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds, and is averaging 27.0 ppg during the second-longest winning streak in the NBA.
"Our historic run is about winning championships. That is what we want to be known for. We didn't have a goal in mind to say, 'let's go on a long consecutive win streak,'" James said.
The Los Angeles Lakers won an NBA-best 33 games in a row back in 1971-72.
On the second night of a back-to-back, Miami played without Dwyane Wade because of a sore right knee. Wade is listed as questionable for his homecoming in Chicago.
Mario Chalmers had 17 points in the win over Orlando, while Chris Bosh and Ray Allen both scored 12 points for the Southeast champion Heat, who made 15-of-28 3-pointers. Chalmers and Allen had four 3-pointers apiece.
Miami, which is 20-0 since the All-Star break and on pace for the NBA's best record, has won 13 in a row on the road and is 24-11 as the guest. It will also visit New Orleans and San Antonio on the road swing, and is one road win shy of matching a franchise-best 14 straight set back in 1996.
Chicago would like to be at full strength for this matchup to give the Heat some pressure. Already without former MVP Derrick Rose (knee surgery), the Bulls could be down a few more bodies Wednesday.
Guard Marco Belinelli (abdomen) and center Joakim Noah (foot) are both questionable and forward Taj Gibson (knee) is probable.
The rested Bulls have won two straight and three of five games, including Sunday's 104-97 triumph over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Nate Robinson had 22 points and 10 assists, and Jimmy Butler tallied 20 points and nine rebounds.
"Once we got going a bit I thought that was the whole key to the game," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said.
Carlos Boozer had 19 points and 12 boards, while Luol Deng contributed 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Chicago is currently even with Atlanta for the fifth spot in the East -- 2 1/2 games behind Brooklyn.
The Bulls are 19-16 at the United Center this season and will travel to Dallas for Saturday's matchup.
Chicago and Miami have split a pair of meetings this season with each team winning on the opposing floor. The Heat have dropped six of the previous eight matchups in the Windy City.


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Arctic Cat is swinging for the fences with its lineup of 2012 snowmobiles. Leading the charge are the new ProCross and ProClimb chassis' which are roughly based on the proven Sno Pro race sled.
Race-bred and proven--that's the overriding mantra for the 2012 breed of
Arctic Cats. Using the 2008 Sno Pro race sled as a baseline for
R&D, the 2012 sleds have a familiar look with some significant
changes compared to the racer.
The front A-arms mount to the chassis at a 30-degree angle, directing
load into the chassis. The shock towers are designed to direct load into
the spars of the pyramidal supports.
On the mountain sleds, the one-piece forged aluminum spindle is shorter
than the race chassis spindle. And for those wondering why such a tall
spindle is needed, it lowers the forces on the upper A-arm and opens up
the airbox channel, giving the intake system a larger volume of air to
work with. Cat is using Fox Float 2 shocks on the front of the M800 Sno
Pro and M1100 Sno Pro models, and Float Evol shocks on the HCR models.
On the ProClimb chassis, the inside corner coolers are history. The
cooling system is mounted to the underside of the tunnel. The M800 and
M1100 models have full-length heat exchangers with windows in the top
side of the tunnel for added cooling. The HCR has a shorter cooling
system that ends near the rear suspension's rear arm mount. The tunnel itself has a tapered-box design, making the top of the tunnel an inch narrower than the width at the running boards.
The ACT Diamond Drive is gone. In its place is the new Arctic Drive
System (ADS). It uses a chain and sprocket system with a new 10.75-inch
secondary clutch. the drop case, cover and oil tank are all made of
lightweight magnesium, with an automatic chain tensioner system inside
the drop case.
A new Torque Control Link holds the center distance between the two
clutches, creating a constant parallel drives system for improved belt
life and efficiency. Self-aligning bearings on both ends of the
jackshaft allow for movement.
A vertical-post steering system is available exclusively on the M800 Sno Pro and M800 HCR. The M800 base model and all four-stroke M1100 models use the standard steering system shared with the trail models, which is a laid-down steering post system. The M800 Sno Pro and M800 HCR also have Cat's unique telescoping steering post, which is mounted higher on the 2012s compared to a previous-gen M8.
Other new features and quick specs for 2012 Arctic Cat mountain sleds:
All-new rubber-overmold handlebar with new molded sidehill strap.
New Hayes Brakes braking system. 12 percent larger rotor, also thinner for 6 percent weight reduction, mounted on trackshaft.
Adjustable gauge mount for stand-up riding visibility.
Rider position moved 3 inches forward compared to 2011 M8.
Rear suspension mounts have moved 3 inches forward, shortening wheelbase.
2012 M800 Sno Pro is same weight as 2011 M8 Sno Pro.
Noise reduction system incorporated inside hood intake plenum.
1100 Turbo is rated at 177hp at 7,850 rpm; 121 lb-ft of torque at 7,300 rpm. Dry sump oil system, intercooled charge system, EFI, wastegated turbo.
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Transcendence (US - BD RA)
Gabe finds this failed futurist drama/action hybrid indomitably boring...
Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed – to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can...but if they should. Their worst fears are realized as Will's thirst for knowledge evolves into a seemingly omnipresent quest for power, to what end is unknown. The only thing that is becoming terrifyingly clear is there may be no way to stop him. (From Warner Bros'. official synopsis)
When a movie flops at the box office in a particularly spectacular fashion it usually develops a negative reputation, which is perpetuated by a parade of negative opinions on the project. This is a particularly vicious circle, because the fact that no one saw a film becomes the reason it is bad. Quite often good movies, like John Carter (2012), Speed Racer (2008), and Peter Pan (2003), are swept up in a wave of disastrous word of mouth and maintained bad reputations for years on end. The antidote to this depressing prospect is that, more often than not, audiences successfully recognize crummy advertising and lame concepts and deservingly ignore them. Star cinematographer Wally Pfister's directorial debut, Transcendence, is a perfect example of a film that audiences were wise to ingore.
Jack Paglen's Transcendence screenplayslanguished for some time on the legendary Black List – a group of film scripts that are reportedly so fantastic that no one in the industry can believe they haven't been made into multi-million dollar feature hits yet. Paglen's ideas are, indeed, cool. They should serve as the groundwork for a good sci-fi movie – just not this sci-fi movie. At its base, Transcendence is an old-fashioned scare movie that attempts to play into an audience's fears of technology running rampant, just like a number of '50s sci-films exploited fears of nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, the 'singularity' – the hypothetical moment when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, rendering humanity in its current form obsolete – isn't something that keeps most people up at night. It's an understandable concept and one with lots of dramatic potential, but it's not exactly mainstream blockbuster material until you add a Terminator or martial arts fighting computer program into the mix (I guess nano-machines are cool, but not particularly dynamic). Paglen's ambitions here are commendable, while his achievements are dull – driven by predictable narrative devices, dopey coincidences, and boring characters with overly straight faces who speak to each other as if they're giving a never-ending series of keynote speeches. The all-star cast is paralyzed by mundanity of it all.
Pfister, who found success with Christopher Nolan as the cinematographer for all but one of his movies, used his Dark Knight goodwill with Warner Bros. to makes his debut on a sizable budget with an established cast of stars. It's unfair to claim he doesn't know what he's doing, because he clearly has a vision for the look of the film and an idea of how to put a story together, but he has no clue what to do with the film's tone. Ideally, he would've embraced some of the camp appeal that defines earlier sci-fi scare films. Instead, it's dead serious and terminally self-important. I assumed Pfister was merely laying track and establishing normality as he built up to something more gonzo, but he never delivers anything fun, exciting, or frightening during the film's interminable two-hour runtime. He tries to soften the broad and didactic dialogue with perfume ad photography and mournful musical cues, yet the emotional core of the story – the desire to keep a loved one alive via technological means – is lost in robotic sentimentality and a complete lack of levity. The conspiracy of anti-tech terrorists that shoot Johnny Depp with a radiation-laced bullet (why they don't just, you know, kill him with a regular bullet is never explained), kidnap Paul Bettany, and chase after Rebecca Hall are also boring and driven, it seems, by making expository speeches. Their presence in the film feels like an afterthought – as if they were taken from a different script to stretch out the narrative.
