text: On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Hans Lermen wrote:> Perhaps we can have a compromise. What about regulary 'calm down phases'> instead of 'freeze phases', e.g. every 5 releases, including anouncements> when these phases start and stop.> Durings these 'calm down phases' there could be bug fixes, minor code> changes and 'face lifting', but no addition of 'big' chunks of new stuff.Amen. And the sooner the better. Just my $0.02 worth.Douglas Fischer------------------------------------------------------------------ Douglas K. Fischer email@example.com (540) 828 - 5343 Programmer/Network Analyst C. E. Shull Computing Center Box 36 Bridgewater College Bridgewater, VA 22812------------------------------------------------------------------


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GPS Homing Device
Seriously, have you ever lost your car in a parking lot? Your car lock beep can only be heard so far. But the GPS Homing Device can get you back to your car or wherever you want to return, step by step, if you need it.
Continue reading… "GPS Homing Device Can Get You Back To Where You Started From"

subset: commoncrawl


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Holly Chopsticks, photo courtesy A. Drauglis Furnituremaker
I am on record preferring to do all my shopping online. I hate malls, even when they're NOT packed with crazed bargain-seekers, stressed about the state of the economy. But I've also spent all year trying to source my food locally and enjoying the intangible benefits of spending my dollars within my own community. Fortunately, Etsy.com, which is a marketplace for individuals to sell their crafts and handmade items, provides a handy Shop Local feature so you can specifically search for sellers in your area.
I have to admit that Etsy's search isn't nearly as well developed as I'd like- for example you can search item descriptions for the type of item you're looking for, OR you can search for sellers in a local area, but you can't search for a particular kind of item made by a local seller. Which is kind of lame, and it means that you have to be pretty committed to buying gifts from local artists to make this work. Or, you can work from our gift guide! Read on for my suggestions:
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St. Charles Paternity Lawyers
Attorneys for Family Law Matters in Geneva, Batavia, and Elgin
Paternity is the legal relationship between a father and his child. Paternity cases involve children who are born out of wedlock. "Paternity" laws are contained in the Illinois Parentage Act, the Illinois Supreme Court Rules, the Illinois Domestic Violence Act, as well as the Illinois Appellate and Illinois Supreme Court cases interpreting those statutes.
In paternity cases, child support, custody and visitation are the main issues. Many cases are filed because the mother is making a claim for child support, or filed because the father wants to establish his parental rights and seek custody or visitation. Paternity establishment is a prerequisite for obtaining a child support order. Some of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act laws, such as laws related to child support, custody and visitation are incorporated into the Illinois Parentage Act. There have been changes to these laws in the past several years, especially concerning the establishment of paternity, whether by acknowledgement of paternity or DNA. Many clients confuse these issues with whether or not a father is named on the birth certificate.
Questions fathers ask: Am I already legally the father? What if I signed the birth certificate? What if I signed nothing? What if I think I am not the father; how can I get DNA testing? Is it too late to ask for it? If I went to court by myself on child support and an order was entered, what rights did I already give up? Can I get any of that changed? May I ask for custody, or joint custody? How do I get my visitation? Can I prevent her from moving to another state?
Questions mothers ask: How do I establish paternity against the father? How can I get child support? Does child support include other things? medical insurance? clothing? daycare? food? Will he have to pay for my medical expenses from the birth? I have concerns with him visiting my child; what are my legal rights? His mother says she wants to take the child from me; what do I do? Can I get a restraining order or order of protection? Can you collect child support from his paycheck? He owes me an arrearage for child support and other court-ordered payments; what do I do next?
Please contact the St. Charles Illinois paternity attorneys of Goostree Law Group at 630-584-4800 to ask a question or set up a confidential free initial consultation.


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Early in September, the Parliamentarian forces of ColonelGeneral Poyntz, under the command of Colonel Robert Overton, laid siege to Sandal Castle,46 and planted four great batteries around it, with which they opened a heavy fire on the fortress. During an interval in the cannonade a duel was fought between Thomas Naylor of Wakefield and Ferdinand Blacker of Blacker Hall, Crigglestone, Captainlieut. in Sir John Savile's troop of horse; the antagonists met on horseback, swords and pistols were the weapons used, but, unfortunately, the result of this contretemps has not been handed down to us. Previously to the combat, Captain Blacker made his will on September 19, which, however, was not proved until February 25, 1650.
The castle was well provisioned and garrisoned by a force of one hundred officers and men, who were described by The Parliament's Post, a Commonwealth paper, as "a packe of as bold and desperate fellowes as any that were in all that Country, or peradventure in the Kingdome." After the great guns had played for several days on the walls, several breaches were made in them, which the besieged endeavoured to repair with sods and earth. In the afternoon of Tuesday, September 30th, Colonel Overton drew up his forces to storm the breach, which his batteries had made in the curtain wall, when the besieged sent out a flag of truce desiring a parley. The Parliamentarian commander gave them the choice of yielding themselves prisoners or abiding the hazard of a storm; to this summons Colonel Bonivant gave a very decided answer, that before they would lose their liberty they would risk the chances of war. Thereupon Colonel Overton, as he wrote to the Committee of War at York," condescended to a parley; for the avoyding the great danger of an uncertaine and desperate attempt by storme, which could not in all likelihood have been effected without great losse and hazzard." A herald was then sent to the castle with the following summons :
For the Governour of Sandall Castle.
Sir. In behalfe of our Countrey (which we serve) I summon you to render this Castle into our hands for the use of the publique. And though our neglect of this place hitherto hath occasioned your Honour, and some effusion of blood, be advised to close with the Almighties
46 The True Informer, Sept. 6, 1645.
Overtures of mercy ere it be too late otherwise the justice of God and the civility of men will I doubt not most evidently appeare in the obstinate and wilfull destruction of your selves. Sir, I wish this advice may prove effectuall to you, as it will be satisfactory to Your humble servant R. Overton.
Sept. 30.
To this summons a short but sharp reply was sent :
Sir. To render our selves prisoners, we will not, but if you please that we may treat upon our march away, wee shall have done in two words, and this is the resolution of
Your servants
Geo. Bonivant.
The articles of rendition were then agreed to by Majors Crooke and Hooper on behalf of Colonel Overton, and by Captain John Benson on behalf of Colonel Bonivant, and ran thus :
First, it is agreed upon that the Governour of Sandall Castle himself in person with the rest of the Gentlemen Officers, and Souldiers shall have liberty to march to Welbeck and to have a sufficient convoy, and foure dayes time to march thither.
2. All Officers, Gentlemen and Souldiers to the number of 12 to carry one sute of cloathes and the cloathes which they weare, the rest of the common men to have only the sute they weare, no more.
3. That the Governour and another Gentleman may have two horses to ride on, to be lent, and returned.
4. That all Gentlemen Officers, Reformadoes and Souldiers have free quarters during their march.
5. That all sick and wounded men in the Garrison shall have the libertie of these articles, and all other in generall that please for staying at home, and of going abroad into what part of the Countrey they please, so they hold not intelligence with the king's party, or come into his garison without order, and for that shall have the Generall on Committee for warres protection for their residence there.
6. That two hostages of either party be given for the performance of these articles, and that no Officer or Souldier, under Col. Overton's command shall goe into the castle before tomorrow ten a clock, except the two who are appointed to view the provisions of war, that they be not imbezzled, and to search that no man carry money out with them, which if it be found about any man, he is to remaine prisoner, but no man is to be searched after he come out of the Castle.
7. And in consideration whereof it is agreed that all persons now in the Castle shall be forthwith upon the surrender, by eight of the clock tomorrow morning as Col. Overton pleaseth.
8. All Ammunition and provision of war, to be delivered, together with the Castle, which is to be surrendered by ten a clock tomorrow, being the first day of October.
9. That the Convoy have foure dayes to returne in and that they
march no further of a day with their Convoy than the Governour of Sandall Castle pleaseth, so they exceed not their time."7
Signed. Will Crooke
Jo. Benson.
Thus fell Sandal Castle, after sustaining a final siege of three weeks' duration, and the officers and men within it, to the number of 100, marched away to Welbeck House in Lincolnshire. When the conquerors entered on Wednesday morning, October the 1st, they took possession of one hundred muskets, fifty pikes, twenty halberts, one hundred and fifty swords, two barrels of gunpowder, divers skeanes of match, a small quantity of bullets, and a good store of beer, corn, beef, and other provisions.
Sandal Castle was the last but two (Skipton and Bolton) of the Yorkshire castles to hold out for the king, and great was the rejoicing of the Roundheads at its fall, for it was described in The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer, of Oct. 7, 1645, as "the most resolute of all the three Northern Garrisons which Col.-Generall Poyntz left to reduce." For a short time Colonel Overton's troops occupied the castle, but on Thursday, April 30, 1646, the House of Commons. resolved that along with other inland castles, Sandal should be made untenable, and no garrison kept or maintained
in it.
During the siege, the Cross in Cock and Bottle lane, that had been erected by Edward the Fourth in memory of his father, the Duke of York, on the spot where he fell at the battle of Wakefield, was destroyed by the Roundhead soldiery.
Soon after the Restoration of Charles the Second to the throne, Major Beaumont disposed of this estate, for by an indenture dated Nov. 1, 1662, he sold his park at Sandal with all the rights, members and appurtenances thereof, late parcel of the annexed possessions of the Duchy of Lancaster, and sometime being parcel of the lands and possessions of the Duke of York, with all pales, stone walls, dytches and hedges thereto belonging, to John Pollard, servant to Francis
47 The Moderate Intelligencer; Mercurius Britannicus; a continuation of certaine speciall and Remarkable passages informed to the Parliament; the City Scout the Parliament's Post; the King
domes Weekly Intelligencer; Mercurius Civicus; the Weekly Account; a Diary, or an Exact Journal, from Sept. 11 to Oct. 9, 1645.


