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A Space Odyssey: Experimental Manipulation of Threat Perception and Anxiety-Related Interpretation Bias in Children
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This study provides a first test of an experimental method, the "space odyssey" paradigm, that was designed to manipulate interpretation bias in children. Seventy non-clinical children aged 8–12 years first completed a standardized anxiety questionnaire. Following this, they completed the space odyssey paradigm to induce either a negative or a positive interpretation bias. After this stage of interpretation training, children were presented with a series of ambiguous vignettes for which they had to rate perceived levels of threat as an index of interpretation bias. Results indicated that the space odyssey paradigm was successful in training interpretations: children in the negative training condition quickly learned to choose negative outcomes, while children in the positive training condition rapidly learned to select positive outcomes. Most importantly, children's subsequent threat perception scores for the ambiguous vignettes were affected by the manipulation. That is, children in the negative training condition perceived more threat than children in the positive training condition. Interestingly, the effects of training were most pronounced in high anxious children. Directions for future research with this paradigm are briefly discussed.
KeywordsChildren Anxiety Interpretation bias Interpretation training Experimental manipulation
According to Kendall's [1] cognitive theory, pathological manifestations of childhood anxiety result from the chronic overactivity of schemas organized around themes of vulnerability and danger. These overactive schemas are assumed to focus processing resources chronically on threat-relevant information and manifest themselves in so-called cognitive distortions. These distortions pertain to biased cognitive processes that yield erroneous and maladaptive thoughts and behaviors [2, 3]. One example of such an anxiety-related cognitive distortion is interpretation bias, which refers to the tendency to attach a threatening meaning to ambiguous stimuli. Interpretation bias might explain why anxious children so readily evaluate fairly benign situations as dangerous.
Various studies have demonstrated that interpretation bias is present in anxious youths. For example, Bell-Dolan [4] presented 9- to 11-year-old children who were high or low on trait anxiety, with a series of videotaped peer-interaction scenarios displaying peer behaviour that was either hostile, non-hostile, or ambiguous. Results showed that the high-anxious children were equally accurate in identifying hostile intent in peer interactions as their low-anxious counterparts. However, high-anxious children more frequently interpreted the non-hostile and ambiguous scenarios as threatening. In another study of Barrett et al. [5], anxiety disordered children, children with oppositional defiant disorder, and normal controls (all aged between 7 and 14 years) were presented with vignettes of ambiguous situations and asked about what was happening in each situation. Following this, children were given two possible neutral outcomes and two possible threatening outcomes and were asked to indicate which outcome was most likely to occur. Results showed that both anxious and oppositional children more frequently perceived ambiguous situations as threatening than did normal controls, with anxious children more often choosing avoidant outcomes and oppositional children more frequently choosing aggressive outcomes [see also 6, 7]. In addition, a series of studies conducted by Muris and colleagues [8, 9, 10] has shown that anxious children only need very minor threat cues before interpreting ambiguous vignettes as threatening. Adopting a different experimental method, Hadwin et al. [11] confronted 7- to 9-year-old children with homophones (i.e., words that sound the same but have different meanings) that either had a neutral or a threatening meaning (e.g., dye versus die). The results showed that children's anxiety levels were positively associated with the tendency to interpret the homophones as threatening. A comparable approach was followed by Taghavi et al. [12] who presented 9- to 16-year-old youths with homographs (i.e., words that are spelled the same but have different meanings; e.g., tear) that were printed on cards. Participants were asked to construct a sentence that included the homograph. The results of this study indicated that anxious children and adolescents produced significantly more sentences that were consistent with a threatening homograph interpretation than did the control children. All these studies provide a demonstration of anxious children's inclination to perceive the external world as dangerous and illustrate how easily these youths become entangled in anxious feelings and thought processes.
Few investigations have examined the origins of interpretation bias in child populations. While it is generally assumed that inherited temperament or personality characteristics such as neuroticism for a large part determine this type of cognitive distortion [2, 3], there is some recent evidence indicating that environmental influences are also involved. For example, Creswell et al. [13] employed an ambiguous scenario task to measure interpretation bias in a mixed sample of clinically anxious and non-clinical children (aged 7–15 years) and their mothers. The results showed that children's and mothers' interpretation bias scores were positively correlated, suggesting that "children's information processing style may result from internalisation of parental perception of threat" [13, p. 1379; see also 14]. In a subsequent longitudinal study, Creswell et al. [15] examined whether mothers' anxious cognitions were predictive of children's interpretation bias over time (i.e., a period of 6 months). Results indeed revealed the hypothesised prospective link, which provides further support for the idea that family influences are involved in the formation of interpretation bias [16].
While the above described studies indicate that interpretation bias is passed on from parents (i.e. mothers) to their children, it remains unclear what mechanism is responsible for the transfer of this cognitive bias. One possibility is that biased interpretation is installed by anxious parents who, due to their own interpretation bias, frequently provide negative feedback about ambiguous stimuli and situations to their children. In line with this idea, recent evidence from the adult literature has shown that a threat-related interpretation bias can be induced by training participants to generate negative outcomes for ambiguous stimuli. For example, Mathews and Mackintosh [17] confronted their participants with brief ambiguous vignettes, and instructed them to attach either a positive or a negative interpretation to these vignettes by completing one of two word fragments. Participants received feedback (i.e., a correct or a wrong answer message) about their responses in such way that one group was learned to disambiguate the vignettes in a threatening way, whereas the other group was taught to resolve the vignettes in a benign way. Results demonstrated that the training was successful: participants in the negative training group responded significantly faster to negatively toned fragments, while participants in the positive training group responded more quickly to positively toned fragments. Most importantly, a subsequent testing stage during which participants had to interpret a new set of ambiguous vignettes, revealed that their interpretation style was indeed changed. That is, participants in the negative training group more frequently chose negative interpretations, whereas participants in the positive training group more often endorsed positive interpretations. These and other findings suggest that interpretation bias can be successfully manipulated by learning experiences [18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23].
Thus far, all studies on the experimental training of interpretation bias have been conducted with adults. Meanwhile this research might provide valuable insight in the origins of this type of cognitive distortion (see supra) and allied anxiety symptoms in children. Of course the challenge is to develop an experimental paradigm that is suitable for manipulating interpretation bias in young people, which is acceptable from an ethical point of view as well. With this in mind, we developed the "space odyssey" paradigm, which essentially is a computer game of an imaginary journey to an unknown planet. During the first part of the game, children get acquainted with the unknown living conditions on the new planet: they are presented with brief scenarios describing unknown situations. For each situation, children have to choose between a negative (i.e., mildly threatening) or a positive outcome. Children continuously receive feedback on the correctness of their choices. In one half of the children the choice of negative outcomes is reinforced (i.e., negative training group), whereas in the other half the choice of positive outcomes is reinforced (i.e., positive training group). The second part of the game actually is an interpretation bias task: children are asked to imagine that they still live on the new planet and confronted with ambiguous scenarios describing everyday situations that could also occur on earth (e.g., going to school, encountering unfamiliar people). The main task of the children is to rate the level of threat associated with each of these situations. The present article describes a first attempt to manipulate interpretation bias in children using this "space odyssey" paradigm. As this study provides a test of the suitability of this training method, it was conducted in a sample of non-clinical children. However, to explore whether the manipulation has differential impact on high- and low-anxious children, we also measured levels of anxiety disorders symptoms. It was hypothesized that children in the negative training group would display higher levels of threat perception than children in the positive training group. In addition, it was expected that the negative training would have more impact on relatively high-anxious children and thus results in a stronger cognitive bias than in low-anxious children.