Anyone that saw Christopher Kenneally's digital vs. film documentary, Side by Side, or who read any recent interviews with Pfister concerning cinematography knows that he is a staunch (some might say obnoxious) supporter of traditional film. It comes as no surprise that he and cinematographer Jess Hall shot Transcendence on 35mm. This 1080p, 2.40:1 is very, very pretty. The imagery is subtly divided between the warm and organic natural world, which appears to have been shot during a perpetual sunset, and the sterile, fluorescently-lit technological world. The warmer scenes are a bit overwhelming in their red and orange elements and contrast-heavy blacks. These, along with the artfully shallow focus, limit the more intricate textures and lead to some minor edge haloes, but do not dampen the tight elemental separations. The techy scenes are also pretty dark, but feature livelier highlights and busier patterns. Gradations are about as smooth as we can expect from film-based footage, especially on big facial close-ups. The colours are eclectic, strong and softly blended without appearing overtly digitally graded. Black levels are deep and grain levels are minimal without disappearing altogether.
Transcendence is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. The subject matter gives the sound designers the excuse to blend abstract and organic sound effects into a directionally aggressive stew. The drier, dialogue-driven scenes have plenty of warm, realistic ambience, while the words themselves sound round and consistent. Depp's robotic voice and whirring computer parts feature some directionally enhanced clicks and clacks, but the liveliest audio design is the sound of Depp's consciousness as it navigates the Internet, which fills the stereo and surround speakers with a swirl of boops, beeps, and buzzes. The soundtrack is also punched up by a number of gunshots, explosions, and the staticy crackle of nano-machines. Composer Mychael Danna does his best Hans Zimmer by mixing symphonic and electronic elements into an impressionistic, mournful, driving score that isn't particularly memorable, but works very well with the material. The music covers the silence beneath the chattier sequences with a mix of subtle and punchy melodies, and a nice LFE rumble.
- What Is Transcendence? (5:20, HD) – A brief EPK that covers the film's themes.
- Wally Pfister: A Singular Vision (2:50, HD) – An even shorter and puffier EPK concerning the director's talents.
- Guarding the Threat (2:20, HD) – More of the same – this time looking at the technological dangers discussed in the film.
- The Promise of A.I. (2:30, HD) – A repetitive glance at the film's themes.
- Viral Videos – A collection of creative promos for the movie.
- It's Me (1:00, HD)
- Singularity (1:10, HD)
- Two trailers and trailers for other WB releases
I'm guessing Wally Pfister thought Transcendence was too smart of a thriller to be saddled with silly sci-fi trappings. Ultimately, it's really dumb and by saddling it with an overly serious tone he has cursed it to be boring and stupid. The climax threatens to be cool and apocalyptic, but is flattened by empty pretension. Warner Bros. has done a fine job with this Blu-ray, however, including a gorgeous HD picture and a subtly strong DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Too bad the extras are just a brief set of extended advertisements.
* Note: The above images are taken from the Blu-ray and resized for the page. Full-resolution captures are available by clicking individual images, but due to .jpg compression they are not necessarily representative of the quality of the transfer.
Review by Gabriel Powers
Worst Nightmare Senior Member Join Date: July 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 6,716
This film was such a disappointment- it was almost promising Ghost in the Shell ideals in the trailers yet it so horribly executed that it fell over and died.....
Oh - thanks for the review Gabe!
Oh - thanks for the review Gabe!
Gabe Powers Editor Join Date: September 2004 Location: United States Posts: 4,721
Where have you been lately, WN?
Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13
Disc Details
Release Date: 22nd July 2014
Discs: 2
Disc Type: Blu-ray Disc
RCE: No
Video: 1080p
Aspect: 2.40:1
Anamorphic: Yes
Colour: No
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English, Dolby Digital 5.1 French and Spanish
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras: What Is Transcendence?, Wally Pfister: A Singular Vision, Guarding the Threat, The Promise of A.I., Viral Videos, Trailers, DVD Copy, UltraViolet
Easter Egg: No
Feature Details
Director: Wally Pfister
Cast: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman
Genre: Action, Drama and Sci-Fi
Length: 119 minutes
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: William J. White, Jr. October 1, 1997 Reginald Welch (202) 663-4900 TDD: (202) 663-4494
WASHINGTON -- In a letter to the White House today, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairman Gilbert F. Casellas informed President Clinton that he would resign from the agency effective at the end of this year. Chairman Casellas will be leaving the Administration after more than four years of service, the first as General Counsel of the Air Force and the last three as EEOC Chairman.
"I am proud to turn over an agency that for the first time in years is respected for its enforcement activities, credited for its outreach to underserved communities, applauded for its efforts to encourage voluntary compliance, and praised for its internal reforms," he wrote.
He attributed much of EEOC's successes during his tenure to staff, many of whose professional careers have been spent mostly in enforcing equal employment law."They have supported me as I have worked to articulate our unqualified support for the fair a nd vigorous enforcement of our civil rights laws, our passionate belief in the justice of those laws and our tireless commitment to the continuous improvement of employment opportunities for all people," Casellas said.
In his letter he emphasized the positive effects that agency charge processing reforms have had on EEOC's "well-known backlog (of discrimination cases)." He explained that the 70,000 cases currently pending at EEOC "pale in comparison" to the over 112,000 cases pending prior to the reforms being implemented just two years ago. He said he was particularly proud that the agency "is resolving more cases, in shorter periods, for higher monetary benefits, with the smallest staff in twenty years." In addition to these achievements, this week Casellas will publicly announce a major policy initiative to reform the federal EEO process.
His letter concluded: "I thank you, Mr. President, for giving me the opportunity to serve my country and to serve the core values on which this country was built."
This page was last modified on October 1, 1997.