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Aug. 12, 2014
Mary Frances O'Connor: (312) 821-9026
Robert Herguth: (312) 821-9030
CHICAGO—The Better Government Association recently sued the Emanuel administration for refusing to release the content of emails between top mayoral aides as they dealt with media fallout from the accidental deaths of dogs at the city's taxpayer-supported pound.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 4 in Cook County Circuit Court, follows another lawsuit filed by the BGA in June against city government for refusing to release surveillance video of a city employee allegedly choking a dog to death while trying to bring it under control.
Both suits claim the Emanuel administration's Animal Care and Control agency violated the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, the state law that guarantees public access to government records, including emails and video.
The BGA sought copies of emails from city officials earlier this year, focusing on the period the BGA and WBBM-AM were reporting about accidental animal deaths.
The city turned over copies of emails that were so heavily redacted, entire correspondences were sometimes blacked out, including the subject line. The BGA's latest lawsuit asks the city to "produce unredacted copies of emails that appear to involve efforts by high-ranking City employees to 'spin' a negative news story about the deaths of two dogs in the City's care."
BGA President and CEO Andy Shaw said: "City officials can't pick and choose what to release to the public or the press. They work for us, not the other way around. And state law is clear: We're entitled to see how government is operating – and that means emails, and that means video."
Shaw added, "What are they trying to hide?"
The lawsuits follow months of BGA research on Animal Care and Control.
Recent news reports by WBBM-AM revealed appalling response times when it came to allegations that pets were being mistreated.
The BGA also recently revealed that the No. 2 administrator at Animal Care and Control was hired by the Emanuel administration even though he had no animal welfare experience, and a history of disciplinary problems in a previous city job.
For years the agency has been targeted in the press and by the city's internal watchdog, the inspector general, for poor management and patronage hiring, among other things.
The BGA's lawsuits aim to bring greater transparency to Animal Care and Control.
For more on the BGA's legal actions, please see:
The Better Government Association is a Chicago-based nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog group that works for integrity, transparency and accountability in government by exposing corruption and inefficiency; identifying and advocating effective public policy; and engaging and mobilizing the public to achieve authentic and responsible reform.


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Tis the season for stress. The holidays are crazy enough, but add in year-end deadlines and sales goals, performance reviews, and the news of yet another raise not given, and you can already feel your blood pressure rise. But there's good news: You can still stay healthy, even when work is insane. It'll just take a little extra effort.
"When stress takes over, often the first things to go are the ones we need the most–sleep, water, exercise, whole nutritious foods," laments nutritionist Brigitte Zeitlin. "And that can actually compound the issue, leaving you less equipped to handle the stress well."
Here's exactly what you can do to keep that from happening before work gets really crazy.
SOURCE – READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.fastcompany.com/40502809/how-to-stay-healthy-when-youre-stressed-at-work?hl=en&ned=us


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19:00, Tue 30th October – Sat 3rd November 2018 at Corpus Playroom
Michaelmas Week 4
Siblings Daniel and Peppy have lived in the same house in South East London since they were children. Now adults, they are recluses; surrounded by a lifetime of memories lost in the chaos. They are isolated from the outside world until, following a misunderstanding, that world rushes in.
Deborah Bruce's humorous yet moving play reminds its audience of the importance of showing people the simplest kindness. It provides an insight into those left behind by society, and leaves the audience on a gentle tone of hopefulness.


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Timeline and FAQ for Outreachy Communities > Tor Project
Outreachy provides paid, remote, three-month internships. Outreachy's goal is to support diversity in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). For more information about what Outreachy is and the deadlines for mentors and coordinators, read the Community Call for Participation page.
Outreachy is not currently accepting new participating communities or new intern projects. This community has never been approved to participate in an Outreachy round since December 2017.
Mentors are welcome to sign up for the Outreachy announcement list to receive a notification for next round.
This page is for potential mentors and coordinators only. If you are an Outreachy applicant, please see the application instructions or current list of projects.
Coordinators find and advise mentors who want to participate in Outreachy. Coordinators also provide information about the community for the landing page shown to applicants.
The Tor Project coordinators are "Al Smith", "gaba".
If you have been a community coordinator in the past but have not yet created an account on this site, or you would like to volunteer to be a new coordinator and you understand the coordinator duties, you can sign up to be a community coordinator.
|Not Participating
|The community coordinators have not submitted this community to participate in the December 2023 to March 2024 Outreachy internship round. If you are the coordinator, you can log in to indicate your community will participate.
|Closed to New Projects
|The deadline to submit new projects for this Outreachy round is closed.
Sign up to be notified when the coordinator finds funding and opens the call for volunteers and mentors.Notify me


