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It's too late now, and it's probably been too late for the last 10 years. Daft Punk, the French electronic duo who has singlehandedly dominated the press for the last month, will be wearing their robot suits for the rest of their lives. There will never be a reveal, a coming out, or a change of tone. Frat-trance superstar Deadmau5 has, for the most part, removed the cybernetic mouse head. KISS wrote Lick It Up and removed the face paint on MTV. But even now, when Homework is a 16-year old album, Daft Punk will always be a gold helmet and a silver helmet.
See also: Daft Punk-Endorsed Kavinsky Isn't A Musician, Has 30 Million YouTube Views
If Daft Punk wanted to, they could've removed their uniforms in the early 2000s without much fanfare or drama. They could still headline festivals, and tour with a giant pyramid, and they could still make gleaming, romantic, semi-vintage dance music they've become famous for. But that didn't happen, and the cover of the just-released Random Access Memories is emblazoned with the same severe iconography. It's hard to think of any outfit in music that's stayed so relentlessly dedicated to a theme over multiple decades. GWAR? Maybe The Residents?
It's clear that Daft Punk's aesthetic legacy, and PR maneuvers is born out of the retro-futuristic novelty, and perhaps they keep the suits on simply for purposes of reputation. But that only goes so far, the fact of the matter is that Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homen-Christo are almost 40, and have been hiding their public appearance for a very, very long time. The last 12 years has culturally solidified Daft Punk as a band of robots. For every show, every commercial, every photoshoot, these two men have accepted the fate of dressing up in what looks to be a very sweaty, uncomfortable outfit. That is a profound dedication, and it can't be written off as simple frivolity. Why do they make this sacrifice? Clearly Daft Punk feel they benefit from the robots, and that might make them the most self-conscious band in the world.
It seems innocuous enough, but what would the impact be if there was a human face behind a song like "Get Lucky"? Would it feel the same? Or would be just a little less intoxicating? Is it easier to fall for something graciously pulpy and populist like roller-rink disco when it comes to us from cartoon characters? And as real life humans, is it ever hard not to blush making this music? Daft Punk's only resistance to the goof is their masks. The faceless, nameless robots soak up all the attention and enthusiasm, and critics and fans alike start to regard Daft Punk on their own terms, in their own universe. Essentially Daft Punk wipe away any qualms of plasticity by engaging in maximum goof. Saying "One More Time" is too silly profoundly misses the point. But without the masks, it might become a lot easier. Without the masks, Daft Punk might be a hated band.
See also: Presented Without Comment: Daft Punk Is Playing at the House of Representatives
Daft Punk rely on their costumes because they rely on suspended cynicism. So much so that they might be actually terrified of ever breaking the fantasy. Superhero music needs to be made by superheroes, not men, and certainly not DJs. It's not to say that Daft Punk haven't created some of the most singular dance music of their generation, but instead that the public's continued, unfettered enthusiasm about their music is directly tied to their image. Nobody can ever cut Daft Punk down for being too bright or too obvious because, honestly, what else would you expect from a pair of robots? There's absolutely no doubt the world wouldn't be as excited about Random Access Memories if it was coming from just a couple of guys.
But you know what? The robots are totally worth it. If we need a giddy fantasy to trust ourselves enough to enjoy recklessly optimistic music, then they're doing God's work. Daft Punk needed to transcend their humanity for their confidence, for their message, and for their audience. They needed to create some distance from the world, in order to bring us in closer than ever. The albums just wouldn't be as magical if they were coming from planet Earth. Daft Punk dress up like robots for plenty of commercial reasons, but most of all, they do it for us.
Random Access Memories is out today.
Why EDM Is Thriving While Other Genres Are Sinking
The A$AP Rocky Drinking Game
Frank Ocean Is Boring: The Year Lifeless Music Found Critical Praise
More:Dance Music


text: In October 2009, we have created for OBI the first e-magazine from the series "The Art of Decoration: Lamps". The application presents maps, carpets, curtains, wallpapers and many valuable tips and advices regarding interior decorating and furnishing. The e-magazine contains a index of lamps (divided into categories and types) that are available in OBI stores.Besides creating the e-magazine, we were responsible for its promotion on the Internet and emission of AdTaily adverts, SEM and for contextual advertising. The e-magazine has been created in the Flash technology.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Eighty Seven Park (87 Park) in Miami Beach Where the park meets the ocean
70 Residences | 18 Floors | Expansive units & Terraces | Superb Ocean Views
Eighty Seven Park (87 Park) by Renzo Piano is a selection of private Miami Beach oceanfront residences designed to seamlessly embrace park and ocean in Miami Beach's newest neighborhood. The first residential project in the United States created by Pritzker Award-Winning architect, Renzo Piano. Located on an oceanfront 3 acres lot, the residences will be located on 1 acre while 2 acres on the north side will be a private park for the building.
Click here for the Brochure of 87 Park
Fast Facts of Eighty Seven Park Miami Beach
- Development: Terra Group and Bizzi & Partners Development
- Architectural design: Renzo Piano Building Workshop
- Interior design: Rena Dumas Architecture Interieure
- Landscape architect: West 8
- Lighting design: Lux Populi
Delivery: Q1 2018 (Construction will start in Q1 2016)
Features of Eighty Seven Park Miami Beach (87 Park Miami Beach)
87 Park offers:
- 70 Beachfront residences
- 18 Floors
Residences from the 3rd floor to 17th floor
2 Penthouse residences on the 18th floor
- Residences range in size from one to five bedrooms
- 1,000 Sq.Ft to 4,140 Sq.Ft of interior space
- Expansive terraces.
- Full-floor residences offer 360-degree views of the ocean, park, bay and city.
- Private elevator access for all units
- Units are delivered completely finished
- With the exception of the closets, which will have to be finished.
- Buyer has the choice of European-influenced kitchens and bathrooms and a wealth of interior finishes
- Kitchen cabinetry is custom made
- Options for kitchens are: Oak wood and white glossy
- Options for floors are: Oak or grey limestone
- Generous wrap-around terraces create a seamless transition from indoor to outdoor spaces
Almost all the terraces are 60% to 90% the size of the interior space.
Every unit will have an outdoor kitchen
- Rental policy will be 4 times a year with no minimum
- Parking policy
- 1 and 2 bedroom units will have 1 parking spot
- 3 bedrooms + units will have 2 spots
- Valet for the extra vehicles.
Amenities of Eighty Seven Park Miami Beach (Click here for the amenities Brochure)
87 Park offers:
The pool at Eighty Seven Park
- Pool Cabanas
- Beach lounge chairs & umbrellas
- Beach & Pool Valet
- Water sports options
- Shower areas
- Pool & Beach towel service
- Beach Cabanas
- Private gardens
- Two swimming pools
- Picnic lawn areas
- Massage services available upon request at cabanas
- Children's play area
The Fugo bar at the Pool
- Shaded beneath crips white awnings, the Fugo bar runs in a cool long line down towards the ocean. Pull up a stool while the barkeep created the perfect mix for your mood.
- Located in the pool area:
- Fresh ready-made grab n' go juices
- Yogurt and salad bar offering during set hours
- Onsite made to order juices and smoothies
- Selections for delivery to residences and pickup orders can be made via iPhone/iPad
- Renowned stylist invited throughout the year
- Hair care products
- Invited esthetician
- Space available for residents to invite their own personal stylist
- Medi-spa/dermatological treatments:
- Personal consultations/treatments
- Microdermabrasion
- Facials (i.e. dermal steam)
- Industry renowned makeup artists invited throughout the year
- Refreshment/light fare buffet with butler servic
- Coffee, tea, water, wine (delivered from Enoteca)
- Seasonal fruits
- Appointments can be made via iPhone/iPad
Soul Center Spa* Mind and body connections are formed through various treatments and experiences:
- Various types of massage (deep, mud, relaxation)
- Brain fitness
- Aquatic therapy
- Meditation
- Health coaching
- Regular classes/talks offering insight and techniques
- Well-known therapists invited throughout the year
- Gym component:
- Personal trainer
- Group walking/running sessions
- Boot camp sessions
- Various classes hosted onsite, in park and neighborhood
- State of the art equipment
- Various treatments:
- Spa manicure and pedicure
- Paraffin treatments
- Foot baths
- Waxing and threading
- Extensions (hair and eyelashes)
- Appointments can be made via iPhone/iPad
Concierge & Butler Service*
At Your Service, is based on developing a personal, face-to-face relationship, providing a variety of services tailored to the needs of each resident. Each resident will have access via their iPhone and/or iPad to reserve and request different specialties/accommodations.
- Personalized level of service according to residence type
- Information/reservations center:
- Restaurant reservations
- Hotel accommodations
- Tickets to theatre, museum, movies, art galleries
- Baby-sitting service
- Car/limo service
- Coordinate car wash/maintenance upon request
- Light groceries upon request (maximum 15 items)
- Selection and delivery to residence can be made via iPad/iPhone
- Entry/exit assistance
- Maintenance of residence while away:
- hold mail/deliveries
- water plants
- secure and supervise access to authorized personnel
Prices of Eighty Seven Park
Prices of Eighty Seven Park are subject to change. Always contact me for the latest inventory and prices. David Siddons | +1 305 508 0899 | firstname.lastname@example.com Currently prices start at:
- 1 Bedroom: $1,600,000
- 2 Bedroom: $3,900,000
- 3 Bedrooms: $6,800,000
- 4 Bedrooms: $10,700,000
- 5 Bedrooms: $15,200,000
Maintenance will be $1,72 per Sq.Ft Payment Structure at Eighty Seven Park
- 20% now
- 20% at groundbreaking
- 10% at top off
- 50% at closing (Q1 2018)
Contact me for more information about Eighty Seven Park
Please find floor plans and related news by clicking on any of the above tabs
- Bedrooms1 - 5
- Year Built2018
- Units70
- Stories18
- Average Price SqFt$0
- Average Days on Market0
- CityMiami Beach
Amenities at Eighty Seven Park
- Beach Lounge Chairs, Beach Cabanas, and Beach Towel Service
- Enoteca (wine shop)
- Fugo Bar (outdoor juice bar)
- Full-service Concierge and Butler Service
- Hair and Make-up Salon
- Library
- Private Garden
- Soul Center Spa
- Swimming Pools with Poolside Cabanas and Towel Service