The parents of 80 children from a regular primary school in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, were approached by mail with the request to participate in the current study. Most parents (87.5%) responded favourable to this invitation and completed and signed the informed consent form. Six parents did not allow their child to participate, whereas four other parents did not respond to our mailing at all. The 70 participating children (34 boys and 36 girls) had a mean age of 10.03 years (SD = 0.88; range 8–12 years). The research project was officially approved by the Ethical Committee of Psychological Research of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Due to school constraints, no exact information about the socioeconomic background of the youths was available. However, 14.3% of the children was non-Caucasian, which in the Netherlands is generally indicative for a lower socioeconomic status.
The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) is a self-report questionnaire for measuring anxiety disorder symptoms in children and adolescents [24, 25]. The scale consists of 41 items that can be allocated to five subscales. Four of the subscales parallel anxiety disorders as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [26], namely panic/somatic (e.g., "When frightened, my heart beats fast"), generalized anxiety (e.g., "I am a worrier"), separation anxiety (e.g., "I don't like being away from my family"), and social phobia (e.g., "I don't like to be with unfamiliar people"). The fifth subscale is school phobia (e.g., "I am scared to go to school") which represents a common anxiety problem in youths. Children are asked to rate the frequency with which they experience each symptom using three-point scales (0 = almost never, 1 = sometimes, and 2 = often). SCARED total and subscale scores are obtained by summing relevant items. Research has demonstrated that the SCARED has good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and validity, and this conclusion appears true for clinical as well as non-clinical samples of youths [24, 25, 27].
The "Space Odyssey" Paradigm
This paradigm was specifically construed for the purpose of the present study. Essentially this paradigm involves a computer task that is programmed in E-prime (Version 1.0) [28]. Prior to the real task, children were given the following general instruction, which was presented to them on the computer screen: "It is the year 2010. You and your parents are astronauts who travel through space. You are searching for a new planet where people can live. After a long journey, you discover a big planet. You decide to land on the planet and to explore it. When the spacecraft has landed, you discover that the planet resembles the earth in many ways, but there are also a lot of things that you do not know". The computer task consisted of two stages: (1) a training stage during which either a negative or a positive interpretation bias was induced, and (2) a testing stage that was employed to measure interpretation bias.
The training stage consisted of 30 trials. In every trial children were presented with a short scenario describing an unknown situation that might happen on the unknown planet. Each scenario was followed by two options, one describing a positive outcome, the other describing a negative outcome. For example, the scenario "On the street, you encounter a spaceman. He has a sort of toy handgun and he fires at you…" was followed by (A) "You are laughing: it is a water pistol and the weather is fine anyway", and (B) "Oops, this hurts! The pistol produces a red beam which burns your skin!" (for further examples, see Appendix A). Children were instructed to read the scenario and the two possible outcomes and then to choose one of the outcomes by pressing the A or B button on the keyboard of the computer. Directly after pressing one of the buttons, the scenario and outcomes disappeared from the screen to be replaced by either the word "Good" or "Wrong" thereby proving the children with feedback on their choice. In the negative training condition, the choice of a negative outcome was always followed by "Good!" and the choice of a positive outcome was always followed by "Wrong!". In the positive training condition, these outcome-feedback sequences were reversed. Thus, in the negative training condition the choice of a negative outcome was reinforced, whereas in the positive training condition the choice of a positive outcome was reinforced.
The testing stage consisted of ambiguous vignettes that have been employed in previous research to measure interpretation bias in children [10, 29]. Nine vignettes were used, all describing ambiguous situations that children may encounter in daily life (i.e., giving an oral report in front of the class, going to the sporting club for the first time, staying home alone in the evening, not seeing one's mother in a large shopping mall, staying with a friend while parents are on vacation, meeting unknown people who have come to visit mother, having to take an important test at school, encountering unfamiliar men in a big city, driving a bike on a busy street; for an example see Appendix B). Each vignette was construed in such way that children were still given the idea that they were confronted with these (everyday) situations during their space journey. This was achieved by including the word "space" in the first sentence of each vignette (e.g., "school" was described as "space-school", "city" as "space-city", "bike" as "space-bike"). Children started this stage by reading the following instruction on the computer screen: "In a moment, you are going to read a number of brief stories. Some stories are scary: this means that these stories will have a bad ending. Some stories are not scary: this means that these stories will have a good ending (note: in fact all vignettes were ambiguous). Stories will be presented to you sentence-by-sentence, and after each sentence you have to make a prediction on how scary that story is going to become by pressing a figure on the keyboard ranging between 1, which means not at all scary and 7, which indicates very scary" (the pertinent buttons of the keyboard were highlighted in order to facilitate children's responses). As there were nine vignettes that were each composed of 5 sentences, there were 45 responses. As a result, scores on this test varied between 45 and 315, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of threat perception (i.e., negative interpretation bias).
After obtaining informed consent from the parents, children first completed the SCARED during a classroom session. The teacher and the research assistant were present during this assessment in order to ensure confidential responding and to provide assistance if necessary. Within two weeks after completion of the questionnaire, children were tested individually with the computer task by a trained female research assistant in a separate room at school. Children were randomly allocated to either the negative training (n = 34, 15 boys and 19 girls, mean age = 10.12 years, SD = 0.81) or the positive training condition (n = 36, 19 boys and 17 girls, mean age = 9.94, SD = 0.95). The assistant was blind to children's questionnaire scores. She first briefly introduced herself, comforted the child, and then started the E-prime program on the computer (a MacBook). The assistant remained present during the full procedure: she read the instructions together with the child, but kept herself apart during the training and testing stage of the experiment.
Statistical Analysis
Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were employed to examine whether the experimental training was successful and to evaluate differences in threat perception of the ambiguous vignettes (i.e., negative interpretation bias) between children in the negative and positive training groups. As it is known from the literature that anxiety is an important correlate of this type of cognitive bias [2, 3], this variable was included as a covariate in the latter analysis. Further, given the fairly wide age range of the children included in the present study and the fact that girls generally possess a greater vulnerability to display anxiety and related phenomena [30], age and gender were also entered as covariates.
Reliability of Measures
Mean scores on the SCARED and the ambiguous vignettes test were 17.70 (SD = 9.82) and 126.09 (SD = 50.56), respectively. The SCARED total score had an internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) of .88, which indicates that this anxiety scale was highly reliable. Further, scores obtained with the vignette task (testing stage) were also reliable in terms of internal consistency, with Cronbach's alphas of .95 and .96 in negative and positive training groups, respectively. Thus, the main instruments that were used in this study proved to be highly reliable.
Effects During Training Stage: Did Children Learn the Rule?
Altogether, the training stage appeared to be successful: children in the negative training group learned to choose the negative outcomes, whereas children in the positive training group learned to select the positive outcomes.
Effects During Testing Stage: Was Interpretation Bias Successfully Manipulated?
To examine the effects of the training stage on children's interpretation bias, an ANOVA was carried out to compare the threat perception scores of children in both training conditions, which included SCARED anxiety symptoms, gender, and age as covariates. Most importantly, the crucial main effect of training was significant [F(1, 65) = 13.43, p < 01, partial η 2 = .17]: adjusted mean threat perception scores were significantly higher in the negative (M = 144.62, SE = 7.01) than in the positive training group (M = 108.58, SE = 6.81). The effects of the covariates gender [F(1, 65) = 6.72, p < 05, partial η 2 = .09] and SCARED anxiety symptoms1 [F(1, 65) = 16.02, p < 001, partial η 2 = .20] were also significant.
To examine the effect of gender more precisely, a 2 (training) × 2 (gender) ANOVA with SCARED anxiety symptoms and age as covariates was carried out. The main effect of gender remained significant [F(1, 64) = 6.62, p < 05, partial η 2 = .09], but there was no interaction effect of gender and training [F(1, 64) = .04]. Inspection of the adjusted mean threat perception scores indicated that girls clearly displayed higher threat perception scores than did boys, means being 139.19 (SE = 6.95) and 113.07 (SE = 7.18), respectively.
