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How to Motivate Yourself to Work Out?
It's that time of the year when thousands of people sign up for new gym memberships and then a majority of them just give up the very next week or month. The first question on everyone's mind is "How to get fit in 2017?" a close second is "How do I motivate myself to stay fit?"
There are no shortcuts to fitness and you have to motivate yourself enough to get out the door and get working out.
A gym is an option to put your fitness plans into action. If you live far away from a gym, then you also have the option to get your own home gym set up with all the equipment that you'd ever want from a gym. Motivating yourself to working out for some is harder than the workout!
Since this has been a recurring theme in the fitness industry, we've decided to go straight to the source and asked fitness experts a simple question:
What Would Be Your 3 Best Fitness Motivation Tips For 2017?
The three best motivational tips I can give for 2017 would be to:
Focus on Behavior or Performance
… rather than outcomes to increase adherence. People get wrapped up in losing "x" amount of weight or inches or whatever. But have no control over that outcome.
Search For Meaning
Find your why, meaning why are you exercising or dieting. It shouldn't be punishment or have negative connotations. It should be about creating a new you.
Enjoy The Journey
Lastly avoid looking at how far you have to go, it's about how far you've come. We get wrapped up in a goal and not even looking back at how much we've accomplished.
Massapequa is the second winner of News 12's Hometown Showdown segment! Active Movement and Performance demonstrated a basic full body workout.
o, you want to know how to build muscle. It's an answer in two parts, really. Is your ultimate aim to get big or get strong? Each goal involves lifting heavy things and eating the right foods, but the details are a little bit different. (That said, of course you'll get stronger if you train for size, and of course your muscles will get bigger if you train for strength.) Here's a primer to maximize your desired results.
"So while in a size workout you're doing 50 reps overall for a squat, in a strength program, you're looking at just 20-25 reps," says personal trainer Chris Cooper, co-owner of Active Movement and Performance (AMP) in Long Island, NY.
Before you pop open that beer and soak up the sun, take 15 minutes for a quick workout. The soft, uneven surface works more muscles for a better workout in less time.
"Sand is a slightly unstable surface, which means that your core muscles work harder to help you maintain your balance," says Robin M. Gillespie, a personal trainer based in Philadelphia. And, because sand is soft, it absorbs your energy and you have to work much harder to propel yourself forward when you run or jump on it — it's also easier on your joints.
From running to strength work, if it's hard in the gym, it's even harder on the beach. Here are 10 beach workouts you need to try the next time you hit the sand.
Spinal stability, diaphragmatic breathing and neutral posture, among others, are all "buzz words" that, as of late, have entered the conversation in a multitude of training facilities, across a wide array of practices. This is due to the fact that the underlying concept is extremely important. It is no secret the sport of strength requires years of hard training and adaptation to achieve its highest levels. Due to the demands and potential risks associated with loading the spine, its health and maintenance are among the key contributors to performance across a long and successful career.
You got your routine down with those staple workouts that keep you chugging along to your goals. And while every exercise isn't your absolute favorite, you're pretty comfortable with what you're doing—and pretty confident that you don't look like a tool on the gym floor. But if you only train your body in one way, you can lose abilities. You know, like that guy with the huge shoulders who can't clasp his hands behind his back (talk about awkward). These exercises are just what the trainer ordered to keep you healthy and injury-free—and help make you stronger.Read More...
In theory, maintaining a healthy, wholesome diet on a regular basis is simple, but of course, doing so doesn't come without plenty of obstacles to conquer.
"We make over 200 food choices a day, which gives us many opportunities to make unwise or unintended decisions," says Lisa Rutledge, Registered Dietitian and author of The Debunking Dietitian.
We've said it before and we'll say it again: there are no shortcuts to getting in shape.
Whether your goal is to build muscle, lose weight or improve your fitness and performance, it's going to require hard work.
That said, achieving your goal (unless you're training at a fitness competitor level) doesn't mean you need to spend hours at the gym either.
Everyone has their go-to workouts. But it's only a matter of time before even the most enthusiastic of runners or the most diehard CrossFit-ers start to get bored with their favorite fitness regimens.
Not only that, but for the benefit of your body, it's definitely a good idea to switch up your routine and add a little bit of variety into the mix. (Just don't go too crazy because it is important that you stick to a well thought out plan if you want to see progress.)
f you've been consistently working hard in the gym, but can't seem to achieve noticeable results, it could be because your habits outside of the gym simply don't support your goals.
Yes, no matter what your goal may be, exercise is an important component of any fitness program. But unless you're an elite-level athlete, most of your time is spent outside of the gym, and it's where you spend the majority of your time that your decisions and choices count the most.
Alright, we are back with some awesome, off-beat fitness tips from the top experts in fitness, nutrition, physiology and even psychology – Part I was awesome with our first 15 experts! For Part II, we have 17 top experts lined up to dish out their best advice that might not be "main stream" yet and even some that is simply too important not to mention! From fitness to nutrition to just living the DIY lifestyle, you'll find some interesting tips from these experts below!
So without my usual verbose chatter, we are going to dive right into some of the best off-beat or secret fitness tips that you might not find anywhere else! Oh yeah, one more thing – want awesome content like this emailed to you? Get it here!
If you're looking for #belfies and ab shots, I hate to break it to you, but you're not going to like this list. While there are literally thousands of fitness-focused Instagram accounts on the social platform, way too many of them are hyper-focused on appearance, and many of them are maintained by people who look great, but aren't remotely qualified to provide fitness advice. (Case in point: Any of the Kardashians.)Read More...
While we all want to rock six pack abs at the beach, it's actually important to your physical health to have a strong core. You don't need to attain clearly defined ab muscles; however, you should regularly incorporate ab exercises into your fitness routine. With the help of some experts in the fitness industry, we've rounded up the top four benefits of strengthening your core.Read More...
Nearly everyone we asked agreed: to a beginner, the weights section at the gym can seem like a pretty intimidating place. In fact, we've even experienced the feeling ourselves. After all, everyone is a newbie at some point or another, right?Read More...
In the sea of fitness information out there, it's easy to get lost in a whirlwind of crap. Trendy advice circuits the industry faster than viral YouTube videos of Miley Cyrus. So many gurus have the latest cure for fat loss. So many programs have the solution for Arnold Schwarzenegger arms. But who do you listen to? What programs actually work? How do you sift through all the bullshit and find what truly yields results?
Well, first and foremost, you have to find and listen to people who are well-established and have a proven track-record of success. Thankfully, this post is filled with 54 of these people!
One important reason to take probiotics is that they can help keep bad bacteria in your GI tract at bay, or they can replace bad bacteria after an illness.Read More...
In theory, maintaining a healthy, wholesome diet on a regular basis is simple, but of course, doing so doesn't come without plenty of obstacles to conquer.
"We make over 200 food choices a day, which gives us many opportunities to make unwise or unintended decisions," says Lisa Rutledge, Registered Dietitian and author of The Debunking Dietitian.
When people think of New Year's, the word "resolution" is rarely far behind.
Peeling the shrink-wrap off that new calendar inspires thoughts about what to improve in the coming year. What better date than January 1 to commit to losing 40 pounds, quitting smoking and hitting the gym every morning?
But how many of those resolutions will become lifelong habits, or even last into February?
From about 2009 to 2014 sales of gluten-free products grew 34 percent annually, reaching about $973 million in sales, according to a report by Food Navigator USA.
The same report says that by 2019 that sales total is expected to reach $2.34 billion, which would be a 140 percent increase over another five years.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can make doing various tasks difficult, including exercise, which is important for maintaining mobility. Just ask Amanda John, 34, of Charlotte, N.C.
The same report says that by 2019 that sales total is expected to reach $2.34 billion, which would be a 140 percent increase over another five years.
Exercising your hips is a great way to stay lean and strong. Even if you are pregnant, elderly, or suffering from osteoarthritis, simple exercises can help you stay in the game.
Corina Martinez, senior physical therapist for Duke Sports Medicine Center, says core stabilization exercises provide a solid foundation for your hip health.
One of the most common and universal goals that we all share as human beings is the goal of improving our overall health. Especially in today's world of fast food, technology, and over-indulgence where it is so easy to start and then fall into a cycle of unhealthy habits, many of us inevitably reach the point where we ask ourselves: how can I begin to live a more healthy lifestyle?Read More...
We hear all the time to get more out of our workouts, but what does that mean exactly? Doing more with less. To optimize your workout means getting more from each minute you're sweating than you ordinarily would. The HIIT workout trend of a couple of years ago was the definitive optimized workout — really hammer through some key movements in a short period of time. You get the full-body, calorie-torching workout on a schedule you can keep!Read More...
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My journey in learning how to grow up, enjoy life and have some fun baking along the way.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
MSC: Jumbo Chocolate Filled Cupcakes
12 comments:
What a great idea to add mint glaze! They look great. Thanks for baking along with me this month.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 15, 2010 at 11:33 AM
I had making these too and was glad I got to try them. Like you, I probably wouldn't make them againReplyDelete
MINT GLAZE! That sounds amazing!ReplyDelete
What makes that fluff so good???ReplyDelete
And kudos for getting rid of the extra filling and not eating it!!
OOOO!! Chocolate and mint. Genius!!ReplyDelete
Not too sure if I would have liked the mint glaze with this as I LOVE marshmallow. How didn't you eat it all? I loved the cupcakes but they looked a little odd. Hopefully next month will strike your fancy.ReplyDelete
Nice addition with the mint glaze! Great job!ReplyDelete
How fun to add the mint glaze! The marshmallow was my favorite part of this cupcake.ReplyDelete
I loved the cream filling, too!ReplyDelete
It looks lovely, and once again you have a winning photo, here! I will let you know if I ever write a cookbook because I think I'd hire you as a photographer!ReplyDelete
Oh yum, chocolate and mint is one of my favorite combos - good idea! These were just ok for me too as far as flavor goes but I had fun making them so no complaints :)ReplyDelete
Sure like how yours looks with that filling spilling out. Beautiful.ReplyDelete

