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Reviews by The Headphone Company
Headphone Buying Guide: Jargon - What does it all mean?
November 30th, 2010 | Posted by TheHeadphoneCoPaul in Headphone Buying Guide | Leave a comment
So, to make your purchase that little bit easier we thought we would put together a brief guide of what all the technical headphone jargon means:
Measured in ohms, its the amount of resistance that is produced by the internal parts of the headphone - In terms of how this affects the headphone, basically the lower the resistance the easier it will be for your music player (phone, laptop, iPod, etc) to produce the sound that you hear. So, an headphone with a low resistance can play at a lower volume for comfortable hearing whereas an headphone with a higher resistance will need to be turned up to achieve the same volume level. Earphones & Headphones for portable use, eg: with a phone, mp3 player, iPod or laptop would typically have a resistance of 16 or 32 Ohms. Headphones for DJ use or at home with a HiFi / amplifier would typically have a resistance of 64 Ohms or above
Frequency Response
Frequency Response is a measure of the range of sound that the headphones will produce, shown in Hertz (Hz) - Most headphones will produce sound between 20 - 18,500 Hz. The frequency range for simplicity is split into 3 main regions:
Lows, eg: Kick Drum or Bass Guitar
Mids, eg: Snare or Vocals
Highs, eg: High Hats, Violins or James Blunt
Headphones will produce sound above 18,500 Hz and below 20 Hz however usually as the overall range is increased outside of these points the price typically increases also, a point to note is that having an headphone with a range over 18,500 Hz has no real benefit as you are pushing the boundaries of what the human ear can process - Just as importantly at each end of the range as you approach the end the volume (or SPL) will roll-off also (SPL and Roll-Off are explained in the next section)
SPL - "Sound Pressure Level" or Volume ultimately is measured in dB (decibels), in just about all cases you will see on our site in the tech spec sections that this measure is taken at a frequency of 1 kHZ as this is the point at which most headphones reach their peak volume - Headphones will normally reach an SPL at 1 kHZ of between 100 - 120 dB
A point to note as described in the section above that all headphones have a roll-off at each end of the sound range, so although an headphone at 1 kHZ may give a peak volume of 115 dB, at say 10 Hz (bass end) it may only reach 100 dB, the diagram below gives an example of this, as you can see the roll-off (decrease in volume) is more extreme at the high end:
Transducer / Drivers
Often referred to as drivers or transducers, in essence this is the internal speaker part of the headphones. Most headphones will have 1 driver with measurements of 9 - 15mm. Single driver headphones of quality may also be referred to as having a full-range or wide-band single driver, Shure for example with the SE315 promote it as a single driver earphone with a tuned bass port
Twin or Double Driver headphones have 2 separate speakers in each earphone taking care of their part of the sound range, usually a woofer for the lows and a tweeter for the highs. Typically the earphone body is slightly larger, as is the cost but the sound is far superior to that of a single driver earphone
Triple Driver headphones, as above, however an extra woofer is added into the mix - The result being that the sound range is split into 3 and each part sent to its appropriate driver, the result is that your music will sound like never before, triple driver headphones are simply the best consumer headphones available
A small electrical component in double / triple driver headphones to allow the sound range to be split up and sent to its appropriate driver
Not too much jargon when talking about cables, more considerations which relate to where and how you want to use your headphones. So, well look at length, extensions, fixed or detachable, routing and weight:
Length: The average portable headphones would have a cable length of about 1.2 - 1.5m, more than enough to reach into your coat or trouser pocket, whereas headphones for DJ or Home use would be between 1.5 - 3m and in some cases coiled for extra flexibility and movement
Extensions: This is only a consideration if you want a cable length shorter than 1.2m maybe because your player is going to go in a shirt pocket or in an arm strap for jogging and you dont want too much excess cable - Some earphone cables are made in 2 sections, the first is fixed to the headphones and is about 30cm in length, you would then have an extra cable of about 90cm in length giving better options for use
Fixed or Detachable: Again, only a consideration depending on the use you have planned for your headphones - Most headphones have a fixed cable, so headphones 1 end, jack plug the other which is more than ideal until you break or damage a cable. Top-end manufacturers such as Shure, Westone, Sleek Audio and Ultimate Ears have pro models that have detachable cables, ie: the cable and the headphones are separate parts, although mainly aimed at musicians that need to keep spares while performing they are equally suited to the consumer - A perfect scenario is snagging the cables 2 days before that 2 week trip or or worse still, youre backpacking packing around Asia, how handy would having a spare cable be?? Equally as important, damaging a cable out of warranty, if the cable is the fixed type then theyll be heading for the bin, if you have a detachable cable, replace the cable and youre good-to-go
Routing & Weight: Cables on headphones over the £50 mark are generally routed over the ear, just like musicians, the idea (and a good 1) is that the weight of the cable is supported by the top of the ear making it less likely that the cable weight and movement will pull the earphone out of the ear - Cables are also then kept out of the way. This also means that the cables can be thicker, heavier and therefore stronger, top-end Shure SE cables are now also kevlar re-inforced, a serious bit of kit! Lightweight cables, typically used when cables arent routed over the ear are generally thinner (to keep weight down) but can sometimes be weaker as a down side
Jack Plugs
For portable headphones they will always be the standard 3.5mm (usually gold-plated), suitable for all iPods, iPhones, iPads, PCs, TVs, Laptops, NetBooks, MP3 Players and many more - Home stereos or DJ equipment would usually require an adaptor to take the jack up to 6.3mm, some headphones include these although they are widely available as an accessory. Jack plug shapes are generally straight to cater for iPod / iPhone cases however the preferred option would be a right-angled style for strength and to aid the life of the earphone
Sound Isolating (Passive)
Sound Isolation is the amount of outside sound the earphone will block out when sealed within the ear canal, measured in dB - Typically sound reductions would be in the region of 25 - 35 dB. There are many reasons why sound isolating headphones have become the norm and so popular, the seal with the ear enhances the sound quality to levels you wouldnt believe possible when comparing them to say the standard apple headphones especially at the lower end, outside sounds cannot leak into the ear canal which would spoil the music coming through but just as importantly, no matter what volume you have them at (safe though of course), people around you will not be able to hear your music! The term passive simply means no electronic parts are used, just your ear and a silicone / foam tip to produce the isolation
Noise Cancelling (Active)
More commonly found in headphones for travelling although there are a few headphones out there with the same tech - Noise cancelling uses electronics within the headphone itself or as part of the cable, therefore active, the idea is that these electronics pick up and listen to the noise outside of the headphone, process that and filter it out whilst sending the audio from your player through the headphones - Result, pure music, no noise!
For headphones that need to be used with mobile phones such as a Blackberry or iPod, a Click-Mic is a small device on the earphone cable that allows you to answer / end calls, the callers voice is then put through to the headphones and the mic picks up your voice. For iPhones the click-mic can also control your iPod, it will stop and resume tracks, skip, rewind, etc.
Open Backed Headphones
Open Backed Headphones or Vented Headphones allow sound to pass through the ear-cup, this lends itself to creating a more natural sound stage - This will however mean that people around you will be able to hear the music and that if you are in a noisy environment you may hear whats going on around you - Most top-end audiophile headphones will be open-backed
Closed Backed Headphones
Closed Backed Headphones or Sealed Headphones are in essence the opposite of open-backed. They form a seal around the ear and the ear-cup is also sealed, this avoids sound leaking out or noise leaking in, this has increased sound isolation has great benefits if you are using them for DJ or Production use for example - A point to note however is that as the sound doesnt leave the ear-cup it will bounce or reflect within the space it has and can lead to the sound being less natural or open as with the open-backed type above
If you would like any advice or assistance with what headphones to buy, please call our sales office on 01920 877 117
This article is Copyright 2010 - The Headphone Company


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Brian Pothier was just traded to the Carolina Hurricanes. In a news story that appeared in the News Observer he talks about the vision therapy he got that was a key to him getting back to continuing his career.
In March of this year ESPN did a story on the collaborative work that Susan Duram, OD and I did with a member of the Washington Capitals, Brian Pothier. Brian had not played hockey for nearly 14 months secondary to his fourth concussion. Sue had examined Brian and gotten him started with some glasses and asked me to see what else could be done. After only a few vision therapy sessions he was working out again, went to the Hershey Bears to play a few games and ultimately contributed to the Washington Captials besting the NY Rangers in 7 games and losing to last years' NHL Stanley Cup Champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Brian is playing at as high or at even a higher level of play than before he left the game and he credits vision therapy with many of these gains. His story has led to other players and members of the public finding out about what behavioral vision care can offer head injury sufferers. Brian is to be commended for sharing his story with the public. Here is a link to the Washington Times story just prior to Brian's return.