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This is an archive page. What you are looking at was posted sometime between 2000 and 2014. For more recent material, see the main blog at http://laboratorium.net
The Laboratorium
March 2010
One of my students in Internet Law, Leanne Gabinelli, wrote the following in a blog post for the class, and I thought it worth passing along:
Also, I think Facebook has also completely changed the social habits of the American Teenager. No longer do teens go to parties to see their friends — in my recent observations, teens go to parties so that photos can be taken of them partying, so that those photos can be uploaded to Facebook, so that the whole school can see that so-and-so is popular, social, cool, pretty, etc.
GBS: Denny Chin Knows How to Use Google
Reuters, A Judge May Google to Confirm Intuition: Court:
A federal appeals court said it can be acceptable for a judge to conduct an Internet search to confirm an intuition about a matter of common knowledge. …
The case concerned an Internet search performed by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, whom President Barack Obama has nominated to fill a vacant seat on the Second Circuit.
Prosecutors alleged that Anthony Bari, who served 12 years in prison for bank robbery, violated terms of his release by robbing a Ridgewood Savings Bank branch in Bronx, New York.
Chin reviewed several pieces of evidence, including a bank surveillance video showing a robber who wore a yellow rain hat. A yellow rain hat was found in the garage of Bari's landlord.
Noting similarities between the hats, Chin at a hearing said he resorted to Google Inc's search engine for help. "We did a Google search," and "one can Google yellow rain hats and find lots of different yellow rain hats," he said. …
The court said that 20 years ago. "a trial judge may have needed to travel to a local department store to survey the rain hats on offer.
"Today, however, a judge need only take a few moments to confirm his intuition by conducting a basic Internet search," it added. "As the cost of confirming one's intuition decreases, we would expect to see more judges doing just that."
His work on type theory was remarkable; Hindley-Miler type inference remains one the most elegant things I've ever seen. And that was only one of his many contributions to computer science.
GBS: An Introduction to Competition Concerns in the Google Books Settlement
Rudolph J.R. Peritz and Marc Miller have written a short article with a self-explanatory title: An Introduction to Competition Concerns in the Google Books Settlement. Here's the abstract:
Google started its Google Books project in 2004 with the intent to create a digital library of the world's books. There has not been such a grand plan since students of Aristotle began to gather the world's knowledge in the Library of Alexandria some 24 centuries ago. The world's knowledge has changed. And so has its political economy. Twenty-first century public policy questions have been interjected to delay and reshape Google's project, questions that did not concern the royal sponsors of the ancient Library. This review takes up questions of competition policy raised in the United States, the corporate site for Google's virtual Library of Alexandria.
After presenting the factual background to the Google Books project and the procedural history of the current class-action lawsuit, we examine two clusters of competition issues concerning the Google Books project: First, whether a class action settlement in litigation between private parties is an appropriate vehicle for making public policy. Second, whether Google's actions are on balance anticompetitive under U.S. antitrust laws. Antitrust concerns will be given the lion's share of attention.
I'm particularly proud to post this link because Rudy is one of my colleagues and Marc is one of my students. What began as a class paper turned into a collaboration. Congratulations to Marc; this is an example of why I enjoy working with NYLS students so much.
GBS: Revised Virginia Library Agreement
I don't know how I missed this, but when the University of Virginia signed its revised digitization agreement with Google, that agreement was made public. Peter Hirtle has examined the revisions and likes what he sees. In particular, it makes the public-domain scans universally available earlier, and it makes pricing reviews for the Institutional Subscription more transparent. These aren't dramatic changes, but they are incremental improvements in the overall deal.
The Problem with Liability Rules?
I found the following story in Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World. He's quoting from Aulus Gellius's Attic Nights, who in turn is quoting Favorinus:
Lucius Veratius was an extremely wicked man of immense brutality. He used to consider it very amusing to slap the face of a free man with the palm of his hand. A slave used to follow him, carrying a purse full of change, and whenever he had slapped someone, he would order twenty-five small coins (asses) to be counted out, as prescribed by the Twelve Tables. As a result, the praetors later decided that this law in the Tables was obsolete and defunct, and declared by edict that they would appoint assessors to estimate personal damages instead.
I've been asked about the legal significance of the various "declarations" filed in the case. As long as I'm answering, I thought I might as well answer publicly.
In short, a declaration, as a document filed with a court, is just evidence. It's presented so that the evidence is available to the court. The key word is "available." It's subject to the other rules governing the receipt of evidence: e.g., there must be a reason to believe the author actually has knowledge of what she says, the fact-finder might decide not to believe what she says, and so on. But assuming it gets past those other hurdles, the court can use the facts the author asserts in support of its decision. Like testimony in court or physical exhibits, a declaration provides evidentiary support.
You also can't generally just make up stuff and put it in a declaration. The author typically signs it on oath under penalty of perjury, and the lawyer submitting it takes responsibility for not knowingly presenting falsehoods to the court.
Post About Parodies Constructed Entirely of Self-Referential Utterances
- Link to generic movie trailer
- Apology for posting twice about the same TV news parody
- Tribute to the song that introduced me to the concept
Question to blog readers inquiring about similar examples for other media.
Obligatory credit to Metafilter.
The paper version of my talk from Denver University's Cyber Civil Rights symposium in November is now online, along with the other conference essays. I'm very happy with how this one came out: while the paper may have started its life as a deliberate provocation, it now makes a quite serious argument about the uses and abuses of civil procedure in dealing with online abuse. It's called The Unmasking Option, you can get it in PDF and HTML versions, and here's the abstract:
In the recent "Skanks in NYC" case, the plaintiff dropped her defamation lawsuit once the court had unmasked the John Doe defendant. Although the plaintiff was criticized for her seemingly pretextual use of a lawsuit, the outcome was substantively just. The harasser got almost exactly what she deserved for trying to humiliate her victim: embarrassment of her own.
This brief essay discusses a counterintuitive proposal inspired by the Skanks in NYC case: that the law unmask anonymous online harassers as a substitute for litigation, rather than as an aid to it. Identifying harassers can be an effective way of holding them accountable, while causing less of a chilling effect on socially valuable speech than liability would. While the proposal itself is probably unworkable, decoupling anonymity from liability enables us to understand more clearly what's at stake with each.
While you're at it, check out the other essays, too. Our hosts at Denver put together an outstanding program, and the presentations fit together remarkably well. I particularly recommend Mary Anne Franks's The Banality of Cyber Discrimination, or, The Eternal Recurrence of September, which is one of the best-written and best-argued pieces of legal scholarship I've read in quite some time. Franks is a rising young academic star, and her piece makes it quite clear why.
Smart essay, although I don't think the distinction between Formless and Definite Content entirely holds up. Even Formless Content acquires a shape by virtue of being poured into a particular container. Holding a book in my hand and thumbing through it, I can acquire a subconscious sense of where particular passages are based on how their text flows and whether more of the weight is on the left or the right. The first e-book application to provide affordances that can supply that subconscious sense (or supplant it with something even better) will be the true turning point in the revolution that shifts Formless Content to purely digital platforms.
Jonathan Band has already detailed the long and winding road to the Google Books settlement. Now, with the Library Copyright Alliance, he's back to chart the many possible paths forward. It's a one-page PDF diagram, designed by Tricia Donovan of ARL, which provides a flowchart of how the settlement could go from here as it bounces around among the court, the parties, and possible appeals. The bottom line: "In short, the precise way forward is more difficult to predict than the NCAA tournament."
Always a good thing, but recently more so than ever.
The Difference Between Writing and Blogging
In my academic paper, I say "knock-down argument."
In my blog post, I say "one-hit kill."
GBS: Reed-Elsevier v. Muchnick Decided
The Supreme Court today decided case No. 08-103, Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick. In an 8-0 opinion by Justice Thomas, the Court held that § 411(a) of the Copyright Act, which requires registration before filing suit (for United States works) is not a "jurisdictional" limit. Thus, the district court had subject-matter jurisdiction to approve a class-action settlement that included plaintiffs who hadn't registered their copyrights.
I approve of the result, for reasons I laid out in a blog post a year ago. The "jurisdictional" theory just doesn't make sense in terms of the policies of copyright: it keeps some important claims (such as declaratory judgment actions by defendants) that ought to be in court out. I would have preferred that the Supreme Court address these copyright-policy issues; instead, it focused on its precedents on jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional statutory elements. That's understandable, though; the Court wanted to give guidance to the other federal courts on a wider range of issues, not just copyright ones. And since § 411(a) was drafted reasonably, applying the general rule leads to the right result in this case.
This decision has some implications for the Google Books settlement. Most notably, the settlement class was defined to avoid this problem: it excluded the owners of unregistered United States works. Now that the Supreme Court has spoken, that move turns out to have been unnecessary: the settlement class could have included them. I doubt they'll be added back in, though: the settlement would essentially have to be rebooted for the settlement class to be expanded that much. Moreover, it's now clear that there are other factors constraining the size of the class, such as the notice issues and the treatment of foreign copyright owners.
C.E. Petit thinks the new decision makes the settlement "legally untenable." I don't think this is a one-hit kill; a settlement class is not required to be the absolute largest it could possibly be. I do, however, expect a small flurry of briefing on this issue, as the Supreme Court's decision is clearly relevant, controlling authority.
Other commentary: Civil Procedure and Federal Courts Blog; Irv Muchnick.
GBS: Additional Opt-Out Letters
We've posted another opt-out letter over at the Public Index, this one sent by frequent Lab commenter Douglas Fevens. It appears that opt-out letters mailed directly to the court, while apparently received, are not being scanned and posted to the official docket. If you or someone you know opted out, sent a letter to the court informing it of this fact, and would like it posted to the Public Index, please send it along.
Multiple people have sent me a link to this story about a professor suspended for comments on Facebook. Perhaps a majority of social-network-site privacy stories I come across now involve discipline against teachers or students for saying allegedly disruptive things online. This tells us something, I think, about the school as a leading edge of the modern surveillance society.