subset: commoncrawl


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Rage, Despair, Hope Postcards
Author: Dare2Engage
Product Type: Creative Resources
Product Type: Postcards
About this product
Rage, despair and hope. Three emotions familiar to most 16-19 year olds – a generation who are angry enough to march with older students in protest over fees, despairing enough to consider ending their lives and hopeful enough to go travelling and see the world. Three emotions that resonate through history – motivating people to action. Three emotions which run as threads through ancient wisdom literature – particularly the biblical story of Job.
22 pieces of art by Si Smith take students through the story, displayed here for you in high quality packs of postcards. They are designed to accompany the DVD (see link below), but also stand alone as stunning pieces of artwork to illustrate the biblical story of Job.


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Welcome to Birdquest
Mark Van Beirs lives with his partner Kathleen and daughter Caroline near Ghent, Belgium and has guided a truly remarkable number of tours for Birdquest.
Born and raised in Ghent, he was soon travelling abroad in search of birds, firstly all over Europe but soon throughout the world. His varied career has included a spell in a travel agency and fifteen months working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos and in the Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador.
Mark's impressive fluency in six languages and invariably cheerful manner allow him to travel with ease anywhere on earth and he has now visited well over 100 countries!
He has a wide-ranging knowledge of birds, but he is particularly interested in the Neotropics, where he has travelled very extensively indeed and spent many years in the field. Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, the Southwest Pacific and Mongolia are other favourite areas, although in reality he now feels at home almost anywhere.
Mark has now observed around 9000 species of birds, but he also gets very excited about mammals and at night likes to indulge in stargazing.
Click here to go back to Our Team
Mark Van Beirs will be leading the following tours:


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Grandma's Banana Bread
This banana bread recipe was my grandma's. My mom still has a copy of the recipe that my grandma wrote on a card for her. It's a small card, with cramped writing, spotted with years of batter droplets.
It's the best. And I love it. And it smells like home and family and bananas and bread and sweet and yummy… and so I'm telling you about it. Turns out, you can make it in the Bullet with the blender attachment. Who knew?
Grandma's Banana Bread
- 2-3 bananas (or 4 if you're using apple bananas like me!)
- 1/3 cup oil
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 3/4 cup flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Blend up bananas, oil, and sugar. Add in eggs and blend for just a couple seconds, until beaten. Add in dry ingredients and pulse to mix, scraping the sides as necessary until just mixed together. (If you have the blender attachment, you can make the entire bread in it; if you don't, just mix up all the wet ingredients and pour them into the dry ingredients in a bowl.)
- Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 min-1 hour, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool before eating (but it's delicious warm with butter!)
Ginger Green Onion Paste
So, this paste. It might sound, like, weird that I'm telling you to make a paste. But, I'm pretty sure you should make it. We made it when we were making these spring rolls, and boy howdy. It was great. But it would also be excellent tossed into a stir fry or loosened up with more oil and made into a salad dressing.
If you like ginger, most definitely try this one. It's pretty strong in the ginger department. Also, it's bright green. BRIGHT green. So clearly, it's the healthiest thing you could eat. Like, ever. Duh.
Ginger Green Onion Paste (adapted from 101 Cookbooks)
- 2 big ol' green onions, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp ginger, grated or roughly chopped
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp oil (olive or vegetable or whatever you like)
- Blend together all ingredients except 1 tbsp oil until a thick paste is formed.
- Heat the remaining 1 tbsp oil in a skillet over medium heat until it's pretty hot, but not burning, and toss in all of the paste.
- Cook for a minute or so, stirring, just until super fragrant. Scoop/pour into a bowl/ramekin to cool.
So, you may or may not have heard of this. It's a thing called Eton Mess. If you've heard of it, you've probably eaten it. And you're probably scoffing, like, who hasn't heard of eton mess? It's the easiest, most lazy-person dessert ever. If you haven't heard of it, you're probably all, uhhh, it doesn't sound very good? Listen close.
Crunchy, airy, super sweet meringues, that you can totally buy at the store, plus sweet and tart fruit and all its juicy-juiceness, plus super soft, barely sweet, cloud-like whipped cream, that yeah, you totally just whipped up, NBD. All of it. On a big ol' spoon. In your big ol' mouth. (Sorry. I didn't mean to say you had a big mouth. But that's just how it went for me. I'm projecting).
Point is, go ahead and make this. Your friends will thank you. And love you. And think you're super fancy.
Eton Mess
- 12 meringues
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (or more, if you like)
- 1 peach, chopped into bite-size bits + 1/4 cup raspberries
- 2 tbsp sugar
- Combine raspberries and peaches with 1 tbsp sugar in a bowl, and half mash half mix them together.
- Set aside. Combine the heavy cream plus the remaining tbsp of sugar in the short cup with the flat blade attached.
- Blend until whipped cream appears!
- In four bowls or jars (or one big ol trifle dish if you have one), crumble up 1/2 the meringues.
- Scoop on some whipped cream, and top with fruit mixture.
- Repeat layers one more time.
- Eat immediately, this dessert doesn't keep!
Peanut Sauce
Please, don't be fooled by the appearance of this sauce. Because I will admit it does not look very appetizing, because it's, well, brown. But trust, trust in the power of the peanut. Because hooooly daaang. It's good.
Pour it all over your veggies or rice or meat on a stick or whatever. Just find a way to eat it.
Peanut Sauce
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- sriracha to taste
Blend and pour, yo!
Sour Cream Ranch Dressing
I don't actually know if this counts as ranch dressing.. but it's sure dang good. And sure only takes but a second to make. And is like, waaay better than that stuff you buy at the store. So, I'm gonna go ahead and call it ranch.
You could dip some veggies in it. Or pour it on a salad. Or, just, I don't know.. drink it? Ha!
Sour Cream Ranch
- 1 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2 tsp mustard
- 2 tsp white wine vinegar (or more or less depending on how vinegar-y or liquidy you like it)
- 1/2 tsp herbes de provence
- 1/8 tsp salt and pepper
- Blend! Munch!
Raspberry Sauce
Dudes. Let's talk about fruits. In specific, let's go ahead and talk about fruit sauces. Y'know, the ones that usually basically look like purple glop and are overly sweet and don't much resemble the fruit they came from. Those ones. Let's go ahead and say we'll never eat another one of those again. Not on a cheesecake or a scoop of ice cream or anything.
Instead, let's all eat this sauce. Because it's the best sauce. Because it's a little sweet, but it's mostly tart, and it's so bright red, and it tastes like the fruit it is, only, you know, even better. Oh yeah, and also, it takes, like, ten seconds to make.
Go ahead. Do it.
Raspberry Sauce
- 1/2 cup (ish? make as much as you want, honestly) fresh raspberries (or strawberries or blackberries or boysenberries…)
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon or lime
- 2 tbsp sugar
- Blend all ingredients together in your Magic Bullet.
- Strain through a mesh sieve if you're not into seeds. Don't if you're lazy.
- Drizzle that sweet-tart gold all over, well, everything. But especially cake, and whipped cream, and ice cream, and cheesecake.. and.. well, yeah.
It's not really summer until you've eaten your first watermelon. Preferably by biting straight into a piece way larger than your head, juice running all the way down to your elbows, followed by a watermelon-seed-spitting contest. Which, you'd probably lose if you were competing against me. Just kidding. Kind of.
But if you want to eat watermelon in front of a more, er, sophisticated? crowd, then look no further. Because these popsicles, well they're just plain awesome. They're pink and icy and sweet and sour, so obviously your kids (or your inner child) will love them, but they've got a little something special that makes them grown-up. Seriously. Trust. It's the fanciest watermelon pops you'll ever have.
These popsicles are awesome not only because they taste uh-may-zing, but also because there is no sugar. Like, none. So, yes, you can totally eat them for breakfast. Duh.
- 2 cups watermelon cubes
- juice of 1/2 lime
- a few basil leaves
- Stick everything in a tall cup and blend. Pour into dixie cups or popsicle molds, pop a stick in the top, and freeze for several hours or overnight.
- Pop out and enjoy! Easiest things ever! Makes 6 dixie-cup size popsicles [probably 4 popsicle mold-sized pops].
Mango Coconut Cream Popsicles
Mango season. It's like, the best time of the year for me. I could so easily overdose. Last year, we ended up with twenty three pounds of mangoes. TWENTY THREE. We froze them all, and used them for, like, the rest of the year until mango season started again. It was amazing. Best use of freezer space ever. I don't know what it is about mangoes that is so ding dang delicious, but they are definitely one of my top 10 favorite fruits. And one of the things I'll miss the most about Hawaii.
Coconut and lime are two flavors that pair really, really well with mango. And so these popsicles were born. With minimal added sugar, they are a creamy, sweet, and a little sour popsicle that could, um, definitely double as breakfast on a hot day. For sure.
Mango Coconut Cream Popsicles
- 2 cups mango chunks
- 2 tbsp full fat coconut milk
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp lime zest
- 1 tsp lime juice
- Blend everything together, pour into dixie cups or popsicle molds.
- Place sticks in the top, and freeze for several hours or up to overnight.
- Pop out and enjoy!
Makes 6 dixie-cup size popsicles [probably 4 popsicle mold-sized pops].
My Number One Smoothie
So, I've told you about this before. Kind of. But before you go getting all, "Ugh, are you running out of ideas or what, Erin?!" just, give me a minute. Because you see, the first time I made this, it was kind of by accident and I kind of forgot about it afterwards. And I just, I don't want you to make the same mistake.
So, we've been drinking this, uh, pretty much everyday. We ran a half marathon recently and, I swear to you, these smoothies saved me the whole time we were training. They are packed with protein, they're sweet and peanut buttery and ugh. So good. Just, make one. Trust.
My Favorite Peanut Butter Smoothie
- 1/2 cup frozen banana chunks (probably about 1 regular size banana)
- a few chunks of frozen mango
- a big ol' scoop of greek yogurt
- a big ol' scoop of peanut butter
- milk as needed (I start with about 1/4 cup and add more if it looks too thick.
- Blend. Drink. Yum.
Also, um, this is what happens when you try to take pictures of yourself with your camera on self timer on a windy day because you're home alone. It happens.
White Bean Hummus
I've made hummus before. It's delicious. It's easy. It's healthy. And it is both a fabulous snack or the base of a meal if you, say, are lazy and can't bother to make real food for yourself when your boyfriend goes away for work for 10 days and you're left home alone to fend for yourself. Or. Whatever.
So, the thing is, a lot of hummus-es (hummusi? What the heck is the plural of hummus?) can be a bit gritty. And as it turns out, this is because of the skin of the chickpeas that you make hummus with. So my idol has this recipe for hummus that I made recently and, um, it's heavenly. But you have to peel the chickpeas. Hm. It's not that it takes very long or that it's very difficult… but did I mention the part where I was home alone and just couldn't be bothered to do, uh, anything more than put things into a magic bullet cup for all of my meals? Yeah well, enter white beans. They're the greatest. Smooth and creamy and mild and just plain delicious.
White Bean Hummus
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen's ridiculously good hummus)
- 1 3/4 cups cooked, drained white beans (aka one 15-ounce can)
- 1/2 cup tahini
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3/4 teaspoon table salt (or more, to taste)
- ~ 1/4 cup water (or more, if necessary)
- Olive oil, paprika to serve, plus pita bread or veggies for dipping.
- Add white beans, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt and 1/4 cup of water to tall cup or large blender attachment. (uh, full disclosure, it's a bit much for the tall cup.. you could half it all and do this in batches, or use the blender pitcher thing, or just cram and do a lot of shakin' it.)
- Pulse and blend, shaking as necessary, until you have a smooth and creamy hummus, adding more water (or lemon juice) 1 tbsp at a time if it looks too thick.
- To serve, spoon hummus into a bowl, drizzle with good olive oil, and sprinkle with some paprika (unless yours has been subjected to the humidity of Hawaii for as long as ours has, and uh, isn't any good). Serve with pita bread wedges or crunchy veggie sticks. Enjoy!