subset: commoncrawl


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As we have said before in our Get Your Gear On post, a wetsuit that fits well and suits your diving needs should probably be the first piece… Read more "Wetsuit 101"
Category: Scuba Gear
Tips for Finding the Right Scuba Mask
THE RIGHT SCUBA MASK IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF A GOOD DIVING EXPERIENCE. The scuba mask must fit properly, allow for clear vision, prevent leakage, and be… Read more "Tips for Finding the Right Scuba Mask"
Get Your Gear On – What Do I need?
So you have been certified and gone on some exciting, or maybe a little scary, dives using rental equipment. Which, by the way, is a good thing to do when you first begin scuba diving. You may decide (Though I can't imagine why!) that scuba diving is not the right fit for you or there is some other reason that you decide not to continue with scuba diving. But if you know that you will pursue this incredible sport, you may want to start by purchasing some basic equipment.
Here is some suggestions on what scuba gear you may want to buy and at what point in your diving experience:
A wetsuit would be the first piece of scuba gear that we would suggest you purchase. The purpose of the diving wetsuit is to allow the water between you and your wetsuit to heat up and keep you warm and comfortable during your dive. Fit is very important here.
If the wetsuit is too large, the cool water will flow in and the warm water will flow out. In this case, you might as well not even have one on because you will not have the warmth you need to keep you comfortable. On the other hand, if the diving wetsuit is too small, it will be difficulty to get on and off and may cut off blood flow. That is not a good thing, obviously! It is critical that the wetsuit fits you properly so that you are warm and comfortable on your dive.
Now for another very good reason to buy a diving wetsuit versus renting one: Mother Nature calls at the most inopportune times….we all know this. No matter what you want to think, at some point, all divers are going to have to relieve themselves during a dive.
I know it is not the most pleasant subject but it is reality. Although dive centers soak rental wetsuits in disinfectant and then hang them to dry after wetsuits have been worn on a dive, this process is usually inadequate to kill all the bacteria that may be present.
So you get the drift. I don't know about you, but I would prefer to leave the pee pee suits for someone else! Nuf said.
Snorkel, Fins, Mask
When you are just starting out scuba diving, the dive equipment can get expensive and add up quickly, so you will probably want to buy a couple pieces at a time, beginning with a good-fitting mask, fins, snorkel, booties and other smaller accessories.
Of course, you can always rent these without a problem.
For more info on finding the right scuba mask, check out my scuba mask blog here.
Dive Computers
Although dive computers can be very expensive, it is a must-have piece of equipment to purchase early on. You do your planning before a dive but cannot plan 100% for possible unexpected events that may require a quick change in that plan.
Having your own personal dive computer can provide you data like dive depth, your bottom time, water temperature, ascent rate, decompression stops, and other information you may need. A dive computer can also make logging the dive easier by giving you the data about your dive.
For most scuba divers, a good mid-range cost BCD will be a good chose for most of their needs. You will want to purchase a BCD that fits you well and is sturdy. You should also familiarize yourself with how the pockets are arranged on the BCD, how the weight system works if weights are incorporated in the BCD, and other features included with the BCD. If the weights are not incorporated in the BCD, you will need to purchase a separate weight belt and weights. Knowing the features of your BCD well will help you have a more relaxed diving experience.
The pros to owning your own regulator includes being able to set it up the way you you want and having the assurance of knowing when and where your regulator was serviced last.
Consider all the features that you may need or want according to your diving style and needs. Because they can get expensive, you want to chose a regulator that will work for you for quite a while.
Now for the cons, you may want to hold off purchasing a regulator until you are diving on a frequent basis since they can be pretty costly and heavy.


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The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is one of the great ministries of State of the British Government. For many years it followed its own course and the Mandarins who rule there still consider themselves a superior species apart from the elected government of the day who are mere politicians regardless of what party they serve.
This is an important fact for Gibraltarians to grasp and understand. In theory no British Government would seek to foist a future on the people of the Rock without their total agreement. That protection is enshrined in Gibraltar's Constitution. Forget what happened in 2001 and 2002, as history will no doubt show the British Government was duped in to believing Gibraltar would agree.
In contrast the Foreign Office would have handed Gibraltar over to Spain without a batting of an eyelid any time over the past 50 years. It wants to see total harmony exist between London and Madrid and the issue of the Rock is a major annoyance. It is the Foreign Office that blocks any Royal visits of stature to Gibraltar not the government and certainly not the Royal Household.
So when we come to Gibraltar's territorial waters and responsibility for them in environmental matters being given to Spain we should not be surprised. This would have been a matter for the Foreign Office. It is said Britain first applied for waters off Algeria having got its map references wrong. Whether that is true or not it is quite clear the whole matter was a complete mess and trying to blame the EU is rather disingenuous.
Brussels has a simple rule for Gibraltar. It knows where it is but whilst Britain has jurisdiction, Spain makes a sovereignty claim so the EU steers clear and lets both governments sort it out. So when a bureaucrat in Brussels is assigning waters and looks at the bay and eastern side of the Rock and Spain says they are Madrid's – unless Britain is monitoring the situation as it should it gets nodded through. It is not the EU system that is at fault but the Foreign office.
Gibraltar's waters have a three mile limit, it could under international law claim 12 miles but the Foreign Office would never follow that route. Gibraltar's international rights take second place to what pleases Madrid. When a Spanish navy or Guardia Civil vessel encroaches in to Gibraltar's waters it is the Foreign Office that should make a loud protest – but does it? Well we know all too well the answer to that one. In the defence of Gibraltar the Foreign Office is speechless.
Of course William Hague and David Miliband, the two most recent Foreign Secretaries, may say this and may say that, but they are transient politicians. The day to day power and actions do not lie with them but with those senior Mandarins who control Britain's international strings. Just watch one episode of 'Yes Minister' and all will be revealed.
In recent years the Civil Service has kicked up a fuss as first Labour and then the Conservative Governments imported political advisors to their ministers. These outsiders are mistrusted by the Mandarins and with good reason. They sit in the ministry's offices, watch and hear everything but they are there to serve the minister and not the system. Yet Mandarins are wily beasts and still rule the Foreign Office roost.
So Gibraltarians have to be on their guard because whilst the British Government of the day pledges solidarity with the people of the Rock – and means it – at the same time the Foreign Office is following a different agenda and is no friend of Gibraltar's. So we have to be very clear: what the British Government says is one thing – what the Foreign Office does is another.


text: I took some pictures today of a couple of different dolls, which I'll put in the photoshoots tab. I may go back outside and take some Nendoroid pictures, but I'm a little hesitant after losing Archer's arrow the other day in a crack in the wood of the porch. Talk about frusturating!


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David Bamat, EDC researcher and former middle school/high school teacher, has a keen interest in advancing knowledge of effective strategies to promote education equity and reform. Bamat, a doctoral student at Boston College, is currently contributing his quantitative and qualitative research expertise to several Regional Educational Laboratory-Northeast & Islands studies. With Principal Investigator Clare Irwin, he co-authored a report, "Patterns of Classroom Quality in Head Start and Center-Based Early Childhood Education Programs," that presents findings from a study that explored whether multiple measures of diverse aspects of classroom quality can be used to classify early childhood classrooms into classroom quality groups. He and Irwin presented findings from the study at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. During this post, he reflects on that experience and how it reinforced the importance of the REL's strong emphasis on researcher-practitioner partnerships to ensure that research responds to practitioners' needs and priorities.
Those of us in the education research community want to know and understand how useful our work is to the field. However, for many reasons, this is not always easy. Much of our work is done at a computer screen, cleaning datasets and analyzing numbers, and then published in academic journals or other publications that are frequently read by other education researchers, but not always by policymakers and practitioners. As a result, while some findings may be disseminated widely across scholarly channels, the same findings may never reach the desks of state lawmakers, district superintendents, or school principals, or become manifest in the pedagogy of teachers.
Understandably, this failure to connect our research to those who need it most weighs heavily on many of us. We look for ways to create and share knowledge both with peers and stakeholders, and we hope that our research efforts will have a tangible and positive impact on the lives of teachers and students. We at the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast & Islands are working closely with the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education in our current contract to make sure this happens.
During a presentation at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference in San Antonio, my EDC colleague and fellow REL Northeast & Islands researcher Clare Irwin and I found ourselves grappling with this need to create and share knowledge both with peers and stakeholders. We were presenting our recently published REL Northeast & Islands study "Patterns of classroom quality in Head Start and center-based early childhood education programs," as part of a session focused on sophisticated statistical approaches to measuring features of early education. As the various research studies and statistical approaches were discussed, there was an opportunity to discuss with audience members their interest in making practical use of the findings. Audience members wanted to know the practical utility of our research—how would it improve the early education experiences of children?
We used the audience's interest as an opportunity to elaborate on the distinct collaborative nature of our work at REL Northeast & Islands. Funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the nationwide Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Program is charged with supporting researcher-practitioner alliances and partnerships by conducting research studies and providing technical assistance around the use of data and research. Our study's lead author, Clare Irwin, explained that key stakeholders (e.g., policymakers, practitioners) in these alliances and partnerships identify their priority concerns and then work with REL researchers throughout the various stages of the research process, from the design and development of the research question to providing feedback and insights during data collection and analysis and, finally, participating in the dissemination of findings.
This type of stakeholder engagement with research is intrinsic to the REL mission. As a result, we can feel assured that our work is finding the most important consumers—those with the direct ability to enact change that improves the development and learning experiences of children. At the session's end, a college student from Kansas and aspiring education researcher approached us to enthusiastically share her admiration for the nature of our work at REL Northeast & Islands. She expressed that she hoped to make meaningful contributions to the educational experiences of teachers and students through research.
As researchers working under the REL contract, we are fortunate to work with stakeholders who are deeply invested in our work for reasons that stretch beyond curiosity about the research findings. They share responsibility for the research process themselves. When teachers and principals and policymakers are involved in the entire continuum of the research process, the result is more useful—applicable findings will actually impact the field. As an education researcher, I can't think of a better way to use my skills.


