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To prepare for the Windows 8 onslaught, laptop manufacturers are trying all sorts of inventive touchscreen notebook designs. Some screens flip, some spin, some twist, and some can actually be detached from their keyboards so you can have a tablet for the road. However, the craziest new laptop design may be the simplest of all: simply graft a touchscreen onto an existing clamshell.
The $799.99 HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 is one such touchscreen notebook, and it also just so happens to be the very first one in our labs. With a fairly standard set of ultrabook specs, a relatively thick, weighty chassis, and a 1366 x 768 screen, the 14-inch laptop doesn't really stand out in any other way, however. Does the touchscreen make it a better Windows 8 laptop than with keyboard and touchpad alone? Is the Envy 4 a good laptop, period? Read on.
Hardware / design
Like the Spectre XT, but larger and cheaper
It's getting hard to tell HP's thin and light consumer laptops apart: from the upcoming $1,399.99 Envy Spectre XT TouchSmart to the lowly $579.99 Envy Sleekbook 6, they all share extremely similar chassis. Only the quality of the materials and components, the weight and the thickness really differ from device to device. So when I say that this TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 is basically an Envy 4 with a touchscreen, that's actually not very surprising.
If you're not familiar with the Envy 4, though, here's what you should know: it's a decent design for the price, but it's not quite as pretty or durable as it appears on first blush. The whole palmrest and keyboard deck are a thin brushed aluminum, as is the black lid. The bottom is completely covered in soft-touch rubber, which feels nice and adds a bit of grip. Unlike more expensive ultrabook designs, the chassis isn't totally rigid, and parts will give if you squeeze or press down.
When I reviewed the Spectre XT, a more expensive, smaller ultrabook which does have a rigid, durable aluminum frame, I remarked that the glossy black plastic screen bezel and plastic hinge covers stuck out like sore thumbs. The Envy 4 has those same parts, but given how the materials on the Envy 4 generally feel a little bit cheaper, those two don't stick out quite as much. Overall, the effect is handsome but a little bit dull, particularly given how much the silver color evokes comparisons with Apple. The original Envy 4 came in a sleek black with a lovely red soft-touch rubber base, and I miss that color scheme.
Ports are plentiful for a laptop of this class. There are two USB 3.0 sockets, full-size HDMI and SD card slots, and a spring-loaded, pull-down Ethernet jack on the left. On the right, you'll find a USB 2.0 port, 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks, the power socket, and a Kensington Lock slot. Like with the Spectre XT, the included power supply's tip doesn't seem to socket as deeply as it should, but it didn't fall out when I shook the laptop, either. Oh, and as you'd expect, there's no optical drive.
(Touch)screen and speakers
A touchscreen on a laptop is more useful than you'd think
The Envy TouchSmart has a fantastic touchscreen, but a sub-par display. Let me make that clear: Every time I touched the screen, the capacitive digitizer never missed a beat. Every single Windows 8 gesture worked instantly and flawlessly. In fact, it was so much more responsive than the laptop's actual touchpad that I found myself touching the screen quite a lot.
The Envy's hinge isn't particularly robust, so you wouldn't want to actually pick up the 3.98-pound laptop by its screen and use it like a tablet. Still, you can most definitely place your forearms on the palmrest and put one thumb on either side of the display for quick multitasking, or reach out and stab Windows 8's Live Tiles with an index finger on occasion. Surprisingly, the best reasons to use the touchscreen aren't either of those, though. It's scrolling and zooming, which are so much more intuitive and responsive on the screen than with either the touchpad or keyboard.
Unfortunately, the actual 1366 x 768 LCD screen beneath that digitizer is pretty ugly. What good is a responsive touchscreen if you don't want to look at it? If you subscribe to the theory of "ignorance is bliss," you might not mind, but the washed out colors and jagged edges on icons and text make for a decidedly sub-par picture. Different shades of green and blue are difficult to tell apart, and you'll see the spaces between vertical rows of pixels anytime there's a gradient. Horizontal viewing angles aren't terrible, but they're not great. It's also extremely glossy and picks up loads of fingerprints, but perhaps that's to be expected with a touchscreen.
If the poor LCD and lack of optical drive hadn't convinced you that the TouchSmart isn't a multimedia machine, the speakers might. Though HP proudly touts Beats Audio, it pained me to listen to my music on the totally tinny twin drivers for an extended period of time. The sound isn't muddy, as I could distinguish voices and different instruments well enough, but the sound is extremely harsh.
Keyboard and touchpad
As usual, I subjected the Envy TouchSmart's keyboard to my ultimate test: I typed every single word of this review using nothing but the chiclet keys you see here. All in all, it's not a bad rack of letters, but I'd say it's a step down from the Spectre XT's comfortable array of MacBook Air-like squares. While the flat textured keycaps are similar, the throw isn't quite as deep, and they're not quite as cushioned. So far I've typed every section of this review in order, in a single go, and my fingers are already getting a little stiff from repeatedly pressing those keys down. On my review unit, a few keys (like Backspace) also press slightly unevenly, the mechanism awkwardly crunching beneath my fingers instead of smoothly sinking to the floor. The keyboard deck also gives slightly when I push down hard.
The Envy TouchSmart does have a full set of Home, Page Up, Page Down and End keys on the right side of the keyboard, and a handy function row at the top. I can't, for the life of me, understand why HP puts the Wi-Fi toggle button right next to the mute button, but both light up different colors when they're activated so you won't stab at them blindly in the dark. Speaking of lighting, you can get LED backlighting for the entire keyboard for an extra $20. It's a must, but know that you can't set it to different levels of brightness, only turn it on and off.
As far as the touchpad is concerned, it's pretty decent, but it seems that Windows 8 hasn't been the cure-all that some vendors had hoped. The Synaptics ClickPad has nice little concentric ridges carved into its surface, which makes an excellent texture for pointing and scrolling, but both of those gestures felt a little bit sluggish compared to using the touchscreen alone. The Spectre XT's touchpad was better in that regard.
If you manage to find Synaptics' settings page, there are loads of items you can tweak and some features (three- and four-finger gestures) that you can turn on, but also one you'll probably want to turn off. By default, the touchpad also supports Windows 8 edge gestures, but in my experience they often activated when I didn't want them to, and failed to reliably activate when I did. Again, the touchscreen comes in very handy when the touchpad is deficient.
Performance and software
For $799.99, the Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 comes with a 1.8GHz Intel Core i3-3217U processor, integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics, 4GB of RAM, 500GB of magnetic storage, and a 32GB solid state cache. In my review unit, HP swapped in the more powerful 1.7GHz Core i5-3317U instead, a $75 upgrade. If you're buying, that's probably what you'll want to get too, and possibly some extra RAM as well.
Why the RAM? With a bunch of Windows Store and desktop apps running simultaneously, Pandora playing in the background, two push Gmail accounts and a bunch of auto-refreshing Chrome tabs, I easily sucked down 3.9GB out of that 4GB of memory without trying very hard to stress the system. Just in case it might be a Chrome issue, I tried Internet Explorer instead, but Norton Internet Security still reared its ugly head to warn me about high memory usage. Just for giggles, I also checked out the RAM footprint after a fresh reboot — with no programs running, in other words — and the system had consumed about 1.6GB.
Most ultrabooks don't play modern games very well due to their reliance on integrated Intel graphics, and the Envy TouchSmart 4 is no exception. I'm not quite sure why HP limited the notebook to integrated graphics, though. The non-touchscreen version of the system can be configured with a discrete AMD Radeon HD 7670M GPU for a $75 premium. If the TouchSmart uses the same chassis, why can't it support the gaming graphics as well?
If you're looking for a laptop that boots quickly, the Envy is a great pick, though: I regularly clocked it at 12 seconds from pressing the power button to arriving at a usable Start Screen, although startup apps on the desktop did take a little while longer to load. Waking the laptop from sleep also happens extremely quickly, though it can be erratic at times. I measured as short as 1.2 seconds, and as long as five seconds, before the screen came back to life.
If you were hoping that Windows 8 would remove software bloat, we're afraid you'll be disappointed. HP's bundled a whole variety of apps on the Envy TouchSmart, including some potentially useful things like Netflix, Kindle, eBay and Skype, but also the typical annoying, reminder-filled trial of Norton Internet Security, a variety of HP apps, and the WildTangent suite of low budget pay-to-play game titles.
Wakes up in a jiffy
Battery life, noise, and heat
Not exactly Energizer Bunny territory
When it comes to battery life, Apple's MacBook Air and the first wave of Intel ultrabooks that followed set a pretty high bar. Despite their thinness, many managed to last five, six, or (very rarely) even seven hours of real-world usage on a charge. The Envy TouchSmart only got about four solid hours in my daily usage, which involves all those auto-refreshing browser tabs, background audio and so on that I describe above. Surprisingly, that's not too far off the mark: HP claims the laptop should last "up to 5 hours" on a charge. With the advent of Windows 8, is HP steering clear of misleading advertising for its products? If so, the company should be applauded.
Most HP notebooks I've tried have done a pretty good job of keeping both the palmrest and the base of the laptop cool, and this one is no exception. The soft-touch rubber paint also doesn't hurt, adding an additional layer of insulation. Still, the cool comes at a slight cost: The tiny noisy fan came on quite often during my testing, and seemingly at random. It's not very loud and I found myself tuning it out, but if that sort of thing annoys you, it could be a problem.
Patience, friends
In the case of the HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4, you can indeed judge a book by its cover. It's a moderately capable, moderately attractive laptop at a moderately reasonable price point, but it's also thoroughly average and honestly a little boring. However, it does indeed prove the value of a touchscreen in Windows 8, even if it has to be grafted onto the display. For what's basically a $50 premium over the vanilla Envy 4, I'd definitely recommend adding the touchscreen. However, unless the price and design are just what you're looking for, I don't think I'd recommend this laptop at all: the LCD screen is an eyesore, the speakers are an earsore, and the battery life isn't impressive.
If you must have a touchscreen, if you like HP's aesthetic, if you don't already have an ultrabook, and if you can't afford to spend more, the Envy will do the job. My advice, though, is to wait for a better touchscreen laptop to come along.


