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Here is a more or less complete list of the non-franchise, non-sequel, non-prequel, moderate-to-big-budget action films still to come this summer: this week's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; Oliver Stone's drug opera Savages; John Hillcoat's LaBeouf-and-bootlegging Western Lawless; and Rian Johnson's Looper, about time-traveling hit men. Throw in the alien-invasion comedy The Watch if you'd like. And that's it. Everything else is a sequel (The Dark Knight Rises), a reboot (The Amazing Spider-Man, Total Recall), or both (The Bourne Legacy). We are in a place, blockbuster-wise, where a movie titled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter qualifies as one of the four or five most original action films to hit screens all summer.
The reasons for this are both fascinating and probably irrelevant to most moviegoers, unless you happen to be unduly fascinated with how declining DVD and rental revenues affect studio bottom lines, or the fact that Russell Crowe can't quite open movies the way he once did. Suffice it to say the six big studios in Hollywood make fewer films than they used to, and those they do make tend to be less risky, featuring a proven brand, director, star, or — ideally — all three. Savages exists because Oliver Stone deigned to make it for an affordable price, basically. Ditto for Lawless and Looper, both of which come with virtuoso directors, mid-level Hollywood stars, and modest budgets.
Which leaves Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Sure, it's an astonishingly cynical film, the Cowboys & Aliens of the 2012 summer season. But it's also a welcome anomaly, from its director, the Kazakhstani Timur Bekmambetov (whose deeply psychedelic and unnerving Night Watch is among the highest-grossing films in Russian history), to its dopey untested star, Benjamin Walker (who was ineptly covering Kings of Leon songs around downtown New York as recently as May), to its ridiculous, borderline offensive plot, which at least tries to introduce a new1 mythology to the screen (the Civil War happened because of vampires, basically). It's not quite Inception. But it's not The Expendables 2, either.
Unless you count the vampires, and the well-known historical life the movie depicts, and the Seth Grahame-Smith book from which it was adapted, but bear with us; this is pretty much what counts for original in Hollywood these days.
Why doesn't this type of film, in which studios throw a bunch of new talent and new ideas at the wall just to see what happens, get made more often? For all of the above reasons, and one more: Movies like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter depend too much on the humans making them. As Scott Rudin told Grantland Oscarmetrician Mark Harris last year: "Studios are hardwired not to bet on execution, and the terrible thing is, they're right. Because in terms of execution, most movies disappoint."
And my lord, does Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter disappoint.2
Yes, I am a 30-year-old man distraught over the failure of a movie in which our nation's greatest president kills vampires with a silver-coated ax.
It's hard to know what to make of the Seth Grahame-Smith era. Grahame-Smith, who adapted Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter from his 2010 novel of the same name, specializes in public domain horror — he also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for all you Jane Austen fans out there, and his other film credit so far is Dark Shadows, Tim Burton's slack adaptation of the campy '60s soap opera (Megan Draper's pals are always auditioning for it on Mad Men). Dark Shadows got most of its laughs from Grahame-Smith's knowing references to late Summer of Love culture as it might appear to us now, or to an aristocratic vampire who'd been locked in a coffin for the past 200 years — at one point, Johnny Depp's Barnabas Collins calls Alice Cooper the "ugliest woman I've ever seen." Which is pretty much what Grahame-Smith does, now that he's not writing paeans to the porn industry: He retrofits the past with big winking jokes about whatever is hilarious and in vogue in the present.
But it turns out to be one thing to gently rewrite an ancient and forgotten daytime television series, and an entirely different thing to just sort of throw some vampires into one of the more painful episodes in all of American history. To put on my Bill O'Reilly fright mask for a second: It's frankly sinister to assert that slavery, the Civil War, and the Confederate presidency of Jefferson Davis were all the results of a malicious vampire conspiracy, as this movie does. Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln pretty much belongs to the same paranoid style of storytelling that locates Barack Obama's place of birth in Kenya; it's also more than a little insulting to Robert E. Lee, who presumably would resent the insinuation that the only reason he ever won a battle was because he had a horde of invisible vampire soldiers to call upon.
The milk sickness that felled Lincoln's real-life mother? Vampire bite. Plantations? Food factories. That vaguely disreputable teller at the bank, just minding his own business? Murder that evil vampire. This is pretty much the plot of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. After his mother's death, Lincoln seeks revenge, becoming an ax-twirling (somewhere somebody is already inventing a fetish category for all the scenes in which Walker is by himself, vigorously rotating his blade) scourge of the undead. Lincoln's political awakening comes hand in hand with his realization that slavery is just another word for room service. And so we are treated to a scene of Walker intoning the Emancipation Proclamation as if it were the climactic speech in Independence Day, while his wife (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a long way from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) finds cause to ride the Underground Railroad because hey, that is a thing that existed in the 1860s too.
Which is not to say the film couldn't have worked. Bekmambetov, whose Hollywood debut was 2008's Wanted, is sometimes referred to as the Michael Bay or Peter Jackson of Russian cinema, but though he's been commercially successful, his movies tend to be far stranger: all clouds of bats and dudes vomiting blood and feathery owls morphing into scrawny naked women. Bekmambetov's wildly successful Russian vampire franchise, 2004's Night Watch and 2006's bonkers sequel Day Watch, is presumably what landed him Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, because that is how Hollywood works — they'll hire a guy to do a thing for which he's already used up his best ideas.
Still, the vampires in Abraham Lincoln have fang snouts with teeth like waving insect antennae, which is startlingly new; about halfway through the movie, Bekmambetov basically invents horse-parkour as Walker nimbly pursues a vampire across an equine stampede. When Winstead's Mary Todd first attempts to kiss the famously tall Lincoln, she removes his stovepipe hat and stands on it, which gives you both an idea of how bafflingly literal the script is and how fanciful some of the scenes Bekmambetov puts together really are.
Roger Ebert, endearingly, loved the film, but even he spends two out of nine paragraphs detailing holes in the script, which is flat-out incoherent: Characters come and go and bleed and then don't bleed and then bleed again, pretty much at random. Somewhere along the way, Harriet Tubman shows up. Jimmi Simpson's Joshua Speed, who first employs Lincoln in his Springfield general store, might be a racist or a traitor or a close cousin to Christian Slater — it's impossible to tell. This ambiguity is not helped by Bekmambetov's wretched 3-D transfer, which is literally blurry at the edges of the screen, occasionally sepia-toned, and always hideous.3 It's like watching a movie through the wrong end of a telescope.
We realize this is a blockbuster column, not Sight & Sound; let the fact we're mentioning this at all be a testament to how awful this film looks. We look forward to famed 3-D loather Chris Ryan's aghast reaction on Tuesday's Hollywood Prospectus podcast.
Reviews have been mixed to bad so far (Peter Travers, bringing down the hammer!), so who knows what kind of numbers Abraham Lincoln will do this weekend, though early tracking suggests a modest disappointment. This is bittersweet, in the way that practically everything relating to big-budget summer cinema is bittersweet. We will not mourn the Moby Dick: Killer Whale Wrestler or Marlow: Giraffe Tamer films that will not be made in the wake of an Abraham Lincoln failure. And vampire-weary filmgoers might see a glimmer of reprieve — at the very least, it seems unlikely they will let Grahame-Smith, now zero for two with the undead, return to this particular pulsating blood urn.
But we should be rooting for guys like Walker, whose vague but promisingly naturalistic performance in Abraham Lincoln seemed like it belonged to another movie entirely, and demented big-budget crazies like Bekmambetov; movies would be more interesting with these guys around. Or at least, guys like these guys: unknown, untested, unburdened by the expectations that reduce so many movies to a tepid stew of compromise. There are so few chances to see something new, even if that new thing involves hoary vampire tropes and an essentially sanitized retelling of blood-soaked American history. Our hopes are degraded enough. Maybe next time leave slavery alone?
Zach Baron (@xzachbaronx) could probably be accused of taking insufficient joy in the basic presidential-ax-to-vampire-skull premise we're dealing with here.


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Gratitude lists are one thing – and a great thing- but a lifestyle of gratitude is the ultimate goal.
Daring to live in ways that honor all that you love, immersing yourself in the ideas, places and learning that you love, build a kind of magnetism and manifestation quality that is indescribably beautiful.
My eyes opened recently to a powerful example of this: immersed in my Buddhist practice with so many people I love in Japan in a small village in the countryside I found a tiny village shop- a tiny cube- that featured a wooden box filled with my favorite succulents, exotic raw honey, persimmons, deep green organic greens and my favorite tea. It's like my Instagram account came to life in the most unexplainable way! It wasn't that I manifested the shop, but in some ways it felt that magical to stumble upon such a brilliant mirror of myself way out near Mt. Fuji.
I've noticed that these synchronicities pile up when you're swimming in what you love in actions every day.
It happens easiest when you put what and who you love first. Every day. All the time.
A small shift in your schedule can reflect your new priorities and turn your life to something enchanted!
Gratitude in Action is Everything
The scientifically studied benefits of gratitude – from more happiness to more health to more wealth- multiply exponentially when you live with this reverance for what's most important, dear, sacred and truly magical as the pace of your daily actions.
Set the pace for every day in action.
Welcome to me in Japan after two dayso, about to head to a 2:30am Buddhist ceremony of the highest magnitude in my life, after 5 days of not sleeping that much and…. putting what is truly most important in my life first.
For any time I slip in my own practice of putting my most vital things as the first actions in my day, I will reference this makeup-free, unedited, ultra-happy picture and remember that THIS is what happens when I put the important things first!
What can you start to put first, as the first thing you do in the morning every day? What sets you on the right path? Writing in a journal, meditation, running, yoga, a long dog walk, affirmations, spiritual practice…? Whatever you find is your pace-setting stuff that you love so much but don't always "get" to do every day can be the first things you do.
I do this at 5:45 am now everyday, put my self and my loves first. I have surfer friends who get up at 4am and drive out to the Rockaways from Brooklyn to surf before a full day of work. Others do their writing before their kids wake up. I know that there's always time to be made!
Let yourself put what you love first.
Shop less and shop selectively.
After my own first big de-clutter, and after hosting many seasons of the Catalyst Camp home and life de-clutter, I found my desire for shopping extremely selective. Meaning… I don't really shop much any more, and when I do, it's very much more of a curated affair.
I look for farmer's markets to get my greens in place of big shops, I really envision pieces that will fill out and expand my wardrobe rather than just accumulating more and more…
If you pull back next time you have an impulse to buy more things just for the sake of buying them and ask yourself if they help you to advance in life, live with more comfort or focus, or simply satisfy a feeling that you need to be more full inside because you haven't been able yet to put the truly important things first?!
Big question, and this honest answer can be your greatest catalyst.
In a few years I went from shopping up storms to collecting the best things in ways that are exciting and artful, barely spending money but spending on what's truly important.
This idea alone can be a total life and energy revolution!
Continually clear and clear.
Clear away everything, gradually and completely, that doesn't reflect your priorities, values and truly contribute to making your world a better place.
This is a big deal.
Clutter isn't just "stuff", it's also habits, obligations, distorted viewpoints, negative mental programming and other "stuff" that gets in the way of your ability to actualize your highest version of you in your life!
Clearing life can be as easy as removing distractions. For me, coming home from Japan, I'm done reading extreme amounts of politcal "news" or social media opinions on the news, I'm done with putting the most important things in my life for later in the day and I'm through with too much noise or rushing.
All of this in in the serve of alignment.
When you are in line with what you desire, it comes to you. It appears. Or, you see it for the first time and realize it was there all the while. Like that shop full of my favorite things hanging out on a tiny street in the middle of the Japanese countryside. The magic is waiting for you!
Live in that love, and feel that gratitude in action.
xoxo Dana
P.S.: If you want much-much more of the magnetic glow, The Cash Camp is coming soon, and the FREE 3-video intro series is all about wealth-building in profound and amazing ways. It's nearly an hour of exercises to shore up your energy, focus and presence to start building more abundance in every way… with ease, creativity and your spirit taking the lead!
You can sign to the free video series right HERE!
I'm so excited to share this with you!!!
And, if you want to dive in to your own personalized feng shui in a modern, practical way, Say hello to Feng Shui 101. Its the guide I made for you to create your own personalized feng shui at home, in the office, wherever you may be… in 8 weeks. It's not filled with strict rules or what you "must" do. Its filled with information, questions, exercises and even videos and classes to help you confidently create amazing spaces with killer feng shui and live with more flow. Learn more about the 8-week feng shui adventure & grab your copy to get started right HERE… And, as always, please let me know what happens!

