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Just a few months after his 28th birthday, LeBron James is on the brink of his fourth NBA MVP award, joining an elite club of four-time winners restricted to Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Russell. No Kobe. No Shaq. No Duncan. No Magic. No Bird. But since winning his first MVP in 2008-09, LeBron's game has evolved drastically. He's a vastly different player now than the one he was in 2011. In fact, each year he's won the MVP, he's done so in a distinctive way. LeBron is a basketball scientist and his game is his laboratory; his ongoing research is returning brilliant results in awestruck gymnasiums from Boston to Los Angeles to London.
But James is not only the NBA's most valuable player, he is also the league's most versatile player. We can clearly see that LeBron is great at basketball, but we're less astute when it comes to identifying the radical shifts in his game over time. I spoke to James in Miami after the Heat beat the Detroit Pistons, their 25th consecutive win. When I asked him what he thought the biggest change in his game has been since his rookie season, he immediately honed in on his scoring. His first word says it all.
"Efficiency. I'm just a more efficient player. I take no shots for granted. When you're a young player, you cast up low-percentage shots, and you're not really involved with the numbers as much as far as field goal percentage and things of that nature. As I've grown, I've made more of a conscious effort to become a more efficient player and I think it's helped my team's success over the years."
Over the years, James has attempted thousands of field goals, but those shots are going in at much higher rates recently. In James's rookie year he shot 42 percent from the field and 29 percent from beyond the arc. This year those numbers are 56 percent and 39 percent, respectively. There are two reasons for that substantial improvement in his field goal percentage: (1) He's a much better shooter now, and (2) also a larger share of his shots are close to the basket now.
James won the NBA MVP in each of his last two seasons in Cleveland. He was a great player then, but the Cavs used James as more of an on-ball point forward. Then-Cavs coach Mike Brown was often criticized for his simplistic offensive sets, which involved James handling the ball and little else. Brown — who failed to engineer an offense that optimized LeBron — was often derided as "the only coach in the NBA who could stop LeBron James." That may be unfair, but those teams failed to win a title, and when you compare his shooting patterns in Cleveland to his patterns in Miami, there are striking differences. Some of these differences have to do with changing teammates or shifting strategies, and the maturation of the player. But, no matter how you slice it, the changes are profound.
In James's last season in Cleveland his shot chart resembles that of a point guard. His clusters of shooting activity are similar to those of Kyrie Irving or Chris Paul. James was very active in front of the basket and along both wings, where his game featured a lot of off-the-dribble 3s and long 2s. Although he shot 50 percent from the field, there was virtually no post game, and aside from a cluster at the rim, there wasn't much activity close to the basket. He was perimeter-oriented.
Lost in the hubbub of James's signing with Miami were the strategic implications of integrating the league's reigning MVP into an organization with different leadership, different philosophies, and superstar teammates. James was already the NBA's Swiss Army knife — but the Cavaliers coaching staff only knew how to utilize the bottle opener. Before he landed in Miami, the Heat coaching staff was already hard at work engineering stratagems that would optimize James's unique skill set. One thing was clear: He would handle the ball less and assume a less central role on the court.
In his first year in a Heat uniform, James took fewer 3s and was much more active in the paint, but he was still spending a lot of time away from the basket. His early Miami patterns were similar to his Cleveland patterns: no hint of a post game; too many long 2s; his game was still too perimeter-oriented. And after losing the 2011 NBA Finals, James and coach Erik Spoelstra were more determined than ever to tweak their offensive approach.
According to Spoelstra, "It took the ultimate failure in the Finals to view LeBron and our offense with a different lens. He was the most versatile player in the league. We had to figure out a way to use him in the most versatile of ways — in unconventional ways. It seems like a 'duh' moment now, but we had to go through the experiences and failures together."
In the last game of the 2011 Finals, James was almost listlessly loitering beyond the arc, hesitating, shying away, and failing to take advantage of his freakish stature. His last shot of those Finals was symbolic: an ill-fated 25-foot jump shot from the outskirts of the right wing — his favorite 3-point shot location that season. The next morning, newspapers and blogs didn't forget to remind us that James wasn't a clutch player. Although few would admit to it now, countless media personalities took the opportunity to opine that LeBron James simply didn't have "what it takes" to win championships in this league.
But something was about to change.
That loss, and maybe some of those demeaning characterizations, fueled one of the greatest and most important transformations in recent sports history. James was distraught, but somehow channeled that into ferocious dedication to his craft. Spoelstra was perplexed and desperate to correct course; he told me, "Shortly after our loss to Dallas in the Finals, LeBron and I met. He mentioned that he was going to work on his game relentlessly during the offseason, and specifically on his post-up game. This absolutely made sense for us. We had to improve offensively, and one of the best ways would be to be able to play inside-out with a post-up attack."
It's no secret where and when James first worked on his low-post game. Fueled by that loss to the Mavs, he went to Houston in the summer of 2011 to learn from a master: Hakeem Olajuwon.
"I wanted to get better," James said of his decision to work with Olajuwon. "I wanted to improve and I sought out someone who I thought was one of the greatest low-post players to ever play this game. I was grateful and happy that he welcomed me with open arms; I was able to go down to Houston for four and a half days; I worked out twice a day; he taught me a lot about the low post and being able to gain an advantage on your opponent. I used that the rest of the offseason, when I went back to my hometown. Every day in the gym I worked on one thing or I worked on two things and tried to improve each and every day."
Translating new moves developed in offseason workouts into actual in-game NBA improvements is deceptively difficult. James knew that working on practice moves in the gym was only half the battle.
"The biggest thing isn't how much you work on things, it's 'Can you work on something, then implement it into a game situation?'" James says. "Can you bring what you've worked on so much and put it out on the floor with the finished product? I was happy that I was able to do that and make that transformation."
After his summer workouts, James checked in with Spoelstra to let him know about his summer project. "Spo and I had a conversation. I told him how hard I worked on my low-post game. I knew we needed low-post scoring; we were more of a perimeter-oriented team my first year here, the year we lost the Finals, and I knew I had to get better, and in order for us to get better we had to be more efficient in the low post, so I took that approach."
It worked. James emerged from that summer transformed. "When he returned after the lockout, he was a totally different player," Spoelstra says. "It was as if he downloaded a program with all of Olajuwon's and Ewing's post-up moves. I don't know if I've seen a player improve that much in a specific area in one offseason. His improvement in that area alone transformed our offense to a championship level in 2012."
James's shot selection in the 2011-12 campaign was completely different, and completely dominant. For the first time in his career, his game was heavily asymmetric. James spent a lot more time on the left side of the court than the right, especially down on the left block, a spot that he now refers to as his "sweet spot." He took fewer 3s and spent most of his time closer to the basket. Good things happen for Miami when James is in the post and near the basket. Not only is he his team's leading scorer, he's its best passer and its best rebounder. LeBron's migration to the left block not only helped his scoring efficiency, it opened up space elsewhere for spot-up shooters like Shane Battier. When you study his most common shot locations before and after the Hakeem trip, it's almost like you're looking at two different players.
It's not hard to find people around the Heat who will tell you that the summer following that Finals loss to Dallas is what transformed James from a runner-up into a champion. Up through those 2011 Finals, James had yet to fully take advantage of his size and the inherent matchup nightmares he brings to every game. Battier says James is far better at exploiting that fact now.
"He understands that he's got a physical mismatch pretty much every night, and the best place to take advantage of that is on the block," he says. "He's worked at that. Scoring on the block is not a right in this league, you have to have a game down there, and he's worked on that. Now he's got a few moves that are really tough to stop down there."
The 2011 trip to Houston, and subsequent adjustments, obviously worked. The Heat beat the Thunder in the Finals, and LeBron was named the MVP of both the regular season and the Finals. But James wasn't satisfied. He recommitted himself to improving even more in the summer of 2012. This season, LeBron still loves the left block, but he's also introduced a few more tricks.
This season he's back to shooting 3s and fewer midrange shots.
"You know, I changed. I didn't shoot many 3s last year, I kind of played more in the post, and more in the midrange, but I felt like I worked on 3s enough this past offseason that I could make another change — and the least efficient shot in our game is the midrange shot — so I thought maybe I could move it out, improve my 3-point shooting, continue to work on my low-post scoring, and then leave the midrange to be my next journey."
James told me that when he was working on his 3s, he'd punish himself until he met a lofty set of self-enforced shooting milestones.
"It's work," James says. "It's a lot of work. It's being in workouts, and not accomplishing your goal, and paying for it. So, if I get to a spot in a workout and want to make eight out of 10, if I don't make eight of 10, then I run. I push myself to the point of exhaustion until I make that goal. So you build up that mentality that you got to make that shot and then use that in a game situation — it's the ultimate feeling, when you're able to work on something and implement it."
