text:
The recent stock market rally has been good for investors—and by extension advisors. But will it last?
The research firm Spectrem Group, based in Lake Forest, Ill., reports that the number of new millionaires rose by 400,000, to 8.99 million, in 2012 (Spectrem excluded primary residences from net worth).
The "comeback" continues for the fourth year, after millionaire households declined to 6.7 million in 2008, but the total millionaire population remains below the pre-recession peak in 2007 of 9.2 million, according to the firm.
The ranks of all affluent investors increased in 2012:
• Those with $100,000 or more in net worth not including primary residence climbed to 37.4 million from 36.7 million in 2011 and 31.2 million in 2008. All other wealth categories are included in this group.
• Those with $500,000 or more in net worth NIPR rose to 14.3 million from 13.8 million in 2011 and 11.3 million in 2008.
• Those with $5 million or more in net worth NIPR advanced to 1.14 million from 1.078 million in 2011 and 840,000 in 2008.
• Those with $25 million or more in net worth NIPR grew by 10,000 to 117,000 in 2012 and up from 84,000 in 2008.
While the ranks of investors with at least $100,000 in net worth have finally surpassed the previous 2007 high, the numbers of households at the higher wealth levels are still below their 2007 highs. In general, though, those with more wealth have been better able to weather the downturn because of the diversity of their investments and willingness to stick, in part, with stocks.
"Just as the stock market crash triggered a steep drop in the net worth of wealthy investors, the rebound in equities has made it possible for many affluent households to largely recover," George Walper Jr., president of Spectrem Group, said in a statement. "Wealthy investors who minimized stock ownership in recent years, however, have not seen their assets grow at the same rate."
As a group, wealthy investors with $500,000 up to $1 million showed the greatest reluctance to rely on stocks in recent years and held more of their assets in cash instruments longer than other wealth segments. As a result, that category of investors has the farthest yet to go before reaching its pre-recession total, even compared with those with $100,000 to $500,000 in net worth.


text:
Noncredit Classes
Students can earn special certificates and/or diplomas by enrolling in a number of noncredit programs. Noncredit courses are tuition free. However, students are expected to buy books and supplies and a few courses require the purchase of additional materials. In many cases, you can enroll in classes by attending the first class meeting. You can also enroll after the start of the semester. For more information, speak to a counselor or the course instructor.
Area of Studies

subset: commoncrawl


text:
We know finding the perfect gift can be tricky, so why not give them the gift of choice with a Tinka the Label gift card.
Gift cards are delivered by email and contain instructions to redeem them at checkout. Our gift cards have no additional processing fees.
Valid for 1 year from the time of purchase.
"Due to the spread of COVID19, all parcels will no longer require a signature for delivery or collection".
Due to this, all orders are now sent via standard parcel post.
Domestic orders are currently operating as usual, with delays expected only for international orders.
This may change from day-to-day, so if you would like up to date information regarding deliveries with Australia Post, please click here
We want you to enjoy your piece ASAP and will dispatch your order within 1-2 business days of payment. Depending on your location, domestic orders are usually delivered within 4-5 business days.
Every detail counts! We ensure every piece is individually inspected before we secure each item within our signature gift-wrapping.
shipping method
For the safety of your order, all parcels are sent with signature on delivery.
Shipping rates are automatically calculated by weight at time of checkout.
Orders exceeding 500g will incur a higher shipping rate.
need to speed up the process?
Upgrade your shipping to signature + express
We'll send you a confirmation email with your order's tracking number so you don't have to wait by the door for Mr postman!
worldwide shipping
We ship to all countries accepted by Australia Post. Shipping rates are automatically calculated at time of checkout.
If you can't see your destination for shipping, please contact us via direct chat or via email email@example.com
To make life easier, please ensure you provide the correct shipping information, as once purchases have been dispatched, they are unable to be altered, cancelled or redirected.
We are here to help wherever we can, so if you have a question regarding your order, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com
Have more questions? Click here and we'll take you directly to our full Policies & Procedures
There's a lot of love when hand making our jewellery, and just as much should be used when taking take of it! If dropped, items may become chipped, loose, or break, so please treat them with care as we are unable to refund items that are damaged due to negligence. Please consider the following when purchasing from us.
Like anything, the more you look after it, the longer it will last; so to extend the life of your item, please take the following precautions:
· avoid moisturisers, chlorine, hairspray, perfumes and direct contact with water, as some metals may react to these products and may cause discolouration or tarnishing of the product.
· keep your jewellery stored in our gift packaging away from extreme heat, moisture & harsh lighting and ensure each piece is separated from the other to avoid tangling, rubbing or scratching from other jewels.
· Our items consist of gemstones, crystals and glass, and should be treated with the utmost care. Chips, breaks or damage to these will not be treated as a fault and will not be valid for a refund or exchange.
Our products are handmade and may have slight variances, tool marks, uneven surfaces, colour variances and minor flaws. Due to differences in your computer monitor colours and finishes may vary slightly from the actual product shown. Please take this into consideration when purchasing from us.
hot tip
When wearing makeup, wipe your jewellery with a cloth after use as makeup can build up over time and impact the appearance of jewellery.
Have more questions? Click here and we'll take you directly to our full Policies & Procedures
exchanges – change of mind
Please choose your items carefully as we are unable to offer exchanges for change of mind.
In the unlikely event a product is faulty, we will gladly exchange, repair or refund the item. You must contact email@example.com within 48hours of receiving the item notifying us of the fault, along with your invoice number, proof of purchase and photos of the damage.
Items must be returned in its original packaging, and sent via signature on delivery. It is the customer's responsibility to ensure it arrives within 14 days of order being submitted by allowing ample shipping time.
Photographic evidence of the shipping receipt must also be emailed to firstname.lastname@example.com as proof of shipment.
We take no responsibility for lost or damaged returns.
We will assess the faulty item and will gladly refund, exchange or repair the item if the item appears to be the fault of craftsmanship. If the item is found to be a fault of the customer, all associated costs will be the responsibility of said person.
If you have damaged your piece and would like us to repair it, please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com informing us of the damage and attaching pictures for reference. Buyer is responsible for return shipping costs and associated repair costs.
Please ensure your item(s) are sent in its original packaging as we take no responsibility in damages caused during freight.
Have more questions? Click here and we'll take you directly to our full Policies & Procedures
Our natural gemstones and crystals are all beautifully unique and will vary in size, shape and colour. Because of this, please note that your piece may not be the one as displayed in the photo, but still beautiful all the same.
up-cycled jewellery
The go-to jewellery collection for when you want something truly unique! Our up-cycled jewellery is a unique pairing of modern day materials with vintage and/or recycled components, making each and every piece in this collection one-of-a-kind. That's right – there is only ONE of each design, meaning you and only YOU will get to enjoy it!
Due to the nature of these rare, recycled objects, we cannot specify the materials of the individual recycled objects.
Have more questions? Click here and we'll take you directly to our full Policies & Procedures
We want to highlight the diversity of the individuals who wear Tinka The Label & are offering $5 online credit for every photo we regram to our social media channels.
All you need to do is:
· Take a photo of you in your piece of tinka
· Upload to social media tagging @tinkathelabel with #tinkatribe
· Earn $5 online credit for every photo we regram (up to $50)
Help spread the love by giving us a follow @tinkathelabel (we'll love you forever)


text:
Principal Proposed Uses
Various species of yucca plant were used as food by Native Americans and early California settlers. Yucca contains high levels of soapy compounds known as saponins that also made it a useful natural shampoo and soap.
What Is Yucca Used for Today?
One double-blind placebo-controlled trial reported in 1975 concluded that use of yucca reduces arthritis symptoms (both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis ). 1 However, this study was highly preliminary in nature, and there has not been any subsequent confirming evidence.
Animal and test tube studies suggest that various yucca extracts may have antiviral, antifungal, antiprotozoal (e.g., Giardia) and antibacterial effects, 3-6 but no human trials have been reported for potential uses based on these actions.
Yucca extracts are also widely used to enhance the foaming effect of carbonated beverages.
Safety Issues
Yucca is generally accepted as safe based on its long history of use as a food. However, it sometimes causes diarrhea if taken to excess. Safety in young children, pregnant or nursing women, or those with severe liver or kidney disease has not been established. Yucca may have slight estrogen-like actions, 2 and for this reason should not be taken by women who have had breast cancer.
Revision Information
- Reviewer: EBSCO CAM Review Board
- Review Date: 12/2015 -
- Update Date: 12/15/2015 -