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Before we start, here's Kung Fu vs. Zombies for your viewing pleasure.
The premise behind our short Kung Fu vs. Zombies was simple – pay homage to the iconic alley fight scene from Big Trouble In Little China.
(If you haven't seen Big Trouble In Little China yet, please do. You'll thank me later. It's on Amazon for a dollar as I write this.)
When watching the clip above (there's no spoiler in it, don't worry), there are about 20 different fights happening at once. The fights that we focus on are in the foreground, but there's a lot happening in the background that fills the scene out beautifully. We're not supposed to focus on the background fights… but I can't help myself. They're hilarious.
Still, anyone who saw this scene ages ago was blown away by the amount of action happening on the screen. We wanted to make that. This would require building a set, hiring 50 martial artists, and shooting for 3-5 days with a crew of 30. Total budget: $100,000 USD on the low end.
Or, we could motion capture the entire thing with TWO martial artists and a crew of THREE. We could get an awesome location on the Unity asset store for $50, buy a couple character assets, and shoot the entire thing in two days in a motion capture volume. Our version would have a twist: the kung fu heroes fight against a zombie invasion in Chinatown. We could even bring in a dragon and a giant zombie that we could climb on. To make it a true homage, include a Jack Burton walk-on at the end.
When we started motion capturing Kung Fu vs. Zombies (KvZ) we didn't even have a location in mind. We just knew it had to be a Chinatown alley. I'd deal with that later. I had Dennis for a day, so we just started shooting.
We started with the lineup, an iconic Western-style standoff that kicks off the scene. We did 16 or so takes for both sides, including the run up. We only had enough run distance to get a total of 2 steady run cycles, but this is enough when bringing it into post.
We then shot a ton of fight scenes. Dennis and I have worked together for over 15 years. Ever since Contour, we've figured out how to move together so easily that we can complete each other's (physical) sentences. Choreography isn't even really a process. We just move around and it becomes fight choreography. Sometimes I'd be the zombie, other times he'd be the zombie.
The goal, again, was to shoot everything the way John Carpenter did. I'd put every fight scene happening consecutively in the same location and just shoot vignettes, so the entire location would be chock full of action constantly. All the background action is just a repetition of what you see in the vignettes, but the audience is engaged, so they're only watching the foreground stuff.
Some of these fight scenes were shorter than others. This would become a problem later on.
We then shot the giant zombie scene. This is the tentpole of the whole piece, the "Bad Guys Close In" segment to use Save the Cat terminology. Dennis acted out some basic navigation. We simulated the giant zombie eating one of the characters, which was just me sitting on a barstool, and also did some ladder climbs so we could have some characters climb the giant zombie leg.
Lastly we shot our Jack Burton footage outside. The Xsens system works off a router, as there are no cameras. I went out of range but that didn't matter, since the suit buffers all the capture and loads it onto the computer once you go back within range.
For post, I decided on Unity because it allowed me to quickly drop the motion capture files in, put them on the free 3D models, and not really have to mess with anything. Plus I had already tinkered a fair amount in Cinemachine in our previous 3Viz video.
When I lined everyone up in Unity, I looped the run-up animations at the crossing of the feet so that it would blend relatively smoothly. You have to tinker with the motion settings so they don't go off at an angle, but when doing this, I could have them run forever.
I used the original Big Trouble in Little China scene as reference and shot it essentially the same way using Cinemachine. All the shots were done manually with keyframes.
I went with these low-polygon heroes at first because they were free, plus I thought it was a cool throwback. But when we released our first and second dev diaries, people commented on the low quality assets compared to the more realistic zombie assets. In the end we purchased some higher quality character packs from the Unity asset store for $12.
Another asset that we needed before making much progress was the location itself. I bought this Chinatown scene for $25 from the asset store and spent many hours tweaking the lighting and environment to get it to look cinematic.
Then I had to fit everyone into the alley. This was redundant work because I had already positioned everybody on the blank white background. Had I started with this set, I would have been done much faster.
Yet more lighting tweaks. You really have to put an arbitrary limit on things like lighting, or else you'll tweak it forever.
Note: I added a 24-frame pre-roll before my animations started. This allows the lighting to "kick in". Otherwise, the first second of animation would have various lights clicking on for whatever reason. There might be a toggle switch for this somewhere in Unity but I didn't find it.
Special thanks to Adam Myhill for the cinematic tips like adding fog and some Cinemachine filters.
What I noticed right away too was the sheer amount of swaying and unnecessary movement from the heroes. The Wing Kong and the Chang Sing were almost perfectly still, but our guys were shuffling around like we all had to pee. And I had tried deliberately to reduce this movement during motion capture, because there's a tendency for mocap actors to add way too much unnecessary movement (neck kinks, shoulder twists, lots of nervous footsteps in place, random weight shifts, none of which is natural). Still, old habits die hard. I slowed a bunch of these down to 0.5 speed to resolve this.
After ensuring that no characters were clipping through one another or through the surrounding scenery, the lighting looked good enough, the seams in the ground weren't too obvious (which could be resolved by raising the range and decreasing the intensity of the corresponding light source, a task that became increasingly more complex as more lights were added), I shot this scene with Cinemachine and released it as dev diary episode 2.
Since I was dealing with so many characters, each shot required lots of cheating and shifting of characters and it took many hours more than necessary to shoot this part. If I had to do it again, I could bang this scene out in an hour or two. With an actual Vcam (like Dragonfly, which we used in Cabin Fever) it might take 20 minutes.
Every camera angle was exported using the Unity Recorder package add-in, something you can add to your project for free (make sure you select "Show Preview Packages" in your package manager window). I only exported mp4 files, which are relatively low quality in Unity Recorder, even when the quality is set to "high". Adding an image sequence export option would have concurrently exported a PNG sequence, which could have been stitched together into a beautiful 422 ProRes file in Media Encoder, something I didn't do until the next scene.
Another mistake I made in this scene was failing to make a proper hierarchy for my vcam assets. All the cinemachine vcams were in the root hierarchy, which was messy, but I was more concerned with just pumping shots out and getting the thing done. I assumed I could rearrange these after shooting everything, and so after I was done I stuck all the vcam shots into an empty "Virtual Cameras" object. But suddenly Cinemachine didn't know where these vcams were located anymore, even when I re-linked them in the animation window. I would have to move them BACK OUT to the main hierarchy for the Cinemachine angles to function properly again. Still, not wanting to hamper my progress, I just tucked them away somewhere and moved on.
We felt pretty good about our dev diary. Then someone mentioned that the low-polygon heroes looked cheap, especially compared to their sleek, sinewy zombie opponents. So I paid $12 for two packs: PBR Fighters and this Ninja Pack. I spent a day or two re-fitting all the characters with their new, high-poly skins. For $12 I went from Virtua Fighter 1 graphics to PS3-PS4 quality.
Kung Fu Fighting
With the lineup done and shot, it was time to move on to the fighting. My plan was to animate every fight scene as a single animation strip and layer them on top of one another and place them in various places throughout the scene. The question then became: how do I do a new timeline with all this stuff already in the scene?
I probably went about it all wrong, but it still worked. I basically duplicated all my characters and made one folder for "Fight Scenes", where each Kung Fu vs. Zombie fight would happen, along with their associated weapons and props and effects, and one folder for "Vcams" with their camera angles.
Since each character had a parent object that could be moved about freely, I could mess with distancing whenever necessary. So when Dennis throws a kick at my stomach, we could do it from 2 feet away and I'd put a keyframe there to move the characters close together. When I grab him immediately after, I keyframe that spot and reposition the characters. It works flawlessly, save for a bit of foot sliding (which you could tweak in MotionBuilder), but the camera rarely looks at the feet. This is the benefit of havirng control of your camera and style. You don't have to worry about making everything look perfect: just shoot the stuff that looks good and cheat the rest.
Lots of the fights had swords. We should have done prop capture, which would have made for less work and more realistic looking weapon animation. Instead I had to hand-key all the weapons, though parenting the weapon to the characters' hands makes this relatively painless.
Some fight scenes were shorter than others. If a background fight suddenly ended, the characters would vanish. I'd catch this most of the time, but sometimes there'd be a distant fight scene with a disappearing kung fu fighter that I didn't catch until much later into production.
To resolve this, I would go into the vcam animation track group and add an "Activation Track" for the background fight in question and make sure that it was deactivated on a camera cut. Some fights mysteriously disappear between shots, but at least it's not mid-take, and nobody will notice this stuff.
Vcamming all the fights was fun. Shooting and editing is where you can make action really sing. We had all these shots and edits basically planned in our heads as we were motion capturing them, so this part went smoothly.
We don't shoot coverage-style, which would mean shooting the entire fight from multiple angles and then editing it together later. This shooting-editing style tends to come off as unintentional, but we wanted every shot to have a definite meaning, like a proper kung fu film. We pop off particular shots for particular action, even if that means doing 1 move in a camera setup. This was the Sammo Hung style, which negates the need to repeat action over and over and risk injury. Sammo's impact-heavy style meant that stuntmen would be subject to wear and tear, so he'd pop off a couple takes of only that action, call it good, and never do that action again. I call this performer-economy since it doesn't exhaust the performers.
In 3D, we're tempted to over-shoot because it's free to keep popping off angles. There's also the perverse incentive of repeating choreography in different angles and attempting to sell it as different action, but we believe in disciplined shooting and maintained this same performer-economy style. In keeping with a rhythm Dennis and I have developed over the years, we would typically do 3-5 camera setups per action vignette, for a total of about 120 vcam shots for the mass-fight scene.
The entire short has the same motion blur. I shoot my live-action fights with a 1/50 or 1/60 shutter, or 1/120 if there are weapons involved (though for this short I never changed it). Strobe-y fight scenes shot with a 1/500 shutter are visually strange. This trend took off after Gladiator, where it was used to effect with the weapons and cool production value, but for some reason cinematographers and directors decided every fist fight needed to also look like Gladiator. The naked eye has a natural motion blur that registers movement to the brain. If your fight has a strobe-like quality, the brain might register the images, but without motion blur, the viewer requires more processing power to string these images together and process the fight scene.
Another issue with a strobe-like effect in a fight scene is that contact lines get compromised. A punch across the face shot at 1/50 shutter creates a pleasant motion blur, which allows the performer 2-3 frames of leeway to react in time. But at 1/250 or 1/500 shutter, the punch will be on one side of the face, then the other side of the face, with no blur. The audience will wonder why the impact is off, and it's because there was never any contact.
So, I applied the Cinemachine motion blur filter to the global camera profile so it would never change.
I had the option of vcamming everything with the Dragonfly vcam, but unlike in Unreal's Sequencer, there was no obvious way to edit these vcam shots in Cinemachine. Dragonfly works much better in Unreal. There's also the Expozure vcam system, which is super high-grade, but we weren't ready to transition by the time we started working with that one. We'll use Expozure for the next short.
I should have put the vcams in the same folder as the fights themselves, because then if I moved the fight, the cameras would move with them. Instead, whenever I moved a fight, I'd have to move the cameras independently as well, which messed up all my shots.
Some ideas had to be thrown out, such as some bone breaks, which would have required some MotionBuilder work, as well as dismemberment, which would mean editing the 3D model in Blender or some other 3D tool to show the cross-section of the removed limb. The choreography never really called for this, and it was too technical for me. Maybe next time.
Next time, we will do finger capture. This would have been a huge help to the animations, and as it is we only did minimal finger adjustments for the "Hung Gar hands" portions, another nod to Big Trouble In Little China.
After an internal viewing, the Sumo stuff stole the show, so we added some shots for him on a pickup day. We also added a comedy bit with the red ninja's shuriken (Dennis's idea) and the rhinoceros smashing a zombie into a sign. This was accomplished with a series of 3 animations blended together.
Zombie Giant
In theory, adding a giant to your scene is pretty simple. Just mocap your actor, compensate for his size (maybe 10 meters translates to 50 meters in the 3D scene), and slow him down a bit. We fit the giant zombie into the scene without much of an issue, but I realized that he'd collide with all the Chinese lanterns I'd hung in the scene. I tried to animate them so they'd fall down, but it looked crummy. So, like any good filmmaker, I just cut away and added off-camera effects.
We barely had enough of a "scared run" cycle, and only 4 of them at that. We should have captured 16 of them, and tripled their length. So whatever you see is all that there was. You'll see some characters begin to stop, but I tried to cut away to avoid showing this.
Climbing up the giant zombie legs was relatively simple. I parented the ladder climb animations to the zombie leg and compensated for the pant leg depth. In the end it looks okay. It would have been even better to animate the heroes' legs dangling more and swaying with the motion of the walk cycle, but for a cheap edit job this worked pretty well.
We planned for a dragon to enter the scene and didn't think much more of it. It turned out to be pretty simple, as the dragon cost us $15 on the Unity store. There was a built-in effect for the fire, but I couldn't get it to work, so I had to build my own using the particle generator. I also parented a similar fire effect to the giant zombie's head for when he goes down to the ground.
After spending a bit of time learning particle systems, I figured I'd try my hand at making blood effects too. This turned out to be a huge ordeal. I tried purchasing two blood asset packages, neither of which worked. There was no clear-cut tutorial on making a blood particle system. So I tweaked and tweaked, probably for a total of 10-16 hours, until something looked acceptable. Even then, the blood has no collision properties and falls through the floor, so this would have to be (again) hidden with camera and editing.
Still, once the blood was made, it was easy to replicate it everywhere. I could easily make splatters for the Sumo attacks, and by parenting a blood particle system to a character, it will follow them around. These really add to the scene and I'm happy I invested the hours.
For the final Jack Burton cameo, I didn't consider the fact that we'd actually have to find a character that resembled Jack from Big Trouble In Little China. And it turns out there's nothing out there, nothing even close. Also, creating the iconic Jack Burton tanktop was way beyond my pay grade, so I used Adobe Fuse to build a Jack wearing his simpler cream-colored poncho in the beginning of the film.
Getting your Fuse animation into Unity isn't a simple task. First I exported it to Mixamo, which generates the rig. However, this skeleton isn't prepared to run the Xsens mocap animations we had. Our MotionBuilder tech Mike Foster rigged it up in MoBu and made it ready to go. Still, importing the character into Unity results, for some reason, in the textures being set to transparent. So I had to extract the textures and reapply them to all the body elements. Then we had Jack.
I spent about 2 days on sound design. I have a very fast process for doing sound that I developed when doing previz on Heart of a Champion where I can bang out sound designs really quickly. It involves a lot of hotkeys and organization techniques. I'll write a separate post about that someday. I also nested each character's sound effect group and created sequences from those and dropped them in as background sound whenever I wanted to fill in some ambient fight sounds.
Mark R. Johnson handled all the titles. We went with the Carpenter style for both the intro and final credits using the Albertus font. And JP Franco created our thumbnail.
Final Takeaways
I learned about 6,482 things doing Kung Fu vs. Zombies, but here they are narrowed down to a top-8 list:
- You can make crowds really quickly using motion capture.
- Unity assets are cheap and they have everything you could ever want on the asset store.
- Cinemachine looks great but takes time compared to using DragonFly iPad-based vcam. (Unreal's Sequencer takes arguably as much time as Cinemachine.)
- Making a single blood particle system is hard, but once you invest in making it look right, you might as well use it everywhere.
- If Unity had nested timelines like Sequencer, it would be a far more competitive filmmaking tool.
- Organize your vcams carefully when using Cinemachine. If they're intended to move around with the action, parent them under the same object. Do not start editing your vcams until your hierarchy is set!
- Adobe Fuse is a powerful tool for making quick character models, but you'll need to tweak it in MotionBuilder before it's ready for an Xsens mocap animation.
- When exporting using Unity Recorder, if you're exporting a clip that starts 2 minutes into the sequence, Recorder renders everything, rather than just skipping to that 2-minute mark. Recorder is solid, except for this one issue.
- All the cool people have seen Big Trouble In Little China. Have you?
and finally…
- Learning that we could make a full-blown action movie using nothing but some motion capture suits and a Unity scene changed how I see filmmaking. This kind of movie would have been impossible 10 years ago, but as storytellers we have all the tools we could ever want to make whatever we want. I look forward to seeing how Unity, Unreal, and Maya get utilized by the indie filmmaking world, because today, there's no longer a barrier to entry to telling a story. Just learn the tool and start making stuff.
Many thanks to the people who have kept watching our projects over the years. We believe the action of Kung Fu vs. Zombies and the ease of creating it is a sign of things to come.