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You are browsing the official website of EXALCO Bulgaria.
EXALCO profile systems are well known on the Bulgarian market and used by many manufacturers of aluminum windows and curtain walls. EXALCO's aluminium products are key component in the construction of a large number of large and prestigious projects.
Some of the products EXALCO Bulgaria offers to its clients are:
- Aluminium Standard Profiles
- Aluminium Sliding Systems
- Aluminium Opening Systems
- Aluminium Shading Systems


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FilmPride was proud to introduce the premiere of 3 documentaries, with discussions and Q&A sessions.
Peter Tatchell – An Activist's Life – featuring Peter's political activism and his contribution to worldwide gay rights movement. Directed by Bill Smith and Andrew Kay
The event started with two short films directed by Alf Le Flohic:
Brighton Pride 94: a home movie
A couple of queer mates take a VHS camera to Brighton Pride for a laugh and capture the 500-strong march on its way from Hove peace statue to The Level. See Brighton Pride as you may never have seen it before, in some of the earliest known footage.
Let's Talk About Sydney
Narrated by Val Miles, we meet her uncle Sydney (born in 1921 in Brixton) and hear about his life in the army, his boyfriend Nick and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in London. Val discovered Sydney's photograph collection after he died in Sussex and this film is made up almost entirely of those pictures.
Sunday 4th August, 4pm
Lesbian Legends – introducing Siren, the band and political activists of the 70s and 80s, with Jude Winter and other members of the band. Produced and directed by Jude Winter and Bill Smith
Queer but Here – the Longhill School LGBTU+ Youth Group series of chat shows, featuring star political guests and introduced by the young people themselves. Produced and directed by Andrew Kay


text:
Package available in: [trunk] [8.0] [7.0] [6.0] [2.1]
help2man is a tool for automatically generating simple manual pages from program output.
... part of T2, get it here
Author: Brendan O'Dea <bod [at] debian [dot] org>
Maintainer: Minto van der Sluis <Minto [at] MultiMach [dot] com>
License: GPL
Status: Stable
Version: 1.36.4
Download: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/help2man/ help2man-1.36.4.tar.gz
T2 source: help2man.cache
T2 source: help2man.desc
Build time (on reference hardware): 5% (relative to binutils)2
Installed size (on reference hardware): 0.12 MB, 23 files
Dependencies (build time detected): 00-dirtree bash binutils bzip2 coreutils diffutils findutils gcc glibc grep linux-header make mktemp net-tools perl perl-gettext sed sysfiles tar util-linux
Installed files (on reference hardware): n.a.
1) This page was automatically generated from the T2 package source. Corrections, such as dead links, URL changes or typos need to be performed directly on that source.
2) Compatible with Linux From Scratch's "Standard Build Unit" (SBU).


text:
Whether you've already been working with a 3D scanner and looking to purchase your next one or simply considering buying your very first 3D scanner, what are some of the features to...Continue Reading
Whether you've already been working with a 3D scanner and looking to purchase your next one or simply considering buying your very first 3D scanner, what are some of the features to...Continue Reading
What are some of the issues that jewelry brands face in their business? And can 3D scanning resolve some of these problems? Read on to find out how one luxury jewelry brand is doing just...Continue Reading
When discussing the difference between blue and white light scanning, we need to take a few steps back and first understand what blue and white light are referring to.Continue Reading
Technology, Product Knowledge, Case Studies
Did you know that there are many fun things you can do with a 3D scanner? Our team had a great time testing the various functions of our Solutionix scanners by scanning a variety of things!...Continue Reading
Ever wondered how 3D scanning can improve your jewelry design and manufacturing business? 3D scanning is a fast, accurate and cost-effective method of capturing detailed information of...Continue Reading
Are you still undecided about integrating 3D scanning into your business? We've shared with you reasons why you should, but if you're still sitting on the fence, continue reading to find...Continue Reading
Whether you've been working with 3D scanners for a while now, or totally new to the 3D scanning business, you might want to invest in an automated 3D scanner (if you don't already own one)....Continue Reading
GKN Driveline Legazpi is an automotive parts manufacturer in Spain specializing in the production of high-precision forgings for automotive propulsion systems. They manufacture forged inner...Continue Reading
[1] There was a lot of online buzz when South Korea won its first Olympic gold medal for Men's Skeleton. And it was not just because of the fact that Olympian Yun Sung Bin became the first...Continue Reading
Companies operating in the automotive sector have to adhere to high quality standards and perform exhaustive quality inspection controls. For Industrias GES, S.A. this...Continue Reading


text:
Jamie Gorelick At It Again
Scrolling through Doug Ross' blog, Director Blue, reminded me of a name from the past who seems to have escaped mainstream media scrutiny, much less responsibility, for two of the largest fiascos in our recent history, the intelligence failures which led to 9/11 and the Fannie Mae credit crisis:
So where is Jamie Gorelick today, and what is she doing? Turns out she's in private law practice helping clients navigate the government regulatory structure.
According to the NY Times, Gorelick was a key player in Barack Obama's transition team (shocking), was considered for Attorney General, and played her political cards right:
She contributed $10,000 to Mr. Obama's presidential political action committee in August, after his nomination was all but assured.
And much like Barbara Boxer, the Times noted Gorelick doesn't like to be called Ma'am:
"You know someone respected you if they called you 'sir,' " Ms. Gorelick said, alluding to the glass ceiling at the Pentagon, where she worked as general counsel in the 1990s. " 'Ma'am' is what you call your mom."
Gorelick has donated money in the past few months to key Democrats, including at least three on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Pat Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse and Al Franken. Oh, and she's part of a team pushing for appointment of D.C. judge Vanessa Ruiz to the federal Court of Appeals, which of course would involve a confirmation proceeding at the Senate Judiciary Committee before Leahy, Whitehouse and Franken.
And there's more. Gorelick, who was instrumental in the Fannie Mae disaster, has been hired by Sallie Mae (the student loan agency) as a lobbyist:
Sallie Mae's key hire was Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, who signed on in February to lobby White House and Education Department officials on student-loan issues. Gorelick is a partner in the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr, which billed Sallie Mae $270,000 for its work in the first half of 2009.
In such capacity, Gorelick will be dealing with the House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, to whom she donated money in the last election.
Gorelick has made out just fine from her years in government. As for the rest of us, meh.
Related Post:
Maybe Jay Bybee and Jamie Gorelick Should Be In The Dock Together
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text:
Alameda County Criminal Attorney Elliot Silver Praises San Francisco DA for Clearing Marijuana Convictions
Bay Area criminal defense attorney Elliot Silver applauded the February 25 announcement by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón that the city had successfully partnered with Code for America to expunge 8,132 marijuana-related convictions. "Through Proposition 64, Californians in 2016 voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis," Silver said. "The District Attorney's decision to leverage innovation in order to expedite the exoneration of those convicted of marijuana crimes sets the bar for other counties in California."
AB 1793, signed into law in 2018, mandates that the California Department of Justice identify convictions eligible for reclassification or dismissal by July 2019. It also requires courts to take action, although prosecutors have until July 2020 to object to consideration of specific cases. Silver says that this timeline disadvantages those whose cannabis convictions are negatively impacting their lives. "While the wheels of justice are slowly turning, there are people who are suffering," he said. Noting that a conviction often translates to a lack of access to jobs, housing, and financial services, Silver said, "A streamlined expungement process allows people – often multiply marginalized folks who are disproportionately convicted of drug crimes – to reclaim their lives and contribute to their communities."
While individuals can achieve a comparable outcome by petitioning the court for reclassification, dismissal and sealing, or redesignation of their cannabis convictions, most don't know how to navigate the legal system. Silver, whose firm routinely helps clients with Proposition 64 expungements, urges other counties to follow San Francisco's lead. "By applying algorithms to digitized criminal records, counties can easily determine who is eligible for Prop 64 relief," he said. "That's an important first step in delivering the long-overdue justice that those with cannabis convictions deserve."
If you've been charged with a crime, contact Attorney Elliot Silver today.