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It was another crazy week for us on the road. The week began in Austin at Hostelling International-Austin, where they graciously set up a dorm room/work room for us in their television room, and ended in one of the greatest cities in the world, Denver, Colorado. From Austin we made the 551 mile trek to Roswell, New Mexico, where UFO shops, museums and a research center showcase the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. A nice Days Inn on the main road through the town had both cable and high speed internet, so for the first time in awhile we were able to sit back, relax and got to watch the NCAA national championship game.
Tag Archives: United State of America
Nels' Notes: Nomadic Wandering Shenanigans April 5-12, 2009
April 13, 2009 – 8:02 pm
By Nels Thoreson | Posted in Accomodation Reviews, Book and Media Recommendations, Expedition Updates, Media Coverage, North America, The Toyotas, USA | Also tagged A River Runs Through It, Alice 105.9, AM 760, denver, Great Lake Swimmers, Inn On The Alameda, new mexico, Norman MacLean, Roswell, Santa Fe, UFO | Comments (1)

subset: commoncrawl


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Hi, I have been noticing my Mom and KaTwo need to lose a lot of weight. I am quite svelte so I thought I would try to help them. There was a time when I was not fat, but I had a little extra meat on my bones. I figured I should get trim being that I am 14 years old and arthritis could set in.
One of the best things I did was to pole dance. I burn so many calories in a short time plus I stay limber. I am willing to let KaTwo use my pole and give her some lessons. Sorry Mom, you are on your own with that one. I think maybe going for some walks would do you good.
I never eat my entire meal either now, I always leave a few bites. I prefer to have several snacks throughout the day, I just let Mom or Dad know when I want something and they give it to me. Unfortunately, when they open the package, everyone comes running for some. I think only kitties that didn't finish their meals should get snacks, but everyone gets some. I know my Mom is a member of the clean plate club, I never see a morsel left on her plate. I think she should start leaving a few bites like I do and so should KaTwo.
I don't believe in restricting anything because then you will end up bingeing on it. For example, I came across this cake before Mom devoured it so I took a few licks. I was satisfied with just a taste, but my Mom had to have her cake and eat it too.
I am hoping these tips will help them to take off some pounds. Please feel free to try them yourself if you need to lose a few. I will keep you posted as to their progress ( or lack of).
P.S. You might like to read my Mom's stories on all that cats that live with us – 15 cats and meowing
"One cat is company.
Two cats are a conspiracy.
Three cats is an attempted takeover.
Four or more cats is a complete coup!"
Shona Steele (Australia)


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While everyone is celebrating the end of this school year here in Aus, I am just getting started for next year!
My new school brought me in today to give me my timetable, curriculum plans, text books, resources, and to meet the other staff. I feel so organised, wanted, and welcome!
I will have a lot to learn over the holidays, so while most teachers are taking a well-deserved break, I'll be hitting the books.
I am teaching the new senior biology curriculum next year, and I've had next to no exposure to the changes being made. I have obviously been out on maternity leave this year, and last year I didn't teach biology so I wasn't really involved in any of the planning. It's going to make it a bit more difficult than if I had all junior classes, but I am excited for the challenge. Having seniors again will be a nice change too – they're so very different from juniors and it can make such a nice and different break in your day.
I'll also need to re-visit the junior curricula to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. Comparing my resources to the ones provided to me will likely be a tedious task, but if I can avoid re-creating lessons it will save me so much time in the long run. As is popular to say in teaching, why reinvent the wheel?!
I will be taking on a school sport next year – something I haven't done in a very long time. As a rule, sport and I don't get along, so it will be an interesting part of my week. Hopefully I can nominate for something I at least find vaguely interesting, and hopefully I get it. We shall see. I suppose now that I have a child of my own, sport is something that may become more important (or at least present) in my life, so perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
I know not to plan past the first week – if you're a beginning teacher please don't make that mistake! Timetables are still in flux for the first couple of weeks, and activities are planned that you need to do on behalf of the school and/or department, so there is little time for content in the first week. I will be planning an introduction lesson, but it will be in chunks that I can chop and change and do at different times as necessary.
All of this will be done in amongst the Christmas rush, various birthdays, hospital appointments, my husband's crazy time at work. Instead of sitting down while bub is napping and watching a tv show or playing a game or cleaning, I'll be studying and planning!
After being in at the school today, I am feeling very guilty and excited. I feel like I shouldn't be excited because I will be putting my bub in day care so I can return to work, but I know it really is the best decision for us all. I didn't realise how much it was affecting me until my husband stopped me this afternoon and said how happy I was while I was talking about my plans and all the things I needed to get done for next year. He said I need to remember that working is a big part of my identity, and teaching is just as much of who I am as being a mum is. I don't need to give up my job that I love just because I'm a parent, and in fact it will likely benefit our child in the long run on so many levels.
Cue teacher-mum-Emily for 2019!


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Around this time last year Hervé shared his dabbling in Google trends leading to a retrospective identification of pharma bro being the most significant driver of pharmaceutical pricing searches in 2017. This sparked a lot of internal interest and prompted a pet project to see if we could do some deeper analysis on societies engagement with pharma pricing by flexing our proverbial machine learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) muscles. While search trends can take you so far, for 2018 we wanted to get our teeth into something with a bit more substance and Twitter duly obliged.
Mining and Processing the Pricing Tweets
True to our business line, Chris spent four months mining tweets from August to November this year, using 'drug pricing' as a search term. Then, it was time to get analysing. As Inbeeo's new analytical intern, I took up the challenge to make sense of this data and while I don't have Herve's years industry experience, I wanted to use my data science experience to let the data do the talking. Initial processing removed retweets resulting in a dataset containing 24,131 original (unique) tweets, the vast majority of the these coming from the United States (no real surprises there). However, our real interest was in the content of the tweets, and for this we needed to crack out the algorithms.
Selecting Natural Language Processing (NLP) Algorithms
I chose two algorithms, K-means and LDA, both considered to be generally good at analysing textual data by grouping similar strings (tweets in this case) into clusters. Running K-means and LDA produced the following plots, where points in the same colour are of the same cluster:
Left: Clusters generated by K-means. Right: Clusters generated by LDA
Both of these clustering algorithms have worked well as we do see defined clusters. However, in the K-means graph we see that the algorithm hasn't worked as well as LDA. In K-means we have this sea of blue extending across the plot containing most of the tweets, whereas in LDA we have smaller clusters. On cluster inspection, the large blue cluster contains tweets relating to a recent news story about Nirmal Mulye, the CEO of Nostrum Pharmaceuticals, raising drug prices by 400%. Interestingly, (or perhaps unfortunately) K-means hasn't aggregated all tweets on this story into one cluster, instead we have five. However, LDA has been more successful at aggregation, as we have two clusters relating to this story.
Identifying Key Pricing Events from Tweets Using Time Series Analysis
Next, I wondered about the timing of these tweets, did they spike when a news story occurred? Or were they random opinions? Hence, I decided to take the results of the better algorithm, LDA, and plot the tweets of each cluster over time, as shown below.
Graph showing tweet volume over time, indexed by topic. In the infographic on the top right, the size of the box is proportional to the number of tweets per topic
The results confirmed my hunch – people tweeted as a reaction to news. I was then able to identify news stories associated with each cluster based on spikes in time. The most impactful stories discovered were:
- 12th September, Topic 1 and 10: Nirmal Mulye raising drug prices (this is somewhat unsurprising)
- 25th August, Topic 2: The Senate working on solutions to end secrecy around drug pricing
- 11th September, Topic 4: Pharmaceutical middlemen rake in millions
- 10th October, Topic 5: Trump signs a bill on drug price
- 7th September and 25th August, Topic 6: The pay raise of the Pfizer CEO, interestingly this story was initially announced in March, but residual spikes were seen
- 8th September, Topic 7: Trump ends foreign price controls
- 27th August, Topic 13: A drug price hike in the Netherlands
- 10th October, Topic 14: Trump lifts a gag clause on drug pricing
Interestingly, running the LDA algorithm multiple times yielded slightly different outputs. LDA was discovering new stories with each run, implying that multiple runs of the algorithm may be required to find all news stories that were sparking debate on twitter. The additional stories included Oklahoma Medicaid testing a new tactic to curb US drug costs and a tweet by AARP Advocates, a group of advocates for health care, social security and older workers, encouraging people to contact their representative about rising prescription costs for seniors. Returning to the K-means analysis I found a cluster of tweets on a news story about the price of a heroin withdrawal drug increasing, a story not found by LDA so maybe both algorithms are needed in order to identify all news stories gaining twitter traction.
What Can we Learn?
Interestingly, and perhaps a comment on human nature, it seemed people were more inclined to comment on negative stories, such as the Nirmal Mulye story, compared to positive stories, for instance Trump lifting the gag clause. Are these trends the sign of a broken system (with unaffordable prices and inadequate protection of vulnerable citizens, such as the elderly and heroin addicts) or do people just like to moan? Additionally, most of these tweets are from the US and are influenced heavily by politics highlighted by Donald Trump's appearance in topics relating to lowering pricing and increasing transparency as well as AARP Advocates' petition to Congress. This also begs the question as to some of the motivations behind these tweets. Are they from people with a genuine concern about drug pricing, or opportunistic posters using the stories to push a political agenda? However, though small in proportion compared to negative tweets, there are signs of positive engagement. Donald Trump and the Senate making headway to increase transparency and lower drug costs, and Oklahoma Medicaid working on curbing drug costs both got people talking.
To get an idea of public opinion on a topic, be it a particular drug or pharmaceutical company, NLP is the way to go. Using fairly simple (as far as machine learning goes anyway) algorithms I was able to quickly identify news events concerning drug pricing that resonated with the Twitterati and gauge opinions and even more is possible! Pharmaceutical companies can analyse twitter to assess if their product was a success, for instance, are people reporting side effects? Real time dashboards can mine data from twitter and run sentiment analysis to discover how people feel about a company or the market in general. And what about marketing a product? When is the best time of day to post about it? All this and more can be discovered using Machine Learning, the possibilities are immense!
Related Content From Inbeeo
The Dust Never Settled after Drug Pricing 9/22 – Inbeeo's analysis of google search trends for drug pricing highlight how a single story from the US can drive a massive spike in drug prices searches worldwide
4 Take-Away Messages From The Zolgensma® Pricing Storm – We review the $2.15 million Zolgensma price tag and though analysis of treatment costs for sever chronic disease try to see if the backlash around this price tag was was a storm in a teacup or a tropical cyclone


