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Tagged: digital scholarship
Brand Association and Your Twitter Followers
One of the thing's that Martin appears to have been thinking a lot about lately are metrics for rating 'digital scholars', i.e. those of us who don't do any of the reputation bearing thing that traditional academics do, (though whether that's because we're not very good at those things is not for me to say;-)
So for example, in The Keynote Equivalent? he reviews the notions of reputation and impact factor, and in Connectors versus outputs he calls on some really dubious social media buzz metrics to raise the more far more valid issue of how we measure influence within, and value the contributions made to, a social network (peer community?) in order to recognise the extent of someone's influence within that network from outside of it.
Using Twitter as a base case, one of the many interesting features of Twitter's 'open privacy' model is that in most cases it's possible for you to look at someone else's followers to see who they are.
The value of that network to an individual is at least twofold – firstly, as a source of information, observations, news and feedback to you as the person at the centre of your own network; secondly as an amplifier of your own
ego broadcast messages. (There are other benefits of course – like being able to see who is talking to whom about what.) You may also feel there is some benefit to just having a large number of followers, if only in the bragging stakes.
That is, the more followers the better, right? It's bound to be good for my reputation, if nothing else, surely…?
Well….. maybe not…?
Consider these two questions:
– who follows you? if I look at your followers what can I tell about you, from them?
– what is your blocking policy? who you block is just as much a part of the way you manage your network as the people you actively follow.
As far as my own Twitter network goes, I am on a follow:followed ratio of about 1:4. That is, approximately four times as many people follow me as I follow back. For every 10 or so new followers I get, I block one or two.
I check my followers list maybe once every two or three days, which lets me keep up with the pruning on just one or two screens of followers using the Twitter web interface. If the name or avatar is suspect, I'll check out the tweets to see if I want to block. (I really miss the ability to hover over a person's name and get a tooltip containing their bio:-( If the name or avatar is familiar or intriguing, I'll check the tweets to see if I'm going to follow back (maybe 1 in 20? Following back is not the main source for me of new people to follow – you'll have to get to me another way;-).
The people I block? People who's tweets are never replies, but who just tweet out advertising links all the time; Britney, whatever she happens to be sucking or loving at the time; product tweeters; and so on. If you're following lots of people and only followed by a few? Not good – why should I follow you if no-one else does? If you're following lots of people and are followed by lots of people? Also not good: either you're a spammer being spammed back, or you're an indiscriminate symmetric follower so why should I trust you, or you've so many followers I'm not going to get a look in. If I'm not sure about a new follower, it's 50/50 that I'll either block them or not, so there may well be the odd false positive amongst the people I've blocked (if so, sorry…) And why do I block them? Because they add no value to me… Like junk mail… And because by association, if you look at my followers and see they're all Britney, you'll know my amplification network is worthless. And by association… ;-)
The people I follow? People I've chatted to, have been introduced to through RTs, or via interesting/valuable multiaddressed tweets that include me; people who appear not to be part of any other network I follow (or who might add value in a sphere of influence or interest that I don't feel I currently benefit from), and so on.
And the people I don't follow but don't block (i.e. the majority) – nothing personal, but I only have so many hours in the day, and can't cope with too many new messages every update cycle in by twitter client!
So all this might sound a little bit arrogant, but it's my space and it's me that has to navigate it!
PS just by the by, it struck me during an exchange last week that networks can also act as PR channels. A tweet went out from @ruskin147 asking if anyone knew anyone "who can analyse how viral emails,campaigns etc, can knock a firm off course?" Now I should probably have recommended someone from the OU Business School, because I think there is someone there who knows this stuff; but they're not part of any of my networks so I'd have to go and search for them and essentially recommend them cold. So instead I suggested @mediaczar (who blogs under the same ID) because he's been sharing code and insight about his analysis of connectivity and the flow of ideas across social networks for the PR firm (I think?) he works for. (Some irony there, methinks?;-) And it turned out that the two of them hooked up and had a chat…
So why's that good for me? Because it strengthened the network that I inhabit. It increased the likelihood of those people having an interesting conversation that I was likely to also be interested in. I get value not just from people telling me things, but also from people in my network telling each other things that I am likely to find interesting.
And as a spin-off, it maybe increases my reputation with those two people for having helped create that conversation between them?