Various studies with adult populations have demonstrated that interpretation biases can be experimentally manipulated [17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]. The present article describes a first attempt to manipulate interpretation bias in children, using a newly developed experimental procedure, the space odyssey paradigm. Non-clinical children aged 8–12 years first underwent a training stage which had the purpose to induce either a negative or a positive interpretation bias. To test whether the paradigm was successful in inducing the intended bias, children were subsequently presented with a series of ambiguous vignettes for which threat perceptions were assessed. Results showed that the training stage was successful: children in the negative training condition quickly learned to choose negative outcomes for the unknown scenes, whereas children in the positive training condition rapidly learned to select positive outcomes. Most importantly, children's subsequent threat perception scores were affected by this manipulation. That is, children in the negative training condition displayed higher threat perception scores than children in the positive training condition. Moreover, an additional analysis indicated that this pattern of results was particularly pronounced for children who already exhibited high levels of anxiety symptoms. The latter finding is interesting because it suggests that more vulnerable (i.e., already more anxious) children were especially affected by our experimental manipulation.
Altogether the results produced by our "space odyssey" paradigm are interesting in that they show that it is possible to change interpretation bias in child populations. Nevertheless, there are a number of important issues that need to be resolved in future research. First of all, as the present study did not include a baseline assessment, we were not able to study the change in interpretation bias as a result of the experimental manipulation. A pre- to post-test design will be necessary to definitely demonstrate that a negative training indeed enhances children's threat perception scores. Further, such a design may reveal whether a positive training is able to reduce this type of cognitive bias, especially in high-anxious children. Second, we only investigated whether the experimental procedure had an effect on children's cognitive style. Thus, it remains to be seen whether this experimental paradigm also produces an effect on children's anxiety levels. Although previous research has shown that this seems to be the case in adults [17], it remains to be seen whether such effects can also be demonstrated in child populations. Third, during the training stage, a 100% contingency was employed to manipulate the cognitive bias. While this seemed to be a "safe" strategy for a first study to investigate the manipulation of interpretation bias in children, it is clear that future studies should investigate the effects at varying contingencies. Fourth and finally, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the current results are at least in part explained by experimental demand. That is, children rapidly learned the interpretation rule during the training stage and then continued to employ this rule during the rest of the experiment. New studies could tackle this problem by employing more 'covert' methods for assessing interpretation bias (e.g., by means of homographs, homophones).
This study also yielded a number of additional findings that deserve some brief comment. To begin with, in keeping with previous research [2, 3], a clear link between children's anxiety symptoms and interpretation bias scores was observed. According to cognitive theory [31], cognitive distortions underlie anxiety problems in youths, but in fact few studies have actually addressed this issue. Future research with the "space odyssey" paradigm as well as studies examining the prospective relation between interpretation bias and anxiety over longer time periods are needed to address this important topic [32]. Further, there was a significant gender difference with respect to interpretation bias, with girls displaying a stronger tendency towards this cognitive distortion than boys. Although this issue has been somewhat neglected in previous research, this result fits nicely with the observation that girls seem to be more anxiety-prone than boys [33, 34]. Finally, the results of the training stage seem to suggest that the positive training worked faster than the negative training. That is, during the first trials of the experiment, children in the positive training condition provided more correct responses than children in the negative training condition. This finding was probably due to the fact that in this sample of non-clinical children there was an initial tendency to choose the positive outcomes for the unknown scenarios. For children in the positive training condition this inclination was immediately confirmed. However, for children in the negative training condition this initial tendency towards the positive first had to be corrected.
As already pointed out, the present study suffered from various methodological limitations that at the same time provide a useful guide for future studies. Of course, another shortcoming pertains to the imaginary character of our "space odyssey" paradigm, which was purely governed by ethical considerations. Nevertheless, the paradigm provides an experimental method that can be used to learn more about the origins of interpretation bias in children. An interesting venue for future studies would be to try to adapt the paradigm so that it becomes suitable for changing this type of cognitive distortions in real life. Recent studies with adults have demonstrated that the training of a benign interpretation bias was effective in reducing trait anxiety [35] and social anxiety [36], and it would be interesting to study whether similar positive results can be achieved in high-anxious youths.
Interpretation bias refers to a cognitive distortion that can be defined as the tendency to disproportionately perceive threat in ambiguous situations, and is thought to play a role in the continuation of anxiety problems [2, 3]. Previous work in adults has shown that interpretation bias can be experimentally induced [17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23], which opens up the possibility to explore the origins of this type of cognitive distortion and to further examine its role in the development of anxiety. The present article describes an experimental paradigm (i.e., the "space odyssey" paradigm) that is suitable for manipulating interpretation bias in child populations. The data indicate that by means of the paradigm children's subsequent threat perception scores for the ambiguous vignettes can be successfully manipulated. Future research should further investigate the applicability of the paradigm to change interpretation bias and anxiety in youth. 1
- 1.
The correlations between the SCARED and ambiguous vignette test scores were .40 (p < 001) in the total group, .60 (p < 001) in the negative training group, and .21 (p = .22) in the positive training group.
Children, parents, and staff of primary school "De Keerkring" in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, are thanked for their participation in this study.
Open Access
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Dogs that attack other dogs can now be impounded in much of Lake County while an investigation is conducted.
The changes affect unincorporated Lake County and 40 of the 52 communities in the county that contract animal-control service to the county. Under the old ordinance, dogs that attacked other dogs were allowed to stay with their owners until an investigation was completed, often causing unease in the neighborhood, said Mark Pfister, director of population health services for the Lake County Health Department.


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The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art invites its members and members of our larger community to a 40/40 Exhibition that celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the Institute. This special event will exhibit artwork by 40 renowned modern and contemporary visual artists who have exhibited at the Institute over the past 40 years.
The Opening night reception will be this Friday April 15th, 2011 from 6-9pm.


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Have you ever heard a band at a wedding and thought: "man, they're good! Where else can I see them?" Live bands that play at family events are not often touring or recording artists. But here are 10 Read more →
Thomas Was Alone Review: It's Amazing What You Can Do With Blocks
To be honest, when I first heard about the downloadable game Thomas Was Alone I wasn't completely sold on it. A game about various sized and shaped blocks? Why would I want to play that? It sounded like something I would find in the app store for my cellphone or on a flash game website, which it ironically was first. Here's the thing though; it is awesome. There was no wool pulled over my eyes, no false information given to me. This really is a game about blocks, each just ever so slightly distinct from the last. So you may ask just as I did, why would I want to play that? Well, the answer can be summarized pretty quickly. You get emotionally involved. Yes that is correct, if you play this Thomas Was Alone you will start caring, attributing personalities, and falling in love with these single color coded various lengths of block.
The whole idea behind the game is pretty simple and, at the start, is something that anyone would be able to pick up and start playing. The objective is to get from point A to point B, and that proves easy enough while Thomas is, as you have probably guessed, alone. Very soon however, the game forsakes its own title and plops another block alongside Thomas. He is Chris, and quite frankly he is a tad grumpy from the get-go. He seems upset that Thomas moves faster, jumps higher, and finds enjoyment at analyzing his surroundings, so naturally he harbors anger towards Thomas from the moment the two meet. From there you'll run into a whole medley of different colored and shaped blocks each with their own unique abilities and personalities. There is a large block that can float in the water that serves up a swift death to any other block, so naturally she believes she is a super hero. There is also a long and slim block that can jump higher than any other, which leads him to think he is better than all of the others. So, let me take a moment here and just let everyone know that this game has no cut scenes or dialogue other than a narrator.