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Nutritional Screening of Older Adults : Risk Factors for and Consequences of Malnutrition
Sammanfattning: Aims The overall aim of this thesis was to extend current knowledge about the prevalence of malnutrition, to identify possible risk factors for development of malnutrition, and to describe the consequences of malnutrition in relation to all-cause and cause-specific mortality among older adults admitted to hospital.Methods The prevalence of malnutrition was estimated in a cohort of 1771 older adults (≥65 years) who were admitted to a Swedish hospital during 2008–2009 (15 months) and screened for malnutrition using the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) instrument. Possible risk factors for malnutrition were recorded during the hospital stay (Study I). Dietary intake 10 years earlier (in 1997) was collected for 725 of these older adults (Study II). All-cause (Study III) and cause-specific (Study IV) mortality were followed up after medians of 3.5 and 5.1 years, respectively, for 1767 of the participants.Results The prevalence of malnutrition was 9.4% while 55.1% were at risk of malnutrition. Risk factors for malnutrition was an overnight fast >11 hours, <4 eating episodes a day, and not cooking independently. In middle-aged and older adults with a body mass index <25 kg/m2 in 1997, the risk of malnutrition increased for each additional percentage point of energy from total, saturated and monounsaturated fat at follow-up after 10 years. Malnourished older adults had almost four times higher risk of death during follow-up, while those at risk of malnutrition had a 56% higher risk, compared to well-nourished. Furthermore, well-nourished older adults had consistently lower risk of death, regardless of the cause of death.Conclusions Only 35.5% of older adults admitted to hospital were well-nourished. The identified risk factors could be used in interventions aimed at preventing malnutrition. Normal-weight and underweight middle-aged and older adults should consider limiting the intake of total fat and/or improve the quality of the fat in the diet in order to decrease the risk of becoming malnourished later in life. Malnutrition and risk of malnutrition were associated with increased overall and cause-specific mortality. These relationships emphasize the need for nutritional screening to identify individuals who may require nutritional support in order to avoid preterm death.
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A man has spent the last five years travelling the world on his motorcycle, sleeping beneath the stars and living off his savings.
Paolo Cattaneo has biked through Australia, South America, North America and Europe often riding up to 12 hours a day.
But the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to his wanderlust in Greece and he has spent the last few months in Italy, his homeland.
The 39-year-old intends to resume his life-on-the-road and explore Asia and Africa once borders reopen.
Paolo keeps his living costs down by camping and he has been able to travel the world without getting a job for the entirety of his travels.
"Wild camping is beautiful, you can enjoy amazing nights by yourself, it's very quiet and very relaxing," he said.
"It becomes the highlight of the trip sometimes."
He was inspired to set off on his travels when his father passed away in 2014.
"It made me realize life is a delicate thing and time was the most valuable asset," he said.
Living in Australia, Paulo saved enough money by 2015 to buy his dream KTM 1190 motorcycle, a camera and to support himself on his travels.
He quit his job in IT to travel the continent while budgeting from his savings.
"Australia for me was my first experience riding long distance and I was mind blown by the beauty," he said.
After months of traveling, Paolo decided to keep going.
He had his bike shipped to South America and began traveling through the continent before making his way to North America.
"Traveling through Latin America I learned Spanish and Portuguese," he said.
"Mexico has some of the best food I ever had and Peru is a close second and Ecuador."
He has been able to maintain his savings by not drinking, partying and restricting luxuries.
Paolo will sometimes ride up to 12 hours a day and the journey is not always smooth and easy.
"I traveled through Canada and the U.S. a couple of years ago and it was one of coldest winters in decades…it was really excruciating to ride a full day in 32-34 degrees [farenheit]," he said.
His bike, which he bought second hand in Australia, has not required any major repairs since he set off on his trip.
Paulo added that while sometimes his biking can be gruelling, he does not get lonely.
"Being alone is something I think I learned to cope with.
"The low moments are way fewer than the high moments."


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Population, Race and Ethnicity
Westminster is a city in Carroll County, Maryland, with a population of 18,553. According to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, 75.70% of residents identify as white, 9.00% as Black or African American, 0.20% as American Indian or Alaska Native, 4.00% as Asian, 0.00% as Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 7.10% as Hispanic or Latino, and 3.90% as some other race or combination of races.
Nationally, some 61.1% of Americans identify as white, 12.3% as Black or African American, 0.7% as American Indian or Alaska Native, 5.4% as Asian, 0.2% as Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 17.8% as Hispanic or Latino, and 2.6% as some other race or combination of races.
Census respondents are also asked to report ancestry. Some of the most commonly reported ancestries in Westminster include German, Irish, Italian, English, and American. Measured by location quotient — comparing the city share to the national share — some of the most highly concentrated ancestries in city are Other Subsaharan African, Bulgarian, and West Indian.
Native and foreign-born population
An estimated 92.70% of Westminster residents are native-born, meaning they were born in the United States, Puerto Rico, a U.S. Island Area, or abroad to a U.S. citizen. Of the 7.30% of the population that is foreign-born, 41.80% have become naturalized U.S. citizens. Nationwide, 86.5% of Americans are native-born. And of the 13.5% of Americans who are foreign-born, 48.5% have become naturalized U.S. citizens.
The population of Westminster is younger than the United States as a whole. The median age is 34 years, 3.9 years less than the national median age of 37.9 years. An estimated 15.00% of the population is 65 years and over, compared to 15.2% of the U.S. population.
Family and household composition
Family and household composition also varies heavily across the United States. In Westminster, 44.50% of households are occupied by married-couple families, compared to the 48.3% national figure. Some 2.80% of households are occupied by single male householders, 10.60% by single female householders, and 42.10% by non-family occupants. Nationwide, 4.9% of households are occupied by single male householders, 12.6% by single female householders, and 34.3% by non-family occupants. An estimated 51.70% of heads of household own their homes, compared to the national homeownership rate of 63.8%.
Language spoken
English is by far the most commonly spoken language in Maryland and across the U.S. as a whole. Similarly, in Westminster, 96.9% of local residents aged 5 and up speak English exclusively, or, if they are multilingual, speak English very well. For context, 93.2% of the 5 and older population across Maryland only speaks English, or speak it very well, and 91.5% of the same age group nationwide do.
Marital status
Residents of Westminster are less likely than the typical American to be married. Of all local residents aged 15 and older, 42.7% are currently married, compared to 48.1% of Americans nationwide in the same age group. Across Maryland as a whole, 47.3% of residents 15 and older are married.
Divorce is slightly less common in Westminster than it is across the U.S. as a whole. According to Census estimates, 10.3% of residents 15 and older are divorced — compared to 10.8% of the U.S. population in the same age group. In Maryland, 10% of the 15 and older population is divorced.
An estimated 37.7% of Westminster residents 15 and older have never married, compared to one-third of all Americans in the same age group.
In Westminster, 7.2% of the 18 and older civilian population are veterans — compared to 7.5% of adult civilians nationwide and 8% of the civilian population in all of Maryland.
Educational attainment
In Westminster, adults are slightly less likely to have a high school education than the typical American adult, but are more likely to have a four-year college education. Among Westminster residents 25 and older, 87.20% have a high school diploma or equivalent, and 33.80% have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 87.7% and 31.5% of adults nationwide, respectively. Across Maryland, 90% of adults have graduated high school, and 39.6 have a bachelor's degree.
The typical household in Westminster earns $60,498 a year, about $200 more than the national median of $60,293 and $21,400 less than the median household income across the state of $81,868.
Serious financial hardship is less common in Westminster than it is nationwide. The local poverty rate stands at 11.90%, while the national poverty rate is 14.1%. Across the state as a whole, 9.4% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Read More About Population and Demographics
24/7 Wall St. has published population and demographic data for all 50 states and over 29,000 cities across the country. Search for a city or state to view here:See a list of all available cities in Maryland by clicking here.
More TopicsClick here to see detailed analysis about crime in every state.
Click here to see detailed analysis about cost of living in every state.
Click here to see updated data about coronavirus in every state.


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Short answer? Very possibly.
Disney cracked the internet once again on Monday (September 30) when they released a sneak peek of Elsa's new solo song from Frozen 2, Into The Unknown.
The song, sung by Idina Menzel (and featuring Norweigan singer AURORA), is number three on the soundtrack. Have a listen below and prepare for CHILLS.
Excuse the pun, but that left us frozen.
The full Frozen 2 digital and physical tracklist is as follows:
1. All is Found – performed by Evan Rachel Wood
2. Some Things Never Change – performed by Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad and Jonathan Groff
3. Into the Unknown – performed by Idina Menzel (featuring Norwegian singer AURORA)
4. When I Am Older – performed by Josh Gad
5. Reindeer(s) are Better than People (Cont.) – performed by Jonathan Groff
6. Lost in the Woods – performed by Jonathan Groff
7. Show Yourself – performed by Idina Menzel and Evan Rachel Wood
8. The Next Right Thing – performed by Kristen Bell
9. Into the Unknown – performed by Panic! At The Disco (end credits)
10. All is Found – performed by Kacey Musgraves (end credits)
11. Lost in the Woods – performed by Weezer (end credits)
The Frozen 2 soundtrack is set for release from Walt Disney Records on November 15, 2019 and is available now for digital pre-order, pre-save at Spotify and pre-add at Apple Music.
Frozen 2 will feature seven all-new original songs from Kristen Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez. End-credit artists include Panic! At The Disco, Kacey Musgraves and Weezer.
What's Frozen 2 about? Here's the House of Mouse's official statement…
Why was Elsa born with magical powers? What truths about the past await Elsa as she ventures into the unknown to the enchanted forests and dark seas beyond Arendelle? The answers are calling her but also threatening her kingdom. Together with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven, she'll face a dangerous but remarkable journey. In Frozen, Elsa feared her powers were too much for the world. In Frozen 2, she must hope they are enough.
Frozen 2 opens in U.S. theaters on November 22, 2019.
Check out the all-new poster and watch the official trailer below.


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(KCPW News) A national survey shows Utah has the lowest number of underage drinkers in the country. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows just 14.3% of Utah teens surveyed reported using alcohol during the previous month, more than 12% below the national average. Susannah Burt, Program Manager for Prevention Services at the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, attributes those low numbers to the state doing a good job of educating people about the negative consequences of underage drinking, and also to the state's stringent alcohol laws.
"We've created an environment through education and through policy that we don't encourage underage drinking," says Burt. "We've made it more difficult for youth to access alcohol, especially through the policy such as eliminating alcohol sales to youth. It's called E.A.S.Y."
Burt says the E.A.S.Y program allows law enforcement to use underage decoys to conduct random compliance checks of establishments selling alcohol. Only 3% of the state's underage drinkers report having bought alcohol themselves. Burt says that sounds another alarm.
"That means that the other huge percentage, 97%, is getting it elsewhere. That means we as parents, as community members, as teachers, as legislators, anyone, need to be very aware of how they are getting their alcohol, which is usually from home from the parent, or from a friend's home from parent or an adult."
Vermont recorded the highest rate of underage drinking at 37%. The report, which surveyed those between the ages of 12 and 20, was released by the national Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration using data from 2008 to 2010.
How do you feel about this topic?
Is there anything else you think we should know? We'd like to hear your thoughts. Send us your feedback using the form below.