In terms of externally recognised value though? How are you going to measure that, Martin?
See also: Time to Get Scared, People?
Google Impact…? The "Google Suggest" Factor
So apparently, OU promotion process means I get feedback on my promotion case before it goes to the full committee… Here's what I need to address:
– put references in proper OU CV style;
– don't write career history or list stuff done in the promotion case, instead list impact and significant contributions; [but for a case based around digital engagement, that can be hard to judge…? I wonder whether the ability to drive traffic to the OU would count? I wonder if I could create a traffic blip on an OU web page anyway? If you fancy taking part in an ad hoc, not really experiment to see if I can drive traffic to the OU, please click through here: OU Accreditations and Partnerships…)
What other sorts of impact are there? Eponymous laws? Google impact… Hmmm…. How about a Google Suggest factor…?
Let's see… (whilst I made this searches in a browser that wasn't logged in to Google, and had cookies cleaned, I'm not suggesting any Google ground truth in these "results".)
(the actor/voiceover artist isn't me… ;-)
So what ingredients might go into a "Google Suggest" Impact Factor?
Number of correct mentions? Number of incorrect mentions? Explicit association with host university, or subject area?
And what might a Google Suggest Factor measure? Personal discoverability? Personal associations? Personal specialism areas?
One thing I didn't manage to do was find any phrases that autosuggested a name from a term in the following way:
i.e. term firstname surname
So what does Google Suggest think about you?! ;-)
Related, in a roundabout sort of way: Where is the Open University Homepage?
So WTF is Data Scholarship?
A tweet just passed me by from @andypowell at today's Linked Data: The Future of Knowledge Organization on the Web event:
"need to introduce data literacy into education in order to create data literate citizens" closing remarks by nigel shadbolt at #isko
With the OU's infoskills short course Beyond Google: working with information online in it's last week of registration for its last presentation, it may be that there'll be a slot open in the short course programme in a year or two for an OU course on data literacy (and visualisation…?!;-), but in the meantime, to justify some of things I'm getting up to, I suspect I'm going to have to try to persuade folk that there's some merit in figuring out what sorts of tools make sense in the world of unlimited open data and data scholarship…
Now I have to admit that I'm not sure at all sure what data scholarship is, or might be (same with data literacy… sigh…) but here are a few possible starters for ten…
I first came across something close to the phrase whilst at the Repository Fringe, searching for papers relating to referencing data, in a preprint from Peter Murray Rust – Open Data in Science: "Recent initiatives such as the JISC/NSF report on cyberscholarship have emphasized the critical importance of data-driven scholarship." Digging around the phrase turned up one or two references to data citability as being a key requirement for data(-driven) scholarship, a point also touched on by Kevin Ashley in his closing keynote at the RepoFringe. In particular Kevin referenced Peter Buneman's work on that very topic, which in a roundabout way led me to finding a paper by Bruce Barkstorm on Digital libraries and data scholarship, which again looks at some of the issues involved in referencing data. (I'll do a post or two on data referencing – something I need to improve in my own practice – at some point…)
So for example, the abstract to Barkstrom's paper begins: "In addition to preserving and retrieving digital information, digital libraries need to allow data scholars to create post-publication references to objects within files and across collections of files" before going on to discuss referencing matters. So implicitly, data scholarship must be something to do with poring through other peoples' old data…
I'm still not sure I know what a data scholar might actually do though, or why, although it seemingly requires ability to reference data, so I took a sideways step to review what a digital scholar might be… Martin Weller has posted about this previously (e.g. Thoughts on digital scholarship), relating the idea to Boyer's notions of scholarship (discovery, integration, application, teaching).