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Great article !!
Da leggere per tutti gli imprenditori si perde troppo spesso contatto con la gioia di fare impresa e il clima e' il primo campanello di allarme..
It's just another %&$! day for Dre, so I begin like this
No medallions, dreadlocks or black fists
Just that gangsta glare with the gangsta raps
—Dr. Dre, "Let Me Ride"
At Opsware I used to teach a management expectations course, because I deeply believed in training. In it, I made it clear that I expected every manager to meet with her people on a regular basis. I even gave instructions on how to conduct a one-on-one meeting so there could be no excuses.
Then one day while I happily went about my job, it came to my attention that one of my managers hadn't had a one-on-one with any of his employees in more than six months. While I knew to "expect what I inspect," I did not expect this. No one-on-one in over six months? How was it possible for me to invest so much time thinking…
View original post 1.482 altre parole


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DarioHealth Corp. (NASDAQ:DRIO) is a leading global Digital Therapeutics (DTx) Company, revolutionizing the way people manage their health across the chronic condition spectrum.
By delivering evidence-based interventions that are driven by data, high quality software and coaching, we have developed a novel approach that empowers individuals to adjust their lifestyle in a personalized way.
Our Cross Functional Team operates at the intersection of biology, behavioral science, and software technology to deliver highly engaging therapeutic interventions. Already the highest rated diabetes solution by more than tens of thousands of consumers who love our user-centered approach, DarioHealth is rapidly moving into new chronic conditions and geographic markets.
Founded in 2011, DarioHealth employs a revolutionary approach whereby harnessing big data, we have developed unique ways for people to analyze and personalize their chronic disease management. DarioHealth's approach has taken the best of both worlds – the world of the wearable market, which is projected to reach $51.6B in just a few years, and the monitoring market that is climbing toward the $30B mark – and flipped traditional health upside down. We are moving from periodic data to continuous data, from general treatment to personalized treatment, and from theory-driven solutions to adapted data & AI/ML technology. DarioHealth's solutions span the full spectrum of disease monitoring, management, populations, and engagement.
What truly makes DarioHealth remarkable is the fact that it has steadily grown from being a user-centric, direct-to-consumer company to a mature organization that is fully data-driven and able to provide a wide-range of managed care solutions. At the hub of it all is DarioHealth's proprietary engagement platform, which has been painstakingly built by carefully monitoring and analyzing big data. Today, DarioHealth boasts phenomenal solutions and automated, full-suite services for the biggest players in the diabetes care management space.
The company is led by visionary CEO, Erez Raphael. After years in software development and senior management roles at some of Israel's leading high-tech companies, Mr. Raphael had a close encounter with diabetes and decided to channel all of his energies into combatting this disease that affects a fast growing number of people each year. Under his leadership, the company was uplisted to the Nasdaq market under the ticker name DRIO.
The world leading Dario Blood Glucose Monitoring System has US FDA clearance and approval from the European CE, Health Canada, and Australia's TGA. It is commercially available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Australia.
Our team
Erez Raphael
Chief Visionary & CEO
Zvi Ben-David
Dror Bacher
Olivier Jarry
President, CCO
Tracey Wielinski
Acting VP RA/QA/CL
João Mendes-Roter
VP Marketing
JC Muyl
Head of Commercialization - North America
Dominique Wilkins
Legendary Customer
Yinon Amir
Head of Software Innovation
Alon Yefet
Customer Relations Manager
Eitan Feinger
Director, R&D
Jacob Shafir
Customer Success Manager
Dov Oppenheim
Co-Founder & Production Chief
Nir Ziv
Director of Operations
Professor Itamar Raz
Medical Director
Eti Visbrot
Talent Manager
Yahel Nir
Director of Finance
Lyr Bar
Director of Quality
Ran Shochat
Software Development Director
Inbal Gross
Design Experience Manager
Yifat Hershcovitz, Ph.D
Scientific Manager
Susan Sloane, RPh, CDE
Scientific Advisory
Janice Baker, RD, CDE, CNSC, BC-ADM
Scientific Advisory
Sara Kahn, RN
Sales Team Leader
Board of Directors
Yoav Shaked


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We shape the future of digital banking.
Group Digital Solutions is a delivery program continuously contributing to Raiffeisen Bank International´s digital transformation in both retail and corporate. Our mission is to generate value for the customers, for the bank and for the team. If you want to find out more:
Frontend Developer – Angular (f/m)
Continually investing in the future of digital banking, we develop simple applications, we create meaningful User Experiences, we aim to identify intelligent IT-solutions for our 14 markets and we enter into valuable cooperation with the global financial community. Therefore we are looking for innovative people who feel at home in the digital world.
Do you want to build a digital future with us?
What you can expect:
Your commitment to develop professional web application software for the finance industry in an international environment
Creating state-of-the-art web applications with Angular
Writing well designed, documented and testable Typescript code
Being part of an international, distributed Scrum-team
Work closely together with UX designers, creative designers and business analysts
What you bring to the table:
Excellent Typescript programming skills (Angular 6.x)
4−5 years professional experience in web application development
Very good know-how of frontend technologies (HTML 5, CSS/SASS) and methodologies (SPA, PWA, Responsive Design)
Good programming skills in related technologies (Javascript, node.js, Java)
Agile mind-set and practical experience with Scrum
Experience in finance & banking area is a plus
What we offer:
You'll work in an international team at a leading bank
You'll benefit from flexible working arrangements and determine your own work-life balance
You'll benefit from the very latest in tailored professional development
You'll earn an appropriate salary starting at EUR 46.500 gross p.a. excluding overtime
RBI AG is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ethnicity, race or color, national origin, religion, political or other opinion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.
We are looking forward to receiving your online application!
Jetzt bewerben
8.0.7 © Raiffeisen Bank International AG 2017


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A bookmark that inserts the NUS Libraries proxy stem
The proxy bookmarklet automatically inserts the NUS Libraries proxy stem "libproxy1.nus.edu.sg" into the URL of an article link in your browser. Once you have successfully installed the bookmarklet once, you can access full-texts of journal articles that are within the NUS Libraries' subscription by clicking on the bookmarklet on any page that requires you to pay. This will attempt to access the resource via NUS Libraries' subscription.
Please note that this method does not work 100% reliably on all databases and sources (See exceptions). An article may also be available in multiple locations, aggregators.
If the proxy bookmark does not work, to confirm for sure whether an article is available see http://libfaq.nus.edu.sg/a.php?qid=16769 for the manual method.
Alternatively, if you are using Google Scholar or PubMed the following NEW method of accessing full text via NUS Subscriptions will avoid some of the problems listed above.
If you are using Google Scholar, please use the following official method of accessing full-text instead.
If you are using PubMed, please use the following official method of accessing full-text instead.
The proxy bookmarklet allows you to directly access full text of E-resources via the subscription of NUS. The video below shows how to install and use proxy bookmarklet to access full text of a reference obtained from a Google Scholar search. Please note that this will work for most but not all sites.
Scenario 1:
You searched Google and found some relevant titles in the list of search results. However, when you click on an article link, you are redirected to a vendor or publisher's site where you will be asked to pay for the full-text.
Scenario 2:
You receive direct links to online articles from a friend and after reading the abstract, you want to read the full-texts. Similarly, when you click on the article links via email,blogs, twitter and you are directed to the publisher or vendor site where you are required to log in or pay to view full-texts.
Solution: Proxy Bookmarklet
Note that in the above scenarios, you are not coming directly from the NUS Libraries portal and hence the publisher/vendor site does not know that you have access via subscriptions from NUS.
You can of course, go back to our library portal and search the database or journal from there, but there's a faster way to authenticate and access the article directly. This involves adding the proxy stem to the URL. One way of doing so is to use the proxy bookmarklet.
Below is a simple illustration of how the proxy bookmarklet works:
Only for source titles within NUS Libraries subscription
The proxy bookmarklet works for source titles that are within the NUS Libraries subscription. However, NUS Libraries does not have subscription to every online article, for every year or for every vendor. If for some reasons, the proxy bookmarklet method fails, you will have to check the library catalogue to see if there is access via another online source or if a print copy is available.