The game progresses as a puzzle platformer. The player is tasked with moving the motley crew to the designated areas. You'll overcome countless obstacles set before you by stacking the blocks to reach new heights or utilizing certain character's abilities, such as Claire's ability to safely submerge in water. As the game goes on, the puzzles get intensely more fun and intricate as things such as timing or moving hazards come into play.
Thomas Was Alone gives players subtle storytelling throughout the whole game and it's one of the best features about the game. The blocks, or should I say characters, themselves don't talk or have any dialogue. Instead, a very nice British chap tends to narrate the thought and conscience of the block you're controlling. This is the only form of story that exists in Thomas Was Alone, and you'd be amazed at how well it works. As you play, you begin to get a feel for how each of these blocks feels and will react to the other ones. You know that the small block, Chris, doesn't like Thomas, but you also learn in time that he has a crush on one of the others. All the while Claire, the large buoyant block, is contemplating who her arch nemesis could be now that she is a superhero. As you play this game, and hear more and more about the characters from the narrator, you begin to grow attached to these characters. Suddenly you're emotionally invested in Chris' crush or you're finding yourself thinking John is a decent guy, but thinks too much of himself. You'll suddenly realize that all of these intricate plots and personalities are about assorted blocks, and that's when the true beauty of the game sets in.
All of these things on top of a really cool mellow soundtrack that plays throughout the game make it something you can pick up and play at leisure, or binge out on for a day or two. Thomas Was Alone is an excellent choice for anyone who is looking for a downloadable game to play. It is available on both the PC/Mac as well as on the PSN.
Review Overview
Overall Score - 9
Out of 10
Summary : Thomas Was Alone is a pleasure to play. This Downloadable game will keep you satisfied with its great soundtrack, fun platforming puzzles, and awesome characters and story.
There are 2 commentsAdd yours
Actually, I enjoyed the game, but kept feeling there would have been
more possibilities to combine the different blocks. It never really
pushed the possibilites to the limits. Also, it never got really REALLY
challenging. Fun for 2-3 days, but then you've seen it all.
I believe this is free for PS+ right now. Nice review Jon, shall check it out.


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Montauk has been engaged in commercial-scale development of renewable energy facilities for over 30 years. Getty Synthetic Fuels, the forerunner to one of our existing subsidiaries, built a groundbreaking high Btu landfill gas to energy plant at the CID landfill in Chicago, Illinois in 1980. Our longest tenured employee began working at that facility in 1983. Getty Synthetic Fuels eventually became GSF Energy. Over the years, GSF Energy built some of the largest landfill gas to energy plants in the nation. Montauk acquired GSF Energy in the 1990s and still operates two of those large facilities. Our unwavering commitment to renewable energy began at the inception of the industry and remains today. 100% of our energy portfolio is still derived from renewable energy sources.
"We remove harmful greenhouse gases from the environment by developing, owning, and operating large scale landfill gas to energy facilities."
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It's good to see so much activity in the GTK+ area, but something really disturbed me: the item they mention the most for GTK+3 is making structure fields private i.e. the app uses only accessor functions and not directly the member data fields in structures.
Of course this is a very good idea -- in fact it is more than that -- it is vital in any object-oriented framework. Indeed, if structure fields are publically exposed to apps, then it is impossible to rework them internally without breaking these apps. Which often makes implementation changes impossible.
So what really disturbs me is that GTK+ somehow manage to make it into year 2008 with publich structure fields. Then again, the C language doesn't help them at all with making these private... since it wasn't designed for object-oriented programming in the first place.
In my humble opinion this is yet another example that object-oriented programming in C is a bad idea and that when you start doing this, it is more than time to start using C++... in fact I can hardly remember the reason why GTK and GNOME still refuse to use at least some features from C++. The two arguments mentioned are a) "C++ libraries are harder to make bindings for" and b) "C++ doesn't have a standard ABI". Well, as has often been said, these arguments are not convincing: a) there exists Qt bindings to a plethora of languages, and b) since each released distro sticks to one compiler version (like "gcc 4.2.3") it doesn't matter if the C++ ABI is not always preserved across versions.
In my humble opinion this is yet another example that object-oriented programming in C is a bad idea and that when you start doing this, it is more than time to start using C++...
True, imo too. There is another option too - the "D" programming language. It's a much-cleaner and simpler follow-on to C++. Uses modules instead of header files, has built-in garbage-collection and many more good features. It *also* has very extensive built-in testing facilities.
Edited 2008-07-14 11:02 UTC
D is really nice, but the standard library situation should be solved (with one, rather than two competing standard libraries), and the language should become stable (there are many useful additions in the D 2.0 spec, that is still in progress).
I think the problem with D is the inclusion of pointer and this will lead to the same type of problem we saw in C++. (personal opinion)
1. D can be directly link to C. So why supporting pointers? If you absolutely need it, where do you need it for GUI programming anyway, you just have to make a C function
2. Programmers will code in D like they did in C. Full of stucts, pointers.
The result will be applications that are no more easier to debug, still suffering from buffer overflow and security holes.
I would probably choose Obj-C, but I don't have an idea if Apple have patent or IP on it. But if there's a pointerless D, I'll probably take this one.
I know this sounds stupid, but why not Objective-C? I've looked through it, and its a damn site nicer to use and look at than C++. Its well supported and developed for, increasing numbers are taking an interest in it as the user base grows.
Right now Objective-C 2.0 brings garbage collection and many other features. I know it'll take a while, but compared to C++, its the lesser of two evils at the moment.
With Objective C it would not be easy to have bindings for static typed languages. Also the Smalltalk-style syntax doesn't map very well to most other languages.
I think GTK+ 3.0 should be implemented in Vala (at least partially). It's designed for the GObject type system and results in the same ABI as C libraries.
With pure C you can code Carbon applications, but Carbon is outdated. Then there is Objective C++: most of your program will be C++ but the Cocoa calls will be with the Smalltalk-like "Objective-syntax". Perhaps that's what Qt does. The Java bindings had difficulties mapping Cocoa to Java and are abandoned now. And even Ruby or Python bindings look strange, like: myObject.setValue_forKey_(u"foo", u"bar")
Edited 2008-07-14 15:24 UTC
Vala code does not only compile to GObject/C libraries, the compiler also will create interface files for GObjectIntrospection, which can be used for example from Python to bind GObject libraries at runtime:
Nicer to look at? You're kidding, right? It takes two of the ugliest known languages known to man and mashes them together.
They each have features the other doesn't, they both have things one does better than the other. Speaking as a C++ programmer, there are many things I can't live without, and while I realize the same may be true for an Objective-C programmer, my side wins because there are by far more stubborn C++ programmers. :-D
I totally disagree that Smalltalk is an ugly language. It's actually one of the best and most beautiful programming languages together with LISP. But I wouldn't want to see it mixed with C code. And Objective C has no blocks/closures, which actually are one of the most important features of Smalltalk.
Edited 2008-07-14 16:03 UTC
What about Vala?
What about written a real Vala compiler that receives as input a Vala source code and outputs a binary GTK+ compliant?
Vala is a very nice programming language and is GTK+ centric, so will model everything à la GTK+... no wrappers, idioms or verbosity needed.
What about written a real Vala compiler that receives as input a Vala source code and outputs a binary GTK+ compliant?
Would be possible, but the current solution with C as an intermediate language has the advantage that you get all C compiler optimizations for free. And it is possible to distribute the generated C source along with the source tarball. So if someone wants to compile the application for his platform he wouldn't even need the Vala compiler.
Using C as an intermediate language for compiling is not uncommon. For example Eiffel does this, too.
Actually it's GLib centric. You can write object oriented applications without any GTK+.