text:
Improving performance
zh-CN:Maximizing Performance This article is a retrospective analysis and basic rundown about gaining performance in Arch Linux.
- 1 The basics
- 2 Storage devices
- 2.1 Device Layout
- 2.2 Partitioning
- 2.3 Choosing and tuning your filesystem
- 2.4 Compressing /usr
- 2.5 Tuning for an SSD
- 2.6 RAM disks / tuning for really slow disks
- 4 Graphics
- 5 RAM and swap
- 6 Boot time
- 7 Application-specific tips
- 8 Laptops
The basics
Know your system
The best way to tune a system is to target the bottlenecks, that is the subsystems that limit the overall speed. They usually can be identified by knowing the specifications of the system, but there are some basic indications:
- If the computer becomes slow when big applications, like OpenOffice.org and Firefox, are running at the same time, then there is a good chance the amount of RAM is insufficient. To verify available RAM, use this command, and check for the line beginning with -/+buffers:
$ free -m
- If boot time is really slow, and if applications take a lot of time to load the first time they are launched, but run fine afterwards, then the hard drive is probably too slow. The speed of a hard drive can be measured using the hdparm command:
$ hdparm -t /dev/sdx
This is only the pure read speed of the hard drive, and is not a valid benchmark, but a value superior to 40MB/s (assuming drive tested while idle) can be considered decent on an average system. hdparm can be found in the Official Repositories.
- If the CPU load is consistently high even when RAM is available, then lowering CPU usage should be a priority. CPU load can be monitored in many ways, like using the top command:
$ top
- If the only applications lagging are the ones using direct rendering, meaning they use the graphic card, like video players and games, then improving the graphic performance should help. First step would be to verify if direct rendering simply is not enabled. This is indicated by the glxinfo command:
$ glxinfo | grep direct
glxinfo is part of mesa-demos package.
The first thing to do
The simplest and most efficient way of improving overall performance is to run lightweight environments and applications.
- Use a window manager instead of a Desktop Environment. Choices include dwm, wmii, Awesome, Openbox, Fluxbox and JWM.
- Choose a minimal Desktop Environment over a heavier one like GNOME or KDE. Something like LXDE or Xfce.
- Using lightweight applications. Search Common Applications for console applications and the Light and Fast Applications Awards threads in the forum: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012
- Remove unnecessary daemons.
Almost all tuning brings drawbacks. Lighter applications usually come with less features and some tweaks may make a system unstable, or simply require time to implement and maintain. This page tries to highlight those drawbacks, but the final judgment rests on the user.
The effects of optimization are often difficult to judge. They can however be measured by benchmarking tools
Storage devices
Device Layout
One of the biggest performance gains comes from having multiple storage devices in a layout that spreads the operating system work around. Having
/var and
/usr on separate disks is dramatically faster than a single disk layout where they are all on the same hard drive.
Swap Files
Creating your swap files on a separate disk can also help quite a bit, especially if your machine swaps frequently. It happens if you do not have enough RAM for your environment. Using KDE with all the features and applications that come along may require several GiB of memory, whereas a tiny window manager with console applications will perfectly fit in less than 512 MiB of memory.
RAID Benefits
If you have multiple disks (2 or more) available, you can set them up as a software RAID for serious speed improvements. In a RAID 0 array there is no redundancy in case of drive failure, but for each additional disk you add to the array, the speed of the disk becomes that much faster. The smart choice is to use RAID 5 which offers both speed and data protection.
Multiple Hardware Paths
An internal hardware path is how the storage device is connected to your motherboard. There are different ways to connect to the motherboard such as TCP/IP through a NIC, plugged in directly using PCIe/PCI, Firewire, Raid Card, USB, etc. By spreading your storage devices across these multiple connection points you maximize the capabilities of your motherboard, for example 6 hard-drives connected via USB would be much much slower than 3 over USB and 3 over Firewire. The reason is that each entry path into the motherboard is like a pipe, and there is a set limit to how much can go through that pipe at any one time. The good news is that the motherboard usually has several pipes.
More Examples
- Directly to the motherboard using pci/PCIe/ata
- Using an external enclosure to house the disk over USB/Firewire
- Turn the device into a network storage device by connecting over tcp/ip
Note also that if you have a 2 USB ports on the front of your machine, and 4 USB ports on the back, and you have 4 disks, it would probably be fastest to put 2 on front/2 on back or 3 on back/1 on front. This is because internally the front ports are likely a separate Root Hub than the back, meaning you can send twice as much data by using both than just 1. Use the following commands to determine the various paths on your machine.
USB Device Tree
$ lsusb -tv
PCI Device Tree
$ lspci -tv
The partition layout can influence the system's performance. Sectors at the beginning of the drive (closer to the center of the disk) are faster than those at the end. Also, a smaller partition requires less movements from the drive's head, and so speed up disk operations. Therefore, it is advised to create a small partition (10gb, more or less depending on your needs) only for your system, as near to the beginning of the drive as possible. Other data (pictures, videos) should be kept on a separate partition, and this is usually achieved by separating the home directory (/home/user) from the system (/).
Choosing and tuning your filesystem
Choosing the best filesystem for a specific system is very important because each has its own strengths. The beginner's guide provides a short summary of the most popular ones. You can also find relevant articles here.
- XFS: Excellent performance with large files. Low speed with small files. A good choice for /home.
- Ext3: Average performance, reliable.
- Ext4: Great overall performance, reliable, has performance issues with sqlite and some other databases.
- JFS: Good overall performance, very low CPU usage, extremely fast resume after power failure.
- Btrfs: Probably best overall performance (with compression) and lots of features. Still in heavy development and fully supported, but considered as unstable. Do not use this filesystem yet unless you know what you are doing and are prepared for potential data loss.
Mount options
Mount options offer an easy way to improve speed without reformatting. They can be set using the mount command:
$ mount -o option1,option2 /dev/partition /mnt/partition
To set them permanently, you can modify /etc/fstab to make the relevant line look like this:
/dev/partition /mnt/partition partitiontype option1,option2 0 0
The mount options
noatime,nodiratime are known for improving performance on almost all file-systems. The former is a superset of the latter (which applies to directories only --
noatime applies to both files and directories). In rare cases, for example if you use mutt, it can cause minor problems. You can instead use the
relatime option (NB relatime is the default in >2.6.30)
See Ext3.
See Ext4.
See JFS Filesystem.
For optimal speed, just create an XFS file-system with:
$ mkfs.xfs /dev/thetargetpartition
Yep, so simple — since all of the "boost knobs" are already "on" by default.
data=writeback mount option improves speed, but may corrupt data during power loss. The
notail mount option increases the space used by the filesystem by about 5%, but also improves overall speed. You can also reduce disk load by putting the journal and data on separate drives. This is done when creating the filesystem:
$ mkreiserfs –j /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb1
Replace /dev/hda1 with the partition reserved for the journal, and /dev/hdb1 with the partition for data. You can learn more about reiserfs with this article.
See defragmentation and compression.
Compressing /usr
A way to speed up reading from the hard drive is to compress the data, because there is less data to be read. It must however be decompressed, which means a greater CPU load. Some file systems support transparent compression, most notably Btrfs and reiserfs4, but their compression ratio is limited by the 4k block size. A good alternative is to compress
/usr in a squashfs file, with a 64k(128k) block size, as instructed in this Gentoo forums thread. What this tutorial does is basically to compress the
/usr folder into a compressed squashfs file-system, then mounts it with aufs. A lot of space is saved, usually two thirds of the original size of
/usr, and applications load faster. However, each time an application is installed or reinstalled, it is written uncompressed, so