A short unit on Connexions (What Is Digital Scholarship?) by the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities & Social Sciences suggests:
In recent practice, "digital scholarship" has meant several related things:
– Building a digital collection of information for further study and analysis*
– Creating appropriate tools for collection-building
– Creating appropriate tools for the analysis and study of collections
– Using digital collections and analytical tools to generate new intellectual products
– Creating authoring tools for these new intellectual products, either in traditional forms or in digital form
* like this 500 page bibliography on digital scholarship [via @jfj24]. My response: "is the idea that i read those 500 pages of citations and from titles alone form a coherent view about what's involved?!" Heh heh ;-)
The piece goes on:
It may seem odd to some that creating collections and the tools to use them should be counted as scholarship, but humanities and social science research has always required collections of appropriate information, and throughout history, scholars have often been the ones to assemble those collections, as part of their scholarship. Moreover, scholars have been building tools since the first index, the first concordance, the first scholarly edition. So, while it is reasonable to regard (d) as the core meaning and ultimate objective of "digital scholarship," it is also important to recognize that in the early digital era, leadership may well consist of collection-building or tool-building. In addition, tool-building is dependent on the existence of collections, and both collections and tools get better and more general as there is more use of digital information. If we hope to see new intellectual products, we should give high priority to building tools and collections. Finally, it is worth noting that although (a), (b), (c), and (e) require a great deal of cooperation, it is still imaginable that (d) can be the work of a single individual.
Remember, I am in part looking for a definition of data scholarship to justify spending time on OUseful things, so maybe here we have something like it…? Because I think I can argue that OUseful.info identifies/discovers useful tools, integrates them within an information processing context that includes other tools and services, applies them to particular "real world" examples, and then teaches on (sort of!) how to do the same (so that's Boyer's boxes ticked). In addition, some of the integrations I come up with could be classed as the development of new tools in their own right, and as far as collections go: I've always been keen on trying to make "discovered context" tangible, as with the discovered search engines I've blogged about recently.
PS quickly skimming the above, it seems to me that scholarship maybe has a couple of facets: firstly, the development and identification of tools and techniques that allow "scholars" to do what they do; secondly, the use of those tools and techniques to make sense and meaning of things produced by others beyond the sense and meaning that they themselves have extracted. Recalling the idea that the most interesting thing that will be done with your data will be done by someone else, maybe that's what scholars do?
Should Academic Journal Papers Have Video Trailers?
I don't read academic journal papers very much any more, partly because folk rarely link to them, but today I read a paper ("Narrative Visualization: Telling Stories with Data", Edward Segel, Jeffrey Heer, IEEE Trans. Visualization & Comp. Graphics (Proc. InfoVis), 2010) in response to this video trail that brought it to my attention (Journalism in the Age of Data, Ch. 3: Telling "Data Stories"):
I encourage you to watch the video – not necessarily for what it's about, but for the way that a journal article is used to hold bits of the video together. Note that the video is not just about the paper, but it's not hard to see how a video could be made that was just about the paper…
So I wonder: should we be making voiced over "papercasts" of academic papers to provide a quick summary of what they contain, and maybe also enriching them with photos and footage relating to what the content of the paper is about? (I know this might not make sense for the subject matter of every paper, but if a journal paper is about a particular online tool, for example, here would be an opportunity to show a few seconds of the tool in use, and contextualise it/demonstrate it a little more interestingly than a single, simple screenshot can convey?)
UPDATE: @der_no tweets: "Always enjoyed technical papers preview @ #SIGGRAPH (esp considering many of actual papers are beyond me)" See an example conference papers trailer here – SIGGRAPH 2010 : Technical Papers Trailer:
If the conference matter is appropriate (robotics related conferences come to my mind, for example), couldn't this sort of approach provide an additional legacy resource that can continue to give an event life after the fact?
PS I believe that several of the OpenLearn folk are also looking at ways of pulling together video and audio in the way they package their material, for example looking at the use of Xtranormal videos, or Slideshare slidecasts. (Note that it's easy (or used to be!) to publish Xtranormal clips into Youtube, and Youtube clips can also be embedded in Slideshare presentations, so all manner of fusions of content become possible!)
PPS Very, very loosely related to the above is another thread I want to link in to, here. That is, the extent to which academics might take up various sorts of ("new") media training to explore different ways of engaging with (and maybe helping reinvent?) scientific communication. For example, a recent initiative in the OU has seen more than a few brave academic volunteers engaging in podcast training as part of Martin's Podstars project (I couldn't find a better link?!).
Running parallel to this, the OBU's media training team have been helping other academics put together short showreels that have since been published on the OU podcast site – OU Experts:
In terms of finding training materials that are already out there, it struck me that the BBC College of Journalism might be a good start, particularly in the skills area?