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Thank you for your interest!
Hampton On Apollo is a family owned and operated holiday home for family groups.
Our guests appreciate the conveniences of home, in a beautiful home amongst the trees, it's amenity to the beach, township of Apollo Bay - Paradise by the Sea - and the breathtaking Great Ocean Road.
Hampton on Apollo is located in a quiet court location. It's visitors are beckoned to sit and admire the views of the hills, ocean and the treetops. The beautiful undercover second storey balcony allows for comfortable relaxation with ample room for younger family members to stretch their legs in the backyard - which adjoins the leafy Milford Creek.
Little guests are warmly welcomed. There are sometimes koalas to be observed in the reserve adjoining the property and abundant bird life. Hampton on Apollo is stocked with puzzles, games, toys and sporting equipment for family use and enjoyment. We draw your attention that the fence that bounds Milford Creek is a farm fence and parental supervision is required at all times. The park located on the Apollo Bay foreshore is a main attraction and includes a skate park (BYO scooters/bikes) and flying fox. Of course on mild days (including during the winter months) the beach provides another wonderful playground located in easy walking distance from Hampton on Apollo.
Hampton On Apollo - Property Features
Hampton On Apollo is a fully featured home that would comfortably accommodate extended family groups of up to 10 guests.
The home features:
Wi-Fi (details supplied on check-in)
4 Bedrooms (two upstairs, two downstairs)
3 Queen Bedrooms (two downstairs, one upstairs)
4 Single Bunk Beds (located in fourth upstairs bedroom)
Safety Note : the Single Bunk Beds (4) have a maximum weight load limit of 85kg per bed
2 Full Bathrooms with freestanding tubs (one upstairs, one downstairs)
Additional Toilet (downstairs)
2 reverse cycle air conditioning units (located in living areas)
Ceiling fans to upstairs bedrooms
Wood heater to family room
Washing machine and dryer
Fully equipped kitchen with dishwasher and microwave
Two indoor living areas with 50" LCD TVs, DVD/ Blu-ray Players, media player and speaker docks (20 pin / bluetooth connectivity) (Please BYO movies and music)
8' pool table for wet weather entertainment
Barbeque facilities located on a beautiful undercover second storey deck, along with outdoor dining facilities/ bar fridge/ sink/ second set of crockery and cutlery.
10 seat dining tables (both upstairs and downstairs)
Hot water outdoor shower
Portable cot & high chair (located in master bedroom)
Single carport providing sheltered direct access to the home
Driveway accommodates three cars (with plenty of height clearance for boats)
Doonas, blankets, pillows and tea towels are provided.
BYO sheets, pillow cases, towels and bath mats
Use of our linen may be arranged upon request - separate charges apply.
Tea and coffee making provisions (including system coffee machine and pods and milk frother) and a fully equipped kitchen are provided with our compliments and with your convenience in mind.
This is a non-smoking property. We regret that no pets are allowed. Please consider that the fence that bounds the Milford Creek is a farm fence and the property is not suitable for small children unless appropriately supervised.
Hampton on Apollo is a family home : we regret that we do not accept schoolies and other party groups.
A security deposit (bond) of $1000 is taken in the fortnight prior to our guest's arrival. Our Terms and Conditions (provided at the time that our booking offer is made) detail our mutual obligations.
Getting to Apollo Bay and exploring surrounding townships
Apollo Bay is located approximately 2 hours 20 minutes from the city of Melbourne, and approximately 1 hour 45 minutes from the city of Geelong by car.
The quickest way to get to Hampton on Apollo from Melbourne (or Geelong) is via Cape Otway Road. Look out for the Cape Otway Road turnoff after the Mt Duneed Estate Winery on the Geelong Ring Road (on the left hand side coming from Geelong or Melbourne). Let googlemaps do the rest!
For maximum spectacle, especially for first time visitors, the Great Ocean Road is a "must see" and will add approximately half an hour to the journey time.
Apollo Bay is a wonderful base from which to explore the Great Ocean Road with Lorne located 40 minutes from Apollo Bay, and Port Campbell / Shipwreck Coast located 1 hour further along the Great Ocean Road.
There are many world-class nature walks, and for adventurers, the Apollo Bay Visitor Information Centre is the starting point of the Great Ocean Walk, which takes its travellers through 91km of the rugged south west coast of Victoria. There are many sections of the walk that can be taken as a beautiful natural experience - best suited for moderately fit persons. Maits Rest provides a great option for prams an easy walking loop track.
There are many day trip and nature walk options for those wishing to take in the area's vast natural beauty including Lake Elizabeth, Cape Otway, Blanket Bay, Crayfish Bay and Johanna Beach. The Apollo Bay Visitor Information Centre is a useful visitors' portal and can provide advice on your options, depending on your interests.
This property is managed in Australia and we never request payments be made to overseas bank accounts.
Scammers are becoming increasingly clever. If you have any doubts as to the authenticity of an email communication purportedly from me, please telephone me the property manager.
Your payment may be made direcly via HomeAway. I will never ask you for your credit card details.
Thank you for your interest and I look forward to assisting you!
Please note, we cannot accommodate one night bookings over a weekend (including Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights). However subject to availability, we may be able to assist with a weeknights single night booking (additional tariff will apply).


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Silence on the blog means most of the time that I'm very busy, here behind the screen. I wish to post regally, 3 times a week, but it's still very spontaneous process for me. One week I have plenty of ideas to talk and to show you, the other I need to keep working with no energy to write…today I would like to show you, very interesting modular pin board design by Inga Sempe for the Danish brand Hay.
It is called « Pinorama » and it's board for all the little things you want to keep handy or aren't sure where to put. The perforated metal in an oblong brick pattern has a cork back that lets you pin up papers, pictures and other bits and pieces. The system also features a range of accessories in the form of shelves, cylinders or mirrors that can be attached to the metal grid. I really like the transparent look of « Pinorama » and I can easy see it in a child room or in the entrance hall. Functional and charming storage solution.
photo's via : dezeen


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Monday, September 29, 2008
Rise and Fall
It is a perfect day, as far as weather is concerned. The sun is shining, it's warm, there's no breeze. I sat outside with my mugga joe this morning while Sal sunned himself. The magnolia warblers and Oregon Juncos are busy in the trees, picking off some of the jillions of ants who crawl up and down the trunk and branches. They occasionally come to birdish fisticuffs, as one bird encroaches on territory another obviously feels possessive of.
The toadlily I bought back in April, the one which froze and died back to the ground, is finally beginning to bloom. It took six weeks to reemerge after it died back, and I didn't think it would survive, but it's reached a respectable 18 inches in height, and has about 20 buds. Only one has opened so far though several others are just about ready.
The dainty little flowers are smaller than a dime, and hard to get a picture of with the combination of my old eyes and my camera's tiny viewing window. I took a half dozen pictures and got one which is almost in focus. The body of the petal is the palest pink, the spots are purple, the stamens, held above the petals, are reddish pinky purpley brown.
Colours seem almost electric at this time of the year. Gone is the soft light of spring and the brilliance of summer. Now the light holds a neon radiance and everything it touches shimmers.
The red mums are also beginning to open. The bushes have hundreds of buds, and by the time they all open there may be more flowers than leaves! Everything else in the garden seems to hold its breath.
It's the kind of day to store away in memory and bring out in January or February.
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The Maritime Museum
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Lancaster Maritime Museum
With an atmosphere of hundreds of years of seamanship, this is a truly evocative learning environment.
With it's own Coffee Shop, Lancaster Maritime Museum is well thought out, with themes and examples from times that we, as sailors, would rather see returned. The original Custom House oversees the tidal waters of the River Lune. Your course will take place in the museum's Education Room - The Hull.
Lancaster Maritime Museum
1 St George's Quay
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Page 2 of 2


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San Francisco residents Rich Peterson and wife Tanya Peterson visited a dozen elementary schools - a mix of public and private - in search of just the right place for their daughter, Avery. None of the schools seemed right.
The Petersons wanted a mainstream school, but also one that would be attentive to Avery, who had a history of seizures. That's when they turned to Betsy Little and Paula Molligan to help them navigate the Bay Area's daunting kindergarten admissions process.
"We met with them, they listened to us talk about our daughter, and as we were talking, they looked at each other and said at the exact same time, 'Marin Primary,' " recalled Rich Peterson. "It was a school we hadn't even considered. It is a mainstream school, but one that turned out to be just perfect for her."
These days, coaches like Little and Molligan are gaining in popularity, part of a cottage industry that has sprung up around getting kids ready for kindergarten placement. It's an industry that includes tutoring, boot camps, assessment programs, checklists and guides.
Based in San Rafael, Little and Molligan specialize in providing admission counseling for families trying to find the right preschool, primary or secondary school. Both women have master's degrees in education, and both have worked in private schools - Little as an admissions director and Molligan as teacher and head of a school. And they are the authors of "Private K-8 Schools of San Francisco & Marin," a book that is often heavily earmarked and riddled with sticky notes by parents. (A new edition of the book is due out early this month.)
Their services range from hourly consultations (at $400 an hour) to a year's contract, offering unlimited time to families during "admissions season," which runs from March through March. (Letters of acceptance are sent out the second or third Thursday in March.)
With too many applicants vying for too few spots, the process of getting into a private kindergarten is generally considered torturous. There are school tours and parent interviews, coffees and cocktails. There is the dreaded drop-off of children to be assessed by admission directors for things such as writing of one's first and last name (correct capitalization required), shaking hands and making eye contact, and drawing a three-dimensional self-portrait.
"We actually try to dispel the anxiety around assessment," said Little. "We also try to get people to think outside the box, and to apply to between five and seven schools."
They also urge parents to think carefully about the costs of going private, noting that there are high-quality public and parochial schools. Tuition at private primary schools runs as much as $24,750 a year, and it can cost more than $33,000 at private secondary schools, bringing the total of a kindergarten through 12th-grade private school education to around $400,000.
"This is after-tax, nondeductible money," said Molligan. "If it's going to be a huge sacrifice to send the child to private school, we say, 'Don't feel compelled. There are lots of options.' "
The SF K Files is a place for parents who are seeking a school in San Francisco. The site offers up reviews of public, private and charter schools, as well as lots of advice and opinions from the community.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
SFGate: Taking the stress out of San Francisco kindergarten admissions
7 comments:
- AnonymousAugust 3, 2010 at 9:32 AM
$400 an hour for consulting services? Nice work if you can get it.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 3, 2010 at 10:26 AM
Snore, rich people spending money on worthless things is so boring.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 3, 2010 at 2:09 PM
I find it sort of hilarious that they live in SF and the right fit is a school which is mostly kids from Marin.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 3, 2010 at 10:14 PM
Wow $400 that's steep. But seriously, I can't believe that there isn't a single school in the city of SF that isn't a good "fit" for any given child. If you can get into the school of your dreams that's another question... kids are just so adjustable... I think it's the parents who are not a good fit. Between private preschool, private pre-K and now public elementary, my twins (now going into 1st grade) have experienced 3 vastly different schools in their young lives. And guess what? They were happy at all 3 and they thrived at all 3.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 4, 2010 at 12:36 PM
Paying that kind of money per hour would increase my stress, not decrease it. But I kinda doubt I'm this pair's target audience.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 4, 2010 at 2:34 PM
10:14. I so agree with schools not needing to be absolutely perfect for your child (or what you happen to think is perfect at one age or another). Schools change (administrations, teachers, student bodies, parents); kids change and develop, often in ways that one wouldn't predict; economic climates change; family situations and capacities change. It's just not static at all. And adaptability is a marvelous trait.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 10, 2010 at 2:46 PM
That 'private school in Marin' is not unusual at all. Marin Country Day School strives for half the student population to be Marin and the other half San Francisco. They are trying to follow that model. Marin Primary is an awesome school especially their pre-school program.ReplyDelete