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Those who aren't in the Alpha team probably haven't heard too much lately about what I'm up to.
The good news is, quite a bit 🙂
The Professional Edition of WM 1.x, which initially was going to be a rather modest expansion of capabilities to serve the game development/demanding artist market, is shaping up to rather profoundly change how you can interact with World Machine. With massively tiled terrain input/output supported, multithreaded builds and explorations, RGB device support, and other enhancements, there's already alot there. But by far the coolest new feature is Layout Mode.
Layout Mode will eventually trickle down to the Standard and Basic edition releases as well. It's ultimately something that is fundamental — it changes how you work with WM. Currently it's really quite difficult to place specific terrain features in specific locations. Sure, you can hack together a network of Radial Gradients and other geometrical shapes to guide your feature placement, but it leaves a lot to be desired. Up till now, the only real solution has been to create your guideance masks in Photoshop or another app and then load them into WM, which definitely works but is not ideal.
Layout Mode fixes this problem, and lets you graphically design your terrain using vector-based drawing tools. You can create a layout in order to restrict the application of a filter in your pipeline. Or even more importantly, you can use it to create (or augment) your terrain shapes. By working with simple shapes, such as boxes, circles, polygons, spline paths, etc, you can create a resolution-independant specification in world space of the shapes of your terrain. Layout mode then applies fractal breakup algorithms to the shapes you have created to produce realistic looking edges. The output of all this can be used to guide the fractal terrain devices in WM to give them naturally bound edges. Sometimes, you don't even need to do that — you can run the output from layout mode directly into the Erosion device and get a good looking result!
This is all done in a Google-Maps-style environment of a fixed overhead OpenGL camera that shares a core and terrain data with the Explorer mode. Even in the development mode WM is currently in, Layout mode has quickly become my favorite way to get a quick sense of what the terrain I'm developing looks like, as unlike Explorer you have a God's Eye view of the terrain. You can then duck into Explorer from Layout and descent from your "place in the clouds" to fly through the world from that point.
The UI for Layout mode is currently embarassingly basic or else I'd post a screenshot. There are several testing cycles with the Alpha test team soon to come that will begin to refine the operations and usability of Layout (and everything else) in Pro. After it reaches a certain feature-complete level, the Beta test will open up.
The Beta test will contain a larger set of people. Included will be game developers, artists and studios, and serious hobbyists, who comprise the essential target market of WM Pro.
The Beta team still has slots open on it; if you're interested in helping betatest the Pro edition, drop me an email and we can talk further. I'm looking for most likely around a dozen people or so to participate in the testing.


text: Northeastern professor talks video games at White House by Greg St. Martin August 2, 2012 Share Mastodon Facebook LinkedIn Twitter In a White House conference last week, Magy Seif El-Nasr, an associate professor of game design and interactive media at Northeastern University, discussed the importance of creating educational video games through interdisciplinary collaboration. The meeting, which included industry leaders, policymakers and about 20 academics from institutions nationwide, was part of the Academic Consortium on Games for Impact and organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The experts examined ways to leverage their individual areas of expertise, share resources and build networks aimed at sparking interdisciplinary collaboration among academia and industry in the area of "games for impact" — video games that yield significant societal benefits in areas such as education and health. "We're trying to advance basic research in game design and advance the current application of games in areas like education, health and sustainability," said Seif El-Nasr, whose research focuses on enhancing game designs by developing tools and methods for evaluating and adapting game experiences. In recent years, millions of people have developed a strong reliance on mobile technology. Many people — particularly youth — regularly plug away on their smartphones or portable video game consoles while eating, waiting for the bus or walking down the street, Seif El-Nasr explained; she added that it's critical to capture the attention of the tech-savvy public through the most popular media. The bulk of last week's meeting focused on the importance of pushing the video game field forward by fostering collaborations between academic researchers and industry partners and by designing strategies aimed at improving the chances of receiving government funding for these projects. Since 2004, Seif El-Nasr has conducted research on using game design as a medium for education, including the development of a series of engineering and technology workshops for middle- and high-school students. Seif El-Nasr, who holds dual appointments in the College of Arts, Media and Design and the College of Computer and Information Science, is also working with a Vancouver-based company called IgnitePlay on a project that uses games and social networks to foster behavioral changes that promote healthy lifestyle habits. The project uses real-time behavior tracking and selective information visualization as motivational tactics to encourage behavioral changes and sustain long-term healthy living. The company, she said, is expected to launch the product within the next month. Seif El-Nasr's participation in the White House meeting built upon her international prominence as an authority on digital game research. In May, she chaired the Foundation of Digital Games 2012 conference, which took place in North Carolina. Then in June, she delivered a keynote address in Greece at the 5th International Conference on Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, which explored how social and cooperative games can be leveraged to enhance quality of life.


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Forget Shamu-sized screens. The latest Motorola is said to have a camera that strays into pro territory. And if that's not enough, the new Droid Turbo is believed to be built with wireless (Qi) charging. A recent tweet by famed tech leaker Evan Blass of @evleaks gives us our first look at the new device.
Motorola is trying to make a splash in the hyper-competitive smartphone market. And to do so, it looks like the company is focusing on some big innovations when building its latest line of devices.
A recently leaked user's guide for the Droid Turbo hints that the device will definitely be available through Verizon when finally released. The image leaked by Blass shows a distinct Verizon logo near the bottom the devices too. The manual covers a number of the features unique to the new phone as well as its technical specs.
First, the Droid Turbo is expected to have a 5.2-inch display, Android Police reports. That's smaller than the 5.92-inch display on the recently released Nexus 6 code-named Shamu.
But what the yet-to-be-released phone may lack in screen size, it appears to more than make up for in the quality of its camera.
The users guide indicates the new phone will include a 21-megapixel rear-mounted camera. That's about as powerful as the camera included on the newly-introduced Panasonic Lumix CM1. The Lumix CM1 is Panasonic's new high end camera with phone features.
Motorola also adds to the camera's capabilities with dual flash. The user's guide reportedly also describes flash units spaced on either side of the camera's lens.
Another interesting feature of the Droid Turbo will apparently be wireless charging. But Motorola will also apparently make the phone compatible with its new turbo charger, reports indicate.
While it won't have Siri, Cortana, or even OK Google, the Droid Turbo will feature Moto Assist, Motorola's own virtual assistant smartphone app. Moto Assist will adapt to your routine keeping back all but important calls when you are in a meeting or at home at night. You can also use voice commands to activate voice mail or even tell your phone to ring to allow you find it if it's been misplaced.
The leaked photo also seems to confirm descriptions of the phone's physical appearance. The Droid Turbo is expected to feature a metal and fiber glass body and Kevlar coating and come in red and black.
Image: @evleaks


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As we begin to become immersed in immigration law enforcement practices under President Trump, I thought a look back at historical practices might be helpful. The information below comes entirely from DHS statistics.
President Obama's enforcement record is familiar to crimmigration.com readers. From fiscal years 2009 to 2015, the United States removed 2,749,854 people and returned another 2,080,307. No data are available for President Obama's last full fiscal year, FY 2016.
As defined by DHS for purposes of these statistics, "Removals are the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States based on an order of removal. An alien who is removed has administrative or criminal consequences placed on subsequent reentry owing to the fact of the removal." In contrast, "Returns are the confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States not based on an order of removal." Put another way, removal requires an order by an immigration judge; return does not.
By historical standards, these were outsized accomplishments. Below is data for removals from 1892 to 2015. The highlighted column represents 2009, the first year under President Obama.
Here is analogous data for returns from 1927 to 2015 (DHS doesn't provide return data prior to 1927).
As this graph shows, President Obama returned fewer people than his predecessor George W. Bush. Still, President Obama beat out his Republican predecessor on removals by almost one million. Returns are certainly no trifling matter, but removals carry much steeper penalties including the unquestionable possibility of criminal prosecution upon unauthorized reentry.


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Brentford fans have been asked to name the best players in each position for the club as GetWestLondon looks to find the definitive all-time XI.
Supporters have been making their suggestions on our Facebook page for each position and those mentioned are included in the poll below.
In this stage of the process we are looking to cut the contenders down to a 25-man squad, with at least two players in each position, where fans are able to then create their best starting line up.
In this poll, we are considering those that have shone on the left wing for the Bees.
See some of the best shots from Brentford before World War Two
A number of candidates have been suggested and only the top two will progress to the final.
They are Stephen Hunt, Sergi Canos, Les Smith, Andy Sinton, Tony Folan and Neil Smillie.
The top two players will go through to the final meaning that, while you can only vote for one player in this poll, you will have a chance to vote for a different player if your favourite doesn't get through.