Unmeasurable Impact
Lots of deleted stuff I might have regretted posting…
(I also apologise in advance for what some might take to be the self-aggrandising nature of this post…)
Anyway, that's all as maybe… One of the ideas I started trying to develop in preparing the promotion case was the notion of "influence", and how online, network based activities might result in payoff for someone else, through being influenced, that could in part trickle back through some sort of recognised acknowledgement, or feed forward into a payoff that makes the academic or host institution more productive.
So here are a handful of examples from the last week or so that provide anecdotal evidence about the influence and reach of posts appearing on OUseful.info:
I flashed up on screen a post from Tony Hirst's OUseful blog where he confessed to 'hassling' Simon Rogers over the formats of some of the information in the Guardian Datastore.
Tony's contributions are fantastically useful, and the team have now changed some of their workflows to try and include more universal identifiers. On datasets with country lists, for example, they now aim to provide the two letter ISO country code in order to get around confusion when comparing datasets that might feature Burma or Myanmar for example.
[C]hanged some of their workflows… right… so that might make it easier for others, such as academics stooping so low as to use news media published data rather than "original" sources in their own work. Or it might mean that folk who are not academics putting the data to work because it's now easier for them to do so, and getting real value out of it.
(Academic bashing? Me? Surely not… Though of course, I have come to realise over the last year that I am absolutely not considered an academic by the academy…)
Here's the second example, referring to some "work" that resulted from an open exchange over a weekend earlier this year which Cameron Neylon reviewed in A little bit of federated Open Notebook Science. The context is graphing user and compound interactions by extracting the appropriate bipartite graph from a set of open notebooks:
We are very fortunate that Don Pellegrino, an IST student at Drexel, has selected the analysis of networks within Open Notebooks as part of his Ph.D. work. He has started to report his progress on our wiki and is eager to receive any feedback as the work progresses (his FriendFeed account is donpellegrino).
Don's first report is available here. He is using the Open Source software Gephi for visualization and has provided all of the data and code on the associated wiki page. (also see Tony Hirst's description of mapping ONS work which provided some very useful insights) Don has provided a detailed report of his findings but I think the most important can be seen in the global plot below.
[S]ome very useful insights – right, a couple of approximately and quickly worked through examples that sketched out some possible ways of looking at this area, as well as crude proof of concept demos; it maybe also identified some dead-ends that might otherwise have been pursued?
Finally, this from Brian Kelly:
Niall Sclater made his point succinctly:
@mweller @psychemedia delicious. i rest my case.
The case Niall was making was, I suspect, that one shouldn't be promoting use of Cloud services within institutions. This is an argument (although that might be putting it a bit too strongly) which Niall has been having over the past few years with Tony Hirst and Martin Weller, his colleagues at the Open University. As I described in a post on "When Two Tribes Go To War" back in 2007:
Niall Sclater, Director of the OU VLE Programme at the Open University recently pointed out that the Slideshare service was down, using this as an "attempt to inject some reality into the VLEs v Small Pieces debate". His colleague at the Open University, Tony Hirst responded with a post entitled "An error has occurred whilst accessing this site" in which Tony, with "beautifully sweet irony", alerted Niall to the fact that the OU's Intranet was also down.
Back then the specifics related to the reliability of the Slideshare service, with Tony pointing out the the Slideshare service was actually more reliable that the Open University's Intranet. But that was just a minor detail. The leaked news that Yahoo was, it appeared, intending to close a social bookmarking services which is highly regarded by many of its users, was clearly of much more significance. So is Niall correct to rest his case on this news? Or, as Niall wrote his tweet before we found that the news of Delicious's death was greatly exaggerated, might we feel that the issue is now simply whether an alternative social bookmarking service should be used?
What this example shows, and maybe the one before it too, is that the very act of working in open and in public means that the process of the work/interaction as well as the "work" itself can become the focus of (authentic) stories in other people's work. Brian has been telling the above story repeatedly over the last few years, which has the side-effect of raising the OU's profile as an institution that is *really* engaged with these issues.