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Pneumatic Machine Chisels
CS Unitec's line of Non-sparking, corrosion-resistant pneumatic machine chisels are ideal for breaking or chipping concrete, asphalt or soil with paving breakers and other demolition tools. Manufactured from Copper-Beryllium or special Aluminum-Bronze alloys, the chisels are specifically made to eliminate the risk of sparks at sites where explosive atmospheres may be present. These special alloys meet OSHA and ATEX regulations for safe use in Ex Zones where hazardous, flammable or combustible vapors, liquids, dusts or residues may be present.
Appropriate applications include petrochemical plants, oil refineries, natural gas installations, oil drilling platforms and other industries where non-sparking safety tools are required. Forged for the highest quality in hand tools, each tool is laser engraved for the proper Ex Zone classifications indicating the safety zones for which it can be used. CS Unitec's paving breaker tools include bull points for breaking concrete and 3" wide chisels for softer material with deeper penetration in both 1-1/8" and 1-1/4" hex shanks. Chisels for other power tools include: .401 shanks zip guns, weld flux scalers, round shank round collar chipping hammer tools and a clay spade with a 7/8" hex.


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- What is RESNET
- RESNET Standards
- RESNET Priorities
- Board of Directors
- Minutes of Board of Directors Meetings
- Minutes of RESNET Board Executive Committee Meetings
- RESNET Board Resources
- Committees
- Associate Members
- RESNET Staff
- RESNET By-Laws
- History
- Annual Reports
- RESNET Process For Enhancing The National Consistency Of HERS Index Scores
- RESNET Developing Water Efficiency Rating System
- RESNET Roll of Honor
- 2018 RESNET Board of Directors Election
- RESNET Federal Advocacy Took Kit
Across the nation the RESNET HERS Index Score is fast becoming a mainstream in the housing market. Homebuilders are having their homes energy rated and marketing the HERS Index Score of their homes, Multiple Listing Services (MLS) are incorporating the HERS Index Scores in their listings and code jurisdictions are recognizing a HERS Index Score as a building energy code compliance option. With the increased visibility of the HERS Index Score RESNET is obligated to ensure that HERS Index Scores are as consistent as possible.
This need has been made more important with the International Code Council adopting an Energy Rating Index option to the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code.
The RESNET Board of Directors have adopted a series of policies to guide the process for adopting news standards and procedures to enhance the national quality and consistency of HERS Index Scores. The policies are posted at RESNET Board Policies on Enhancing Consistency of HERS Index Scores.
RESNET has formed a Quality Improvement Working Group – Software Fixes that will develop options to achieve the RESNET board policies. RESNET is seeking input from the rating industry on what options should be considered by the working group.
Input will be accepted through April 28, 2014.
To submit your ideas click on Online Form on Options to be Considered by the RESNET Quality Improvement Working Group – Software Fixes Comments are posted real time and you will be able to review comments that were submitted by clicking on Options Submitted on Software Fixes.
Suggested will be accepted through Monday, April 28, 2014. Only input made through the online system will be accepted.


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A Paínza, a village built in the 19th century, on the North Road, 3 km from the French Road, with traditional Galician architecture, features an ethnographic museum.
Located opposite the "hórreo" (stone granary), made up of 11 stages of stone and wood, are the old farming and fruit-collecting utensils.
In 5 departments, which used to be stables, a dovecot and foreman's house, the following is on display: Forging – Shoemaking or Clog-making – Carpentry – Weights and Measures – Hearth cooker and its utensils, lamps and candles, irons, loom and other items for turning linen into cloth, bed linen, heaters, sinks, costumes from the end of the 19th centuries and curious details, revealing the region's way of life many years ago.
Visitors can also see a Brougham carriage that the family's forefathers used to get around in. Designed by the first Lord Brougham (1838), it is a covered vehicle with two seats inside and another two up front. The body is suspended on elliptic springs.


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Kickin' it "Old School" is a specialty of Cookin' Soul as evidenced by their multiple remixes. So much so, that Cookin' Soul feels ready to brave the 2pac catalog without committing what many would consider sacrilege.
But 2pac diehards can put down their pitchforks because their take on 2pac's beloved classic, "Old School" does nothing to disservice the original. It's actually quite a fun take, considering.
If you dig what they're laying down, check out the remix of that Jay Electronica song with LaTonya Givens, "Better In Tune With The Infinite."
Pac's catalog is going to hit some major anniversary milestones, so be prepared for far many, many more Pac records.
Quotable Lyrics:
I remember Mr. Magic, FLASH, Grandmaster Caz
LL raisin hell but, that didn't last
Eric B. & Rakim was, the shit to me
I flip to see a Doug E. Fresh show, with Ricky D
and Red Alert was puttin in work, with Chuck Chill
Had my homies on the hill gettin ill, when shit was real


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This former diesel power plant from the begining of the 20th century stands in a garden among other farm buildings. The entry side of the volume of an almost square floor plan is oriented towards the driveway. Its other somewhat longer side is connected with another older living wing. The main usable area of the garden is on the south side of the plot.
The dwelling unit has been built in a part of the power plant, to that, which is accessible from the longer nort-west side through the new entry. The rest of the space serves as a storage with the existing entry.
A flat, or a family house, is built into the rectangular hall of the inner dimensions 20,2x11,7 m with a gabled roof. All of the main spaces have the original window openings. The flat has two floors and a loft study. Parents and children bedrooms and a bathroom are located on the ground floor. An open living space connected to the covered terrace, from where stairs descend to the garden, and a douche with toilet are situated on the first floor. Tha main space is also illuminated by an added skyligt. A study lighted by roof windows extends over a part of the living room. Some elements of the existing truss sweep to this area. Structurally, the in-built home is a half-timbered house.Inner surfaces are smooth and white.