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Magazine names Williams an 'Emerging Scholar'
A Mississippi State alumnus and faculty member is an Emerging Scholar of 2012, according to a national magazine for higher education.
Byron Williams, assistant professor of computer science, is one of 12 academics included in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education's 2012 Top "Under 40" Emerging Scholars list.
First published in 2002, the magazine's list of emerging scholars annually recognizes faculty members from a wide-variety of academic fields. Each honoree is selected based on his or her contribution to research, publishing and teaching.
Williams is in his second semester as a faculty member with MSU's Bagley College of Engineering where he specializes in software research including its architecture, maintenance and evolution. He earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from Mississippi State.
"I have known Byron since he was an undergraduate at State, and was delighted to be able to hire him as a faculty member in our department," said Donna Reese, head of the computer science and engineering department.
While working to complete his education, Williams served as a research and teaching assistant in software engineering. He also worked as principal consultant for Growth On Demand Enterprises, a Starkville-based company that develops software to support small businesses. Following his May 2009 graduation, he served as associate director and chief software engineer for the Center for Defense Integrated Data at Jackson State University.
Williams is a member of the Mississippi Department of Education science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) cluster taskforce, and the Association for Computing Machinery software engineering special Interest group. He also holds membership in the IEEE Computer Society, the National Society of Black Engineers and Upsilon Pi Epsilon.
For more information about Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, including a complete list of the 2012 Emerging Scholars, visit www.diverseeducation.com.
More information about the Bagley College of Engineering and the department of computer science and engineering can be found at www.bagley.msstate.edu.
Susan Lassetter | Bagley College of Engineering


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Who knew querying an agent would be so difficult? I am so passionate about my work, like every other writer and want to impress an agent so much so that he/she wants to work with me. How do I do this in one page?
First of all, research. I have spent many hours researching agents from different agencies. I have checked their bio's and then cross-referenced them with social media such as blogs and Twitter. I'm looking for anything that stands out and makes me think they might be interested in my work.
It might be a book that we both loved reading as a child or a project that they have worked on that is of similar genre to mine. It might also be positive words or quotes that resonated with me. After all, I'm looking for an agent to help develop a career with. I want to work with this person on many projects to come. I want them to travel on this incredible journey with me.
Fingers crossed that I find the perfect match!


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The San Francisco 49ers are still 0-0, but they've scored their first major win of the year.
A judgehas prevented Santa Clara County from spending $30 million that had been earmarked for contribution to the new 49ers stadium, according to Mike Rosenberg and Steve Harmon of the San Jose Mercury News. During Tuesday's hearing, Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly suggested that, in the end, Santa Clara County may have to surrender the money to the 49ers.
On July 27, Judge Connelly formally will consider the claim that the 49ers should receive the money because voters specifically approved the funds for use on the stadium project.
"This is a powerful argument, and one that may prevail," Judge Connelly said Tuesday.
It would have been hard for Santa Clara County to emerge from Tuesday's hearing with anything other than a defeat, given that the board overseeing the money has yet to hire a lawyer.
The team called the judge's decision "a step in the right direction" via a release issued Tuesday. "We remain optimistic that when the merits of the case are heard, the court will support the [voters'] overwhelming decision," the 49ers said.
In 2010, voters approved the contribution of $40 million by the since-disbanded local development agency. The money earmarked for the stadium then flowed into the county's coffers. Last month, the county abruptly decided not to pay the cash to the stadium effort.


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This is the place where You can easily find popular piano sheets. Fast and free! Enjoy!
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Healing Music
Sub-conscious Liberation of Love
Subject: Sub-conscious Liberation of Love
Sat Sep 25, 2010 4:08 am
Sub-conscious Liberation of Love
Frequency 396 Hz
Before You start the video, make sure that You are in peaceful surrounding. Then start the video, listen to the frequency, and feel it inside You. Now, enjoy and relax.
"Frequency 396Hz AKA Quent Laxis is among the six core creative Solfeggio frequencies. A morphing drone, Tibetan bowl and sine waves are tuned to 396Hz, the tone of liberation. This track renders a comforting, deep healing atmosphere. Feel yourself liberating love while drifting in and out on a 528Hz Delta brainwave entrainment at a rate of 4Hz. There is also a second constant 2Hz Delta binaural beat drone in the phantom tone of 63Hz. Tibetan bowls and pure sine waves are also tuned to the solfeggio frequencies: 396Hz, 528Hz, 963Hz and 1074Hz. Listen with stereo headphones.
The Solfeggio frequencies are from an ancient musical scale used in ancient music, chants and ceremonies. The Solfeggio tones were believed to enable spiritual blessings, healing and transformation when played or sung in harmony.
Regardless of one's individual beliefs, as each note of the ancient Solfeggio scale has a different tuning from the conventional musical scale, these tones provide a new stimulus to the mind and physical system. It has recently been accepted by scientists that there are many benefits to providing the brain with new stimulus alone, in relation to brain plasticity (i.e.keeping the mind young healthy and active). As the mind becomes healthy, the physical body responds and also reaps its own reward.
Binaural beats are a scientifically proven brain entrainment process that slowly started to gain recognition after an article called, Auditory Beats in the Brain, by Dr Gerald Oster, was published in the October 1973 edition of Scientific America.
Binaural beats in the Alpha, Theta and Delta range provide a continuous relaxed input and promote healthy rewiring through its audio neurological signal calculation. These new audio experiences in the brain trigger a burst of new connections between neurons. With repetition, these new neural pathways become fit, just like going to a gym, and it is the fittest connections in our brains that survive. The binaural beat process is faster, easier and more than just meditation. After several weeks of repeated listening the brain becomes more synchronised and starts to form permanent relaxed memories in both hemispheres.
These binaural frequencies have been used to assist lucid dreaming, altered states and out of body experiences. With extended use the pineal gland is activated and positive energy directed to the pre-frontal cortex, making binaural beats a truly powerful tool for developing higher consciousness.
The brain doesnt become dependent on binaural beats for relaxation. Over time, it actually becomes more resilient to stress. As this process continues to develop further, more binaural stimuli are received by the brain. With binaural entrainment, more traditional forms of meditation become easier to learn and implement without the many years of required practise as done by Buddhist Monks.
As the synchronized hemispheres and neurons develop, greater personal awareness and insight follows. The greater stress resilience makes binaural beat therapy a valuable tool in relation to personal development, counseling and other therapeutic settings.
The Therapeutic applications are more than just relaxation. Binaural beats are a powerful tool for resolving depression and other emotional problems.
Delta frequencies: Enhanced meditation and expanded awareness. Psychical and emotional healing and regeneration. Increased feelings of connection and reduced opposition. Cleansing of sub-conscious blockage."
Sub-conscious Liberation of Love
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The most valuable Japan shopping information for you!
Tokyo > Shibuya
1-13-1, Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
12:00 - 20:00
12:00 - 20:30
No fixed holiday
6-minute walk from JR Shibuya Station
With an American spirit at heart, we select our seasonal clothing based on the themes from all over the world. Always fresh, with a bit of nostalgia, and sometimes a casual twist, we have proposed Freaks as a style of not just "things", but "things that you can always find a way to enjoy". We offer a variety of original items centered on both casual men's and women's wear, based on a brand selection from home and abroad.


