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Difference between revisions of "Developer Area/Developer Environment"
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'''3.''' Go to the site in your browser
'''3.''' Go to the site in your browser run the Mahara installer again:
==Testing a change submitted to Gerrit==
==Testing a change submitted to Gerrit==
Revision as of 15:26, 12 May 2016
This page explains how to set up a copy of Mahara for development purposes.
The short version
Mahara is a fairly standard PHP web application. You mainly need to place it in your web server and give it a database, and a file storage directory. If you haven't set up a PHP web application before, skip to "the long version" down below.
- Set up your Apache web server. For development purposes, it is often handy to have the web root sitting inside your home directory.
- Retrieve a copy of the Mahara codebase. Place it in your Apache web root.
- Create a Mahara "dataroot" directory outside of your web root. Make it read/writeable by Apache.
- Create a database instance and database user for Mahara to use.
- Edit the Mahara "config.php" file so that Mahara knows the location of its dataroot directory, and its database login credentials.
- Run the Mahara installer by visiting your Mahara site in your web browser. If you are missing any required PHP modules, Mahara should tell you. Depending on what you already have installed, you may need one or more of these:
php5-json(in Ubuntu 13.10 and later)
The long version (for Windows)
If you want to install your developer environment on Windows, please check the Windows instructions.
The long version (for Linux)
The instructions explain one way to set up an installation of Mahara for development purposes. These instructions are specifically for Ubuntu Linux, although the process will probably be quite similar in other Linux versions.
The following instructions are for Ubuntu 12.04-14.04 unless otherwise noted.
1. Install required packages:
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 postgresql git php5-pgsql php5-gd php5-curl gitk
If you are using Ubuntu 13.10 or later, you will also have to install php5-json and php5-cli:
sudo apt-get install php5-json php5-cli
If you are wanting to use LDAP, XML-RPC auth plugins, you will also have to install php5-ldap and php5-xmlrpc:
sudo apt-get install php5-ldap php5-xmlrpc
2. Get a copy of the Mahara code from git. We'll put it under your home directory, in a new directory called "code":
cd ~
mkdir code
cd code
git clone https://git.mahara.org/mahara/mahara.git
Or, if that failed, use:
$ git clone https://github.com/MaharaProject/mahara.git
Or, if you have an account on the Mahara gitlab then do the following:
$ git clone [email protected]:mahara/mahara.git
3. Give the Apache web server access to your Mahara code directory:
sudo chmod a+rx ~/code/mahara
4. Create a PostgreSQL database user:
sudo -u postgres createuser -P -D -R -S maharauser
You'll be prompted for a password. Enter maharapassword for the password.
Now create a database:
sudo -u postgres createdb -Omaharauser mahara-master
5. Using a text editor, copy these contents into a file and save it to
$cfg = new stdClass();
$branch = 'master';
// database connection details
// valid values for dbtype are 'postgres8' and 'mysql5'
$cfg->dbtype = 'postgres';
$cfg->dbhost = 'localhost';
$cfg->dbuser = 'maharauser';
$cfg->dbname = "mahara-$branch";
$cfg->dbpass = 'maharapassword';
$cfg->dataroot = "/var/lib/maharadata/$branch";
$cfg->sendemail = true;
$cfg->sendallemailto = '<your email address>';
$cfg->productionmode = false;
$cfg->perftofoot = true;
Make sure to replace
<your email address> with your email address.
If you're mainly testing, and you don't find the stack traces in these screen messages particularly useful, adding
$cfg->log_backtrace_levels = LOG_LEVEL_ENVIRON; to config.php will display important warning messages on a single line, without stack traces.
6. Create a dataroot directory (this is where Mahara stores uploaded files):
sudo mkdir /var/lib/maharadata
sudo mkdir /var/lib/maharadata/master
sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/lib/maharadata/master
7. Set up a new local domain name "mahara" for your Mahara site, in /etc/hosts:
sudo sh -c "echo '127.0.0.1 mahara' >> /etc/hosts"
8. Increase your PHP "post_max_size" setting to 32M in php.ini:
sudo sh -c "echo 'post_max_size = 32M' >> /etc/php5/cli/php.ini"
sudo sh -c "echo 'post_max_size = 32M' >> /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini"
9. Create an Apache configuration file to point to your copy of Mahara. You can do this by first copying the following contents into a file called "mahara.conf", saved in your home directory.
In Ubuntu 13.10 or later:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName mahara
DocumentRoot /home/<your username>/code/mahara/htdocs
<Directory /home/<your username>/code>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
Require all granted
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
LogLevel info
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
In Ubuntu 13.04 or earlier:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName mahara
DocumentRoot /home/<your username>/code/mahara/htdocs
<Directory /home/<your username>/code>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
LogLevel info
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
Then copy the file into your Apache sites-enable directory. The name to give the file will also vary depending on what version of Ubuntu you are using.
- 13.10 and later:
sudo cp ~/mahara.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/mahara.conf
- 13.04 and earlier:
sudo cp ~/mahara.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/mahara
If you are upgrading from Ubuntu 12.04-13.04 to 13.10, you may find answers on this page helpful.
10. Enable the site in Apache:
sudo a2ensite mahara
sudo apache2ctl configtest
sudo apache2ctl graceful
11. Set up cron:
sudo vim /etc/cron.d/mahara
* * * * * curl http://mahara/lib/cron.php
(Where http://mahara is the URL under which your site is accessible) Save your file.
12. Go to the site in your browser.
13. You should see the Mahara installer page. If you do, congratulations! Your development environment is now set up.
Adding another branch
1. Create a new local branch for it in git (replace 1.10 / 110 with the version of Mahara for which you want to add a branch)
$ cd ~/code/mahara
$ git checkout -t origin/1.10_STABLE
2. Create the sitedata directory for the new branch:
$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/maharadata/110stable
$ sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/lib/maharadata/110stable
3. Create a database:
$ sudo -u postgres createdb -Omaharauser mahara-110stable
4. Change your ~/code/mahara/htdocs/config.php to point to the 1.10 branch:
$branch = '110stable';
5. Go to the site in your browser to run the Mahara installer:
Switching back to the master branch
1. Change the config.php file:
$branch = 'master';
2. Switch to the right git branch:
$ cd ~/code/mahara/
$ git checkout master
Reset the database
1. Delete the old database:
$ sudo -u postgres dropdb mahara-master
2. Create a new one with the same name:
$ sudo -u postgres createdb -Omaharauser mahara-master
3. Go to the site in your browser to run the Mahara installer again:
If you reset the database a lot, you might want to try out the "maharawipe.sh" utility at https://github.com/agwells/mahara-devtools
Testing a change submitted to Gerrit
1. Go to the change page, for example:
2. In your local repository, switch to the branch listed in the Gerrit change (in this case: master):
$ cd ~/code/mahara
$ git checkout master
3. Update your config.php to use the right branch, too.
4. Copy the "Anonymous Git" URL in the "Download" section of "Patch Set X" and run it in ~/code/mahara to check the branch out, for example:
$ git fetch git://reviews.mahara.org/git/mahara refs/changes/30/230/1 && git checkout FETCH_HEAD
5. After finishing the testing, go back to master:
$ git checkout master
Submitting a change to Gerrit
If you want to contribute a patch to the Mahara project yourself, please check out the wiki page on contributing code. There is also a troubleshooting page in case you run into issues pushing code to Gerrit.
Copying a local install to another
This example uses the directory 15stable as an example for the new install and the 14stable install as database and sitedata directory to copy.
1. Do a checkout of the code into a new directory:
$ cd ~
$ mkdir code
$ cd code
$ git clone [email protected]:mahara/mahara.git 15stable
2. Copy the database:
On Postgres 9
$ sudo -u postgres pg_dump -Fc mahara-14stable > 14stable.pg
$ sudo -u postgres createdb -Omaharauser mahara-15stable
$ sudo -u postgres pg_restore -O -j4 -d mahara-15stable 14stable.pg
$ sudo -u postgres psql -d mahara-15stable -c 'GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON SCHEMA public TO maharauser;'
$ sudo -u postgres psql -d mahara-15stable -c 'GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO maharauser;'
$ sudo -u postgres psql -d mahara-15stable -c 'GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA public TO maharauser;'
$ sudo -u postgres psql -d mahara-15stable -c 'GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ALL FUNCTIONS IN SCHEMA public TO maharauser;'
On Postgres 8
$ sudo -u postgres pg_dump -Fc mahara-14stable > 14stable.pg
$ sudo -u postgres createdb -Omaharauser mahara-15stable
$ sudo -u postgres pg_restore -O -j4 -d mahara-15stable -U maharauser -W -h localhost 14stable.pg
This may give you the following warning
pg_restore: WARNING: no privileges could be revoked for "public"
pg_restore: WARNING: no privileges could be revoked for "public"
pg_restore: WARNING: no privileges were granted for "public"
pg_restore: WARNING: no privileges were granted for "public"
3. Change the wwwroot in the new database:
$ sudo -u postgres psql mahara-15stable
delete from config where field = 'wwwroot';
Ctrl + d to exit
4. Create the config file ~/code/mahara/htdocs/config.php:
$cfg = new StdClass;
$branch = '15stable';
// database connection details
// valid values for dbtype are 'postgres8' and 'mysql5'
$cfg->dbtype = 'postgres8';
$cfg->dbhost = 'localhost';
$cfg->dbuser = 'maharauser';
$cfg->dbname = "mahara-$branch";
$cfg->dbpass = 'mahara';
$cfg->dbprefix = ''''''';
$cfg->dataroot = "/var/lib/maharadata/$branch";
$cfg->sendemail = true;
$cfg->sendallemailto = 'your email address';
$cfg->log_dbg_targets = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;
$cfg->log_info_targets = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;
$cfg->log_warn_targets = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;
$cfg->log_environ_targets = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;
$cfg->perftofoot = true;
5. Copy the source sitedata directory into the new sitedata folder:
$ sudo cp -r /var/lib/maharadata/14stable/ /var/lib/maharadata/15stable
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/lib/maharadata/15stable
6. Add a new entry to /etc/hosts:
127.0.0.1 15stable
7. Create a new Apache vhost file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/15stable.conf:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName 15stable
DocumentRoot /home/<your username>/code/15stable/htdocs
<Directory /home/<your username>/code>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
LogLevel info
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
8. Enable the site in Apache:
$ sudo a2ensite 15stable
$ sudo apache2ctl configtest
$ sudo apache2ctl graceful
9. Go to the site in your browser to run the Mahara installer:
If you want to test the Elasticsearch search plugin, you'll also need to set up and run an Elasticsearch server. See Developer Area/Setting up Elasticsearch.