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text: Professor Kim Shapiro In 'People' Academic StaffPostdoctoral researchersDoctoral researchers Back to 'Psychology' School of PsychologyProfessor and Chair of Cognitive NeuroscienceHead of School Contact details Telephone+44 (0)121 414 email@example.com AddressSchool of PsychologyUniversity of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT UK Professor Shapiro in collaboration with other colleagues published the first paper on the 'attentional blink' phenomenon, which has attracted great interest on the part of many scientists. The original publication has been cited over 1000 times and approximately 500 reports on the same topic have followed from it. He employs a wide range of neuroscience approaches and tools in his research, including functional imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs), and magnetoencephalography (MEG). Professor Shapiro is the Head of School in Psychology. Qualifications BSc, MSc, PhD Biography Professor Shapiro received his PhD in animal learning from Dalhousie University (Canada) before taking up his first (assistant professor) post at the Pennsylvania State University. He then moved to the University of Calgary (Canada) where he was tenured and promoted to Full Professor. Prior to moving to the University of Birmingham, he was employed by Bangor University where he helped to establish the functional imaging centre in the School of Psychology. Professor Shapiro has received recent funding for his research from the BBSRC, the ESRC, the Human Frontiers of Science Programme, and the Welcome Trust. Teaching Animal learning, attention and memory Postgraduate supervision Current postgraduate students: Jess Kerlin Current postdoctoral research associates: Risa Sawaki Ilja Sligte Those wishing to apply to work in Professor Shapiro's lab are encouraged to contact him directly by email. Research Research interests Attention, visual short-term memory Other activities Professor Shapiro recently joined the University of Birmingham from Bangor University where he held the Chair of Cognitive Neuroscience. He is a member of the Society for Neurosciences, the Psychonomics Society, and the Vision Sciences Society, as well as a member of the grant panel (A) for the Biological and Biosciences Research Council (BBSRC). He has served in the past as Associate Editor for Perception and Psychophysics and is currently an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Cognition. He is also currently a member of the Consulting Board for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. Publications Google Scholar Citation Page Zauner, A., Fellinger, R., Gross, J., Hanslmayr, S., Shapiro, K., Gruber, W., Müller, S., & Klimesch, W. (in press). Alpha entrainment is responsible for the attentional blink phenomenon. NeuroImage. Fan, Z., Singh, K., Muthukumaraswamy, S., & Shapiro, K. (in press). The role of sustained posterior brain activity in the serial chaining of two cognitive operations: A MEG study. Psychophysiology. Helen M. Morgan, Margaret C. Jackson, Martijn van Koningsbruggen, Kimron L. Shapiro, & David E.J. Linden. (In press). Frontal and parietal theta burst TMS impairs working memory for visual-spatial conjunctions. Brain Imaging. Morgan, H. M., Muthukumaraswamy, S. D., Hibbs, C. S., Shapiro, K. S., Bracewell, R. M., Singh, K. D., & Linden, D. E., J. (in press). Feature integration in visual working memory: Parietal gamma activation is related to cognitive coordination. Journal of Neurophysiology. Jackson, M.C., Morgan, H. M., Shapiro, K. S., Mohr, H. M., Linden, D. E. J. (in press). Strategic resource allocation in the human brain supports cognitive coordination of visual and spatial working memory. Human Brain Mapping. Johnston, S., Linden, D. E. J., & Shapiro, K. L. (2011). Functional imaging reveals working memory and attention interact to produce the attentional blink. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24, 28-38. Ihssen, N., Linden, D. E. J., & Shapiro, K. L. (2010). Improving Visual Short-Term Memory by sequencing the stimulus array. Psychonomic, Bulletin, & Review, 17, 680-686. Gross, J., Schmitz, F., Schnitzler, I., Kessler, K., Shapiro, K., Hommel, B., & Schnitzler, A. (2004). Modulation of long-range neural synchrony reflects temporal limitations of visual attention in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 101, 13050-13055. Husain, M., Shapiro, K. L., Martin, J., and Kennard, C. (1997). Temporal dynamics of visual attention reveal a non-spatial abnormality in spatial neglect. Nature, 385, 154-156. Luck, S. J., Vogel, E. K., and Shapiro, K. L. (1996). Word meanings can be accessed but not reported during the attentional blink. Nature, 382, 616-618. Duncan, J., Ward, R., and Shapiro, K. L. (1994). Direct measurement of attentional dwell time in human vision. Nature, 369, 313-315. Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., and Arnell, K. M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18, 849-860.


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We have better things to do than worry about whether you'll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?
Is this still a relevant 'theses' ten years on?
Let's start with 'business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours'. There is undoubtedly a gulf between a marketer's work-life and their social-life. In Marketing and Modernity, an ethnographic study of a Swedish pizza company in the 1990s, Marianne Elisabeth Lien states that 'practically nobody ever enters the marketing department as consumers. Yet the department is filled with people who are all part-time consumers in their various private capacities' (original emphasis). This moment of realisation leads her to conclude that as far as marketers are concerned 'consumers are the 'ultimate other''.
Has anything changed since Lien conducted her fieldwork in 1991/92 long before the internet became the mass phenomenon it is and even longer before global brands took an interest in what the internet could do for them? The answer, on the surface, is probably not. Marketing language may be changing to reflect the latest marketing trends, at least in a supplemental way, but the view most marketers prefer of consumers is the one from a distance. Why is this? At a superficial level it's probably got a lot to do with the culture of most marketing departments, but at a more profound level it has got more to do with the concept of the 'consumer' and where it's expected to sit in the grand hierarchy of life.
Lots of research companies claim not to like the word 'consumer' but ultimately 'consumer' is a category we tend to put people in if they don't work in our industry, after all we might ask them about their family, their job, their hobbies, but inevitably we're interested in what they buy and why. Of course the interesting thing about the term consumer is that nobody really thinks of themselves as a consumer, we may occasionally find ourselves admitting that we are under duress, but beyond the odd ironic slogan t-shirt we see ourselves as much richer subjects than that implied by the term. Despite the importance of consumption in our lives, we tend to see only the act of making a purchase as consumption, once we get our goods home and put them away in their proper place the act of consumption ceases. In light of this it's understandable why the term consumer has an underlying pejorative meaning, it suggests an individual who puts more value in the act of purchase itself rather than the value of the object purchased. It's always been a safe way to maintain the status quo, business is what the clever people do, consuming is what the stupid people do. When David Ogilvy in Confessions of an Advertising Man, published way back in 1963, says 'the consumer isn't a moron; she's your wife', he's kidding no-one. But things have changed. The reason marketing teams aren't encouraged to think like consumers is because all that separates them from the commodity obsessed masses is their sales sheets and knowledge of industry jargon. It's simply safer to pretend that these tentative pieces of cultural capital will hold the dogs at bay.
For the majority of large businesses the growth of the web has done little to change this attitude, if anything the consumer has become an even more unnerving figure, inevitably distorted through media hype of the latest web trend and its most bizarre accounts. But even the companies founded on the web seem to have a rather ambivalent attitude to their consumers – for example, Facebook's attempts to monetise users so far has ranged from disastrous to ineffectual. So simply being a successful web brand isn't enough to guarantee an enlightened attitude to the humble consumer. The even sadder fact is that this attitude isn't exclusive to business people, the people we classify as consumers think consumers are stupid. The Conversation on the web isn't quite what it was, even in 1999 The Cluetrain Manifesto lamented the loss of innocence 'Today, we tend to think of "flaming" as a handful of people vociferously insulting each other online. A certain sense of finesse has largely been lost. In the olden days, a good flame war could go on for weeks or months, with hot invective flying around like rhetorical shrapnel'. Having been a part of the great social network site exoduses of the early 21st century I can remember distinctly the allure of Myspace with its legal band profiles, fully customisable html and I can also distinctly remember the jaded comments of friends who were sick and tired of the spam filled inboxes on Myspace, to whom Facebook was a beacon of light. That a lot of this spam came not from businesses as such but bands, club nights, self promoting individuals is no longer a surprise but it was more so at the time. If the web had been all about the conversations, it was rapidly heading in the direction of self-promotion. It seems that rather than businesses becoming more like consumers, consumers were becoming more like businesses. Thanks to the communicative and distributive tools of the internet anybody could advertise themselves and lots of people did. This trend has only accelerated – players of online games form hierarchical top-down organisations, techies develop apps in their spare time, ebay and amazon encourage people to become virtual stores. Even the less commercially minded will cumulatively spend hours updating profiles and uploading photos. If the sprawling chaos of the Myspace profile was the infomercial, Twitter is the streamlined 30 second ad where detail is less important than impact. No wonder business tries to distance itself from consumers when they threaten to move into the territory they've spent so long cultivating as their own.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, the internet gives us greater control over what we consume and how we consume it and theoretically it's great that anyone can become a business person, but the manner in which most people go about promoting themselves is rooted in over a century of traditional media and traditional media's tactics, it suffers from the same problems and assumptions, particularly about what consumers will respond to. Hence the proliferation of spam. In the tradition of alternative histories it could be argued that the past 20 years should be known as The Age of Spam. Unlike advertising which has always been the medium of business, spam is the democratised take on one way messaging en masse. If spam was just the tool of the Viagra sellers then it would simply be another form of advertising, the fact that your friends and acquaintances are also more than happy to participate in a bit of ad hoc spamming is what differentiates it from its predecessors. In fairness to the people of the web, there are few proven alternatives to the traditional media format and let's face it the traditional media approach works even if it's far from perfect.