Vala would be in charge of all the plumbing and the developer would not need about anything (that's the rational behind Vala, of course)
Basically it should be possible, but Vala has still bugs and the syntax is still changing sometimes, it's not a final version yet. GTK developers would have to tightly cooperate with the Vala developers. But as I understand GTK+ 3.x is not intended as a complete rewrite, but as a major refactoring and extension. In my opinion it would be reasonable to implement new widgets and components in Vala and let the others be plain C until they get replaced at some time. GObject/C and Vala classes happily work together as they are the same.
What about Lua - http://www.lua.org
I'm also a c++ programmer, but i kind of like Lua for some reason, it just seems right.
I'm also a c++ programmer, but i kind of like Lua for some reason, it just seems right.
Lua is a cute scripting language for scriptable applications and games but doesn't compile to native code.
The open source community thrives on innovation and interesting challenges, which is why there is now talk of GTK+, but one has to wonder whether it wouldn't make more sense to spend the next three years in bug squashing and polishing mode.
That's what the current gnome desktop needs from a user's point of view. A rewrite will be costly, will lead to loss of functionality in some applications in the short term 2-3 years and to the potential disappearance of others.
I think 3-4 years for ABI/API breakage in the gnome world is too short a time. 6-8 years sounds like a more reasonable time frame, that is if they expect any serious uptake by real users in government, education and so forth.
People moving to Linux are not looking for sexy. They are looking for reliable, fast and feature-full desktops. And some of the issues with GTK2 could very well be fixed without breaking ABI/API.
Good luck to them, nonetheless.
Well if done correctly, API/ABI breaks won't be noticed by the user. Linux, like most other OSes, can have multiple ABI/API incompatible versions of the same library installed. Software that only works with the older ones will be dynamically linked with the older ones rather than the newer ones.
Similar to how you can run GTK1 applications on a modern Linux desktop, it just looks bad.
Of course, that means applications using the deprecated APIs won't benefit from updates to the newer versions of the library and there will be some added overhead in maintaining a seperate code base for older versions of GTK and performing security fix releases, but it could be well worth it.
Edited 2008-07-14 11:49 UTC
If I read correctly this exactly the plan, I believe 2.16.x will be the last 2.x.x version and will include the deprecated functionality, the first 3.0.x version will be able to install alongside the 2.16.x version and is the same as the 2.16.x vesion without all the deprecated code. So all in all a smooth transition should be possible and if you don't want to jump you can still use 2.16.x (which is backward compatible in the 2.x.x range), but I think that the most popular software will make the jump very fast.
Introducing a cleaner codebase to the library can actually result in fixed bugs and better performance, in addition to the ability to support new and needed features. Now is not the time to go and polish a turd (GTK2), or at least not as the main focus of the GTK+ community. Certainly development and bugfixing on GTK2 should not cease once work begins on GTK3, however.
"The open source community thrives on innovation and interesting challenges, which is why there is now talk of GTK+, but one has to wonder whether it wouldn't make more sense to spend the next three years in bug squashing and polishing mode."
I agree. I'm thinking about two top level OSS GTK apps: Inkscape and Pidgin. Both are pretty good applications, but are still struggling to reach "top of the class": Pidgin is always chasing protocols (not their fault, of course), while Inkscape's roadmap still shows a lot of work ahead.
The following scenario: GTK developers moving to an incompatible GTK 3 API and Inkscape/Pidgin having to rewrite most of the applications, losing functionality for a while and they trying to put it back in, seems like an users' nightmare to me.
And these are just 2 examples, think of the tons of GTK 2 apps.
Edited 2008-07-14 12:56 UTC
True, Inkscape has deep ties to Gtk. However, Inkscape, similar to a lot of other apps, wants to decouple the application logic from the GUI toolkit as much as possible.
Hopefully apps can get to the point where toolkits can be snapped on interchangeably with relatively little pain.
This is a fine idea, except for one detail. Who will perform the labor? If open source developers, who contribute for no reason other than their joy of programming, receive none of the joy but all of the labor, what is the incentive?
It would cripple the resources of any large corporation to replace these many amateurs (translate this literally "for the love of it") with full-time employees.
There needs to be a better arrangement than "don't do what you want to do, do what I want you to do."
Edited 2008-07-14 20:33 UTC
> Then again, the C language doesn't help
> them at all with making these private...
I think they mean:
struct gtk_foo {
int something;
struct gtk_foo *gtk_foo_create();
int gtk_foo_get_something(struct gtk_foo *);
struct gtk_foo;
struct gtk_foo *gtk_foo_create();
int gtk_foo_get_something(struct gtk_foo *);
struct gtk_foo {
int something;
so in pratice this is a way to make field structures private to other files...
Edited 2008-07-15 12:23 UTC
I'm happy people are finally coming up with more solid plans to the future... but this document seems more like a "teaser" than a "trailer" to me... some ideas, some proposals... but in the end, there's not too much decided.
Some of the technical changes may be good, but will it address performance problems? they mention layout engines, but what is the direction they're looking for? what problems they want to solve? better yet, what kind of UI paradigm they're looking for in the future for GNOME?
Even with clutter mentioned, it doesn't really make obvious the direction they want to take.
I REALLY would like some kid of new HIG proposal and some interface mockups... in the end, that's what the user understand as "GNOME"--the experience they have with its user interface.
I not really looking forward to a DE with half programs taking a paradigm and each one of the rest trying new approaches... So, it would be nice to starting to look at these thing as soon as possible, so the community can synchronize their work towards this.
If they're trying to solve a problem with the new layout engine and clutter, it really would help to know the objectives they have in mind.
I'm not really criticizing the evolutionary path or the technical decisions made in this document. But I'm really looking forward to know what they're up to and what they're trying to accomplish... I hope trey also have an idea too...
I guess you are mixing up GTK+ and Gnome. Yes, the two projects are related but nonetheless different.
Ars Technica have an article (or just speculation?) about the plans for Gnome 3:
I use GTK primarily in a non-Latin/English environment and these are very important to me:
1. Get rid of stock icons.
2. Get rid of gettext based translations (well probably cannot do away with all of it). Use something like UI XML files that can be translated using Glade or other visual tool (like its done in OS X) and loaded as such.
3. Support a single Object oriented language as a first class platform. Be it C++, C#, java, .... support one of them as a development platform and don't let it play catchup to the C implementation. I still like to keep C as the underlying library file.
4. better integrated keyboard and input method support. Be able to let users write input methods using text files for complex script input.
1. Get rid of stock icons.
I really don't understand what this could be useful for. What's wrong with the stock icons?
2. Get rid of gettext based translations (well probably cannot do away with all of it). Use something like UI XML files that can be translated using Glade or other visual tool (like its done in OS X) and loaded as such.
You are mistaken on this one. Nothing in gettext's design prevents you to use GUI tools for the translation. You can use programs like gTranslator or KBabel for this.
2. Get rid of gettext based translations (well probably cannot do away with all of it). Use something like UI XML files that can be translated using Glade or other visual tool (like its done in OS X) and loaded as such.
You are mistaken on this one. Nothing in gettext's design prevents you to use GUI tools for the translation. You can use programs like gTranslator or KBabel for this.
The problem is contextual translation. Gtranslator, etc. tell you what to translate. You fire up the application and find out the translation is in appropriate for the context.
Wow, I think I disagree on pretty much every point!
1. Get rid of stock icons.
I can't see why you would possibly want to do this. In fact, I'd like to see many more stock icons for increased consistency between apps. I suspect what you actually mean is "get rid of icons from buttons", but you can already do this...
I don't think there's any reason that a gettext translation editor couldn't be be integrated into Glade. In fact, it's an excellent idea. GSoC next year, anyone?
To me, one of the great strengths of GTK is the fact that you can write apps using pretty much any language you like. Compare this with Mac OS, where the choice these days is Objective C or nothing, or Windows where MS are doing their best to force you onto .NET.