Set up site for local https://
You will need to set up your Mahara developer site with an SSL certificate if you want to use the web services functionality as that is only available over https.
You should already have Apache 2 installed on your computer. Otherwise, Mahara wouldn't run. Install the openssl and ssl-cert packages:
$ sudo apt-get install openssl ssl-cert
1. Enable SSL in Apache 2:
$ cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
$ ls
$ sudo a2enmod ssl
$ service apache2 restart
$ ls
You should see "ssl.conf" and "ssl.load"
2. You'll need to check that the port for SSL traffic is configured.
$ cd ..
$ cat ports.conf
If you see <IfModule ssl_module> Listen 443, you are good to go.
3. Enable SSL also in your Mahara Apache 2 config file.
$ vim sites-available/mahara.conf (or the name of your config file of the site for which you want to enable SSL)
Paste the following into the .conf file after the </VirtualHost> for port 80. The last re-write rules are only necessary if you use the "Clean URL" functionality.
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName mahara
DocumentRoot /home/'''<your username>'''/code/mahara/htdocs
<Directory /home/'''<your username>'''/code>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Require all granted
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/mahara-ssl-error.log
LogLevel info
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/mahara-ssl-access.log combined
# SSL Engine Switch:
# Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host.
SSLEngine on
# A self-signed (snakeoil) certificate can be created by installing
# the ssl-cert package. See
# /usr/share/doc/apache2.2-common/README.Debian.gz for more info.
# If both key and certificate are stored in the same file, only the
# SSLCertificateFile directive is needed.
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key
# Server Certificate Chain:
# Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the
# concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the
# certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively
# the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile
# when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server
# certificate for convinience.
#SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/server-ca.crt
# Certificate Authority (CA):
# Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA
# certificates for client authentication or alternatively one
# huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded)
# Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks
# to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
# Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
#SSLCACertificatePath /etc/ssl/certs/
#SSLCACertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt
# Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL):
# Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client
# authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all
# of them (file must be PEM encoded)
# Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks
# to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
# Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
#SSLCARevocationPath /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/
#SSLCARevocationFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl
# Client Authentication (Type):
# Client certificate verification type and depth. Types are
# none, optional, require and optional_no_ca. Depth is a
# number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate
# issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid.
#SSLVerifyClient require
#SSLVerifyDepth 10
# Access Control:
# With SSLRequire you can do per-directory access control based
# on arbitrary complex boolean expressions containing server
# variable checks and other lookup directives. The syntax is a
# mixture between C and Perl. See the mod_ssl documentation
# for more details.
#<Location />
#SSLRequire ( %{SSL_CIPHER} !~ m/^(EXP|NULL)/ \
# and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_O} eq "Snake Oil, Ltd." \
# and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_OU} in {"Staff", "CA", "Dev"} \
# and %{TIME_WDAY} >= 1 and %{TIME_WDAY} <= 5 \
# and %{TIME_HOUR} >= 8 and %{TIME_HOUR} <= 20 ) \
# or %{REMOTE_ADDR} =~ m/^192\.76\.162\.[0-9]+$/
# SSL Engine Options:
# Set various options for the SSL engine.
# o FakeBasicAuth:
# Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation. This means that
# the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control. The
# user name is the `one line' version of the client's X.509 certificate.
# Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user
# file needs this password: `xxj31ZMTZzkVA'.
# o ExportCertData:
# This exports two additional environment variables: SSL_CLIENT_CERT and
# SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of the
# server (always existing) and the client (only existing when client
# authentication is used). This can be used to import the certificates
# into CGI scripts.
# o StdEnvVars:
# This exports the standard SSL/TLS related `SSL_*' environment variables.
# Per default this exportation is switched off for performance reasons,
# because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is usually
# useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the
# exportation for CGI and SSI requests only.
# o StrictRequire:
# This denies access when "SSLRequireSSL" or "SSLRequire" applied even
# under a "Satisfy any" situation, i.e. when it applies access is denied
# and no other module can change it.
# o OptRenegotiate:
# This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when SSL
# directives are used in per-directory context.
#SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +StrictRequire
<FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
# SSL Protocol Adjustments:
# The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown
# approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't wait for
# the close notify alert from client. When you need a different shutdown
# approach you can use one of the following variables:
# o ssl-unclean-shutdown:
# This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. no
# SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received. This violates
# the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers. Use
# this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach where
# mod_ssl sends the close notify alert.
# o ssl-accurate-shutdown:
# This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. a
# SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close notify
# alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but in
# practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead browsers. Use
# this only for browsers where you know that their SSL implementation
# works correctly.
# Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the HTTP
# keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable
# keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for this.
# Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to workaround
# their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0" and
# "force-response-1.0" for this.
BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
# MSIE 7 and newer should be able to use keepalive
BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/user/([a-z0-9-]+)/?$ /user/view.php?profile=$1&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^/user/([a-z0-9-]+)/([a-z0-9-]+)/?$ /view/view.php?profile=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^/group/([a-z0-9-]+)/?$ /group/view.php?homepage=$1&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^/group/([a-z0-9-]+)/([a-z0-9-]+)/?$ /view/view.php?homepage=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
4. Create the SSL folder in /etc/apache2/ if it doesn't already exist:
$ sudo mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl
5. Run the following command to set up your local cert and follow the ensuing steps for generating it:
$ sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem
When it asks you for the "Common name", you can put your local server's name.
6. Restart Apache.
$ sudo service apache2 restart
If you have an error message that pertains to your SSL site, you'll need to fix it first before continuing.
7. Test the Apache config:
$ sudo apache2ctl configtest
8. Delete the old wwwroot as that still points to http://. If you left it, you wouldn't see all assetts.
$ sudo -u postgres psql mahara-master
delete from config where field = 'wwwroot';
Ctrl + d to exit
9. Go to your Mahara URL and use https://. Since you created a self-signed cert, your connection will be untrusted. Proceed anyway.
10. Now you can use your developer site with web services as well.
Set up Behat
You can use the automated testing suite from Mahara 15.04 on. There is a separate installation page for Behat.


text:
Coaching Education
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee coaching education department is committed to supporting National Governing Bodies of sport by providing cutting-edge information and training opportunities to help direct Team USA athletes to national and international success.
The focus statement for the USOPC Coaching Education Department is as follows:
The USOPC coaching education department encourages coaches at all levels of sport in America to become continual learners in terms of growing their abilities for both core knowledge and their sport-specific understanding. Through the development and delivery of resources and practical application of research based educational programming, and strong NGB partner relationships the USOPC coaching education department believes sport in America will advance and grow the number of podium potential athletes.
The coaching education department has five main objectives:
- Assist NGBs in the development of coaching education programs and materials
- Deliver programming that highlights the sport science and research based standards of the USOPC
- Supply support for Team USA in a manner that is effective and relevant in supporting podium potential athletes through coaching education.
- Recognize the importance of America's best coaches, while advancing coaching as a profession
- Advertise and support the importance of coach training and certification for all American coaches.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Founder Advisor Standard Template (FAST) was developed by the Founder Institute to encourage collaboration between entrepreneurs and other domain experts to build meaningful and enduring technology companies. FAST allows any mentor, any advisor or any domain expert to quickly engage with and assist a fast growing technology company at any stage using fair terms for preset equity compensation.
Simply check the level of engagement, sign the agr... show moreeement, and start the relationship. There is no longer the need for cumbersome negotiation, legal drafting and review. The original document (with further documentation) is available at http://fi.co/contents/fast
This Founder Advisor Standard Template (the "Agreement") is entered into the date set forth on the signature page by and between Company Name (the "Company") and Advisor Name (the "Advisor").