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January 8, 2019
DXC: Luxoft's Knight in Shining Armor
DXC Technology, the leading B2B IT services and digital transformation solutions provider, has announced it intends to acquire software development firm Luxoft for approximately $2 billion. The acquisition enables DXC to offer clients end-to-end digital transformation services by leveraging Luxoft's front end digital capabilities with DXC's expertise in IT modernization and integration.
Read more about the transaction to get Clearsight's perspective on how this acquisition benefits both DXC and Luxoft, which has previously struggled with underperformance despite a strong talent base in Central and Eastern Europe and a growing presence in South America and India.


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If you read the press today, you could get the impression that the US and China are in some form of Technology Arms Race. (Headlines like "America and China Are in a Technology Arms Race" offer a pretty clear clue.) According to this, there is a global race to build the most advanced semiconductors to control the infrastructure of all future technology and thus everything else. Will China win the "Race to 5G?". "Who is Best Positioned in the AI War?", and presumably the ensuing Robot Apocalypse? Clearly there are some people who see the war as already underway, surely Silicon Valley is rising to the task.
Most of the coverage of this 'Arms Race' is about semiconductors. In part, this is because semis are the fundamental building block of everything else. The Cloud? Yeah, that needs a lot of chips to power servers and networks. 5G? That too is all about basebands and radios. AI? Data is important here, but so are chips to process all that data. IOT? Yes again, actuators, sensors, microcontrollers and connectivity. And for years, China's government has very vocally and actively built an industrial policy around semiconductors. Chairman Xi famously gave a speech a few years ago calling out the fact that China spends more on chips than on oil.
Sounds pretty serious. Except the situation on the ground in the US tech industry bears no resemblance to this. Yes, everyone is very worried about the Trade War, but some big War for the Future of Technology? Not so much. It's almost as if someone declared war, but one side has not bothered to show up.
For the past several months, we have been very busy working with a half dozen clients who build hardware and semis, helping them raise money. Except, there is almost no one to raise money from. US Venture Capitalists do not invest in hardware, let alone semis anymore. From our latest study, there are only about 20 US-based VC firms who have made a semis investment in the past three years, out of roughly 1,000 VC firms. And of those who have made semis investment, only a handful have made more than one investment. A few years ago, when AI and Google's TPU (their AI chip) were fresh on the scene, the biggest firms all made a bit on one AI chip start-up. Aside from that, and a few (less than 5, probably less than 3) firms have ventured a little further afield.
By contrast, there is pretty much an infinite amount of venture money in China for chip investments. Of course, US firms cannot tap that for fear or running afoul of the US's CFIUS committee which has to approve all foreign investments in the US.
Does this mean the US VC community is lagging in their patriotic vigor? Is the US doomed to lose this war? There are really two ways to explain this disconnect, and as always, the reality is much less stark than the headlines paint.
First, we are not at war with China. Let's hope it does not come to that. Yes, the two countries have multiple areas of conflict and disagreement. And count us in the camp who have experienced that country's unfavorable practices towards US intellectual property (IP). But there is still immense overlap in our economies especially around technology. China naturally wants to develop its economy and move into higher value-added sectors, including semiconductors. But to call that a 'War' is to sensationalize the situation greatly. So it is unfair to question the patriotic spirit on Sand Hill Road.
That being said, the VC community has a serious herd mentality problem. Over the past decade, the rise of mobile, cloud-based apps has made VC investors immense fortunes, and that has crowded out thinking about anything else.
Put simply, American VC's have a spreadsheet problem. Investing in cloud software is too easy to quantify. Take a software company's user growth, calculate monthly recurring revenue, subtract customer acquisition cost and you have your investment decision. We have had serious conversations, with serious VCs who ask for these kinds of metrics when evaluating semis investment.
Admittedly, investing in semis is hard, by which we mean capital intensive. Two people in a proverbial garage or broom closet can start a software company, and grow it to meaningful size on tiny amounts of capital. We work with those companies too. By contrast, getting from inspiration to first revenue for a chip company costs $20 million. Scaling that is likely to take another $20 million (and up). And bugs can be fatal. If your app has a bug, you can patch overnight. If a chip has a bug, that can be the end of the company. (More prosaically, it means that chip companies have to spend A LOT of money testing before going to manufacture, see $20 million above).
Does that mean VCs are making the right decision by shunning chips? No.
Chips are capital intensive, but that just means the VCs have to work harder at vetting the management teams they choose. In the middle of the decade, when the big VCs were investing in AI chips, they threw huge checks at companies with little more than PowerPoint and some good ideas. Little thought was put into the execution side of things. Now that many of those companies are sliding downwards, the VCs have adopted a once-bitten-twice-shy attitude, rather than admit they should have done more diligence.
The other thing to keep in mind is that building a chip has gotten much less expensive. Last year we wrote about all the IP licenses and various forms of taxation that chip companies have to pay, as well as the need to support a large back-end operations team to bring chips to production. Those problems still exist, but the market has adopted many solutions to lessen this burden, largely in the form of 3rd Party 'ASIC Shops' who can amortize many of those upfront costs across multiple customers. A good example of this is SiFive who can eliminate the need for an expensive ARM license and produce a hardened chip.
At the same time, the market for semis is MUCH better than it was a decade ago. In the 2000's, chip companies needed $200 million to get to break-even and faced low-growth, saturating end-markets. Since then, a wave of consolidation has shaken the industry which has greatly improved competitive dynamics and thus pricing. In fact, the consolidation has led the smaller number of larger chips to leave big gaps in their product roadmaps. At the same time, we are poised for major growth in demand for semis in a wide swathe of markets. As above – AI, robots, data centers, cars – are all either major markets already or poised to become so in coming years.
By avoiding semis entirely, VCs are leaving a lot of money on the table. This kind of investment drought has hit semis several times over the last 40 years. The 1990's saw a similar shunning of chip investments for high flying dot.com companies. Today, there are only two or three companies left in the US that can actually manufacture its own chips. So there is still significant risk that bad decisions by VCs today will not only lose out on major gains but also create new, major gaps in the US's technological capabilities.


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Ask Louise
Do you know of any good tailors in Dubai to sew curtains, bedding and tablecloths? Do you know anywhere in Dubai that sells Orchid potting mix (Dubai Garden Centre no good!)? Lastly, I am a landscape architect with two small children and haven't been working for 2 years so I'm looking for a part-time job, from 8:30am to 1pm – any ideas?
There are so many tailors in Satwa that can help you with straight stitching of these items, or if you need them made from scratch, try Al Jaliya Furniture in Bur Dubai (Tel: +971 4 352 1087 /+971 50 419 8568), Azores Furniture in Satwa (Tel: +971 4 349 3323), or you could also go to Dragonmart, where there are many shops that make curtains etc. at great prices – such as Zhongdi Trade, Block GB, shop 02 (Tel: +971 4 368 7214).
Unfortunately I do not know the answer for the potting soil, however have you been to the garden souk in Warsan 2 (just off the Outer bypass road)? If any of our readers know the answer, we would love to hear from you.
Finally with regards to your job hunting, it maybe hard to get a part-time job as a landscape architect but it wouldn't do any harm sending off a CV to some of the big firms in town, such as Cracknell (who I note from their website are looking for staff) or if you are willing to take a job not to do with landscape architecture, then check out websites such as Dubizzle.