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This article has been fact checked by a Board Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. Sources of information for the article are listed at the bottom.
For any content issues please Contact Us.
Cerebral palsy occupational therapy provides a variety of benefits to children living with this condition. Health care providers often encourage this form of treatment along with physical therapy to help children lead easier, more independent lives. Occupational therapists work with children to accomplish daily living activities.
Occupational Therapy Defined
According to the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), occupational therapy is a form of therapy that helps people of all ages to learn how to improve their abilities to do the everyday activities they want to or have to do.[1]
For children with cerebral palsy, occupational therapy can help them with everyday school tasks, eating and drinking, dressing, hygiene, and other tasks they need to learn for daily use.
Visual Impairment
Many children with cerebral palsy experience visual impairment. Some children may have severe impairment whereas others may have a mild impairment, but regardless of severity, therapy can assist in helping them with their daily tasks.
Occupational therapy, in particular, helps by carrying out sensory-perceptual-motor (SPM) training which helps stimulate the senses to perform daily tasks more easily.
In addition, an occupational therapist may use visual input tools and cues, as well as verbal directions, to assist children in carrying out necessary daily activities.
Cognitive Impairment
Occupational therapy is also beneficial to children with cerebral palsy who have cognitive impairment. Daily routines set up with reminders help cognitively impaired children with daily chores such as remembering to dress, brushing their teeth, and other tasks needed to get ready for the day.
Motor Impairment
Motor impairment affects children with cerebral palsy in numerous ways, which can make daily tasks difficult. For example, many children will have difficulties with daily hygiene, moving around, posture, and completing school tasks due to limitations in movement.
An occupational therapist assesses each child's needs and tailors their therapy to meet personal goals. Activities and services may differ accordingly, but can consist of stretching and guide motor output techniques, constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT), which helps children with unilateral cerebral palsy, and neuromuscular facilitation techniques.[2]
Types of Everyday Tasks Occupational Therapy Helps With
As mentioned earlier, occupational therapy assists with daily tasks such as eating, dressing, hygiene, and helping with motor movement skills. Other tasks occupational therapy can assist with include:
- Grasping objects
- Using a computer and other electronics
- Opening doors
- Writing
- Holding and reading books
- Playing
- Interacting with peers, caregivers, and parents
- School and/or daycare activities
- Sitting and standing up from tables and school desks
Benefits of Occupational Therapy for Parents and Caregivers
Children with cerebral palsy aren't the only ones that can benefit from occupational therapy. With successful treatment, parents and caregivers also benefit from watching their children thrive both physically and emotionally. This process helps to reduce stress and provides a sense of peace as the child becomes more independent and productive.
Occupational Therapy Settings
Occupational therapy can take place in a variety of settings. While there is a large database of occupational therapists available across the nation, some may be more specialized than others in your child's specific needs. Common settings for occupational therapy include:
- Outpatient offices
- Inpatient medical centers
- In the home with a qualified occupational therapist
- Nursing centers
- Occupational therapy providers
Finding and working with a trained and licensed occupational therapist is crucial to quality occupational therapy. These therapists have expertise in assessing the child and acknowledging the child's strengths and weaknesses. They can then create an individualized plan to help achieve the child best achieve his or her goals.
Per AOTA, licensed occupational therapists are not only licensed in their state to practice occupational therapy but generally, have a degree in one of the following:
- Social Services
- Health
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Human Development
- Anatomy & Physiology
Prior to anyone becoming an occupational therapist, each state in the nation requires that they first be licensed. Licensing generally requires graduation from an accredited school, fieldwork hours, and passing the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy examination.
In addition to a licensed occupational therapist, many children will benefit from having additional assistants to help them succeed. Occupational therapist assistants may also need to become licensed (according to each state), and must complete related school and fieldwork.
Occupational Therapy Assessments
Prior to starting occupational therapy, children with cerebral palsy undergo a complete, comprehensive assessment to ensure they get individualized treatment. Assessments usually include an occupational therapist testing the child's:
- Motor skills
- Developmental condition
- Cognitive development and functioning
- Psychological needs
- Emotional needs
- Home and school environment
How to Find a Qualified Occupational Therapist
If you need assistance in finding a licensed occupational therapist who works with children with cerebral palsy, health care providers are typically able to give you a referral.
Other options include contacting your city's Health and Human Services department or browsing your local phone listings. Keep in mind, however, that you may need a referral from your child's health care provider(s).
Lifelong Financial Assistance for Your Child's Birth InjuryGet Help Now
- About Occupational Therapy. (n.d.). American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).
Retrieved from: https://www.aota.org/About-Occupational-Therapy.aspx
- Hoare BJ , et al. (n.d.). Constraint-induced movement therapy in children with unilateral cerebral palsy. - PubMed - NCBI. National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30932166


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HP this week revealed that it will discontinue its well-regarded MediaSmart Server line, which runs Windows Home Server (WHS). The news comes on the heels of a Microsoft announcement about the removal of a key data-storage feature from the next WHS version. But the software giant claims the announcements are unrelated.
That is, of course, completely untrue.
But then Microsoft isn't the only one trying to sugarcoat the truth to protect the understandably shattered egos of WHS fans. HP's MediaSmart Server marketing manager, Allen Buckner, told enthusiast site MediaSmartServer.net that HP was "shifting additional resources to focus on webOS initiatives." In case it's not clear what he means, webOS is the Palm-based smartphone OS that HP acquired earlier this year. It has absolutely nothing to do with server products.
To recap, Microsoft announced last week that the next version of WHS wouldn't include the Drive Extender technologies that provide that product with two crucial features: automatic data redundancy across two physical disks and a single, drive-letter-less storage pool that can be extended almost infinitely simply by attaching another disk to the system. WHS fans reacted with predictable outrage at the announcement, and thousands of them have signed an online petition demanding that Microsoft put it back.
As I exclusively revealed, however, Microsoft spent several months trying to fix problems with Drive Extender before giving up over server application compatibility and data-integrity issues. It's unlikely that the software giant will give in to such a small group of users, however vocal they might be.
More important, perhaps, is how HP's exit from the WHS market will affect a product that was already reeling from bad news. In its current state, the next WHS version—code-named Vail—is already seriously hobbled, but one might have expected a server giant like HP to include its own Drive Extender-like functionality in next-generation MediaSmart Server products. That is now clearly not going to happen.
And HP was, by far, the biggest fish in what is a very small pond. While other respected hardware makers like Lacie and Acer do in fact market and sell WHS-based servers, none of them have the reach of HP, and none have released WHS products as universally well received as HP's. HP's exit from the market is as big a blow to WHS as was the removal of Drive Extender.
Is this the end of WHS? Maybe, but let's wait and see what the promised January beta looks like. It's still possible that Microsoft could salvage this excellent and useful product and turn the next version into something special. Today, that's just a little bit harder to believe, unfortunately.