The parties agree as follows:
1. Services. Advisor agrees to act as a mentor or advisor to the Company and provide advice and assistance to the Company from time to time as further described on Schedule A attached hereto or as otherwise mutually agreed to by the parties (collectively, the "Services").
2. Compensation. Advisor shall not be entitled to receive cash compensation; however, Advisor shall be entitled to receive the equity compensation indicated below at an exercise or purchase price equal to the fair market value of the Company's Common Stock, which will be documented in the applicable Stock Option Agreement or Restricted Stock Purchase Agreement to be entered into by Advisor and the Company. The Company will seek written approval or have a meeting of the Board of Directors to authorize the Advisor compensation and deliver definitive stock purchase or option agreements regarding the stock compensation within 90 days from the date of this Agreement. If the Company fails to provide the foregoing documentation within such 90-day period, then the Advisor shall have right to contact directors of the Company and to the extent the Advisor needs to take action to enforce this Agreement, then the Company agrees to pay all Advisor's reasonable expenses in connection therewith.
3. Expenses. The Company shall reimburse Advisor for reasonable travel and related expenses incurred in the course of performing services hereunder, provided, however, that any expenses shall be approved by the Advisor emailing a request including the nature of the expense and a maximum amount to the company for approval.
4. Term and Termination. The term of this Agreement shall continue until terminated by either party for any reason upon five days prior written notice without further obligation or liability.
5. Independent Contractor. Advisor's relationship with the Company will be that of an independent contractor and not that of an employee. Advisor will not be eligible for any employee benefits, nor will the Company make deductions from payments made to Advisor for employment or income taxes, all of which will be Advisor's responsibility. Advisor will have no authority to enter into contracts that bind the Company or create obligations on the part of the Company without the prior written authorization of the Company.
6. Nondisclosure of Confidential Information.
a. Agreement Not to Disclose. Advisor agrees not to use any Confidential Information (as defined below) disclosed to Advisor by the Company for Advisor's own use or for any purpose other than to carry out discussions concerning, and the undertaking of, the Services. Advisor agrees to take all reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of and avoid disclosure or use of Confidential Information of the Company in order to prevent it from falling into the public domain or the possession of persons other than agents of the Company or persons to whom the Company consents to such disclosure. Upon request by the Company, any materials or documents that have been furnished by the Company to Advisor in connection with the Services shall be promptly returned by Advisor to the Company.
b. Definition of Confidential Information. "Confidential Information" means any information, technical data or know-how (whether disclosed before or after the date of this Agreement), including, but not limited to, information relating to business and product or service plans, financial projections, customer lists, business forecasts, sales and merchandising, human resources, patents, patent applications, computer object or source code, research, inventions, processes, designs, drawings, engineering, marketing or finance to be confidential or proprietary or which information would, under the circumstances, appear to a reasonable person to be confidential or proprietary. Confidential Information does not include information, technical data or know-how that: (i) is in the possession of Advisor at the time of disclosure, as shown by Advisor's files and records immediately prior to the time of disclosure; or (ii) becomes part of the public knowledge or literature, not as a direct or indirect result of any improper inaction or action of Advisor. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Advisor may disclose Confidential Information with the prior written approval of the Company or pursuant to the order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other governmental body.
7. No Rights Granted. Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as granting any rights under any patent, copyright or other intellectual property right of the Company, nor shall this Agreement grant Advisor any rights in or to the Company's Confidential Information, except the limited right to use the Confidential Information in connection with the Services.
8. Assignment of Intellectual Property. To the extent that Advisor jointly or solely conceives, develops or reduces to practice any new inventions, original works of authorship, developments, concepts, know-how, improvements or trade secrets, whether or not patentable or registrable under copyright or similar laws or other intellectual property which would be deemed to be Confidential Information of the Company (collectively, "Intellectual Property") which clearly relates to the Company's business or technology and has been created by the Advisor solely in the course of the performance of Services such as in correspondence, e-mails, meetings or meetings relating to the Company, Advisor hereby acknowledges that it is "work made for hire" for the benefit of the Company and hereby assigns all rights, titles and interest to such Intellectual Property to the Company.
9. Duty to Assist. As requested by the Company and only with respect to Intellectual Property created by Advisor for the Company as provided in paragraph 8 above, Advisor shall take all steps reasonably necessary to assist the Company in obtaining and enforcing in its own name any such Intellectual Property right. Advisor's obligation to assist the Company shall continue beyond the termination of Advisor's relationship with the Company, but the Company shall compensate Advisor at a reasonable rate after the termination of such relationship for time actually spent at the Company's request providing such assistance.
10. No Conflicts. Advisor represents that Advisor's compliance with the terms of this Agreement and provision of Services hereunder will not violate any duty which Advisor may have to any other person or entity (such as a present or former employer), and Advisor agrees that Advisor will not do anything in the performance of Services hereunder that would violate any such duty. In addition, Advisor agrees that, during the term of this Agreement, Advisor shall promptly notify the Company in writing of any direct competitor of the Company which Advisor is also performing services. It is understood that in such event, the Company will review whether Advisor's activities are consistent with Advisor remaining as an advisor of the Company.
11. Miscellaneous. Any term of this Agreement may be amended or waived only with the written consent of the parties. So long as you continue to serve as an advisor to the Company, you hereby consent to the Company including your name on its marketing materials, Web site or private placement memo, or offering materials as an advisor of the Company. This Agreement, including any schedules hereto, constitute the sole agreement of the parties and supersedes all oral negotiations and prior writings with respect to the subject matter hereof. The validity, interpretation, construction and performance of this Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of California, without giving effect to the principles of conflict of laws. This Agreement may be executed in counterparts, each of which shall be deemed an original, but all of which together will constitute one and the same instrument.
Advisor Compensation
Based on the below range, the parties agree for an advisor compensation equal to: 0.20%
Advisor Performance Level
- Standard
- Idea Stage: 0.25%
- Startup Stage: 0.20%
- Growth Stage: 0.15%
- Strategic
- Idea Stage: 0.50%
- Startup Stage: 0.40%
- Growth Stage: 0.30%
- Expert
- Idea Stage: 1.00%
- Startup Stage: 0.80%
- Growth Stage: 0.60%
Type of Security:
The parties agree that the above compensation will be paid as: choose the type of stock desired, delete the other option
Option to purchase:
Common Stock
Restricted Common Stock
Total Number of Shares of Common Stock:
The parties agree that the above compesation is equal to Number of Common Stock shares shares so long as Advisor satisfies the Performance Level of Service as indicated above*
If the Company's capitalization structure is currently unknown, fill in 'TBD' above.
Vesting Period:
All shares (other than the bonus level of shares) shall vest on a pro rata basis monthly over a 2 year period with a 3-month cliff period. The bonus shares shall vest if Advisor has satisfied the bonus level of service as determined by the Company at the end of the 2-year period or prior to the sale of the Company.
Percent % of unvested shares shall vest on closing of sale of the Company
*Advisor's performance level of service shall be determined by the Company, and its determination shall be final and binding; provided that Advisor may request confirmation of the level of service at least each quarter.
Schedule A:
Services Based on Performance Level
The Advisor Compensation and Services are determined using the guidelines below.
Standard Performance Level
Commitment: Attend quarterly meetings to provide feedback on Company's strategy for at least one hour. Attend quarterly meetings of the Company's Advisory board. Provide reasonable response to email requests by Company.
- Promotion: On top of the regular advice and insights, Advisor agrees to actively promote and make introductions on behalf of the Company through Advisor's overall network of business contacts, including forwarding the Company's business plan and other materials as requested by the Company.
Idea Stage: 0.25% - Startup Stage 0.20% - Growth Stage 0.15%
Strategic Performance Level
Standard Performance plus:
Commitment: Attend monthly meetings to provide feedback on Company's strategy for at least one hour. Attend one additional monthly meeting for up to one hour with a potential customer, investor, strategic partner, vendor or employee.
- Recruting: Advisor agrees to assist Company in finding additional, potential founding team members and employees through the Advisor's overall network of business contacts.
Idea Stage: 0.50% - Startup Stage 0.40% - Growth Stage 0.30%
Expert Performance Level
Strategic Performance plus:
Commitment: Twice monthly meetings to provide feedback on Company's strategy for at least two hours each.
- Contacts: Advisor agrees to make introductions to and assist in the acquisition of marquee customers, strategic partners and key industry contacts and attend meetings with such potential customers, partners and key contacts.
- Projects: Advisor agrees to assist the Company on at least one strategic project as requested by the Company during the term of this Agreement.
Idea Stage: 1.00% - Startup Stage 0.80% - Growth Stage 0.60%
Company Stage
The Company Stage is determined using the guidelines below.
Team: The team consists of only part-time founder(s).
Customers: The company is in discussions with potential customers to determine demand in the market. The pricing/revenue structure has been developed, but needs market validation.
Revenue: The company has no revenue.
Investors: At least one group consisting of the founder(s), their friends or family has invested.
Product: The specifications for a minimum viable product including wireframes and system designs are complete.
Team: The team consists of full-time founder(s) and is in the process of hiring initial employees as needed.
Customers: The company has received letters of intent or customer commitments and the market need has been validated.
Revenue: The company may be collecting revenue.
Investors: Investment may have been raised via friends/family or professional investors (angel, venture capital, etc.).
Product: The launch of the minimum viable product is imminent.