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Darien CT Door Installation & Door Replacement Services
Doors, one of the most important yet underrated aspects of both your home's overall function and curb appeal. Ever come across a home that just has an ugly front door or one that doesn't match how the rest of the home looks at all? Yeah, it's quite the eye sore! We've got a great variety of doors for you to choose from. Doors that will work as elegant front doors, french patio doors, balcony doors, and just generally sliding doors.
Entry Doors
We are incredibly proud of our close relationship with ProVia – through this partnership we are able to offer all of our customers the absolute best in custom-made doors. Our team of door installation experts are here to ensure you get the best long-term results possible, your satisfaction is absolutely our greatest concern. Learn more about our entry door installation services.
Patio Doors
Also known as sliding glass doors, these doors are designed specially to have one stationary panel and another that does the actual sliding and operation. The real big benefit with patio doors is that they can be operated in much smaller and tighter spaces than normal patio doors, they don't require any additional space to open or operate! All of the patio doors we offer are extremely sturdy and are going to be there to protect your home when you need them to be, whether that be from things like high winds and bad weather or a potential thief. One of our staples are the Arcadia Patio Doors. Learn more about our patio door installation services.
Sliding Doors Darien
Create an exquisite entry that you can see from both inside and outside of your home with a sliding door. Our sliding doors have the ease-of-use and space-saving you need, with the great appearance that you want. Our sliding doors work wonderfully any in any area of the home. Learn more about french sliding doors and balcony doors. Our selection is unmatched, we feel confident we can find the sliding door to meet your needs.
Great For Balcony Doors
Sliding doors are popularly used as balcony doors because they are very secure, all while still offering you a fantastic view. For a balcony door, you don't want something like a traditional door that will block a lot of your view. You need a sliding balcony door for minimal obstruction and maximum view. Learn more about balcony doors.
Doors see so much wear and tear
Just think about how many times you use your door in any given day or week. Then multiply that out by years – and you'll realize even if you don't leave your home all that often your front door probably is used constantly day in and day out. Now repairs are always an option for your doors, for more minor issues like sticking, broken locks, cracks, or general function issues repairs can work decently well in the long-term. DO be aware that past a certain point, if you've got things like rotting wood going on, you're going to run into. Door repair is always an option you need to consider should your door still be in relatively good shape.
Why You NEED Professional Door Replacement
The first and main issue that you're going to have with an improperly installed door is an increase in your heating and cooling costs! Poor installation almost always means that your door isn't going to be sealed correctly, which in turn is going to mean a direct exchange of air with the outside! If you live in an area where you need things like your storm door to actually stand up to serious weather to just want a properly working door for your own safety, you need to make sure you are only working with professional experienced, professional door installers like Windows by Toll. Learn more about our door installation services.
Why work with Windows by Toll?
We put a lot of effort into making sure our door installation work is always reliable, this is why you can count on us:
Full Service – We take great pride in handling our projects to completion to ensure quality work the whole way through. We provide full service and support for a door replacement project, from selection and order to installation and maintenance.
Outstanding Craftsmanship – We only hire trained contractors that we know are going to be able to handle our clients well. We want all of our customers, no matter how small the job may be, to be happy with our work for as long as possible.
Return on Your Investment – When we install a new Anderson door on your property it's value immediately goes up, these doors are among the most secure, energy-efficient, and beautiful on the entire market and are a fantastic investment for your home.
Contact Windows by Toll today for all of your Door Replacement Needs
We take great pride in serving the Darien CT area as well as all of the surrounding communities. If you need any home improvement services or windows replaced, make Windows by Toll your first call. We work hard to ensure the long-term satisfaction of our customers and the main way we do that is by working with the best suppliers we can. Call today for an obligation free-quote or just to chat. Check out our window replacement services if you want to learn more. Check out our service areas.
Windows By Toll is proud to receive Home Advisor's


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Hire Products
Yamaha PM5D-RH Digital Mixing Desk
The PM5D has become a standard for digital live mixing, and the first choice of legions of discerning engineers and sound companies throughout the world. Why? Simply because it offers extraordinary sound and versatility in a relatively small, lightweight system that is intuitive to use and delivers unmatched sound, control, and reliably without the need for additional outboard processing gear. Of course programmability and recall capability are of monumental importance in today's live sound scene as well.
It's no exaggeration to state that the PM5D Digital Mixing Console took the digital revolution to a new level. What's more, it offers a system solution that can enhance the entire sound production process from input to output through seamless integration with digital systems including Yamaha's DME series digital mixing engines and AD8HR 8-channel A/D converters with remote controllable preamps. But for applications that require serious I/O capacity there's the PM5D-EX: a PM5D console plus a DSP5D Digital Mixing System that gives you the I/O and processing capacity of two PM5D consoles controlled from a single control surface, plus the added advantages of digital cabling over long distances when necessary. There's virtually no limit to the possible configurations and applications, thanks to open architecture with the flexibility and expandability you need to handle just about any live sound and recording application.


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Moist and tender, the pork ribs sit atop a bed of crispy fried tempura long beans was wonderfully braised with a melt in your mouth texture. The ribs were fantastic, simply one of the best ribs we have ever had. Highly recommended!
Perfectly smoked, the free-range chicken was succulent and juicy with a subtle smoky flavour. The texture and flavour definitely stand out compared to conventional chicken.
The fresh out of the tank fish was steamed to perfection with premium soy sauce and topped with cilantro leaves. Subtly sweet, the fish texture was delicate and tender, it was simply divine.
Fried to perfection, the succulent and juicy prawns were generously coated with tangy and creamy homemade lemon mayo sauce.
Frankly, I am not a huge fan of lamb belly, but I can't resist these meltingly soft and tender lamb belly bathed in a luscious sauce, literally the best comfort food ever.
The silky smooth beancurd braised with shrimp, mushroom, beans, carrot and dried shrimp roe 'har zhi' was amazingly flavourful and tasty too.
Restaurant Dragon Star
54 A, B, Jalan SS 1/22,
Desa Tunku,
47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Tel : 03-7877 6673
Business hours : Mon - Sun
11.30am - 2.00pm
5.30pm - 11.00pm


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America and North Korea Are Having Two Different Conversations
One country's "productive" talks are another's "gangster-like" demands.
Maybe it was inevitable. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his third trip to Pyongyang determined to put meat on the bones of a skeletal summit declaration co-signed by Trump and Kim last month—one that offered the tantalizing possibility of a transformed relationship and a denuclearized North Korea, with no particular plan to get there.
Coming so soon after the summit, Pompeo's trip even looked something like momentum. The Trump administration certainly needs it to stand a chance of realizing Pompeo's stated ambition to achieve "major disarmament" of North Korea within two and a half years. There were hopeful signs—the Hermit Kingdom allowed in members of the foreign press corps, and it looked likely to start returning the remains of American service members lost or killed during the Korean War.
But there were troubling signs as well. Recent reports—citing both intelligence sources and independent analysts—indicated that North Korea was actually expanding its nuclear facilities. Pompeo would not meet with Kim Jong Un as he has in the past, but with his vice chairman and former spy chief Kim Yong Chol. And Trump himself was setting too high a bar, having declared post-summit that there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea (the country maintains all the capabilities it had before the summit), and claiming that the remains of 200 U.S. soldiers had already been returned (they have not).
And it turned out even Pompeo's modest assessment of the trip's achievements—which yielded neither public steps toward denuclearization nor remains transfers, but what Pompeo called "productive conversations" on "complicated issues"—may have been too much. No sooner had he left the country than the North was characterizingthose same talks as "regrettable" in light of America's "gangster-like" demand for the North's unilateral denuclearization.
It was a departure from the recent tone of near-amity between the North and the U.S., and certainly matched neither Pompeo's characterization of his own talks nor Trump's tweeted optimism about ongoing "good conversations" with the North Koreans ahead of Pompeo's trip. Yet it was also a return to form for the North Koreans, who briefly got the summit cancelled through what Trump called "tremendous anger and open hostility," including personal attacks on Trump officials like National-Security Adviser John Bolton. And the disconnect was also characteristic of the Trump administration's negotiations with North Korea as a whole—to wit, since the summit and before, the sides seem to be having two separate conversations.
The most important example of this concerns the very term "denuclearization." Trump has characterized getting North Korea to sign on to working toward "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" as a concrete achievement akin to Kim promising to give up nukes. But though Trump and Kim signed the same statement, they meant something entirely different. As both Uri Friedman and Joel Wit have detailed in these pages, the North's ambition for "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" was not a concession but the reiteration of a long-standing position. And as Kim Yong Chol's remarks demonstrate, it would be a mistake for Trump to read this as a promise to unilaterally disarm.
What the North Koreans mean by "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," as Friedman explained, is "proof of denuclearization in South Korea [from which the U.S. withdrew tactical nuclear weapons under George H.W. Bush] … [and] no more deployment of American nuclear-capable vessels and aircrafts during training exercises with South Korean forces." The South may currently be nuclear-free, but the North Koreans don't believe that, and as Friedman notes, the U.S. "still has multiple ways to launch a nuclear attack against North Korea, and the North Koreans know it." The North Koreans may also consider the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea, and an end to the U.S.-South Korean alliance, to be encompassed in this notion of "denuclearization."
In a more typical diplomatic process, the gap-closing on issues such as this would have been undertaken by lower-level officials prior to a summit. Indeed this is a key reason no U.S.-North Korea summit had taken place before Trump—previous administrations had assessed that the sides remained too far apart on the core issues to warrant the risk of such a high-profile failure. If Trump's gamble was that the unprecedented nature of the summit itself was enough to shock the North Korean system into real movement, there's no public indication yet that it worked.
The irony is that officials like Pompeo and Bolton have previously cast doubt on the notion that North Korea would ever give up its nukes. If anything, the shifts toward common ground are now appearing to come from the American side, with State Department statements in recent days seeming to back off the long-standing demand for North Korea's "complete, verifiable, and irreversible disarmament" in favor of "fully verified, final denuclearization." The State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert has denied that this is a softening of the administration's position, but it's notable that even the apparent rhetorical sop to North Korean sensitivities still looks "gangster-like" to the North.
Maybe one country's "productive conversations" are another's "very regrettable" ones, and Pompeo seemed to suggest as much on Sunday when he remarked that "people are going to make certain comments after meetings." By the same token, though, it's notable that the two parties have such fundamentally different reads on reality. Even leaving aside the history of North Korean deception and dissembling on the nuclear issue, that alone shows that North Korean promises do not mean what Trump seems to think they mean.
NEXT STORY: Trump's Message to NATO