/usr must be re-compressed periodically. Squashfs is already in the kernel, and aufs2 is in the official repositories, so no kernel compilation is needed if using the stock kernel.
Since the linked guide is for Gentoo, the next commands outline the steps specifically for Arch. To get it working, install the packages aufs2 and squashfs-tools. These packages provide the aufs-modules and some userspace-tools for the squash-filesystem.
Now we need some extra directories where we can store the archive of
/usr as read-only and another folder where we can store the data changed after the last compression as writeable:
# mkdir -p /squashed/usr/{ro,rw}
Now that we got a rough setup you should perform a complete system-upgrade since every change of content in
/usr after the compression will be excluded from this speedup. If you use prelink you should also perform a complete prelink before creating the archive. Now it is time to invoke the command to compress
# mksquashfs /usr /squashed/usr/usr.sfs -b 65536
These parameters/options are the ones suggested by the Gentoo link but there might be some room for improvement using some of the options described here.
Now to get the archive mounted together with the writeable folder it is necessary to edit
/etc/fstab and add the following lines:
/squashed/usr/usr.sfs /squashed/usr/ro squashfs loop,ro 0 0 usr /usr aufs udba=reval,br:/squashed/usr/rw:/squashed/usr/ro 0 0
Now you should be done and able to reboot. The original author suggests to delete all the old content of
/usr, but this might cause some problems if anything goes wrong during some later re-compression. It is safer to leave the old files in place.
A Bash script has been created that will automate the process of re-compressing (read updating) the archive since the tutorial is meant for Gentoo and some options do not correlate to what they should be in Arch.
Tuning for an SSD
RAM disks / tuning for really slow disks
The only way to directly improve CPU speed is overclocking. As it is a complicated and risky task, it is not recommended for anyone except experts. The best way to overclock is through the BIOS. When purchasing your system, keep in mind that most Intel motherboards are notorious for disabling the capacity to overclock.
Many Intel i5 and i7 chips, even when overclocked properly through the BIOS or UEFI interface, will not report the correct clock frequency to acpi_cpufreq and most other utilities. This will result in excessive messages in dmesg about delays unless the module acpi_cpufreq is unloaded and blacklisted. The only tool known to correctly read the clock speed of these overclocked chips under Linux is i7z. The i7z package is available in the community repo and i7z-svn is available in the AUR.
A way to modify performance (ref) is to use Con Kolivas' desktop-centric kernel patchset, which, among other things, replaces the Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) with the Brain Fuck Scheduler (BFS).
Kernel PKGBUILDs that include the BFS patch can be installed from the AUR or Unofficial User Repositories. See the respective pages for linux-ckAUR and Linux-ck wiki page, linux-bfsAUR or linux-pfAUR for more information on their additional patches.
Verynice is a daemon, available in the AUR as veryniceAUR, for dynamically adjusting the nice levels of executables. The nice level represents the priority of the executable when allocating CPU resources. Simply define executables for which responsiveness is important, like X or multimedia applications, as goodexe in
/etc/verynice.conf. Similarly, CPU-hungry executables running in the background, like make, can be defined as badexe. This prioritization greatly improves system responsiveness under heavy load.
Ulatencyd is a daemon that controls how the Linux kernel will spend its resources on the running processes. It uses dynamic cgroups to give the kernel hints and limitations on processes. It supports prioritizing processes for disk I/O as well as CPU shares, and uses more clever heuristics than Verynice. In addition, it comes with a good set of configs out of the box.
One note of warning, by default it changes the default scheduler of all block devices to cfq, to disable behavior see Ulatencyd.
Xorg.conf configuration
Graphic performance heavily depends on the settings in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf. There are tutorials for Nvidia, ATI and Intel cards. Improper settings may stop Xorg from working, so caution is advised.
Driconf is a small utility that can be found in the official repositories that allows you to change the direct rendering settings for open source drivers. Enabling HyperZ can drastically improve performance.
GPU Overclocking
Overclocking a graphics card is typically more expedient than with a CPU, since there are readily accessible software packages which allow for on-the-fly GPU clock adjustments. For ATI users, get rovclockAUR, and Nvidia users should get nvclock in the extra repository. Intel chipsets users can install GMABooster from with the gmaboosterAUR AUR package.
The changes can be made permanent by running the appropriate command after X boots, for example by adding it to
~/.xinitrc. A safer approach would be to only apply the overclocked settings when needed.
RAM and swap
Relocate files to tmpfs
Relocate files, such as your browser profile, to a tmpfs file system, including
/tmp, or
/dev/shm for improvements in application response as all the files are now stored in RAM.
Use an active management script for maximal reliability and ease of use.
Refer to the Profile-sync-daemon wiki article for more information on syncing browser profiles.
Refer to the Anything-sync-daemon wiki article for more information on syncing any specified folder.
The swappiness represent how much the kernel prefers swap to RAM. Setting it to a very low value, meaning the kernel will almost always use RAM, is known to improve responsiveness on many systems. To do that, simply add these lines to
vm.swappiness=20 vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
To test and more on why this may work, take a look at this article.
Compcache / Zram
Compcache, nowadays replaced by the zram kernel module, creates a device in RAM and compresses it. If you use for swap means that part of the RAM can hold much more information but uses more CPU. Still, it is much quicker than swapping to a hard drive. If a system often falls back to swap, this could improve responsiveness. Zram is in mainline staging (therefore its not stable yet, use with caution).
The AUR package zramswapAUR provides an automated script fot setting up such swap devices with optimal settings for your system (such as RAM size and CPU core number). The script creates one zram device per CPU core with a total space equivalent to the RAM available. To do this automatically on every boot:
- If you use initscripts, add
zramswapto the DAEMONS array in
- If you use systemd, enable
zramswap.servicevia systemctl.
You will have a compressed swap with higher priority than your regular swap which will utilize multiple CPU cores for compessing data.
Using the graphic card's RAM
In the unlikely case that you have very little RAM and a surplus of video RAM, you can use the latter as swap. See Swap on video ram.
Preloading is the action of putting and keeping target files into the RAM. The benefit is that preloaded applications start more quickly because reading from the RAM is always quicker than from the hard drive. However, part of your RAM will be dedicated to this task, but no more than if you kept the application open. Therefore preloading is best used with large and often-used applications like Firefox and OpenOffice.
Go-preload is a small daemon created in the Gentoo forum. To use it, first run this command in a terminal for each program you want to preload at boot:
# gopreload-prepare program
Then, as instructed, press Enter when the program is fully loaded. This will add a list of files needed by the program in
/usr/share/gopreload/enabled. To load all lists at boot, add
gopreload to your DAEMONS array in
/etc/rc.conf. To disable the loading of a program, remove the appropriate list in
/usr/share/gopreload/enabled or move it to
A more automated approach is used by Preload. All you have to do is enable it with this command:
# systemctl enable preload
It will monitor the most used files on your system, and with time build its own list of files to preload at boot.
Readahead is a tool that can cache files before they are needed and help accelerate program loading.
Boot time
You can find tutorials with good tips in the article Improve Boot Performance.
Suspend to RAM
The best way to reduce boot time is not booting at all. Consider suspending your system to RAM instead.
Application-specific tips
The Firefox Tweaks article offers good tips; notably turning off anti-phishing and cleaning the SQlite database. See also: Firefox in Ramdisk.
Firefox in the official repositories is built with the profile guided optimization flag enabled. You may want to use it in your custom build. To do this append
ac_add_options --enable-profile-guided-optimization
to your mozconfig.
See Ccache.
See Speed up LibreOffice.
See Improve Pacman Performance.
See Speed up SSH.
See Laptop.