Team: The team consists of full time founder(s) and is in the process of hiring employees as needed.
Customers: The company has achieved significant traction and user-based growth.
Revenue: The company is collecting revenue.
Investors: Prior investment may have been raised and the founders are prepared to pitch to professional investors if additional capital is needed.


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Is Diablo III coming to consoles? That's not a question Blizzard's going to answer until they finish the PC version, and judging by today's letter from game director Jay Wilson, they've still got quite a ways to go. While we eagerly await the release, developers are still figuring out the game's core systems.
The Diablo III Blizzard eventually releases on the PC will be significantly different than the one we played in beta last year. That should come as no surprise to anyone that's attended the past three BlizzCon conventions, witnessing the game's metamorphosis from year-to-year. In a post on the official Diablo III website today Jay Wilson detailed a rather significant list of changes being implemented.
For example, they're taking identify scrolls out of the game completely. Rather than having to cast the identify spell from a disposable scrolls every time you come across an unknown magical item, you simply click it, wait for a short timer to run out, and discover its properties. If it's going to be that easy they should simply remove unidentified objects from the game altogether, but I'm not a game designer and don't pretend to understand their mindset.
Other changes include the removal of the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube, two objects that allowed players to salvage and sell items while still in dungeons. While convenient, Blizzard felt the objects removed the need to head back to town on a regular basis. Now players will once more have to hop out, sell their items (or have the blacksmith salvage them for crafting components) and hop back in.
They're also removing three attributes from the game in order to make statistics easier to comprehend. Defense, Attack, and Precision are cut, with Armor taking over for Defense and +Crit Chance in place of Precision. This leaves the four core attributes — Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, and Health — a much easier-to-understand lineup.
It feels rather late in the game for Blizzard to be making such sweeping changes, but that's where the company's "When it's done" release policy kicks in. As Wilson says in his post, it's not just about getting a game on the shelves; it's about getting a game on the shelves that will stand the test of time.
We want Diablo III to be the best game it can be when it launches. To get there, we're going to be iterating on designs we've had in place for a long time, making changes to systems you've spent a lot of time theorycrafting, and removing features you may have come to associate with the core of the experience. Our hope is that by embracing our iterative design process in which we question ourselves and our decisions, Diablo III won't just live up to our expectations, but will continue to do so a decade after it's released.
Systems Changes [Diablo III]


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Watertown-based athenahealth Inc., a provider of online services to doctors and hospitals, is acquiring Epocrates Inc. of San Mateo, Calif., for $293 million to gain a leading iPhone app and expand in electronic records. Athenahealth will pay $11.75 a share, a 22 percent premium to Epocrates's Friday closing price. The deal helps athenahealth, which processes insurance claims and patient payments, expand a business for software to prescribe drugs and keep records. It may also benefit from name recognition for Epocrates's app, as of August used by 338,000 physicians to call up summaries on drugs.
Mass. Movers


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Mont du Chat is a truly epic climb overlooking Lac du Bourget (the biggest lake in France).
Last year Le Cycle magazine called it possibly the toughest climb in France …. for me it's far too short for that honour, but it's hard work.
It's a beautiful deserted route that starts beside Lac du Bourget and just keeps climbing … with ever improving views of the lake and snow covered Alps – Mont Blanc appears with about 3 kms to go.
The plan was to descend the other side and return via the scenic Col du Chat. See here for details on this loop in the other direction including climb details of the also very interesting west side of Mont du Chat – the last two kms on that side average 12%!
After photos at the summit – (Alps everywhere!), about 6 kms down the other (west) side my tire blew, I skidded but luckily didn't fall – slow descending has its benefits. The tire was destroyed and my spare inner-tube was thus useless. I was pretty clueless what to do as I was on the wrong side of a huge mountain, wearing road-bike cleats on the most deserted road.
I hiked up the hill for a while and calculated that I would be at the car an hour after dark.
I called Barry to whine with hopes that he would rescue me. He kindly offered to bring a new tire by motor bike – and we both laughed at me.
Finally a car passed – for the 1st time in my life I hitch-hiked. A very nice old couple offered to rescue me. We chatted away – as I got increasingly car sick as the old guy negotiated the difficult narrow mountain road – but was I ever grateful.
Such nice people – they even thanked me for the scenic tour of the village down below as I got them quite lost on narrow, tiny streets having forgotten where the car was parked. Merci mille fois!


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A blog about about painting, design and other aspects of aesthetics along with a dash of non-art topics. The point-of-view is that modernism in art is an idea that has, after a century or more, been thoroughly tested and found wanting. Not to say that it should be abolished -- just put in its proper, diminished place.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Lluis Masriera, Versatile Catalonian
The painting shown above, Ombres reflectides (1920) was one of the more interesting ones I noticed while making a mad dash (not recommended) through Barcelona's Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (Wikipedia entry here and Web site here.)
It's by Lluis Masriera (1872-1958). I couldn't find much biographical information about him during a brief Google search other than this Wikipedia entry (in Spanish) and a blog post by a antiques advisor here. The latter is informal and includes at least one factual error (a 1906 commission from Queen Victoria was impossible because the monarch had died five years earlier).
At any rate, it turns out that Masriera is better known for his jewelry design than his painting. An example of the former is shown below.
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 4:52 AM 1 comment:
Labels: Painters
Friday, November 26, 2010
Morning in the Fez Medina
Never let a good pixel go to waste, sez I.
What follows are some snapshots taken while touring the market area of the Medina district of Fez, Morocco. (I'm writing this in Las Vegas, and might later post some pix of this equally exotic locale.)
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 3:59 AM No comments:
Labels: Miscellaneous
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
When Ornamentation Approaches Overkill
European cities that had late 19th century growth spurts bequeathed us buildings and even entire neighborhoods in Art Nouveau architecture. There are a some exceptions that come to mind: London and Berlin aren't known for that style. But Barcelona definitely falls into the Art Nouveau camp.
I'll have more to say about exteriors later, but for starters will begin with an interior -- that of the Palau de la Música Catalana.
Can there be such a thing as too much decoration? Modernist theorists of the early 20th century held that ornament of any kind must be avoided; Adolf Loos went so far as to equate ornament with a sort of crime.
I take the position that ornament can serve as a link to human predispositions formed by evolution in nature settings -- that we are attuned to the vegetation tangles of the natural environment in non-Arctic, non-desert places.
Moreover, ornament can be functional in theater interiors. This is because it provides a distraction for audience members waiting for a performance to begin. The grand movie houses of the 1920s had all sorts of carvings of treasure galleons, Egyptians tombs, Roman forums and any number of other items depending on the theater's design theme, to entertain waiting patrons. Today's stripped-down cinemas resort to flashing advertising on the screen as the audience assembles.
To return to the question posed, I have to say that the Palau is indeed over-decorated and lacks a theme for the decoration it has. But boy is it entertaining!
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 3:30 AM 2 comments:
Labels: Architecture
Monday, November 22, 2010
Awkward Years: Car Styling 1935-38
The decade of the Great Depression was one of frantic creativity as many manufacturers pushed experimentation to the forefront in an effort to find sales in a stagnant market. This was especially true for the American automobile industry as can be seen by comparing cars from the beginning and conclusion of that economically dark decade.
Above are Chevrolets from 1930 and 1941. The 1930 model is a boxy assemblage of visually discrete parts (hood, passenger compartment, fenders, headlights, etc.) whereas the 1941 is integrated, smooth and lacks awkwardness.
Between those two model years was a transition where, feature by feature, car styling evolved from one convention to a distinctly different one. Below is a gallery of photos showing cars of various makes for model years 1935-38, the midpoint of the transition and the point where awkwardness was maximized.
Most of the cars look roughly similar. That's partly because General Motors was the acknowledged style leader (and had by far the largest market share) and the other companies tended to shy away from being too different from GM for fear sales might suffer. Other reasons were technical, having to do with learning how to shape steel sheets into compound-curve forms using mass-production methods -- something of little matter in the 1920s and earlier.
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 4:21 AM 4 comments:
Labels: Automobile Styling
Friday, November 19, 2010
Football Program Covers
The end of the American college football season is nigh. For no special reason, this brings to mind the game program publication featuring team rosters surrounded by college sports-related articles and advertising. More specifically, I think of program covers from the days when illustration -- rather than photography -- was in flower.
So without further delay, I offer a smattering of such covers gleaned from the Internet for your weekend entertainment.
Coles Phillips who, sadly, had died two before this program was hawked at the stadium.
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 5:09 AM 1 comment:
Labels: Illustration
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Albert von Keller: Spirits in Seattle
Seattle's Frye Art Museum is an odd duck in the art museum zoo. Founded by the owner of a meat packing company (along with his wife), it offers free admission and a permanent collection of Munich-centric painting from roughly 1875-1910. The bequest stipulated that some of this "founding collection" be on display at all times.
(The collection includes painting by Friedrich von Kaulbach, Wilhelm Leibl, Franz von Lenbach, Franz von Stuck (including one of his famous "Sin" paintings) and Fritz von Uhde. There are non-German works from that era including three paintings by William Bouguereau. A list of items in the collection is here.)