I will agree though that having C as the "default" is not ideal, which is why I'm really excited about the prospect of Vala as a "native" GLib language.
I'm not an international user, so I'll take your word for it that these things need to be improved :-)
To me, one of the great strengths of GTK is the fact that you can write apps using pretty much any language you like. Compare this with Mac OS, where the choice these days is Objective C or nothing, or Windows where MS are doing their best to force you onto .NET.
If so you should like .Net more
.net is not just a language (c#), but a framework providing language interoperability and cross-language class / method invocation via a common ( for languages whose compiler and/or runtime is ported to the IL - quite some of them, actually http://www.dotnetpowered.com/languages.aspx ) object model and runtime - whereas other platforms require bindings for each desired library, for each desired language
The presentation was good, but it was interesting to see that there was no agreement on the "canvas" side of things (or even if a canvas was needed!).
That's a bit of a surprise - I can understand debate being lengthy on which programming language to use (going into Gtk 3), but I would have thought getting a canvas agreed on wouldn't take all that long...
Maybe the experimental approach that led to Git could be good. In Git's case, it was a new SCM that was needed, so Linus tried a few things out and came up with the awesome (imo) Git. A few "canvas experiments" by the Gtk devs could likewise lead to an excellent canvas.
Anyway, best of luck to the Gtk devs! There are some good ideas in the Gtk area, one of which is Vala. If that kind of creativity can be maintained, things look promising for Gtk 3.0.
Edited 2008-07-15 00:48 UTC
Actually, there are quite a few canvas experiments in the GTK+ community; the problem is, that they can't decide now on which one to pick in the end.
Clutter seems to be the most popular (having seen a few stories on it and applications using it) but there are others: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectRidley/CanvasOverview/Canvases


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Application using this process: PCMark
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IT, Web & App Geeks
In Albury-Wodonga
IT, Web & App Geeks
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Jossee McCrostie
Admin/App Geek
Jossee holds down the fort front-of-office. She's proven herself as incredibly versatile, having thrived in a number of industries and locations, not to mention managing a family of her own. Jossee's also our go-to geek for mobile app development and increasingly web design — a skill that she's picked up in no time.
Tamara Cox
Wife to the Head Geek, Tamara boasts limited IT skills, however does a lot of behind-the-scenes management and HR related work for COXTECH. She really loves her day job helping mums, dads and bubs as a Maternal & Child Health Nurse.
Stephanie Lowe
Mayur Chauhan
Local & remote IT services
PC, server, network & internet support
To minimise downtime, let COXTECH setup and manage your IT services. We handle networks, computers and hardware.
We have over a decade of experience in many Microsoft environments, ranging from desktops PCs, corporate servers and mobile devices.
We're also a Certified Microsoft Partner.
We provide a number of Microsoft specific IT services, including setting up your own dedicated Microsoft Windows server (including Exchange/Azure) and maintaining your office workstations. Just ask to see what we can do for you or your business.
Upgrade to Windows 10
While we're comfortable supporting the good ol' favourites like Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows 8, there's no better time than now to bite the bullet and upgrade to Windows 10.
It's familiar enough that you'll be able to stay productive, while getting to use a ton of neat new features and apps. Not to mention, it's the fastest, lightest version of the Windows OS yet, so you'll go further on the same hardware, for longer.
Apple Services
COXTECH is a geek-loving company and we love all things Apple.
The COXTECH office runs largely on Apple technology and we have the experience and expertise to assist your business with your Apple stuff.
Have an Apple iMac, MacBook, iPad or iPhone? We can help with servicing Apple products. We diagnose issues, improve performance, reconfigure MacOS (formerly OS X) or installed apps, setup scheduled backups through Apple TimeMachine (or custom backup solutions) and more.
Networking Services
Do you need help with your network?
We often assist small to medium businesses with planning, installing and maintaining their networks specialising in wireless or hybrid connection networks.
Internet Services
Do you have the fastest internet available at your location? Want us to take a look to see if you are getting the speed you should be?
We can help optimise your connectivity to the net, maximising your business' online experience. You'll get more done in less time.
We can help with NBN Fibre, NBN Fixed Wireless, 4G, HSDSL, EFM, Ethernet, Wireless, Microwave and much more.
Linux & IoT
It seems as though a day doesn't go by where we aren't experimenting with the wide world of Linux and Unix flavours in the office, for all kinds of applications and configurations.
From servers, to lightweight router-targeted distributions such as OpenWRT, to Raspbian on Raspberry Pis. Try us, we bet we've worked on it!
We love a challenge to fix or create something that's just a little bit different. From digital art gallery exhibitions and billboards, to custom weather station integrations onto your website, amongst numerous other Internet of Things (IoT) projects. Let us know what you're working on to see if we can help out.
Website design and development, web hosting infrastructure, SEO services, emails, online stores, forms and web apps, developed in-house
Our latest server infrastructure utilises nothing but the latest technologies. Any website built by COXTECH runs on a hybrid HTTP2 Apache/NGINX stack, blazing fast PHP7, all distributed through a CDN to deliver your content more quickly, wherever you and your viewers are in the world.
15GB Storage
50GB Bandwidth
Database (MySQL)
FTP (secured)
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate
Brute-force minimisation
Easy self-service hosting
No contracts, cancel anytime
Not designed for Wordpress websites
All of Standard +
50GB Storage
Optimised for Wordpress websites
Scheduled malware scans
Most Popular
All of Premium +
Unlimited Bandwidth
Unlimited WordPress Phone Support
Daily off-site WordPress website backups
WordPress software updates (WordPress, plugins and themes)
WordPress security checks and troubleshooting
Website uptime monitoring
Complete website disaster recovery
Google Webmaster Tools for improved website search engine indexing
Website traffic reports from Google Analytics
All of Supreme +
Three edits to content sections per month. Just send them through and we will update it for you.
As a Microsoft Certified Cloud Partner, we will get you up and running with world-class business email and online services.
COXTECH use and recommend Office 365 as a mail service due to its brilliant collaboration features, reliability, integrations, security and ease of use.
Contact us today to find out how we can get you up and running with a custom business email address.
|Microsoft Office 365 Email
|Microsoft Office 365 Email + Apps
|Microsoft Outlook online
Web browser login
|Microsoft Office 365 apps
Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook
|One-off setup cost
Additional time may be required depending on existing infrastructure
|1-2 hours
|1-2 hours
|Monthly cost
|$7 per user
|$17.50 per user
Protect your online identity and secure a domain name to match your business name or business function.
By partnering with registrars, we're able to swiftly acquire and manage your domains, in addition to investigating potential sources for other domain name extensions you may require. Domains generally cost $30 per year and are billed on a 12 month cycle. Please note that these will be quoted on a per domain name basis as the the costs vary depending on which domain name extension you are after. Get in touch to see if your next domain name is available.
Websites we've built
A quick look at a handful of recent websites and web projects we've undertaken for our clients.
COXTECH has a dedicated web development team. We get that it's important to have a strong online presence that actually delivers results for your business.
All new websites are built with responsive website design in mind, ensuring your website will look great on all device types – whether it be a Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad or Android device.
We're also able to develop custom solutions in-house. From integrations with existing APIs, products or services, to migrating data from old clunky web platforms. Let us know what you're looking into doing, it's likely we've done something similar before.
As a quick rule of thumb, our website build quotes usually start from $3,000 for a uniquely designed, WordPress-based CMS website, powered by our bleeding-edge server architecture (see our hosting plans).
We also build online stores using modern eCommerce platforms that directly integrate into WordPress, providing a central source of management for your online business. We also do tailor-made integrations at an additional cost. For a quote, feel free to come by our office or give us a call, we can't wait to get started!