text:
Naomi Novik's beloved series returns, with Capt. Will Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire once again taking to the air against the broadsides of Napoleon's forces and the friendly—and sometimes not-so-friendly—fire of British soldiers and politicians who continue to suspect them of divided loyalties, if not outright treason.
For Laurence and Temeraire, put out to pasture in Australia, it seems their part in the war has come to an end just when they are needed most. Newly allied with the powerful African empire of the Tswana, the French have occupied Spain and brought revolution and bloodshed to Brazil, threatening Britain's last desperate hope to defeat Napoleon.
So the British government dispatches Arthur Hammond from China to enlist Laurence and Temeraire to negotiate a peace with the angry Tswana, who have besieged the Portuguese royal family in Rio—and as bait, Hammond bears an offer to reinstate Laurence to his former rank and seniority as a captain in the Aerial Corps. Temeraire is delighted by this sudden reversal of fortune, but Laurence is by no means sanguine, knowing from experience that personal honor and duty to one's country do not always run on parallel tracks.
Laurence and Temeraire—joined by the egotistical fire-breather Iskierka and the still-growing Kulingile, who has already surpassed Temeraire in size—embark for Brazil, only to meet with a string of unmitigated disasters that leave the dragons and their human friends forced to make an unexpected landing in the hostile territory of the Inca empire, where they face new unanticipated dangers.
Now with the success of the mission balanced on a razor's edge, and failure looking more likely by the minute, the unexpected arrival of an old enemy will tip the scales toward ruin. Yet even in the midst of disaster, opportunity may lurk—for one bold enough to grasp it.
Praise for Naomi Novik and her novels of Temeraire
"Novik's influences run the gamut from Jane Austen to Patrick O'Brian, with a side trip through Anne McCaffrey. Her books are completely involving and probably addictive, their central conceit explored in clever detail with a great deal of wit and historical insight." — San Francisco Chronicle
"These are beautifully written novels: not only fresh, original, and fast-paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart." — Peter Jackson
"A gripping adventure full of rich detail and the impossible wonder of gilded fantasy." — Entertainment Weekly
"A new writer is soaring on the wings of a dragon." — The New York Times
"[This is] a glorious series whose future status as a genre classic is now assured." — SF Reviews
Arthur Hammond prided himself on a certain degree of insensibility in the cause of duty — an indifference to physical discomfort and even to social awkwardness — a squelching of the natural repugnances, when these should interfere with the progress of a diplomatic mission. Other men, blessed with a greater share of the graces, could afford delicacy: he acknowledged himself a blunter instrument, and if he must be so, he must be the ideal blunt instrument — must be seen to be as heedless of himself as of others, the only possible justification — to be thought of, if grudgingly, "Oh, Hammond — intolerable, but he will see the job through."
So he had cultivated where native tendency led, and seized without compunction or politesse whatever opportunity offered itself, with the consequence that he could while not yet thirty years of age call himself ambassador plenipotenary to China: a post which he himself had contrived to establish.
And which in turn had led him to his present miserable state, which put to bitter test his determined self-neglect: frost grimed over the surface of the woolen blankets which he had wrapped even over his head, and the hideous swoop-and-lift of the great pale-blue wings as the dragon dived to eat–at intervals too far apart to grow used to, and yet too near to recover fully from one to the other. Hunger warred with nausea at every moment; there was meat and rice in his satchel, but he scarcely managed to worm his hand out of the coverings to feed himself once a day, and half his provisions were taken off by the wind in any case. He subsisted mostly on the strong rice wine in his flask, in rationed swallows, and passed from one day to another in a daze of blurred vision — his glasses were carefully tucked inside his coat — and illness.
His figurative insensibility had become, by the end of three weeks, nearly a literal one: he did not notice for a long time when the descent at last began, and when the courier folded her wings and put her head around and said, "We have had a very pleasant flight," Hammond was unable to remove himself from the harness for half an hour together, hands shaking and clumsy.
Shen Li politely did not remark on his difficulties, but bent her head to the water-hole and drank very deeply for a long stretch; then she raised her head and shook off the water from her muzzle. "I do not see the most honorable Lung Tien Xiang," she observed, while Hammond continued to struggle with the clasps, "but you see the pavilion which he has commanded to be built, there on the mountain — "
Hammond did not see, until he had managed to wrest out his glasses and wipe the lenses, and peering saw the pavilion standing on a cliffside at the far end of the valley where Shen Li had landed. It was an ambitious edifice, something neighbor to the Parthenon in size by the columns which paced out its perimeter, as yet without a roof and circled round by makeshift huts and the columns of a yellow stone which matched the face of the cliff.
"Yes, I do; but are we not very far away?" Hammond said — or meant to say; a dry croak was all that emerged, and he gave up the attempt to converse, in favor of getting off the harness. At the moment he felt he would gladly have walked all the remaining distance in bare feet, over thorns, before going aloft again.
He let himself down from Shen Li's back in the indecorously slow manner used in China only by small children and the infirm, moving one hand or foot at a time. When he had reached the ground he sank down upon a broad smooth stone near the waterside.
"Perhaps I will go and hunt before we continue to the pavilion, if you would care to compose yourself a little," Shen Li said, a hint he could not manage to be ashamed to require. She shook out the immense wings and went aloft in a scattering of leaves and pebbles. Left behind, Hammond sat and gazed at the surface, churned-dark, and imagined drinking: the reality should have to wait another half-hour, he thought, before he might dare trust his legs to carry him across the two yards separating him from the water.
He gradually became aware, as the sun penetrated the intense chill which had settled into him, that the day was immensely hot. In Peking it was presently winter; it was as though he had been aloft for months instead of three weeks, or transported by some fairy-tale mechanism into another season. He began weakly to disentangle himself from one blanket and then another, more urgently as sweat gathered and rolled down his back, until at last he gave up all dignity and put his head and arms down and wriggled out of the rest. Abandoning his cocoon and dignity both, he simply crawled over the rock to the water and put his face into its cool relief.
He lifted it out dripping and rolled over onto his back, gasping, for once wholly aware of his body and grateful beyond measure for warmth and sated thirst, and then a pair of clawed, scaled limbs lunged flashing out from the bushes, seized upon the pile of bundling, and dragged it out of sight: he had only a glimpse of a sawtoothed maw and glittering black eyes, and then all vanished.
Hammond stared, and then leaped to his feet: his legs wavered and shook, and he fled in a shambling stumbling run, shuddering away from every branch and leaf which trembled in the wind. Horror gave him strength, and the hissed disappointment behind him: the mistake had been discovered. But he was unequal to the task; he felt a peculiar stirring beneath his feet, and he halted: a head was peering out from the bushes ahead, hungry and malicious, and there was no shelter anywhere to be seen; he was alone.
Though it evidently preferred to hunt from ambush, the creature was not unwilling to confront solitary prey; it crept one leg and then another out of the shrub-growth and came towards him at a slow deliberate pace. It had forelegs with long many-jointed talons, scaled in dark shades of brown and green, and heavy sloping shoulders. When Hammond turned to flee, there was another half-emerged from a hole up the slope a little way, watching, jaw hung open in a gruesomely eager smile, and another two heads just peering out.
His breath was loud in his ears, labored, even while terror held him for a moment immobile; then he was running, hopelessly, and crying out, "Shen Li! Shen Li!" in hiccoughed bursts as he scrambled up the one narrow rocky slope barren of growth, with the sleek bodies flowing almost leisurely in pursuit.
He heard a coughing note behind him which might have been a noise of amusement going around the creatures, and then he fell over the far side and tumbling came to rest at the feet of another man: a ragged backwoods hunter, bearded and dusty, in loose shirt and trousers and a broad-brimmed hat with, oh the blessings of Heaven, a rifle in his hand — but he was only one man, and already the five scaly heads were looking over the ridge down at the both of them.
The hunter did not pause; he raised the rifle and fired, but over the creatures' heads, and then lowering the gun said, "That is enough: be off, the lot of you; or we will clear your nest out to the bare rock."
The creatures hissed, and then as quickly, they vanished: a terrible immense shadow had fallen over them, the ground trembling. Hammond only just swallowed a shriek of dismay: there were teeth upon teeth gleaming around an endless red mouth, and an inhuman voice saying, "Oh! We ought to, anyway; how dare the bunyips, when they know very well I will not have them hunting men here."
"Temeraire," said Hammond, gulping, "that is Temeraire; it is all right," a reassurance to himself which he did not entirely believe; every nerve quivered with desire to flee.
"Hammond?" the huntsman said.
Hammond stared up at him even while taking the hand which had been offered him: a broad and callused grip, and skin tanned dark beneath the shaggy yellow beard; blue eyes; and Hammond said slowly, "Captain Laurence? Is that you?"
Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik is now in fine US bookstores!