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'When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue' is a song from Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost. Although it's easy, because this is a song, to dismiss its meaning as frivolous or the words as 'nonsense', it's worth stopping to analyse the lyrics of the song and their place in the play as a whole. Here's the text of 'When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue' followed by a few words of comment and analysis.
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he:
Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
'Tu-whit, tu-whoo!'—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
'Tu-whit, tu-whoo!'—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
'When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue' is a song from one of Shakespeare's less famous plays, the comedy Love's Labour's Lost; in fact, the song concludes the play. In the play, the song is sung by 'Ver' and 'Hiems', presumably alter egos of Holofernes and Nathaniel, two of the 'learned men' from Love's Labour's Lost. This would make sense, since Holofernes had been accused earlier in the play (in Act 5 Scene 1) of being cuckolded. And although it begins as an apparently upbeat song about the flowers in springtime ('daisies pied' meaning, of course, daisies of lots of different colours: see Gerard Manley Hopkins's 'Pied Beauty' for the definitive poetic statement about 'pied' or multicoloured things), the song is actually about wives cheating on their husbands. The reference to the cuckoo mocking married men is the clue here: 'cuckoo' being a reminder of 'cuckold', and an allusion to the cuckoo's trick of laying its eggs in another bird's nest, thus suggesting someone who has usurped another, or taken their place in the 'nest' (bed?).
There are a number of even subtler clues, bits of wordplay hidden within the lyrics to the song: 'lady-smocks' are another term for cuckoo-flowers, thus chiming with the cuckoo-cuckold connections being made elsewhere in that opening verse; but there's also a faint pun, as H. R. Woudhuysen points out in his notes to the Arden edition of the play, "Love's Labours Lost" (Arden Shakespeare.Third Series) (The Arden Shakespeare), on 'ladies' mocks', i.e. women mocking men by cheating on them behind their backs.
From this opening verse, ripe with suggestions of unfaithfulness, we move to some further references to the natural world which need deciphering and analysing: larks, for instance, are 'ploughmen's clocks' because the lark, in rising early and singing its dawn song, wakes the ploughman early in the morning ready for his work, like a natural alarm clock. The reference to 'turtles' that 'tread' is not a nod to the amphibian but to another bird, the turtle-dove (this is also true of the 'turtle' in Shakespeare's poem 'The Phoenix and Turtle'). 'Tread', however, is perhaps not as innocent as it first seems, since it had the alternative meaning of 'copulate' or 'mate with', and turtle-doves were associated with love – although, somewhat ironically given the rest of the song, with enduring love, or mating for life.
After these first two verses, we move from springtime to winter in the third and fourth verses of 'When Daisies Pied'. Dick the shepherd ('Dick', like Tom, was a generic name for a lad or young man) is blowing on his fingernails to warm himself during the cold weather, and another man, Tom, is bringing in firewood to keep the house warm. Birds return towards the end of the penultimate stanza, but this time with the 'staring owl' which says 'Tu-whit, tu-whoo!' (actually an impossibility, since strictly speaking it would take two owls, one male and one female, to make these two different noises). Woudhuysen draws our attention to another hidden meaning: 'Tu-whit' may here be a pun on 'to it', meaning 'to have sex', with 'Tu-whoo' summoning 'to who?', of course. The refrain which concludes both this and the final verse, 'While greasy Joan doth keel the pot', refers to a lower-class woman (Joan, like Dick and Tom, being a common name among lower-class people at the time of the play), covered in grease, 'keeling' or cooling a pot, probably by stirring it to prevent it from boiling over. It's winter, after all: Joan is presumably cooking Dick and Tom a warming stew or soup…
In the final verse, winter continues unabated: 'parson's saw' refers not to the implement but to a sermon or 'saw' given by the priest; Marian is another generic woman, like Joan; 'roasted crabs' refers to apples (crab-apples) being cooked rather than the crustacean. We end with the same words that had concluded the third verse.
The cultural associations and implications of Shakespeare's words are often not apparent to us from such a great distance as four centuries, so a few words of textual analysis help to bring these extra senses to the fore again.
You can listen to 'When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue' being sung here.


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Deepa Krishnan is the power house behind Magic Tours, which offers experiential tours to suit all interests in 27 cities across India – be it culinary, textiles, art, music, shopping, culture and history or a Bollywood dance class you're after, Magic Tours has something for everyone!
Here are her 15 Questions in 5 Minutes:
- Who you are (naturally!)
A woman who lives life to the full.
- What inspired you to create your business?
I graduated in 1990 with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. I spent nearly two decades of my career in the corporate world, mainly in banking technology. I traveled widely due to my work, and met people from many countries. My journey in tourism only started in my late 30's, when I realized that there were so many stereotypes about India, so many myths that need to be demolished. Starting with taking my own international colleagues out to showcase India, I eventually set up a guided tours company that offers bazaar walks, heritage walks, art walks, food walks, home-cooking, textile trails, craft trails etc. Initially, it was just a hobby, which I did along with my corporate career. But what started as just a hobby in 2006 has now become the largest pan-Indian guided tours company in the inbound segment, offering offbeat experiences in 27 different cities. Mumbai is our flagship city, but we are not just "Mumbai Magic"; we have 27 different Magic cities! I have personally visited these cities, read a lot about them, walked and explored the lanes and bazaars, and created these tours. So we are not just tour resellers, we are an imaginative company that creates tours, and we continue to launch at least 5-6 new tours each year.
- An anecdote which epitomizes your India?
We were on a walk in the area near Chor Bazaar when a very heavy handcart stopped because of the traffic. When the traffic lights turned green, the load pullers simply couldn't get the cart going again. My guests that day for the walk were a group of expats, living in Bombay. On an impulse, one of them dashed into the middle of the street to give the cart a helping hand. The rest of the guests hung back, hesitant about joining in. The Indian labourer pulling the cart smiled and welcomed the added muscle power, and in a couple of minutes, the cart got moving again. My guest returned, grinning, dusting his palms. I couldn't help grinning back. India welcomes those who choose to become insiders. As a visitor, you can choose to get into the heart of a country, or you can choose to be an observer. Whatever floats your boat. The streets are there, the people are there, the experiences are there as well, waiting. What you get from them is your choice. Insider or outsider, what do you want to be? And this is not just about foreign visitors to India. This is true for locals as well.
- One thing that you can't live without?
My sarees!
- One thing that you hate?
- If you could change one thing about India what would it be?
The increasing lack of tolerance for alternative viewpoints.
- Who is your greatest inspiration?
The land itself! At the heart of all my work is India, in all its richness.
- What is your favourite quote?
"Let perfect not be the enemy of good"
- I have noticed huge changes in India over the last few years but what is the biggest change you have noticed in India over the last 10 years?
- What do you think are the biggest challenges India faces over the next ten years?
- Which is the destination at the top of your bucket list?
Yellowstone National Park, for my third visit.
And in India, I want to go to Kaziranga.
- What is the one place you visited that you have NO desire to return to?
- Book or Movie?
- Just for fun! I am doing a survey to find India's most popular breakfast, what is yours?
- In retrospect, what is the one thing you wish you could have told your 20 year-old self?
I have no regrets and no advice for my 20-year old self. She did what she did, which was right at that time of her life.
For more details on the variety or tours in a myriad of destinations offered by Magic Tours visit their website


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Cerulean Twist GRA50108W
Per Roll
- Description
This joyous and fun design of hanging houseplants is hand-drawn and wonderfully realistic. From flourishing ferns to elegant trails planted in textured macrame baskets and decorative ceramic pots, its conversational, colourful and inspired. No need to water!
- Product Details
Product Code GRA50108W Roll Size 50cm X 10m Horizontal Repeat 50cm Vertical Repeat 90cm Pattern Match Half Drop Paper Type Non-Woven Hanging Instructions View Wallpaper Instructions Country of origin UK