Last year James achieved that ultimate feeling by developing and implementing that left-block game. This season he's doing it with his much-improved long-range shot and his continued dominance attacking the basket and finding open shooters. "Our team is built around perimeter attacking, getting to the rim, and when guys clog up the paint, we're able to kick it out for 3s."
James is also a very good passer. Using optically tracked performance data from the SportVU system, we can start to visualize this vital aspect of his game. LeBron's dominance near the basket forces defenses to collapse in upon him, which opens up shots along the perimeter. The Heat decorate the perimeter with some of the league's most elite spot-up shooters, including Ray Allen and Battier. James is highly aware of the whereabouts of these teammates, and he's always cognizant of who might be open where and when. As a result, he commonly fires long passes to spot-up shooters in the corners as soon as he notices a collapsing defender.
The reintegration of his own 3-point shot is justified in part by James's newfound comfort. He's shooting 39 percent from 3-point range this season, far and away the highest such mark in his career. In Cleveland, James was frequently forced to create his own shot and rarely had good catch-and-shoot chances. That's different now. In fact, when we look at the SportVU data to see where he spends his time on offense, there are four distinct pockets of space.
Three of these areas are, unsurprisingly, on that dominant left side — on the wing beyond the arc, on the elbow, and on the block — but there's one anomalous spot on the right. James spends a surprising amount of time in the right corner, a spot usually reserved for spot-up shooters like Battier or Rashard Lewis. LeBron says, "Our offense puts me in the right corner sometimes; in one of our sets I'm kind of in the right corner, or I'm running in transition and D-Wade is handling the ball so I'm kind of giving him space." Although the sample remains small, James is hitting an obnoxious 53 percent of his shots from that right corner. The league's most overqualified spot-up shooter is hitting those shots at an elite rate and providing yet another way for his team to succeed.
Simply put, LeBron James remains both the NBA's most valuable and its most versatile player. He is acutely aware of his own game and his team's strategy. He continues to find new ways to integrate his own evolving talents with those of his teammates, and he makes everyone better in the process. While it's simple to label James a physical freak with outrageous basketball talents, that sells his progress, work ethic, and intelligence short. LeBron James is a basketball nerd who just happens to possess once-in-a-generation talent.
Special thanks to Ryan Warkins at STATS for his assistance on this story.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Prominent Nintendo Switch leaker King Zell hints at a huge Nintendo Switch announcement to come soon. What's more, he hints that it'll be as big as getting "Mario on a PlayStation console". Given the timing and the context, this could mean Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Switch. So what are the chances? Here's more on the latest Nintendo Switch rumors.
Nintendo Switch Rumors – Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Switch?
Recent rumors have surfaced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Nintendo Switch could possibly come true. This comes in the wake of the announcement of The Master Chief Collection on Steam and PC. Soon, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4, and Halo: Reach will make their way to both Steam and the Windows Store. But will it also come to Switch?
The rumors began when King Zell hinted at a huge Nintendo Switch announcement coming on the Resetera forums. King Zell is a leaker with a strong track record, previously leaking the correct date for the last Nintendo Direct amongst other Nintendo news.
His initial post suggests there's at least one game coming to Switch that wouldn't have been possible a few years ago.
He follows this up with "It wasnt possible, like seeing Mario in a PlayStation console."
With the recent Halo announcement, this set off many rumors of Halo: The Master Chief Collection coming to Switch. Notably, some of King Zell's previous posts also make hints about Halo.
Of course, this doesn't confirm that we'll get Halo for Switch. It could also be a PlayStation exclusive such as Uncharted or another Microsoft property such as Banjo-Kazooie. However, it does seem some huge third-party titles will come to the Switch soon. We could potentially get more news at the upcoming GDC 2019 conference.
Master Chief in Super Smash Bros Ultimate?
While there's no guarantee that we'll get Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Switch, it would ignite a very exciting possibility if it did.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate still has 4 new DLC characters to be announced. It's rumored that one will be a Microsoft character. And while Smash Bros Ultimate leaks mention names like Minecraft Steve and Banjo-Kazooie, Master Chief in Smash Bros would be massive for fans.
If Halo does come to the Switch, Master Chief in Super Smash Bros is a real possibility. If not in this DLC Pack, he could make one in the future.


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Final Countdown: Android Countdown Timer Widget & App| 14 July 2013 |
Final Countdown is one of the easiest to use Android countdown timer app we've seen. You just need to add different events to the app and it shows a countdown timer on your Home Screen to make sure you never forget that event(s). Let's create an event and review Final Countdown features. To create an Event, tap the Plus icon on the top right and then other options are as follows:
1. Name: Write a name for the countdown event
2. Date & Time: Set the Ending time for countdown. If you don't like to scroll the numbers, simply tap it and write the number for Day and Year
3. Recurring: specify if the event is an repeating event or not? you can set to repeat Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly
4. Reminder: It reminds you from 5 mintues before the event to 2 days before the event. You can also change the Alarm ringtone
5. Skin: You can customize the countdown skin or choose from 12 default skins. Available customizations are: Changing the color of digits, background, and border. You may also use a picture from gallery to set as the countdown background.
6. Tap the Save icon and you should now see the new event in the list
Timer tab lets you create a timer, and it rings as soon as the timer reaches Zero.
Now go to your Widget lists, and Add one of two Final Count Down Home Screen Widgets. The only difference is about the size, which are 2×1 and 4×1.
When adding the widget, the list of added events appear and you need to tap one of them to add it to your home screen. The home screen widget shows the remaining seconds, minutes, hours, and days. If you tap the widget you can see how many days, hours, minutes, seconds, or milliseconds are remained to end the countdown (For example 4921 hours, or 295271 minutes). You can also share the status of the counter. It sends screen shot with the details about remaining time to end the event.
Note that you can add as many timers as you want on your Home Screens and there is no limitations. It is really simple, easy to use, useful and if you are looking for a countdown timer, you just found the best app.
Download Final Countdown from Google Play


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by Praveen Dev
(Bangalore, India)
Young Prakash was an introvert. He loved to live in the world of fantasy. He was five feet tall, with a lean build. The specs with black frame always rested a little below his eyebrows. It was his habit to look out alternatively through the lens of the specs and above the specs.
Comments for Art and Time
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Grid computing is a noteworthy topic, particularly this week, with formation of the Enterprise Grid Alliance by Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, and others.
Platform Computing has been providing software to enable development of grids and is watching the activities of the Enterprise Grid Alliance with interest. Recently, InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill discussed grid computing with Platform Computing's Ian Baird, vice president of marketing and chief business architect, to talk about the so-called politics of grid, standards, obstacles, and the possibility of markets emerging for compute cycles based on grids.
InfoWorld: What is your definition of grid computing?
Baird: For the purpose of the studies that we've been doing and for a broader definition around grid, because there's still considerable debate about grid, I at this point am defining grid or working on a definitional document at the Global Grid Forum with a number of different industry vendors, trying to find a consensus definition. We refer to grid in a very broad sense [as] any sort of distributed or cluster computing that involves the virtual pooling of IT resources.
InfoWorld: What do you mean by the politics of grid and how this has changed recently?
Baird: Last year we did a study on the market and asked some 50-plus multibillion-dollar corporations, the CIOs and others, about the issues or barriers to grid computing. One of the biggest barriers that we discovered was that there is a group of what we call non-technical issues related to grid computing, and effectively that turned out to be organizational issues or what we described as "the politics" of grid. The issue there is really that people are unwilling to share their resources.
What companies built out, in many cases, is a very siloed world of compute resources, where one department or one group has their set of compute resources and therefore their particular jobs that support their particular business department and that's it. And if you're going to deploy a grid, then you want to start connecting these various departments and start harnessing the resources across multiple groups and tapping into the power that the aggregated virtualized consolidated resources bring.
In the case of politics, then, what happens is most people feel -- and this came out in our study last year and again this year -- is that the politics are a significant issue. Last year, 89 percent of the respondents to the study said that organizational politics were an issue for grid computing, that people are afraid that they will lose control or access to their resources. People felt that there are risks associated with enterprise deployment of compute resources, they felt the risk of loss of budget or dollars, loss of priority for their projects, etc. In those contexts then, there enters politics and people making reasons why they can't share their resources, why they can't aggregate them and virtualize them. And that's what we call the politics of grid.
What we did then this year was a follow-on study to that study last year, and asked -- have the organizational politics around grid become more or less prohibitive this year versus last year? And the finding was in the study that 43 percent -- and this was of a new group of CIOs, some 100 CIOs that we surveyed -- said that it was less prohibitive. Forty-three percent said that it was less prohibitive, 14 percent said it was more prohibitive, and 43 percent said there was no change. For those that said it was less prohibitive, they emphasized the reasons why the barrier or the politic is coming down is that there's greater awareness and emphasis on grid and understanding of it at the executive level. It's a business decree: thou shalt do it. And they do it. And other parts of the thing companies are starting to understand is that using grid actually breaks down the barriers between the businesses and the silos and gives people more access, not less access, to the resources.