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I am a one-man modding army. I do this for fun and for the love of games and gaming. Not for profit. Games are art. They are culture. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise. This is NOT an "industry". I am the Creator of Fairy Tale for Civilization IV (2010), Dibella's Watch for Oblivion (2011) and Frontier for Skyrim (2012-13).
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.
The Imperial symbol, the Iron Rose. It is the symbol of the unified Free World, the Principality Cross with four eagles in between each arm. Inspired by the Pour le Merité Order.


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A Wisconsin Usonian Home: 37 Years of Energy History
A version of this article appears in the July/August 2009 issue of Home Energy Magazine.
July 01, 2009
Not your average homeowners - this couple has kept energy use data for 37 years.
In 1970, my wife, Ankie, and I bought a home in Madison, Wisconsin, where I was a young faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was designed and built in 1950 by the well-known architect Herbert Fritz, Jr., a longtime colleague and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright. With its many large windows, its nature-friendly design took advantage of beautiful vistas of oak savannahs and the rolling Wisconsin landscape. We chose this house partly for its wooded surroundings, stunning views, and abundance of natural light. However, during our first winter we discovered a great problem. The floor-to-ceiling single-pane windows were repeatedly covered with a 1/8-inch-thick sheet of ice—on the inside—that would melt into puddles in the living room and loft. Comfort considerations, energy bills, and the need to preserve the house's structural and decorative materials all compelled us to address that problem—right away! Fortunately, my own academic career was undergoing a transformation from engineering physics into the field of energy systems and policy analysis. I was becoming increasingly involved in state and national issues of energy and environmental policy and planning. Energy efficiency and management was becoming a key part of this policy, nationally ...
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- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
- Blood Sugar Control (Pre- diabetes )
- High Cholesterol
- Menopausal Symptoms
- Osteoporosis
Genistein, a naturally occurring chemical present in soy, has attracted scientific interest for its possible benefits in cancer and heart disease prevention. Genistein is a type of chemical called a phytoestrogen—an estrogen-like substance present in some plants. There are two main types of phytoestrogens: isoflavones and lignans . Soy is the most abundant source of isoflavones, with genistein the most abundant isoflavone in soy. Red clover is also a good source of genistein.
Like other phytoestrogens, genistein can work in two ways: either by increasing or decreasing the effects of estrogen. This happens because genistein binds to special sites on cells called estrogen receptors. Genistein stimulates these receptors, but not as strongly as real estrogen; at the same time, it blocks estrogen itself from attaching. The net result is that when there is a lot of estrogen in the body, such as before menopause, genistein may partly block its effects. Since estrogen appears to increase the risk of various forms of cancer, regular use of genistein by premenopausal women might help reduce this risk. On the other hand, if there is little human estrogen present, such as after menopause, genistein can partly make up for it. This is one rationale for using genistein to treat menopausal symptoms and to prevent osteoporosis.
Genistein might also be helpful for reducing heart disease risk.
Genistein is found in high quantities in soy and in negligible quantities in a few other foods. Most soy foods contain about 1 mg to 2 mg of genistein per gram of protein. 3
For more information on the proper dosage of isoflavones in general, see the full Isoflavone article.
Therapeutic Dosages
The optimum dosage of genistein is unknown. In Asia, population groups who eat soy foods daily containing 20 mg to 80 mg of genistein have lower rates of breast and prostate cancer than do groups in the West with less genistein in their diets. 4 However, we don't know whether genistein (or even soy isoflavones generally) are responsible for this effect.
Therapeutic Uses
Double-blind, placebo-controlled studies have found that genistein may be helpful for preventing heart disease20,21,54 and preventing or treating osteoporosis . 5-10,49 Genistein may additionally improve blood sugar control in people with pre- diabetes . 56 Weaker evidence suggests potential benefits in cancer prevention , 10-12,14-16cancer treatment , 13 and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). 22
Isoflavone mixtures containing genistein have undergone considerably more study than genistein alone. Mixed isoflavones have shown promise for most of the conditions just mentioned, as well as menopausal symptoms and cyclic mastalgia .
What Is the Scientific Evidence for Genistein?
Estrogen has a powerful protective effect on bone. In women, osteoporosis most often occurs after menopause when the ovaries stop producing estrogen. Animal studies as well as double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in humans suggest that genistein can help restore bone protection. 5-7,49,57
For example, in a 24 month double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 389 postmenopausal women with mild bone loss, use of genistein at a dose of 54 mg daily significantly improved bone density, as compared to placebo. (All participants were additionally given calcium and vitamin D.) 57
In a previous 12-month study, 90 women aged 47 to 57 were given genistein, standard hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or placebo. 49 The results showed that genistein increased bone density to approximately the same extent as HRT. No adverse effects on the uterus or breast were seen.
Interestingly, unlike estrogen, which primarily helps prevent the destruction of bone, evidence suggests that genistein may also assist in creating new bone. 8,9,49
However, in one animal study, while a small dose of genistein helped protect the rats' bones, a larger dose of genistein seemed to have the opposite effect—causing increasing bone destruction. 10 Studies in humans are needed to determine whether genistein is truly effective and to find the optimum dose.
Other studies have evaluated the effects of soy products containing other constituents besides genistein. For more information, see the full Soy and Soy Isoflavones articles.
Menopausal Symptoms (Hot Flashes)
A double-blind study of 247 women suffering from menopausal hot flashes compared the effects of placebo and genistein over a period of one year. 55 Genistein was taken at a dose of 54 mg per day. The results indicated that use of genistein significantly reduced hot flashes as compared to placebo. No adverse effects were seen.
Genistein may help reduce risk of various forms of cancer . In one study, newborn female rats treated with genistein had less breast cancer later in life than those treated with placebo. 16 However, other studies suggest that genistein or other isoflavones could promote breast cancer under certain conditions. (See Safety Issues below.)
In the test tube, genistein has been found to suppress the growth of a wide range of cancer cells, including forms of cancer that are not affected by estrogen. 11,12 For example, genistein has been found to inhibit skin cancer when it was applied to the skin of mice or fed to rats. 14,15 Furthermore, in test tube studies, genistein has been found to enhance the effects of chemotherapy drugs . 13
Heart Disease
One double-blind, placebo-controlled study found that use of genistein helped relax the artery wall (the endothelium), an effect that would be expected to help prevent heart disease . 54 In addition, test tube studies suggest that genistein may help keep cholesterol in the blood from depositing in blood vessel walls. 20 Finally, very early test tube research suggests genistein may also inhibit the formation of blood clots, which are a major cause of heart attacks . 21
Safety Issues
Most safety studies that have implications for genistein involved mixed isoflavones from soy or red clover. For more information, see the Safety Issues section of the Isoflavone article.
Regarding genistein alone, one large study reported that genistein caused significant gastrointestinal side effects in almost 20% of participants. 57
Additionally, some evidence suggests that the genistein in particular might impair immunity. One study in mice found that injected genistein has negative effects on the thymus gland (an organ that is important for immunity) and also causes changes in the prevalence of various white blood cells consistent with impaired immunity. 34 Although the genistein was injected rather than administered orally, the blood levels of genistein that these injections produced were not excessively high; they were comparable to (or even lower than) what occurs in children fed soy milk formula. In addition, there are several reports of impaired immune responses in infants fed soy formula. 35-38 While it is too early to conclude that genistein impairs immunity, these findings are a potential cause for concern.
Revision Information
- Reviewer: EBSCO CAM Review Board
- Review Date: 12/2015 -
- Update Date: 12/15/2015 -


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Aluminum toxicity occurs when a person ingests or breathes high levels of aluminum into the body.
Aluminum is the most plentiful metal in the earth's crust. It is present in the environment combined with other elements such as oxygen, silicon, and fluorine.
Exposure to aluminum is usually not harmful, but exposure to high levels can cause serious health problems. If you think you have been exposed to high levels of aluminum, contact your doctor.
Because aluminum is found in food, water, air, and soil, people may be exposed to high levels of aluminum when they:
- Drink or ingest substances containing high levels of aluminum
- Breath aluminum dust in workplace air
- Live where aluminum is mined or processed
- Live near certain hazardous waste sites
- Live where aluminum is naturally high
Risk Factors
Anyone can develop this condition, but certain people are more likely to develop aluminum toxicity. The following factors increase your chances of developing aluminum toxicity:
- Diminished kidney function
- Hemodialysis
- Drinking or ingesting substances that are high in aluminum
- Living or working in an environment that contains high levels of aluminum
- Receiving long-term IV nutrition
- Living in dusty environments
If you have any of the following symptoms, see your doctor, especially if you have kidney disease or are on dialysis:
- Confusion
- Muscle weakness
- Bone pain, deformities, and fractures
- Seizures
- Speech problems
- Slow growth—in children
Complications may include:
- Lung problems
- Nervous system problems causing difficulty with voluntary and involuntary actions
- Bone diseases
- Brain diseases and disorders
- Anemia
- Impaired iron absorption
You will be asked about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done.
Tests may include the following:
- Bone biopsy
- Blood tests
- Urine tests
- Stool tests
The diagnosis is usually made by typical symptoms along with high aluminum in the blood. Aluminum in the bone marrow will confirm the diagnosis.
Talk with your doctor about the best treatment plan for you. Treatment options include:
The medication, deferoxamine mesylate, may be given to help eliminate aluminum from your body. This substance works through a procedure known as chelation, which helps the body remove poisonous materials.
Aluminum Avoidance
You will be instructed on how to avoid exposure to excess aluminum from your diet and other sources.
To help reduce your chances of getting aluminum toxicity, take steps to avoid the following if they contain aluminum:
- Antacids
- Antiperspirants
Talk to your doctor about your risk of aluminum poisoning from dialysis and total parenteral nutrition solutions.
Revision Information
- Reviewer: EBSCO Medical Review Board James Cornell, MD
- Review Date: 03/2018 -
- Update Date: 03/08/2016 -


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"Knock, Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Apple, who?"
"Orange, who?"
Thus it goes with names of whatever fruits available at home. And then
"I am a fruit salad"...with peals of laughter
Right on cue we start laughing too. We have to. For that my folks is a joke in LS's realm
She has a whole repository of Knock, Knock jokes. She makes them up. None of them make sense. They are not even funny. But we laugh.
It really doesn't matter. Laughing does though.
Yesterday while watching the Oscars Big Sis asks me,
"If you were a director of a very important movie and one day something very important had to be done for the movie and also the same day something very important needs to be done for the family, what would you choose ?"
I was stunned by the question. These are the kind of questions I would expect at the last page of Ladies Home Journal, not from a 7 year old. I am waiting to see if she spurs such stuff at Daddy too.
I made Aloor/Alur Chop (Potato Fritters) after a long long time. I make these things so rare that sometimes I am not even sure the taste lingering in my memory is real or laced with imagination.Should it taste like this or should it taste like that ? The that is illusionary.
This time I made it more spicy because I thought I prefer it that way. The husband's version is a tad less spicy. He says, mine are pretty good but not like Shoshthida's. Shosthida, the neighborhood telebhaja guy, spiced the potato less.
Makes sense. Shosthida, with all my apologies and admiration, had his perspiration, diesel fumes and dirt under his nails to make up for less spices he used. I perspire too, but not when the temp is at 45F and central heating is just making us comfortable.
Deep frying however makes up for anything I lack. With a bowl of muri on the side and a steaming cup of tea you won't ask for anything more. Ok, a "knock, knock" joke perhaps to complete the scene.
Read more...
Potatoes ~ 4 medium + 1 small
Onion ~ 1 medium chopped fine(about 3/4th of the large ones found here in the US)
Garlic ~ 3 cloves minced
Ginger ~ 1 tbsp minced
Green Chili - 4-5 chopped fine(adjust to taste)
Chopped fresh Corriander leaves ~ 1-2 tbsp if desired
Roasted Cumin Powder ~ 1 tsp
Red Chili Powder ~ to taste
Salt ~ to taste
Mustard Oil ~ a few drops(optional)
Besan/Chickpea Flour ~ 1 cup
Rice Flour ~ 1 tbsp or Poppy Seed ~ 1 tsp
Baking Powder ~ 1/4 tsp
Salt ~ to taste
Water ~ 3/4 cup
Plenty of White Oil
Boil the potatoes, peel the skin and mash them. Use your fingers or a masher.
Heat little Oil in a Kadhai/Frying Pan. About 1-2 tsp should be fine.
Add the chopped garlic, minced Ginger, the green chillies and the onion.All of these should be chopped real fine so that you do not bite into anything but the potato when eating the chop.
Sauté till the onion wilts and is pinkish brown.
Add the Roasted Cumin powder and Red Chili Powder and saute for a minute.
Add the mashed potatoes.
Add salt and mix the masala well with the potatoes. Do not fry or cook the potato any further.Add a few drops of Mustard Oil to the potatoes if you want.
Let this cool
Make small balls of the mashed potatoes which is now spiced up with the masalas
Flatten them between your palm and place them on a lightly greased surface. They should be really flat and NOT thick like alu tikki.
Make a batter with the ingredients under Make Batter. Add the water gradually as you don't want the batter to be runny. The batter should be tight as it has to form a coating on the potato patties.
Heat Fresh Oil in Kadhai/Frying Pan. The patties would be deep fried so add enough oil.
Dip the patties in the batter, so that the batter uniformly coats the patties
Gently release the dipped patties in the hot oil and hear the sizzle. Keep heat at medium.
Fry till both sides are golden brown.
Remove with a spoon/chalni which has slots/holes so that the excess oil drains out
Drain excess oil by placing the fried patties on a kitchen towel.
Sprinkle some Chat Masala or kala namak/black Rock salt(beet noon) on the patties while serving