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How do you easily share memories captured in photo albums going back generations? Simple Scan is really simple. It scans a page but extracting photos from the scanned image is a very tedious task. So, this month's exploration is that how do you automate it to reduce the drudgery. It is clearly an example of the xkcd Automation (http://xkcd.com/1319/)! However, it also falls into the category of spending time on "What Doesn't Seem Like Work?" (http://www.paulgraham.com/work.html).
There is a wonderful script 'multicrop' (http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/multicrop/), which uses Imagemagick tools, to crop and straighten images.
Extending the concept behind multicrop
The basic logic of Multicrop script is as follows:
A fuzz factor is used to select the background color. If the value is too high, part of the photo may be lost in the background and the photo may be split in mutiple parts. If the value is too low, photos may not be extracted. However, even if a part of the photo is treated as background, as long as the enclosing rectangle is the size of the original photo, you don't have to worry.
The script worked very well with multiple loose photos scanned at a time as long as there was some gap between the photos and on the boundaries.
My problem was that the photos could not be removed from the album without damage. Furthermore, the background was not uniform. The background consists of multiple colors.
Hence, in the above logic, I decide to change the first step by three:
It helped reduce to the drudgery though definitely did not save any time!
Imagemagick steps
The following steps have been adapted from the 'multicrop' script referenced above, though I converted the steps into a Python script using os.system, subprocess.call and subprocess.check_output methods. For more details about the convert options, see http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php. Sample values are used where needed to simplify the examples.
Convert the image file (Fig 1) into Imagemagick's internal mpc format and use the mpc format for the intermediate steps for efficient processing:
convert image.jpg +repage
For each background colour - bgcolor as an (r,g,b) tuple, rename out.mpc and out.cache to in.mpc and in.cache and floodfill none replacing the background colour. A 1x1 border of the background colour is added to ensure floodfilling is from all sides of the image and it is then shaved off.
The next step is to remove the remaining part of the image by red. You will get an image similar to Fig 2.
You now need to find a cluster of red pixels. Since your photo will not be very small, rather than searching pixel by pixel, you can speed the process by a factor of 100 by searching every 10th pixel in each row and column.
To get the colour at pixel (x,y):
color = `convert TMP2.mpc
-channel rgba -alpha on -format "%[pixel:u.p{x,y}" info:`
If the color is not none but red, replace the contiguous red pixels by white:
Now, you want to get only the white part. So, fill all pixels that are not white with transparecncy and then turn transparency off so that all that is not white becomes black.
convert TMP3.mpc -channel rgba
-alpha on -fill none +opaque white -alpha off TMP3A.mpc
The white part is not a rectangle. So, clone the image and trim it so that it bounds the white part. Now, replace all black by white in this trimmed image.
Now, flatten the second image on top of the previous one to get the mask for a photo (see Fig 3).
convert TMP3A.mpc TMP3B.mpc
-flatten TMP4.mpc
The above steps can be combined into a single convert command as follows:
The photo can now be extracted:
convert image.jpg tmp4.mpc
-compose multiply -composite -trim photo-1.jpg
While extracting, you may want to add the logic to straighten the image as well. So, instead, use the following command:
The multicrop script adds a border as well for a better presentation.
Now, you need to remove the white image area so that it is not used again.
convert TMP3.mpc -channel rgba
-alpha on -fill none -opaque white TMP2.mpc
You are now ready to find another red pixel in TMP2.mpc and extract the next photo.
Usually, you will want to discard small photos as there may be spurious small islands of red. At times, you may find that the extracted image is smaller, e.g. if the sky is light, it may be mistaken for the background. So, there is considerable scope for making the script a lot smarter!
Tailpiece: Improve a scanned text page
Scanning a text page to be never easy with Simple Scan., especially with old documents. Using the text mode, some folds show up as lines. If the text is faded or shaded, parts of the characters are missing. While the visual result of scanning in photo mode is much better, a printout normally has a distracting gray background and readability is often lost in the process.
A solution is to use the white-threshold option in Imagemagick's convert command line utility after scanning a text document as a photo, e.g.
$ convert scanned_text.jpg
-colorspace gray -white-threshold 60% printable.jpg
Exploring Software >


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Queen Mary 2 cruise ship to meet strict environmental regulations with Wärtsilä wastewater treatment systems
One of the world's major cruise ships, the Queen Mary 2, is being fitted with a Wärtsilä advanced wastewater treatment system. This installation will enable the vessel to comply fully with the IMO's requirements concerning the prevention of pollution from ships. The Wärtsilä Hamworthy Membrane BioReactor solutions are designed to facilitate the management and treatment of both 'grey' and 'black' wastewater, and to monitor discharges to the sea. The contract was awarded by Cunard Line during the third quarter, 2014.
Cunard's 2,620 passenger-capacity Queen Mary 2 entered service in 2004 and was designed with the aim of reducing the vessel's impact on the environment through more efficient management of waste. The existing on-board system is now due for replacement and two Wärtsilä Hamworthy MBR 16 systems have been selected to maintain the ship's high environmental standards.
'Environmental performance is of ever increasing importance throughout the marine industry, but especially so for cruise ships and ferries. Wärtsilä's broad experience in wastewater treatment and management systems for ships was a crucial factor in the award of this important contract,' says Juha Kytölä, Vice President, Environmental Solutions, Wärtsilä Ship Power.
Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is powered by four Wärtsilä main engines. Wärtsilä's MBR system is an evolution of the company's proven sewage treatment technology for handling grey and black water waste. The company has over 30 years experience in wastewater treatment and in meeting the waste handling needs of the marine industry. The technology is an advanced wastewater treatment process based on biological degradation and membrane separation. It delivers the highest quality discharge without requiring any addition or generation of chemicals hazardous to the maritime or shipboard environments. The Wärtsilä Hamworthy MBR is capable of meeting both current and anticipated effluent quality standards.


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Convoy of Medical Examination
"Friends of the Paralytic Service"
Medical Reports
Assist Home Essentials + Revenue
Episode 144
Mr. E.A.F.M. – September, 18, 2015
Do you love me 144
"God loves a cheerful giver"
Today's case is diagnosed to have diabetes. He is jobless and is visually impaired. At young age, he was a mechanic. At 16 he worked at a gas station. His sight began to deteriorate gradually and was accompanied with dizziness. He got married and had children. Burden compiled over his shoulders till his psychological state deteriorated. His income is close to nothing. He is the father of 7 children. Life has pushed him hard. Diabetes made him lose his eye sight. Thus, he is not able to work at all. He left his flat due to his inability to pay the rent. He moved to a smaller one and sold his house appliances to pay the rent which is 400 pounds monthly. Yet, he is thankful and grateful. There is no source that helps him to get a regular income. His house has no furniture. He is not able to provide for his family. He is in dire need for your
The Needs:
- Furnishing the house
- Setting up a commercial project to provide financial profit that helps him to provide for his family


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Did Adrienne Bailon Just Throw Kim Kardashian's Sex Tape In the Mix?
The Kardashian clan didn't take too kindly to Adrienne Bailon's comments about their brother, the Cheetah Girl's ex, Rob Kardashian -- but to keep the feud going, Bailon is biting back.
This all started when Bailon gave an interview with Latina magazine, and didn't hold back from saying how she really felt about Rob and his family.
"To be stuck with that Kardashian label, that was so hurtful to me and to my career. I probably realized that too late -- not that it would've affected my decisions in terms of who I dated, but it would've affected my decision to appear on the show," The Real co-host, 30, said. "At the time, I didn't think anyone would even care. To this day, people will still say, 'You ruined Rob's life!' and I'll think, 'Damn, I was still playing with Barbie dolls when I met him.'"
RELATED: Kardashian Family Vacation Photo Album
Needless to say, Rob's big sis Kim Kardashian didn't take too kindly to Bailon's remarks. "Funny how she says being with a Kardashian hurt her career yet the only reason she has this article is bc she is talking about a Kardashian," Kim, 33, tweeted early Wednesday morning. "#LetItGoooooLetItGoooooo (FROZEN VOICE)."
She added, "So sad when people try to kick my brother when he is down. #FamilyForever."
Funny how she says being with a Kardashian hurt her career yet the only reason she has this article is bc she is talking about a Kardashian— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) July 30, 2014
RELATED: Rob Reacts to Adrienne's Comments
While both Rob and Khloe Kardashian reacted to the interview as well, Bailon seemed to keep her comments aimed at Kim in her Thursday Instagram post.
With the caption "#GodBless," she wrote: "Fame and career are two different things. I've always had a career. I have been working hard since I was 15 years old. Being someone's 'girlfriend' was never what I wanted to be famous for."
This next line has some speculating that Bailon is alluding to Kim's sex tape with Ray J. "What makes you 'famous' isn't always what you want to be 'labeled' as, or known for. If anyone should understand that…It should be you," the post continues.
Adding of her relationship with the now 27-year-old Rob, whom she dated from 2007-2009, "I also stated in the article that none of this would have stopped me from being in love and being in that relationship. I just would have gone about it differently. You can love someone just as much in private. We all learn from our first loves."
Whose side are you on?