subset: commoncrawl


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If you've stopped by recently, I'm sure you've noticed that things are not quite the same around here. Valerie's Kitchen launched a new custom design a little over a week ago and I'm ready to give you a tour of my sparkly new kitchen today. I'm confident that some of the changes will benefit you and I'm excited to show you around!
I want to share a little behind the scenes information about the process we went through to get to this point. If you are a blogger who is considering a new site design, feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like to talk in more detail. It's a huge project but so worth the effort.
The Logo – The Design
The Development
Instead of working with one designer/developer to create all the aspects of my new site, I broke it down into several projects and worked directly with the people who have strong skills in each of the areas that build a website.
The Logo
This was the best place to start because the logo helped us flesh out the remaining aspects of the site design. I worked with Laura Missioreck and the team at The Graphic Element, a woman-run graphic design and development company located in Manhattan Beach, California.
After filling out a questionnaire, Laura spent about an hour on the phone with me going over the details of what I was looking for in a new logo. I had to put into words the personality of Valerie's Kitchen and what I was trying to convey to my readers. This can be a tough task but Laura really made the process easy and I could tell she got me.
Choosing a logo is a fun process but not one that should be rushed. Once I was presented with my first round of designs, Laura suggested I "live with them" for a week or so and this was very good advice. I taped the different logos up around my office area and it was crazy how much I went back and forth on which I liked best before settling in on my final choice. Now looking back, I can't imagine having made any other choice. I wanted a fresh, simple, classic logo and they nailed it!
The Design
The next step was to locate a designer who could bring my vision to life. For this project I worked with Courtney Kirkland of Sweet Southern Media. I could tell from her other design work that her and I have a similar aesthetic which I think is vital. Her task was to create mock-ups of the layout of the entire site, including all the individual pages.
After lots of back and forth via email, she put together a design that is both pretty and practical and pulled together the perfect color palette to go along with my new logo.
Ingredient Tip
Store unpeeled fresh ginger root in a small resealable plastic freezer bag in your freezer. Peel and use a microplane zester or cheese grater to grate the frozen ginger root for recipes, when needed. Ginger root will keep well in the freezer for about a month.
You'll find these Ingredient or Kitchen Tips here and there throughout some of my posts when I have kitchen hacks or other useful information to share. Some of these tips will include links out to equipment or ingredients I recommend.
She also made suggestions for new features of the site that I hope make it both fun and easy for you to find recipes. I've included more about those features below.
Courtney worked tirelessly with me on this project over the holidays and with a new baby at home! I am so grateful to her for her sweet disposition and creative ideas.
The Development
The next and most important step is to choose a developer and wow, did I make a good choice here! I worked with Lauren Gray of Once Coupled and I cannot sing her praises loudly enough. Although I've listed this as the last step, you need to contact your developer early in the process to be sure you get on their often busy schedule.
Once Courtney and I finished the design process, Lauren's task was to turn it into a clean, fast, fully-functioning custom WordPress theme built on the Genesis framework. We talked face-to-face on a video chat for about an hour at the beginning of the process and then the conversation moved to a workflow program called Asana that kept everything organized. The awesome thing is that instead of having to search through a ton of emails I can refer back to this program any time to find answers to questions I asked or information from Lauren on the functionality of my site. Awesomely cool and adds a nice level of reassurance for me.
Lauren is an incredibly sweet, patient soul but also an impressively skilled developer. This is the ideal combination of traits needed to get through this process. She could dial down the language for my non-techy brain when needed and kept me on task and moving forward. The process the day we launched was effortless for me. I was even able to continue work while Lauren took care of everything and then boom, there it was. No interruption of traffic to the site. Incredible.
If you are considering a new site design, contact her!
The Recipe Box
There is a fully detailed category list in the Recipe Box where you can search, view and sort by every category available on the site.
Printable Recipe Card
My new recipe card design allows you to adjust the serving size and recalculate the ingredient amounts and includes a great big, easy to find Print button. Nutrition information is being added and will be listed along the bottom of the recipe cards. This process is being undertaken slowly and carefully and I appreciate your patience as we work towards converting all of the recipes to the new format.
Beyond the Kitchen
My Shopping, Travel, and Critters sections are alive and well and I have some fun plans to be adding to all of these sections in the coming months. Stay tuned for more!
Video Gallery
I have a powerful new Video Gallery coming that's going to knock your socks off. Check back towards the end of the month for that. Our existing Video Gallery is in place until then.
A Look Back
This is the 3rd incarnation of Valerie's Kitchen. Let's take a quick look back to see how we got here.
If you've been with me since the beginning, you might get a kick out of remembering how the site looked when it first launched back in August of 2011.
A major rehaul took place in 2014. If you are newer to my site, this is the look we had up until last week.
And, here we are today. I'd love to hear how you feel about the new site. Take some time to look around and let me know what you think!


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The 3rd Annual Headwaters History Days will open and close with concerts of original and traditional music at the Halcott Grange Hallon Friday evening, June 3 and on Sunday afternoon, June 5 at the Andes D&N Depot.
The shows are free. For a map, schedule and description of all weekend activities, visit www.headwatershistorydays.org.
Both the Halcott Grange/Town Hall (264 County Highway 3, Halcott Center 12430), and the Andes Depot, at the base of Cabin Hill Rd. just outside the hamlet of Andes, are new (old!) venues this year.
The Halcott structure was built in 1899 as a cooperative creamery, and became home of Greene Valley Grange in 1914. It has served as a polling place, meeting hall and community space for many years.
The John Burroughs Memorial Locust and Wild Honey Orchestra will perform in this venerable hall on Friday at 7 p.m.. They will play original songs inspired by naturalist John Burroughs, the environmental conscience of the Catskills. Performers will include Halcott resident Carrie Bradley Neves and John Jacobson on violin, Steve Koester of Arkville on guitar, Josh Roy Brown of Pine Hill on lap steel and guitar, Scott Hill and Aaron Lieberman.
Sunday's concert in Andes will be by Country Express performing at 2 p.m. at the newly refurbished Andes Train Depot. Completed in 1907, the station served a spur line of the Delaware & Eastern (later Northern) Railroad, and carried milk, farm supplies and merchandise until 1925. The property was deeded to the Town of Andes in 1998. This is the first event in the newly renovated building.
Country Express's history-themed program, "Looking for the Past," features original songs written by the late Rob Laing, founder of the band. The songs tell of building the D&N Railroad, the demolition of four villages in the East Branch Valley in order to create the Pepacton Reservoir, and the Anti-Rent War resulting in the death of undersheriff Osman Steele. There is a light-hearted story of city folk arriving in the Andes area as well as songs highlighting the beauty of the Catskills. Terri Whitney, Darlene and John DeMaille and Larry Jamieson will blend their voices and instrumental talents for a memorable, heartfelt program.
A history walk on the adjacent Andes Rail Trail with railroad enthusiast Russ Kaufman will precede the concert at 12:30. Parking will be on an adjacent lot.
For more information about HHD events, contact Doris Warner at 845-586-2484.