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This is my first blog, in conjunction with GeneaBloggers. So hello other GeneaBloggers!
I think most genealogists seek an ancestor who was a king or queen, maybe relationship to a historical figure or a Pilgrim. Some of us even seek ancestor of some notoriety like Jesse James of John Dilinger. It offers relief from the many leafs in our tree that are just mundane. Now I would not mind a king or Daniel Boone or being a Polish Genealogist maybe Kasimierz Pulaski. I was not seeking a notorious, Black Sheep to liven up the old family tree, but alas these things do happen.
OK, my Black Sheep is from Detroit, MI. Actually, Stanley Gawlick [sic], really born Stanislaw Gawlikowski, was a street tough during the roaring 1920's and a member of the "Shotgun Gang". Stanley was born about 1902 in Poland and came along with his Father Antoni & mother Katarzyna through Ellis Island. I do not know how Stanley went bad.
That was Stanley's MO. He liked to introduce himself that way at the bank robberies. A tad narcissistic, n'est-ce pas? Apparently, that was par for the times. As you can see, his headline is entitled, "A Bullet Sings Goodby[sic]"
Well here is his mug, printed in the Detroit News, that fateful day, the 5th of August 1924. Now this newspaper clipping was saved by my cousin's parents. When I asked my father, who was not born at that time, he said he never remembered anyone in the family speaking of this.
This goes to show that historical newspapers can provide you with vital record info too, such as date of death and cause of death (gun shot wound). I am an aficianado of the Polish Daily (Detroit), named, Dziennik Polski. They provided an even longer article !
Well I said it was probably just a local story. Then a year later, I found another article on this crime in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, that describes the crime. From the article in the Dziennik Polski, I am wondering whether the female robber may have been a common-law wife or whether she was just a gun moll. Along for an exciting ride.
That's my Black Sheep meme and I am sticking to it ! Let me hasten to add that Stanley and I share no blood. We are merely related by marriage.


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Natural History Photography of California
Professional California Stock Photography by Randy Morse - Signature Scenic & Marine Wildlife Stock Photos
Photo Search: advanced
In the news: Pigeon Point Lighthouse a Decaying Coastal Landmark
Saturday, April 24, 2010
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zekton Free Fonts Freeware Fonts Archive
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2007 04 28
Street smarts - Globe and Mail
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The 2012 Coverity Scan Open Source Report arrives this month from the prominent development testing company. The report details the analysis of more than 450 million lines of software code through the firm's own scanning service.
More Insights
White Papers
- Annual Threat Intelligence Report: Perspectives and Predictions
- One Phish, Two Phish, Three Phish, Fraud Phish
ReportsMore >>
- Building a Strategy for Detection and Response
- 5 Steps to Integrate SAST into the DevSecOps Pipeline
NOTE: This scanning service, which began as the largest public-private sector research project focused on open source software integrity, was initiated between Coverity and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2006. It is now managed outright by Coverity.
Key findings this year suggest that code quality for open source software continues to mirror that of proprietary software. Defect density (defects per 1,000 lines of software code) is a commonly used measurement for software quality.
Coverity's analysis found an average defect density of .69 for open source software projects that leverage the firm's own scan service. It also found an average defect density of .68 for proprietary code developed by the firm's own enterprise customers.
Both have better quality as compared to the accepted industry standard defect density for good quality software of 1.0.
Covertity states, "As projects surpass one million lines of code, there's a direct correlation between size and quality for proprietary projects, and an inverse correlation for open source projects.
Proprietary code analyzed had an average defect density of .98 for projects between 500,000 – 1,000,000 lines of code. For projects with more than one million lines of code, defect density decreased to .66, which suggests that proprietary projects generally experience an increase in software quality as they exceed that size.
Andy Chou, cofounder and CTO for Coverity, points out that open source projects with between 500,000 – 1,000,000 lines of code, however, had an average defect density of .44, while that same figure increased to .75 for open source projects with more than one million lines of code, marking a decline in software quality as projects get larger.
"This discrepancy can be attributed to differing dynamics within open source and proprietary development teams, as well as the point at which these teams implement formalised development testing processes," said Chou.


text:
Energy Upgrade California
A version of this article appears in the September/October 2012 issue of Home Energy Magazine.
August 28, 2012
On an ongoing basis, California's investor-owned utilities (IOUs), in collaboration with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Energy Commission (CEC), develop programs designed to promote residential energy efficiency. In 2010, recognizing that one of the largest energy use sectors is existing residential homes, the CPUC and CEC piloted a program called Energy Upgrade California (EUC). EUC is an umbrella for a variety of initiatives paid for with state and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. The core of these initiatives is IOU-managed rebate programs for upgrading existing homes.
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Alternate Names :
- Kargasok Tea
- Kargasoki Mushroom
- Kargasoki Tea
- Kombucha Mushroom
- Manchurian Mushroom
Just like friends can pass along sourdough starter, a small, round, flat, gray, gelatinous object has become a popular gift among those interested in natural medicine. You insert this object in sweetened black tea and let it ferment for 7 days. By the end of the week, you have a strong-tasting drink and a big, flat, gray, gelatinous object you can cut up and pass on to your friends.
Described variously as Manchurian mushroom, Kombucha tea, or just Kombucha, this tea is said to have been used for centuries to cure a wide variety of illnesses. The earliest known scientific analysis of Kombucha occurred in Germany in the 1930s, and subsequent studies have provided accurate information about this dubious product. 1
The word kombucha literally means "tea made from kombu seaweed." However, what is called Kombucha tea today has no seaweed in it. Furthermore, despite the name Manchurian mushroom, Kombucha is not a mushroom either. The gelatinous mass is a colony of numerous species of fungi and bacteria living together, and the same microorganisms permeate the tea. The precise composition of any sample of Kombucha depends to a great extent on what was floating around in your kitchen when you grew it.
The most common microorganisms found in Kombucha tea include species of Brettanomyces , Zygosaccharomyces , Saccharomyces , Candida , Torula , Acetobacter, and Pichia. However, some analyzed specimens have been found to contain completely different organisms, and there is no guarantee that they will be harmless. 2,3
What Is Kombucha Tea Used for Today?
Kombucha tea is widely supposed to have miraculous medicinal properties, ranging from curing cancer to restoring gray hair to its original color. Other reputed effects include normalizing weight, improving blood pressure, increasing energy, decreasing arthritis pain, restoring normal bowel movements, removing wrinkles, curing acne, strengthening bones, improving memory, and generally solving every health problem that exists.
However, there is no evidence that Kombucha tea is effective for these or any other uses.
This database does not recommend the use of homemade Kombucha tea. Commercially produced Kombucha should be safer, but it has no known medicinal effects.
Safety Issues
In a set of animal studies, researchers prepared a batch of Kombucha and found that it was essentially nontoxic when taken at appropriate doses. 9 However, because Kombucha is a complex and variable mixture of microorganisms, it isn't clear that any other batch of the tea would be equally safe. In fact, there are case reports, which suggest that Kombucha preparations can cause such problems as nausea, jaundice, shortness of breath, throat tightness, headache, dizziness, liver inflammation, and even unconsciousness. 4,5,6 It isn't clear whether the cause of these symptoms is an unusual reaction to a generally nontoxic substance, or a response to unusual toxins that developed in a particular batch of Kombucha.
In addition, there is one case report of severe lead poisoning caused by regular use of Kombucha brewed in a ceramic pot. 7 When brewed or stored in some ceramics, the risk of lead poisoning results because Kombucha tea is acidic. Many ceramic glazes contain a low level of lead that would not make the pottery dangerous for ordinary use; but if an acidic solution like Kombucha is steeped in them for a long time, a dangerous amount of lead may leech into the solution.
There is also one report of Kombucha becoming infected with anthrax and passing along the infection to an individual who rubbed it on his skin to alleviate pain. 8 Apparently, anthrax from nearby cows got into the Kombucha mixture and grew.
Revision Information
- Reviewer: EBSCO CAM Review Board
- Review Date: 12/2015 -
- Update Date: 12/15/2015 -