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Friday, 16 March 2012
Revolt kicking off in Chile
CHILE'S youth rebellion against neoliberalism has kicked off again, after a summer holiday truce.
Thousands of students and school children took to the streets of Santiago to protest against the privatisation of education.
The authorities said their dissent was 'unauthorised' and used tear gas and water cannon to attack the youngsters.
More demonstrations are planned across the country in the weeks ahead.
Meanwhile, revolt continues in the Chilean region of Aysen, where the social movement has blockaded streets.
Reports Prensa Latina: "Social leaders, parliamentarians and inhabitants of the region of Aysen denounced on Thursday an excessive police repression in last few hours against people in this area of Patagonia.
"The Police 'is attacking innocent people with tear gas inside their houses, people that have nothing to do with the protests and barricades', noted Senator of the National Renewal Party Antonio Horvath.
Keep up to date with the global insurrection - follow VM on Twitter.


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FWIW, the current version of Tidy on SourceForge (see http://tidy.sourceforge.net) will add the XML declaration prior to the DOCTYPE when using -asxhtml (or --output-xhtml yes). -----Original Message----- From: firstname.lastname@example.com [mailto:email@example.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 6:48 PM To: firstname.lastname@example.com Cc: firstname.lastname@example.com Subject: Re: DOCTYPE affects Netscape 6 In a message dated 12/19/01 8:31:04 AM US Mountain Standard Time, email@example.com writes: > Running 'tidy -asxml' puts in a DOCTYPE declaration that > seems to confuse Netscape 6. Now, this seems like a > perfectly valid w3c-compliant declaration, so it may be > Netscape's fault. I personally always copy and paste the DOCTYPE declaration constructs from one of my templates whenever I create a new page and thus had never observed the ones affixed by Tidy. I just ran an old (HTML version 4.0) document through HTML-Kit/Tidy -- using the convert to XHTML facility -- which produced the following constructs: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> This is deficient IAW the W3C XHTML 1.0 Specification (the XML declaration is missing and the html root element does not include the language attributions) which prescribes (for example): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> James Pickering Tucson, ArizonaReceived on Wednesday, 2 January 2002 18:53:48 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.1 : Tuesday, 6 January 2015 21:38:51 UTC


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This past Tuesday, my team, with the help of 200 volunteers, assembled Purdue's newest community cluster, Coates. I'm really proud of their efforts and grateful for all the help we had from our volunteers. You can see a set of pictures from the event here.
Pictured above is the first layer aggregation switches that tie together the cluster nodes.


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Beanies - one of the must have accessories of the fall season. It's not only about the neutral colours anymore. This season, beanies give you the opportunity to add the right dose of colour pop to make your outfit fun! I'm going for the red, burgundy and purple options at my next shopping spree :) What about you?
P.S. Don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY here!
Skirt: Primark, Sweater: Stradivarius, Vest: Zara, Fur coat: Vintage, Boots: Topshop, Bag: Chanel, Belt: Topshop, Beanie: Topman, Earrings: ADR for H&M