Possibly the greatest threat to businesses then is that it is being gradually commoditised, if everyone can do it then the position of expert is eroded if not erased. Perhaps the most insistent example of this is the music industry. When consumers and bands found that it was possible to distribute music more efficiently than the record companies, the music industry's status was significantly reduced. The situation is hardly helped by programs like The X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent where members of the public are raised to pop star status overnight only to be worthless a month later. It suggests that musical ability and talent is something the public at large are just as capable of discovering as the so called experts.
Finally then 'who needs whom?' Consumers, or whatever we call them, still need business, so much of our lives is based around the production, distribution and social status of commodities but business is no longer the behemoth it was it is worth only as much as its latest product or ad campaign, business is having to work harder to matter to people. What does business need to do to change this state of affairs? Well The Cluetrain Manifesto argues that business needs to find its human voice, to be genuine, pure, honest, but if the human voice on the web is intractably coloured by decades of marketing speak then it would seem rather foolish for business to attempt to follow this lead. After all it's very difficult for sprawling corporations to appear genuinely human, a Facebook profile, Youtube page and Twitter account isn't really enough to convince us of this. Instead business needs to wow us and amaze us like it did in the post war years with its modern miracles. Business is too content to follow trends set by consumers, when it should be starting the trends or at least trying to. Hopefully this would give marketing departments greater confidence in their own abilities rather than feeling like their place in the world has been usurped by the masses and consumer will cease to be such a derisory term. I think when businesses start aiming to be the experts again that then they will be ready to have a real conversation with consumers about what they are doing and what they should be doing because they'll have an opinion and the confidence to debate its worth.


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* Expected Release Date: Oct. 25, 2013
* It's here! Pokemon x Nanoblock collaboration is here! This item is for "Pikachu" (NBPM-001).
This is the very first Pokemon item from the series (NBPM)!
This also came out along with Hitokage, Fushigidane and Zenigame (Japanese Pokemon names).
For all Pokemon fans, Anime fans and collectors, don't miss out on these very special Nanoblock set!
[ Additional Information ]
凸 Item Code: NBPM_001
凸 # of pieces: TBA
凸 Difficulty: TBA
凸 Recommended Age: 12 and up
凸 Blocks: Plastic (ABS)
凸 Package Size: 180 (H) x 105 (W) x 13 (D) mm
凸 Maker: Kawada
Delivered directly from Japan by Japan Post.
Shipment within 3 business days.
We guarantee careful packing and safe shipping.
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Sends the confirmation email we receive your order.
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By Small Packet (Airmail).
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※Dispatch hope by EMS, will take $ 15.00- or more.
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Is it just me, or has tablet computing become insufferably dull? That's what happens when a single company, in this case Apple Inc., dominates the market. It's the mighty iPad versus a host of hapless rivals, many with names I can no longer remember, because they've been so completely clobbered.
Well, here's a tablet I'm likely to remember for quite awhile — Nexus 7. It's the first tablet to carry the brand name of Internet titan Google Inc., and it goes on sale in mid-July. It's also the best of the mini-tablets — devices with a diagonal screen size of around 7 inches.
That's where the action is these days, as Amazon.com proved last Christmas. Its 7-inch Kindle Fire became the first tablet of any size to steal away customers from the iPad. Rival bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. didn't do nearly as well with its Nook Tablet, but it was better than the Fire, with a sharper, brighter screen and more graceful design. In the 7-inch market, the Nook Tablet ranked as best-of-breed.
Until now. The Nexus 7 was built to dominate, and it does. Its hulking quad-core processor is mated with a massive 12-core video chip, resulting in superb gaming performance. I downloaded a couple of shooter games from Google's online store. They performed flawlessly — no stuttering, no graphic glitches. And the images glowed forth from the best screen I've seen on a 7-inch tablet — not quite up to the standard of Apple's vaunted Retina display, but pretty close, and more than good enough for games or high-definition movies.
Google's hardware partner, the Taiwanese computer maker Asustek Computer Inc., stuffed all this power into a compact and elegant package. The Nexus 7's rounded edges and smooth plastic backside let it rest comfortably in the hand. It weighs no more than a paperback novel, so it's well-suited for extended use. While I haven't had the chance to do an exhaustive battery test, Google and Asus claim it can handle 10 hours of e-reading or nine hours of movie viewing without a recharge.
In addition, you get features not found on other mini-tablets.
There's a GPS chip, for instance, so you can run all sorts of location-sensitive apps. You get Bluetooth wireless connectivity, so you can easily share files with other devices.
Google is also continuing to push its obsession with "near-field communications," or NFC, a technology that has to catch on, but just might. NFC-enabled devices have little chips inside that let them communicate with other devices through physical contact. That way, you can share data with someone you just met, by pressing his device against yours.
It works, too. I punched up a map of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center on the Nexus 7, then fed the map into an NFC-equipped Android phone in just a few seconds. You can do the same with other kinds of data, like photos or songs. While there's still no great demand for NFC, I figure it's just a matter of time, and Google will be ready.
Certain design choices might seem a bit more debatable. There's no rear-facing camera on the Nexus 7; just one on the front, for use in videoconferencing. Then again, the Nook and Kindle Fire have no cameras at all. Besides, I've seen wedding guests take photos with their iPads, and it's not pretty.
More disappointing is the lack of an external memory slot, one of the Nook Tablet's best features. With the Nexus 7, you get 8 gigabytes of memory for $199 or 16 gigs for $249, and that's it.
The Nexus 7 includes the newest version of the Android operating system, codenamed Jelly Bean. Silly name, nice software. Wake up the tablet and you get a screenful of links to your most recent activities — the music you were listening to or the e-book you were reading. Up top, a toolbar launches a slick new feature called Google Now that tells you what Google thinks you need to know, based on your previous searches. You can set it up to instantly present the weather, traffic, or the latest sports scores, whenever you launch the program.
A newly enhanced speech recognition system isn't as sophisticated as Apple's Siri service. Still, it recognized my words with very high accuracy and consistently served up relevant Web pages. Besides, it did know the score of the Red Sox game, which counts for something.
In all, the outstanding Nexus 7 proves there's ample room for innovation and competition among the mini-tablets. For now, anyway.
The Bloomberg news service reported earlier this week that Apple plans to release a 7-incher of its own by October. If that happens, the entire tablet market could become all-iPad, all the time. I'm getting bored just thinking about it.


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New listings added for the current week are indicated in italics. Print copies of the rules and regulations governing the writing contests listed here are available from Denise Lang in Suite 320.
The Berkeley Technology Law Journal announces its annual student comment competition. Submissions should be on some aspect of the law that implicates technology in any degree. Prizes will be awarded as follows: first prize, $1,000; second prize, $750; third prize, $500. Submissions must be postmarked by March 15, 2001.
The Alliance Defense Fund announces the fourth annual William Pew Religious Freedom Scholarship Competition, on the topic: Sexual Identity: Objective Reality or Sexual Illusion. The author of the winning paper will receive a $7,500 scholarship. Submissions must be postmarked no later than April 16, 2001.
The Notre Dame Law School announces the Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition. Entries should address any issue within the general category of legal ethics. The author of the winning entry will receive a $1,000 cash prize. Entries must be received by April 30, 2001.
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility announces an essay contest addressing the social implications of today's information technology. CPSR is looking for papers that will advance its work within its Working Groups and interests: community networks, cyber-rights, DNS/Internet governance, computers in education, intellectual property/UCITA/UETA, broadband technologies, computers and the environment, ethics, privacy, women in computing, and working in the industry. Up to 36 papers will be selected as winners. For each topic, a Working Group may select a student to be awarded a $100 prize. Up to two writers will be selected to present their papers at the CPSR Annual Meeting and receive $500. The deadline for submissions is May 1, 2001.
The Customs and International Trade Bar Association and the Brooklyn Law School announce the 2000-2001 Anrew P. Vance Memorial Writing Competition. Submissions should present an in-depth analysis of a current issue relevant to customs and international trade law. Two prizes will be awarded: first prize, $750; second prize, $250. Submissions must be received no later than May 1, 2001.