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Tuesday, 28 February 2012
DONOR OPIUM, the impact of international aid to Palestine
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Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
One Week Before Purim, Nasrallah Issues Warning to Israel
Will America Become the Next Jewish State? (Some Would Say It Already Is)
Swindler's List: A Brief Look at the Holocaust Reparations Racket
Signs of an America in Collapse
Syrian Christians Express Support for Their Government
Happy Purim! Now Let's Kill the Gentiles!
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble: Eye of Newt and the 'Invented' Palestinians
If Jesus Was a Rebel, Who Was He Rebelling Against?
Message to Dershowitz: the Saxophonist is not that 'Obscure'
One Picture that's Worth a Thousand Words
A Somewhat Alternative View of the Wall St. Protests
Obama and His Nine Hundred Rabbis
World War III, 9/11, and Chabad of Wall Street
From Lillehammer 1973 to Oslo 2011: Murders in Norway and the Israel Connection
Combatting Muslim Stereotyping Through Video
To Straddle the Fence...Or to Tell the Undiluted Truth?
Lewd photos, online sex, and support for Israel: what the media don't report on 'Weinergate'
The coronation of 'His Excellency' Benjamin Netanyahu by his steadfastly loyal subjects
The Apartheid Bread and Circus Show in Washington
Classroom lecture on Palestine, plus a high-voltage refutation of Christian Zionism
Aid to Israel compared with aid to U.S. tornado victims: take a guess who gets more Jews Expressing Their Love for Jesus
What Western Protesters Can Learn from the People of the Middle East--third and final
What Western Protesters Can Learn from the People of the Middle EastNo Iranian Ever Called Me a Goy (with apologies to Muhammad Ali) The Audacity of Hypocrisy vs. Signs from Heaven Ovadia Yosef's Love Letter to His Donkey
A Must see: What if Hezbollah Was Defeated?
Sayyed Nasrallah: All Options Open in Case of Israeli Attack
Sayyed Nasrallah: "March 14" Bets Are Falling, Syria to Pass Conspiracy
The enemy is this American Administration and its "tool" not "ally"in the region, Israel, Sayyed
'Resistance Stronger than Ever… Lebanon Will Protect Oil Wealth'Resistance Might Have to Occupy Galilee- Netanyaho; You can't !"
Opposition Will Not Name Hariri; New Stage Has Begun
Day When you Could Threaten Us Are Over
'Any Hand Seeking to Detain Any of Our Mujahideen Will Be Cut'
Iran's Project is the Palestinian's, Lebanon's and Arab's Project
Mideast Peace Talks Are "Born-Dead"
Our Freedom, Sovereignty Depend On Our Elements of Power
Videos: Hariri Assasination Evidence Expose
Israel behind Hariri's Assassination
Israeli Hand That Attacks Army Will Be Cut Off
Lebanon Pushed into Sensitive Stage from STL Gate - video
Nasrallah on The Resistances Wounded Day -Video Unite, Back Turkey, Take Part in Freedom Flotilla 2 -Video
Nasralla: In Next War, Only Fleeing Israelis Will Be Safe.
We'll hit back and we are capable of it,
And More
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Annuity sales over all were down for the last quarter of 2012, but LIMRA found deferred and indexed annuities were among the most successful classes.
Total annuity sales fell 8% to $219 billion in 2012, with fourth-quarter sales of $52.6 billion, according to LIMRA's fourth-quarter 2012 U.S. Individual Annuities Sales survey. Deferred annuity sales were over $1 billion. Fourth-quarter sales were $390 million, up from $160 million in the first quarter of 2012.
"As an emerging market, DIAs have experienced significant growth in 2012," Joe Montminy, assistant vice president and director of LIMRA annuity research, said in a statement. "We see new companies entering this market and existing players launching new products, targeting younger boomers looking to create an income stream when they retire."
Although deferred annuities represented less than one-quarter of total annuity sales, Montiminy predicted they would continue to show strong growth. "LIMRA estimates that collectively consumers age 45-59 have almost $10 trillion in financial assets so we anticipate these products will to continue to have remarkable growth," he said.
Indexed annuity sales for 2012 reached a record high, according to LIMRA, of nearly $34 billion, up 5% from 2011. However, quarter-to-quarter sales fell 2% from the third quarter to over $8 billion. Guaranteed income continues to drive annuity sales. LIMRA estimates that 87% of indexed annuities sold offer GLWB riders. When such riders are available, nearly three-quarters of consumers elect them.
Other annuity categories weren't as successful. Variable annuity fourth-quarter sales fell 8% to $35 billion, with total sales for the year down 7% to $147 billion.
"Unlike historical trends, VA sales did not follow equity market growth, which increased 13% in 2012," Montminy said. He added that insurers removing some products from the marketplace, limiting contributions into existing contracts and revising the features and pricing on their guaranteed living benefits riders all contributed to the lower sales results for variable annuities.
Fixed annuities sales fell also, dropping 11% to a 12-year low of $72 billion in 2012. Fourth-quarter sales fell 7% to $17.6 billion.


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The fourth annual Sustainable Food Film Series kicks off tonight, and it's not alone in offering in-depth, nuanced, often political views on modern eating.
The Chipotle-sponsored film series begins with the Thursday, Sept. 11 screening of "A Place at the Table," which looks at different sides of hunger in America, followed by the documentaries "GMO OMG" (Tuesday, Sept. 23), "Food Patriots" (Oct. 15) and "Fed Up" (Nov. 7).
All take varying degrees of critical, progressive looks at how, why and what we eat — and the way it's shaped by industrial farming practices, profit-driven corporate marketing and the growing movement toward local growing and eating.
Screenings, which cost $5, begin at 6:30 p.m. and include (naturally) a Chipotle dinner beforehand. All take place at Mitchell Hall at Denver Botanic Gardens. Advance registration is encouraged.
They're not the only food-conscious shows Denver metro residents can check out in the coming weeks.


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What vaccines do adults need?
While immunizations are something we usually associate with babies and young children, adults need immunizations, too.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are specific vaccinations recommended for adults. Some of these include:
Influenza (recommended for all adults)
Tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (for adults who haven't previously had the Tdap vaccine)
Shingles (for adults over 60)
Pneumococcal disease (for adults over 65 or for those with certain health conditions)
Hepatitis B (for adults with diabetes or for those who are at risk for hepatitis B)
In addition to these vaccines, the CDC also recommends that adults be vaccinated against the following diseases: human papillomavirus, hepatitis A, meningococcal disease, chickenpox, and measles, mumps and rubella.
Please seek the advice of your physician to determine with vaccines you may need.