InfoWorld: What do you see as the major benefits of grid?
Baird: Grid offers a variety of significant benefits. On the bottom line profit enhancement, we're talking about taking IT capital expenditure reductions and IT operational expenditure reductions. So you're taking cost out of the equation. On the flip side, and offering a much bigger ROI, is the top-line revenue enhancement, and this is when you are using the grid technology to accelerate the time to discovery -- you are accelerating and improving business processes and operations, you are enhancing applications and the way that those applications perform such that the time to discovery, the time to result, the outputs are done in a more often systematic, effective, and obviously more shortened timeframe.
And if I take this a little further, with our clients we have done a deeper dive to understand the kind of net grid impacts that people are seeing on average. Typically we see with our clients, they're telling us this, that they reduced hardware and software capital spending by between 20 and 40 percent after deploying a grid. That relates to the annual cost of the server, etc. They also reduce or reallocate an IT admin headcount fully loaded with compensation and everything in there of between five and 10 percent. And then they also reduce IT operation spend, the annual cost per server, as it relates to the support costs and the percent of the asset use and the plant and equipment cost reduction. And they are seeing between 20 and 30 percent typically after deploying grid technology. That comes from the bottom line.
You go to the top line then and the metrics change somewhat, and you're talking about the ability to deploy a new application faster, so to get a system up and running and a new way of doing things in a shorter period of time. Then you go to things like increasing the job or work or transaction throughput, and this is the ability to do -- generate more income from additional work output or potential revenue from faster time to results or time to market. By increasing their work or job throughput or their transaction throughput, they get these significant gains. They are typically seeing between 10 times to 25 times, on average, increase in job or work or transaction throughput.
Another area that you see top-line ROI is the service-level agreement delivery. Typically, after deploying a grid, [users] are seeing that they're losing virtually no jobs. Percent of unplanned down time is virtually nil. The quality of service and the percent of the quality of service increase has been going up significantly. Another area is increased IT resource utilization, so the actual IT resource and the utilization of that resource by the various parties that are drawing on it have gone up by 25 to 75 percent on average.
InfoWorld: What do you see as the technical obstacles grid faces?
Baird: There are a variety of obstacles for grid computing. There are technical capabilities and the technology is existing today to deliver grid computing without virtually any change. However, to get broader-scale widespread adoption of grid, there's going to be additional work required. And one of those technical areas, or a couple of those technical areas, relate to standardization.
So grid is about inherently heterogeneous environments being integrated together, being consolidated, virtualized, and managed together. And therefore, if you're talking about Linux connected to NT connected to Unix or IBM hardware with HP hardware with Sun and different applications, then standards are going to be key for how all this interoperability goes on. Standards related to security are going to be key as you move forward.
The next area is that not all applications today can work on a distributed computing environment. That means you need to be able to grid-enable these applications. Given that context, what we're doing today and do with our customers on a regular basis is understand which applications they do see as targets for grid computing, and then we're working with the vendors, and we've done it with some 100-plus vendors at this point, where we have grid-enabled their applications. That can be as simple as simply writing APIs or it may be more in-depth recoding and changing of the technology that is the software, in that case, to work on this middleware environment.
InfoWorld: What's happening with standards in grid?
Baird: A lot is happening in the standards space. The central place for grid computing standards is the Global Grid Forum. And in that context then there is a flagship architecture known as the Open Grid Services Architecture, which will eventually be a whole set of specifications for different elements of grid technologies working together: Things like security, how do you deal with data over grid, etc. In the same vein then, one subset or one sub-specification of OGSA has been the Open Grid Services Infrastructure.
And the OGSI specification, which was developed about a year ago, has recently been re-factored to move it to a Web services-based environment, so it is now called the Web Services Resource Framework. And that is moving from a very state-based world that OGSI was to a Web services-based world in a simpler specification that others can work with to, in one area, help people grid-enable applications, amongst other things. And so that technology or that standard has recently come to the forefront only in the last few months, and it will now migrate from the Global Grid Forum over to the OASIS standards organization, which has a more Web services focus, and we'll continue to track down that one elements of the overall open grid services architecture.
InfoWorld: How has grid made inroads in enterprise computing beyond its original use in scientific and research applications?
Baird: Grid has made huge inroads into the business side of the equation in that most of the original story around grid, as you pointed out, came from the research, academic, and the very high-performance computing side. What's now happened in the last number of years is there is a lot of business computing work so you're talking about analytical work, you're talking about simulations and other work that is happening on the business side of the house that operate under similar types of attributes to the technical computing. So they often are large batch computationally intensive, resource-intensive work that's happening. And so as we've moved from technical computing to business computing, there is almost a convergence of the needs of those two groups.
Where we're seeing now is that the business computing environment is where the technology is starting to go and where people are starting to find application for it. But this comes back to the grid-enabling of apps and what people are asking for before those apps can be really used. So you see in the study that we also just completed, we asked people which were the most important apps that they wanted to see running on the grid, and in that case people are asking for database management systems, application development environments, BI and data warehousing, etc. at the top of the stack for applications they'd like to run on the grid. And as more of these vendors are putting these applications into a format that would allow them to work in a distributed computing environment or tap into the power and the capabilities of that grid world, it's driving more and more acceptance of the grid into the enterprise space.
The other element that's happening is that as awareness and understanding and more proof cases come out and people start to hear examples of J.P. Morgan/Chase with their platform technology saving millions of dollars by deploying it and getting far faster and more effective outputs, that drives it into the enterprise computing side in a very significant way.
InfoWorld: Do you see a market emerging for compute cycles generated by grid, similar to the electric power grid in which compute cycles would be sold off?
Baird: Yes. We actually look at grid and its ultimate development basically across sort of a three-step process. And the first stage we're actively involved in at this point is what we call the enterprise grid, which is a grid inside the firewall. So inside a corporation, they're sharing the compute resources across the corporation, across possibly large geographic boundaries, but still inside the corporation.
A partner grid then is the next phase which typically is grids across mutually trusting organizations. They likely set up a VPN or use certificate authority-type mechanisms to be able to secure themselves, but they're sharing resources. That is a fairly early stage for the partner grids at this point because there's a lot of standards and security issues and also just political issues that have to go on when you start going outside of an organization.


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–> It was only a month ago that I was traveling across Europe in a coach bus filled with hung-over 18-35 year-olds from all over the world. I was one of only two Americans on the tour and one of only five in the I'm-closer-to-thirty-than-I-am-to-eighteen category. I was one of two Jewish people, and the only person on the tour who worked in entertainment. I was out of my element and I liked it. I went on the tour for a break from my normal life in Los Angeles. Many of my travel companions were nothing like me, ranging from the gothic-all-black-clad friendly Australian to the gangster-rap-loving twenty-year-old German, and I had the best time getting to know them. My experience was unique and I saw, heard and realized things that were completely new to me. Here are just a few:
|Cobblestone Streets of Innsbruck, Austria
The food at European service stations is way better than American ones
|My bed in London – at least this one was made!
Men on Vespas are way sexier than men on motorcycles
|Better have a Euro if you gotta go!
|Pizza in Italy
|Crepes in Paris
|Fondue in Switzerland


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Snowbound with him for days in his beautiful home high in the Rockies, she finds herself powerfully attracted to him. But there are things about him that mystify her, filling her with apprehension. Who is Michael Tyler? Why does he live in such a secluded spot and guard his private life so carefully? What secret—or secrets—is he hiding?
Filled with unexpected twists and surprises, Nocturne is a page-turning, haunting, and deeply romantic story of forbidden love that will grab your heart and not let go.
Vanguard Press so loved Dracula, My Love, they asked me to write a steamy, contemporary romantic novel for them featuring a vampire. I was thrilled to comply. Nocturne is a passionate love story about two wounded souls who, for four magical days, find shelter together from a raging storm, both literally and figuratively. I knew at once that my hero, Michael Tyler, had to be British. He was thrilling to conceive because even though the story takes place today at Michael's retreat in the Colorado mountains, he could be young and gorgeous yet centuries old—and thus be the kind of cultured, highly accomplished, dashing gentleman with a luscious accent of whom I'm so fond of writing. I believe that a vampire retains his humanity, so adding the paranormal element to this decent, charismatic hero just made him that much more compelling to write about. There's a reason Michael lives alone in this secluded spot; he wages a constant struggle against his darkest desires not to harm anyone. Both Nicole and Michael are running from their past, and Michael has a great deal to atone for, but through his character and actions, he shows us the power of redemption. He is brilliant, tender, and extremely romantic; a master pianist, among other artistic skills, who has taught himself to communicate with horses—which I find sexy, even if his very touch didn't make Nicole tremble with desire… And about the sex: it's guaranteed to curl your toes. I think vampire sex should be the best sex a woman's ever had. After all, they've had centuries to practice! (read the whole blogpost HERE)Syrie had already mentioned Richard Armitage in my interview and in her February Newsletter, and clearly HE was the Michael she had in her mind while writing Nocturne. I read it and my suspicions proved correct.