The Attorney-CPA Foundation announces its 2000-2001 Essay Contest. The topic for the graduate/professional division is: "Is independence impaired when an attorney-CPA who is a member of an accounting firm that audits a client renders ANY type of legal services to that client? Are there some legal services that could be rendered and others that could not be rendered? Are the rules different for publicly traded client corporations vs. closely held companies? Do the rules apply throughout the United States or are there different rules for different states? Are there different rules for international clients?" The grand prize winner will receive $1,500, and the the runner up will receive $1,000. In addition, there will be five regional prizes of $250 each. Essays must be received by May 11, 2001.
Foley & Lardner announces its second annual Intellectual Property Writing Competition. Acceptable topics include, but are not limited to: focus on metrics or other measurements of intellectual asset management performance; protecting intellectual property rights to maximize competitive opportunities; extracting untapped value from intellectual property; auditing patents to determine whether they should be enforced, licensed, donated or terminated; identifying prospective intellectual property licenses. First prize awards of $5,000 each will be given to a first year student, second year student, and third year student. Submissions must be postmarked no later than May 15, 2001.
The Santa Clara University Computer and High Technology Law Journal announces its 2001 Comment Contest, sponsored by the law firm Skjerven, Morrill & Macpherson LLP. Submissions must address one of the following topics: patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, biotechnology, telecommunications, technology licensing, venture capital, antitrust, electronic commerce, computer law, cyberspace law, privacy, or any other current topic in high technology law. The first place winner will be awarded $2,000; second place, $1,500; and third place, $1,000. Submissions must be postmarked by June 1, 2001.
The Federal Circuit Bar Association announces its 2001 George Hutchinson Writing Competition. Submissions may discuss any topic that lies within the procedure, substance, or scope of the jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The author of the winning entry will receive a cash prize of at least $3,000. Submissions must be postmarked no later than June 1, 2001.
The ABA Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law announces the creation of a new writing contest. Submissions should be on a current topic dealing with real property, probate, or trust law. The first place winner will receive a $2,000 cach prize; second place, $500; and third place, $250. Submissions must be received no later than June 15, 2001.
The Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association announces its 15th Annual Entertainment Law Writing Competition. Articles may concentrate on any area of enterntainment law. First Prize is $1,000 and publication of the article. Second prize is $500. Third prize is $250. Articles must be submitted to Dean Sowle no later than June 15, 2001. The law school will then select up to two articles to be forwarded to the Los Angeles County Bar Association no later than July 1, 2001.
The Theodore Tannenwald, Jr. Foundation for Excellence in Tax Scholarship and the American College of Tax Counsel announce the first annual Tannenwald Writing Competition. Submissions may address any topic in the field of taxation. Prizes will be awarded as follows: First prize, $3,000; second prize, $2,000; third prize, $1,000. The deadline for submissions has been extended to June 30, 2001.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) announces its annual Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition for third-year law students (or, with permission, second-year students). Submissions may be on any aspect of copyright law. A first prize of $600 and a second prize of $250 will be awarded at each participating law school. Each school will be responsible for selecting the winning papers. Any Chicago-Kent student interested in submitting a paper should contact Dean Sowle. Winning papers must be certified to ASCAP no later than June 30, 2001.
The Los Angeles Bankruptcy Forum and the California Bankruptcy Journal announce the Joseph Bernfeld Essay Competition. Submissions should focus on an issue of bankruptcy, insolvency law, or related matters, such as debtor-creditor relations, receiverships, assignments for the benefit of creditors, or out-of-court workouts. Awards will be given as follows: first place, $2,500; second place, $1,500, third place, $1,000. Submissions must be postmarked by July 1, 2001.
The journal Animal Law announces its fourth annual writing
competition to encourage legal scholarship regarding animal law.
The first place winner will receive $500. The deadline for submissions
is July 31, 2001.


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Confessions of a Lunatic
It is hard, if not impossible, for me to believe that it has been forty years since man first walked on the moon. If you are over the age of forty-five, you can remember the night when Neil Armstong took a giant leap for mankind. I do. I remember it as if it were yesterday. And it was yesterday, but that was four decades ago.
It was way back in the late 1950s, when I went outside one night to see something in the sky. To this day, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I wasn't alone. As my parents, my sister and I came outside on a warm clear evening, there were many people standing in front of their homes on Stonewall Street. I believe it was some kind of satellite, American or Russian, I really don't know. Judging by what I remember of the number of people looking toward the heavens, I will assume they were patriotically looking for an American object orbiting the earth. Someone spotted the white light as it crossed the sky and yelled "there it is!"
I began to look more at the sky, the stars, the planets, and the Moon. I remember watching Alan Shepard and his rocket on our little black and white television. I remember John Glenn as he orbited the earth. The significance of these flights and the competition with the Russians was lost on me. I was only five to six years old. I had a hard time riding a bicycle, let alone ever thinking about climbing in a capsule and being blasted into space.
It was about 1963 when I came in contact with the space program. Well, not really, but it was close. I was with my family on vacation at Jekyll Island when I had heard my mother and grandmother talking about the fact that Dr. Werner Von Braun and his family were staying at the Buccaneer Motel where we were staying. I only knew he had something to do with the space rockets. I was playing in the kiddie pool with a blonde haired kid I didn't know. He told me that his name was Peter. After having a great time playing with Peter, we heard someone calling his name. We looked up to the penthouse apartment. It was his parents calling him to come up to their room. It never dawned on me until later that I was playing in the pool with the son of the man who practically invented space rocketry. That was the same trip, 46 years ago yesterday, when the moon covered the sun completely across the northern United States. I remember seeing my first eclipse on television. I wanted to go out to the beach and watch it, but my mother said that the sun would burn my eyes. I went outside anyway and squinted to get a quick view of a partial eclipse before my eyes, or at least one of them, got fried.
Every chance I got, I watched the space flights on television. I watched Walter Cronkite on CBS tell me and the rest of the country what the astronauts were doing way up there in the heavens. I read the newspaper articles about the Gemini space flights. I never read anything else in the newspaper unless it was a story about the Dublin Irish football game, the Braves score, or if my name was in the paper. On one of his trips to Washington, D.C., my daddy brought me a N.A.S.A. book showing photographs taken by Gemini astronauts of the earth below. That was it. I was hooked and I wanted to go into space.
The moon has also been a special place to me. Just call me a lunaphile. I never get tired of looking at it as it changes its face every day. I was a teenager when I learned that when the moon was full that the waves at the beach were the best late in the afternoon. There is something special, almost spiritual, about seeing the reflection of the moon shimmering in the water or seeing it peaking out from behind the buttermilk clouds of the night.
As our country was being torn apart by political strife at home and across the world in 1968, it came together if only for a moment on Christmas Eve. My family was making our annual visit to my Thompson grandparents that evening when we walked into the living room. In the corner, I saw that the television was on, tuned to the flight of Apollo 8. I knew what was going on. I had been a space geek since the flight of Apollo 7, when I began to make scrapbooks of each of the Apollo flights, cutting my clippings from newspapers and magazines.
I was only twelve, but I was deeply moved as I listened to Commander Frank Borman read from the first verses of the Book of Genesis. I wanted to be there. I still want to be there. That night, my grandmother presented me with a present. It wasn't in a box, but it came in an envelope. She told me she got it on a trip to Florida, where she and my grandfather once lived and worked to make it through the Great Depression. It was only a piece of paper, but my oh my, what a piece of paper it was. It was a deed. My lawyer daddy told me that a deed meant that you owned land. My eyes bugged. It was deed to a piece of the moon. Though it wasn't a real deed - a fact that I knew - it did say that I, Scott Thompson, owned an acre on the moon. Wow! It would be some thirty-five years later when I actually bought a small speck of lunar dust taken from the equipment brought back by the Apollo 12 astronauts at a much higher cost than what my grandmother paid for my pretend deed.