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Douglas L. Leslie
- Charles O. Gregory Professor of Law
Douglas Leslie teaches employment and labor law, property, contracts, sports law and health law. He is the author of several books and articles in these fields. Leslie served as the director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics from 1987-95.
Before his appointment to the Virginia law faculty in 1978, Leslie practiced law at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cleveland, served as an appellate branch attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, practiced labor law with O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue in Washington, D.C., and taught at Arizona State University Law School. He has been a visiting professor at the law schools of the University of Michigan and Stanford, where, as a Guggenheim fellow, he conducted research on the application of economic theory to labor law.
Leslie served as editor-in-chief of the "Railway Labor Act Treatise" for the American Bar Association's labor and employment law section. He also served as secretary of that section in 1987-88.
Leslie is the author of sets of teaching materials for Contracts, Property, Employment Law and Labor Law. The materials can be found at www.CaseFileMethod.com.
- J.D.University of Michigan1968
- B.A.University of Iowa1964
Labor Law in a Nutshell (West, 3d ed. 1992; 4th ed. 2000).
The Railway Labor Act (editor) (Bureau of National Affairs, 1995).
Contract Law and Theory (with Robert E. Scott) (Michie, 1988; 2d ed. 1993).
Cases and Materials on Labor Law: Process and Policy (Little, Brown, 1979; 2d ed. 1985; 3d ed. 1992).
Cases and Materials on Labor Law: Process and Policy, 1987 Statutory and Case Supplement (Little, Brown, 2d ed. 1985).
Labor Law in a Nutshell (West, 1979; 2d ed. 1986).
Cases and Materials on Labor Law: Process and Policy, 1981 Supplement (Little, Brown, 1981).
Statutory Supplement to Cases and Materials on Labor Law: Process and Policy (Little, Brown, 1979).
Book Chapter:
"The Impact of Right to Control and Connell on Construction Industry Secondary Boycott Law," in Construction Industry Labor Relations 1979 (Practising Law Institute, 1979).
"Sports Liability Waivers and Transactional Unconscionability," 14 Seton Hall J. Sports & Ent. L. 341 (2004).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"Accommodating the Employment Disabled," 17 Lab. Law. 143 (2001).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"How Not to Teach Contracts, and Any Other Course: Powerpoint, Laptops, and the CaseFile Method," 44 St. Louis Univ. L.J. 1289 (2000).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"Accommodating the Disabled"
"Essay on Brown v. Pro Football," 82 Va. L. Rev. 629 (1996).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"An Interview with Judge Richard Posner," Va. L. Wkly., Apr. 22, 1994, at 1, 3.
"Retelling the International Paper Story," 102 Yale L. J. 1897 (1993).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"Symposium on Law and Economics of Local Government" (editor) 67 Chi-Kent L. Rev.707 (1991).
"An Academic Perspective: Selected Recent Supreme Court Decisions," 5 Lab. Law 125 (1989).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"Multiemployer Bargaining Rules," 75 Va. L. Rev. 241 (1989).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"Labor Bargaining Units," 70 Va. L. Rev. 353 (1984).
HeinOnline (PDF)
"Principles of Labor Antitrust," 66 Va. L. Rev. 1183 (1980).
HeinOnline (PDF)
Current Courses
All Courses
Employment Law
Health Law
Labor Law
Sports Law
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Faculty in the News
Cynthia L. Nicoletti, Putting Secession and Jefferson Davis on Trial With Cynthia Nicoletti (Washington's Library)


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Everyone knows how exciting camping in a truck can be. Cheap Local Movers Near Me in Bedfordview nothing can be better than enjoying the nature by yourself. Having your own spacious ride further supplements the experience. Sleeping in your own truck while enjoying the fresh air is an amazing thing to do if traveling is in your blood. However, it is imperative to have a truck bed tent to ensure a pleasant camping experience. Often we consider securing the tent on the ground using ropes. Setting up such tent can be inconvenient.
Truck bed tents come with a number of benefits that every camper is well aware of. Nevertheless, Moving Service Quote there are numerous options available in the market when it comes to purchasing a Tacoma bed tent. This creates confusion while choosing the best one. Here are some factors everyone must consider while purchasing a truck bed tent: Type There is a wide variety of truck tents to choose from but the ideal one depends entirely on the type of ride. Additional cargo space hatchback tents are the most appropriate for smaller SUVs and vehicles.
Tents designed for pickup trucks can be utilized as well but it is advisable to go for a model that is easier to install. Universal camping tents are available for frequent travelers that can fit on any type and size of the vehicle. Size Size is an important factor to take into account. Even though the size of the tent will depend on your vehicle but make sure you choose a truck bed tent that has enough space for you to sleep comfortably. One of the general rules you can apply while purchasing your option is that select a truck bed tent that has the capacity to accommodate more than one needed.
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Durability It is important to look into how durable a truck bed tent is. During the camping experience, you will face harsh climate. There are models designed to protect from external aspects. Go for wind-proof, water-proof and stormproof models. This will enhance the overall comfort. Moreover, Reputable Long Distance Moving Companies the overall durability also affects how long your tent will last. If you consider your truck bed tent as an investment, then go for the most durable option in the market. Seasonality Truck bed tents are also designed according to their seasonality. There are usually three season tents in common.
These tents are designed for camping in summer, spring and fall. They are designed to maintain good airflow with sufficient ventilation. Four season tents are designed to resist snow and a bit of cold as well. If you want a tent for camping in winters, then choose four season tent. Features Not all truck bed tents are designed in the same manner. All are not created equal. Each tent has different features associated with it. A tent featuring more facilities would cost a bit higher. Nevertheless, consider the height and length of the truck. This will depend on how tall you are. Another important consideration contains tent poles. Normally, the poles are made of lightweight and durable material like fibreglass and aluminium. Choose tent poles that are ideal for camping.
Aluminum poles are the most common option since they can withstand heavy winds. In today's day and age, we have a plethora of options to select from when it comes to purchasing Tacoma bed tents. There is a wide variety available each of them coming with its own set of features. However, consider the options above and make sure you choose it from a reputable retailer. Selecting the right option would enhance the overall experience. Conclusion: If you want to buy a new truck bed tent then you must have to follow the above-mentioned things in this way you will get a good truck bed tent that will fit your needs.
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A moving company will actually will pack your household goods for you then they load the moving van with your household goods and then deliver them and unload them at your new location. And hopefully they can park as close as they can get to your new location and safely unload your goods with a minimum of steps into your new home.
But they also do other things for you such as using protective coverings like padded movers blankets to protect your home and your items. They may also use stretch wrap around some items to protect them or hold them closed. This way you don't have to pack up all of the drawers in a chest of drawers that is being moved. They will wrap furniture then tape the blanket around the furniture like an armoire or chest of drawers.
If you have packed your own items, they will look at your boxes and if they look problematic they may have to repack them before they will load them into the van. This is for your own safety because if a carton looks like it might collapse it cannot be safely moved to your new location, especially if other boxes are stacked on top of it in the moving van.
Most larger moving companies use a satellite system to track their moving vans and your possessions much like a GPS does. This is a way to insure your household goods get to the correct destination in a timely manner.
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Your floors need special protection when undergoing remodeling, during new construction, moving heavy furniture or equipment, and for other events beyond day-to-day use. Protecting flooring makes sense and saves money. A spill of paint, the drop of a hammer, a scratch from heavy furniture can cost thousands of dollars in replacement and repair costs. This article describes surface protection products for floors so that you can make informed choices on the best product to use for your needs.
Types of Protection Packaging:
Floor protection products are commonly packaged as either:
(1) Products by the roll: These include common adhesive films, rolled paper products and rolled textile protection. Protective materials purchased by the roll are commonly measured in thickness by mils (e.g., 2.5 mils thick up to 48 mils thick).
(2) Products by the sheet: These include corrugated plastic, masonite, and other rigid protection. Protective materials purchased by the sheet are commonly measured in thickness by the inch (e.g., 1/4-inch thick) and normally come as 4 feet by 8 feet.
Type of Flooring Protection:
Paper protection is suitable for all hard surfaces and resilient surfaces but does not work well to protect carpets as it can tear when flexing under footsteps. Paper products are breathable so that glue fumes and cement curing vapors can escape. One disadvantage to paper products as they require tapes to secure them to flooring and tapes can often leave adhesive residue when removed. Common paper protection products include:
· Ramboard™ A coated compressed paper board 38 mils thick that is breathable, water resistant and made from recycled paper.
· Kraft paper is a lightweight brown paper that is inexpensive but does not afford any impact protection and can easily tear
· Scrim paper may incorporate coatings or reinforcements to make them water resistant as well as scrim threads to reinforce the paper and prevent tearing. These improved papers are longer lasting than regular Kraft paper or rosin paper however they are also too thin to offer much impact protection.
- Surface Liner Vapor™ is the newest textile product to market and is both breathable and leakproof. Microscopic pores in the plastic liner allow vapor to escape yet are too small for common liquids to penetrate. This rolled product is also easy to keep clean as the plastic top can be swept daily to keep it looking good.
- EZ Cover™ is manufactured to protect cement slabs or decorative cement while curing. It has a soft felt bottom and compressed paper backing that allows the floor to breathe. EZ Cover is commonly used in both commercial and residential applications and is easy to cut to size as needed.
Applying the Surface Protection
In order to obtain the full benefits of using surface protection, proper application is a must. The floors should be clean (vacuumed or swept) prior to covering with the protection products. The proper choice of protection should be made so that moisture is not trapped on floors that are still curing. Trapping moisture can cause a full product failure and will invalidate a wood floor manufacturer's warranty. For heavy traffic or loads, several protection layers may be needed.
In summary, there are many choices in temporary floor protection available today. When choosing a protection product, it is wise to consider the cost, duration needed, breathability and potential to reuse the product. Successful floor protection also includes proper installation and preparation of the floor. Always follow the manufacturer's recommendation for use so the potential for adhesive transfer is avoided. Protecting valuable floors is a wise investment in time and money. Surface protection experts are also available to help you choose the best floor protection for your needs.