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After a long long time I have finally laid my hands on pencils.
It has been so long time ago that some days, when I tried to draw, I felt the urge to press ctrl+Z if I made a mistake.
Today ctrl+S was my favorite. It felt as if the drawing might disappear any time I failed to save it.
The feather has been donated by my dad's rose-ringed parakeet. It's the best tool to wipe away any overflow eraser. What are those things called?
Anyway. I hope I don't lose the interest and finish this one. Some plants will be involved...
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Tail feather
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Should I refinance my mortgage? How to decide.
Updated: Aug 1, 2019
Too many people make the decision about refinancing their mortgage without actually doing any calculations. They just see a lower interest rate and assume that if it's a certain amount lower than their current rate that it must be a good idea to refinance. Plus there are plenty of articles out there that just give blanket guidelines, like half a percent, or one percent lower, as being reason enough to refinance.
But the reality depends on your circumstances, and you need to calculate whether you will recoup the closing costs in time to reap the benefit of a lower rate.
Say you have a $150,000 mortgage at a 4.5% interest rate for 30 years. Your current payment is $760, assuming you have at least 20% equity and so don't have to pay PMI (private mortgage insurance). This does not include your property taxes or homeowners insurance that is often included in your mortgage payment. You need to separate those out for the purpose of this discussion.
Then let's say you have an opportunity to refinance at 3.5% (also 30 years), with closing costs of 2.0%. Should you take that deal, or not?
It's important that you look into what the closing costs will be, as it makes a huge difference in the calculation. They could range from 1.5% to 4%, so make sure you know what they will be for the new rate you're looking at. If we stick with that 2% number for closing costs, you will pay $3000 for the refinance, and you need to recoup that $3000 in savings each month because of your lower mortgage payment. And how long it takes to recoup that money is what you need to consider.
The new payment at a 3.5% rate would be $674. So your payment goes from $760 down to $674 each month, saving you $86/month. If you divide 3000 by 86, you get 35 months for your "breakeven" period. In other words, it will take you about 35 months, or just under 3 years, to save on your mortgage payments what it cost you to refinance. After that point, all the savings is gravy.
So you need to think about what your plans are for living there. Are you absolutely sure you won't want or be forced to move before the 3 year breakeven period is up? How stable is your job situation? Do you have a growing family that might outgrow this house before then? Are you in the military or a ministry job that makes you move every so many years? What other factors might influence whether you are still living here between now and when that breakeven period is up?
And the closing costs really matter. If you can get 1.5% for closing costs, you only need to recoup $2250 instead of $3000, and that $86 savings will accomplish that in 26 months instead of 35 months....not bad.
But closing costs of 3% mean you have to recoup $4500 instead of $3000, and that would take 52 months, almost 4 ½ years...ugh. May still be worth doing but I'm certainly gonna keep shopping for a better deal.
And a word about the term of your mortgage. I'd much rather you take out a 15 year mortgage than a 30 year mortgage if you haven't bought a house yet, so that you become completely debt free much sooner. But don't ever refinance a 30 year mortgage to a 15 year solely to reduce the term of the loan.
You can accomplish the same effect of paying off your house in 15 years (or LESS) by simply paying extra principal on the mortgage each month. If you pay the same total amount each month as if it were a 15 year mortgage, with the extra over and above your regular payment going onto the principal balance, your house will be paid for in 15 years or less. In fact, why not shoot for paying it off in ten years or less?
So hopefully you now understand how to do the calculations and make a rational decision. Don't just take the general rules of thumb you see on the internet. Figure it out with real numbers and compare the breakeven period to the realities of your life.
If you need more help with this, SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION to discuss it.


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#vintagepledge Roundup - It's a Plaid Thing
18 comments:
Finishing (nearly!) on a high... soooo much goodness here! What an impressive job everyone has done... thanks for the encouragement & inspiration :)ReplyDelete
I just gave myself a bit of a kick in the pants and got round to writing about one of my pledge makes here: http://rennous-oh-glennus.tumblr.com/post/104748684435/filling-wardrobe-holes-vintage-simplicity-5350 There's more makes that won't get blogged but I figure it's the making, not the blogging that's important :)
Oh my goodness! That plaid dress in the snow is beyond amazing. Absolute perfection! Makes me wish for a real winter.ReplyDelete
I have my fourth vintage dress half-done - I really need to get it finished! Where did I put my sewing mojo?ReplyDelete
- Anonymous9 December 2014 at 17:47
While all of the above are pretty amazing, that plaid winter coat is fantastic!ReplyDelete
I love the round-ups! It's tons of fun to see other vintage pattern sewers. I have high hopes for a couple more finishes this, the last month of the pledge. Fingers crossed!ReplyDelete
I've only finished two of my five, too... oops. But here is the most recent one: http://gladysandviv.blogspot.com/2014/11/and-i-even-managed-smile.htmlReplyDelete
Thanks for checking out my lace top. I wore it to our work lunch on Friday and felt fab. I think the others on the board are great and have enjoyed looking at them all. It was a good pledge to make but I seem to have bought some more patterns!!! Jo xReplyDelete
- Anonymous15 December 2014 at 13:12
Wow! Some really fun stuff in here!!!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous16 December 2014 at 12:50
I've finished vintage pattern #2, my 80's batwing top. Still one more to go.ReplyDelete
Love it! Good luck finishing your last one :o)ReplyDelete


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Image via Unsplash CC0 There is one experience that most parents share at one point or another in their parenting journey: picky eaters. Having a picky eater – a child with very limited food choices or unwilling to try new foods – can be very frustrating, expensive and worrying. Of course, there are some conditions out there that can make
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Increased flooding, warming ocean temperatures, fluctuating lake levels, and more frequent heat waves—these are just some of the impacts communities across the country are facing as people from every U.S. region and economic sector turn to NOAA for actionable climate information.
Addressing Americans' most pressing climate challenges requires collaborative approaches involving subject matter experts from different professional domains. That's why NOAA's Climate Program Office (CPO) is piloting a strategic effort to enhance its investments and improve our nation's resilience with user-driven solutions.
Today, CPO publicly announced a new integrative and interdisciplinary initiative that will apply its core capabilities and align investments with partners in a set of four climate-related risk areas that are societally important:
Coastal Inundation
Build a cross-NOAA research agenda and action plan supporting the next generation of research and modeling around inundation in a climate context and meet the demand for more on-the-ground engagement and capacity building for coastal decision makers.
Marine Ecosystems
Reinforce and expand the application of climate science in National Marine Sanctuaries activities to support NOAA's Stewardship mission.
Water Resources
Enhance the decision-making and adaptive capacity of Great Lakes water utility managers by developing integrated climate-flooding risk and socioeconomic information that will be utilized for near-term management of resources and people, emergency response planning, and long-term infrastructure design.
Extreme Heat
Urban climate and health problems are complex, requiring nuanced solutions. For example, urban heat islands contribute to health effects such as heat illness and death, but may have an inverse relationship with urban air pollution, such that actions to mitigate urban heat could diminish air quality and increase respiratory disease. Thus urban climate and health issues and their solutions may be subject to both co-benefits and undesirable side-effects. The Extreme Heat Risk Area focuses on enabling cities to monitor, model, and predict urban-scale climate, and applying this understanding to informing and evaluating risk-reducing decisions in urban areas.
The four climate risk areas that CPO is focusing on through this new initiative. CPO formed teams to develop collaborative proposals that target specific stakeholders' needs in each climate risk area. Click each topic to learn more about the four climate risk area proposals.
The Climate Risk Areas Initiative aims to create more cohesion across CPO's climate and decision science programs, while strengthening partnerships inside and outside of NOAA, to ultimately help advance climate science understanding and reduce impacts.
"As threats to our physical, social, and economic well-being rise, climate science increasingly needs to deliver on decision-maker needs at multiple geographic and time scales," said CPO Director Wayne Higgins. "This initiative advances NOAA's key priorities to minimize the impacts of extreme weather and water events, and increase the sustainable contributions of our fisheries and oceans."
Graphic illustrating the average annual cost of damages per decade. Average annual damages have more than quadrupled since the 1980s, from about $18 billion per year in the 1980s to about $82 billion per year in the 2010s.
In 2019, CPO formed a strategy team to determine the initial set of risk areas. The team identified 18 criteria, based on information from the National Climate Assessment and other literature as well as whether the climate risk aligns with NOAA's mission statement and NOAA Research's priorities. Using a scoring and ranking approach, the team selected the top four initial areas from a wide range of possible climate risks.
"Our resources—expertise, time, and research dollars—need to be focused on those climate issues that are most important for our nation," said CPO Deputy Director Ben DeAngelo. "Coastal inundation, marine ecosystems, water resources, and extreme heat are the ones that rise to the top for which we're well-positioned to address. Each of these areas maps to NOAA's science and stewardship missions."
Last year, CPO formed teams to develop collaborative proposals that target specific stakeholders' needs in each selected climate risk area. Over months of deliberation, the teams worked across CPO's programs, incorporating input from NOAA and non-NOAA partners as well as stakeholders to develop their proposals.
Following review and approval from CPO Leadership, the risk area teams have begun to transition their proposals to project plans. This summer, the teams will continue to refine their plans, with a goal of formally implementing them in Fiscal Year 2021. More details about each project plan will be published on the CPO website later this year.
"With this initiative, CPO is seeking to reset its priorities and operations, advance foundational science, and inform decision making in these four risk areas through its competitive grants and targeted projects with key partners," said DeAngelo. "Focusing on key climate-related risk areas ensures that we are targeting the threats that pose the greatest challenges for the United States and for NOAA's mission."


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Avoiding the Anguish of Ill-Advised Automation
Automation ("tracks") is marketed to laboratories as the solution to most if not all of their problems. But when done poorly, it can actually causes more problems than it solves. Take this opportunity to learn the inefficiencies that may befall a laboratory that selects the wrong automation solution.login to read