Traditionally, the Frye was Seattle's bastion of representational art. But a new management regime has in recent years fielded exhibits featuring seriously bad postmodern "art" in various media. There are some exceptions, however. Within the last two or three years the Frye had shows on the Munich Secession and 1900-vintage art from the University of Washington's Henry Gallery which nowadays stresses modernism.
Moreover, the Frye is currently showing (through 2 January 2011) paintings by Albert von Keller (1844-1920) that largely deal with spiritualism and the occult. The museum's Web blurb on Keller and the exhibit is here.
To me, spiritualism and the occult are curiosities of little interest. But many folks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took them seriously, as did Keller.
Keller's work is different enough to be interesting. Whiffs of expressionism, unusual colors schemes (often enough, brownish reds) and more than a dab of sex attract attention from more conventional (and perhaps better) paintings by others.
Below are some paintings to be found in the exhibit plus two extras for your entertainment.
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 4:39 AM No comments:
Monday, November 15, 2010
What Garnier Created, Chagall Desecrated
Fifty years ago, French Culture Minister André Malraux pulled the trigger, commissioning Marc Chagall to create a new ceiling painting for the Paris opera house that's today best known by the name Opéra Garnier.
The "Garnier" in the name comes from the name of its architect Charles Garnier; it's also known as the Palais Garnier, the title used in the building's Wikipedia entry, here.
The teacher of my undergraduate History of Architecture class hated the place. It was "dishonest" in that its metal framing was covered by ornate stone surfaces. And that grand staircase? ... an abomination of utterly superfluous ornamentation, a confusing mix of different marbles, all of it intended for the pleasure of Louis-Napoléon's aristocracy. That dolt Garnier should have been inspired by the iron-and-glass train sheds at those gares popping up on the right bank not so far from the opera site: those structures were honest, true to their materials and function.
By the time I actually visited the Opéra Garnier the architectural history teacher's work had long since rung hollow. I enjoyed the building. Sure, it probably was a bit over-done, but that was part of its charm.
However, there was one jarring note: that replacement ceiling painting by Chagall. I found Chagall's ceiling totally out of character with the rest of the auditorium it covers.
What could Malraux have been thinking? I suspect it was the groupthink of the late 1950s that included my architectural history indoctrination. Modernism is the only true path; the 19th century was a crazed attempt to preserve classical forms while technological change was sweeping away their underpinnings; the uncomprehending masses need re-education in order for them to comprehend these truths that really ought to be obvious.
Worse for me, even in the days when I'd pretty much bought into modernist ideology, I never thought that Chagall was more than a second- or even third-rate artist. I'll probably get around to writing a post dealing with him, so for now just accept that I'm biased against the guy's work.
So what was there before Chagall worked his magic? About what one would expect: A ceiling filled with classical figures swirling around up there where looking at it strains one's neck and where it's hard to figure out what's going on anyway. Note that this is the case for ceiling art in general.
The original painting was done by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu and titled "The Muses and the Hours of the Day and Night."
And its sad fate? Apparently it still exists. It can be found under Chagall's painting according to this source.
The last link is a comprehensive account of the building and the art it contains and is well worth browsing. I would have extracted some quotes from it, but the poster guarded it with some strongly-worded copyright warnings that made me chicken out. Let me add that he too is not amused by the Chagall ceiling.
To illustrate what's at stake, below are a study for the original ceiling and a photo showing most of the Chagall ceiling.
Finally, I need to mention that in order to fully understand the controversy, you need to tour the opera house and view the present ceiling in the context of both the rest of the room and entire building.
Posted by Donald Pittenger at 4:35 AM 21 comments:
Labels: Architecture, Painters
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Geomag™ Supercolor Panels Magnetic Construction Toy
35 pcUPC: 0087177200377
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Prices May Vary
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Play is kids' work and Geomag helps with their training. Geomag magnetic sticks and metal balls allow children to experiment with geometric shapes all while learning about magnetism, polarisation and STEM concepts. Magnets are magnificent and introduce children to the joys of colorful and versatile building sets.
- 35 piece set including magnetic sticks, balls and tiles
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- Stimulates creativity and problem-solving skills and built to last and easy to clean


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Sunday, April 1, 2012
Sunday Stash #136
9 comments:
Can't wait to see what you do with these!ReplyDelete
Ok, now that I've seen better pics, I will have to get this. Yow-ser...thanks!ReplyDelete
Ooo, I love them! I'd love to see some hourglass squares with them, it should be amazing!ReplyDelete
That fabric looks awesome! I'll have to see if I can get my hands on some! =DReplyDelete
Got mine at Sew Modern....in person...lucky me!ReplyDelete
Everytime I see them I want them so I guess i'm going to order some today.ReplyDelete
I ordered mine at Pink CastleReplyDelete
Anxious to see what you do with them.ReplyDelete
I love what you do but please tell me what thread you have used to quilt your postage stamp quilt? I have a rainbow stripie to quilt and cannot decide how to handle the brightly colored areas.ReplyDelete
Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment! I really appreciate it.
Comments are published after review.
Feel free to ask questions and I will answer either here or by email, as is appropriate.


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Services on Demand
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Revista chilena de obstetricia y ginecología
On-line version ISSN 0717-7526
MENDOZA T, Luis Alfonso et al. Prevalencia de lesiones de bajo y alto grado de cuello uterino en una ciudad colombiana. Rev. chil. obstet. ginecol. [online]. 2012, vol.77, n.2, pp.129-136. ISSN 0717-7526. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0717-75262012000200009.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of lesions of low and high grade cervical in a Lender Institution Health Services, Tuluá, Colombia, 2008-2010. Methods: We performed a retrospective study which included women between 15 and 75 years living in Tuluá. We evaluated the normality of quantitative variables, using the median or average with their variances for quantitative variables according to their distribution and frequencies and proportions for categorical variables. Results: 3539 women were included. The median age was 38 years with interquartile range (IR: 29-46 years) and the median parity was 1 (IR: 0-3). In relation to social security and family planning birth control, most were private and did not use any method. The 87.5% of smears was reported as negative, low-grade squamous intraepitelial lesions (LSIL) 8.2%, atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) 2.6%, high-grade squamous intraepitelial lesions (HSIL) 0.9%, atypical squamous cells cannot rule out a high grade lesion (ASC-H) 0.0%, atypical squamous glandular cells of undetermined significance (ASGUS) 0.4% and invasive carcinoma 0.2%. Conclusion: The prevalence of cytological abnormalities was low in all groups studied, however, a greater number of LSIL to the fourth decades of life and those who began their sexual life after 40 years. Similarly, an inverse relationship was found between parity, hormonal family planning and pre-neoplastic lesions.
Keywords : Cervical cytology; cervical cancer; human papilloma virus.


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The Best Sports Supplements for Men
This blog does not intend to provide diagnosis...
You train hard, eat well, and are looking for a way to maximize your results from all that hard work. Your gym buddies have brought up sports supplements to you on many occasions. But where to begin? Pre-workout formulas? Post-workout? During a workout? Vitamins, minerals, soy protein, whey protein–what is what and why do I need it? Where do I even start?
Let's Start With The Word Supplement
The word supplement means to enhance or complete something. Supplements should enhance, complete and complement your diet. They play a vital role in increasing certain nutrients your body may not get enough of from whole foods alone.
It is important to remember that the foundation of your diet should be formed with whole foods, but supplements can provide the missing nutrients your body needs.
Where Do I Begin?
The best place to begin maximizing your training is by assessing your diet and training. Consider your long-term fitness and health goals and ask yourself these two questions: 1) Is my training ideal for this goal? And 2) Is my diet ideal for this goal? Once these questions are answered, you can then focus more on specific requirements.
For example, when maximizing muscle growth, how do you determine which supplements are best? Below you will find five key factors that contribute to muscle growth that both supplementation and nutrition can affect:
- Calories: Are you eating enough calories to promote muscle growth and fuel training sessions?
- Protein: Does your daily diet include enough protein? When trying to build muscle, the average man needs 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day.
- Decreasing Muscle Breakdown: To help reduce muscle damage caused by intense weight training, it is important to have adequate nutrition and protein.
- Increasing Training Intensity: When you train harder, it creates an increased incentive for muscle growth. Harder training can include increased duration, more volume and more weight.
- Improving Hormone Levels: The hormone testosterone plays a critical role in muscle growth.
Consider each of the above factors and determine where your dietary weaknesses are. Next, look into supplements for that specific need.
- Calories: If you don't consume enough calories, a weight-gainer can help add those extra needed calories.
- Protein: Consider a high-quality whey protein shake to meet your protein needs.
- Decreasing Muscle Breakdown: An ideal choice is a slow-releasing protein, like casein, taken at night.
- Increasing Training Intensity: Creatine is a high-intensity energy source that is very popular thanks to its proven benefits.
- Improving Hormone Levels: Fish oils, vitamin D and Zinc can all benefit testosterone levels. Or, consider a high-quality testosterone booster to improve your overall level.
Pre-Workout Supplementation
Why would I need a pre-workout supplement? Perhaps you train early in the morning, or after a long workday when energy levels are hurting. Maybe you need a lift to get you energized again. A good pre-workout formula provides you with energy, focus and enhanced performance during your session.
How do I take this supplement? About 45 minutes prior to training, take a pre-workout formula.