Then, the big event came. It was a time I had been waiting for a decade. It was an event that man had been waiting for since Adam took a walk on his first evening on the earth. I had seen the launch, recording it on my father's tape recorder so I could listen to it over and over again. A few weeks later that my mother would pick up a souvenir 45 rpm record at Winn Dixie with special audio moments of the entire mission. Later that next year, I built a capsule from a dishwasher box (my mother's first), complete with a tape recorder, television, periscope, and lighted panels fashioned from my mother's blinking Christmas tree lights.
It was a Sunday evening, July 20, 1969. My mother had planned one of her famous theme parties. Guess what the theme was that night. The lunar module Eagle landed just after 3:15 that afternoon. The moon walk was scheduled for later that evening just before 10:00 p.m. I don't remember what I ate that night, just going in and out the door to see what I could see in the sky. It was my mission to watch the moon landing on television and at the same time watch the moon as well. I had enough engineering skills to accomplish my objective for the night, but I still tested my equipment a few times before the company came. This was no easy task since we had only two televisions and only one cable outlet in the family room, too far away from the sliding glass doors to see the moon and the tv at the same time. So, I got some regular electrical cord, stripped the wires on one end and wrapped them around the screws on the back of the main television and peeled back the covering of the other end of the wire and hooked it to the upstairs tv, which I set in a strategic place on the patio just at the spot where the moon peeked through the oaks of Hunger and Hardship Creek swamp.
As long as I live, I will never forget the sight of Neil Armstrong coming down the ladder of the LEM and stepping onto the surface of the moon. I watched astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin late into the night as they walked and hopped around and planted the flag, our American flag, on the surface. I kept on watching the astronauts on the moon until the last lunar flight of Apollo 17. I felt closest to the Apollo 13. Jim Lovell, the commander, was and still is, my favorite astronaut and a true American hero. This was the Saturn V rocket I saw on my first trip to Cape Kennedy on a church choir trip during spring vacation in 1970, just weeks before the fateful flight almost ended in disaster. I spent that weekend with a man who was on the ground crew. He took me back out near the cape to see the illuminated rocket, shining like a beacon in the night.
I never have lost sight of the moon. Every day I see it in my kitchen, perhaps the only kitchen in the country decorated with the "the man in the moon." I did meet moonwalker Buzz Aldrin in Atlanta when I opened the door for him and gave one of my heroes the directions to the autograph show. I could have met John Young when he spoke to the Dublin Rotary Club, but my darling brother didn't invite me as his guest.
On this 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon, I am anxious to walk on the moon and right now! I know my heart wouldn't hold up to the grueling gravitational forces necessary to escape the Earth's gravity. But, I am ready, so fly me to the moon, please!
P.S. Walter, when I get there, I'll see you at Tranquility Base at the third crater on the left.


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The practice of grazing through the website Wikipedia, having drifted away from the article you were originally reading. Leads to people developing an in-depth knowledge of obscure subjects, and can go unchecked for hours. It often stems from hitting the "Random Article" link on the nav bar
"Ah shit! I was supposed to pick up Timmy from Boy Scouts, but I was wikigrazing! Oh well, at least I'll be able to tell him about Heinkel jet engines....."
by pushtheenvelope June 04, 2007
buy the domain for your travel vlog


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vfire wrote: I hope Mystic Manor stays unique to HK, the park has very few marquee attractions unique to it. JC at HKDL is terribly overrated. The fire sequence at the end has been toned down significantly since opening and the skipper spiel in English is embarrassingly bad.
Garet wrote:I think I brought this up in my own TR or the discussion thread but it must be really hard for them to try and land those jokes in something that isn't their native language.
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Dawn Redwood & Swamp Cypress
Dawn Redwood
Metasequoia glyptostroboides
Taxodiaceae (Redwood family)
One of the most exciting discoveries in the plant world during the last century was undoubtedly that of the deciduous conifer, the Dawn Redwood,
Metasequoia glyptostroboides
In 1946, acting on a tip-off and sight of some fragmentary material, Professor Cheng of the National Central University, China, sent an expedition to the remote village of Mo-tao-chi in Szechuan province to collect a complete set of specimens from a stand of recently-discovered, unidentified trees. After consultation with Dr Hu, China's leading dendrologist, it became obvious that the trees belonged to the genus
, hitherto only known from fossil evidence dating back 100 million years, and thought to have been extinct for 5 million years.
Seed was collected during a 1947 expedition sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Boston, USA, reaching its Director, Professor Elmer D Merrill in 1948, who then distributed the seed amongst botanic gardens in the USA and Europe for cultivation.
However, the seed from which the beautiful and fast-maturing specimen growing on the south-western shore of the Lake here at the Garden was produced came, somehow, directly from China. The Botanic Garden's Annual Report for 1949 declares:
'Seeds of
Metasequoia glyptostroboides
, sent by Dr Silow from China to Professor F T Brooks, germinated freely. Three of the seedlings have been planted out: one in the Yard at the back of the Range and two beside the Pond [Lake].'
This tree on the south-western edge of the Lake, then, is the first Dawn Redwood to grow on British soil since the Mesozoic era, when dinosaurs dominated the fauna. It was judged one of the 50 'Great British Trees' in honour of the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002 and features in Thomas Pakenham's Meetings with Remarkable Trees (1996). It has proved fast-growing: it was 1.5m tall at the time of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II to the throne in 1952, 17 metres by the time of the Silver Jubilee in 1977, and was approaching 23 metres in the Golden Jubilee year.
The Dawn Redwood makes a fine tree now familiar in parks and gardens. The beautiful ferny foliage is a bright, light green in spring, turning russet-brown with tints of coppery pink in autumn. The strong pyramidal winter silhouette is also very pleasing, making the Dawn Redwood a strong contender for year-round interest. The Garden's specimen tree by the Lake has a superb, rugged, ridged trunk unusual in cultivation.
It prefers a damp habitat, and the Cambridge tree is grown next to the Lake to compensate for the low rainfall in the Eastern Region. In addition, however, it is near to its closest living relative, the Swamp Cypress (
Taxodium distichum
) from the United States and Mexico. This grows in the Lake and has distinctive knobbly pneumoatophores the 'knees') rising out of the water.
In nature, the Dawn Redwood is now restricted to just a few small and scattered stands in Hubei and Szechuan. The species is classified by the World Conservation Union as 'critically endangered' due to intensive rice cultivation and the poor prospect for regeneration in the wild.
Fresh foliage of the Dawn Redwood
Coppery pink autumn foliage of the Dawn Redwood
An original, hand-written plant accession label
The beautifully-twisted trunk of the Dawn Redwood
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In mid-December, Target announced that it had suffered a wide-reaching security breach that potentially affected the accounts of millions of credit and debit card holders. Later reports indicated that the data breach affected even more people than the retailer had originally announced, perhaps as many as 110 million consumers, and that the stolen information included customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates, and encrypted personal identification numbers (PINs).
The Target data breach made headlines across the country and did not escape the attention of the plaintiffs' bar. Two days after Target disclosed the security breach, three separate purported class actions were filed in Minnesota, New York, and California, and many more were filed later in December and in January with most claiming that Target was negligent in its handling of credit and debit card data by failing to protect consumers' private information. As of mid-January, over fifty purported class action suits against the retailer were pending across the nation.