Astra provides luxury alpine ski accommodation at Falls Creek. We designed and developed their new website, requiring custom weather feed integration, coded in-house. We also enjoy assisting Astra with website updates and content management support.
Albury Meals on Wheels
We were humbled to be given the opportunity to design and develop Albury Meals on Wheels' new website. Following strict brand and marketing material, we successfully developed an easy to an edit website, altering appearance based on various devices sizes.
The Inspired Space
One of the region's premier interior designers. Based in Albury-Wodonga and specialising in real estate styling for homes going on the market to sell, The Inspired Space required a clean, indexable and mobile responsive website design.
South NSW Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
A full website redesign and content migration from the region's prominent Seventh-day Adventists organisation.
Here's some more
Australian Ramp and Access Solutions is the country's leading provider of accessibility solutions (such as ramps and steps) to commercial industries and public consumers. We carried out a website rebuild and restructuring of content and brand presence following a thorough analysis of website traffic data over a period of a couple of months.
Alpine View Estate
Alpine View Estate, Albury Wodonga's premier elevated homesites offering the discerning buyer the opportunity to build in a quality environment, needed a website redesign. We we're only glad to help.
Having first come to us as a new startup, BGM is a provider of bank guarantee provisioning and cost management services. We successfully met the client's requirements of a speedy turnaround for a blazing fast launch.
UPA Murray
A respected provider of care for children and the elderly, we assisted UPA with a complete website redesign, migrating content over to the new platform.
Splitlock developed an exciting new data encryption and storage method. When Splitlock first came to us, they needed a new website launched yesterday. We successfully designed, developed and launched a ground-up website solution within a super tight deadline.
Providing luxury ski apartments in Falls Creek, Victoria's Alpine region, we collaborated with the client's designer, crafting a solution ticking all of the guidelines and requirements, including Instagram photo feeds and weather forecasts.
Quick Kill
A friendly, reliable and accredited pest control service in the region, we carried out the website design, development and SEO refinement through multiple iterations of content tweaks.
ARIA Skin & Body
A skin and body clinic focused on providing result-driven natural products to their growing number of happy clients. We took the existing website further, by integrating an eCommerce and payment solution, providing a way for ARIA's clients to purchase their recommended products online.
Actually, over the past 10+ years, we've built and manage over 200 more
Android and iOS apps, crafted in-house
Extend your reach with an app on the Apple App Store and Google Play
Have you considered an app for your business?
Apps mobilise your business and get your products into the hands of your clients, staff and contractors.
We can usually build a mockup of an app within a few weeks (depending on our load), with app prices starting from $5,000 with a $95 per month app hosting fee for integrated web-based services. The app hosting fee ensures you can update and maintain your app as well as send unlimited push notifications to your users at no extra cost. Imagine the messages you could be sending…
Getting in touch
In Lavington, a suburb of Albury, NSW, Australia
Office Address
315 Wagga Road, Lavington, NSW, 2641
Postal Address
PO Box 644, Lavington, NSW, 2641
Phone 02 6021 1078
International Phone +61 2 6021 1078
Fax 02 8080 8326
International Fax +61 2 8080 8326
Opening Hours
Mon-Thu 9am-5pm
Fri 9am-4pm


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Status: Closed
Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Be the first MLive.com user to add photos or videos of Pic Theatre
Pic Theatre can be found at Quincy St 426. The following is offered: Movie Theaters. The entry is present with us since Sep 10, 2010 and was last updated on Nov 14, 2013. In Hancock there are 1 other Movie Theaters. An overview can be found here.


text: Zoned RCD. Needs variance for lot size. 1.92 AC. Permitted principal uses shall be: Offices for business, professional and governmental purposes. Light industry where the only activity involved is one of the fabricating or the assembling of standardized parts as contrasted to a processing activity which would involve a physical or chemical process that would change the nature and/or character of the product and/or raw material. The wholesaling or retailing of goods and/or services, including the warehousing or storage of goods. Scientific or research laboratories devoted to research, design and/or experimentation and processing and fabricating incidental thereto, provided that no materials or finished products shall be manufactured, processed or fabricated on said premises for sale, except such as are incidental to said laboratory activities or are otherwise permitted in this zone. Education facilities, including commercial, private and public schools. Gasoline filling stations; mixed retail sales and gasoline filling stations. Furniture, furnishings and household appliance stores. A public garage, new motor sales or leasing agency or used motor vehicle sales agency (provided that it is incidental to the sale of new motor vehicles) or a used motor vehicle sales agency which involves the construction of a single new building of not less than 10,000 square feet. Commercial recreation facilities.SEE ASS DOC FOR OTHER USES.


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Once again a very busy month has seen our warehouse buzzing with activity and the production of many new and exciting pieces from sofas and sectionals to mid-century modern hand painted chairs. Enjoy!
International Copyright © 2018 ModShop ® All rights reserved. ModShop® is a registered Trademark.
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We offer competitive health plans that cover a variety of options, ranging from help with everyday costs to more comprehensive private health insurance.
Find out how quick and easy it is to join AXA PPP healthcare and get a quote today
We can provide healthcare cover from one to 249 employees, supporting you and your team back to health and work as quickly as possible.
Our health and wellbeing section offers helpful information about medical conditions and illnesses. If you can't find the information you're looking for, please contact our experienced team of nurses using the online service, Ask the expert
Sign up to our monthly newsletter, Better Health, to receive our latest health and wellbeing updates
Online servicing provides a quick, convenient and secure way to get the information you need, when it suits you best.
Visit Axa.co.uk
*Subject to medical history and cover options chosen. Out-patient drugs are not covered by this plan.
Plus we've teamed up with PureGym because we love how they're giving more people the chance to enjoy going to the gym. Purchase a Personal Health plan, choose the best PureGym location for you and get 50% off the annual PureGym membership price when you buy on myactiveplus.com. Full terms and conditions here.
Based 407 reviews between February 2017 - December 2017. These members were asked to rate the level of service from AXA PPP healthcare following their purchase.
The Defaqto 5 Star Rating is based on the overall product including options. Where not all options are taken, this may affect the rating.
AXA PPP healthcare have been named the Best Direct Healthcare Provider for the 6th year running in the Your Money Awards.
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Personal Health, like other private health insurance plans, offers cover for treatment of new medical conditions that arise after you become a member. Personal Health includes:
Personal Health is a modular plan, allowing you to choose from up to seven options to enhance your cover.
Please note that there may be restrictions on cover, depending on your medical history.
Standard out-patient
Full out-patient
Extended cover
Therapies cover
Mental health cover
Dentist and optician CashBack
Travel cover
Up to three specialist consultations a year as an out-patient. No yearly limit on diagnostic tests like x-rays, ultrasounds and blood tests, and practitioner charges referred by a specialist. Practitioners include nurses, dieticians, orthoptists and speech therapists.
No yearly limit for specialist consultations and diagnostic tests (x-rays, ultrasounds and blood tests) and practitioner charges referred by a specialist. Practitioners include nurses, dieticians, orthoptists and speech therapists.
Up to £500 a year for Private GP consultations. Five consultations a year with our own Online GP service provided by Doctor Care Anywhere. Extended cover for treatment at any hospital, day-patient unit or scanning centre in the UK, even if outside of our Directory of Hospitals. Overseas cover for planned treatment up to the cost of equivalent eligible UK treatment.
Covers you for up to a maximum of 10 sessions per year for GP referred out-patient physiotherapy, osteopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture and chiropractic treatments. Further sessions are available (as long as we agree them first) if you are referred by a specialist. You also get access to our Working Body telephone service so if you haven't seen your GP, you can arrange a call with a physiotherapist to get the right advice and treatment for you.