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Shrine Sacred Heart Parish
Diocese of San Angelo, Texas
email@example.com +13256777951
Our Adoration Chapel is located at 1541 South 8th Street, Abilene, Texas 79602. It seats 32 people. It is located one block from the main church (Sacred Heart Church), where confessions are available each Saturday afternoon from 3:15 PM to 5:30 PM. The Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week (except when prohibited by Church norms - e.g., on Good Friday and Holy Saturday). The Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration all the time, except during the celebration of the Eucharist itself. The Chapel opened for adoration on June 29, 2000, and is available for anyone to come to pray - even those who are not Catholic - but principally Catholics of the city and surrounding area. Because we have experienced things being stolen from the main church we do not keep it open much during the week, except for services. But since we have the Adoration Chapel, people can come there to pray.
1541 S. 8th St., Abilene, United States of America


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Application Deadline: April 1st 2019
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in collaboration with the Basque Culinary Center, presents the First Global Gastronomy Tourism Startup Competition.
Identify challenges and projects, and catalyzing innovations that can transform the Gastronomy Tourism sector in the near future.
Gastronomy tourism stimulates entrepreneurship and the generation of new companies and organizations that necessarily affect other industries transversally and fosters values such as:
- Sustainability based on maintaining a balance between economic growth and gastronomic culture and heritage
- The quality of initiatives from production to experience, along the entire tourism value chain
- Authentic communication and a coherent narrative of gastronomic offerings with the participation of all the stakeholders of the sector; from chefs to the media
- Cooperation among all actors throughout the entire value chain of the gastronomic and tourism sector
- Authenticity by highlighting cultural heritage, local products and cultural values
Eligibility Requirements:
startups with most disruptive ideas focused on solving real needs in the tourism and gastronomy sector with a responsible approach.
In particular, we are targeting startups that are:
- In the Early Stage or Series A Stage
- Both for-profit and non-profit
- Natural or legal persons
- Startups with a minimum viable product (MVP)
- Startups with potential for scalability
- Startups with a sustainable vision
20 selected Start-ups will be shortlisted by a panel of international experts and stakeholders from the gastronomy tourism sector (public and private sector, academia, and civil society)
Validate and test
The 5 finalist startups will have a sponsored trip to pitch their idea to a panel of experts, governments, industry leaders and international investors who will attend the 5th edition of the World Forum on Gastronomy Tourism be held in Spain on 2-3 May 2019.
Pitch and connect
The winning company will have the possibility to make its mark on the international stage and increase the impact of its startup with the help of BCC experts with a customized mentoring programme and the possibility of participating in the business accelerator Culinary Action!
Accelerate and incubate
The winning company will have the opportunity to design a pilot project with the Basque Culinary Center and implement it with the help of its network.
Evaluation Criteria:
The projects must be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations and the introduction or adaptation of digital and technological elements, and focused on one (or several) of the following areas:
- Destination management or private management of solutions/products/services developed around gastronomy as gastronomic tourism products
- Supply-side configuration seeking balance between sustainable development and the profitability of the project, maximizing the positive impacts on the community.
- Connection with the market and the user experience in all phases of the trip.
- The integration of sustainability in the project´s business plan, specifically the conservation of local ingredients and the relationship between culture, heritage, gastronomy, tourism and economic growth
Deadline for applications
Selection of 5 finalists and presentation on the online platform
Announcement of the winning startup
For More Information:
Visit the Official Webpage of the UNWTO Global Gastronomy Tourism Startup Competition 2018


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Shutdown Archive web server
Linux Journal
Issue #232/August 2013
Using the R Advanced Statistical Package
by Mihalis Tsoukalos
A look at data analysis with R.
Sublime Text: One Editor to Rule Them All?
by Ken Kinder
The power of an IDE and the speed of a regular editor. We show you what the buzz is about.
GNU Awk 4.1: Teaching an Old Bird Some New Tricks, Part II
by Arnold Robbins
The gawk developers have not been idle. Come see what's new!
Get More Juice out of Your Enterprise Code Base with Code Search
by Sushil Krishna Bajracharya
Gain access to the wealth of knowledge trapped inside your code base.
Chances for a Tizen Smartphone Entry
by Michael Schloh von Bennewitz
Tizen's developers intend it to power a variety of devices including phones, tablets, vehicles and televisions.
Reuven M. Lerner's At the Forge
Dave Taylor's Work the Shell
Web Administration Scripts
Kyle Rankin's Hack and /
DNSSEC Part II: the Implementation
by Kyle Rankin
Shawn Powers' The Open-Source Classroom
Protect Your Ports with a Reverse Proxy
by Shawn Powers
Doc Searls' EOF
Dear Hotels: Quit Being A-holes
New Products
Archive Index
Shutdown Archive web server
Copyright © 1994 - 2018
Linux Journal
. All rights reserved.