Supplementation During a Workout
Why would I need a supplement during my workout? If you have high-intensity training sessions or they are especially long, an intra-workout formula can be helpful. These supplements deliver amino acids to the muscles during a training session to decrease the breakdown of muscle. Protein synthesis is increased as well, which is needed for muscle growth.
How do I take this supplement? During intense training sessions sip on a 500ml intra preparation.
Post-Workout Supplementation
Why would I need a post-workout supplement? There is no definite time frame to consume protein and carbs; however, as soon as possible following a workout is always an excellent idea. This allows the growth and repair process to begin and helps in refueling the muscles.
How do I take this supplement? Consume a post-workout formula as soon as possible following your training session. Furthermore, about 60-90 minutes after, consume a balanced meal. Post-workout recovery is an ongoing process and does not end with a shake.


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As it turns out, Osama bin Laden did not spend nine years on the run moving from one cave to another. He spent them moving from one maternity ward to another. It doesn't take a village to raise a child; it takes a terrorist network.
Bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal Ahmad Abdul Fateh, giving birth to four children in Pakistan between 2003 and 2008 is but one of the intriguing details emerging about his years on the run between the escape from Tora Bora in 2001 and his demise in Abbottabad in 2011. They are based on documents seized in last year's raid that killed bin Laden and the Pakistani investigation since then.
A decade ago, President Bush said 9/11 changed everything. If a group like al Qaeda could hijack four airplanes and fly them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, they could do anything, including acquire a nuclear weapon. The country was impelled to act, not based on what was known, but what was feared.
Ten years later, the portrait of bin Laden that emerges from Abbottabad is strikingly different: the caliph in waiting was not larger than life but a quite ordinary figure still full of grand plans despite operational capabilities reduced by outside pressure and internal squabbles. He was also a leader who recognized that his erstwhile subjects were less and less interested in what he was selling: an al Qaeda brand tarnished by excessive violence against Muslims and badly in need of a makeover. And he was a fading media star who bemoaned even the demise of the animating political slogan "war on terror," which the Obama administration consciously dropped in 2009.
The Obama administration, which has promised to declassify and release documents obtained during the raid, is meanwhile leaking this description of a diminished, even vain bin Laden as part of an ongoing counterterrorism communication effort to damage al Qaeda's standing in the Islamic world.
As intriguing and valuable as this information is, it doesn't necessarily provide a compelling political argument to sustain long-term political, financial, and military support for Afghanistan and Pakistan. This year alone, funding existing operations in Afghanistan will cost $111 billion. Meanwhile, Pakistan receives an estimated $4.5 billion a year in civilian and military aid. Some military assistance was suspended last year in the aftermath of the bin Laden raid.
As budgets get squeezed, these will be ripe targets for cuts. Add mistrust on all sides, accentuated by the actions and reactions to the friendly-fire deaths of Pakistani soldiers in November, Quran burning, and the murder of Afghan civilians, and the future of these relationships remain in doubt.
But notwithstanding increased calls to scale back these relationships at least, if not largely disengage, there are strong reasons to stay, albeit with a restructured approach to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
President Hamid Karzai has been publicly critical of what he views as disregard for the impact that ongoing operations have had on the Afghan people. But he knows that Afghanistan cannot afford to send the U.S. packing. It will need significant U.S. and international help for years to come. It is more likely than not that the U.S. and Afghanistan will resolve outstanding issues and sign a status of forces agreement that will ensure a reduced if meaningful presence beyond 2014.
Bin Laden's hideaway underscores why Pakistan and, by extension, Afghanistan, remain important. But there are a few wild cards that make the future uncertain.
A formal parliamentary review of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is under way. A central irritant is ongoing drone operations that are invaluable from a U.S. standpoint but which the Pakistani population views as a violation of sovereignty. Given that a majority of Pakistanis sees the United States as an enemy, parliament may place conditions on future cooperation that the U.S. government will find hard to accept.
Congress has its own questions, principally whether the Pakistani government was complicit in protecting bin Laden. While there remains no evidence that the top echelon of leadership in Pakistan even knew bin Laden was in the country, he clearly had civilian allies, undoubtedly some with long-standing ties to Pakistan's intelligence agencies and perhaps its military.
The Pakistani government is trying to figure out how bin Laden could live in the shadow of a number of key military installations without detection. Its best defense right now is incompetence.
While the latest details offer greater understanding of the final years of bin Laden's life, where he was and what he did, they are still not enough to answer the core question posed right after 9/11: who in Pakistan is with us, who is against us, and what we should do about it.


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TORONTO – Ian Anderson is one of the 2.5 per cent.
After his first diagnosis of melanoma, the Brampton, Ont., man was told that without immediate treatment he would be dead within two months. After his second, he was informed that if 100 people were in his shoes, 97.5 would not make it to the five-year mark, the standard measuring stick for beating a cancer.
Nineteen years after the second occurrence, Anderson, now 56, is still around to tell the tale — in his ever-present hat and sunscreen, which he slathers on religiously.
"I'm living proof that it can happen," says Anderson, who now counsels people diagnosed with melanoma.
"In doing the volunteer work that I do through peer support with the cancer society I do speak to people who are in a very similar situation to myself. And I've actually had more than one person say to me when we talk for the first time: 'Wow. You're actually giving me some hope.' And that's the whole point."
Anderson's story is one of optimism — but also of reality. While he's living proof some lucky people can survive Stage 4 melanoma, he is also confirmation that people who don't take sun precautions can develop the more-often deadly disease.
"A lot of people have the mindset 'Well, it won't be me.' … My job now is to tell people 'You know what? It can happen,'" says Anderson.
"Why not take some form of precaution if it can help you out? Simple as putting on a hat and putting on sunscreen. We're not talking Einstein here."
The Canadian Cancer Society worries that more people will hear the kinds of frightening diagnoses Anderson did in the future.
That's because skin cancers — particularly the most deadly kind, melanoma — are the most common kinds of cancers in Canada. And whereas the incidences of some cancers are actually going down, melanoma cases are on the rise, in both women and men. In 2014, it is estimated that 6,500 new melanoma diagnoses will be made, and 1,050 Canadians will die from this form of cancer.
"Because we don't get a lot of sun in this country, skin cancer isn't top of mind for most Canadians," says Prithwish De, an epidemiologist with the Canadian Cancer Society.
"There's over 80,000 skin cancer cases expected in Canada this year. And that's almost the same number of cases of the top four cancers combined — lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer."
The skin cancer figures are among new national projections for the toll cancer will take in Canada this year. The cancer society estimates that 191,300 Canadians will get a new cancer diagnosis in 2014, and 76,600 will die from some form of cancer this year.
The estimate does not include 76,100 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer. Although these types of skin cancer make up about 40 per cent of all cancers in Canada, good estimates are not available because these types of cancers aren't generally reported as part of routine cancer surveillance.
The report says 45 per cent of Canadian men and 41 per cent of Canadian women will have a diagnosis of cancer at some point in their lifetimes.
Apart from skin cancers, the leading cancers among Canadian women are breast, lung and colorectal, in that order; among Canadian men, prostate, colorectal and lung are the main types of cancers. Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer among Canadians and is expected to claim the lives of 36,600 women and 40,000 men this year.
A piece of good news in the report relates to women and lung cancer. De says the tide has finally turned on this deadly form of cancer in Canadian women, with rates hitting a plateau after years of increases.
"This is the first year where we're able to see that the incidence rate has stabilized and that's actually great news because the rates had stabilized in Canadian men about 10, 15 years ago and we were anxiously waiting for that to occur among Canadian women," says De.
He explains that the decrease in smoking among Canadian women that started in the mid-1980s is finally beginning to be reflected in the cancer statistics. Decades ago women took up smoking later than men did. But they also, as a group, started giving up smoking later too. Lung cancer is a disease that takes decades to develop, so it has taken years for rates in women to start to follow the declining pattern of lung cancer in men.
Though the pattern of lung cancer cases shows Canadians got the message about the cancer risk posed by smoking, evidence suggests there is still work to be done on getting Canadians to adopt safe sun behaviours.
The cancer society compared data from two large surveys conducted 10 years apart — in 1996 and 2006 — and found that while more Canadians were reporting spending time outdoors, there was not a corresponding increase in the numbers of people reporting they are applying sunscreen, sporting hats, seeking shade or wearing long-sleeved clothing.
"We see more people spending time in the sun. But we don't see more people taking precautions," says Loraine Marrett, senior scientist for prevention and cancer control at Cancer Care Ontario.
One sun safety message that has been sent out consistently — but hasn't always been heeded — is the recommendation that people not use tanning beds. The surveys actually showed an increase in the proportion of people who said they used tanning beds between 1996 and 2006.
Caitlin Jones was an avid indoor tanner — until she discovered at age 23 that a spot on her forehead just below her hair line was basel cell carcinoma, which comprises about four out of five non-melanoma skin cancers.
Jones had surgery to remove a quarter-sized piece of skin from her forehead to excise the cancer — a procedure that altered her view on tanning. She notes that around the same time some of her friends' parents were also dealing with skin cancers.
"You kind of think: 'Oh, well, when you're 50 and 60, that's something you have to worry about.' But for me it was a rude awakening to realize that I was 23, 24, and that's already begun.