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Having read the articles of Charlotte Iserbyt, it struck me that my marxist indoctrination began in boot camp. The previous twelve years seemed gloriously Christian and politically incorrect. Our school was fine by me. I didn't notice anything commie about it back then. Perhaps we were too far off the main road.
Charlotte Iserbyt worked for many years at the U.S. Department of Education. Her job was to instill marxist ideology throughout our public school system. She reached a point where her outrage outweighed her willingness to continue. Then she began to expose what she knew with the passion of Elizabeth Dilling.
While reading Iserbyt's potent discussions, I canvassed my memories spanning 20 years of government work. Seeking to compare notes, I found ample proof of her thesis. In both enlisted military and subsequent civil service, I was bombarded by strong-arm brainwashing.
In contrast, throughout public school I recall a strident deference to Christian precepts in our homogenous Bible Belt town. Up through my senior year, they were still reading Bible verses to us over the school intercom. I looked forward to this because it made me feel good inside. And comforted me marvelous much. It felt like the right way to start the day.
Each morning we would get a little prayer said by a different school kid along with a verse from the King James Bible. "We'd like to congratulate the Raiders on a very fine victory last night. Now here's today's Verse read by…" We began our school days with mindful Christian solidarity. There were few among us who were not cultured in the fear and love of God. Those who were not of our cloth stood out glaringly.
It was a sheltered upbringing in our little town. Everybody knew your Daddy. Daughters were guarded like prize platters locked in china cabinets. Our cabinet had thicker glass than most.
It is of import to note how Daddy's house rules were in lock-step with the ideology of Islam. He even told me so as he read about the Muslims in those days. He pointed out how Christianity and Islam were governed by the same Law. I noticed his chair when he said this. A distinct memory.
He sat in the arm chair in the corner by the reading lamp. It's what the psychology department labels "a flashbulb memory." In college lectures, they used the Kennedy assassination as a case in point. Everybody remembers where they were and what they were doing when they got the news. Just like 9/11 was for us. I can tell you exactly where I was, how we got the news, who was sitting next to me, etc. So what Daddy said had to be of great import and beyond my ken. Because nothing about what he said at the time was sensational or traumatic to me. I gaffed it off as another of Daddy's acerbic, old-fashioned comments. But it stuck like a zygote in a fertile womb.
After high school graduation I rushed off to the recruiters. They all vied for my pen-hand, save the Marine Corps. Any realist knows that women have as much to offer Marines as they do commandos. So I wasn't insulted, not fancying a life of blood & guts combat. I just needed practical skills for future employment.
Opting for the Navy, they flew me to Orlando for basic training. Arriving at night, we were collected at the airport by military people. They carted us off in a school bus.
Bouncing along, the full bus was ominously quiet. In five minutes we arrived at a military base. There was a brief pause at the guard station and a few seconds saw us to our final destination. Horror stuck me as a masculine woman entered the bus, barking orders. Her artificial voice smote me like an iron gauntlet.
Stricken with fear, I jumped to my feet and followed the girl in front of me. We were herded like heifers into a slaughter house. Beset from all sides by angry shouting voices. Their yells felt like electric prods.
They told us to dump the contents of our hand-bags in front of us on tables. Nail clippers, aspirin, glass containers and anything pointy was confiscated. Then we were ordered to strip naked and take a shower in a large brightly-lit room. There were shower-heads lining the walls and no privacy of any kind. There must have been 60 or more of us herded into this room. There were not enough shower heads for everyone. So some of us stood in the center of the room, waiting our turn for further humiliation as we got stared at. Everything was white. I went into shock.
I don't think that shower was about hygiene. It stripped us of more than our clothes. Nudity can be used for psychological purposes. It is sometimes used during torture. That sadistic shower laid the foundation for something. I notice those who were weeks ahead of us in "training" had blank stares as they marched by. Their movements were mechanical and didn't seem human any more.
My autonomic nervous system went on skeleton crew. Digestion shut down. After two weeks they detected my condition and marched me off with others of my kind for medical evaluation and treatment. They called it "culture shock" and said that it was common in military basic training.
We stood in ranks for long periods. One morning I heard teeth hit concrete. "Don't lock your knees," they barked, as the smell of blood mounted thick air. Some got shin-splints and other injuries. They were weeded from the ranks. Not fit for duty.
Boot camp is a physical and mental screening process. If your body and mind cannot take the punishment, the government doesn't want you. Sorry about the front teeth, kid.
It dawned on me many years later that anyone who volunteers for military service is expendable.
Yesterday I read an article by J. Bruce Campbell in Veterans Today. I guess Bruce is old and bold enough to not give a damn. He wrote that not since the war for American Independence has our military engaged in a justified battle. That means somebody sacrificed centuries of American sons in wars with exo-American agendas.
Who called the shots for all these wars into which my kinsmen shouldered rifles? Great Grandfather (Confederate Cavalry, 1st Tennessee), Grandfather (WWI Cavalry), Daddy (Korea, 187th Airborne), Brother (Vietnam, USMC). Who spurred our men off to needless fights? Who stood to benefit? Was it the same joker who wrote my boot camp training manual? The same one who wrote that a soldier who has never seen battle should be armed, pushed into the fray, and let kill or be killed do the rest? I'm starting to hear the sound of reveille. Can you?
So while they were wasting our boys in wars for extra-national agenda, they cultivated marxism on the home front. During our morning drills, we were promised that if we got it right, we could sing as we marched.
It did not sink in while I was singing cadence that there was a message to the lyrics. "Sailors, you can't love one. One. Sailors you can't love one. You can't love one and still have fun. So I'm leavin' on the midnight train…"
Then came first liberty weekend. With a pal from my company, I got another jolt. I found myself in a hotel room where she had gotten herself situated with some boys from our brother company. Her casual whoredom disgusted me even less than her comfortable shamelessness. As though this was the American norm and I was the odd one. Peer pressure worked swimmingly on base, but I wanted no part of this shit.
The entire floor of a big hotel in the center of Orlando had been relegated to boot camp sailors and their vomitous revelings. It had apparently been pre-arranged between the base and this venue. Could my Navy be fostering this shit? They kept us to the strictest code of military rigors for eight weeks, then cut us loose on the town. Booze everywhere. It was a f**k-fest.
In one night I was shown what Daddy wanted to protect me from. The following summer on the beach, I learned why the Muslim veils his wife and daughters. And why the nun wears a black habit. I can think of nothing that stings harder than the ogling stare of lust.
It is interesting to note how commissioned female officers were held to a different code of conduct during my Navy tours. Lady officers dared not exhibit "enlisted behaviour" for fear of being blacklisted/ostracised/professionally doomed and stigmatised. Why do you suppose that is? "Conduct unbecoming…" they called it.
Why would our government stigmatise behaviour in officers that was encouraged and fostered in the enlisted ranks? Could it be because whoredom destroys a woman's dignity and self-respect? A crest-fallen sex slave is easy to trample under foot, command, control or boss around. Their will is gone and their spirits are broken. Women who are used as sexual commodities are demoralized. They become defective articles. How could a military woman like that give orders to anyone?
The Navy's creed is "Honor, Courage, Commitment." A whore can have no honour. Sorry to break it to ya, Ms. Magazine.
Take away a woman's dignity and you have softened her up for further abuse. Smear her character, defile her honour, tell her there is no God and you have someone with nothing left to lose. After that it's just daily bread and getting dead.
I feel the flow of a malignant undercurrent. Don't you? Rendering Christian women into common whores would serve marxist ends. It also helps to make a ship-wreck of Holy Matrimony. And thereby also the family. When you don't know who your Daddy is, you ain' got a family, bruh.
At my first duty station, there was a blonde who lived next door. She was a couple of years my senior and seemed worldly. One night she sat me down with tears in her eyes and solemnly admonished, "Never let anyone pressure you into sex. I have had so many men that I can't remember their names or faces." Another flashbulb memory. We were sitting in my quarters on my room mate's bed — the one who told me that I should wear men's cologne.
I didn't know what she meant by men's cologne until now. When a woman engages in adultery, her perfume can be damning when his wife gets a whiff of it. Not so with Aqua Velva. To boot, one's lesbian lovers get a kick out of it. Yes, they were cooking with gas at the air station.
Pregnancy out of wedlock and other issues of enlisted life appear to be by-products of marxist indoctrination. Whoredom, by my witness, is fostered in the ranks. Perhaps today's "lady" officer is given freer rein with her personal conduct. Unless the commies who run our country are trying to snow somebody about what they think of the expendable "goyische shiksa."
Naval officers are supposed to be ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps it has more to do with our placating traditions carried over from aristocratic Royal Navy roots. Kind of like the lip-service of most churches. An officer at table, for example, is supposed to know which spoon to reach for first.
Whereas enlisted men are expected to eat at troughs. Wallowing in the mire, mediocrity and blind obedience are cultivated among them by their handlers. This appears to have a sinister agenda. As though today's Trotskyites are trying to program a counterpart in America — to the uniformed rabble that became a standing army after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The red army of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was comprised largely of an intellectually-impoverished mob that hung on every word of its leadership. Because it had to. They were damn-near clueless. They don't teach you that in honors history.
According to Iserbyt, President Reagan signed agreements with the Soviets to prepare the USA for seamless union with communist academic programs. No wonder the Jews sing Reagan's praises. He sold us down the river to communism. And now, like Wilson, Lincoln, FDR and other fine pieces of work — he's not around to slap.
Communism seeks, thereby, to dumb down the masses. The public lends itself more readily to their yoke as ignorant rabble. But above all, as a Godless one. That way they are spiritually rudderless with no moral compass. So when it comes time to do what I recently saw in Afghanistan, brain-washed rabble just takes orders. Shame on them for what they are doing to Afghan civilians and their animals. They can take down the YouTube footage — but never fast enough. I saw the whole thing, you bitches.
As I was told often during my Navy days by salty lifers, "Yours is not to question why. Yours is but to do or die." Mantra of the common brute. This is the desired mindset for our highly-expendable enlisted "troops" today.
Then it was on to Civil Service. There I saw just how corrupt the government is. I have never seen so many writers of policy in the driver's seat who are loyal to a counterfeit state in the Levant. Nay indeed. Enter Jonathan Pollard.
Pollard ate lunch in our cafeteria and collected classified documents from my newly-wed husband. Nobody had a clue that Pollard was a spy for Israel. He was smooth operator. Until he got hauled out of our building in cuffs and hubby got subpoenaed. Next came the polygraph machines and G-men with their probing questions, "Ms. Pearson, have you ever thought about taking something from a store without paying for it?" I realised that they needed to get a lie out of me so they could compare it to all the truth I told.
Then there was the Department of Education, ah yes. What a hoot. I took a promotion to an office I called Sleepy Hollow. They did nothing there. My boss sat in his office so stock-still that his motion censor light went out on him. There was a pervert who looked at porn on his computer all day and sexually harassed us.
I left the frying pan for the next promotion. Should I say what "Department of…"? Better not. I quit wearing skirts and dresses when I learned why my boss kept taking me to the stairwells.
Throughout my Civil Service career I took many jobs in many different Departments. Political correctitude was pushed heavily in all of them. Women and blacks were selected for many token positions not because they were good at what they did nor because they were smart. But because they were female or black. If they were both, then so much the better.
Being in a position to see how offices ran, I soon learned that it didn't matter who held a position anyway. Because the string-pullers were hidden. Everything was a secret when it came to "who was responsible" for something. Fingers were pointed at somebody else who pointed his finger at somebody else and so on. Bureaucracy leaves a wide margin for lies and corruption. And serves as a perfect duck-blind for the marxist.
Homosexuality was praised and promoted outside of the war department. The military is "traditionally" supposed to frown on gay'ness like whoredom in the officer ranks. They didn't go to my yeoman school then. Nice boys. But queens to beat the band. Big blue sea, here they come. Lovely hair cuts. Always sharply dressed and freshly pressed. Could they dance? You bet. I cannot deny that they were fun. Best girl-friends I ever had. And even better study partners. But what they do at sea plays right into the hand of the Cult of Moloch. And that I will capitalize, Mr. bolshevik.
Charlotte Iserbyte is shooting straight about the Department of Education. I have already investigated the school system from a consumer end. They start the marxist brain-washing now in pre-school.
Take a lesson from history and from our experience. Lest you find yourself the muzzled ox who treadeth out the corn.