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Another wide-open NFL playoffs, another ill-fated quest to finish 11-0 against the spread, another monster Brady-Manning playoff duel looming wait, what year is this? (Checking.) It's 2013! 2013??? More important, do we really have a chance to give fewer than 10 points against Christian Ponder — on the road, outdoors — in a legally sanctioned postseason game? We're less than 48 hours away, and to my knowledge nobody has screwed this up yet. Actually, I don't want to jinx it. Forget I said anything. Let's break down every line for Round 1. And I mean EVERY line.
Matt Schaub (-3) over Andy Dalton
As recently as one month ago, Schaub would have been laying a touchdown. Remember the guy who threw for 842 yards and six TDs in Weeks 11 and 12? Schaub's QB ratings for his last four games: 19.1, 90.4, 46.2, 37.1. He put up 22 points total in the final two weeks. He's thrown one touchdown pass since December 2. His body language has become so gloomy that he could join the cast of Parenthood tomorrow, then pull off any scene in which Monica Potter needs someone to stare sadly at her while she's wearing a prosthetic bald head that makes her look like the long-lost Conehead.1 So what happened? Is he secretly injured? Did he go into a funk? Did he switch bodies with T.J. Yates? Are Schaub and Josh Freeman starring in Contagion 2: Accidentally Touched by Ryan Leaf? What happened?
Meanwhile, you know what you're getting with Dalton — he's one of those guys who is never available on your fantasy free-agent wire, only nobody ever starts him, either (making him the Brad Johnson of this generation). Could he win a road playoff game? Depends on your version of the word "win." Dalton could be the starting QB of a road playoff team that won mainly because the other team sucked. I could see that. But down by seven, on the road, in a potentially loud dome, with only one legitimate receiving target, a flimsy offensive line (seventh-most sacks in the NFL) and J.J. Watt wreaking havoc? That makes me nervous. QBR ranks him 22nd, jammed right between Sam Bradford and Matt Hasselbeck. DVOA ranks him 20th, one spot ahead of Christian Ponder and Philip Rivers.
You're not gonna believe this, but the guy who still uses a ThinkPad, AOL and a BlackBerry also holds on to some old rules from years gone by. And one of those rules is pretty simple; shit, it might be THE rule. If you're picking a QB in a road playoff game, you better believe in that QB. If Andy was throwing to A.J. Green, Julio Jones and Aaron Hernandez with Alfred Morris running the ball, I might believe in him. But flanked by Green, Andrew Hawkins, Jermaine Gresham and BenJarvus Green-Ellis? I'm lukewarm. The best argument in Dalton's favor? Mark Sanchez won road playoff games in 2009 AND 2010. And you wouldn't trust that guy to successfully park your car right now.2
The Giants' "Nobody Believes In Us Factor" (-13) over Houston's "Nobody Believes In Us" Factor
If the Texans were favored by three or less, I could see the N.B.I.U. case here. But they're laying 4½ even after rolling over against ChuckStrong last week in a game they desperately needed to win. Seems generous. Meanwhile, Tom Coughlin completed the final level of N.B.I.U. — by the time Week 17 ended, NOBODY believed in the 2012 New York Football Giants. That's what he always wanted, that's what he got.
In general, it was a fascinating year for N.B.I.U., as teams proactively embraced the fact that people didn't believe in them and pointed it out ahead of time; as this was happening, we were searching for teams who ranked high on the N.B.I.U. scale and adjusting our expectations accordingly. The concept itself got thrown out the window. You're not supposed to realize that you failed to believe in a team until after they won and shoved it in your face, then they're doing the whole "nobody believed in us but the people in this locker room" routine. (Maybe the concept will trickle over into politics and economics — for instance, Paul Krugman wrote a "Nobody Believes in Supply and Demand" column recently, and someone could easily make a 3,000-word N.B.I.U. case for John Boehner right now.3 Although Harry S. Truman was the ultimate N.B.I.U. politician. I'm getting sidetracked.) What we really need? A new theory. A fresh one.
The Post-Holiday Diet Theory (+8.5) over Every Other Dumb Simmons Theory
You know how even people in good shape let themselves go a little over the holidays? For one thing, it's cold — you don't mind packing on a couple of extra pounds. You're on vacation, so your schedule gets thrown out of whack. You miss a week of exercising, jogging, playing sports or whatever else you're doing to stay fit. You're eating bigger meals, you're drinking a little more, you're eating more junk food, and there are 10 times as many desserts kicking around. If you're stuck at a family gathering making small talk with one of your annoying cousins, you might even reflexively get that third plate of food just to get away from him or her. At some point, you made the decision, "I'm letting myself go a little here," and you're fine with it. Then the holidays finish and you feel that extra flab around your belly, become disgusted and attack your everyday life with a new resolve — better eating, more exercising, no dessert, less drinking, you name it. It's just a matter of saying, "All right, enough messing around."
We watch the let-yourself-go phenomenon happen to certain contenders in December every year — they peak in October and November, lose their mojo for whatever reason and finish the season playing less-than-inspired football. When it happens, we have to decide if it's a funk or something bigger. In Houston's case, they got their butts kicked in New England, rallied back to beat Indy, got steamrolled by one of the greatest running backs ever during his greatest season, then found themselves ChuckStronged in Week 17. Funk or something bigger? The more I'm thinking about it, I say funk. And this is the weekend when the Texans say, "All right, enough messing around," rededicate themselves and go back to doing Texans things — namely, running the ball down Cincy's throat, harassing Dalton on every pass and protecting the football. Which leads us to
TEXANS (-4.5) over Bengals
Only one person could screw this pick up: Matt Schaub. This makes me feel better: The Bengals haven't won a road playoff game in the history of the franchise (dating back to 1968). Their last playoff win happened in January 1991 — when they beat the Houston Oilers before losing to Bo Jackson's Los Angeles Raiders. As reader Rob from Boston writes, "The Bengals have not won a playoff game since destroying Bo Jackson's hip. If you were God and you created Bo Jackson, perhaps the most naturally gifted athlete ever, wouldn't you seek retribution against the team who destroyed those gifts? Proof? Dave Shula, Bruce Coslet, David Klingler, Akili Smith, Dick LeBeau, Kimo von Oelhoffen I could keep going. Give the points and take the over on Marvin losing a challenge on an irrelevant play." I concur.
The Pick: Houston 27, Cincy 17.
"Don't EVER Bet Against Aaron Rodgers" (-3.5) over "Don't EVER Bet Against Adrian Peterson"
In the regular season? That's probably a pick 'em line. In the playoffs, you're always better off taking a frightening QB over a frightening running back. And did you see Rodgers's December numbers? 1,457 yards, 11 touchdowns, one pick, 113.3 QB rating. Yeeesh. Peterson was our 2012 MVP for throwing a mediocre Vikings team on his back and submitting the single greatest running back season any of us have ever seen. Manning was the runner-up for transforming Denver into a Super Bowl contender. But you can't sleep on what Rodgers did, as a Milwaukee reader named Michael explains:
Aaron Rodgers is so damned good that an off year for him means leading the league in Passer Rating and TD/Int ratio even though he has an absolute train wreck of an O-line, a rotating cast of always-injured receivers and a below average run game (by the way, what are the chances that Alex Green or DuJuan Harris puts up more than 2.0 YPC with that O-line and any QB other than Rodgers?). How anyone thinks he doesn't deserve just as many MVP votes as Manning is beyond me. The guy has nothing around him, gets destroyed every other play through no fault of his own, and yet is still the most feared player in the league. Hell, I think I might vote for him over Adrian I-Just-Carried-An-Entire-Franchise-To-The-Playoffs-While-Simultaneously-Having-The-Best-Season-Of-Any-Pro-Athlete-In-The-Last-20-Years-And-Oh-By-The-Way-My-Left-Knee-Is-Made-Out-Of-The-Same-Liquid-Metal-Shit-As-The-Bad-Guy-From-T2 Peterson.
Jadeveon Clowney, Physical Freak (PK) over Adrian Peterson, Physical Freak
Question: If Clowney jumped the snap and tried to tackle Peterson behind the line of scrimmage, what would happen? Would it be like the time Superman fought the guy who looks like Nikola Pekovic in Superman II? Would buildings fall over? Would the earth implode? And if you were the Chiefs, wouldn't you convince Clowney to declare for this year's draft and sue the NFL to become eligible? What do you have to lose? Does anyone think Clowney is NOT ready for the NFL? I'm adding this to my Sports Czar campaign — we need a special draft committee for all sports that's empowered to give special exemptions to any high school basketball player or college football freshman/sophomore who's prematurely ready to play professionally. Clowney is ready.
Antoine Winfield's Broken Right Hand (+3.5) over Every Other Key Round 1 Injury
Tough one for Minnesota — when Winfield (a superb corner) left last Sunday's game because of the pain in his already broken right hand, Green Bay tortured his replacement (special teamer Marcus Sherels) to the tune of nine catches and 162 yards. This weekend, Winfield is going to play with a hard cast — making it difficult for him to tackle and jam receivers at the line. There's only one sports scenario in which you want to hear the words "hard cast" — that's right, pro wrestling.
Blair Walsh (-10) over Mason Crosby
If you're talking yourself into a Vikings upset, part of that pick involves a nine-point swing that looks like this: Crosby (a mess this season) shanking an easy kick in the first half and making Mike McCarthy lose all faith in him, followed by Walsh (a stud) nailing two kicks of over 50 yards to keep Minnesota hanging around. And instead of Green Bay leading 20-10, somehow it's 17-16 as Cris Collinsworth is saying things like, It's four-down territory here for Green Bay, I know they're on the 30 but you can't bring Crosby out here, he's just too far gone right now. That's one piece. As for the other
Andy Reid (-7) over Mike McCarthy
You might remember me predicting that Reid would pass the torch to McCarthy as this generation's perennial successful coach who keeps blowing sloppy playoff games year after year while also gaining weight and maybe even growing a mustache. When Philly fired Reid, that made me worry that McCarthy would be grabbing that torch starting this weekend (threatening my Packers pick). But wait! Before we knew it, three teams were fighting to hire Andy before the Chiefs finally stepped in, delighting Chiefs fans and BBQ establishments all over the KC area. So I don't see any torch-passing. At least not yet.
Green Bay's receivers (-30.5) over Minnesota's receivers
On one side: Jordy "I'm Finally Healthy" Nelson, Greg "Me Too" Jennings, Randall "I'm Secretly Terrifying" Cobb and James "I Swung Some Fantasy Leagues" Jones. On the other side: Jarius Wright, Jerome Simpson and Michael Jenkins. Come on. Now throw in
Indoors Christian Ponder (-12) over Outdoors Christian Ponder
The 2012 Vikings played outside four times and lost all four games: at Washington (lost by 12), at Seattle (lost by 10), at Chicago (lost by 18), at Green Bay (lost by nine). Ponder's best game happened in Washington (352 yards, 2 TDs, 2 picks), although he had Percy Harvin at that point (11 catches, 133 yards). In Week 9 at Seattle, with Harvin hobbled, the Seahawks held him to 63 yards on 22 pass attempts (you read that correctly), sacked him four times and picked him once. In Week 12 at Chicago, he threw 43 times for just 159 yards (one TD, one pick). In Week 13 at Green Bay, he threw 25 times for a whopping 119 yards (one TD, two picks) — and that was with Peterson (210 yards, six or seven "HOLY SHIT!" moments) playing out of his mind. So in Ponder's last three outdoor road games, he attempted 90 passes that yielded just 341 yards. Not even four yards per pass attempt! I mean, I wanted no part of wagering on Christian Ponder in a road playoff game even before I looked this stuff up.
PACKERS (-7.5) over Vikings
Again, Aaron Rodgers vs. Christian Ponder in Lambeau and the line is less than 10????? Come on. Stop it.
The Pick: Packers 34, Vikings 17
ChuckStrong (-4) over Ray Lewis's Retirement
You have to hand it to Lewis — his retirement announcement was a valiant attempt to upstage ChuckStrong, especially considering Charlie Strong's Louisville team shocked Florida as 14-point underdogs and pushed ChuckStrong to a whole other level. Plan A was retiring; Plan B was convincing Torrey Smith to legally change his name to Chaz Strong just for Sunday's game. But there's a big difference between winning a playoff game for your cancer-survivor coach and winning it for your hung-on-a-little-too-long linebacker who's better off doing TV (where he's going to be fantastic, by the way).
Indy's Upset Victory Potential This Weekend (-3) over Everyone Else's Upset Victory Potential This Weekend
The recipe for a Colts upset in three parts
Part 1: They need the Ravens to look like the Ravens from the past seven games, when they barely beat Pittsburgh by three (the game Byron Leftwich played with broken ribs); won an OT game in San Diego (with help from Ray Rice's incredible fourth-and-29 play); lost at home to Charlie Batch (Charlie Batch!); lost in OT at Washington (to Kirk Cousins!); got slaughtered in Denver (lost by 17, wasn't that close); whupped the free-falling Giants; lost to Cincy (meaningless game). It's hard to believe the Ravens could be giving a touchdown in the playoffs to anyone right now. It's an average offensive team and an average defensive team (with a phenomenal special-teams unit, but still).
Part 2: The power of ChuckStrong. Remember when the 2011 Broncos ushered in the brief but lovable era of "TEEEEEEE-BOWWWWWWWWWWW!," kept winning games they should never have been winning, and then everything crested with that playoff victory over Pittsburgh? Isn't that a pretty good doppelgänger for the 2012 Colts and ChuckStrong? Football Outsiders ranks the Colts as the worst 11-win playoff team since 1991; they're even the worst 10-win playoff team since 1991. Like the 2011 Broncos, their season stopped making sense well before the playoffs. And like the 2011 Broncos, they landed a possibly over-the-hill playoff opponent who might be more reputation than actual substance at this point. If this particular Colts team was playing in Denver or New England, the talent discrepancy would become insurmountable. That's not the case in Baltimore.
Part 3: What Andrew Luck am I getting in this game? Am I getting the guy who turned the ball over 28 times (18 picks, 10 fumbles)? Am I getting the guy who looked like Roethlisberger 2.0 in last week's Houston game, keeping drives alive and staving off pressure play after play? Am I getting the guy who's proven to be truly clutch at a pretty precocious age? Am I getting all three of those guys at the same time? You can't pick the Colts to win this game without saying, "I think Andrew Luck is gonna be lights-out" and his habit of getting better when it matters bodes well for a playoff game.
Colts (+7) over RAVENS
You know the old saying, "When in doubt, take the points?" I'd like to tweak that to, "When in doubt, take the points especially if that means you can root for a head coach who just came back from fighting leukemia and who might deliver the greatest postgame speech that's ever happened if they somehow pull this one off, followed by that team trekking to Denver to battle the greatest player in Colts history."
The Pick: Colts 30, Ravens 24
Kevin Kolb (+4) over Bernard Pollard
Little-known fact: Do you realize Kevin Kolb swung the playoff byes in both conferences? If not for Kolb relieving an injured John Skelton and orchestrating an 11-play, 85-yard, game-winning drive against Seattle in Week 1, the Seahawks would have finished 12-4 and won the NFC West (and the no. 2 seed). And if Kolb hadn't slapped together four decent quarters in New England (140 yards, one TD, no picks, just two sacks) without ever doing any Kevin Kolb things, New England would have been the AFC's no. 1 seed. The other big culprits: Norv Turner, Phil Rivers and the Future L.A. Chargers, who blew a 24-point lead in Week 6 to Manning's Broncos, inadvertently rejuvenating the nerves in his neck and turning him into 2006 Peyton again. Since falling behind 24-0 on that Monday night, Denver has outscored its opponents 346-151, Peyton regained the Manning Brother championship belt, and this happened.
Anyway, the favorites for the 6th Annual Bernard Karmell Pollard Award — given annually to the most random person who affected the 2013 playoffs — are Kolb, Turner and Rivers right now. Special kudos to Pollard for winning his own award last year. And don't count him out this month since he's still playing for the Ravens and might be one hit away on Manning or Brady from winning back-to-back Pollards.
Mike and Kyle Shanahan (-91) over Me and My Son
The Shanahans teamed up to save football in Washington, master a devastating offensive scheme and capture the NFC East. Meanwhile, the Simmonses just completed World no. 5 in New Super Mario Bros. Wii together. They have a big lead over us. I'm not gonna lie.
Seattle Sports Renaissance (+3) over D.C. Sports Renaissance
D.C. fans couldn't have enjoyed a better 2012: They added a likable/electric/charismatic franchise QB (and a franchise RB as well!), rebuilt their baseball team around two marketable stars, nearly made the Stanley Cup finals and even hit rock-bottom in a good way when the pathetic Wizards became the new black sheep/laughingstock of the National Basketball Association (replacing the Clippers, who finally abdicated the title after a 35-year run). If you're going to be a train wreck, you might as well become a historic train wreck, right? Add everything up and it was D.C.'s most memorable sports year in eons. But could Seattle be positioning itself for a similar 2013 renaissance? What if the Seahawks make a prolonged playoff run (and it's definitely possible)? What if the Sacramento Kings get sold to a Seattle ownership group? What if the Mariners start scoring more than 1.5 runs a game? What if the Sounders win whatever the hell the MLS title is called? Keep an eye on this.
Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch (-2.5) over Robert Griffin III and Alfred Morris
Only because of RG3's bulky knee brace. Great battle, though. I'd have so much more to say about this game, but unfortunately, someone gave me the ebola virus and I spent Thursday night and Friday morning lying in bed, shivering, sweating and basically having an out-of-body experience. Please allow me to make a pick so I can go back to lying on a cold bathroom floor.
Seahawks (-3) over REDSKINS
The easiest pick of Round 1 for me. The Seahawks aren't just the most balanced team in football, they're one of the most balanced teams ever. Football Outsiders' DVOA ranked them fourth in offense, fourth in defense and third in special teams. They didn't play a single bad game all season — even in their five losses, they had a chance to win each game in the final minutes. So if you're picking against them, you're doing it for three reasons: You think they're a better home team than road team, you're jumping at the chance to pick against Pete Carroll on the road, and you're banking on Washington's crowd (great fans, by the way) to push their boys to another level.
All solid reasons I just don't agree. I don't think the Redskins are good enough to win this game — even last Sunday, they benefited from three ghastly Tony Romo interceptions and some legitimate coaching incompetence on Dallas's end (really, you couldn't figure out a smart way to pick up those relentless blitzes, Dallas?) and barely won. Seattle is a whole different animal. We're headed for a final four of Seahawks-Packers and Brady-Manning, along with 250,000 replays of Golden Tate's Hail Mary. It's destiny. And on that note, I'm going back to the cold floor.
The Pick: Seattle 30, Washington 17
Last Week: 7-9
Season: 132-120-4