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Quarton International is pleased to announce that ChoiceSpine, LP ("ChoiceSpine", or the "Company") has been acquired by Altus Capital Partners. Quarton International acted as the exclusive investment banking advisor to the Company in this transaction.
ChoiceSpine is one of the fastest growing spinal implant companies in the market. Since its founding in 2006, the Company has developed over 20 product lines and serves over 250 surgeons. ChoiceSpine offers a broad portfolio of spinal products that cover ~90% of spinal procedures and an expanding number of innovative products that are designed to allow for less invasive access to the spine and faster patient recovery times compared to traditional open access surgical approaches.
ChoiceSpine is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of specialized spinal implants, instrumentation and biologics for the surgical treatment of complex spine disorders. Based in Knoxville, TN and founded in 2006, ChoiceSpine develops spinal hardware and biologics products. The Company is devoted to enhancing the quality of life for spinal patients and seeks to be the most responsive spine company with exceptional service. More information: www.choicespine.com.
Altus Capital Partners is a private equity firm that makes control investments in middle market manufacturing businesses. Altus utilizes a patient, thoughtful investment approach and seeks to partner with the management teams of its operating companies to achieve growth. Altus maintains offices in Wilton, CT and Lincolnshire, IL and has completed 18 platform investments and numerous add-on acquisitions since its founding in 2003. More information: www.altuscapitalpartners.com.
Eric J.
Van Dam
Managing Director
Mergers & Acquisitions
+1 248 9884 523
Robert S.
Managing Director and Head
Mergers & Acquisitions
+1 248 9884 533


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The Oregon Trail (800k)
The Oregon Trail
These are newly written onto high quality 3M DD floppy disks.
This game is 800k formatted (should work in most vintage Macs, excluding the 128k and 512k).
Our website is SSL-equipped and all payments are processed securely by PayPal.
Shipping for most orders within the USA is only $3 and should arrive within 3-4 business days.
All disks are tested and 100% guaranteed to work. Replacements & returns are accepted.
from Macintosh Garden:
The Oregon Trail is an educational computer game developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by MECC in 1974. The game was inspired by the real-life Oregon Trail and was designed to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the trail. The player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding his party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon's Willamette Valley by way of the Oregon Trail via a Conestoga wagon in 1848.


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Rhinestone - Find everything you need to create sparkling rhinestone jewelry and fashion accessories 。We have many rhinestone item,For example loose rhinestones, rhinestone settings, , tools and jewelry findings. Shop crystal rhinestones, rhinestone applique,rhinestone crosses for bracelets and more, designed for different types of applications.
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Find these and more on our Facebook review page
For us, the best part about Wicksquisite Candles, LLC is building relationships with our customers and making sure they leave happy and satisfied. We've included some of their feedback below to give a snapshot of what it's like to work with us. If you have feedback or a testimonial you'd like to add, feel free to reach out today.
"Very fast delivery and high-quality candles! I ordered a baby candle for my friend-- searching for baby shower ideas, I read about the idea of a baby candle, where (like an advent candle) you burn it while waiting for the baby, and then every time you blow it out, you make a wish for her! Latoya was able to customize the candle to my friend's favorite color and an accurate skin color. I also ordered a citronella candle for myself, and through a weekend of camping got no bug bites! Really amazing candles, highly recommended."
"I highly recommend Wicksquisite for any event or personal use! We all know that being a bridesmaid is a joy but can also be overwhelming. So, when I was asked to be in charge of Favors for my Aunt's Bridal Shower, I struggled. I knew that I wanted something both aesthetically pleasing and useful. As I was scrolling on fb, I had an 'aha' moment and reached out to Wicksquisite right away. We brainstormed ideas, and within minutes, I was provided with an image of my vision, payment options were set up, and my order was in progress. The candles were a beautiful accent to our shower decor and the scent (Jasmine Vanilla) was so refreshing! I look forward to working with Wicksquisite for my next event! And you should too."
"I love my candles from wicksquisite!! I had some made in coconuts and I LOVE THEM!!"
"I asked and Latoya delivered! I love love love my citronella candles and can not wait to use them"


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Join TAPOL and ETAN in a LIVE WEBINAR exploring the consequences of a racist justice system for political activists in West Papua. Please see the invitation attached for details about how to join!
About the Webinar
The anti-racism movement is sweeping across the globe, inspired by Black Lives Matter in the United States. The activism has resonated in Indonesia with the emergence of the Papuan Lives Matter movement. Both the current uprising in Minneapolis and in West Papua last year were triggered by recorded incidents of racist police violence.
Last week Indonesian prosecutors demanded outrageous sentences of five to seventeen years for seven high-profile West Papuan political prisoners detained in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan (Borneo). These activists were arrested during the West Papua Uprising last year when tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against racism and for self-determination. In contrast, the Indonesian military and police which committed the racist attacks against West Papuan students, triggering the Uprising, were not punished at all. Only three Indonesian civilians were sentenced to 5 to 10 months jail.
This is yet another display of systemic racism that West Papuans have to endure under Indonesian rule. President Joko Widodo released five West Papuan political prisoners at the beginning of his first term, but now, in his second term, there are still 46 indigenous West Papuan political prisoners who have been detained on treason charges. This Webinar is to call for the immediate and unconditional release of these political prisoners, particularly the seven currently detained in Balikpapan.
The 2019 West Papua Uprising
An unprecedented protest movement swept across West Papua and Indonesia in 2019, from 19 August to 23 September, with tens of thousands taking to the streets to protest against racism and for self-determination. It has become known as the "West Papua Uprising", marking the most significant mass movement opposing Indonesian rule in West Papua in more than a decade. The Uprising is notable for the involvement of Indonesians across the country protesting in support of West Papuans.
The protests were sparked by Indonesian military personnel and ultra-nationalist groups racially abusing indigenous West Papuan students outside their dormitory in Surabaya on 17 August 2019. "Monkey" has since been reclaimed and used as a resistance symbol by the movement. The video of the harassment was shared widely on social media, and led to demonstrations in at least 30 cities across Indonesia and West Papua. The protests called for an end to racism and for the independence of West Papua, with demonstrators waving the banned Morning Star Flag across cities, towns and villages.
Despite the vast majority of the protests being peaceful, some turned violent with damage to public facilities, government buildings, stores and homes.
In response to this, the Indonesian government implemented an extreme crackdown, blocking internet access and deploying more than 10,000 security personnel to West Papua. Human rights groups have found that at least 61 residents, demonstrators and police were killed during the Uprising. In addition, more than 100 indigenous West Papuans were arbitrarily arrested. Last week, the State Administrative Court in Jakarta ruled that the government's internet shutdown was unlawful.
West Papuan political prisoners
In the wake of the West Papua Uprising, 56 people were arbitrarily detained on treason charges. Ten of them have since been released after serving their full sentences, ranging from eight to nine months jail.
All are peaceful activists who have been detained for political expression -- simply carrying flags, organizing or participating in peaceful protests, posting opinions on social media, or merely for being members of political organizations.
Prosecutors are now seeking extreme jail time against seven key leaders of the movement, due to be sentenced next week. In violation of Indonesian law, they were transferred from West Papua to Borneo on the basis of "security reasons" in October 2019. They were all arrested without any warrants.
Buchtar Tabuni (17 years): Member of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) Council Committee and the current Chair of the National Parliament of West Papua. This is his third time being imprisoned for his political beliefs.
Agus Kossay (15 years): Chair of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), the largest grassroots political movement in West Papua.
Stevanus Itlay (15 years): Chair of KNPB in Timika, this is his third time being imprisoned for his political beliefs.
Ferry Gombo (10 years): Head of the student association of UNCEN, the biggest public university in West Papua.
Alexander Gobai (10 years): Head of the university student association of USTJ.
Hengky Hilapok (5 years): A university student, his role in the protest was monitoring security.
Irwanus Uropmabin (5 years): A university student, was responsible for hiring the sound system and cars used for the protest.
TAPOL (www.tapol.org) campaigns for human rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia. We are based in the UK and work to raise awareness of human rights issues in Indonesia, including in the contested territory of West Papua. Founded on grassroots campaigning, TAPOL works closely with local organisations in Indonesia to advocate for truth and justice and encourage the international community to take action.
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN, www.etan.org) is a U.S.-based grassroots organization working in solidarity with the peoples of Timor-Leste (East Timor), West Papua and Indonesia. It continues to pursue justice for past and ongoing human rights violations by Indonesia, including accountability for U.S. involvement.