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It is the age when everyone is busy in earning to make both end meat. Time is short, but needs of life are way beyond the reach. Keeping ready cash for every single need is tough. Getting loan becomes inevitable most of the times. But we will have to be watchful while getting in debt because it can mar our future and the peace of life if you miscalculated our resources or mismanaged things at any stage.
Mismanagement of loans is a common thing. No one is the financial expert here, so it's hard to manage debts for everyone. This mismanagement of loans may have some adverse effects on your life for example:
- Bad Credit History
- Defaulter Status and Blacklisting
- Hypertension and Depression
- Bad Reputation in society
To avoid such circumstances, it is advisable to avoid loans at first instance if you can. But if getting a loan is inevitable then you will have to be careful. Take the advice of some wise person or some expert so you may not agree to the terms and conditions which shouldn't be accepted. Get loans from only from some authentic source and institute. Duly read all the documents before agreeing and signing them.
Let's Talk about Consolidation Loan
If there comes the time when you have various debts on you, and it's becoming hard to repay them all, then you should not be worried. It's always a good idea to take expert advice. When such situation comes, most of the experts suggest consolidation of debts. This term may be new for you but if you are in financial crisis due to various loans and then consolidation of loans may help you in getting back in life. Let's discuss more consolidation loans.
A consolidation loan is simply a loan which is enough to repay other debts. The main purpose of a consolidation loan is to get rid of many small debts and to take one bigger debt. In other words, one liability is better than many small liabilities. It seems odd, but there are many logical reasons to support this step.
Example Explains Better
Let me explain this with some example so you may get the idea that what you get in the form of the consolidation loan. Let's suppose Mr. X owes USD 500 to Mr. A, USD 250 to Mr. B, USD 1500 to Mr. C, USD 750 to Mr. D. Mr. X is poor enough to repay the debts in full, so he agreed with the creditors to pay in installments. Now when the first week of the month comes, Mr. X gets worried about the installment of Mr. A, and in the second week, there comes the due date of Mr. B and then in next week Mr. C and then Mr. D. Hence whole month passes in the tension of due dates of installments. Now, how Mr. X can minimize his tension? A consolidation loan is the best solution, so Mr. X contact Mr. Z and ask him to lend him USD 3000 and they agree at the lower interest rate as well because of the amount it big. Now Mr. X got USD 3000 from Mr. Z and paid all his debts. Now Mr. X doesn't need to be worried whole month rather he will worry about only one due date, and due to the lesser rate of interest, he will be paying the lesser amount.
So now, you might have a clear idea what magic can be done with the consolidation loan.


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Tara Bernard-McCabe
October 3, 2012
Tara Bernard-McCabe was presented with the 2011 Volunteer of Year Award. Tara fulfills the very demanding job of program coordinator for not just one but two student nutrition programs in Shelburne. She has managed these programs with efficiency and creativity, making one of the programs financially self-sustainable with her incredible ability to garner support from the community and businesses in Shelburne. She inspires us with your energy and commitment to the student nutrition programs and the students that attend.


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Thursday, August 12, 2010
15 Months (with Stats)
As for his appointment, the doctor said he was perfect, always good to hear. Henry did insist on emptying his baby bag of all of its contents and handing each item to her. She very happily said thank you for each one. We love her. He also gave he nurse with the shots the stink eye, but he really did very well with the entire process. There was some discussion about the fact that he really isn't using many words yet, but the doctor didn't seem worried. She said it is clear he is understanding what we are saying, and that the words will come. All in all it was a great check-up.
So, the stats:
Height: 32 inches (75th %)
Weight: 20lb 1 oz (5th %) ( no longer need that pesky < symbol!)
Head: 18 3/4 inches (75th %)
SO....you know...he's tall and skinny. And perfect in every way. This is boring. How long until the snow gets here? I'm ready!
8 comments:
Hmm Tall & Skinny, wonder where he gets that from ;)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 12, 2010 at 9:53 AM
Its crazy to think my 8 month old son weighs more then he does and a couple of inches short. Henry looks great though:)ReplyDelete
Such a CUTE little guy:)ReplyDelete
Like there as ever any doubt about it?!ReplyDelete
My sister's friend's daughter (bit of a mouthful, that) didn't talk for ages and then when she finally started she wouldn't shut up!! I bet once he starts there will be no stopping him!
I think it's a boy thing... or maybe that's just my two but C doesn't "talk" half as much as K and that's fine with me. I think i'm going to go batty later on...ReplyDelete
Henry is doing GREAT!
Wyatt does not talk a whole lot, either. At his 15 month he weighed 27 lbs and was 33 1/2 inches. And dude, I am a bad mom - I always forget the head measurement. :-) Hope to have a long overdue playdate soon!ReplyDelete
Hi there - thanks for stopping by.ReplyDelete
Yeah - why is it all so tricky.
Good luck with your decision. My husband is worried if it doesn't work - that I am going to blame him.
P.S Your little boy is lovely.
Hello. Thanks for stopping by my blog. You have an amazing son, and a very inspirational story. Glad to have a fellow scientist on my blogroll.ReplyDelete


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It's definitely a huge work in progress, but for now, lemme share a few iPhone photos of it. (Sorry if you've already seen most of these on Instagram!). Oh speaking of Instagram, did you catch my video interview with The Daily in their #NoFilter series? It was both fun and terrifying being in front of the lens. Thank goodness for video editing. :)
Aug 13, 2012
The new digs
It's definitely a huge work in progress, but for now, lemme share a few iPhone photos of it. (Sorry if you've already seen most of these on Instagram!). Oh speaking of Instagram, did you catch my video interview with The Daily in their #NoFilter series? It was both fun and terrifying being in front of the lens. Thank goodness for video editing. :)
22 comments :
Oh wow! You'll have to add interior decorating on your CV. Saw the video and let me see it again or in the words of my 6 year old - you were amazing!ReplyDeleteReplies
All this time you were talking about Instagram, I never thought of it until recently. Anyway, better late than never. I've just followed you there. I'm cookiesncandies on Instagram. Keep up the great work!Delete
- Carol GKAugust 13, 2012 at 6:04 PM
Just gorgeous, Alice! What an eye you have!ReplyDelete
Beautiful and sunny! You will make your new apartment into a home in no time, Alice :) And congrats on unpacking so quickly! I moved into Chris's place in... January? One box and many piles left...ReplyDelete
i really like that white box shaped shelf you have! you have really good taste in interior decorating.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 13, 2012 at 8:17 PM
lovely first impressions of your new home. i love the rug.ReplyDelete
can't wait to visit!ReplyDelete
Congrats on the move Alice. Looks like you're putting your own touches on it already!ReplyDelete
Good to hear about your smooth transition. Your space looks simply beautiful ! Kudos to you ! Going to see your daily interview.ReplyDelete
Looks lovely. We have been in our place for almost a year now and although all the boxes are unpacked it certainly doesn't look as homey as yours does.ReplyDelete
yay for the move going smoothly & your new space looks lovely :)ReplyDelete
Love your furnishings! Your place looks lovely :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 14, 2012 at 10:01 AM
Gah I love your taste! : )ReplyDelete
your style is impeccable.ReplyDelete
wow you move to a new place, congrats.ReplyDelete
the new place looks gorgeous and the video is lovely! It's always nice to 'hear' a blogger I've read for so long. :)ReplyDelete
It looks wonderful!ReplyDelete
I moved 4-months ago, and, yeah, still got the boxes...
love the white space, so simplistic.ReplyDelete
What a lovely little space. I love the light that all of the windows let in!ReplyDelete
Also, I just found your blog via a blog comment on Oh Joy! and then a posting on Amy Blogs Chow (I love how everything in the blogging community is connected) and it's amazing. Your photography is incredible and your posts are full of great content!
you did great making this space look more than 200 sq feet! i personally prefer smaller space cuz it feels cozy and also forces you to decide what you really want to keep (not to mention less electric bill for heating/cooling - that's the practical side of me :) really love the photo of J with that dramatic shadow on the wall.ReplyDelete
Remember that ready-made garments are much less costly when outdoor wedding dresses compared to people who usually are custom-made.ReplyDelete
Kaylees Bridal


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Specialty: Internal Medicine & Pediatrics
Locations: Fort Worth, TX
We can help you attract new patients by creating and caring for relationships online.
HIPAA Compliant & No Contracts: We understand the importance of professionalism and confidentiality. We also understand that if we're helping your practice grow, you'll stick with us.


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Kidneys are like the cleaning staff of your body. Their job is to process all the waste and send it out of the body from the bladder in the form of urine. Thankfully, all of us are blessed with two kidneys and in case there is a problem in the functioning of one, the other one can do the work for both. However, if for some reason both the kidneys become nonfunctional, the toxic waste doesn't get out of the body and can prove fatal for the person. Hence, it is essential that we do our part in protecting these vital organs and maintaining healthy kidneys.
5 Superfoods For Super KidneysHere are top 5 foods to eat regularly for healthy kidneys.
#1. CranberriesWhile most people are aware that consuming cranberry juice when infected with a UTI (urinary tract infection) is highly beneficial; surprisingly, many people are oblivious to all the great things it does for one's kidney; despite the relationship between the two. Cranberry juice makes one's urine more acidic and hence, prevents the spreading of infection. In addition to that they contain no fat or sodium, and are a rich source of fiber and vitamin C.
#2. Egg WhitesInexpensive and easy to cook, eggs are one of the best sources of proteins. While the egg yolk is high in cholesterol and phosphorus, egg white is free of all these and contains about 5 grams of protein. Apart from being good at boosting immunity, egg whites can do wonders for maintaining healthy kidneys and are often recommended to patients with chronic kidney diseases.
#3. Olive OilLow in sodium, potassium and phosphorus, olive oil is ideal for everyone. Rich in polyphenols and antioxidant compounds, it is excellent for cooking, being used as salad dressing and marinating bread etc. Research also suggests that regular use of olive oil is good for people with osteoporosis, cancer, in addition to being great from the endocrine system. Apart from these amazing benefits for the kidneys, olive oil is also good for cardiovascular and digestive health.
#4. WatermelonOne of the common problems faced by people with poor kidney health is high blood pressure, which further worsens the condition of the kidneys. Watermelon, being a natural diuretic, cleanses the organs and regularly eating the fruit benefits the organs in the long term. Watermelon is not advisable for diabetes patients because of the high sugar content. It is also very high in potassium, and should not be given to those with advanced kidney diseases.
#5. ParsleyParsley is a rich source of vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll, antioxidants, enzymes and other oils. It is extremely beneficial for kidney detoxification and cleansing. It can be consumed in liquid form, coupled with other detoxing juices like watermelon and lemon or as a smoothie. Like watermelon, parsley is also a natural diuretic and aids the cleaning process of kidneys. List of trusted & experienced Nephrologist in India from top Hospitals Delhi | Gurgaon | Kolkata | Mumbai | Hyderabad | Bangalore | Chennai
Categorized into General Health, Healthy Food, Diabetes, Uro Health, Kidney Health
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9.8 Recovery of Treatment Costs And Service Pension
Section 93 of the VEA contains the legislative basis for the recovery of treatment costs incurred by the Department from either the patient or the person liable to pay the other compensation. Part IIIC of the VEA contains the legislative basis for the recovery of compensation affected income support payments. If unsure of whether section 93 and/or Part IIIC provisions apply, refer the file to the appropriate officer/s in other sections. When answering an enquiry from a veteran or their representative it is imperative that all monies, which may be recoverable under the VEA, are fully explained. DVA Fact Sheets are useful for providing general advice on the offsetting and recovery provisions of the VEA. Refer HSV 100, IS101, DP 81 and DP 82.
When answering the type of enquiry described above it is also important to investigate whether the person has been paid any benefit under the SRCA, including the provision of treatment as this may also be recoverable. If so it is necessary to liaise with a SRCA Delegate to ensure all aspects of benefit recovery is provided to the person making the enquiry.
Treatment recovery provisions under the VEA are also subject to an exemption for those who were subject to physical or sexual abuse in the ADF. Please see http://clik.dva.gov.au/compensation-and-support-policy-library/part-9-principles-determining-pension-rate/910-compensation-offsetting/9105-recovery-treatment-costs-s93 for the relevant policy.
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988