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Rock Legends 2020!
March 6, 2020
Enjoy legendary rock concerts thanks to this incredible show that goes back in time!
This takes place 26 km from our Mont-Blanc Hotel, at the Théâtre du Léman, in Geneva on Friday, March 6, 2020.
The Rock Legends are back!
Yes, The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Queen are still with us, to our great delight! Years go by, but rock is still very much alive. These mythical bands are still the gods of rock in the hearts of fans, and for a long time to come.
Tribute Bands & Rock'n Roll
Do you know the Tribute Bands phenomenon? Born in Great Britain in the 1990s, it is a great success. These groups specialize in covering famous songs. Three exceptional bands will be in charge of taking you back in time on January 26th in Annecy, at the Arcadium: The Doors Alive, Letz Zep One and Night of Queen will perform live the greatest hits of their glorious elders. These bands are recognized worldwide as the best tribute bands by the original members of the bands themselves!
Don't miss this unique event that will make you sing and dance to the sound of Bohemian Rhapsody, We are the Champions, Light my Fire, Stairway to Heaven and many others, just like the good old days of the 70s and 80s rock years!
Rock Legends
March 6, 2020
Théâtre du Léman
Quai du Mont-Blanc
1201 Geneva


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Buddha Incense Incense Burner
Laser Cut Baltic Birch. Approximately 3.5", For Stick Incense only.
Free Shipping on Orders Over $50
Shop now & pay later with Shop Pay Installments !
Free Gift With Every Online Purchase ♡
Laser Cut Baltic Birch. Approximately 3.5", For Stick Incense only.
I chose my piece in store for $2, and it's absolutely beautiful. Mermaid vibes, for sure.
I absolutely love my emerald calcite from this shop, it's truly wonderful to admire.
I have several pieces of smoky quartz from my time visiting shops and gem shows over the years. The piece I chose made a great addition to my growing collection.
I love Dragon's Blood Jasper, so when I saw these large pieces, I had to have one. It's absolutely beautiful!
I only have two pieces of rough carnelian, and one of them was from here. The quality is outstanding, I really like my choice.


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Azoteq IQS227AS/B & IQS228AS/B Single-Channel DevicesAzoteq IQS227AS/B and IQS228AS/B Single-Channel Touch Devices feature an internal voltage regulator and reference capacitor (Cs). The devices include a dedicated pin or pins for the connection of sense electrodes (Cx) and output pins for proximity and touch events on OUT. The polarity of the output pins can be configured. A one-wire open drain data streaming protocol OR I2C interface is implemented for debugging purposes. Device configuration is determined by one-time programmable (OTP) options. Azoteq IQS227AS/B and IQS228AS/B Single-Channel Touch Devices are ideal for mobile devices, white goods and appliances, proximity-activated backlighting, automotive, and a wide range of other applications.
- Sub 2.5µA in low-power mode while sensing Proximity
- Automatic tuning implementation (ATI) - automatic tuning of sense electrode
- Internal capacitor implementation (ICI) – reference capacitor on-chip
- 1.8V to 3.6V supply voltage
- Minimum external components
- Data streaming option
- Advanced on-chip digital signal processing
- User selectable (OTP)
- 4 power modes
- IO sink / source
- Time-out for stuck key
- Output mode (direct / latch / toggle)
- Proximity and touch-button sensitivity
- 1 self-capacitive channel
- DYCAL™: Intelligent Hysteresis
- Proximity and touch outputs
- Automatic tuning
- Internal reference capacitor
- Minimum external components
- 1-wire data streaming
- I2C debug option
- User selectable options (OTP)
- Low-power modes
- Ext sync control or ext filter control
- I/O sink or source selection
- Time-out for stuck key
- Proximity and touch sensitivity selections
- 1.8V to 3.6V supply voltage
- LCD, plasma, and LED TVs
- GSM cellular telephones – on-ear detection / touch keys
- LED flashlights or headlamps
- White goods and appliances
- Office equipment, toys, sanitary wares
- Flameproof, hazardous environments
- Human interface devices
- Proximity detection enables backlighting activation
- Wake-up from standby modes
- Replacement for electromechanical switches
- Find-in-the-dark (FITD)
- Automotive
- Door pocket lighting
- Electric window controls
- Proximity sensors
- SAR detection for tablets
- On-ear detection for mobile phones
- 3D glasses
- Personal media players
- White goods and appliances
- Human interface devices
- Proximity activated backlighting
Veröffentlichungsdatum: 2019-08-19 | Aktualisiert: 2023-06-06


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Anne Fraser-Vatto appointed CFO of Griffin
Anne will lead Griffin's financial operations, investor relations, legal and marketing. Her role also covers partnering, strategy and business development of the company.
Anne has extensive knowledge of financial management in energy industry and project financing. She was previously CFO of Korkia (turnover approx 8M€, year 2018), and one of the largest Finnish energy companies Kymppivoima (turnover approx. 200M€, year 2017). She has been in charge of financial management for several large-scale energy infrastructure projects.
"I am excited to join Griffin to contribute to Griffin's future success as the company now progresses to the next phase of its strategy. Griffin explores and innovates global solutions which have positive effects on our environment and I am delighted to be a part of this organization" said Anne.


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Podcast: NASCAR president hears short tracks' 'fairly strong drumbeat'
Not long after he was announced as NASCAR's fifth president in September, Steve Phelps received some advice on Twitter about future changes to the sport's schedule.
The Twitter user told Phelps, "Hey, let me help you out. More short tracks, more road courses."
Phelps recounted the message to Nate Ryan on the latest NASCAR on NBC podcast.
"I think he gave me his address so I could send him a check," Phelps said. "There was an expletive in there. It was all good."
A significant portion of the episode was dedicated to potential changes to the NASCAR schedule in 2020.
Phelps, who has been with NASCAR since 2005 and came from the NFL, said "everything is on the table" from midweek races, more short tracks and moving the schedule forward on the calendar to end the season earlier.
Phelps said there's "a fairly strong drumbeat" from NASCAR's 25,000-member fan council for more short tracks, he added the "absolute truth" is that he has "no idea" what the schedule could morph into in two years (the 2019 Cup slate was announced in April).
"I think that there is a willingness among tracks and teams and NASCAR and our broadcast partners to look at things in a different way," Phelps said. "I do think that the Roval opened up some eyes. I think much like what you saw around the first race at Eldora (Speedway in 2013), that first truck race on dirt ... everybody was like 'We have to have more, we have to have more dirt races.'
"I think you have to look at, 'OK, what's the specialness of it?' I'm not suggesting there wouldn't be another Roval, I'll put that in quotes, moving forward. But I think there are changes to the schedule, there have been things that have been tossed around and around. Can you have a doubleheader weekend? Can you have a midweek race? Can you pull the schedule forward? Does it make sense to go to a street course or go to more short tracks?"
What about a doubleheader weekend with IndyCar, which will be televised exclusively by NBC Sports Group next season?
"I don't know. Potential," Phelps said. "I think that there's synergy from the motorsports side from a broadcast standpoint. (NBC Sports Executive Producer) Sam Flood (said) he's going to do a motorsports summit to try to look at some best practices and are there ways we can cross promote. I think it's fantastic."
During the podcast, Phelps also discusses:
-- His roots as a childhood race fan in Vermont;
-- How "geotargeting" fans works with increasing ticket sales;
-- His approach to Twitter and how active he plans to be in his role
To listen to the NASCAR on NBC Podcast, click on the embed above, or you can download the episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.


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Certain foods are highly inflammatory. Considering that inflammation is an immune response and 70 percent of our immune system cells are in our gut, it's easy to understand the effect of diet.
Inflammation is beneficial in the short term (it helps your wounds and infections heal), but when it becomes chronic, it contributes to disease and exacerbates pain.
Here are 5 categories of food that directly influence inflammation and therefore contribute to higher levels of pain.
1. Sweets
Cookies, candy, ice cream, brownies, doughnuts … all of these are loaded with sugar, which drives up your blood sugar and insulin, along with levels of inflammatory messengers called cytokines.
2. Refined Flour – Bagels, Muffins and Pasta
Any member of the refined carbohydrate family – white bread, muffins, pasta, bagels, etc. – drives up inflammation due to the same reasons as sugar. In fact, there's not much difference between refined carbs like a bagel and a heaping serving of sugar, as far as your body is concerned.
3. Synthetic Trans Fats
These make the list because they're a common source of synthetic trans fats, which come from foods that contain partially hydrogenated oil. Trans fats are strongly linked to systemic, chronic inflammatio … and are so bad for you that the Institute of Medicine recommends you simply keep trans fatty acid consumption as low as possible.
French fries are by no means the only culprit; trans fats are also commonly found in savory snacks (like microwave popcorn), frozen pizzas, cake, cookies, pie, margarine and spreads, ready-to-use frosting, and coffee creamers.
4. Blackened or Barbecued Foods
Any time a food is cooked at high temperature (this includes foods that are broiled, fried, grilled, blackened, barbecued, etc.), toxic advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are formed. AGEs are readily absorbed by your body, where they wreak havoc, causing high levels of inflammation. While grilling, frying and broiling your food is known to increases AGEs, stewing, boiling, braising, crock pot or steaming will instead help minimize the amount formed in your food.
5. Vegetable Oils (Polyunsaturated)
Soybean, corn, peanut, safflower and sunflower oils are examples of vegetable oils that are rich in omega-6 fats, which most Americans consume far too much of (pick up any processed food in your pantry and you'll probably see soybean oil or corn oil on the label). Excess omega-6 fats are highly inflammatory, which is why it's important to limit the amount of vegetable oils you consume.
Diet is loaded with emotion, habit, pleasure…take this information gently and if you are one of the many who suffer with chronic pain, consider weighing the challenges and benefits of diet change with the pleasures and pain of continuing the status quo.