I had never loved a vampire before, but if this vampire looked like RA and was like Syrie said in her presentation I couldn't resist. I didn't. Totally caught in the romance, I forgot my previous prejudices. I liked the story and its hero.
Syrie James's skill at making her narration visual helped, she's also a successful screenwriter and that means a lot. Try to figure out this scene in your mind, then, tell me if you don't want to go on reading:
Did I like it then? Yes, it was a very pleasant reading. Easy, light and sometimes foreseeable, but a real delight, a gripping romantic tale.Nicole's heart began to beat erratically. She'd heard scary things about mountain men who'd lived too long in isolated places. Who was this guy? He seemed cultured and spoke very formally, as if he belonged in the Queen's court or in a palace surrounded by servants.What was an Englishman doing in this remote corner of the Colorado mountains, unless he was hiding from something? But if he was a killer, surely he would have murdered her already, instead of carefully tending to her wounds. Wouldn't he?"You haven't told me your name," she said, straining to keep her voice even."Haven't I? I beg your pardon. Michael Tyler.""How is it that you live up here? I thought this was national forest land.""It is. But there are pockets of private land scattered throughout.""Do you live here all year long?""I do.""By yourself, or …""I live alone."Her questions seemed to annoy him. He stood up and Nicole sensed that he was about to leave the room. In an effort to lighten the mood—or maybe just to put herself more at ease—she glanced at the grand piano and said with a forced smile, "So I take it it's either you who plays that piano, or the resident ghost?"A surprised twinkle lit his blue eyes. He sat back down in his chair with the first hint of a smile. "Definitely the ghost. Watch out for her. She plays at the oddest hours and has been known to leave candles burning in the most unlikely places.""She?""A raven-haired beauty. From her clothing and hairstyle, I deduce that she's from the previous century. Which is strange when you consider that I only built the house ten years ago."Nicole laughed. His smile was charming. His accent was so lovely, she could listen to it all day long. Maybe there was nothing to be afraid of after all…" (pp. 24-25)
First time I like a vampire. More than like, actually. Obvious, I know: he was very tall, dark haired, blue-eyed and British. And much more.


text: Jack Wood brings us up to speed with the new Eclipse Ego 10. Jack explains the reasoning behind the Ego10 and discusses how the gun is evolving to the new demands of the game; have less kick, less barrel rise, and a much smoother operation. This tech video helps explain why you should consider upgrading your EGO marker and sheds some light on the considerations Eclipse makes when they design their paintball guns. Towards the end of the video there is feedback from several pro players including Billy Bernacchia of the New England Hurricanes, Nick Slowiak from Chicago Aftershock, and Chris Hooker from VICIOUS. Check it out..


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Choosing a Top Online Casino in India – Comparing & Reviewing the Best Casinos
Choosing a Top Online Casino in India – Comparing & Reviewing the Best Casinos
Online gambling in India enjoys a huge fan following, especially with the diverse variety of choices that are available in the online casino industry. Of course, nothing can beat the sheer excitement and experience of visiting an actual casino; but unfortunately, such a luxury is out of reach for a majority of players in India. In most cases, an online operator is the only option for Indian gamblers, which is why we continue to witness an exponential rise in the popularity of online casinos in India over the past decade.
The Importance of Online Casino Reviews
Online casinos are part of the multi-billion-dollar gambling market, where several leading brands and smaller companies compete for domination of one of the most promising markets in the world. The main advantage of having access to a large collection of websites is that players have the privilege of selecting their favourite casino site according to their preferences. If you are not satisfied with the services of a particular operator, you can always opt for alternatives.
Of course, choosing a reliable company is a gamble in itself, as players are inundated with offers, not all of which are by trustworthy websites. Even seasoned veterans face a threat from dubious operators, where fraudulent agents look to make insane profits through malicious financial activities. It is also not financially feasible for punters to adopt the trial-and-error method to find a reliable operator, as the money and time spent on such activities can be better used for more productive ventures.
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The best option to find a reputed operator is to read through trusted casino reviews and actual customer testimonials, where it is possible to learn all the ins and outs of a company before gambling. At TopOnlineCasinos.in, we take up the responsibility of reviewing the top casino operators on the market in order to offer you the best casino website options for online gambling in India. We compare different aspects of companies by putting them through their paces, and will only make a recommendation based on our real-world findings and personal experience.
Why Should You Read Our Casino Reviews?
There are tons of reasons why you must make it a priority to read our online casino review before choosing a company. Making a gamble with your hard-earned money (pun intended) is not worth the risk, as losing money at the table is not the same as losing money to a fraudulent casino. Every casino game has a house-edge that makes it more favourable for the house, but if you are choosing a scam operator, the odds are 100% in favour of the venue. Therefore, here are some top reasons why you should read our reviews:
– We subject casinos through a comprehensive evaluation process to find all the pros and cons of the company.
– We only recommend the most trusted online casinos that are licensed and regulated by a dependable authority.
– Our online casino comparison covers all the different aspects of a service provider and is one of the best in the market.
– We determine whether a casino accepts players from India and if the company supports INR (the Indian Rupee) as an accepted currency for transactions and wagering.
– We only recommend safe online casinos that have a secure platform and will analyse all the security and encryption protocols that are adopted by the casino.
|Country/Continent||United States of America & Canada||Central & Latin America||Asia||Europe||India|
|Population||350 Million||42 Million||4.5 Billion||750 Million||1.35 Billion|
|Average Gambling Volumes||$80 Billion||$10 Billion||$400 Billion||$25 Billion||Less than $5 Billion|
|Legality of Online Casinos||Yes, through licensed operators||Yes||Yes, in some parts||Yes||Yes|
Factors That We Consider When Ranking Rating Online Casino Sites
We take the matter of online casino reviews quite seriously, as we realise that the difference between a great company and a scam operator is quite significant for a gambler. Choosing a reliable service provider can indeed increase a player's prospects of enjoying a great payday. For the best online operator experience, companies must offer the right combination of services and have a pretty reliable platform. In the next paragraphs, we will list the criteria that we use to gauge an online casino so that you also know what to look for when choosing a website.
Layout & Design of the Website
Let's be honest here; would anyone ever be impressed by a website that does not pay proper attention to its layout, design, and user interface? Modern website designs have evolved to such an extent that they are now capable of replacing standalone installable apps for most gaming platforms. The design capabilities have improved so much that there is never an excuse for a company to design a shoddy website that does not give any consideration to the actual user experience.
While reviewing the design of a operator's official website, we evaluate the overall layout and the ease of finding all the relevant information at a single glance. Of course, companies may try to display promotions, bonuses, and the services in general, but the website must offer vital information to its users in a clear and concise manner. We also prefer sites to provide a navigation link that offers easy access to all the internal pages, and pages that provide information about their regulatory licenses, their verified address, and the contact information. We have come across online casino websites where companies deliberately conceal important information by making it hard to access, and we indeed call out these companies in our reviews.
Registering for an Account
Every company is committed to attracting the maximum number of players through their online casino sites, but the process of registration can vary according to the policies of each operator. The best casino sites on the market have a convenient and straightforward registration process to offer an uncluttered registration interface, but we have also come across websites that have a highly complex registration page that can be tedious for the average user.
Bonus on Deposits & Wagering Requirements
The best gambling sites offer remarkable bonus programs and promotions that enable players to increase their chances of winning extra money. There are different types of bonuses on offer, and often a bonus deal would be intended for a particular game category, like slots tournaments, for example, or special live games bonuses. Online gambling is one of the very few industries that offer the chance of earning up to 200% of the deposit amount as free money, without taking any risks at the table.
Of course, some terms and conditions apply to each bonus offer. Most often, a promotion would have validity which is the period during which you can claim the bonus; and wagering requirements which specify how many times you need to play through the bonus amount before you can withdraw the bonus and winnings made from it. You also need to keep in mind the weight contribution of each game towards the rollover of the bonus. Players must complete the minimum betting requirement before requesting a withdrawal, which can be a setback for those who are looking to cash out their winnings at the earliest instance.
In our reviews, we examine the different bonus offerings in the industry to provide a comprehensive picture of the promotional programs offered by the leading online casinos in India. We will also attempt to find out the minimum wagering requirements, and any other aspects of the bonuses that may impact the user experience.
The Choice of Games
To play casino online, the main aspect for consideration should be the choice of games and the variety on offer. Although the industry is continually evolving in terms of the variations in online gaming, classics such as online roulette gambling, blackjack, video poker, craps, slots, and baccarat are still highly popular among players. Still, companies are proactive in their efforts to develop new and innovative variations to keep it exciting and fresh.
Some online operators develop in-house versions of popular games, and such games may be trademarked to give the operators an edge over the competition. It is also not uncommon for companies to concentrate on a single game, as they seek to become an authority in that particular niche. Therefore, the choice of a casino can play a huge role in determining the freedom to choose your favourite games, and even enjoy some novelty features while you are at it.