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Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a man who saw anger and hatred in others and tried to heal it, saw ignorance and tried to replace it with wisdom, saw the approach of despair and tried to steady those in its path with hope.
I knew Mr. Yamaguchi only briefly; but he proved that the quantum of an association is no measure of its ability to teach. If a man who survived the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki could come away from that magnitude of horror believing in the basic nobility of life, then any of us can. Leading by example, he believed that if even a fraction of humanity could go forth with but one simple commandment - be kind - such behavior might be spread like a virus from person-to-person, perhaps even to eventually change the life of someone who might otherwise do something horrible in the future.
He also believed that people, more and more of them, had become complacent during the nearly two decades since the once constant and increasingly terrifying nuclear brinksmanship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had ended. A form of amnesia had begun to afflict civilization - a particularly dangerous amnesia in which people began to forget what atomic bombs really do and, around the world and in many tongues, the words "nuke them" were being uttered with increasing frequency. Yamaguchi realized that if humanity did not soon remember, did not soon learn that "nuke them" was the worst curse one human being could utter against another group of human beings, then all of civilization might now be aboard that same train he had ridden - from Hiroshima toward something even worse.
During the last weeks of his life, Tsutomu Yamaguchi passed the torch to a small but committed group of film-makers and writers, receiving a pledge that they would live by his example, and teach.
To four, he gave, in his own calligraphy, Tanka poems memorializing his experience under the bombs. To one, he gave his painting of the half-melted and seemingly weeping face of Urakami Cathedral's Maria statue, and said, "There is still time to prevent this from ever happening again." To film-maker James Cameron, expressing a belief that there appeared to be a pre-existing spiritual bond between them and that he was convinced he could see into the film-maker's heart, Mr. Yamaguchi passed along a painting of the dragon that he said would need to be grabbed by the horns. It represented Yamaguchi's own inner dragon: The one he had wrestled with and painted in a single day, conveying the despair he had felt when his son, like all so clearly too many children of the bombs (most, in fact), developed cancer and died before reaching the age of sixty.
For me, he had selected his recent painting of a waterfall, with a letter attached, indicating rather enigmatically that I would need to seek the serenity of the waters - and soon.
Only a few weeks later, on January 4, 2010, I received word from my friend Hideo Nakamura that Mr. Yamaguchi had passed away. Then, in February, came the storm. A New York Times reporter presented me with evidence that one of the aviators I had interviewed for the first edition of this book was not who he appeared to be. Evidently, the impostor had taken advantage of the many defects in 1945 record-keeping - including errors that had shifted people from one plane to another and in which even the Nagasaki bomb was recorded as having been dropped from the wrong plane. Against this background, an aviator had inflated his resume` by placing himself falsely in the seat of another man, aboard the Hiroshima mission's photographic escort plane, Necessary Evil.
This was clearly a mistake that I should have caught much earlier. It did not matter that the person in question possessed hundreds of photographs, along with the "right" documents and artifacts (among them actual period photos of the marker at the end of the Tinian runway memorializing the final fire-bombings of August 14, 1945; aerial photos of Hiroshima before, during, and after August 6; a photo showing one of the disputed planes, with him and several other men standing in uniform beneath its nose art [and clearly this was the same man seen in his wedding photo a year later], and finally a letter from President Truman). It should not have mattered that Joseph Fuoco was a veteran and a fire-fighter; this did not make it right for me to let my guard down. I ended up trusting him 100%. Given my obligation to get the history as right as humanly possible, I should never have trusted any interviewee 100%. A result of this is that some of the history from the American aviators' point of view in the first edition of this book is an illusion. I hold myself more at fault for this than the veteran who told the story.
Naturally, everything either said or implied by this "witness," no matter how consistent it might have been with parts of the story already verified by others, has been completely eliminated from this edition and replaced with material that, first and foremost, restores the man who actually did sit in the flight engineer's seat aboard Necessary Evil to his rightful place in history.
As for the man who inflated his war record, the 509th Composite Group has understandably expressed extreme anger and hatred. Had I never met Tsutomu Yamaguchi (or Masahiro Sasaki, or some of the other sages who rose from the ashes), I might have been inclined, too, toward hatred.
Here is what I believe Mr. Yamaguchi would want us to think about Joseph Fuoco: I have learned from Mr. Fuoco's son, a police officer with experience in dealing with deliberate deceivers (who tend to quickly develop inconsistencies in their stories), that there was never, as far back as he could recall, an inconsistency in his father's story. Joseph Fuoco's wife "knew" from at least the beginning (1945 - 1946), that her husband had flown aboard one of the Hiroshima mission's escort planes.
The day after my third interview with Joseph Fuoco in 2008, he suffered a sudden, fatal heart attack. The fire department, the police department, the military - and many hundreds of people attended one of the largest funerals I have ever seen, pouring out their love for this man. There were once-troubled teens whose futures had seemed prison-bound, and whose lives Joseph Fuoco had helped to turn around. None of us will ever know if he was intentionally lying to me in 2008. I find it difficult to believe that he was. The man I met at that time was living by a code of service to others. Having placed himself aboard a mission he never flew (and having consciously assembled convincing documentation, all those years ago), and notwithstanding the fact that this would have begun as a mean-spirited act, I want to believe - and almost have to believe - that by about 1955, perhaps through the mutation of memory, what began as a lie had become Mr. Fuoco's reality.
Asking myself what Mr. Yamaguchi would have done, I prefer to think of Joseph Fuoco as a man who served his country in a time of need, and who continued to serve his country after the war, as a firefighter. Would only that others could have adopted the Yamaguchi view.
As each passing day revealed the Fuoco incident to be only the beginning of the storm, I moved Mr. Yamaguchi's painting to my desk, keeping it close. By power of suggestion or not, it seemed to bring calm, as my publisher began receiving rafts of angry letters, from the 509th Composite Group and almost every other point of the compass. The legal department seemed confused about numerous claims that I had made up stories about radiation sickness and excess cancer mortality in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At least one seemingly authoritative scientific letter insisted that the atomic bombs were designed to dissipate all their radiation high above the ground and that my descriptions of radiation's effects on the civilian populations were a hoax.
I had not been aware, previously, that radiation deniers existed, or that lawyer-types would give them even a nanosecond's worth of credibility. While I was providing documentation answering to this issue, letters came in pointing to what was essentially a clerical error (an overlooked parenthetical statement that needed to be inserted in my Acknowledgements section). The oversight was being misused as a basis for claiming that two priests mentioned in the first edition were fictitious. No one in this book is fictitious - which is why the two priests remain intact in this edition. The priest referred to as Fr. MacQuitty can be cross-referenced in the Acknowledgements sections of other works, including Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, as one of two Jesuits whose names had been changed. A reader of Ghosts of Vesuvius can see easily why Fr. MacQuitty had requested that his name be changed. After Fr. Mervyn Fernando appeared under his own name in Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, he was temporarily defrocked until he recanted his statements (despite the fact that what he had said about God and quantum mechanics seemed perfectly innocuous). In the first edition of this book, I neglected to repeat, in my Acknowledgements section, that Fr. MacQuitty's name had been changed. My publisher's legal interpretation of this oversight meant that I had to reveal the priest's real name - which I was told needed to be given over "at once" to the Associated Press.
I had a promise going back at least to 1989 that I would quote Fr. MacQuitty accurately but never reveal his real name. Anyone reading about the unusual compassion "Fr. MacQuitty" showed for the friends and family of people who under church rules were not to be buried on consecrated ground will understand how the priest could have gotten into even worse trouble than Fr. Fernando if I violated my promise. I make very few promises; but those I make, I keep, no matter what the consequences.
Readers should take note that Fr. MacQuitty appeared in only one sentence in the entire book. Surely, no reasonable thinker could believe that I would invent a fictional priest for one sentence, and risk inflicting such extreme injustice as casting into doubt the lives and the lessons of all the survivors, including Mr. Yamaguchi, the Sasakis, the Itos, and the Nagai family.
As for the second priest, I met Fr. Mattias in 1974 and the story he told about the day he became one of Hiroshima's aimless "ant-walkers" - and of the three children he believed he had abandoned atop a brick tower - was burned indelibly into my memory and guaranteed that one day I would write this book. (He can be cross-referenced in the Afterward of my 1998 book Dust, pages 370-371; in which I refer to reconstruction of a low-yield nuclear weapon's aftermath "through numerous conversations with Hiroshima survivors. Among these a priest who spent the rest of his life wondering what became of the children he had seen standing atop a demolished building in Hiroshima.) Again, his name was changed because of the direction his life took after Hiroshima, and the way it ended for him.
By the time the controversy over the two priests erupted, my publisher was already nearing exhaustion. Just ahead of the Academy Awards, in late February 2010, James Cameron made a public statement in defense of the book, and lamented the next day that his attempt to help a friend appeared only to have intensified the media feeding frenzy.
As the frenzy continued, someone latched onto a story about New Zealand ad hoc tribunals of the 1980s and, though the tribunals themselves were ruled unjust and unlawful years ago, put a new spin on old events, to claim that I had fabricated a "phony Ph.D." for myself at Victoria University.
The facts, in their simplest form, are as follows: In late August 1981, I successfully defended and passed my Ph.D. Dissertation. Six months later, mine and Dr. Jesse A. Stoff's book, Darwin's Universe: Origins and Crises in the History of Life, was about to be published by Van Nostrand Reinhold. Additionally, my recent fossil excavations were yielding evidence that supported Eldredge and Gould's so-called "American theory," about rates and modes of evolutionary change (called the punctuated equilibrium theory). My timing could not possibly have been worse. Disputes had arisen within the university between classical Darwinists (who hated the "American theory") and at least one "scientific creationist" (who hated anything connected to Darwin). Disputes were also arising between New Zealand and the United States, centered primarily on New Zealand's decision to block the entry into its waters of nuclear powered and/or nuclear missile-bearing vessels. This was the atmosphere in which my credentials were suddenly taken hostage, and in which I was ordered to withdraw Darwin's Universe from publication. I refused.
What most of us who were brought before these self-named "ad hoc" committees of the 1980s had in common was publication in the field of evolution. Just as notably, in the British system, the term "ad hoc" is defined as operating outside the normal rules of law. Those of us who were subjected to the "ad hoc" system decried the tribunal's efforts to restrict research and publication in the field of evolutionary biology as "censorship, plain and simple."
The "ad hoc" tribunals assumed the power to downgrade or revoke credentials in closed sessions, without any response or defense being permitted. "Ad hoc" justice became a Star Chamber system in which the protagonist was denied even the illusion of due process, and (fortunately), tribunal members were quite willing to memorialize their actions in writing.
All of these activities were eventually ruled unlawful in New Zealand, and post-graduate degrees were restored to their former status. Unfortunately, the 1980s were not the right time to be an American in New Zealand, and I was originally from America. In late 1982, New Zealand had declared itself a Nuclear Free Zone and was in the process of pulling out of the ANZAC Treaty (essentially, NATO down under). In addition to the already harrowing evolutionary conflict, a U.S.-N.Z. conflict relevant to the very core of this book was also rising around me. With three new hydrogen bombs then being built in America each week and with the saber-rattling between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. looking grimmer each passing month, the New Zealand government decided that it did not want its people to become a nuclear target if the northern hemisphere "went crazy." The Truxton and other nuclear weapons-bearing ships were refused permission to make port. The Reagan Administration announced that New Zealand was no longer to be considered an ally of the United States, and retaliated economically (including withdrawing from its partnership in New Zealand's giant and potentially economy-hobbling aluminum smelter project). Soon afterward, approximately twenty New Zealanders were expelled from their partnership programs in American naval academies. Naturally, this was not the best background against which the only American who had recently completed a Ph.D. program at a New Zealand University should have been rocking the boat by publishing a book supporting what had already been derided as "the American theory of evolution."
Subsequently, after the "ad hoc" tribunals were judged unjust (to a point that actually involved significant monetary reparations), and once New Zealanders who had been "ad-hocked" had their credentials restored, a question remained as to whether the protections of New Zealand law necessarily applied to an American (namely, me). In April 2010, the question was finally answered: The protections for post graduate students contained in the University Regulations applied to all enrolled students, including Americans.
As if to drive home the lesson that our universe is not without a certain sense of irony, I was actually in support of New Zealand as a Nuclear Free Zone (and I still am). It did not matter. The initial attacks against my evolutionary studies included a distinctly anti-American flavor, ranging from, "American spelling should be discouraged" to ad hoc committee member Garrick's remark, "We don't need Americans coming here and pretending to tell us how our animals evolved." Even a prominent "ad hoc" tribunal supporter (in SFWA Forum, March 13, 1995), admitted that he could not deny that I "may have, for some reason, experienced anti-American sentiment while in N. Z."
Amid such sentiment, my case became one of the more extreme examples of "ad hoc" abuse. In November 1984, "ad hoc" head Christopher Dearden admitted in writing that I had completed all the requirements for awarding of the Ph.D. The publication of my entire Dissertation in the field's leading peer-reviewed scientific journal (CRUSTACEANA, Vol 47, Part 3, 1984) made the merits of the Dissertation difficult for Dearden to deny, especially as the study's new application of atomic absorption spectrometry had become required reading in the chemistry department of the very same university in which Dearden's ad hoc committee was being convened.
Once the Dearden letter was extracted, with the help of colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory (where, as another irony, our primary project at that time involved brainstorming sessions for Senator Spark Matsunaga's U.S.-Soviet Space Cooperation Initiative, as a hoped-for means of reducing the probability of war between the two nuclear-armed superpowers), it was easy to re-verify my Dissertation as having indeed met the university's requirement of making "a significant contribution to the knowledge or understanding of a field of study."
In his November 6, 1984 letter, Dearden attempted to get around the proven merits of the Dissertation by (A) implying that a leading journal had published it by mistake and (B) stating that the merits of my work even if proved should henceforth be declared "irrelevant," with only the new rules for retroactive revocation of credentials being allowed to be considered relevant.
Having helped me to document "ad hoc" absurdity beyond all serious dispute, my colleagues at BNL (including Head of Reactor Systems James Powell, who summed up Dearden's tribunal as "a grievous wrong") agreed that I had all the proof I would ever need, demonstrating that the "ad hoc" committee was operating illegally by both New Zealand and international standards, at which point the Matsunaga symposium proceedings and other papers published out of the National Laboratory had my title - "Dr." - restored.
So, any suggestion in the world press that I had simply created a "phony" Ph.D. for myself in New Zealand - or that I had somehow sat and failed a Ph.D. examination - was grossly mistaken, at least insofar as the truth is concerned.
Bearing in mind that attacks with regard to what I got wrong about the aviators were justified, as the feeding frenzy intensified, another series of developments began to suggest - as one Japanese journalist observed - that "sometimes even the worst things turn out to be positive in the journey we call life." Even the most torturous road, she advised, can take one to growth, and even amazement.
In February 2010, after more than three years of searching, documentary film-makers Hideo Nakamura and Hidetaka Inazuka had finally found the daughter of a double atomic bomb survivor named Kenshi Hirata (a key figure in the chapters ahead). The last event anyone knew about in Mr. Hirata's life, when the first edition of this book went to press, was that he had disappeared with his family long ago, vowing to stay out of history's way. To our amazement, Kenshi himself turned out to still be alive, at age ninety-one. (What happened after the disappearance has been added to this edition.)
Shortly after Kenshi Hirata's family was discovered, beginning with the March 2010 Peace Film Festival in New York, other survivors began to come forth. With the stories of the aviators corrected, a road that did indeed begin with torturous strides led toward an opportunity to begin updating chapters of this history, while survivors are still alive, and are able to contribute new details.
Charles Pellegrino,
Long Beach,
Long Island,
April 14, 2010