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Property Investment Advice in The Gambia
Unusually for a law firm, we have for many years been giving advice to clients about which areas, places and types of property might best suit their personal investment requirements.
There is no 'one size fits all' when it comes to making this choice.
What is right for you will depend upon your age, financial situation, timescale, personal preferences, attitude to risk, etc.
There is now a huge range of property in The Gambia available to investors in the UK and we can apply our unrivalled experience of international property to help you pick your best options.
This service is greatly appreciated by our clients.
Click here for more information from Commercial and Residential Property Investment Lawyers in The Gambia
Contact Real Estate Lawyers In Gambia


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London's Tate Modern is home to some gorgeous Bridget Riley canvases, huge rectangles of rhombic mosaics, in shifting colour that one can stand in front of and lose oneself in. A fifteen minute stroll west along the embankment, the Hayward Gallery seems to have all of them and then carpet bombs the place with a massive selection of the artist's extraordinary, life-long output. The gallery's airy spaces are filled with a veritable cornucopia of her work, spanning from 1947 to today. It is an authoritative exhibition, showing the artist's 70-year development, a grounded and playful exploration of human perception.
Riley's black and white phase, to which she has often returned for further exploration, tested the contention that "certain elements within a particular situation remain constant" whilst "others precipitate the destruction of themselves by themselves". Try it. Stand in front of Movement in Squares or Blaze 1 and try not to see a monochrome vision of Kubrick's stargate where what is absolutely static on the canvas appears to be moving on the retina.
The scale of canvas which triggers this doesn't seem to matter. The exhibition presents several wall-sized paintings - in colour and in black-and-white - and one can advance towards them or retire back from them to engage the peak of this effect. The photographs I took to use on this post are shrunken versions of their real-life equivalents and even they unleash the same degree of retinal disturbance. (By the way, each has a larger version for you to call up with a click.) One is reminded of the prehistoric BBC test card F as seen on a diminutive black-and-white TV, fuzzed up with the famous moiré pattern.
So many aspects of this exhibition are glorious. Top of the list is being able to get up close and personal with these canvases. To close in on them and discover that what you thought was a triple-colour group of parallel lines, black sandwiched with blue and red, is in fact a black line sandwiched by bands of colour that intermittently narrow to cause a pulsing effect, is a small revelation, one that plants a seed about how a Riley painting works.
Her Cascando, at four and a half metres long, is a series of (mostly) triangles. As your eye roves around this expanse of black and white, a tug-of-war unfolds as to whether you are looking at black triangles on a white background, or vice versa. And at what point does the one change over into the other? Confounding this, as a visual digression, an interjection, is the fact that many of these triangles have one side which is curved - and these curves are either concave or convex. Trying to nail it all down is nearly impossible as every attempt to count the frequency of an individual pattern is frustrated by the shifting position of each component. Yes, "destruction of themselves by themselves" indeed!
The second thing one notices in the detail is the utter clarity of these lines. Where black meets white is the crispest possible line, the sort than anyone dabbling with pen and ink or watercolour will aspire to and rarely achieve. There are absolutely no spodges, no percolating or leaching from one side of the line to the other. The same is true in colour, that borders between one colour and its adjacent colour are 100% crisp, again irrespective of scale. It is utterly beguiling. It is all the more important as it is on these colour boundaries that our vision adds its own shades and progressions where none exist on the canvas. This demonstrates Riley's contentions in the Stripes and Diagonals work that "you can never see colour by itself, it is always affected by other colours". These colour canvases of hers play with this interrelationship.
Riley's rhomboid paintings test this further by combining the dynamism of her black-and-white work with her work on colour paradox. High Sky plays with the expectation and disappointment of perceived pattern. These are large canvases, over two metres across and, standing back from them, one wrestles with the rhomboids, trying to hold them in place long enough to establish what their sequence intervals might have been. Some protrude out of the space allocated to them, defying what might have been their assigned role. They seem to have forced themselves out of their starting point and extended themselves towards the bottom-left of the canvas. Others appear to have landed in the wrong place and sit uncomfortably adjacent to others of the same colour, interlopers in the geometric framework, confounding an orderly distribution of colour.
The Hayward has one of their upstairs galleries devoted to Riley's study of how these visual effects operate. It is exquisite, demonstrating a vigorous work ethic. Large scale preparatory drawings, tests and analyses are presented, many with detailed annotations. One gets a feel for the process whereby she combined analysis with judgement, leading to her signing off a blueprint from which her assistants could then execute the final painting.
Also included was a section on Riley's early work exploring Georges Seurat's pointillism, bringing a more scientific approach to painting with colour. Her copy of his Le Pont de Courbevoie helped her appreciate how an apparently fragmented image can be assembled whole in the viewer's mind. It gave her "a sense of the viewer's importance as an active participant".
This is a glorious exhibition, a fitting tribute to Britain's inspirational op-art doyenne. It runs at the Hayward Gallery until 26th January 2020.


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Looting and Restitution.
Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present
and in the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, April 23 until August 2, 2009
Information about the exhibition
The exhibition "Looting and Restitution. Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present" narrates the historical events, context, and consequences of the looting carried out by the Nazis throughout Europe. The exhibition tracks what happened to individual cultural artifacts confiscated by the Nazis and the fates of their rightful Jewish owners. Alongside well-known names such as the Rothschild family or the collector and philanthropist Carl von Weinberg, long-forgotten collections such as Sigmund Nauheim's Judaica collection and the pianist Wanda Landowska's collection of historical musical instruments will also be shown.
An exhibition by the Jewish Museum Berlin in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. The exhibition was on display in the Jewish Museum Berlin from september 19, 2008 until february 1, 2009 and in the Jewish Museum Frankfurt from april 23 until august 2, 2009.
Click here to download a pdf file (112 KB) with further information on the exhibition.


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Sacred cow
A sacred cow is an idea, object, person, or other thing considered so sacred or valuable to a person or group that it is considered immune from criticism, or (more commonly) criticism is considered morally reprehensible in and of itself.
Sacred cows can be identified by the disproportionate personal attacks and/or censorship elicited by criticism.
Examples of contemporary sacred cows (which are, as a whole, also defended collectively by the Left) include:
- Evolution among evolutionists;
- "Global warming" among environmentalists;
- Atatürk among Turks;
- Muhammad (and by extension, Islam itself) among adherents of Islam;
- Atheism and mass murder among atheists;
- The place of birth of Barack Hussein Obama among Democrats;
- The homosexual agenda among homosexuals;
- Abortion and breast cancer link among pro-abortionists;
- Liberalism among liberals
The term comes from belief in Hindu (and other ancient religions) that cows are holy, and must therefore not be eaten or otherwise harmed. In Hinduism, cows are believed to be reincarnated humans; therefore, Hindus do not eat beef or kill cows and they are left to wander aimlessly through city streets and across busy roads. Similarly, many other ancient religions (such as Zoroastrianism) worshipped cows, and the Israelites created a Golden calf to worship in the wilderness in the time of Moses after he led them out of slavery in Egypt.
The use of the term as a simile and metaphor originated in the United States in the late 19th century. For example:
- The New York Herald, March 1890: "While the great ditch may be regarded as one of the commercial diversities of the commonwealth, to worship it as a sort of sacred cow is not necessarily a work of true statesmanship."
- The Galveston Daily News, September 1909: "They understand Mr. Bryan's position to be one of antagonism to the contention that raw material is a 'sacred cow,' immune from tariff reform, ever to be upon the dutiable list and in consequence enjoying the blessings of incidental protection."


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Pattas movie is currently in theaters. All movies released in the Tamil language are immediately uploaded to banned websites. The movie has also been uploaded to isaimini.
The film has been released on such websites and the filmmakers are in shock. Thus the filmmaker will face the biggest impact.
People should reduce downloading movies from such websites, Or theater owners have to cut the movie ticket price.
Continue reading this post to find out more information on pattas movies. Share with us the information you know about this movie.
Pattas 2020 – Movie, Songs Download Online
This movie is a 2020 Indian Tamil language martial arts film. Written and directed by R.S Durai Senthil Kumar and produced by Satya Jyoti Films.
Director R.S Durai Senthil Kumar is the one who directed the movie "Kodi" starring Dhanush. He has directed 5 films so far.
Dhanush, Sneha, and Mehreen Pirzada play the lead roles. Vivek and Mervin have composed songs for the film.
Read Also: Download Darbar Movies Online
Pattas Songs Mp3 Free Download
All the songs of this movie have been uploaded to the isaimini website. You should limit downloading movies from such websites.
The lyrics of the movie are given below.
|Morattu Thamizhan Da
|Vivek Siva, Mervin Solomon
|A Mother's Love
|Arivu, Vivek Siva
|Piriyadha Enna
|Vijay Yesudas
|Jigidi Killaadi
|Anirudh Ravichander
|Chill Bro
|Pudhu Suriyan
|Anuradha Sriram
Movie Cast
- Dhanush
- Sneha
- Mehreen Pirzada
- Naveen Chandra
- Nassar
have also starred in this movie.
Who is the villain in the movie Pattas?
Naveen Chandra plays the villain in the movie Pattas.
What is the budget of Pattas?
As for the budget of the pattas movie, there is no information yet.
Final words
Pattas movie everyone Goes to the theater and see. Reduce downloading from banned websites. Please let us know if you have any doubts about this post.