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A horrific crime scene lay waiting to be discovered. In the front room, Phillip Devine, a friend had spent his final moments begging for his life. He had been shot twice after sobbing that he would tell no one. The perpetrators in this crime had no compassion for the young man who was an amputee and presented little threat to the young men, both armed with knives and one with a gun. He was left to die on the couch. The babys mother screamed, begging for the life of her baby. The baby was put back in his crib as his mother, Lisa Lambert was murdered. There was a slight body under the bottom of the waterbed blankets, and as quickly as Brandon was found, Brandon was killed. A week before the murder, Brandon had undergone an event so physically and psychologically profound that fear was first and uppermost in her mind.
February 21, 1996, Falls City, Nebraska) John Lotter, convicted of 3 counts of 1st degree murder for the deaths of :Brandon Teena:, Lisa Lambert, and Philip DeVine was sentenced to death this morning in Falls City, NE's county courthouse. Lotter's accomplice, Marvin Thomas Nissen, cut a deal for life impriinst Lotter.


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At work, I recently had my "1st quarter check-in". This is the first year at work I will not be given a mid-year, or end-of-year, performance rating that goes on my record. Instead we will be using a new framework that looks at "what" I am accomplishing and "how" I go about accomplishing my work equally. The push is to help elevate our performance culture into one that goes beyond grades to a continuously coaching culture.
It got me thinking about what I am doing in my home as a leader with my family. I obviously don't want to give my kids a performance grade, but I do want to help them set and reach goals and feel like they are growing and seeing successes over time. Just like anything that is important, it requires intentional effort to do this. I need to implement some flavor of "quarterly check-ins". I'll report back how it goes.
…and I need to do the same as a parent, because I need to keep improving. My family depends on it.


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1. First find all your books by Kevin Henkes and look for more at the library.
2. These are my favorite author posters..and this packet has a Kevin Henkes Poster.
|Becca Carlton Teaching Resources
5. This is by far my favorite anchor chart at the beginning of the school year.
6. On my CKPRIMARY teaching site I added some links to stories on youtube by Kevin Henkes. They are great for snack time. I will be updating this site as the year goes on.


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Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
Tag: idols
Exodus 20:3-6
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
2 Corinthians 6:16
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.


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26 + 6=1.
History students are frequently accused, often justifiably so, of being horrible mathematicians, but the equation has significant meaning in both Irish and British history.
From May 24 to June 6, Dr. Wayne Riggs and I led 35 Flagler College students to Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England to explore the long, often strained relationship between Ireland and Great Britain. In the classes that prepared students for the tour and on the trip itself, we addressed several issues that explained how the strange formula is accurate to many and unobtainable to others.
I feared that we set the bar too high for our students and ourselves. The syllabus for both courses, "From Dublin to Derry: The Time of Troubles in Ireland" and "The Special Relationship between Britain and Ireland" promised students "a high-impact educational experience that is unique at Flagler College." To fulfill our goal, Dr. Riggs and I carefully put together a once-in-a-lifetime tour.
We started in southern Ireland, Killarney, where intense feelings of Irish nationalism still exist, and progressed through County Cork to Dublin, where the 1916 Easter Rising took place. From there, we made our way to Derry in Northern Ireland, where the infamous 1972 "Bloody Sunday" occurred and inflamed long-standing tensions between those who wanted complete Irish independence (Nationalists) and those who wanted to remain part of Britain (Unionists).
We walked the streets of Belfast, where the Time of Troubles between Catholics and Protestants, the Irish and British, still resonate. We then crossed the North Channel to explore the sense of national identity that existed in Scotland and England. The trip ended in London during the Diamond Jubilee, the nation's official celebration of Queen Elizabeth's 60th year on the throne. The tour, then, came full circle. We started in a place where Irish nationalism is strong and ended with the most dramatic celebration of British identity thus far in the 21st century.
Location and planning, though, would only be one part of our "high impact" promise. For students to fully get the most of the program, Dr. Riggs and I had to prepare them for what they would encounter on tour. To meet our lofty expectation, we each assigned a minimum of three books and two films to each class, which required about 20 pages of formal writing per student - in a four-week period. And we encouraged each student to take both classes to maximize their experience abroad.
Rewarding experience
Leading large groups of students in a class across the Atlantic remains one of the most rewarding teaching experiences of my life. No matter how many times I do it, though, I still get excited when my students see a foreign city, landmark, or historic site for the first time.
Watching them marvel at the bullet holes in the columns of Dublin's General Post Office in Dublin, for instance, while hearing them discuss what happened there in 1916 is an experience I wish all teachers could experience. (I still smile when I think of the student who shouted, in one long word, "Ohmygoshthisis wherePatrickPearse stood!!!!").
It also brings history alive for all students in a way that books, papers, lectures or a snazzy Powerpoint presentation cannot, which makes travel an educational experience that no classroom can replicate.
But as usual with these programs, it was the experiences we had that were not on the itinerary that made the biggest impact on everyone.
Hearing 'rebel songs' being sung in Killarney. Visiting a 'fairy fort' just off the Ring of Kerry.
Sitting on the basalt columns at Giant's Causeway. Watching the Queen's River Pageant from London Bridge. Having a conversation with and photo taken with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (our equivalent of president and vice-president) of Northern Ireland.
All were unexpected treats we experienced on tour that our students fully appreciated because of the hard work they put into the course before we even boarded an airplane.
Most importantly, though, travel can make a seemingly flawed mathematic formula seem alive and very real. Our students learned that as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), there are 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland and six in Northern Ireland.
Those who want a fully united "Free State" believe that Ireland will not be whole until the six northern counties rejoin the Republic. Yet many in the North oppose reunification and draw the battle lines along sectarian boundaries, which make the divisions between Catholics and Protestants both political and religious. 26+6=1, then, provided the basis for a lot of conversation between students during the trip, both while we toured Ireland and when we travel Great Britain.