Cover for in-patient and day-patient treatment of mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. Out-patient specialist consultations are also covered. In addition, treatment with psychologists, psychotherapists and cognitive behavioural therapists which include:
are covered if a specialist oversees your treatment.
To see which psychiatric hospitals are in our Directory of Hospitals visit our members' pages.
80% of dentist charges, up to £400 a year. 80% of the cost of prescription glasses and contact lenses that you need to correct your sight, up to £200 a year. Plus, up to £25 each year for an eye test.
This includes cover towards the cost of emergency medical treatment abroad, as well as the usual travel benefits such as loss of personal baggage and loss of passport. Choose either European or Worldwide cover. Adventure sports upgrade also available.
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A moratorium is a set period of time when we won't cover you for the treatment of any medical conditions that you had suffered from or had symptoms of before you took out your plan. There's no need to provide information about your medical history when you join.
For the first two years, medical conditions you've had in the last five years, and in some cases other specified conditions will be excluded from cover. However, as long as you're completely free of any form of treatment or advice for that condition for a consecutive 24 month period after you join, you'll be covered for it in the future within the benefits of your plan. You'll be provided with more information about this when you join.
If you want greater control over the cost of your plan, you can add an excess, include our Six week option or do both.
Add an excess
You can bring down your monthly subscription by chipping in if you need to make a claim. Your excess could be as low as £100, and you'll only be asked to pay once a year for each person who claims.
Six week option
With this option, you'll be treated by the NHS if they can treat you within six weeks of when in-patient treatment, day-patient treatment, cancer treatment or any surgical procedure is needed. If the wait is longer, you'll be able to have eligible private treatment straight away. So you could avoid waiting lists and save up to 23% on your monthly subscription.
Further savings when you renew
Our best ever no claims discount rewards you with savings for every year you don't need to make a claim. All claims under the therapies option, along with some other benefits, will not affect your no claims discount.
Pay yearly and save 5%
If you pay a year's subscription in one go, you'll benefit from a 5% saving.
Click here to find out more about saving on the cost of private health insurance.
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Our Personal Health plan will not cover the following unless you choose the relevant options;
For full details of the benefits, limitations and exclusions to cover, please refer to the membership handbook.
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Belgium – not just the capital city, Brussels, but the entire country – is in lockdown. Paris is still recovering from the Friday the 13th Islamist attacks, Turkey has just shot down a Russian military jet that waggled slightly over its border, and the U.S. State Department has issued a World Wide Travel Warning to Americans sojourning abroad.
We have the Islamists right where they want us: cowering in our homes, afraid to walk the streets or ride the subways, even just to purchase groceries, much less patronize a bar or shop for Christmas presents. Well, Americans aren't afraid – yet – even though Islamic State has vowed to launch attacks on soft targets in the United States.
Quavering so much better than discriminating against Muslims suspected of terrorist proclivities, n'est-ce pas? Refusing Muslims entry into our country would be just so 'racist,' unfriendly, un-American. Let the lights of Broadway darken. Shutter all the bars and movie theaters. Let Americans do their Black Friday shopping online. But don't prevent one suspected terrorist, against whom you have no "proof" of illegal activity, from entering the country.
Fundamentalist Muslim cities are grim, dreary places after sundown. Sales and consumption of alcohol are forbidden by Sharia law. Movie theaters are reserved for debauched Western nationals and deeply despised by Islamists. Fast-food restaurants represent another symbol of Western decadence and detour tourists from sampling the local fare. Who wouldn't prefer to dine on a freshly plucked lamb's eye than a gut-busting Big Mac? Yum.
A thousand lashes with a whip for that multicultural mockery. Nor should we shudder at the Third World custom of only using the right hand (the left hand being reserved for unmentionable uses and not just in Muslim countries, either, I've been told). Criticism of unhygienic personal habits insult Third Worlders.
The Jihadis aren't just coming; they're here. They've been here since at least the 1990s. Should they gain a plurality in any major city, Sharia law will become the law of the municipality. The larger their population grows and the Western European population recedes, the greater their power will become.
What Christian churches aren't already closed due to lack of attendance (a common occurrence in cities with large, single populations) will be closed by their religious police. Any churches that are permitted to remain open must prove their congregations are legitimate and then they must pay the jizya, a religiously-required per capita tax on all non-Muslims.
Don't think you can buy the Muslim zealots off. The Jizya is only an economic measure to pressure you into converting or leaving the area. They intend to wipe the planet clean of all apostates, heathens, Christians, and Jews. In short, anyone who isn't them or refuses to convert.
But Obama assures us he's got our backs. Is he kidding? Is Hillary kidding? She advocates the continuing immigration of Jihadist refugees. Security will take care of us after they've arrived, so we can't possibly deny them entry into the United States. It's – it's – why, it's haram! Remember when she was the First Lady – excuse me – "co-president" – and she and Chelsea embarked on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East? The ladies demurely donned ashas, head scarfs to acknowledge the local custom of servility to men.
If we fear Islamic retribution for our customs, we'll just have to stop going to bars, football games, shopping malls, movie theaters, and churches. We can stop walking our dogs. Unrelated men and unveiled women can stop being seen together in public places. We can take dolls away from our little girls.
On the State Department website, the page for Saudi Arabia used to list all things which travelers were forbidden to bring into the Kingdom, including dolls.
Islam is the official religion of the country and pervades all aspects of life in Saudi Arabia. Public display of non-Islamic religious articles, such as crosses and Bibles, is not permitted. Non-Muslims are forbidden to travel to Makkah (Mecca) and Medina, the cities where two of Islam's holiest mosques are located. Norms for public behavior in Saudi Arabia are extremely conservative, and the religious police, formally known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), and referred to colloquially as the Mutawwa or Al-Hay'a, are charged with enforcing these standards.
Mutawwa are required to carry special identification and usually are accompanied by uniformed police; however, in some cases they have detained persons without an accompanying police officer. The CPVPV has accosted or arrested foreigners, including U.S. citizens, for improper dress or other alleged infractions, such as consumption of alcohol or association by a female with a male to whom she is not related. Mutawwa who are accompanied by a uniformed police officer have the power to take individuals to a police station or Mutawwa office. If a uniformed police officer is present with the Mutawwa, an individual must, if requested, hand over his or her residence permit (Iqama) or other identification to the police officer. While most incidents have resulted only in inconvenience or embarrassment, the potential exists for an individual to be arrested, physically harmed, or deported. U.S. citizens who are involved in an incident with the Mutawwa should report the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh or the U.S. Consulates General in Jeddah or Dhahran.
In most areas of Saudi Arabia, and particularly in Riyadh and the central part of the Kingdom, women wear a full-length black covering known as an abaya, and cover their heads. Women who choose not to conform to this dress code face a risk of confrontation by Mutawwa and possible detention/arrest. Men should also dress conservatively, and not wear shorts in public or go without a shirt. Private Saudi citizens who perceive that a foreigner is not observing conservative standards of conduct or dress have been known to harass, pursue, or assault that person.
Many areas of life in Saudi Arabia are segregated by sex to ensure that unrelated men and women have no possibility of mingling (a punishable crime). Some Mutawwa try to enforce this by asking for proof that a couple is married or related. Women who are arrested for socializing with a man who is not a relative may be charged with prostitution. Some restaurants, particularly fast-food outlets, refuse to serve women who are not accompanied by a close male relative. In addition, some restaurants or cafes do not have a "family section" in which women are permitted to eat. Men not accompanied by a close female family member must stay out of family sections, and may not use services (such as registers at supermarkets) designated as "family". These restrictions are not always posted. This is more common in Riyadh and the more conservative central Nejd region.
Dancing, playing music, and showing movies in public are forbidden.
In other words, either the West must stop the Islamists or stop living – one way or the other.