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Sunday, June 29, 2008
More Victoria
I have posted so little this month that I decided to make up for it in the last days of June. My camera decided to function today (of course - not when I needed it for the pediatrics conference), so I took some pictures in my hotel room. Here, for instance, is my travelling buddy* studying a map of Victoria.
*This does not mean I am taking up hunting garden gnomes and giving up gargoyles.
Victoria, B.C.
My camera decided to quit when I arrived in Victoria to cover the annual meeting of the Canadian Pediatric Society. So I have no Victoria gargoyles to show you. But I do have this great commerical for Lotto 6/49 from the B.C. Lottery Corporation. The music is great and I'm not sure who/what I'm more entranced by - the leaping cats or the woman's bowl of Froot Loops:
Posted by Terry Murray at 12:28 AM 1 comments
Sunday, June 8, 2008
There goes the neighbourhood (part 6)
Good Lord, but I haven't posted anything about the corner house(s) since March! I took this picture 10 days ago, and it's way, way out of date already. You can see here that they've added "bricks" to the house on the Jedburgh side, but that has progressed well beyond this point, and the house on the very corner on the Woburn side is looking quite "bricked" these days too.
And to think that grand old corner house was demolished only six months ago. Time is money! Gotta get these babies sold. Millions are at stake!
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Last July I created a business plan. You can read it here. My Business Plan. Although it's only been a few months, I'm super excited about 2015 and how my business plan has evolved.
Here's what hasn't changed:
Mission Statement: Create stories that inspire, and encourage spouses to hug and kiss each other, parents to laugh and play with their children, friends whisper kind words to each other and strangers to exchange pleasantries and practice charity and goodwill.
The Five Year Goal: Twenty published novels. Hundreds of blog posts. Travel books. (I should probably modify this since I already have 12 published books and two others that near completion.)
Market and Focus: Female audience (except for my brothers and cousins who read my books) over the age of thirteen. Predominately well educated, older women who are looking for something to take on the plane, or on the beach, or who just need an escape. My books are the equivalent of a bath without water—a totally immersing, relaxing, mood enhancer. My books are meant to be shared with anyone, including but not limited to, grandmothers, daughters, priests and yogis.
Competitor Analysis: Continue to watch and learn from fellow writers by lurking on online writer forums, groups and blogs. Scrounge good ideas.
Strengths: (Why I Will Be Successful): Limitless time, discipline and an incredible imagination. Support from family, friends and writers' groups.
Writing Schedule: Four hours a day, five days a week with a weekly goal of 10k words, drafting. That equates to a first draft in six to eight weeks, depending on the length of the novel. One month, same daily schedule, for editing and revisions. Goal: three to four books published a year. A summer vacation. A Christmas break.
Promotion: At least one hour a day, five days a week. This entails blogging, querying review sites, guest posts, newsletters, give-aways, contests, book trailers, how to guides, sprinkled with a select few personal forays where I actually have to leave the house and interact with humans.
Promotion: At least one hour a day, five days a week. This entails blogging, querying review sites, guest posts, newsletters, give-aways, contests, book trailers, how to guides, sprinkled with a select few personal forays where I actually have to leave the house and interact with humans.
Conclusion: In a world swimming with entertainment, I will provide wholesome, witty, and romantic escapism for my family, friends and any who may find me and my books.
This year, 2014, I published:
Beyond the Hollow (January)
Stuck With You (June)
Beyond the Pale (August)
The Witching Well (October, a novella in a clean romance anthology that will be the beginning of a time travel romance series.)
The Highwayman (which is the novel that grew out of the The Witching Well)
And I will soon publish:
And I will soon publish:
Anywhere Else (a short story in the Hugh Howey Indie Anthology)
My changes:
I love how my marketing plan has become more defined.
Currently, I have four series:
Seattle Fire (Historical Romance)
Stealing Mercy, Rescuing Rita--it probably needs a third book to be considered a series.
Rose Arbor (Women's Fiction, Mystery, Suspense)
A Ghost of a Second Chance, The Rhyme's Library, Losing Penny
Beyond (Young Adult, Paranormal)
Beyond the Fortuneteller's Tent, Beyond the Hollow, Beyond the Pale
Witching Well (Paranormal Romance)
The Highwayman Incident (Maybe you can't call one book a series, but the sequel is one third finished, and the third book is outlined so I'm including it in my plan.)Each series has a distinct category, but I'm hoping because all of the books have a strong romantic story-line, that readers will cross genres. Some will, some won't, and that's okay.
This year I've learned that:
The first book in a series drives the sales of the other books
Free promotional sites are often just as, if not more, effective as paid advertising.
So, here's the goal:
Each month, I'll mark each beginning book in a series at .99 cents. I'll also have novellas marked at ,99 cents. Here are places to advertise. promotional sites
Monday: promotional sites
Tuesday: Facebook
Wednesday: Twitter
Thursday: Pinterest
Friday: blog
A Mission Statement
The Five Year Goal
Market and Focus
Competitor Analysis
Weaknesses (and how to overcome them)
Writing Schedule
Marketing Plan
As I said, I'm very excited about 2015, and I hope it will be a banner for all of us!
What actually happened:
Books published:
The Cowboy Encounter
The Pirate Episode
Witch Ways
Witch Winter
Love at the Apple Blossom Inn (novella)
2016 Projections:
Witch Wishes
Little White Christmas Lie
Shell Charms (This is a book I wrote eight years ago.)
This year I will shift my focus from writing to marketing. I plan on having a number of my earlier releases re-edited and re-released by the end of January. Beginning in January, a book will be discounted and promoted each week. The promotion schedule will look like this:
Monday: submit books to paid advertisers
Tuesday: blog post
Wednesday: schedule and post 50 tweets
Thursday: blog post
Friday: pinterest
I feel that 2015 has been really good for me, books-wise and otherwise. 2016 is shiny, new and full of promise.


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It's official. With Thanksgiving behind us, the holiday season is here. And at Disney Springs, it's not only here, but bigger and better than ever. That goes for everything from holiday shopping
to entertainment, and of course, to the Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail!
Back for its second year, the Tree Trail now boasts 25 Disney-inspired trees, including ten
additions featuring iconic characters. Wondering what's new? Peter Pan, Robin Hood, Sleeping
Beauty, Pinocchio, Snow White, Dumbo, Fantasia, and Lady and the Tramp now take center
stage with trees themed to these beloved stories. There's also a tree featuring an assortment of
ornaments that are all available at the nearby Disney's Days of Christmas store. (Tip: look for
the featured ornament on ALL the trees, housed inside a special display lantern; most are
available for purchase, while supplies last.) And one of my favorites—the Disney Springs
Tree—showcases the many retail brands here on property – one look reminds me that I can
pretty much complete all of my Christmas shopping without leaving property.
Call me a traditionalist, but in spite of the many options, my top pick is still the classic Mickey
and Minnie tree. That's the beauty of the expanded Tree Trail – there really is something for
Based on the popularity of this new seasonal staple, hours have been extended an additional
hour every Friday and Saturday and also on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The Tree Trail is
offered through the holiday season, and will run through January 7, 2018. The updated
operating hours are as follows:
Monday – Thursday: 12 pm to 10 pm
Friday – Saturday: 10 am to 11 pm
Sunday: 10 am to 10 pm
Christmas Eve, 12/24: 10 am to 11 pm
Christmas Day, 12/25: 10 am to 11 pm


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I love coffee shops. As I sit here and ask myself why, I think it has something to do with the fact that I rarely go to a coffee shop alone. I go to meet a friend. We talk life. We talk hardships. We challenge each other. We encourage each other. The encouragement is what really stands out. When I leave a coffee shop, I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged because I cut time out of my busy schedule to connect with someone who is important to me. And guess what, they cut time out for me too!
I'm a natural encourager. I love to build people up and let them know that they are loved and cared for. Maybe you are the same way. Do you love to encourage those who are near and dear to you? Not everyone is a natural encourager, but one thing I know for sure, everyone loves to be encouraged. I can't think of one person who would say they don't like being on the receiving end of an encouraging word.
Do you sometimes feel like there are people you should be in touch with, but they live far away or you don't have a lot of time to give them a call? And sometimes a text message seems so impersonal, doesn't it? I have a suggestion for you. What if you decided that, once a week, you were going to mail a note to someone to encourage them? It could be as simple as a few sentences, or maybe some days you write a bit more about life. It would only take a few minutes out of your week, but it would mean the world to the person who receives it. Doesn't that sound wonderful? Doesn't that sound easy to pull off but so rewarding?
I've got a challenge for you. I'm going to set a goal this year and I'd love for you to join me! Let's decide that we are going to make someone's day at least once a week this year! Perhaps there is one person in your life that could really use extra encouragement this year and you send a note to them each week. Or perhaps you pick someone different each week. Either way, someone's day will be a little brighter because you took a few minutes to think about them, and follow through with a quick note. So, here's what I'm going to do. I will send a note to a friend or family member each week this year. Will you join me? #snailmailchallenge
If you are hesitating, I've got just what you need. Our notecard subscriptions come with FREE stamps on the card envelopes, so it couldn't be easier to get a quick note in the mail! Check them out here.
And make sure to comment and let me know that you are going to take up the weekly notecard challenge with me! We are in this together!