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Helping to reduce tinnitus during sleep is of interest to me. Levo, by Otoharmonics, has introduced a sound tinnitus treatment that is personalized to each patient. The sound therapy is customized and programmed during our office visits so that a patient can easily and comfortably receive the care for their tinnitus in the evening, while sleeping. The patient also has the ability to modify settings based on their daily tinnitus levels. As a clinical site providing the Levo, we have great ability to monitor data and functioning of its use. This allows for a great counseling tool.
Levo is focusing on the brain's natural ability to adapt and learn. I am intrigued by the potential of this treatment and currently involved in gathering data for research. We continue to learn, as professionals, to be able to educate and help those in need. Levo is unique as it is one of the first devices that addresses tinnitus during the sleep pattern. To this point in time, most tinnitus devices are intended to be used during waking hours and this often is a hindrance to good therapy as people's lives are so busy. Many find it difficult to have two to three hours during their busy work day or home life to have the continuity to wear devices. The evening is also the time in which people relax to attempt to sleep, and this is the time when the ringing in the ears can be the most bothersome. To treat tinnitus while sleeping makes sense as we know that the Levo treatment will remain the primary sound to address the unwanted noise in their ears.


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There's a new Wolverine movie coming out next month. I know nothing about it.
But I noticed that the internet was going crazy this morning, when news broke of a pair of Wolverine-themed hamburgers now available at Red Robin:
I live for silly, fleeting promotions like this! Just imagine the events that led people to decide that hamburgers were the best way to raise awareness about a Wolverine movie. I think about that, and I marvel.
This was not something to be experienced from afar. I needed to be on the front line. I was willing to break a decade-long abstinence from shopping mall restaurant chains to make it happen. I was going to find this beef, eat it, and hopefully live to tell the tale.
Red Robin was almost empty. Thank God. I knew this was going to involve lots of photos, and the last thing I needed were table neighbors who wouldn't stop staring at the freak who kept taking pictures of his hamburger. Turns out, you don't need pride to have shame.
Oh good, they had it. THE BERSERKER BURGER. That's the one I wanted. Red Robin also has a second Wolverine-themed burger, but from what I could tell, it's topped with eight pounds of weird slaw.
I don't do slaw. Even Wolverine isn't enough to get slaw a pass.
I'm not completely sure what the "Berserker" title refers to. I know Wolverine sometimes pulls that "berserker rage" thing in the comics, but for all I know, it could be the name of the new movie's villain. Or maybe Red Robin wanted to pay tribute to John Nord's stunning turn as the pro-wrestling Viking who loved to say "huss."
After a seeming eternity, out it came. The Berserker Burger is served with steak fries, and though I didn't realize it at the time, fry refills are free. I did read "bottomless fries" on the menu, but the little cup they served them in actually had no bottom. It was like a big Egyptian bracelet masquerading as a fry container. (I found this out the hard way.)
I guess it was stupid to think that Red Robin named their fries after the shitty containers they serve them in. Maybe that 22-ounce Stella was really a 60-ounce.
1. Big oily brioche bun. The kind of bread that sweats just sitting there. Note the Wolverine claw marks!
2. Slab of beef.
3. Thick slice of cheddar. Good color on it, too. Not quite orange, but not quite yellow. It was some miraculous midpoint between the two.
4. "Sriracha onion straws." God damn, there were a LOT of Sriracha onion straws. This burger had a veritable wig of fried onion. (I didn't really taste the Sriracha.)
5. Hidden underneath the lettuce and tomato were several slices of spicy pickles.
6. The sauce was "zesty aioli," which sounded like code for "pink mayonnaise" to me. I got it on the side and was happy to ignore it. I was gonna gain ten pounds from this even without the zesty aioli. I needed to draw a line somewhere.
I admit that my photos make it look like a big glob of garbage, but the presentation really was quite pretty. It looked like a special hamburger.
It was good! Really, truly good! And somehow way lighter than a big ass burger topped with five thousand fried onions sounds like it should be. I'd anticipated this to be one of those burgers that immediately balloonifies all who dare to eat it, but I walked out of Red Robin feeling fine. Nobody had to roll me.
Would I recommend it? Of course! It's a limited edition Wolverine hamburger! It tastes good, but that's not relevant. People like us are supposed to eat things like this. Even if it's just for the conversational fodder.
"Hey friend, I had one of them Wolverine hamburgers yesterday."
"I HEARD ABOUT THOSE! How was it?"
"The cup of fries had no bottom. I spilled giant steak fries all over the table."


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The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference issues yearly Statements on important matters of social justice. The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council (ACSJC), an agency of the Bishops Conference, produces a number of resources to accompany these Statements. You can find some of the key resources below, along with many others directly from the ACSJC website.
2016-2017: 'A Place at the Table. Social justice in an ageing society'.
- Order forms here
- Summary PDF Word
- Letter from Archbishop Hart PDF
- Liturgy Notes Word
- Statement (PDF and Word)
- Community Education Resource (PDF and Word)
- Prayer card
- Ten Steps
- PowerPoint
- Media Statement (Word)
- Video
2015-2016: 'For Those Who've Come Across the Seas. Justice for refugees and asylum seekers'.
- Statement: PDF Word
- Social Justice Statement abridged – Vietnamese translation: Word
- Summary: PDF Word
- Liturgy Notes: PDF Word
- Prayer card: here
- Ten Steps: here
2014-2015: 'A Crown for Australia. Striving for the best in our sporting nation'.
2012-2013: 'The Gift of Family in Difficult Times. The social and economic challenges facing families today'.
2011-2012: 'Building Bridges, Not Walls. Prisons and the justice system.'
2010: 'Violence in Australia. A message of peace'.
2009: 'And you will be my witnesses. Young people and justice'.
2008: 'A Rich Young Nation. The challenge of affluence and poverty in Australia'
2007: 'Who is my neighbour? Australia as a Global Citizen'.
2006: 'The Heart of our Country. Dignity and justice for our Indigenous sisters and brothers'.
2005: 'Jesus, light for the world. Living the Gospel today'.
2004: 'Peace be with you. Cultivating a culture of peace'.
2002: 'A new earth. The environmental challenge'.
2001: 'A just and peaceful land. Rural and regional Australia in 2001'.
2000: 'Woman and man. The Bishops respond'.
1990: 'Social Justice in everyday life.'
Other Bishops' Statements
- ATSI Sunday 2016, 'We Need Mercy';
- 2016 Federal Election Statement, 'A Vote for the Voiceless';
- ACBC and ACRATH Statement against human trafficking, 23 January 2015;
- Statement by the Australian Catholic Bishops on Asylum Seekers, 8 May 2014;
Other documents from the ACBC
- 'Catholic Bishops call for changes to workplace legislation', Media Release, 25 November 2005.
- 'Prayer Entrusting Australian to Mary, Help of Christians', 23 May 2001.
- Homily by Archbishop Francis P. Carroll, President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, 4 May 2001.
- 'A Statement on Terrorism by the Catholic Bishops of Australia', 25 November 2005.
- A Statement on Iraq from the Catholic Bishops of Australia, 5 March 2003.
- 'The Catholic Church and the Centenary of Federation', 10 May 2001 (Catholic Church_ Centenary of Federation).
- 'Catholic Bishops to establish commission for Australian Catholic women', 18 May 2000.
- 'Bishops seek forgiveness from the Stolen Generation on National Sorry Day', 26 May 1998.


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Kids learn to be responsible and independent when they move to their own room – now they are in charge for cleaning and maintaining everything in the proper order (in reasonable limits, of course).
Parents' goal is to make a kid's room safe, comfortable and good-looking. From that point lighting seems to be a crucial thing to consider.
Read more after the jump:
Firstly you need to take care of night lighting. We highly recommend to opt for high-quality fixtures providing very soft light – at night a kid may wake up to go to toilet and bright light will make it hard to fall asleep. Another advantage of soft light is that you can switch it on to see if everything is OK, and your kids won't even wake up.
Speaking about safety Regenbogen children's ceiling lights are a perfect option – they provide bright and clear light that evenly fills the room. What's more, it is impossible for kids to break ceiling fixtures or to get hurt after hitting these by accident.
OK, we have discussed two types of lighting – night lighting and ceiling lighting. Both options serve their purpose, but there is also another kind of indoor lighting that can make a kid's room cozy and cute.
Undoubtedly, high-quality Regenbogen floor lamps will provide soft, but focused light so that a kid could enjoy playing favorite games before going to bed. Floor lamp light is a smooth and natural transition from bright daylight to the darkness of the night.
Nowadays LED-lighting is growing more and more popular. USB LED lights are very cheap and sold everywhere – parents use them with power banks. Considering that such a LED light consumes very little energy, even a small power bank will let it work for many weeks or even months.
Finally, follow the common recommendations regarding electric safety – make sure there are no lamp cables on the way of your kids. The best solution is to cord such a cable to a table leg or to a wall.
We also suggest you opting for lamp models with have bottom so that it would be a big problem for a kid to turn a floor lamp over. What's more, it would hardly be a good idea to put a floor lamp in the middle of the room – better place it to a corner.
Regenbogen offers an impressive range of lighting fixtures – we have floor lamps, wall sconces, ceiling lights and many more. Take a look and find the best option for your home!
Images by Gidon Levin – Kalik family Residential by design studio.be


text: 375$415eb37d at crater_reader.dragonflybsd.org> <201003202046.o2KKkMwD005436 at apollo.backplane.com> User-Agent: tin/1.9.4-20090211 ("Rieclachan") (UNIX) (DragonFly/2.5.1-DEVELOPMENT (i386)) Date: 20 Mar 2010 21:13:48 GMT Lines: 33 NNTP-Posting-Host: 184.108.40.206 X-Trace: 1269119628 crater_reader.dragonflybsd.org 55375 188.8.131.52 Xref: crater_reader.dragonflybsd.org dragonfly.bugs:11542 Matthew Dillon <dillon at apollo.backplane.com> wrote: > > :Hm, I understand if hammer cleanup removes other data from cache, but > :why should the disk cache usage push out data to swap? > :I just tried a hammer cleanup on a completely idle system with 1.5G > :memory in single user mode, and during the reblocking it started to > :use swap and became unresponsive - is this really working as expected? > : > :Cheers, > :Johannes > > You couldn't ^C the reblock? Reblocking works the storage system > pretty heavily, performance issues are not necessarily going to be > related to paging activity. Anything which has to read from disk will > be slow. > > How does the system know what pages are idle and what pages are not > idle when the whole system is idle? How can the system distinguish > between the one-time scan that the reblocker does verses, say, someone > rdist'ing a dataset which would easily fit in memory that we DO want > to cache? ^C did succeed, but it took quite long - no lockup though. It's understood, that all disk IO will be slow. I was just surprised that the system uses swap in this case at all. Why should the system move data out to swap to make place for the disk cache - at least if swap does not happen to be on SSD? I would have thought that only memory not otherwise needed is used to cache disk data. I will retry with swap disabled completely. Johannes