Plaintiffs traditionally have a difficult time sustaining privacy class action cases because they often cannot plead, let alone show, actual injury flowing from a data breach — a necessary component of Article III standing and jurisdiction. Some of the newly filed cases against Target and other companies have tried to establish standing by alleging injuries from fraudulent charges, including the cost of monitoring credit and, for financial institution plaintiffs, the costs of notifying customers about compromised debit cards, closing customer accounts, and reissuing cards. However, the U.S. Supreme Court decision last February in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, a government surveillance case, raises the possibility that at least one of these alleged injuries — the cost of credit monitoring — may be too speculative to satisfy Article III standing requirements. As Justice Alito opined in that case, allowing plaintiffs to bring an "action based on costs they incurred in response to a speculative threat" would "improperly water[ ] down the fundamental requirements of Article III." The other purported injuries alleged in the Target cases may likewise be bound to be speculative, and the future of negligence–based data breach class actions is therefore uncertain.
Companies should not get too comfortable, however. Privacy class actions in which plaintiffs seek statutory damages are on the rise, and some courts are ruling that this type of claim can satisfy Article III standing requirements. For example, in Harris v. comScore, one of the largest privacy class action suits ever filed, the lead plaintiffs were found to have standing, and the purported class was accordingly certified, based on statutory damages under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, also known as the Wiretap Act, and the Stored Communications Act. Since the decision in comScore, there has been a rise in privacy class action litigation alleging statutory claims such as the ones asserted in comScore (the Wiretap Act, and the Stored Communications Act), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Every company that maintains, houses, or moves personal information is at risk of a data breach, but the legal consequences of a breach can be minimized by taking at least the following three steps:
- Free credit monitoring. Both to alleviate reputational injury and minimize alleged damages, follow Target's approach and offer free credit-monitoring services to at-risk customers. While it is still too early to tell whether the Clapper decision will effectively foreclose the availability of this remedy in litigation, paying for such services will go a long way towards restoring good will with potentially impacted customers, and will eliminate, at the pleading stage, an allegation of harm arising from such costs.
- Engage security breach counsel. Have a security breach response team in place before a breach occurs, including counsel who can provide critical legal guidance with respect to your company's breach notification obligations. When a data breach occurs, there is very little time to select new counsel so having your attorneys lined up in advance will prove invaluable.
- Formulate an incident response plan. Since a major data security breach puts any size entity at substantial risk, prevention is the best defense. Formulate a data breach plan. Consider working with privacy counsel. And while it may not be possible to prevent every data breach, being able to demonstrate that reasonable care was taken to avoid the risk will help reduce company liability.


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MusicalWorld was founded in April of 2002. Today, there are over 3,000 internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles, 1,500 artist managers and 14,000 performing arts presenters on MusicalWorld, and the number is growing daily. Among the celebrated artists are the recipients of Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Academy Awards, Pulitzer Prize Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and the winners of the most prestigious international music competitions.
Go to MusicalWorld.com, browse through thousands of universally acclaimed artists and musicians who represent today's Who's Who in the performing arts. Legends like Yo-Yo Ma, Andrea Bocelli, Joshua Bell, Placido Domingo, Lang Lang, Anna Netrebko, Wynton Marsalis, Valery Gergiev, Philip Glass and hundreds more household names – all are here. Join them. There is no other site that features virtually all of the best performing artists and musicians on the international concert scene and on the record labels today. Their names and worldwide reputation attract tremendous attention and traffic to MusicalWorld.com, thus, providing you with much needed major exposure.
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The subscription to MusicalWorld is $99 per year.
To join MusicalWorld click here or go to Artist Subscription
Welcome to the Musical World!


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TASMANIA'S latest bushfire crisis has eased with two major blazes downgraded to watch and act status.
A fire at Molesworth, northwest of Hobart, which has burned around 700 hectares continues to burn out of control but no serious damage has been reported.
A blaze at Franklin south of the capital has closed one road but the arterial Huon Highway has reopened.
Three schools remain closed because of fire activity in the state.
Around 50 crews continue to fight fires across Tasmania, where a total fire ban remains in place in many areas.
A helicopter pilot had a lucky escape on Thursday evening when he crashed while fighting the Molesworth fire.
Police say he suffered no serious injury.
Originally published as Tassie bushfire crisis eases


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Related Post: A Raven Above Press's "Welsh in the Old West" Project.
Although you'll have to wait until March 1st for the book release of Welsh in the Old West to view the final illustration, here's a little sneak peak…
Please visit my store: thepoetandtheflea.storenvy.com!
For more updates, follow me on facebook, tumblr and twitter.
Copyright 2014 by G. E. Gallas


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Van Gaal silent on Welbeck future
Louis van Gaal refused to comment on Danny Welbeck's future as speculation mounts the England striker is set to leave Manchester United.
Press Association Sport understands Welbeck, who joined United in 2007, has been told he can depart Old Trafford.
The 23-year-old started the majority of the club's pre-season tour of the United States, but he is unlikely to jump ahead of Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie in the pecking order, and is therefore free to go.
Danny Welbeck's future at Manchester United is under intense speculation
In a heated press conference at the club's training ground, Van Gaal refused to confirm or deny the story, but the new United manager admitted he was angry that details of a private conversation he held with Welbeck had been leaked.
Van Gaal said: "The media were not in the room and I do not speak about that because that's private.
"I know what I said to Danny and Danny knows exactly what I said to him.
"I assume that Danny Welbeck is not saying anything about our conversation and also in that conversation was (assistant manager) Ryan Giggs and he doesn't say (anything) either, and that is the way it should be."
The decision to allow Welbeck, a local boy who worked his way through the ranks at Old Trafford, to go will come as a surprise to some United fans, particularly as Van Gaal does not have a strong selection of strikers to choose from.
Javier Hernandez is the only other senior striker available to the Dutchman, and he has been linked with a move away from the club.
Van Gaal is determined to streamline his squad though, and it is understood that up to 12 players have been informed they could leave.
For the first time since taking over as manager, Van Gaal cut an angry figure as he addressed the media at the AON Training Complex at Carrington.
The former Ajax manager, who lost his first Premier League game to Swansea last week, has been bemused by some of the criticism he has received for a lack of transfer activity.
"Two weeks ago I was the king of Manchester and now I am the devil of Manchester," Van Gaal said.
The only signings through the door so far are Ander Herrera, Luke Shaw and Marcos Rojo.
All three have potential but they are not yet in the same league as the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Toni Kroos and Diego Costa - all of whom were available earlier in the summer.
Van Gaal remains to committed to signing new players before the transfer window shuts a week on Monday.
The club have privately distanced themselves from reports they are close to signing Angel Di Maria from Real Madrid.
Dutch duo Kevin Strootman and Daley Blind are on Van Gaal's shortlist, while Sami Khedira appears to be another option after he requested to leave Real Madrid.
But if United fans were hoping for some assurance from their manager over new signings, then it was not forthcoming.
"It's not so easy to buy and sell in the football market," Van Gaal said bluntly.
Instead, Van Gaal's insists United's supporters need to be patient.
"It shall be difficult in the first three months," he said.
"I have said that to (executive vice-chairman) Ed Woodward and (owners) the Glazers,
"I am hired to build up a team and that is a process and that process needs time.
"You have to believe in the philosophy that we make again a big club but it needs time and it's not an overnight job."
In fact, Van Gaal says he would understand it if supporters shared the view of Paul Scholes, the former United midfielder who said he was "genuinely scared" about the club's future this week.
"I can imagine that fans are also scared," the 63-year-old said. "Because they have seen what happened last year and they have seen the first match (this year).
"But also they have to believe in the philosophy that we bring into this club and the players are believing that.
"They have shown that in the US, but they need to show it here.
"They need time. And also Paul Scholes needs to believe in that philosophy."
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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Double elimination sends home CeCe Frey and Diamond White
Final four acts perform live in semifinals Wednesday, Dec. 12, on FOX
Grammy Winner Bruno Mars to perform on next results show Thursday, Dec. 13
Two-night "The X Factor" finale airs Wednesday, Dec. 19, and Thursday, Dec. 20
After Thursday's elimination of CeCe Frey and Diamond White, only the top four acts remain in competition on "The X Factor": Tate Stevens (mentored by L.A. Reid), Carly Rose Sonenclar (mentored by Britney Spears), Emblem3 and Fifth Harmony (both groups mentored by Simon Cowell).