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Kathy is the person I turn to for real healing through nutrition and lifestyle changes
I came to Kathy in the beginning of 2017 with a fresh diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis (an auto-immune disorder), severe systemic candida, moderate joint pain and inflammation, and leaky gut syndrome. These came about due to years of stress, a round of antibiotics, irritable bowel syndrome, and a viral infection (the "perfect storm" as I like to call it). I also had a genuine fear of food because my immune system went haywire every time I tried to eat which would, in-turn, cause "flares" of severe joint pain.
Since the beginning of the year, Kathy has worked tirelessly to unravel the complexity of my system-wide imbalance. Our goal was to restore equilibrium and I'm proud to say that 6 months later, I am 90% better.
We worked on calming down inflammatory responses, we examined my medical history for clues to other underlying issues that might be preventing me from healing, we have worked on my viral and toxic burdens, and I no longer fear eating — and have even been able to reintroduce some foods that I couldn't eat before!
Where my doctor may only be able to spend 15 minutes with me working on the "essentials" (i.e. getting Hashimoto's under control with medication), Kathy is actually the person I turn to for real healing through nutrition and lifestyle changes. Without Kathy, I honestly don't know where I would be at in this journey. She is a wealth of information and I highly recommend her to friends and coworkers. My biggest advice for anyone seeking health help — create for yourself a team of advocates who champion holistic healing over quick fixes. Be open-minded, but be patient, and try not to be too hard on yourself in your journey back to wellness.
— Morgan
Perhaps in the future I will be able to help people with their health as well
Dear Kathy,
Hi! I just wanted to touch base with you. I just read your article in the Medical Wellness magazine. I never got the opportunity to thank you for everything that you did for me. I go to the doctor that you suggested now and that has been a big help. I really enjoyed our time together and I have learned quite a bit. I especially liked the blood work analysis that you went over with me.
Since meeting with you and my other experiences I have begun some classes in health and I am looking to take some additional classes when time permits at the Nutrition Therapy Institute where I see you are a professor! I am still a Realtor and probably will be for quite some time. But perhaps in the future I will be able to help people with their health as well.
— Amy Lane
All of my problems have improved by following her dietary guidelines
I began seeing Kathy Westover about 8 months ago for digestive problems, fatigue, and chronic inflammation/pain. Kathy has helped me so much. All of my problems have improved by following her dietary guidelines. She is extremely knowledgeable and is easy to work with. I love how her recommendations are based in good science (through blood tests, genetic testing, etc.). I am learning so much and I am so blessed to have her as a major part of my team of professional health practitioners.
— Nancy Reeves
Middle age does not mean we have to be fat, old, tired and cranky
I am eternally grateful for Kathy's contribution to my rediscovered good health. I came to Kathy after I did an elimination diet on my own to try to find the root causes of my migraines. When I cleaned up my diet I realized I no longer had joint pain (I thought I was just getting old), nor did I have uncontrollable mood swings (I thought I just had to accept that PMS affected me dramatically), and I did not need naps after lunch (I thought I just needed to power through that drag in the middle of the day). Then, I tried to reintroduce foods and could not find any that I could eat without experiencing the symptoms that I had grown to prefer not to have! I went to Kathy. After testing, vitamin and mineral supplementation and a specific list of foods to eat and avoid, I am able to maintain this feeling of well-being and realize that middle age does not mean we have to be fat, old, tired and cranky.
Thank you, Kathy!!
— Christine
Kathy is a great speaker
My husband and I have found Kathy's presentations to be helpful, educational and fun — she is a great speaker and knows how to lighten up what can sometimes be "heavy" subject matter. Her October presentation was my favorite so far, and I look forward to the next talk in November. Thank you, Kathy, for all you do!
— Constant Contact survey comment
I was tired of self-diagnosing and decided to give her a call
I came to Kathy confused and frustrated with my body. I had been experiencing constipation, bloating and fatigue for far too long and had a feeling food had something to do with it. I was tired of self-diagnosing and decided to give her a call because she had worked with both of my parents a few years ago.
She worked with my specific needs to create a food plan that was perfect for me, and I didn't even have to give up my favorite foods! Now if I ever feel my old symptoms coming back, I know why and what foods/dietary habits have caused it, and am able to get back on track quickly. I would highly recommend Kathy to anyone and everyone!
— Heidi Spirek, 23 years old
Kathy brings science, personal experience, a sense of humor, and a warm heart to her practice
I am currently working with Kathy to correct imbalances in my body and learn to use nutrition and lifestyle to manage two autoimmune diseases. Kathy brings science, personal experience, a sense of humor, and a warm heart to her practice. She thoroughly explains concepts and takes the time to really listen. She uses a holistic approach and treats me as an individual. I never feel rushed during our sessions and always leave with new ideas and a sense of hope.
— Michelle Brodsky
In four months since I started eating your recommended diet, I have lost twenty pounds slowly and steadily, my energy level is fine and most important to me, my blood sugars are steady.
In January 2007, I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. I was over weight, with blood sugars dangerously high (over three hundred). One of the first things I did was to see a hospital nutritionist, who game me a diet very high in carbohydrates and low in fat and protein. That is apparently the automatic regimen for all type II's.
Over five months, I lost forty pounds and my blood sugars settled into the one-fifty to one-sixty range. Then for no obvious reason I began to gain weight and I found that I had no energy. My sugars leveled off, but were too high.
I thought I should do better than that, so I tried a national best seller diet. Result? I gained all my weight back, my blood sugars were over two hundred again, and I still had no energy. My doctor changed my diabetes medicine, increased my dosage and finally told me that my last option would be to start injecting insulin.
That happened about the same time that my wife heard about you. I saw you out of desperation. You explained your diet to me and told me what positive signs I should look for.
In four months since I started eating your recommended diet, I have lost twenty pounds slowly and steadily, my energy level is fine and most important to me, my blood sugars are steady between one hundred and one hundred twenty. My doctor is now considering a test to see if I can control my diabetes with diet alone, no more talk of insulin. Following the regimen and diet you set out for me has helped me become healthy again. Thanks for your help.


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This website will help you understand some important rights and responsibilities in health care and health insurance. It's important to know your rights so that you can get the best possible health care.
The federal health care law called the Affordable Care Act gives you many rights. Under the Affordable Care Act, most people also have a responsibility to have health insurance or pay a fee.Learn more about the Affordable Care Act
As a New Yorker, you have special health insurance rights.Learn more about health insurance rights
You have important rights when you get health care, like care in the hospital.Learn more about health care rights


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By Julia Poole and Sabrina Agazzi, Online Feature Editor and Copy Editor
// Acalanes High School students met with Congressman Mark DeSaulnier via Zoom on Thursday, Oct. 29 to discuss current issues in the United States and the importance of the upcoming election.
The 11th Congressional District, which includes the Lamorinda area, elected DeSaulnier in 2014. This year, DeSaulnier is the Democratic candidate up for re-election against Republican Nisha Sharma.
Acalanes Comparative Government teacher Kristen Anderson invites the Congressman every four years to inform interested students about the importance of civic engagement.
"I am very proud of the fact that I've fostered a connection between Congressman DeSaulnier, my students, and the wider school community. Regardless of students' political persuasion, they should have an opportunity to be heard and learn how to engage in constructive civil discourse with elected public officials," Anderson said.
During the meeting, DeSaulnier discussed several topics, including the California wildfires, police reform, immigration, and the controversial reopening of schools.
Seven students asked DeSaulnier questions and voiced their concerns regarding major current issues in the country. Many of the attendees appreciated the Congressman's supportive responses.
"There are many issues that concern me because they directly affect my future. Climate change, abortion, and women's rights are ones that have an impact on me and my generation. It is good to know that [DeSaulnier] backs them and will support them," junior Stella Bobrowsky said.
Other students, however, didn't feel as though DeSaulnier distinctly answered their questions.
"I found it disheartening that he wasn't able to talk about his policy on the LGBTQ+ community. While he did share anecdotes, he really didn't say anything regarding his policy, or what he was trying to accomplish regarding the LGBTQ+ community," junior Kyle Thomason said.
Overall, DeSaulnier's approach to bipartisan issues resonated with most of the attendees.
"He said a lot of his job is building relationships. I thought that was so interesting and underscored that our Congressman cares. He's not isolated or closed off. He represents all of his constituents, not just those that voted for him," Anderson said.


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On Tuesday afternoon, the Iowa Senate voted 32 to 17 along party lines to pass SF 237, a bill that reforms how members of Iowa's judicial nomination commissions are selected.
In 1962, Iowa amended its Constitution to adopt a merit-based judicial selection process that calls for judicial nomination commissions. The Governor selects half of the commissioners who are then confirmed by the Senate and the other half are selected by members of the Iowa Bar from among their membership. The district and state commissions then forward judicial nominees for the Governor to choose from to appoint to district court, Iowa Court of Appeals, and Iowa Supreme Court vacancies.
It also adopted a retention election process where judges and Iowa Supreme Court justices stand for retention elections at the end of their term. (For a more detailed explanation of Iowa's process click here.)
Senate File 237 reforms the judicial nominating process in Iowa and makes several changes to judicial nominating commissions. The bill maintains half the members of the commission are lawyers and allows the governor to appoint half and legislative leaders to select half of the membership of the commissions. (For a detailed explanation about the Iowa House's identical companion bill click here.)
State Senator Dan Dawson (R-Council Bluffs) offered an amendment that was adopted that would give the Iowa Supreme Court the ability to appoint by majority vote one elector who will sit on the State Judicial Nomination Commission for a term of six
"This topic has been a passion of mine for several years now and I'm proud this bill has passed the Iowa Senate," State Senator Julian Garrett (R-Indianola), the floor manager for the bill, said. "This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. We have too many judges who substitute their own opinions as to what the law should be rather than what it was intended to be by those who wrote our Constitution. "
"Judges in Iowa have tremendous amounts of authority. However, for decades the public has had limited access and accountability over the process of selecting those judges. SF 237 implements several improvements to this process," Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver (R-Ankeny) stated. "The Senate Majority has continually set out to challenge the status quo and this bill implements good changes that brings balance to our third branch of government, maintains the merit system, and increases public accountability to the judicial nomination process."
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds praised the bill's passage in the Iowa Senate.
"Today's vote by the Iowa State Senate to reform our judicial nominating system is a step forward to creating a judicial-nominating process that better reflects our state and its people. While the current process was created with good intentions, it's now filled with backroom politics that leaves the vast majority of Iowans in the dark. Our new system will allow the people of Iowa to have a greater voice in selecting judges while also keeping in place the best parts of our judicial selection process," she said in a released statement.
HF 503, the Iowa House's companion bill to SF 237, passed the House Judiciary Committee and survived the first funnel week.
Photo credit: Ctjf83 via Wikimedia Commons (CC-By-SA 3.0)


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Walks and Waterfalls
Walks and Waterfalls is a growing community of waterfalls, wild swimming and outdoor enthusiasts, exploring Scotland in a brand new way.
There are over a thousand hidden waterfalls all over Scotland; in the highlands and islands; near motorways and cities and the last great wilderness that is Scotland. It's just a matter of finding them. Walks and Waterfalls helps you do just that.
With OS mapping, digital leaderboards and geolocation, the app allows you to bag waterfalls; find wild swimming spots and discover Scotland off the beaten track.
Get ready for your next adventure.