"Now I take a lot better care of my skin to prevent any further damage."


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1971 Chevy Nova - Nuclear Nova
Nate Shaw's 9-second '71 Nova
Related Video
"Open that hood! I have to see what's in that street car that just blew my doors off!" Nate Shaw of Lakeville, Minnesota, heard this as he pulled back into the pits. He had just put the hurt on a 500ci dedicated drag car in a bad way, and the guy was miffed.
It took a lot of work and more than 20 years to get the Nova from a $400 rusted pile to the Car Craft Publishers Choice and CC Editors Choice at the most recent Car Craft Summer Nationals in St. Paul, Minnesota. When the publisher and editor of CC love a car this much, something really has to be going right.
Don't think for a second this car only excels at straight-line acceleration. Nate entered it twice into the Real Street Eliminator competition, which includes a stop box, an autocross, and a dyno challenge. Nate held his own with a very solid performance against some very stiff competition. Did we mention car cruises? Nate wanted this car to do it all. To help accomplish that goal, he chose turbochargers as his power-adder of choice.
"The great thing about a turbo motor is that it continues to pull hard through the entire rpm band," Nate says. "With an N/A motor, it tends to feel a bit sluggish in higher gears. Not these things. Turbo cars make Third gear feel like First gear."
The last drag race before the frigid Minnesota winter descended netted him a very respectable 9.98 at 139 mph. Nate tells us that with a few tweaks of the suspension, mid-9s would be within his reach.
A former GM tech, Nate is no stranger to turbocharging LS motors; he's built several kits for friends and customers at his performance shop he calls One Guy's Garage. At 17 psi, his combination is good for 717 hp and 640 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. This isn't the most powerful car he's built, but this combo was built to be the perfect compromise of affordable components and quick-spooling street power. Did we mention he's also a stay-at-home dad of two little girls, Cora and Ivy? Yet he still manages to squeeze in some wrenching time for himself through it all.
Usher in the little lady in the background—Stacy Shaw, Nate's wife. She's the one who keeps the car within budget and still lets Nate have a little fun.
"When I first built this engine, it was a stock L33 long-block (all-aluminum 5.3 with a 10.0:1 compression ratio). Stacy asked me if I thought it would last long with this amount of boost, and if it would grenade on me, said I should just spend a few bucks to upgrade the bottom end. That was all the permission I needed!" Nate says. The 5.3 is now prepped for all the boost the 76mm turbo can throw at it.
Tech Notes
Who: Nate Shaw
What: 1971 Chevrolet Nova
Where: Frigid Lakeville, Minnesota
Engine: The reactor Nate chose for his car was an aluminum-block L33 that he jacked full of forged parts to make it withstand the abuse. Somehow, Nate is using the stock 5.3 crank to make all this power. To it, he added Eagle H-beam rods, Wiseco 9.5:1 pistons, and a Comp Cams 224/228 cam with 0.560-inch lift. The heads are stock 799 castings but have been furnished with Lunati dual valvesprings and retainers. The heads use ARP studs and 1.7:1 rocker arms.
Boost: The turbo is what really makes the engine come alive. Nate prefers the combination of size and spool time of the Precision 7675 CEA .96AR turbo with a Treadstone 6-inch core vertical flow intercooler. A three-bar MAP sensor monitors the boost. The intake is stock with Delphi 95-pound injectors using Acceleronics Versafuel drivers. He runs dual Bosch 044 external fuel pumps that feed the engine E85. To run the car on both the street and the strip, Nate created his own boost controller. Normally, the wastegate allows 16 psi, but when Nate flips a switch, a solenoid diverts reference pressure to a manual boost controller, allowing 23 psi to reach the intake. The computer is from a '00 Chevrolet Silverado and was custom tuned.
Transmission/Rear End: The transmission harnessing all this power is a '05 4L80E built with a Transgo HD2 shift kit and a Yank PY3600 torque converter with a single-disc lock-up clutch. The rearend is a no-frills 12-bolt out of a '70 Nova, with 3.42:1 gears and axles out of a GMC Yukon.
Exhaust: Nate reversed an '05 Chevrolet Trailblazer exhaust manifold on the driver side and a '06 Impala 5.3L manifold on the passenger side. These feed into a single, 4-inch downpipe to a 3.5-inch exhaust tube and a MagnaFlow 6-inch round muffler.
Paint/Body: The body of the Nova is all steel with stock body panels. Nate mini-tubbed it and did the body work. The car was sprayed with a dark metallic green by Mike Bighley of Bighley Autobody in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Suspension/Brakes: The Nova has a stock subframe with 2-inch-drop spindles and reverse-mounted Chevelle steering arms. The inner tie rods were moved up 2 inches to allow for more clearance. Front springs are AFCO 650-pound units with RCD-valved Bilstein shocks and a Hotchkis 1.25-inch sway bar. The steering box is borrowed from a '96 Jeep Cherokee. The rear sports Calvert Split Mono-Leaf springs, CalTracs traction bars, SpeedTech offset shackles, and RCD valved Bilstein shocks. The front brakes are from an '02 Camaro using disc-on-drum conversion spindles, and a set of '02 S10 discs are out back. Nate says he would love to go bigger in the brake department, but they won't clear the wheel.
Wheels/Tires: The front wheels are 15x4-inch Weld RT-S drag wheels with 112 inches of backspacing wrapped in Hoosier 26-inch drag rubber. The back has a pair of Weld RT-S drag wheels measuring 15x10 with 7.5-inch backspacing with 325/50R15 Hoosier drag radials. Nate does have a set of Vintage Wheel Works wheels and Nitto NT05 tires when he wants to run the autocross or just do some cruising.
Thanks: Carl at CJTunes, Mike Bighley, TPIS and, of course, wife Stacy!
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Tradjenta, a Drug for Type 2s, Now on U.S. Market
Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly have begun sales of Tradjenta, a drug for type 2 diabetes, in U.S. pharmacies. The drug (generic name linagliptin) comes in tablet form and is intended to compete with Amylin Pharmaceuticals' Byetta, which is injected, and Merck's Januvia, which also competes with Byetta. Both are well-established in the U.S. market.
Like Januvia, Tradjenta is a DPP-4 inhibitor that blocks an enzyme that interferes with a hormone that stimulates after-meal insulin production. This leads to more insulin in the bloodstream, which lowers blood glucose levels.
The new drug was tested in eight double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that involved 3,800 type 2 patients. It was tested as a standalone therapy and in combination with such standard diabetes drugs as metformin and glimepiride. It is likely that in most cases, Tradjenta will be prescribed as an adjunct to, rather than a replacement for, other drugs.
Despite competing head-to-head against well-established drugs, Tradjenta does bring one competitive advantage to the table: It is taken only once daily and does not pass through the kidneys on the way to excretion. Instead, the drug is expressed through bile and the gut, which makes it safe for patients with kidney problems.


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Loyalists of the western empire have been growing increasingly honest about their desire to use censorship and propaganda in order to win an "information war" against Russia.
The other day we saw a Guardian article arguing for the necessity of a coordinated campaign by western governments to "combat Russian disinformation" due to Russia's disinterest in "cooperating to reach a common understanding of the truth", i.e. agree with unproven western accusations and capitulate to the longstanding western agendas those accusations are meant to advance.
Before that, we saw a Defense One article authored by an Atlantic Council official arguing in favor of the creation of a "NATO for Infowar" to propagandize westerners against Russian interests for their own good. The author of this article went so far as to suggest that the Kremlin-backed television channel RT ought to be forbidden to air in western nations.
It always comes back to RT. Because of the network's relatively high profile in comparison to other Russian media, it has been made into an ideal Emmanuel Goldstein for the empire's daily Two Minutes Hate. RT is now so completely reviled by establishment loyalists that citing it in an online debate will be taken as an instant debunk of not just the point you were trying to make but of your entire position (and often your humanity itself by getting you labeled a "Russian bot"), even if your citation is comprised entirely of independently verifiable facts.
Luckily for the screaming hysterical Big Brother devotees, there is a very easy and 100 percent guaranteed way to get RT removed from western airwaves forever. Are you ready? Here it is:
Allow leftist and antiwar perspectives to be voiced on western mainstream media.
That's it. That's the whole entire recipe for RT's destruction. If western media simply ceased deliberately excluding leftist and antiwar voices from mainstream discourse, there would no longer be any demand for RT's output, since the only reason anyone outside of Russia watches RT is to get perspectives they can't get anywhere else.
A few leftist, antiwar and activism-oriented programs on stations like BBC and MSNBC is all it would take to kill any interest in RT's programming and steal their entire audience. They wouldn't ever have to have a single Russian on their programs; there is an abundance of home-grown talent with clear antiwar, anti-capitalism, pro-environment perspectives to keep reliably churning out fresh content on a daily basis, and there is simply no way RT's feeble budget would be able to keep up.
And of course they wouldn't just be stealing RT's audience, they'd be stealing their talent as well. Redacted Tonight's Lee Camp has gone on record saying the only reason he's on RT is because his leftist antiwar perspective got doors slammed in his face everywhere else. He went to RT, and they make no attempts to influence him to say or not say anything other than what he wants. Talent wouldn't have to rely on RT if it could share the same ideas with bigger audiences for better pay.