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Apter, David E. 1964. "Introduction: Ideology and discontent." In Ideology and discontent, ed. D. E. Apter. New York: Free Press.
Geertz, Clifford. 1964. "Ideology as a cultural system." In Ideology and discontent, ed. D. E. Apter. New York: Free Press.
Converse, Philip. E. 1964. "The nature of belief systems in mass publics." In Ideology and Discontent, ed. D. E. Apter. New York, NY: Free Press.
Wolfinger, Raymond E., Barbara K. Wolfinger, Kenneth Prewitt, and Sheilah Rosenhack. 1964. "America's radical right: Politics and ideology." In Ideology and discontent, ed. D. E. Apter. New York: Free Press.
The edited book by David Apter is popular among students of public opinion because of the piece written by Phillip Converse, titled "The nature of belief systems in mass publics." Frankly speaking, I am sure that the chapter is the most difficult text to understand with one or two times reading of the chapter. [Probably due to my lack of English proficiency, but not entirely] Most of the sentences are broken and I had lots of experience to lose the flow of reading in the chapter.
Probably the chapter's findings or arguments are not so much complex. The mass publics are not cognitive sophisticated. Thus they hold no over-arching principles or ideologies or belief systems (Borrowed his terms, the centrality is low). There are only a few elite publics who are politically sophisticated might be called ideologue or near-ideologue. Elite publics are the main consumer of political information, and they have fixed and stable belief system. While other publics are flexible based on their own group interests or one or two issues with which they are particularly interested. These middle ranged sophisticated citizens are mainly influenced and changeable and flexible. However, extremely unsophisticated citizens are not also influenced because they have no such foundations or grounds of belief systems or centered concepts.
Anyway there are lots of other studies which support, criticize, or modify Converse's findings and conclusions.
Partly because of dissertation writing, I recently read and re-read repeatedly the chapter. Additionally, I read other three chapters: Introduction by the editor; Clifford Geertz's chapter; and Wolfinger et al.'s chapter. Why I select those three? Reasons are purely subjective and determined by recent my interest in politics and religion.
The introduction chapter seems interesting because it tells why the book is planned and why there are many many writers mobilized to fill the space from diverse perspectives. The role of ideology, according to Apter, is two-fold: Solidarity (between people and within a group) and identity (between a person and a group).
The Geertz's chapter was also interesting in part because his good writing skills and persuasive examples buttressing the relationship between ideology and cultural system (or culture, simply). The main insight of Geertz's piece is that realization of a 'political' ideology is highly dependent upon a society's cultural expression of a world or understandings of cosmos.
Wolfinger et al.'s chapter, although I do not have any information about the author, draws my attention because it discusses 'radical' 'right.' In fact the findings and competing theories the authors introduced (e.g., status anxiety, alienation, ethnic hostility, cultural resentment, religious fundamentalism, and the like) are "still" debated when explaining the surge of evangelist Republicans in Southern states and also some observations in other Islamic or Confucian political regimes that are highly authoritarian and sometimes totalitarianism. The conclusion of the authors is clear (I think too much clear): "Whatever else they [=Anticommunism Crusaders] may be, they are not Democrats" Surprisingly correspondent with modern observation of Christian Fundamentalists….
Reading old books is not enjoyable, at least to me. However, it is very useful to observe undeniable thesis, which is, "history repeats itself." Probably that would be the reason why we should go to the basic and start at the zero.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Ideology and discontent - David E. Apter (1964)
Posted by Young Min Baek at 8:08 PM
Labels: Politics, Public Opinion
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Thrive Implementation Hub Learning Space
NIRN has partnered with Thrive by Five Washington (Thrive) to build the capacity of the Thrive Implementation HUB. HUB staff integrate principles and frameworks of implementation science into their ongoing technical assistance and strategic support of evidence-based home visiting models to achieve better outcomes for children and families across Washington State. NIRN supports the HUB staff in the development of both general and implementation specific competencies through a blend of online learning, flipped classroom techniques, and intensive on-site coaching and modeling.


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Just 10 miles of scenic route separates the medieval Côte d'Azur town of Ste Maxime from its noisier, internationally celebrated neighbour, St Tropez, Mediterranean playground of the rich and famous. But for the Maximois, this short stretch along the French Riviera has become a highway to hell as up to 30,000 vehicles a day bisect the town at the height of summer, causing "monstrous" traffic jams.
Not only do the visiting hordes crawl through Ste Maxime at a snail's pace, paralysing emergency services and public transport and polluting the atmosphere with noise and fumes, but they do so without so much as a backward glance, complain the locals.
As a result, Ste Maxime suffers all the hassle and none of the benefits of St Tropez's popularity, they say. "We have had enough. For 30 years we have put up with this, but we can do so no longer," Vincent Morisse, the mayor of Ste Maxime, who led a recent street demonstration of angry citizens demanding action, told the Observer.
"It creates really monstrous jams," he added. "And it's not just tourists who are affected, but locals. Firms have difficulty making deliveries and it takes an hour and a quarter to get to the hospital; not to mention the pollution. It is catastrophic. Can you imagine the authorities letting this happen in Paris? I think not."
If you are going to get stuck in a traffic jam for up to three hours, the Côte d'Azur, where locals claim the sun shines for 300 days a year, and where the sparkling Mediterranean laps gently at pristine white-sand beaches, certainly beats the M25. Ste Maxime sits at the north of the stunning Gulf of St Tropez protected from the strong, cold and dry mistral wind by the Massif des Maures mountain range, and facing its neighbour, the preferred summer playground for the international celebrity set, and an endless stream of artists, singers, Hollywood stars and Russian oligarchs, across the gulf.
The town was founded 1,000 years ago by monks from the Lérins islands off Cannes, a few miles along the coast; the brothers started with a monastery and named the village after one of their saints, known in the Provençal Roman dialect as Santa Maxima.
For centuries, fishing was the main industry, then olive oil, wine and cork. In August 1944 the beach of Ste Maxime was at the centre of Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France. In the 20th century the village attracted artists, poets and writers. Footballer David Ginola was born here, actress Emmanuelle Béart grew up just outside the town and Jean de Brunhoff wrote his first Babar the Elephant book in Ste Maxime. Among the town's grandest visitors are members of the Swedish royal family, who own a villa in the town centre.
Unassuming Ste Maxime has never sought to compete with its more famous neighbour but it has played a vital, if unrewarded, role in the success of St Tropez, which has no train station or motorway link.
Today, however, the residents of Ste Maxime have had enough of being ignored and inconvenienced and are demanding that the regional authorities construct a bypass around them.
Jean-Pierre Duprilot, vice-president of the Ste Maxime Sites Association, which organised a demonstration of 200 residents at the end of August, said that the problem has been getting steadily worse for at least 20 years. He says that, for every 100 vehicles that enter the town, 70 leave for St Tropez. "The small traffic hold-ups used to be part of the charm of the St Tropez gulf and used to be worse in the summer when there were a lot of holidaymakers. But today we live all year round with infernal traffic jams," he said.
"For 30 years the road authorities haven't lifted a finger on this road. And in this period the traffic has increased tenfold, not to mention the fact that the population of Ste Maxime has gone from 7,000 to 12,000 inhabitants."
Morisse does not know where the money will come from to build the road, but insists that it will have to be found. "It is urgent and imperative that we have a road to take this traffic away from us. This cannot go on.".


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It's so good to share good news.
This month, the New York City Public Schools announced that, starting with the current school year, all students can receive free lunch with no questions asked. That means less stigma for kids facing food insecurity, less worrying for families, and less paperwork for school districts. And it might surprise you to learn that at the heart of this victory—carried across the finish line by a group of dedicated advocates—is a fairly common application of technology. Read more >