There are some risks associated with the large number of games offered by a venue, as it can become difficult for players to keep track of the time and money that they spend on online gambling. Fortunately, a majority of our recommended operators have several tools in place to deter their customers from an addictive gambling behaviour, and even offer access to third-party service providers for players to seek help if things get out of hand.
Gambling Features & the Overall User-Experience of the Platform
With more than two decades of experience in the online gaming industry, we have witnessed the evolution of platform design from the early 2000s to the latest gaming software available on the market. Casinos used to depend heavily on download platforms in the past, as desktop interfaces were the only option among gamblers. However, players now have the choice of opting for different types of online interfaces, especially with the availability of smartphones and tablets.
Almost all top online casinos have made the transition to web-based online platforms, which offer access to games through a web browser. Contrary to popular misconception, most companies don't have their own gambling software, as their platforms are usually powered by third-party software providers. Only a handful of mainstream operators continue to use a proprietary casino platform, as most gambling websites have license deals with casino software developers. It is not uncommon for companies to use multiple providers in order to feature a more diverse game catalogue.
A downloadable desktop platform does have its distinct pros and cons, as do online web-based interfaces. A downloadable casino may feature more games than its web browser counterpart, including resource-intensive live games, but at the expense of more system resources. Downloadable apps are also more reliable and have fewer lags than web applications, but web applications are slicker in comparison. Desktop apps are only available on a single device, and it can be tricky to access your games if you are on the move. Browser-based apps are easily accessible through a browser and can be bookmarked for quick access.
We review every aspect of a gambling platform, such as the ease of use, availability of downloadable/web-version of the app, choice of games, playing options, and other attributes that contribute to an enjoyable gaming experience. The most popular software providers in the industry include RealTime Gaming, Microgaming, Net Entertainment, Playtech, Evolution Gaming, Cryptologic, Novomatic, and more. Below is an online casino comparison table that categorises companies according to the software that powers their gaming interface:
Mobile Access Through Online Casino Apps
Almost all web platforms can be accessed on a mobile device's web browser, due to their responsive designs, but companies may provide mobile apps exclusively for Android and iOS users. Although Google is a bit hesitant about hosting real money online casino apps on their Play Store, Apple has very few such restrictions. Therefore, you can easily download the iOS betting app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch from the App Store through the official handle.
Of course, Apple may amend its policies for some countries, where they are not authorised to publish gambling apps for their citizens. Apple certainly reserves the right to alter its iOS apps, content guidelines, and any other usage policies, depending on geo-imposed restrictions. On the other hand, Android users may be offered a standalone Android app through the official casino website, or players may be asked to visit the mobile version of the web platform through their mobile browser. It must be noted that Google Play Store does offer access to real-money gambling apps for users in the UK, Ireland, and France, where online gambling is a legal and licensed activity.
Our reviews will contain a detailed analysis of the mobile app options offered by a particular operator, and whether they are in line with our expectations. We also evaluate the reliability aspects, the performance levels, and the overall user experience on both smartphones and tablets, as the apps can have different layouts for different screen sizes. We perform a hands-on evaluation of the mobile apps on multiple devices so that you can have the most comprehensive picture about using the apps on your particular mobile device.
Live Casino Options & the Variations of the Games
Even the most advanced online platform that has the best graphics, the largest collection of games, and varied playing options, can sometimes fall short of delivering the thrill of betting on a live table at a local operator. The human factor in a live setting creates a sense of involvement and brings immediacy, which is why seasoned gamblers rely on live streaming casinos for satiating their online gambling needs. High rollers and VIPs in particular make it a priority to gamble online through live tables with larger limits; however, such an option is also available for low rollers.
A live casino uses web streaming technologies to telecast a game in real time, allowing users to place bets and chat with the dealer for an experience that comes closest to a land-based casino environment. The biggest brands' websites and mobile apps now feature a live lobby where you will find different versions of card and table games available in various languages and at wide betting ranges.
Live dealer games are either broadcast from a purposefully built studio or streamed online from a land-based casino where virtual players can place bets alongside actual visitors through the live streaming service. In the dedicated studios, the set is designed to replicate a brick-and-mortar casino. Live streaming offers the same experience as your local casino, and the different camera angles and functionalities like the live chat option add to the social experience.
The top operators in the industry have extremely low limits for their live tables that start from just $0.10. In some cases, live online casinos are more cost-effective than their comparable land-based casino counterparts where table limits can sometimes make recreational players feel frozen out. Therefore, a live casino online is far superior, especially with the modern streaming protocols and fantastic software that creates an almost casino-like experience. We only recommend companies that have the best live games in the business, as most mainstream casinos have the option of offering live streaming to their clients in different parts of the world, including India.
Regulation & Licensing Information of the Operators
Trusted online operators can make a world of difference to the player, as we believe that choosing a licensed operator is the best option for safeguarding your money and your winnings. Safe online casinos are those that operate with valid gaming licenses, which are issued by government-authorised agencies in some of the most reputed jurisdictions from around the world. A large number of online casinos have regulatory clearances from gaming authorities that are located in the US, the Caribbean, the UK, Europe, and several parts of the Asia-Pacific region.
Signing up with a licensed operator will not only guarantee the safety of your funds but can also ensure a fair and transparent gaming experience that generates completely random results. We always consider regulation and licensing to be at the top of our priorities while reviewing an online casino, and we make it a point to recommend only licensed operators to our readers. We also look for other attributes such as third-party auditing of financial transactions, the fairness of games (random outcomes), eCOGRA seal of approval, membership with groups such as GambleAware, responsible gaming, and other factors that point towards the operator's willingness to be subjected to independent scrutiny.
Company Information – Analysing the Core of the Business
We would only recommend websites that are honest about their company structure, such as the location & physical address, prominent figures in management, licensing information, and any other vital details that relate to the organisation. A company that does not divulge in such information is quite clearly trying to hide something. We always dig deep to uncover all the relevant information about an operator, as it is the right of every player to have a good understanding of the company before accessing their services. We also believe that it is only fair for a gambler to be concerned about the safety and security aspects of a company before making a deposit, as it will help them stay safe from scams or fraudulent entities.
House Edge & Payout Rates
We are aware that players may be somewhat uneasy about the fairness of the house odds in online casinos. Players can be doubtful of the antics of a company, especially when it comes to stacking the odds against the player by tampering with the software and displaying unfavourable outcomes. Such an instance is where RNG comes to the rescue of the players. RNG stands for Random Number Generator, a program that is used to generate completely random outcomes for all chance-based games at online operators. An RNG is an essential aspect of fair play in all types of online gambling houses. It is audited by independent authorities to ensure that all outcomes are purely random, and not altered in any manner.
Payout rates and house edge are more or less similar terms used to describe the house advantage and can vary for each operator. We have found out that the payout percentage for our recommended casinos is well above 90%, which means that for every $1 wagered on games, players can expect to get back at least $.90 (90 cents as Return to Player). However, if you are lucky, the meagre $1 wagered on a slots game can yield millions of dollars!
Minimum Betting Amount & Deposits
One of the important criteria for online players is to choose a casino that allows the freedom of wagering any amount of money on their favourite games. A land-based operator may not offer this flexibility, as there are strict table limits and minimum buy-in requirements. Online casinos are much more accessible for players in this regard, as the minimum table/game limits start from just $0.01, while the higher limits can vary greatly between the different games and casinos.
Regular players are limited to a maximum limit ranging between $5,000 and $50,000 for deposits, but VIP players may be able to enjoy higher limits and are decided on an individual basis. The minimum deposit requirement for online casinos is much lower, as companies allow their customers to deposit as low as $5 into their account and start playing.
Depositing and Withdrawal Options
Our online casino comparison would not be complete without touching upon another important aspect of playing at an online casino. Deposits and withdrawals are indeed a hot topic of discussion among gamblers, as there are numerous transaction laws and financial regulatory guidelines that are imposed by companies, regulators, and even nations.
All leading operators that are recommended by our experts at TopOnlineCasinos.in accept payments through credit/debit cards, e-wallets, and bank wire transfers. Players from India can also deposit/withdraw money in INR (Indian Rupees) at certain operators, which is an added advantage from a legal perspective. We also examine the withdrawal policies of each operator, to ensure that the casinos process all withdrawal requests from players without any hassles.
Our reviews contain an extensive assessment of all the payment methods offered by a operator, and whether the company employs the best security protocols to enhance the safety of online transactions. We ensure that all of our recommended operators have integrated the latest SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption technologies, so that all types of transactions, including payments/withdrawals, are kept secure from prying eyes. Always ensure that the padlock next to the address bar stays locked and is denoted in green, which means that you are dealing with a secure website. If in doubt, you can always click on the padlock to learn more about the website and its security features.