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As I sit here reviewing tweets and abstracts from last week's Survivorship Symposium in preparation for the upcoming #BCSM tweetchat, I feel compelled to share a personal moment in time from last week and a moment that defines much of what it means to be an educator and advocate for those affected by cancer.
The inaugural Suviviorship Symposium was held in San Francisco, CA January 15th - 16th and was cosponsored by ASCO, AAFP and ACP. If the diversity in conference sponsorship were somehow insufficient, the diversity of specialties in the room confirmed that the needs of patients before, during and post active treatment were of primary concern. Onocologists, radiologists, primary care physicians, nurse navigators, cardiologists, epidemiologists, internal medicine docs, patients and patient advocates were all well represented. As a patient and an advocate, I felt only acknowledgment and validation from the healthcare community that survivorship comes laden with its own burdens that for most people, involve physical, social, financial and emotional impacts.
Innovative and integrative methods of whole person care were highlighted as ways to address these unique needs.*
High on the innovation and progress in the #SURVONC16 conference, I received an email. The first line tried to prepare me for the content:
"It is with a heavy heart…"
Those are the worst kinds of emails. To write and to receive.
I sat through a few more minutes of the presentation but suddenly the technical was uninteresting and I was unfocused. I left with my coffee mug in hand to wander, leaving a post for those who were closely following the conference via my tweets:
in #SurvOnc16
excited about innovations in cancer survivorship. Just recv'd email -
another 'survivor' friend has died #bcsm
Stacey Tinianov (@coffeemommy) January
16, 2016
Like a fist in the chest.
I wandered upstairs to the poster session where coffee and tea are always readily available. I tried to take solace in the fact that this woman was an 18 year survivor before cancer killed her but, as I did the math, I realized if I were to 'achieve' living 18 years beyond my diagnosis, I would die at 58. I would leave my husband spouseless at 62. My youngest child would only be 28 years old and I may or may not have gotten to hold a grandchild in my arms. The tears brewed but didn't spill over.
A young woman was creating a coffee masterpiece with cream and cinnamon and hazelnut syrup. The concoction was a sight to behold for a caffeine junkie like myself and I commented favorably on the dessert coffee. She mentioned she was unable to focus so thought coffee would be a good solution.
I mentioned I was also unable to focus so I was switching to tea.
I introduced myself and discovered she was local to SF and actually an infusion nurse. I thanked her for doing what she does on a daily basis and we began talking about survivorship programs. The distraction was nice but when I became excited about what her institution was rolling out, tears began rolling down my cheeks.
I explained that I wasn't crying because of what she was saying but that I was struggling with the dichotomy between the innovation and energy downstairs and the reality that a woman just died.
If you want to understand the source of proverbial fire in an advocate's belly, you likely have to look no further than their connections to others. Others who are suffering, others who have died and others who hold significant risk for being tracked into the health care system as a critically and/or chronically ill patient.
In a period of minutes I felt the emotional dichotomy between hope and despair. The future is bright and yet, for some, the future is not an option. As I stood there, trying to get it together, this amazing coffee concoction creator and compassionate infusion nurse reached out and gave me a hug. We chatted for a bit longer as I tried to reorient my focus on the present and the promise for the future even though I know many of the amazing people I learn with and from won't necessarily be here for that ever elusive 'future'.
So, when people ask why I remain steeped in the cancer space and why I spend my time working to change the slow moving goliath of a complicated health care system I give them a variety of authentic answers about making a difference, changing the system and working with amazing people trying to solve really complicated problems.
And, while all of the above are authentic reasons, ultimately my answer is:
Someone has to because the status quo just isn't working.
*A more complete blog regarding themes and content of the Survivorship Symposium will be created and posted at #BCSM.


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Manulife and its employees raise more than $200,000 for Fort McMurray Fire Relief
12 May, 2016, 08:30 ET
WATERLOO, ON, May 12, 2016 /CNW/ - Manulife today announced that its employees have raised more than $50,000 that has been matched by Manulife for a total of over $100,000. Manulife has also increased its original $50,000 donation to $100,000, bringing the total contribution to more than $200,000 to assist with wildfire relief and recovery efforts in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
"Manulife employees have given generously to help their fellow Canadians in a time of great need," said Marianne Harrison, President and Chief Executive Officer, Manulife Canada. "The work to rebuild Fort McMurray and the lives of its citizens will require patience, understanding and flexibility and Manulife is asking our customers impacted by this crisis to please contact us to see how we can help you."
Manulife Bank will defer mortgage payments for a period of time and if needed, customers can access money invested in GICs without being charged an early-redemption penalty.
Manulife Group Benefits employers may be eligible for delayed payments on benefit premiums, and their employees can have refill prescriptions processed early.
Where permitted by the plan, Manulife Group Retirement customers from Fort McMurray and surrounding area impacted by the wildfire can make withdrawal requests. Manulife will also waive withdrawal fees for customers (where their group retirement plan and legislation allows).
Manulife insurance and individual investment customers will receive assistance with expedited access to funds or an extension of payment terms. We can work with customers who have questions or concerns about their investments or insurance applications.
Manulife customers who have questions about group retirement or benefit plans, individual investments or insurance can visit our website www.manulife.ca or contact the appropriate call centre as note below.
- Group benefits - 1-800-268-6195
- Group retirement - 1-888-727-7766
- Investments*, insurance, or Manulife Bank -1-888-790-4387
If possible, please have your policy / account number ready.
*Note: For Standard Life segregated funds or insurance products call: 1-888-841-6633
About Manulife
Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group providing forward-thinking solutions to help people with their big financial decisions. We operate as John Hancock in the United States, and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2015, we had approximately 34,000 employees, 63,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving 20 million customers. At the end of March 2016, we had $904 billion (US$697 billion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made more than $24.9 billion in benefits, interest and other payments to our customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada and the United States where we have served customers for more than 100 years. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong. Follow Manulife on Twitter @ManulifeNews or visit www.manulife.com or www.johnhancock.com.
SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation
For further information: Media Contact: Rebecca Freiburger, Manulife, 519-503-6604, [email protected]