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Employers We Work With
Our employer partners include businesses and nonprofits. Below is a sampling of organizations which have recruited CLA students:
Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
Apple Inc.
Arthur J Gallagher
Boom Lab
C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.
City Year Milwaukee
Consolidated Graphics
DHI Mortgage
DMG Financial Group
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Ernst & Young
Ethos Group
EVINE Live
Foster Klima & Company, Inc.
General Mills
Insight Global
Kohl's Department Stores
Macy's Inc.
McGladrey LLP
Microsoft Corporation
Minnesota Water
Minnesota Zoo
Mondelez International/Nabisco
Mutual of Omaha Financial Advisors
NetSuite, Inc
Northwestern Mutual- The Columns Resource Group
Office of the Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson
Penske Truck Leasing
Securian Financial Group
SPS Commerce
St. David's Center
Student Experience
Target Corporation
Target Stores & Distribution
Teach For America
The AroundCampus Group
The Hartford
The Public Interest Network
Tolomatic, Inc.
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
UnitedHealth Group
US Foods
Verizon Wireless
Wells Fargo & Company
What Employers Say About Recruiting Through Us
We have asked our employer partners about their experiences working with us, and we are pleased to share some of their comments...
In my opinion, this is one of the best offices we work with. The Career Services office and staff is always available and extremely on top of things. They are very helpful and accommodating.
—Target Stores
CLA ranks in the top group of Career Services I work with. I appreciated the quick response time and efficiency. You took care of things before I even made the request. Thank you!
As an organization that looks for over 50 talented, idealistic recent college grads to serve as AmeriCorps members each year, we greatly value our relationship with CLA Career Services! The staff is more than willing to help us reach as many students as possible, and each year we come away with a large, strong pool of applicants. It has been a pleasure working with both Career Services and the students we end up hiring.
—College Possible
We enjoyed interviewing on campus. Your management of the interview process is efficient and organized. We really appreciate it.
—Thomson Reuters
Working with the employer relations team at the College of Liberal Arts has been a great partnership. The team has provided Teach For America with the resources we need to interview outstanding University students and graduates who are future leaders and who are aligned with our mission to eliminate educational inequity. We value our relationship with the employer relations team and look forward to meeting with promising University students in the years to come.
—Teach for America
It is evident everyone involved is sincere and passionate about the recruiting process.
—Ethos Group
Staff is awesome and very easy to work with!
—Insight Global
Very professional and accommodating. The staff was very friendly and took an interest in our organization.
—Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
What Employers Say About CLA Students
We asked some of our employer partners why they hire liberal arts students, and what they value about them. They had many positive things to say....
We recruit and hire liberal arts graduates because of their well-rounded background and the fact these student receive exposure to many areas. The culture of C.H. Robinson Worldwide is diverse, fast-paced and ever changing. We need students that have the ability to be confident in making decisions on their own and are able to communicate in an effective manner. Liberal arts students are able to switch gears quickly and are able to adapt to new and different situations easily.
—C.H. Robinson Worldwide
We think that all majors provide diversity of thought to our business. We like to hire students across all majors, who are smart and can display a potential to do well in our fast-paced environment. Google looks for well-rounded students (in and outside of the classroom) that are team oriented, strong communicators, flexible, possess strong leadership skills, demonstrate bias to action, and can navigate ambiguity. These are all skills that are not necessarily determined by the major a student chooses in college.
I would say that Liberal Arts students have the ability to navigate multiple environments. In a job that isn't within a vocational field, an employee is rarely working on an isolated task in a vacuum. They need to rely on experience, knowledge from multiple disciplines and professional communication skills to work on a team to complete complex tasks. Liberal Arts majors build just that: an ability to navigate multifaceted issues and tasks.
—Minnesota Reading Corps
We believe we define ourselves every time we hire an employee, and so hiring the right people is the key to our success at ACR. Our goal is to engage the idealism, passion and problem-solving capacity of our employees to provide the highest quality client-centered care. CLA students from the University of Minnesota have the kind of well-rounded foundation we need to provide the standard of care for which we are known.
—ACR HealthCare Group
At Target, we're looking for leaders. Regardless of their major, it could be nutrition, political science, or economics, but we're looking for the skill set that students bring to our positions at Target. These include effective communication, problem-solving, drive for results/initiative, collaboration, and relating well with others. Students are bringing a skill set, and with Target's fantastic training program, we will teach individuals the job through the skill set they bring.
—Target Headquarters