With only two performance shows left in the season, tune in next week, Wednesday, Dec. 12 (8 p.m.), when the top four finalists battle it out in the semifinals. Tune in to the live results show the following night, Thursday, Dec. 13 (8 p.m.), as hosts Khloé Kardashian Odom and Mario Lopez announce the next act eliminated from the competition. Plus, don't miss a special performance by Grammy Award winner Bruno Mars.
All this excitement leads up to "The X Factor" two-night grand finale airing Wednesday, Dec. 19 (8 p.m.), and Thursday, Dec. 20 (8 p.m.), on FOX, when a new winner is crowned. The star-studded two-night event will feature special performances, surprise guests and more before America's vote is revealed.
Immediately after the performance show, fans will be able to vote via 1) Verizon Touch Voting onThe Xtra FactorApp on Verizon Android devices; 2) toll-free calling; 3) text messaging for Verizon Wireless customers; and 4) online at TheXFactorUSA.com. Fans with valid Facebook accounts can also vote atFacebook.com/TheXFactorUSA.
"Like" "The X Factor" on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheXFactorUSA. Follow the series on Twitter @TheXFactorUSA and join the discussion at #xfactor.


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Les Cités Obscures - La Route d'Armilia (1987)
François Schuiten was born in Brussels in 1956, as the son of two architects. He was a classmate of Benoît Peeters, with whom he would make his best known comics. While still at school, they made their own fanzine called Go. By the age of 16, Schuiten had the opportunity to publish his first story, 'Mutation', in the Belgian edition of the comics magazine Pilote.
Le Rail (1981)
He studied at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels where he met Claude Renard, who was head of the comics department. Together, they created the comics 'Aux Médianes de Cymbiola' (1979) and 'Le Rail' (1981) for Métal Hurlant, and they also published their work in their own magazine Le 9ème Rêve.
Les Cités Obscures - La Frontière Invisible, Vol. 2 (2004)
Between 1977 and 1980, he worked with his brother Luc on several stories for Métal Hurlant. These were collected in the book 'Carapaces' (Casterman, 1982). Schuiten and his brother made several more stories under the label 'Les Terres Creuses' for both Métal Hurlant and À Suivre, including the experimental palindrome comic 'NogenoN' (1990).
Les Cités Obscures - La Théorie du Grain de Sable, vol. 2 (2008)
Schuiten teamed up again with his childhood friend Benoît Peeters in 1980 to create a series of stories that resulted in the series 'Les Cités Obscures'. In this surreal series, that was published in À Suivre and in albums by Casterman, Schuiten's love of architecture is magnificently visible. Schuiten claims to be influenced by such authors as Jules Verne and Franz Kafka and artists like René Magritte and Winsor McCay. Throughout the years, has continued to rework and update his stories for the several reprints. It wasn't until April 2012 that Schuiten made his debut as an allround author with his solo comic '12 la Douce'.
His graphic virtuosity resulted in a request to work on films like 'Gwendoline' (by Just Jaeckin), 'Taxandria' (by Raoul Servais) and 'Mr. Nobody' (by Jaco van Dormael). He also collaborated with Maurice Benayoun on the computer graphics series 'Quarxs' in the early 1990s. His work has been exhibited on several occasions, also in Lambiek, and has been awarded many times, especially with the prestigious Prix d'Angoulême. One of his panels for the story 'Le Débandade' from his album 'Carapaces' was used as the cover of Herman van Veen's succesful single 'Hilversum III' (1984).
A master in several disciplines, François Schuiten still aims to develop himself in new directions, like designing the "Pavillion de l'Utopie" at the Universal Exposition in Hannover in 2002 and two subway stations in Brussels and Paris. François Schuiten was invested with the title of Baron by the Belgian King Albert II in 2002.
François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters
(photo by Freddy Rikken)


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While performing an energy evaluation in my mixed humid climate zone, I found this scary alien living in an attic! This thing is a danger to energy efficiency and will definitely inject a poisonous bite into your utility bills when the daytime temperatures in its nest reach 130 degrees!
Views: 680
It really doesn't look that bad considering whats out there. But looks can be deceiving! You could box them out with foam board and bring it inside instead of the whole attic.
Attic is the number one location on my list of 21 "No-No Locations for Mechanical Equipment".
The only acceptable fix for these situations is to either (1) remove the all the mechanical equipment and ductwork from outside the conditioned space or (2) convert the attic into conditioned space by properly insulating its exterior so as to have it included inside the envelope.
Alex Walter - in mile high Denver, Colorado USA
© 2018 Created by Home Performance Coalition (HPC) Powered by


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How To Make Your Own Rock & Roll Garden Pots
Who among us doesn't have a rock star fantasy? If that drum kit you bought is sitting idle in your parent's garage, mocking your teenage dreams, reader Katie Hollar found a way to repurpose it into something useful for your grownup life!
- Drum Kit
- Adhesive removal product like Goo Gone
- Razor
- Fine grit sandpaper (220)
- Wood stain in your choice of color (Katie choose "Natural")
- Rags
- Jigsaw
- Drill
- ¾" thick plywood
- Pencil
- Measuring tape
- Waterproofing spray (for the exterior)
- Henry's (a tar-like waterproofing product that will be used to seal the interior seams)
- Hammer & finish nails
- galvanized steel and cutting shears
- wheels
Step by Step
- Remove all hardware from the drums using a screw driver.
- Peel the skin or veneer off of the drum shells.
- Spray on an adhesive removal product like Goo Gone to loosen up the glue or double stick tape used to adhere the veneer originally.
- Using a razor, carefully scrape off the loosened adhesive. You might need an old cloth to clean up the blade and Goo Gone.
- Using a fine grit sand paper (220) lightly sand the drums to remove any extra glue and to create a nice porous surface for the stain to soak into evenly.
- Using another rag apply a stain to the drums. Katie chose to use the "Natural" colored stain because she liked the color of the wood.
- Using a pencil and a measuring tape, draw a line around the inside diameter of the drum about 2" up from the bottom. You will use this line as a guide when you insert the circle wood base.
- Place each drum on top of a 3/4" thick piece of plywood. Draw a circle on the plywood of the inside dimension of the drum shell.
- Using a jigsaw cut the circles out of your plywood.
- Insert the plywood circle into the corresponding drum so that the top of the plywood reaches the 2" high pencil mark.
- Hammer the plywood circle into place using several finish nails around the outside of the drum. You may want to use a nail punch to push the nails beyond the surface of the shell slightly so they're not visible. This way you can use wood putty to fill in the holes and have a smooth surface.
- Now that you have created the base for the planter, you will need to make holes for the soil to drain. Flip the planter upside down. Attach a bit to your electric drill for boring holes around 1" in diameter and drill several holes.
- Spray the entire planter with a waterproofing clear coat.
- Turn the pot right side up after drilling the holes and apply a generous coat of Henry's (a waterproofing tar-like product) to the inside bottom of the planter and a few inches above that. Make sure there are no holes or exposed wood. This will help to preserve the wood from breaking down from moisture.
- Flip the planter over one more time and screw 4 casters into the base a few inches in from the rim. This way they will look concealed.
- Using cutting shears cut galvanized steel sheets to line the interior of the drum and about an inch above the top. If you want to connect them together I suggest using rivets.
- Place the galvanized steel into the planter after the Henry's has dried.
- To plant: Place a sheet of netting in the bottom of the planter to keep the soil from falling out. You only want the water to drain out. Place your soil and plants and voila! You now have a movable planter that can move freely around your home to take advantage of the changing light.
Thanks for sharing your DIY, Katie!
Images: Katie Hollar