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Now that the Badass Tournament has crowned it's champion we are bringing them back to basics as well play one of our favorite games: Fact or Fiction. Before that we also delve into the news about the Super Troopers 2 sequel and give our thoughts. Dan reviews HBO's The Jinx and tells you why it's a must watch, and Greg has some hidden gem comic books you must check out. The second half is full of random discussion about comics, movies, TV, and we even fit in a little bit of sports talk as well.
Dan Clark
Twitter: @MovieRevolt
Greg Beppler
Twitter: @TheCreateForge
Chuck Davis
Twitter: @HeroicAgeChuck
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Tracy Baim is well-known in the Chicago GLBT community for her many enterprises. A journalist in the city for over two decades, she is publisher and managing editor of Chicago's largest chain of gay and lesbian publications ( Windy City Media Group ) . Among her many accomplishments, she played a significant role in bringing the 2006 Gay Games to the Chicago; edited the first book dedicated to gay Chicago history, Out and Proud in Chicago; and spearheaded the Chicago Gay History website, chicagogayhistory.com, that provides a wealth of information about the community online.
In 2008, Baim founded Ripe Fruit Films, to "produce Chicago-based films about lesbian lives." The production company's first feature film is Hannah Free, based on the play of the same name by Chicago playwright Claudia Allen, and will have its Chicago debut at the Gene Siskel Film Center from Sept. 25 through Oct. 1. There will be a gala opening night event featuring the film's star, Sharon Gless.
"I had wanted to make a lesbian feature film for a few years, and had worked on a book and a play called Half Life with various people, staged in Chicago," recalls Baim. "I was continuing to work with various people to develop it as a movie, but it was a military story, which was difficult to do." At the end of 2007, Baim was attending a Victory Gardens event, invited by gay playwright Nick Patricca, and she ran into Allen, and got another idea.
"I had just finished my history project, and wanted to interview Claudia for it. I offered to pick her up for her interview, and on the ride there I mentioned to her that I really wanted to do a movie, and I thought her plays would translate well to film. She said that various people had approached her about filming one of her plays, but she would trust me with a film project if I was serious about it."
Baim had seen two different productions of Hannah Free in the 1990s. "That play was the one that came to my mind as something relatively simple to stage," says Baim. At the interview Baim introduced Allen to Wendy Jo Carlton, who was doing the camera work for the history project and would become the film's director. "They were both from Michigan, and hit it off, and I said that a film might be an interesting thing to think about. Then I talked to Claudia more about it, and the three of us met together to discuss it in early 2008."
As a result of that meeting, Baim began working on a business plan for the film, and Carlton and Allen began to confer about the script. But the project really got off the ground when Hollywood actress Sharon Gless, of Cagney & Lacey and Queer As Folk fame, agreed to participate. Gless had become an admirer of Allen's work after appearing in her radio play Deed of Trust in 1994, and her stage play Cahoots. Gless was in town in early spring of 2008 to get an award from DePaul University, and invited Allen to lunch at the Four Seasons. When Allen told Gless about the plans for a film version of Hannah Free, Gless expressed great interest in playing the title character.
"From that point on," says Baim, "we were working around Sharon's availability." Gless was busy as a regular character on the hit television show Burn Notice. But she would be able to shoot Hannah Free during November, for 3-4 weeks. "That was an extremely aggressive schedule," says Baim, "but as it turned out, we were fortunate to have a short timeline, because it prevented burnout, kept costs down, and kept people committed to the project. So a short timeline and short shoot schedule worked out well."
As executive producer, Baim took on the critical task of every independent film, raising money. "Basically, the buck stopped with me, in that I had control of the budget, and ultimately, the final fundraising. Claudia also raised money, and other people had different economic roles." Marti Marro was the fourth person to join the team, as composer and sound supervisor, and also became an investor. Editor Sharon Zurek invested as well. "Everybody tries to get as much donated as they can, but I think it's kind of rare that some of our key crew and producers also put money in," says Baim. "Often it's the money people very separate from the creative people, and it's very rare to have so much overlap as we did on Hannah Free." It was one indication that those who worked on this film really believed in its importance.
Casting Director Laurie Attea was busy casting by September, and shooting for Hannah Free began on Nov. 3, "just as the economy tanked," Baim laughs ironically. Interior scenes were shot at the huge house Baim grew up in on Prairie Avenue on Chicago's Near South Side, and her family also got into the act: Baim's sister Marcy was location manager, and her father Hal was the film's main still photographer; he shot more than 20,000 still photos during filming. "It was difficult because of cold weather and noise, but that location saved us a lot of resources and made it a doable budget," says Baim. Sharon Gless was housed in the residence's coach house, and "that also saved us tremendously on costs." External scenes were shot at a farm in Beecher, illinois, about an hour south of Chicago.
Post production was accelerated so a rough cut could be submitted to Frameline in San Francisco, and the gala world premiere was held at that festival in June on the evening of Pride Sunday, with many of the cast and crew in attendance. "We benefited from a great story and great actors, and you don't always get both those things, and all the great supporting cast, a wonderful group of people," says Baim.
Overall costs for Hannah Free, including post production, came to just over $200,000, "a testament," says Baim, "to Chicago and all of the individual businesses and people who stepped up to help, in many ways including volunteering in many ways, discounted services and donations."
"Now I know how difficult it is to make a movie," Baim says, smiling. "It requires hundreds of people. It was probably good that I was naive going into it, because I don't know if I would have taken it on if I had known. But I've talked to so many filmmakers since that I've now realized how many mini miracles we had during the making of the film, so it turned out to be a really good experience."
Baim also notes that there is a great talent pool in Chicago. "So many movies come through Chicago for the tax credits, but the talent and crew they use are not from Chicagothey don't use Chicago actors as key cast or for post production. When we go around the country to the film festivals showing Hannah Free, we've discovered that this is something filmmakers and festival producers especially like about our filmthat it really is a Chicago production, through and through."


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Lawmakers are trying to wrap up deals this week on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and fiscal 2020 government spending while the Trump administration faces a self-imposed deadline for getting a partial trade agreement with China.
Also this week, the House is scheduled to debate the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would expand the H-2A visa program to include year-round workers while also providing existing undocumented farm workers a path to legal status. The bill has GOP co-sponsors but many conservative Republicans say the legalization provisions amount to a form of amnesty.
The White House and Mexico agreed on changes to the USMCA agreement and submitted them for approval to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the weekend, according to news reports.
"I'm confident. We're close" to a deal, Jesús Seade, Mexico's top North American negotiator, told Agri-Pulse and other news outlets Saturday.
House Democrats are focused on continuing the process of impeaching President Donald Trump — the House Judiciary Committee resumes its hearings Monday morning — but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Friday that a USMCA vote was possible as soon as this week if the implementing text is ready.
Meanwhile, Congress is facing a Dec. 20 deadline to reach an agreement on the fiscal 2020 spending bills or else pass yet another continuing resolution to keep the government funded at FY19 levels.
A senior GOP House appropriator, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said it's in both parties' interest to reach agreement on FY20 spending legislation since a budget agreement reached this summer allows for billions in higher spending on both defense and domestic programs.
"It behooves everyone to come a deal," Cole said.
As for China, Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese products next Sunday if he can't reach a "phase one" trade deal that would include commitments from China to significantly increase its imports of U.S. farm commodities.
But Larry Kudlow, chairman of Trump's National Economic Council, told reporters on Friday that talks were taking place "around the clock" and that a deal was close. He also acknowledged that Trump could follow through with the tariff increase while simultaneously saying there were "no arbitrary deadlines."
"The president has characterized these talks as constructive and I don't want to make any forecasts about any dates," he said.
Also this week, the Senate could take up the nomination of cancer expert Stephen Hahn to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed cloture last Thursday on Hahn, setting up a preliminary vote on his nomination.
Hahn, who is chief medical executive at the MD Cancer Center in Houston, should have no problem getting confirmed. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved his nomination last week, 18-5, even though the panel's top Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington, said she feared he wouldn't take action against e-cigarettes.
Rural broadband will get attention on and off Capitol Hill this week.
On Monday, the first meeting of a special task created by the Federal Communications Commission to review connectivity and technology needs of precision agriculture will be held. The 2018 farm bill included a provision directing the FCC to set up the group.
The task force working groups will include one focused on mapping and analyzing connectivity on ag lands and chaired by Michael Adelaine, vice president for technology and security at South Dakota State University.
A second working group assigned to study current and future connectivity demand will be chaired by Daniel Leibfried, director of John Deere's advanced technology, intelligent solutions group. Mississippi Farm Bureau President Mike McCormick will chair a third group that will focus on how precision agriculture will affect the demand for skilled labor.
Last week, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced a plan for a 5G fund that would set aside at least $1 billion specifically for facilitating precision agriculture.
Also this week, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote Wednesday on a bill co-sponsored by Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota and called the 5G Spectrum Act, which is designed to ensure mid-band spectrum is quickly available in the market through a public auctioning process.
Also on Monday, USDA's Farm Service Agency opens the first general signup in four years for the Conservation Reserve Program. The enrollment period will end Feb. 28.
Contracts on 800,000 acres of land expired this fall and contracts on an additional 5.2 million acres are scheduled to expire in September 2020. There were 22 million acres enrolled in CRP as of Oct. 1. The 2018 farm bill raised the acreage cap on CRP from 24 million acres to 24.5 million for FY20 and will increase the limit to 27 million by 2023.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere:
Monday, Dec. 9.
American Seed Trade Association's CSS and Seed Expo 2019, though Thursday, Chicago.
Tuesday, Dec. 10
9 a.m. - Farm Foundation forum, "Exploring Outcome-Based Pricing in Agriculture," National Press Club.
10 a.m. - House Agriculture subcommittee hearing on international food aid programs, 1300 Longworth.
Noon - USDA releases monthly Crop Production report and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.
3:45 p.m. - House Rules Committee meeting to consider the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, Capitol H-313.
Wednesday, Dec. 11
10 a.m. - House Agriculture Committee holds Member Day hearing, 1300 Longworth.
2 p.m. - House Agriculture subcommittee hearing on agricultural credit conditions, 1300 Longworth.
Thursday, Dec. 12
8:30 a.m. - USDA releases weekly Export Sales report.
9:30 a.m. - Resources for the Future forum on recent regulatory changes for the Endangered Species Act, 1400 16th St. NW.
Friday, Dec. 13
Noon - Faith and Law forum," I Was Hungry: Cultivating Common Ground to End An American Crisis," 2359 Rayburn.
For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com


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Sifting through all of the end-of-season sales can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to finding the hidden gems that get overlooked in favor of high-ticket items like shoes and bags. This Suno dress surely slipped through the cracks considering that nearly every size is still available. Combining the brand's exuberant prints with a figure flattering wrap silhouette, it's a rare seasonless find that would look great all year round. Throw it on with bare legs and strappy sandals right now and add some tights with an ankle boot come fall.
Suno paneled overlap dress, $238 at Les Nouvelles