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A church building in California has been occupied by its elders after they found the offices ransacked, records and checkbooks gone and new locks on the building, all done by their own church conference in its process of "taking possession" of the structure and "securing the building," members have told WND.
The situation has developed at the Grace Community Alliance Church in Baldwin Park, Calif., now in conflict with the Christian & Missionary Alliance conference based in Colorado Springs.
The district leadership of the conference is pursuing a reversion clause that it says applies to conference churches, and officials most likely want to sell the church assets of some $1 million, even though the congregation and the pastor are pleading for mercy.
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Church leaders told WND church elders have been occupying the building around the clock after the district leadership broke into the locked building, ransacked the offices, removed records and checkbooks, and attempted to lock the pastor and his flock out, all unbeknownst to the congregation.
The "break-in" was labeled "securing the building" after "taking possession of it" according to a South Pacific District email obtained by WND.
TRENDING: Gov't contract stipulates migrants must stay in hotels with 3 or more stars
The church has had a spotless record of paying "dues" to the C&MA "Great Commission Fund," and members say they have had no issues with the district, until very recently.
But that recent contact quickly spun out of control, with the district being accused of lying to the elders and congregants, stripping the pastor of his credentials, labeling the healthy church as "development," even entering the building without notifying the congregation in recent weeks.
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"We are not in chaos, we are not in financial difficulty," Pastor Fred Cheock of Grace Community Alliance Church tells WND.
"Still, the District Superintendant Bill Malick labels us as 'development,' and within weeks tries to cancel all of our worship services and lock our people out of our building."
The district entry into the building was discovered by accident by the wife of an elder who drove past the church and noticed padlocks on the gates.
She contacted her husband, Avery Schott, who proceeded to the church to discover that the locks on all but one door had been changed.
"I think they just missed one," he says.
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"I proceeded into our church, and discovered the offices were completely ransacked, and many items were missing," he said.
"While I was investigating this, and contacting the other elders to report what I found, I received an email on my phone, and immediately knew who had done this to our church."
The email from Malick had this to say about the break-in,
"The South Pacific District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance has had to make the difficult decision to take possession of the Grace Community Alliance Church (GCAC) property. Today the building was secured and all services and use of the building canceled until further notice."
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"This was news to us," says Schott. "We soon discovered that someone from the district had pretended to be from our church and canceled all utilities to the building."
"We've since straightened that out with the utility companies," Schott says.
The bylaws of the C&MA apparently give a district superintendent the ability to step in and downgrade a church's affiliation with the C&MA if certain conditions exist.
The bylaws also say that the purpose of the downgrade to "development" status is to help that congregation "fix" whatever problems may exist, so that they can regain their full status back, usually by following a 9-12 month plan of action.
But that process also includes the option, WND has been told, for "reversion."
According to Cheock and Schott, it was only this past spring that the district honed in on the congregation after an elder was removed from his post upon being allegedly caught in adultery, prohibited by the Bible.
Cheock alleged that individual then complained to the district.
"The superintendent never talked to any of our members or elders except the one complaining about being removed," says Cheock. "The next thing we knew he was revoking my pastor credentials, without offering any explanation why."
WND has documented in the past that C&MA districts have used the "reversion" clause to try to shut down churches and seize all its assets.
In some cases selling the property of what they label a "struggling" church generates revenue that is reinvested by the conference.
James Sundquist has extensively researched the subject and has produced a DVD documentary that explores what he calls the hijacking of churches in a title called, "Making Merchandise of Men's Souls."
He documents cases similar to the Grace Community Church situation on his PerfectPeacePlan.com website.
Sundquist points to a number of congregations that have had the C&MA step in, seize their assets, padlock the doors, and sell everything off.
"It's interesting that they only close down 'debt-free' congregations," he says. "You don't usually see them take this action with a church that rents space every Sunday."
In Colorado Springs the C&MA is accused of using this reversionary clause to wreak havoc with a Chinese congregation.
The Mid-America District of the C&MA allegedly locked the congregation out of their own building, which was owned free and clear by the Chinese congregation.
The district then sold the building to a karate studio for $500,000, and threw the Chinese Bibles and literature away.
A 2008 article in the local Gazette reported, "When the church locks were changed on a summer's day two years ago, Zhen Xue and the other congregants were dumbfounded. After all, the Chinese Alliance Church parish owned the Colorado Springs property and had money in the bank to keep it running.
"Two days later, on July 2, 2006, the congregation got the explanation: Leaders of the MidAmerica District of the Christian & Missionary Alliance said they were shutting down the church because church membership, and thus donations, had fallen. The district later sold the storefront property to a karate studio for nearly $500,000, records show, and used the money to invest in other C&MA properties."
WND previously reported extensively on the Paramus Community Church in New Jersey, and their plight with the District Superintendent Bruce Terpstra.
In that case, the district superintendent used the New Jersey court system to evict the pastor and church goers from their completely paid for church building.
The battle in New Jersey rages on to this day, with a judge allowing the congregation to remain in their building while the expensive court hearings continue.
In Baldwin Park the church also continues to meet despite the threats of Malick to cancel all services.
Schott said the dispute culminated when district officials arrived at the church to level a series of charges against the pastor and congregation.
"Many of the accusations were proven false even without being able to prepare, but the district would not allow the elders a chance to rebut," he said. "They sat Pastor Cheock in one room, and the elders in another, and wouldn't allow us to talk to him."
Malick's response to WND questions came in a written statement.
"Ultimately the removal of the pastor was based upon an evaluation of the congregation's health and ministry to the Filipino community in Baldwin Park," the statement said.
The statement said there was a "significant decline in attendance" to just 17 adults, and there was "significant and persistent division" in the church.
The district statement also accused the church of "evidence of flagrant disregard for proper governance," "failure of the congregation's leadership to convene and keep written record of annual meetings," and "elders were placed in office arbitrarily, without proper elections."
The district also provided a letter indicating the support for the decision from a number of pastors. But WND also located a separate letter signed by many of these same pastors that indicates a slightly different set of reasons.
The letter from the pastors reported they met with Malick and were told his reasons for removing Cheock. Most of them did not respond to WND questions, but one did confirm he hadn't seen any evidence regarding the removal of Choeck.
"Our church is current on all of its bills, and only has about $50,000 remaining on a mortgage, for a church that's worth well over a million dollars," Schott tells WND.
Schott said many of the accusations generate from the one elder who became upset with the church and left, taking his family with him.
"We've always been cohesive, had great giving and attendance, and have recovered nicely with the departure of this very vocal and divisive family," says Schott.
Cheock told WND in an emotional interview that he had supported another church, the Paramount Alliance Church, a year earlier when Malick closed its doors.
"I educated them on the ability of the district to use this reversionary clause to shut them down and take everything away, and because of my efforts Reverend Malick had to delay his plans for the church," he said. "In the meeting with me in May, when he separated me from my elder board, he told me that I had caused him much trouble by intervening for the Paramount church.
"He said, 'You put me in a very bad situation,' and emphasized that the troubles with my church were stemming from my support of the Paramount Church," Choeck said.


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After we went into town for groceries and some errands, neither of us had totally satisfied our sense of exploration and adventure for the day. We stopped at home to drop off the groceries and then switched to the Caliber for tour.
We went down to Sherbrooke and got gas. We reset the gas mileage dash computer and by the time we got home a couple hours later it was the lowest it ever was – 7.1L/100km!
We didn't go too far, just out to the ocean in a few places, saw some old communities and scenery. We like seeing the old abandoned houses in amongst the houses. There are really old abandoned houses all over – lots of history.
Here are some pictures from down around the Liscomb area.
Here is some type of heron. There were a few of them hanging around. Very majestic fliers.
Jeff was pointing out some of the things he saw when he was out on the boat for work one day. There is a shipwreck somewhere, but we couldn't see it from the shore.
You gotta love this car. My favorite part of every work day is driving my car to and from work.


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GOT7's BamBam Reveals Why He Unfollowed Park Jin Young On Social Media
In early 2021, JYP Entertainment announced that all the GOT7 members would not be renewing their contracts.
When GOT7 was preparing to leave JYP Entertainment, Park Jin Young (the CEO of JYP Entertainment) unfollowed several GOT7 members on social media. GOT7's BamBam unfollowed Park Jin Young and deleted a picture he took with him. Fans found this both hilarious and savage.
In an interview with Vogue Korea, BamBam spoke about this. He began by speaking about how the GOT7 members discussed their decision to leave JYP Entertainment for over a year. He also shared that while they left the company, they still have a good relationship with Park Jin Young, and BamBam even recently ate with him.
Q: You must have talked to the members a lot before deciding on leaving JYP.
We discussed it for over a year. At first, we all felt a bit confused about where we should go from there. It was the first time leaving for all of us. We ended up making the decision that works best for GOT7 and JYP both. Anyway, I recently got to hang out and eat with JYP PD-nim not too long ago.
— BamBam
Park Jin Young told BamBam that he will always be a part of the JYP family and that they should collaborate in the future! This touched BamBam, and he said that he would never forget his time at JYP Entertainment.
Q: What did you eat?
PD-nim bought me KBBQ. He said, 'You're still family to JYP. Let's work on a collab later.' It felt encouraging. It's almost like I graduated from JYP and now adventuring into the new world. Now that I'm with a new agency, I have new friends. But I will never, ever forget my roots at JYP.
— BamBam
In regards to the incidents on social media, BamBam shared that it was all a misunderstanding!
Q: There was a bit of talk when you deleted the pic of you & JYP on Instagram.
Oh, PD-nim unfollowed me first – by accident. I asked him about that while having KBBQ. He said he had no idea. He's not that savvy with Instagram. I deleted the picture because I felt a bit salty – and I told him that. He laughed at me so hard. So I want everyone to know now, there's no beef there. I am always and forever welcome at JYP to eat at the organic restaurant they have there. I've got unlimited access.
— BamBam
After leaving JYP Entertainment, the GOT7 members signed with different agencies, but they have often stated that they didn't disband and will be releasing music in the future!