Customer Service & Client Interaction
No operator would be complete without a proper customer service channel, which must preferably be available 24/7 to cater to clients from India and across the globe. We take a look at the different customer service options available at a recommended casino, including live chat, phone numbers, emails, and web contact forms, in a bid to ascertain whether the company is indeed committed to ensuring the best in customer satisfaction. We also evaluate the professionalism of the customer care representatives, their knowledge, and their willingness to address clients' concerns proactively. Excellent independent arbitration, formal complaint protocols, and effective customer dispute resolution policies are also a part of reliable customer service.
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Gambling is an illegal activity in India, and aside from a few states and union territories where casinos are legally authorised by the Government to operate as a gambling house, betting on casino tables can attract severe penalties and even a prison sentence. India is home to an extensive underground gambling industry, where billions of rupees are wagered through illegal operators. Casinos and sportsbooks are incredibly popular among the Indian public, which is why there is such a massive demand for gambling in the country.
Despite the legal hassle faced by Indian gamblers, it is safe to play casino online to a certain extent. We can't say that it is entirely legal to access an online casino from India, but there are exceptions to this rule. Since the online gambling market is mostly unregulated in India, companies can publish their websites and offer services to Indian users, without ever setting foot in the country. Therefore, it's more of a grey area, where the Indian authorities turn a blind eye towards online companies, especially the best gambling sites that have a positive reputation.
Things only turn sour when there are any threats to the integrity of the nation, or if players or companies indulge in any activities that are deemed to be highly illegal. Suspicious financial activities such as international bank wires, money laundering, and other similar actions are also heavily scrutinised. However, if a player sticks to a rather straightforward gambling strategy, they needn't worry about the legality of playing casino games in India.
Responsible Gambling Policies Adopted by Online Casinos
Every reputable online casino has the best responsible gambling policies in place to curb under-age gambling and gambling addiction. Only players aged 18 or above are allowed to gamble at these websites, and even if an underage player gets access to these services, casinos will always verify the age and identity of their players before processing a withdrawal. Therefore, most operators can deter underage gamblers from accessing their games or any other restricted gambling products.
Online gambling websites are usually affiliated with several independent organisations such as GamCare, BeGambleAware, and the Responsible Gambling Council where gamers can seek professional help, in case they have a problem with their gaming behaviour. Companies often ask their clients to sign and accept the various responsible gambling policies that are enacted by the casino, thereby excluding or absolving the company from any risks or problems that arise from the use of their services. Therefore, as a player, you can't hold the casino or its owners responsible for any of your gambling decisions, including any financial or non-monetary losses.
Choosing Top Online Casinos in India – A Conclusion
Nowadays, players from India are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing a casino online, as countless companies cater to the Indian market. Popular gaming houses from all over the world are also cashing in on the action by launching their own versions of an online casino, thereby saturating the market with some amazing options. However, with a large number of service providers and the risk of scams being significant, it becomes difficult for a player to find the best casino sites in the market. Therefore, we would certainly advise our readers to carefully consider all of the recommendations that are provided in our online reviews, which will help you in choosing the best online casino websites for your gambling needs.


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Our positive relationships in the business community create open pathways for traineeships and apprenticeships with direct articulation to the workforce and further study. Our honours program is unique in Australia and matches graduate attributes to careers through a program of mentoring for aspiring professionals.
We foster strong partnerships with major Australian universities including, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, Griffith University and Bond University. These links enable students to experience parallel programs that combine school study with university experiences in some cases but more specifically are designed to facilitate early admissions. Our teachers provide tuition based on qualifications from doctorates to representation at Olympics and Commonwealth games.


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Borderline Personality
A Challenging but Treatable Disorder
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness that centers on the inability to manage emotions effectively. The disorder occurs in the context of relationships: sometimes all relationships are affected, sometimes only one or several.
The symptoms include: fear of abandonment, impulsivity, anger, bodily self-harm, suicide, feelings of emptiness, chaotic relationships. While some persons with BPD are high functioning in certain settings, their private lives may be in turmoil. Others are unable to work and require financial support.
Diagnostic Criteria
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self image and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6) Affective [mood] instability.
7) Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association
Officially recognized in 1980 by the psychiatric community, BPD is more than two decades behind in research, treatment options, and family psycho-education compared to other major psychiatric disorders. BPD has historically met with widespread misunderstanding and blatant stigma. However, evidenced-based treatments have emerged over the past two decades bringing hope to those diagnosed with the disorder and their loved ones.
Suicide and Self-Injury
10% of adults with BPD commit suicide
55-85% of adults with BPD self-injure their bodies
33% of youth who commit suicide have features of BPD
Heritability of this illness is estimated to be up to 68%.
Treatment Challenges
evidence-based therapies for BPD exist but need wider dissemination
about 85% of people with BPD also meet the diagnostic criteria of another mental disorder
a 30-year woman with BPD typically has the medical profile of a woman in her 60s
38% of adults with BPD are prescribed three or more medications
Economic Impacts
up to 40% of high users of mental health services have BPD
over 50% of people with BPD are severely impaired in employability
BPD is implicated in 17% of the prison population
38% of those with BPD have substance abuse/dependence disorders
Growing Support and Awareness
- NAMI raises BPD to one of its priority populations in March 2006
- Congressional Luncheon Briefing on Borderline Personality Disorder, May 8, 2007
- U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passes House Resolution 1005 on April 1, 2008, designating May as Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month
- Congressional Luncheon Briefing on Borderline Personality Disorder, May 19, 2010
- Well-known individuals are finally coming forth to help build awareness and bring hope
For additional information on BPD, please see our articles on What is BPD and A BPD Brief.
Source: Research presentations at NEABPD Conferences 2002-2013 https://www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.org


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In human skin, epidermal cells in the deeper (basal) layer are constantly dividing; these new cells then rise through the epidermal layers to the surface and flake off.
The entire epidermis renews itself every two to three weeks. Over time, our skin suffers the abuse of daily living (such as sunlight, stress, pollution). The cell turnover rate in the epidermis can slow down and dead cells on thesurface can accumulate, giving the skin a dull appearance. Cumulative exposure to sunlight causes some cells to produce more pigment, producing freckles or age spots and uneven skin tone.
Another sign of aging skin is a reduction in collagen production in the dermis (deeper skin layer), causing the skin to become thinner. As collagen and elastin break down, the skin loses flexibility and resilience. Women and men who live, work and play on the CT Shoreline enjoy the solutions and preventive measures that we offer at the Langdon Center. Photofacials, Laser Peels, Fraxel Laser Resurfacing and other skin rejuvenating treatments are preventive as well as cosmetic. They have a renewing effect by causing your skin to generate new, youthful, undamaged cells. Old, sun-damaged skin is replaced with new skin! Call The Langdon Center at
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The start of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant is another sign of cozy relations between Turkey and Russia. Turkish, Russia and Iranian leaders are to hold a summit on Syria.Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday took part in a symbolic ceremony marking the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant.
The two leaders watched cement pouring at the $20 billion (€16.3 billion) Akkuyu nuclear power plant through a video link from Erdogan's sprawling 1,100 room presidential palace in Ankara.
The joint venture already broke ground once in 2015 before being put on hold after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane along the Syrian border, causing relations between Moscow and Ankara to nosedive.
A U-turn in relations has witnessed the two countries closely cooperate on Syria and expand economic ties.
Putin and Erdogan met eight times last year and spoke often, signaling the two leaders have been able to compartmentalize their differences at a time when both countries face deteriorating relations with the West.
Energy dependency on Russia
Located in the southern province of Mersin, Akkuyu is expected to meet 10 percent of Turkey's energy needs by the time all four reactors go online in 2025. The first reactor is expected to be operational in 2023 to mark the centennial of the Turkish Republic.
Russia's Rosatom holds a 51 percent share in the project and is seeking to sell 49 percent. So far it hasn't found a buyer after Turkish companies backed out in February. Critics argue the project is not financially viable and electricity prices are too high.
Turkey already gets 53 percent of its natural gas from Russia. The two countries are also building the $12 billion TurkStream pipeline to deliver gas to Turkey and southern Europe, bypassing Ukraine.
Read more: Russia's Gazprom starts building TurkStream gas pipeline under Black Sea
The Akkuyu project has come under criticism for increasing Turkey's energy reliance on Russia. It has also run up against environmental concerns, not least because the nuclear power plant is being built in an earthquake prone area.
Russia and Turkey are also in talks for Ankara to procure the S-400 missile system. The potential purchase has come under criticism from the US and NATO because it is not compatible with alliance systems.
Read more: Turkish-Russian missile deal puts NATO on edge
Iran, Russia and Turkey talk Syria
Putin is in Turkey as part of a series of high level meetings. On Wednesday, the two leaders will be joined by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss strategy in Syria.
Read more: What foreign powers want from the Syrian war
Turkey has been one of the main Syrian rebel backers, while Iran and Russia have supported the regime in Damascus.