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Dry Red Chicken Curry
Gaeng Hang Gai
Another great traditional Thai Curry, the direct translation from Khwanjai's original Thai recipe is "curry dry chicken". That means no oil or water is used in the cooking, and so there is much less sauce, but this sauce has an amazing flavour. It is thicker than the usual soupy Thai curries with a richer depth of flavour!
This is a recipe for curry you will not find anywhere else, as it is Khwanjai's own, it takes much longer to cook than most curries, so it's not the sort of dish you will find in a restaurant, however the cooking is well worth the effort
Khwanjai's Red curries are famous amongst the locals for her ability to balance the power of the chillies with the more subtle ingredients so you get to enjoy every flavour with every mouthful, without losing the power of speech!
How to Make Chicken Red Curry
Ingredients: Serves 2
4 Chicken (wings, thighs or drumsticks)
1 Cup red/green bell peppers
5 Mushrooms
4 Thai Chillies (pik ki nu)
3 Kaffir Lime Leaves
500 ml Coconut Milk
1 tbs Red Curry paste
2 tbs Fish Sauce
1 Chicken stock cube (or 1tbs powder)
1tbs Palm Sugar (or Demerara)
Cut and wash chicken, slice into thighs to expose bone and same for drumsticks
Tear Kaffir lime leaves (not too small) and leave mixed in with chicken for 20-30 minutes
Cut your red/green sweet chilli peppers and mushrooms into bite size pieces
Pick the stalks off the Thai chillies and slice, or for less spicy you can use them uncut
Pour 1/2 the coconut milk into a wok and bring to the boil, stir and simmer until greatly reduced and bubbles of oil begin to crack the surface of the milk (about 4-5 minutes)
Add red curry paste; stir until you get a great smell and colour
Add chicken and Kaffir lime leaves stir/mix together and simmer
Next (no waiting) add the fish sauce, palm sugar, chicken stock and remaining coconut milk, leave to boil
When it boils, turn to low heat and stir 2 or 3 times and leave to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes
Once it is simmering the occasional stir is fine, checking occasionally to see if the chicken is cooked and soft turning as required
When it is, add red and green sweet chilli peppers, mushrooms and Thai chillies, stir/mix together and leave to simmer another 5-10 minutes and you're done
Serving Suggestion:
Serve with hot Jasmine rice and to accompany this big flavoured curry you should have some soup and/or a savoury stir fry, the idea is to alternate between dishes when eating enabling each dish to refresh your palate for the next, even the soup is spooned onto the rice (one spoonful at a time) and eaten with the rice. A couple of great choices would be Lettuce and Pork Soup or Chicken and Beansprout Stir Fry or Pork Stuffed Cabbage Soup all of which have light and delicate flavours to contrast the rich flavours of this lovely chicken red curry.
More information on this and a complimentary stir fry in our Thai Food Blog–Dry Chicken Red Curry
Khwanjai's Top Tips:
This is quite a long recipe as in, it will take well over half an hour to prepare and cook (a long time in Thai food terms) but I promise you it is worth every second you invest in it and your family and friends will love you for it, guaranteed! Did I mention it's my own recipe?
Not to be found anywhere else or they copied it!
Do not stir before it boils or you will spoil the flavour of the chicken and it will smell bad
If you can't get Kaffir lime leaves you can use finely sliced lime peel as an alternative
Have you printed the recipe?
Questions below and feel free to share with your thai foodie friends..


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Value investing was first introduced by Benjamin Graham, Professor of Finance at Columbia University who also is the mentor of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Value investing is the method of finding good quality stocks that are trading at lower value compared to the underlying business value of the company, presenting a bargain opportunity for investors. In simple words, value investors buy quality products when they are on sale.
There are many ways suggested by numerous experts on how you can make money from stock market in the long term. While some use market trends to make investment decisions, other use simple cost averaging strategy, accumulating quality stocks by buying them in small quantities. While all these methods work for most of the investors, value investing is one way of investing that has stood the test of time and has been successfully implemented by many famous investors such as Warren Buffett, John Templeton, Parag Parikh, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and many others.
One of the best ways of learning value investing is by reading the books written by those who have not only practiced it in their investment strategy, but have also made a fortune out of it. Some of the best books on value investing, that I have read and personally like are mentioned below:
1. Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond By Bruce Greenwald:
Bruce Greenwald is the professor of Columbia University and Director of Research a First Eagle Fund. Described by the New York Times as "a guru to Wall Street's gurus,".In this book Professor Greenwald no only explains the concept using modern approach, he also explained in this book how value investing has evolved since the time of Benjamin Graham and how those theories of value investing can fit in modern market. The book explains the basic concept of value investing with modern examples without the past concepts be forgotten. The book explains the concepts in detailed yet simple manner of applying the investment techniques by using real life examples and explaining how you can learn to do so. The book also profiles eight different value investors and highlight their method of applying valuation concepts.
2. Value Investing And Behavioral Finance By Parag Parikh:
One of very few books on value investing written from an Indian investors perspective by an Indian author. Parag Parikh was an Indian trader and investor and founder of PPFAS Ltd, an investment advisory firm. He began his investment journey as a broker in BSE in 1979 and became a successful investor.
The book is a must read for every Indian investor looking to make money from Indian stock market. The book goes beyond the concepts of value investing and explains how our sentiments also influence our decision making process which play a vital role in our investing success or failure. The book tells us how most people lose money in the market not because they fail to pick the right stock but because they do not follow the discipline needed to succeed in investing. ?The best part about the book is it also discusses how an investor can spot a market bubble and ways to safeguard oneself from it. I find this book better than other books simply because it is written by a successful Indian investor for Indian stock market.
3. The Little Book of Value Investing By Christopher H. Browne:
Christopher Browne was a famous value investor who started his career at the firm Tweedy, Browne a famous brokerage firm among value investors. Since its inception in 1993, Tweedy Brownes global value funds have outperformed the market.
As the title suggests, the book is a short read, suitable for investors who cannot go through a book that expands to hundreds of pages and want a quick but detailed glimpse of value investing. The book gives you a good insight on how to screen stocks based on financial ratios and pick the right one for your portfolio. This book is a little masterpiece of value investing which is more of an art and requires patience and discipline. Despite being so short, it is very simple to understand and is considered one of the best books on value investing after Benjamin Grahams The Intelligent Investor. ?
4. The Dhandho Investor By Mohnish Pabrai:
Mohnish Pabrai is an Indian American investor who manages Pabrai Investment Fund, which is a family of hedge funds inspired from Buffett partnership. Pabrai manages over 500 million dollar of assets through his fund and has successfully achieved above average returns consistently.
The Dhandho Investor is written with individual investor in mind and is a concise version of Warren Buffets principles of investing that have made him a billionaire. The book discusses how an investor can make profitable but safe bets so that when markets move up, the investor makes huge gains but does not lose much money if things do not turn out as expected. The author gives a lot of examples of his past and present holdings,how he chose them, and how they have performed against his expectations. The book is easy to read and does not use lot of terminology keeping it simple and easy to understand.
5. The Intelligent Investor By Benjamin Graham
Written by the father of value investing himself, this book is undoubtedly the best book on value investing you will ever read. Benjamin Graham was a professor at Columbia University and is mentor of Warren Buffett. The book was written way back in 1949, post world war, but its principles are still practised by some of the most successful investors and have stood the test of time. Almost all the books written on value investing have taken a page or two from this book. No wonder this book is the mother of all books on value investing ever written.
6. Investing the Templeton Way By Lauren Templeton:
Written By Lauren Templeton, niece of Sir John Templeton, a billionaire investor and owner of Franklin Templeton investments, who is called the greatest stock picker of the century by money magazine. John Templetons fund is a global asset management company which outperformed the market for a good fifty years. ?Investing the Templeton Way provides a never-before-seen glimpse into Sir John's timeless principles and methods. Investing the Templeton Way provides historical examples of his most successful trades and explains how today's investors can apply his winning approaches to their own portfolios. The book gives a detailed explanation of his well known principles of investing at the point of maximum pessimism, a technique that Sir John Templeton used throughout his investing career and capitalized on it. The book also discusses how to keep a cool head when other investors react to the bad news. It talks about how you can become a bargain hunter by buying from the people when they are unloading the stocks in fear and sell when they are desperate to buy.
7. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits Phillip Fisher:
Philip fisher was an American author known for his book Common stocks uncommon profits the book was first published in 1958. Philip Fisher began his career in 1928, and worked as a security analyst with the Anglo London bank in San Francisco. Fisher's famous "Fifteen Points to Look for in a Common Stock" from "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits" are a qualitative guide to finding well managed companies with growth prospects. ?
Although the book was written more than half a century ago, the book holds a lot of relevance even in the modern market. The book, unlike Grahams Intelligent investor looks for the qualitative aspect of a business rather than just analyzing numbers. His 15 points for stock selection mentioned in the book provide immense insight to the analysis of stocks. The book has very few mathematical formulas and plays on logic and reasonings behind making an investment decision. The book is different from other quant heavy books that rely heavily on financial projections for predicting future growth of the company.
To take full advantage of the book, read it with Benjamin Grahams intelligent investor to get a complete picture of how you can explore and find great businesses for your portfolio based on quantitative analysis explained by Benjamin Graham and qualitative analysis by Philip Fisher.
8. The little book of valuation By Aswath Damodaran:
Valuation is the core of any investment decision, it not only gives us an idea on how much to expect from an asset, but the right price at which we should buy to maximize our return on investment. Who can explain valuations better than Aswath Damodaran himself. Aswath Damodaran is a professor of finance at Stern School of Business at New York University where he teaches corporate finance and equity valuation. In this book, Aswath Damodaran explains equity valuation inn a simple language that everyone can understand. The book is crisp and almost jargoon free, but does not compromise on quality of writing and explaining the concepts in a detailed and easy way. Damodaran distills the fundamentals of valuation and develops models that you can easily understand and use. Along the way, he covers various valuation approaches from intrinsic or discounted cash flow valuation. The book is a great start for investors who want to learn valuation and value investing, but find it hard to understand the concepts because of the complexity of the topic. Aswath Damodaran has made valuation very simple, crisp and light to understand even for someone who is completely unaware of the concept of valuation.
Value investing is the most logical way of making an investment as it is based on very rational grounds of assessing the present value of a business and forecasting its future value, and comparing it with the value offered by the stock market. Companies with strong growth potential trading at a lower valuation are usually great investments. Value investing is not as complicated as it looks, no matter who you are or whatever is your background, you can learn and implement valuation techniques and pick the right stock for your long term portfolio that will give you better than average compounding returns over a long term. After reading the books mentioned above , I am sure value investing will no longer be a mystery for you.