That's actually RT America's entire schtick: people like Chris Hedges and Jesse Ventura get de-platformed by western mass media due to their anti-establishment views, so they go to RT where they are given a platform. There are Americans who are drawn to those perspectives, so their eyeballs go to RT programming. If CNN had some programming that allowed for such perspectives this would steal all the demand for RT, but they don't. The closest they ever get is having Jill Stein on once in a blue moon so Chris Cuomo can admonish her for not participating correctly in the information war against Russia.
This is a surefire way to get rid of RT without violating the US Constitution, committing unprecedented acts of government censorship, or having anything whatsoever to do with the Kremlin. But of course, we all know that it will never happen.
It will never happen because RT is not the real enemy. Leftists and antiwar activists are the real enemy.
Indeed, the fact that RT America gives a platform to Americans who oppose war, ecocide and plutocracy is the US establishment's primary grievance against it. In January of last year the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published its hotly anticipated report on Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 election. The disappointing report provided no proof whatsoever of those allegations, and instead spent much of its space accusing RT of covering stories which are inconvenient to US plutocrats. According to the report, RT America's offenses included the following:
- Airing two new shows that were critical of the US government.
- Running reports on the vulnerabilities of US election machines.
- Broadcasting, hosting and advertising debates between third-party candidates.
- Covering the Occupy Wall Street movement.
- Criticizing the US surveillance state and alleging widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use.
- Criticizing "the US economic system, US currency policy, alleged Wall Street greed, and the US national debt" and comparing the United States to Imperial Rome.
- Running anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health.
- Opposing Western intervention in the Syrian conflict and blaming the West for waging "information wars" against the Syrian Government.
- Trying to expand RT America in the US.
Which, of course, are all reflective of the interests and concerns of millions of rank-and-file Americans. They are also subjects which are rarely if ever covered my mainstream western media.
The fact that there is a very easy way to eliminate RT, and yet establishment loyalists continue fearmongering about it instead of solving the problem they claim to have, should be taken as a tacit admission that they have no real problem with RT. The only people the plutocrat-owned media corporations have ever had a problem with are those who oppose plutocratic interests, be they oligarchy or war profiteering or ecocidal fossil fuel agendas.
So remember that the next time you hear some empire loyalist whining about RT. They have no problem with RT. They have a problem with you.
Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is to get on the mailing list for my website, so you'll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
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John Freyer—our sales rep in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota—made a chutney with our Cerise and a sweet onion jam with our Dirty Bastard, and was kind enough to share the recipes with us. Both were served at the Map Room during Chicago Beer Week; the chutney works well as a dessert when poured over mascarpone cheese.
2 cups dried or frozen pitted cherries
1/2 cup Cerise
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 grated finger of fresh ginger
1/2 cup palm or cane sugar
1/2 cup Granny Smith apple (peeled and chopped)
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/8 cup currants
1/4 T curry powder
1/4 T cinnamon
Combine all ingredients in a large pan and cook on low heat until sugar melts and liquid reduces, about 30 minutes. Refrigerate.
1 large sweet vidalia or walla walla onion
1/2 bottle of Dirty Bastard
1/2 cup palm or cane sugar
1/8 cup golden raisins
Olive oil
1/4 cup cider vinegar
Coat frying pan with olive oil. Chop onions and cook until brown and caramelized. Add all other ingredients and cook down until liquids reduce and sugar melts. About 20 minutes. Refrigerate.
Really nice post,thank you
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There's a phrase people like to repeat in Denver: "Be careful when you drink here." The claim is that the altitude (elevation 5,280 feet) makes one drink between 1.5 to 3 times as potent. If you visit the area to ski this winter, the city officials will even warn you about it when you get to town. Is there any thing to it?
It's Friday afternoon, you've made it through the long week, and it's time for Happy Hour, Gizmodo's weekly booze column. A cocktail shaker full of innovation, science, and alcohol. Today we're drunk AND high.
The Claim
When alcohol is present in the blood, it interferes with hemoglobin's absorption of oxygen. Because higher altitudes have less oxygen in the air to begin with, it is thought that the effect is magnified, so you get even less oxygen to your brain. People are advised to not drink for roughly 48 hours after they arrive at a higher altitude.
It sounds somewhat reasonable at first. But if that were strictly true, everyone would be affected by it, whether they were acclimated to the elevation or not. Having spend three (rowdy) years of my life in Denver, I can tell you that some people seem mildly affected, and some don't seem to be affected in the slightest. Other people are just drunks at any elevation.
More scientifically speaking, an Austrian study done in the 1990's which found that there was no real difference in the blood-alcohol content (BAC) of people drinking at sea level and those at 10,000 feet. That said, the researchers did find a possible culprit.
Altitude Sickness
Altitude sickness affects many people who travel from sea level to a higher elevation. Again, it affects different people in different ways, including no impact at all. There are various symptoms, including dizziness, lightheadedness, fatigue, drowsiness, weakness, nausea, unsteady gait, and a headache. Sounds familiar, right? Yeah, the symptoms of altitude sickness are a lot like the effects of alcohol intoxication.
So, while the altitude isn't actually causing your BAC to go any higher, you may feel more drunk and sick because you are getting hit by two separate things at once. Dizzy + dizzy = more dizzy. Because there is no way to predict who will and won't be affected by altitude sickness, this helps explain why drinking at high elevation is fine for some and horrible for others.
What You Can Do About It
As the traditional advice goes, waiting for 48 hours after you reach the higher elevation may help. Altitude sickness will typically exhibit itself early on, and 48 hours is typically enough time for most people to acclimatize. Once you're back to baseline, then you can start experimenting with alcohol, but definitely go slowly, and allow for plenty of time in between drinks so you can assess your condition. (Unless, of course, you intend to get just totally blotto. FYI: That's irresponsible.)
Staying hydrated can help you avoid the massive headaches and other foul hangover symptoms you get when you tie one on. Higher altitude locations typically have much less moisture in the air—and alcohol is a dehydrating diuretic—so you have to drink more than just the "one glass of water for every drink" you'd normally strive for at sea level. Dehydration will only compound the symptoms of both drunkenness and altitude sickness. Pre-hydrate and continue hydrating while drinking and for a while thereafter.
Image credit: Shutterstock/AS-com


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I made a discovery while reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin that will involve changing a goal on my 30 Before 30 list a little bit. A little bit of back story first: I got the most lovely journal from Linda, my mother-in-law, this past Christmas in which to document my love of reading. I haven't started yet because I had it in my mind that I was going to use it to keep track of my goal to read 100 classic novels before I'm 30, and I was dreading starting that task. Don't get me wrong, I love classic novels; my bookshelf is full of them and I appreciate them for what they are, but they are EXHAUSTING to read. They are full of antiquated language and rambling descriptions that sometimes go on for pages and my mind wanders, only to have to backtrack a few pages and try again…and again.
I had a conversation about my 30 before 30 list with a few friends and when I came to my goal of the 100 classic novels, one friend (who is an art history major and someone who I relate to quite easily because we both appreciate art and literature) said "I hate classics. They're so boring and hard to read" and in that moment I was shocked, because aren't we all supposed to love the classics? I think that's why that goal went on my list in the first place – I thought that the classics should be read because they are the most cultured and respected forms of literature. But after my friend announced why she hated the classics, my brain went "You're right!" and I realized that my goal wasn't necessarily something that I actually wanted to do, but something that I thought I should do.
Now back to my discovery. In a chapter discussing finding happiness through having more fun, Gretchen talks about the comparison between having the fun we think we should be having (to be the people we envision ourselves to be) versus having fun that genuinely reflects who we are as a person and what we enjoy. She then confessed her love for children's literature such as The Golden Compass, A Wrinkle in Time, Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and my brain went "Me too!". In that moment, I decided to change my goal from reading 100 classics to reading 100 children's lit novels instead. I searched online for a Top 100 Children's novels list and came across this one. I think it's a great place to start. I couldn't be more excited to start reading a bunch of my childhood favorites, finding new favorites and keeping track of the adventure in my reading journal!


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With our Fall CS:GO Tournament this weekend, it is with a heavy heart that we have to announce Immortals have decided to drop out due to complications with their roster. Replacing them will be TORQUED, the longtime mix team of CS:GO streamer, steel. Along with steel, the roster consists of 4sh0t, a2z, montE, and tck, players who have been around the scene for quite a while with their experience and fragging power. TORQUED will play the first match of the tournament against OpTic Gaming tomorrow, September 30th, at noon for a chance to advance to the semifinals.
The tournament will span this entire upcoming weekend from September 30th to October 1st with the first matches being played Saturday between OpTic and TORQUED, Renegades and Rise Nation, CLG and compLexity, and Misfits and Luminosity Gaming. The semifinals and grand finals will be on Sunday in a standard head to head fashion. We will be offering giveaways and prizes throughout the stream on our Twitch channel as well as prizes for the winners of our prediction challenge such as a CyberPowerPC Scorpion K1 RGB Keyboard and more. Visit our page on CEVO for more information about the tournament and prediction contest as well as remember to tune in to the stream this weekend for a chance to watch some CS:GO and win fabulous prizes.