However, the three countries launched a serious of talks dubbed the Astana peace process early last year to try to reach a political solution to Syria's seven year civil war.
Wednesday's talks are expected to focus on humanitarian aid access and establishing "deconfliction" zones. The sides are also likely to discuss carving out zones of influence in the wake of Turkish military incursions in northern Syria.
The summit comes relations between Turkey and the United States are strained over US support for Syrian Kurdish forces.
Read more: US, Turkey on collision course in Syria's Manbij
cw/jm (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.


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Kubernetes Pod container monitoring
With over 21,000 stars on GitHub, over a thousand committers, and an ecosystem that includes Google, RedHat, Intel, and more, Kubernetes has taken the container ecosystem by storm. It's with good reason too: Kubernetes acts as the brain for your distributed container deployment. It's designed to manage service-oriented applications using containers distributed across clusters of hosts. Kubernetes provides mechanisms for application deployment, service discovery, scheduling, updating, maintenance, and scaling. But what about monitoring Kubernetes?
While Kubernetes has the potential to dramatically simplify the act of deploying your application in containers – and across clouds – it also adds a new set of complexities for your day-to-day tasks of managing application performance, gaining visibility into services, and your typical monitoring -> alerting -> troubleshooting workflow.
While Kubernetes has the potential to dramatically simplify the act of deploying your application in containers – and across clouds – it also adds a new set of complexities for your day-to-day tasks of managing application performance, gaining visibility into services, and your typical monitoring -> alerting -> troubleshooting workflow.
In addition to increased infrastructure complexity, now applications are being designed for microservices, where an order of magnitude more components are communicating with each other. Each service can be distributed across multiple instances; Docker containers move across your infrastructure as needed. While before we knew how many instances we had of each service component and we knew where they were located, that's no longer the case. How does this affect Kubernetes monitoring methodology and tooling? As described on Site Reliability Engineering – How Google Runs Production Systems, "We need monitoring systems that allow us to alert for high-level service objectives, but retain the granularity to inspect individual components as needed." With that in mind, this blog is the first in a series to help you better understand the act of operating Kubernetes in production. This four-part series covers:
- Part 1 (This post): The basics of monitoring Kubernetes with open source tools, and monitoring it with Sysdig
- Part 2: Best Practices for alerting in Kubernetes
- Part 3: Troubleshooting Kubernetes service discovery via system captures
- Part 4: Monitoring Kubernetes at WayBlazer (a use case)
Understanding Kubernetes and its complexities
From the physical/infrastructure point of view, a Kubernetes cluster is made up of a set of nodes overseen by a master. The master's tasks include orchestrating containers across nodes, keeping track of state and exposing cluster control through a REST API and a UI.
On the other hand, from the logical/application point of view, Kubernetes clusters are arranged in the hierarchical fashion shown in this picture:
All containers run inside
pods. A pod is a set of containers that live together. They are always co-located and co-scheduled, and run in a shared context with shared storage. The containers in the pod are guaranteed to be co-located on the same machine and can share resources.
- Pods typically sit behind services, which take care of balancing the traffic, and also expose the set of pods as a single discoverable IP address/port.
- Services are scaled horizontally by replica sets (formerly replication controllers) which create/destroy pods for each service as needed.
- ReplicaSets are further controlled by ** deployments ** which allow you to declare state for a number of running replicasets and pods
- Namespaces are virtual clusters that can include one or more services.
- ** Metadata ** allows the use of labels and tags to mark containers based on their deployment characteristics.So just to be clear, multiple services and even multiple namespaces can be scattered across the same physical infrastructure. Each of those services are made up of pods, which in turn can consist of any number of containers. This can lead to some pretty impressive complexity in terms of monitoring even a modest Kubernetes deployment.
Let's take a look at the options Kubernetes itself provides us to help deconstruct this challenge.
How to collect Kubernetes monitoring data: open source options
Like most platforms, Kubernetes has a set of rudimentary tools that allow you to monitor your servers, and in this case the Kubernetes constructs that ride on top of physical infrastructure. The term "built-in" may be a little bit of an overstatement. It's more fair to say that, given the extensible nature of Kubernetes, it is possible for your inner tinkerer to add additional components to gain visibility into Kubernetes. Let's run through a few of these options:
- Probes
- cAdvisor
- Heapster
- Kubernetes Dashboard
- Kube-state-metrics
After that we can compare these options to using Sysdig.
Liveness and Readiness Probes
Kubernetes Probes perform the important function of regularly monitoring the health of a container or service and, in the event of an unhealthy object, taking action. Kubernetes monitoring probes allows you to arbitrarily define "Liveness" through a particular command that should be successfully executed within the Pod. You can also define the frequency with which the liveness probe is executed. Below is a simple example of a liveness probe based on running a cat command.
#Example Liveness probe for the Sysdig Blog on "Monitoring Kubernetes"
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
test: liveness
name: liveness-exec
- name: liveness
- /bin/sh
- -c
- touch /tmp/healthy; sleep 30; rm -rf /tmp/healthy; sleep 600
image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox
- cat
- /tmp/healthy
initialDelaySeconds: 5
periodSeconds: 5
#source https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-liveness-readiness-probes/
A readiness probe is a somewhat modified version of a liveness probe, which again executes a command to check if a Pod is prepared to handle traffic after (re)starting.
cAdvisor and Heapster
cAdvisor is an open source container resource usage collector. It is purpose built for containers and supports Docker containers natively. Unlike most elements within Kubernetes that operate at the Pod level, cAdvisor operates per node. It auto-discovers all containers in the given node and collects CPU, memory, filesystem, and network usage statistics. cAdvisor also provides the overall machine usage by analyzing the 'root' container on the machine. Note that cAdvisor is limited in a couple ways:
- It only collects basic resource utilization – cAdvisor cannot tell you how your applications are actually performing, only if a container has X% CPU utilization (for example).
- cAdvisor itself doesn't offer any long term storage, trending, or analysis capabilities.
In order to go further with this data, we need to add Heapster. Heapster aggregates monitoring data across all nodes in your Kubernetes cluster. Heapster runs as a pod in the cluster, just like any application. The Heapster pod queries usage information from the nodes' Kubelets, the on-machine Kubernetes agent, which in turn queries the data from cAdvisor. Heapster groups the information by pod along with including the relevant labels.
OK, now you're set, right? Almost. Heapster * also * doesn't allow you to store, trend, or alert on data. It merely makes it easier for you to collect cAdvisor data across your entire cluster. This data is then pushed to a configurable backend for storage and visualization. Currently supported backends include InfluxDB, Google Cloud Monitoring and a few others. You further must add a visualization layer like Grafana to see your data.
The Kubernetes Dashboard
A recently popular add-on to Kubernetes gives you a consistent way to visualize some of this basic data, as well as manage your environment. The Kubernetes Dashboard provides a simple way to see your environment according to Kubernetes metadata. It's got a couple advantages: basic CPU / memory data is available, and you can also take action from this dashboard.
Simply install the dashboard from kubectl, the Kubernetes command line:
$ kubectl create -f https://rawgit.com/kubernetes/dashboard/master/src/deploy/kubernetes-dashboard.yaml
and then access the dashboard on localhost on the machine where you run it: http://localhost:8001/ui.
kube-state-metrics: A complement to your setup for monitoring setup
In addition to your cAdvisor/Heapster/Influx/Grafana setup, you may also consider deploying kube-state-metrics. It's an add-on service that runs along side your Heapster setup that polls the Kubernetes API and translates characteristics about your Kubernetes constructs into metrics. Some questions kube-state-metrics would answer are:
- How many replicas did I schedule? And how many are currently available?
- How many pods are running / stopped / terminated?
- How many times has this pod restarted?
… and so on. In general, the model is to take Kubernetes events and convert them to metrics. It requires Kubernetes 1.2+, and unfortunately warns that metric names and tags are unstable and may change.
This at least gives you a sense of the steps you'd take to build reasonable monitoring for your Kubernetes environment. While we still wouldn't have detailed application monitoring ("What's the response time for my database service?"), we could at least see our underlying hosts, Kubernetes nodes, and some monitoring of the state of our Kubernetes abstractions.
Let's now take a look at Sysdig's approach to Kubernetes monitoring.
Monitoring Kubernetes With Sysdig
After talking to hundreds of Kubernetes users, it seems that the typical cluster administrator is often interested in looking at things from the physical point of view, while application developers in charge of building services tend to be more interested in seeing things from the logical point of view. Regardless of the view you're looking for, all teams want to limit the amount of work they need to do in order to instrument their system or manage data collection.
With both these use cases in mind, Sysdig Monitor's support for Kubernetes now works like this:
- By connecting to a Kubernetes' cluster API Server and querying the API (both the regular and the watch API), we're now able to infer both the physical and the logical structure of your microservice application.
- In addition, we transparently extract important metadata such as labels.