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Color in astronomical images has long been the subject of much debate. The basic ideas behind "true color" imaging are outlined below, and tips are presented for capturing better color CCD images.
Color in Astroimaging
The real problem with color in astronomy comes from the fact that color is so subjective. Everyone has a different sensitivity to color. Often adults at star parties will comment that the Orion Nebula simply looks grey, while children usually clearly see blue or green shades. Many people see bluish-green tones in planetary nebulae, but not everyone does. One of the most frequent comments from first-time stargazers about the view of Saturn through a telescope is that the planet appears white. Experienced observers usually see shades of yellow and tan, but again not everyone detects the color. How can anyone decide what color something is supposed to be in a picture if no one can agree on what color it is visually?
The next problem comes from the fact that what film or a CCD chip "sees" is not what your eye sees. The first reason is simply that a CCD is far more sensitive than your eye and will pick up more light. Also, astrophotos involve long exposures which allow even more light to build up on the film or CCD. This means that there is not necessarily a correlation between an object's visual appearance and what a CCD image of the object will look like.
The other difference between CCDs and your eye is in the color sensitivity, and this is the heart of the "true color" debate. Your eyes have a different sensitivity to each wavelength of light. The peak sensitivity of the human eye, in daylight, is about 550 nanometers (just about the same wavelength as the Sun's peak energy output). At night, looking through a telescope with dark-adapted eyes, the peak sensitivity shifts to about 500 nm, in the blue-green part of the spectrum, which is why we so easily see the blue-green color of bright nebulae which emit strongly at a wavelength of 500.7 nm. However, bright emission nebulae, such as the Orion Nebula, primarily give off red light from excited hydrogen atoms at a wavelength of 656.3 nm. During daylight, the human eye's sensitivity drops to zero at about 690 nm, while at night we have no sensitivity beyond about 620 nm. The hydrogen light at 656.3 nm eludes us entirely at night.
CCD cameras, on the other hand, are often most sensitive in the red part of the spectrum, and often can detect light well out into the near infrared portion of the spectrum, well beyond what the human eye sees. What we see and what a CCD sees are two very different things. But there are ways to get as close to "true color" as we can.
Color imaging, whether with film or CCDs, usually involves a system which tries to replicate the colors seen by the human eye. The obvious example of this is regular daylight film photography. Film manufacturers continually improve film by making it more closely approximate the color we perceive visually. If skin tones are rendered too green or too red, for example, the film is not accurately reproducing the colors as seen by our eyes. CCD imaging involves a similar idea, but with the added complication of not having any standard reference (since we can't see the colors we're trying to capture).
The idea behind tri-color imaging is to match the spectral sensitivity of the CCD to that of the eye. There are two basic types of light receptors in the human eye: rods and cones. Rods are not color sensitive and cover the entire light-sensitive area of the eye (the retina). Cones are the color detectors and cover only the central portion of the retina. This means we see color only in our central vision and not peripherally. Also, since the cones are far less sensitive than the rods in low light levels, it means we see astronomical objects best with "averted vision", looking peripherally rather than directly at an object. It also means we see essentially in black and white, unless an object is bright enough to stimulate the cones (such as a planet or very bright nebula).
Above: Locations of rods and cones in the human eye. Rods see black and white, cones see color.
There are three different types of cones, each sensitive to a different primary color. L-cones are sensitive to red light at a peak wavelength of 564 nm; M-cones detect green light with a peak wavelength of 533 nm; and S-cones see blue light with a peak wavelength of 437 nm. In an ideal situation, a filter set could be made to selectively filter light around each of these wavelengths to the CCD. In other words, light around 564 nm would transmit through a red filter to be detected by the CCD and this image would become the red portion of an RGB color image.
Above: Spectral sensitivity of the three types of cones in the human eye.
The problem with this is that the cones have varying sensitivities and quantities. For example, only 2% of the cones in the human eye are blue-sensitive cones. The peak sensitivity is in the green part of the spectrum. We are not as insensitive to blue as might be assumed from the low count of blue-sensitive cones because there a "signal boost" occurs in the vision processing area of the brain. But CCD chips typically have their highest sensitivity in red. This means that filters which transmit equally in each color would tend to yield a picture much redder and much less green than our eyes might see it.
The reason CCDs are designed with greater red sensitivity is that most nebulae emit primarily in the red part of the spectrum, so a red-insensitive CCD would not be very effective at capturing some of the most impressive celestial objects. So from the very start, we cannot expect CCDs to accurately replicate human color perception. It would be pointless to image with a camera that mimicked the response of the human eye because we would never be able to capture the spectacular hydrogen clouds that constitute the many star-forming regions of our galaxy.
Above: Typical spectral sensitivity of a CCD chip. Diagram does not factor in filter response, but red filters usually cut off around 700nm.
Above: Relative spectral sensitivity of the daylight-adapted human eye. Note the distinct difference between this and the CCD response curve.
Above: Spectral response of the dark-adapted human eye. Note the lack of red sensitivity.
Usually, the filters used for imaging have about equal transmission for each color. In order to more accurately reproduce the color balance of the eye, a longer exposure often is taken in blue light to compensate for higher red-sensitivity of the CCD. Often, a standard white-light source is used as a reference, and an exposure factor can be determined by taking an image through each filter and then calculating how long would be necessary for each image to have an equal value. For example, if a 10-second exposure through a red filter has twice the value of a 10-second exposure in blue, then a 2x exposure factor is required for an equal value through the blue filter.
Below is an image taken with the CCD camera whose spectral response is plotted in the graphic above (the SBIG ST-10XME). Note that since this camera has the greatest sensitivity in the green portion of the spectrum that the image is too green in appearance. Also, the camera is least sensitive in blue, so the dominant blue color of the Whirlpool Galaxy is lacking until the image is properly color balanced.
Above: On the left is an image taken with equal exposures in each color. On the right, the same object with a 1.3x exposure factor in red and a 1.8x exposure factor in blue to compensate for the lower sensitivities of the CCD chip in red and blue.
Compare the above images to the ones below, balanced for the day and night spectral responses of the human eye.
Above: Same image but balanced to match the spectral response of the human eye. On the left is the daylight-adapted human eye response, and on the right is the dark-adapted human eye response. In the daylight-response balanced image, there is little red sensitivity so the red color, including the many star-forming regions, is missing. The dark adapter eye has almost no red response and a very high green response, so the color is not especially pleasing, to say the least!
What true color really means, then, is balancing the colors so that the combination of the CCD spectral response and the filter transmission curves yield a balanced response in each color, red, green, and blue. In the end, if an aesthetically pleasing image is the desired result, it really does not matter if the colors are "accurate" or not. The image does not need to look right, it just needs to look good!
Determining the Proper Color Balance
So, if we cannot use the human eye as a direct reference for color balance, what do we use to determine if the colors in a CCD image are correct? The usual method is to image a true white star and balance accordingly to get a white star output in the final image. Imaging a white star through each color filter and then measuring the brightness of the star in each color will give the color balance factors as a function of CCD spectral sensitivity and filter transmission (as well as the transmission characteristics of the telescope, although that is normally considered a minor factor). The only remaining major factor to take into account is the elevation of the test star above the horizon. Since the atmosphere selectively scatters blue light at low elevations (the reason sunsets are red, for example), an object's elevation will affect its true color.
Finding a White Star
Stars of spectral class G2V are considered white stars. There is an obvious such star in the sky–the Sun. However, you need a more distant star (called a solar analog star) to image since you want to use your normal deep-sky imaging setup for this test. Below is a table of some of the most common G2V class test stars, based on information from Al Kelly's excellent website on the color imaging subject, and from information provided by Brian Skiff.
|Right Ascension
|Spectral Type
|00h 18m 40s
|-08° 03′ 04″
|00h 22m 52s
|-12° 12′ 34″
|9 Cet
|01h 41m 47s
|+42° 36′ 48″
|01h 53m 18s
|+00° 22′ 25″
|03h 19m 02s
|-02° 50′ 36″
|04h 26m 40s
|+16° 44′ 49″
|06h 24m 44s
|-28° 46′ 48″
|08h 54m 18s
|-05° 26′ 04″
|10h 01m 01s
|+31° 55′ 25″
|20 LMi
|11h 18m 11s
|+31° 31′ 45″
|Xi UMa
|13h 38m 42s
|-01° 14′ 14″
|15h 37m 18s
|-00° 09′ 50″
|15h 44m 02s
|+02° 30′ 54″
|Psi Ser
|15h 53m 12s
|+13° 11′ 48″
|39 Ser
|16h 07m 04s
|-14° 04′ 16″
|16h 15m 37s
|-08° 22′ 10″
|18 Sco
|19h 41m 49s
|+50° 31′ 31″
|16 Cyg A
|19h 41m 52s
|+50° 31′ 03″
|16 Cyg B
|20h 43m 12s
|+00° 26′ 15″
|21h 42m 27s
|+00° 26′ 20″
|23h 12m 39s
|+02° 41′ 10″
Taking a Test Exposure
To test the relative color balance of your imaging system, you will need to image a solar analog star and measure the variation in brightness through each filter. This is easily done. Imager Bart Declerq recommends imaging an out-of-focus G-type star, preferably near the zenith. If no star is available so high in the sky, an atmospheric extinction correction factor can be applied using the chart shown in the next section. Measurement of the star brightness can be done using the Information tool in MaxIm DL or similar function in other image processing software.
- Take one exposure through each color filter, red, green, and blue.
- Choose an exposure that yields a brightness between 10,000 and 50,000 (bright enough for a good signal but not saturated).
- Use the identical exposure time for each filter.
Measure the average brightness of the out-of-focus star in each image. The value should be slightly different based on the characteristics of the CCD chip and filter set. For example, the measured value of the star might be as follows:
Red Value: 19,000
Green Value: 25,000
Blue Value: 14,000
The color ratios are determined as follows:
Red Correction Factor = 1/(Red Value/Maximum Value)
Green Correction Factor = 1/(Green Value/Maximum Value)
Blue Correction Factor = 1/(Blue Value/Maximum Value)
In the above example, the green value is the maximum value so the correction factors would be:
Red Factor = 1/(19,000/25,000) = 1/0.76 = 1.32
Green Factor = 1/(25,000/25,000) = 1/1 = 1.00
Blue Factor = 1/(14,000/25,000) = 1/0.56 = 1.79
These value yield the 1.3:1.0:1.8 RGB ratio used on the Whirlpool Galaxy example image above. Most cameras have the greatest sensitivity in green or red and therefore green or red is normally the basis for comparison, but some cameras (notably the popular ST-2000) have higher blue sensitivities and might yield a ratio more like 1.7:1.3:1.0 in RGB.
Using the RGB Ratios
The RGB ratios as determined above allow you to adjust the exposure time necessary to get the best color balance possible, or to adjust the weight of each color channel in an image that was taken using standard 1:1:1 RGB ratios.
For example, if the RGB ratio is determined to be 1.3:1.0:1.8, you might use exposure times of 6.5 minutes, 5 minutes, and 9 minutes in red, green, and blue, respectively, to obtain proper color balance. These images would then be combined in the image processing software in a 1:1:1 ratio because they are already properly weighted for variations in the sensitivity of the system. Alternatively, if you already had images taken with equal exposures (say 5 minutes each), you could weight these at a 1.3:1.0:1.8 ratio in the software to compensate for the differences in sensitivity.
Atmospheric Extinction
One other consideration is the effect of the atmosphere. The lower the elevation of the object, the greater the effect of atmospheric extinction. Earth's atmosphere selectively scatters blue light more than red (which is why the sky is blue and why sunsets are red). This has the effect of reddening objects near the horizon (think of a big orange full moonrise). The chart below lists atmospheric extinction factors that can be applied to objects imaged low in the sky to attain proper color balance. The correction factors have been normalized for red = 1, meaning green and blue are added to the image as the target gets lower in the sky. An overall increase in exposure may be necessary to compensate for general light loss at low elevations (see following section). An example follows.
|Red Correction
|Green Correction
|Blue Correction
The atmospheric correction factors would be applied by multiplying the normal RGB factors by the above correction factors. If your normal RGB ratio is 1.3:1.0:1.8 and you imaged an object at an elevation of 30°, the RGB ratio would be multiplied by 1.0:1.08:1.15. The resulting RGB factors would be 1.3:1.08:2.07. The extra green and blue exposure time is necessary to compensate for the selective light loss of the atmosphere at those wavelengths.
Above: NGC253 imaged at an elevation of 30° using a 1:1:1 RGB ratio.
Above: The same image balanced with an RGB ratio of 1.3:1.0:1.8 as determined by solar analog star measurements. There is a tad too much red in this image because of atmospheric extinction.
Above: The same image but with a 1.00:1.08:1.15 atmospheric correction factor applied, resulting in a final RGB ratio of 1.2:1.0:1.9 (normalized for green).
In addition to the color shift associated with atmospheric extinction, there is a general loss of light transmission through the atmosphere with decreasing altitude. An approximation of atmospheric extinction can be approximated with the following formula:
extinction = sec z
where extinction is the number of atmospheres you are looking through (relative to "1 atmosphere" at zenith), z is the zenith angle, or angular distance from the zenith (the inverse of the altitude), and sec is the secant of the angle z. The secant is simply the inverse of the cosine of the angle. An example will help:
Say you are imaging an object which is 60° above the horizon. This is equivalent to a zenith angle of 30° degrees.
extinction = sec 30° = 1.15 atmospheres
Thus, 15% less light is reaching the telescope at an altitude of 60° than at zenith. At 30 degrees altitude you are looking through 2 atmospheres:
extinction = sec 60° = 2.00 atmospheres
The formula begins to break down at very low altitudes. The secant of 90° (the horizon) is zero, meaning by this formula, the extinction is infinite! In reality, you look through about 9 times more air at the horizon than at the zenith. The exact values are site-dependent, so it is difficult to give exact values. The table below lists approximate atmospheric extinction values for a given altitude and should be accurate enough for most purposes.
|Extinction Factor
Note that every 2.5 atmospheres of extinction is equivalent to losing one full magnitude of light from your target. It may be tempting to increase exposure time to compensate for this, and that technique will work in some cases. However, the sky background level will not decrease with altitude, unfortunately, so the limiting factor for nebulous detail stays the same. This means you gain little in terms of faint detail by extending the exposure time at low elevations.


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PF Inc. (originally part of Pharma Chemie Inc.) has been conducting extensive research with All Natural Flavoring agents now for over 25 years to produce the most palatable, best tasting companion animal health products available. Our Flavor Bases are sold on a worldwide basis, including the USA, Canada, European Union, India, Australia, and Mexico.
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In the nutritional supplement, animal health industry, our "Artificial Powdered Meat Flavor; PC-0030", "Artificial Powdered Meat Flavor; PC-0060" (Hypo-Allergenic Flavor Base), "Natural Meat Powdered Flavor; PC-0050", "Natural Chicken Powdered Flavor; PC-0330" and "Sweet Apple and Molasses Flavor; PC-0555" are used in over 200+ different companion animal, nutritional supplements. These Flavor Bases are used in canine, feline, and equine chewable tablets, soft chews, granules, and semi-solids to produce the most palatable and stable dosage forms available today.
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1. CAS(E) This Sketch Challenge #212
2. Happy Little Stampers March Challenge
(Anything Goes with Dies)
Techniques: Stamping, sponging, die cutting, fussy cutting, coloring
Size: A2
Stampin' Up! Materials
Stamps: "Dragonfly Dreams"
Ink: More Mustard
Stampin' Write Dye Markers: Hello Honey, Basic Black (dash lines)
Cardstock: Whisper White, Basic Black, Hello Honey
Misc.: Dimensionals foam
Other Materials
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Dies: Paper Smooches "Honeycomb" & "Happy Birthday Words"
Misc.: ZIG Wink of Stella (clear)