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BARBER is a simple professional easy to use barber shop/hair salon theme built on bootstrap, Its suitable for professional barber sites, hair salon or barber shop sites.The template is responsive, so you can view it also in the mobile/tablets devices and it looks very nice in thoose devices. BARBER is retina ready that means it looks great and very sharp in high resolution devices.
The template have :
- Responsive layout
- Retina Ready
- Multiple section to feat every needs
- One page navigation
- Html 5 & CSS3
- Unique design
- Block design sections
- Instagram feed
- and much more..
The images used in this template are not included with the main purchased files, but there are freebies and you can download them from the link below :
Flaticon has been used for demo purposes only to achieve the shape of the beard and mustache for the image in the about section and its not included in the main download file, but you can use it without any problems by your own
Icon used from flaticon:


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After school last Friday we jumped on a plane and headed off to deepest darkest Uzbekistan, expecting an off the beaten track adventure. While it may be off the North American track, the first part of our trip was in a land of blue hairs, bus tours and bad buffets. All of which I loathe, particularly now that the boys think John and I will soon be joining their ranks… we are getting SO old! Most of our fellow tourists are from the former USSR or India and Pakistan. We are greeted in every hotel not by our name but as "ah, the Canadians". We are the only people traveling with children.
In an effort to avoid the buffets I am always asking guides and drivers to take us to local restaurants. No buses, no tourists… no English! Ordering is a challenge as the menus are in Uzbek and Russian. Uzbekistan is one of only two land locked countries in the world completely surrounded by other land locked countries… there is no fish to be had. We are eating a lot of pretty chewy lamb and beef and some amazingly flavorful chicken. The tomatoes are too die for, and we eat them breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Sadly, our experiment with local food has left each of us at one point or another completely debilitated with a vicious attack of Timurlame's revenge. (Timurlame was born here and we visited his mausoleum on Monday). Always uncomfortable it is doubly so because the available toilet paper is not the soft type kittens play with in adverts but more like the crepe paper one uses to decorate for kids parties. Slightly more pliable than sand paper. I shall never boast about my cast iron stomach again!
Uzbekistan generally tops lists as having one of the world's most corrupt regimes. Turns out corruption has its benefits. For a shockingly small payment we have been able to climb up two ancient minarets that are officially closed to the public (one 12th c, and one 14th c). 140 well used, cracked and uneven steps up and again down, lit only by small holes in the metre thick walls. All three boys ran up like mountain goats. I clung to the walls, stepping carefully and took forever… listening to the echo of the boys asking John "do we really have to wait for Mom!" The views have been phenomenal, looking down into the mosques and medressas and across the stunning countryside. I have been fooling myself that yoga and walking are keeping me fit, must get on a stair master. My legs are killing me!
For all my bitching, the sites are truly spectacular and the people so kind and welcoming. Uzbekistan is filled with Islamic holy places and we cross paths with lots of religious pilgrims. They always invite us to join them in their prayers, giving me the best spot on the women's side. They want to be photographed with us, and there is a lot of giggling, grins and handshakes all around!
While I grew up thinking of the USSR as the enemy, and Stalin as the worst of the worst, he spent a fortune restoring this country and all its jewels. Uzbekistan did not choose independence but had it given to them in 1991 by Gorbachev, whom they hate. When the Russians left so did most people's pensions, healthcare and schools. Sadly, the people in charge didn't really change. The current president has held the post for 20 years and before that he was a senior minister in the old government. Although he is "elected" the elections have been labeled completely unfair by every outside organization. Dissent is ruthlessly suppressed.
Even more wonderful that the sites, I am enjoying our long drives between places. It is here that you get a feel for the real people. It is harvest season, and universities and religious schools have been closed so all students can join in cotton picking. There are hectares and hectares of cotton fields. The Soviets planted them, but cotton needs too much water for this desert climate. There are huge environment costs and water is getting increasingly scarce. Cultivation methods are quite primitive and the rural areas very poor. People picking, donkeys carting and the occasional overloaded tractors. We wave back and forth with the farmers and everyone shares wonderful smiles!
Our last three days have been spent trekking through the mountains. Much more challenging than we imagined and finally, well off the beaten track. We were not prepared for the weather, nights down around 0 degrees and days up in the high 20s… (Celsius!). We brought neither jackets nor sunscreen. The mountains reminded me of New Mexico and are breathtaking in their austerity. The boys were in their element and showed such enthusiasm for putting up tents, gathering wood, building huge fires and even leading the donkeys that helped carry some of our gear. Delightful to see they could have fun with out electronics.
Can't tell you how much I am looking forward to sleeping in a soviet era bed tonight, hard and lumpy as it is. It is a sheer heaven after tossing and turning in the freezing cold trying to get comfortable on the very solid ground.
Back to Beijing tomorrow on the red eye!
(The other country that is landlocked, surrounded by landlocked countries is Lichtenstein!)


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Without our committed volunteers, PWN Global would simply not exist.
It's thanks to the dedicated support of over 300 of our members that we are able to offer events, programmes and resources that support you in realising your true potential and advancing gender balanced leadership. Read some of the stories to see how volunteering has helped our members to develop new skills, make real change in their organisations and achieve their career goals.
If you are already a top leader in your company, or want to experience what leadership at the top is like, we need your help! The nature of volunteerism is transitory, so we are always looking for enthusiastic volunteers to get involved.
As part of the PWN Global Inspirational Story Series, we interviewed INSEAD Executive Master in Finance (EMFin) Alumnus, Désirée Schaeuffele.Read more
Check out our Q1 newsletter and all it has to offer. PWN Romania celebrating it's Women on Boards Community, great book reviews to help you focus on self-worth rather than self esteem, and a beautifully inspiring story from PWN Member and INSEAD GEMBA Alumni, Elisabeth Prigent Olaussen.Read more
Check out some of the great stories in PWN Global's Q4 newsletter, including Feminine Values in Uncertain Times, and a beautifully inspirational story from INSEAD alumni, Alla Idrisova and her move from building a successful corporate career to a fully fledged entrepreneur.
Read the full newsletter here.
Check out the Spring Edition of our newsletter that covers our innovative fundraising campaign 'Wear Your Crown', along with a retrospective on some of the great activities we've been involved in over the last quarter.
Read the full newsletter here.Read more


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Rediscovering Biology: Molecular to Global Perspectives
Genetics of Development
Organisms as different as flies, fish, and humans share genes with remarkable similarity that guide development. This unit explores new understanding of these molecules and processes, and examines how they work to coordinate– or misdirect– the formation of an entire organism.
The online textbook chapters support and extend the content of each video. The Web version can be viewed as a full chapter or as individual sub-sections, and includes links to glossary terms and other related material.
Explore the archive of animations, images and figures from the videos and online textbook. All of the images can be viewed online or downloaded as jpg files.
Read profiles of the expert scientists featured in the video and find the complete transcripts of the interviews conducted for this unit.
Judith Eisen, Ph.D.
Markus Grompe, M.D.
John Incardona, Ph.D.
Nipam Patel, Ph.D.
John Postlethwait, Ph.D.
Chapter Contents
Genes and Development
Differentiation and Genetic Cascades
The Details of Gene Expression
Establishing the Gradient and Coordinate Genes
Responses to the Concentration Gradient
Homeotic Genes
Cell Lineage Mapping and C. Elegans
Fate Maps
Cell-Cell Communication and Signal Transduction
Conservation of the Homeobox
Conservation of the "Control Switch" Gene for Eyes
A Brief Look at Plant Development
Stem Cells
Unit Glossary
Coordinate Genes
Genes that set the coordinate system, the primary anterior-posterior and dorsal-ventral axes, of the early embryo.
Developmental Pathway
A sequence of genes that underlie a developmental process.
The process by which cells specialize during development.
Ectopic expression
Expression (transcription and translation) of a gene at a time or place where it is normally not expressed.
Fate Map
The diagrammatic representation of the cells in the embryo and the eventual type of tissue they will become in the adult.
A 180 nucleotide section of DNA that codes for a specific class of DNA-binding proteins. First found in the homeotic genes of Drosophila melanogaster.
Homeotic genes
Early developmental genes that specify segment identity.
Maternal effect
The condition where the phenotype is determined not by the individual's own genotype but by its mother's genotype.
A short region in a protein sequence, which is conserved in many proteins.
Cells that can produce a defined set of cell types.
Cells that can produce most, but not all, types of cells of the adult organism.
Programmed Cell Death
Death of cells that is part of the normal process of development of an organism.
Regulatory element
Sequences near the coding regions of genes to which transcription factors can bind, thus influencing transcription.
Transgenic organismAn organism that contains hereditary information from two different species of organisms.
Transcription factor
A protein that influences transcription of another gene by binding to DNA.
Unit Animations
- Hedgehog Gradient
The level of Hedgehog protein a cell binds during development can influence its fate.
View Quicktime Movie
- Hedgehog Signaling
The Hedgehog signaling pathway triggers expression of other developmentally important genes.
View Quicktime Movie
- Homeobox
The color-shaded regions represent homeotic genes called Hox genes. The dark band within each gene represents a 180-base-pair region called the homeodomain.
View Animation Still
- Homeodomain
A 3-D model of a protein with a homeodomain, a "helix-turn-helix" motif that acts as a transcription factor by binding directly to DNA to turn on other genes.
View Quicktime Movie
- Retinoic Acid
A retinoic acid gradient controls the activation of many developmentally important genes. Disruptions in the embryo's retinoic acid levels can lead to malformation of the embryo.
View Quicktime Movie
- Spatial and Temporal Colinearity
Hox genes display spatial colinearity — genes at one end of the chromosome are expressed at the head end of an embryo while genes at the other end are expressed toward the tail end. Vertebrate Hox genes also show temporal colinearity — genes at the head end are expressed before those at the tail end.
View Quicktime Movie
Related Resources
Hartl, D. L., and E. W. Jones. 2001. Genetics: Analysis of genes and genomes. 5th ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
A college-level textbook on the principles of genetics; includes an overview of the genetic control of development.
Griffiths, A. J. F., J. H. Miller, D. T. Suzuki, R. C. Lewontin, and W. M. Gelbart. 2000. An Introduction to genetic analysis. 7th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
A textbook that provides more in-depth, but somewhat more difficult coverage, of developmental genetics.
Raff, R. C. 1996. The shape of life: Genes, development, and the evolution of animal form. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
A look at the evolution of development.