- This information is combined with our ContainerVision technology, which makes it possible to inspect applications running inside containers without requiring any instrumentation of the container or application. Instrumentation happens per node, and not per pod.
- So, with a single instrumentation point, you can monitor your hosts, networks, containers, and applications – all tagged with Kubernetes metadata. You can deploy Sysdig via a DaemonSet in Kubernetes so it's a one-step install.
- You can then visualize and alert on this data either in Sysdig Monitor's cloud service or our on-premise software based on your requirements.
Based on this, Sysdig Monitor can now provide rich visibility and context from both an infrastructure-centric and an application-centric point of view. Best of both worlds!
Let's check out what this actually looks like…
Grouping by Kubernetes Metadata
One of the core features of Sysdig Monitor is grouping. You're able to group and explore your containers based on their physical hierarchy (for example, AWS region > Host > pod > container) or based on their logical microservice hierarchy (for example, namespace > replicaset > pod > container).
Click on each of these images and see the difference between a physical and a logical grouping to monitor your Docker containers with Kubernetes context.
If you're interested in the utilization of your underlying physical resource – eg. identifying noisy neighbors – then the physical hierarchy is great. But if you're looking to explore the performance of your applications and microservices, then the logical hierarchy is often the best place to start.
In general, the ability to regroup your infrastructure on the fly is a more powerful way to troubleshoot your environment as compared to the typical dashboard.
Analyzing the response time of a Kubernetes Service
For example: by clicking on the Prod->Wordpress row in the logical table above, we automatically get a dashboard that analyzes the performance of our aggregate HTTP service, across all containers, regardless of the host or data center they are running in. One powerful overview is the * Service Response Time *: automatically aggregating service latency across all relevant containers, and then correlating that with resource utilization:
This gives us a quick analysis of if my service is performing as expected, in relation to underlying resource utilization. Now let's go deeper into the service.
Analyzing the slowest endpoints of a Kubernetes HTTP Service
Next, let's drill into specific metrics of the application itself – since this is a wordpress app acting as our HTTP service in this demo, let's take a look at the HTTP overview.
Here you see that we can now dig into:
- Most frequently used HTTP endpoints
- Slowest HTTP endpoints
- Average Connection time
- Errors
- Status Codes
Keep in mind that the pods implementing this service are scattered across multiple machines, but we can still total request counts, response times, and URLs statistics aggregated together for this service. And don't forget: this doesn't require any configuration or instrumentation of WordPress, Apache, or the underlying containers.
Similarly, if this were RabbitMQ, MySQL, Redis, Consul, Nginx or 50+ other components, we'll perform in the same way (though the metrics would be different per application of course).
Correlating Kubernetes Events
Finally, with about any metric you're examining, it might be useful to see what contextual events Kubernetes is reporting in order to see if they provide you with clues as to why your application is acting the way it is. Sysdig is automatically collecting Kubernetes events, so you can do this:
And from this view (or any other for that matter), you can easily create alerts for metrics aggregated across a Kubernetes service, as opposed to a container or node. But you can still dig down into any individual container for deep inspection – down to the process level.
Visualizing Your Kubernetes Services
The above example gives you a feel for how you'd monitor the performance of one Kubernetes service. But what if we wanted to see all our services, and more importantly how they are communicating to each other? Let's accomplish this via a topology view.
The two pictures below show the exact same infrastructure and services. The first one depicts the physical hierarchy, with a master and three nodes:
While this second one groups containers into namespaces, services and pods, while abstracting the physical location of the containers.
Hopefuly it's self-evident how much more natural and intuitive the second (services-oriented) view is for monitoring Kubernetes applications. The structure of the application and the various dependencies are immediately clear. The interactions between various microservices become obvious, despite the fact that these microservices are intermingled across our machine cluster!
The main conclusion is: if you have a non-trivial deployment, you must start thinking about monitoring Kubernetes in a way that naturally fits in with your orchestrated environment.


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The Law Firm That New Yorkers Trust
Although parents often bemoan their children's near-obsession with the latest technology, the younger generation's fixation might be extremely useful for the parent that doesn't have primary custody during a separation or divorce.
Due to the prevalence and convenience of technology such as video chatting, instant messaging, and texting, it is easier than ever for a non-custodial parent can stay in touch with their child. Studies have reflected the common sense idea that the more interaction a non-custodial parent has with their child, the easier it is to maintain a strong and healthy relationship. More recent studies, many of which were based on military families with participant parents and children thousands of miles apart, showed that additional virtual visiting or parenting time through technology resulted in stronger and happier relationships between the parties than would have otherwise existed under the same circumstances.
This can have significant implications for a parent whose children are far away. In today's mobile society, it is not uncommon for a parent to be a resident of New York City while their former spouse and children are in Atlanta or LA. Even parties with the financial means to travel often may find bridging the gap difficult.
However, many video chat programs such as Skype or Oovoo are free, as are many other instant messaging programs. What this means is that a parent can have a face to face conversation with their child outside of the in-person mandated parenting time provided for under an interim or final custody determination. With internet access, a non-custodial parent and their child can have dinner together, even while several hours away from each other. They can use the internet to play online games like scrabble, cards, or chess (or other video games, if the parent in question has the interest and capability). The Mom or Dad in question can help with homework, read a story, or sing a lullaby.
Although like with many other forms of visitation, there is room for an adversarial ex-spouse to interfere, such as by refusing to allow the child online, "hovering" during scheduled sessions, or refusing to download software, the benefits of mandating minimum amounts of virtual parenting time as a part of custody agreements are clear.
The convenience of virtual visitation, combined with the low cost and positive impact on the parent-child relationship may be why some states have actually started passing laws promoting it. In fact, Utah, North Carolina, and other states have "virtual visitation" statutes that may permit otherwise unlikely relocation where such visitation arrangements are required, spelled out, and put into place to maintain the parent-child relationship after a separation or divorce. Now, in addition to designated holidays, certain weekends, and the occasional weekday (for the non-custodial parent who lives close by), a non-custodial parent may be guaranteed to "see" and bond with their child almost every day.
Although there is no perfect substitute for being together in person, virtual parenting time is a great way to supplement a more typical custody arrangement, or make room for the parties to relocate and rebuild their lives in different places while maintaining their most important connections.
Over the past few years, New York has begun to include provisions for video chats and other forms of online contact, particularly in relocation-based custody disputes. One can only hope that New York will soon pass an actual virtual parenting time law of its own.
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We are very happy to be able to invite our audience to attend this first run of our new work, In Tall Grass, for free (though donations are as always welcome).
We think it will appeal to a very wide range of people so this could be a chance to come to an Echo Echo performance for the first time or, if you are a regular, to invite friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances along. We are hoping our little performance space will be full, so we recommend booking in advance by calling the Echo Echo office or sending a message via email or our website.
In Tall Grass has been created by the Echo Echo Ensemble under the direction of Alessandra Celesia.
Alessandra Celesia is a multi-talented artist; a very experienced performer, theatre director and film-maker. She is originally from Italy, spent time living in Northern Ireland in the late 90's and early 2000's and is now based in Paris. Echo Echo's co-founder Ursula Laeubli got to know Alessandra not long after moving to Northern Ireland in 1997 and since then we had the desire to make a production with her.
Over the past couple of years we have finally been able to gather the resources and to find occasional times to spend together exploring, playing and researching. In Tall Grass is the result of that long term and rather gentle process leading to a more intense period of creation this summer.
Alessandra's recent work has mostly been in 'new documentary'. She has been making films which invite you to the hidden, quirky, poignant stories of extraordinary, ordinary people. In Tall Grass is an extension of this practice into theatre. It is a kind of documentary theatre made of true stories from the autobiographies of the ordinary-extraordinary members of the Echo Echo Ensemble.
The work is intimate, touching, funny and tragic. As well as some dancing it includes poetry, music, singing, home movies and Soviet era costumes. The performance is accessible to anyone who shares the common human tendencies to be both ordinary and extraordinary, and to enjoy hearing other people's true stories.
Created and Performed by: Ayesha Mailey, Zoe Ramsey, Tonya Sheina, Janie Doherty, Kelly Quigley and Steve Batts.
Created and Directed by: Alessandra Celesia
Technical Manager: Barry Davis
Produced by: Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company
Running time +/- 80 minutes
Suitable for 14years+
Admission free, donations welcome. Advance booking recommended via Contact Us.
Audience Feedback
Really amazing. Powerful. Very brave. Moving. Five stars!
was moved to tears, exhilarated, never seen anything like it before, immersive and raw.
I loved everything about it. It was utterly beautiful.
Beautiful brave work, complex and emotive. I thoroughly enjoyed all the performances.
Very powerful, moving. Perfect combination of talk, song, music, dance and visual.
Extremely beautiful and moving. Made me think how rich and vibrant everyone's lives are. The unfathomable depths of all our souls. I felt glad to be alive.
New work commission supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland . With thanks to Tinderbox / ACNI Joint Sectoral Dramaturgy Project.