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When it comes to Hadoop distributions, enterprises care about a number of things. Among them are high performance, high availability, and API compatibility. MapR, a San Jose, Calif.-based start-up, is betting that enterprises are less concerned with whether the distribution is purely open source or if it includes proprietary components. That's according to Jack Norris, MapR's vice president of marketing. He said MapR is the market leader in all three of the top Hadoop priorities – performance, availability, and API compatibility – and it has the customers to prove it.
Currently MapR has between 40 and 50 paying customers using its enterprise M5 Hadoop distribution, which, as everyone knows by now, includes the proprietary NFS storage layer. They include commScore, the online market intelligence firm, which recently dumped Cloudera's Hadoop distribution for M5. In addition, the company's free community distribution, M3, has been downloaded thousands of times according to Norris.
MapR's performance and availability advantages over competing Hadoop distributions, Norris explained, are due in part to:
- M5's distributed namenode architecture, which removes the single point of failure that plagues HDFS;
- MapR's Lockless Storage Services layer, which results in higher MapReduce throughput than competing distributions;
- Its ability to run the equivalent number of jobs on fewer nodes, which results in overall lower TCO.
But it's the open source issue where MapR takes a lot of heat. Norris argues that MapR's approach – improving upon an open source core with proprietary value-add components and services – is a pretty "standard" model in the commercial open source world. While that is a common commercial open source business model, many would argue that the storage layer in a Hadoop distribution is the core, not an add-on.
Norris also said what's important is not that a given Hadoop distribution is purely open source or not, but that it is 100% API compatible with the Apache distribution, which M5 is. This, he said, means that while developers can't fiddle with NFS, they can easily integrate MapR's distribution with HBase, HDFS, and other Apache Hadoop components, as well as move data in and out of NFS should they choose to tap a different Hadoop distribution. This last point is particularly important. It means, according to MapR, that there is no greater risk for vendor lock-in with its Hadoop distribution than with any other.
MapR's focus on performance, availability, and API compatibility over open source code also comes through in its go-to-market strategy. MapR is not interested in educating the wider market about the benefits of Hadoop, as Cloudera and Hortonworks seem to be, according to Norris. Rather, MapR is targeting companies that are already using Hadoop or have made the decision to deploy Hadoop and are evaluating their distribution options. MapR also has a relationship with EMC to ship parts of its distribution with EMC Greenplum's Hadoop offering.
Norris said MapR is targeting customers who already understand what Hadoop can do and want a highly available, enterprise-ready version that they can quickly deploy and easily integrate with other big data tools and technologies through open APIs. MapR's target customers already did the experimenting with Cloudera or Apache, Norris explained, and are now ready to move Hadoop into production.
Fact Checking MapR's Approach
Let's consider MapR's claims one-by-one.
- API compatibility is more important than open source code. As Hadoop goes mainstream, traditional enterprise users will be more interested in deploying stable, high-performance, enterprise-ready big data stacks than in hacking the Hadoop core. In the meantime, however, big data application developers are adamant that they have access to the source code to integrate their wares seamlessly with Hadoop. In the long-term, this claim is probably accurate, but as Hadoop continues rapid development open source code is still a critical element for many.
- MapR provides better performance and availability than competing Hadoop distributions. It is certainly true that MapR's distribution has demonstrated significant performance and speed improvements over "vanilla" Hadoop. That said, CIOs are increasingly less interested in "speeds and feeds" and more interested in how Hadoop can deliver real business value.
- Enterprises are at no higher risk for vendor lock-in with MapR than with competing Hadoop distributions. It will prove reassuring to potential MapR customers that moving data out of M5, should they choose to move to a different distribution, is no more difficult than with any other distribution thanks to M5's API compatibility. Still, (and like Cloudera's enterprise Hadoop distribution), M5 costs money. How much money an enterprise sinks into an M5 deployment will determine the cost-effectiveness of moving to a competing distribution. So the risk of vendor lock-in with MapR is probably even with that of Cloudera, but higher than that of Hortonworks' distribution or the straight Apache Hadoop distribution.
MapR's strategy carries with it a number of risks. The biggest risk for MapR is that Apache Hadoop catches up to M5 in performance and availability capabilities before it, M5, gains wide-spread adoption, thus nullifying its entire value proposition. Indeed, Apache contributors recently introduced HDFS federation to tackle the single-point-of-failure issue "by adding support for multiple namenodes/namespaces to HDFS file system."
Norris said that while MapR respects the competition, he doesn't believe the Apache distribution is even close to reaching performance parity with M5. When it comes to the single-point-of-failure issue, for example. MapR's distributed namenode is superior to namenode federation in that M5 "is self-healing, and no user intervention is needed at any point." In any event, that is a judgment the community will make.
Another risk is that its message of performance/availability/compatibility over open source code never reaches CIOs, drowned out by the fervent open source Hadoop community as well as by marketing from competitors. Hortonworks, like most Benchmark-funded start-ups, is a marketing and PR machine, while Cloudera, with more than 100 paying customers, is double MapR's size and is on the verge of becoming the de facto Hadoop distribution.
And don't forger support services. Enterprises that deploy Hadoop want assurance that if there's an issue with their cluster, the vendor is there ready and waiting to put out the fire with fast technical support and intervention.
The $10 billion question, then, is which of the three Hadoop distribution models will enterprises embrace. Cloudera differentiates its core open source Hadoop distribution with its proprietary management console, which the company updated just last week. Hortonworks is going to market as the only 100% open source commercial Apache Hadoop distribution and plans to make money on technical support services. MapR is betting enterprises serious about Hadoop will value its performance and availability advantages over open source code, with its API compatibility assuaging vendor lock-in concerns.
The race is on. For MapR to remain competitive, I believe it must take the following steps:
- Develop deep and real partnerships with big data application vendors. Enterprises looking to capitalize on big data analytics are increasingly looking to application vendors that promise to deliver real business value from Hadoop. The more application vendors work closely with MapR, the more likely these vendors are to recommend MapR as the underlying Hadoop infrastructure.
- Continue contributing to the community where it can. MapR recently established MapR Academy, an online resource for Hadoop training and education. MapR should continue efforts like MapR Academy, as well as contribute to the Apache Hadoop project when possible, to engender good-will in the Hadoop community.
- Aggressively take its message of performance/availability/compatibility over open source code to enterprise CIOs and even CEOs, who are more interested in enterprise stability and performance than whether a technology is open source or not. If MapR can convince executives that its Hadoop distribution is more powerful, safe and cost-effective than competing distributions, it has a chance to slow Cloudera's and Hortonworks' momentum and give itself a fighting chance to win the market.
Action Item: Enterprises evaluating MapR's Hadoop distribution should demand proof-points/customer references from the vendor that include illustrations of its open API claims, including the ability to easily move data into and out of its cluster. Enterprises looking to navigate the larger Hadoop distribution market should focus on which of the competing Hadoop approaches – Cloudera, Hortonworks or MapR-- brings the greatest business value with the lowest cost and least risk. As we've written before, for some enterprises the value of fast business impact on revenue or profit offered by MapR will outweigh the risks of higher capex and the inability to customize the code. For enterprises just beginning to learn about Big Data and the benefits of Hadoop, it may make more sense to adopt Cloudera or Hortonworks' more open approach, betting that performance improvements the community will develop over time and the flexibility offered by an open source distribution will prove more valuable in the long-term. Whatever option enterprises choose, stay up-to-speed with developments in the Hadoop community, as both open and proprietary improvements that can deliver real business value are being made to the technology at a fast clip. Footnotes:


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Author: Souheil Adra, MD
Healcerion Co., Ltd received FDA approval for SONON Ultrasound Imaging System, Model: 300C on September 10, 2015.
The SONON 300C device is a battery-operated, hand-held, wireless ultrasound system for use in general abdominal, obstetric/fetal, and gynecologic diagnostic imaging. It wirelessly transmits ultrasound images to an off-the-shelf commercial device running a mobile app utilizing iOS or Android operating systems. The app will allow the images to be displayed onto the screen of the device with a size ranging from 4-10 inches depending on whether a paired mobile phone or a tablet is used. The ultrasound probe possesses a convex array and it emits 3.5MHz pulsed-echo, as well as B mode.
The device met non-clinical performance criteria for electrical safety, acoustic output levels, clinical measurement range, display performance, usability, failure mode and risk analysis, biocompatibility, and cybersecurity. No clinical tests or animal studies were needed due to its similarity to predicate devices.
The FDA has determined this device to be substantially equivalent to predicate devices: MobiUS Ultrasound Imaging System (Mobisante, Inc.), and Penrith Elettra Diagnostic Ultrasound System (Penrith Corp.).
The device is intended for diagnostic ultrasound echo imaging, measurement, and analysis of the human body for general clinical applications including general abdominal, fetal/obstetrics, and gynecology.
It is intended for use by healthcare professionals in a hospital, clinic and medical office settings.
None listed


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Tips On Choosing the Best Home Developer.
When you choose the best developer, you home will be transformed into something amazing, the value will be greatly improved and more importantly, the quality of your life too will be improved. The home developer that will be working on the project, is one of the determiners of how much you get. Like any other industry, there are so many of them in the market, and this therefore means that the only way that you will get the best is if you know what to look for out there.
The kind of reputation that they have is a good place to start as any other, because you need a company that you can rely on. Among the various places that you can get this information, is from the people that have been served by the company, as there is a very high chance that you will get the same experience as they did. There is a lot of information that you can only get from these people and unlike the company that tells you only what they want you to know, the third party testimonials will tell you of the pros and the cons and this is what you need to make the best choice. When you are choosing from the companies in town, getting this information will be easier because there is a very high chance the company has served people in town, not to mention the convenience and the saving of the fuel and time. When there is no relevance to the kind of job that you need done, then everything else becomes irrelevant, and this is why you should look at their track record to see if they have offered anything like you need and how they have been doing it and this has been expounded on the page of our website today.
Look at their credentials and experience too, because these too will determined the kind of quality that you get. With the right training and resources the more they have been offering this services, the more the chance they have seen all there is to see out there, and will therefore handle even the most complex of the situations. The quality and the prices usually goes hand in hand, and this is why it is very important not to choose a company solely on the amount that they charge. This is because there is a very high chance you will take the cheapest offer, and this will be like paying for cheap services and cheap products that which will not be good for the quality. That Company that can offer the best quality at reasonable amount is the kind that you should be looking for. Look at the business reports, to check on the company's financial stability, because when they do not have enough, the project will be delayed and they will end up using substandard materials.