None of the above anecdotes has resulted in an academic citation for me, so none of it counts in academic terms. None of the above resulted in the OU being paid for the time I spent engaged in the related activities, so it none if it helped the OU bottom line directly (we're really, really a business now, right?). None of the above ended up in any OU course materials (to my knowledge). It was all, from my perspective looking round my current institutional role, pointless…
PS it's worth noting that, through trackbacks and email requests, I see these ephemeral "been influenced by" signals on my web radar as a matter of course. But my internal profile is largely below the radar, and these "influence signals" are likely to be even more invisible. This maybe suggests that my reach is only to folk who look outwards (from any institution), using the web, or the people who see me give a presentation (which I do once a month or so)… Hmm…
Scholarly Communication in the Networked Age
Last week, I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to attend the Texts and Literacy in the Digital Age: Assessing the future of scholarly communication at the Dutch National Library in Den Haag (a trip that ended up turning into a weekend break in Amsterdam when my flight was cancelled…)
The presentation can be found here and embedded below, if your feed reader supports it:
One thing I have tried to do is annotate each slide with a short piece of discursive text relating to the slide. I need to find a way of linearising slide shows prepared this way to see if I can find a way of generating blog posts from them, which is a task for next year…
The presentation draws heavily on Martin Belam's news:rewired presentation from 2009 (The tyranny of chronology), as I try to tease out some of the structural issues that face the presentation of news media in an online networked age, and constrast (or complement) them with issues faced by scholoarly publishing.
One of the things I hope to mull over more next year, and maybe communicate in a more principled way rather than via occasional blog posts and tweets, are the ways in which news media and academia can work together to put the news into some sort of deeper context, and maybe even into a learning (resource) context…
A Question About Klout…
I've no idea how Klout works out it's scores, but I'm guessing that there is an element of PageRank style algorithmic bootstrapping going on, in which a person's Klout score is influenced by the Klout score of folk who interact with a person.
So for example, if we look at @briankelly, we see how he influences other influential (or not) folk on Klout:
One thing I've noticed about my Klout scrore is that it tends to be lower than most of the folk I have an OU/edtech style relationship with; and no, I don't obsess about it… I just occasionally refer to it when Klout is in the news, as it was today with an announced tie up with Bing: Bing and Klout Partner to Strengthen Social Search and Online Influence. In this case, if my search results are going to be influenced by Bing, I want to understand what effect that might have on the search results I'm presented with, and how my content/contributions might be being weighted in other peoples' search results.
So here's a look at the Klout scrores of the folk I've influenced on Klout:
Hmm… seems like many of them are sensible and are completely ignoring Klout. So I'm wondering: is my Klout score depressed relative to other ed-tech folk who are on Klout because I'm not interacting with folk who are playing the Klout game? Which is to say: if you are generating ranking scores based at least in part on the statistics of a particular netwrok, it can be handy to know what netwrok those stats are being measured on. If Klout stats are dominated by components based on networks statistics calculated from membership of the Klout network, that is very different to the sorts of scores you might get if the same stats were calculated over the whole of the Twitter network graph…
Sort of, but not quite, related: a few articles on sampling error and sample bias – Is Your Survey Data Lying to You? and The Most Dangerous Porfession: A Note on Nonsampling Error.
PS Hmmm.. I wonder how my Technorati ranking is doing today…;-)


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Three years ago today, Next Issue launched the only app that brings you unlimited access to an entire newsstand of magazines. To celebrate, take advantage of back-issue access to revisit a few fantastic stories from the digital issues archive.
Also check out our infographic to see just how far we've come—adding smartphone support, 145+ titles to cover any interest, and more. Can't wait for all the exciting updates to come!
Read on with Bon Appétit's annual Cook Like A Pro handbook, SI's guide to the Final Four, and a whole set of spring style stories that are truly works of art.
Happy Reading!
Next Issue Picks
The City That Lost a Million Pounds
When Men's Fitness dubbed Oklahoma City the 15th fattest city in America in 2007, the locals took notice; the mayor even put the whole town on a diet. Now the former fast-food capital is an exercise oasis. It's a lesson in public initiative, civic pride, and hard work.
Cook Like a Pro
The Bon Appétit team asked eight of their favorite chefs to school them on their signature dishes. After hours in the kitchen, they emerged with tips, tricks, and techniques that elevate a good dish to an unforgettable one. Here, everything you need to cook like a pro.
From Duke to Wisconsin: Your Guide to the Final Four
A thrilling win lifted Wisconsin into a Final Four that includes a huge favorite (Kentucky), another top seed (Duke), and a party crasher in green (Michigan State). Here's how each remaining team might ruin Kentucky's perfect season.
Why Would Anyone Want to Kill Brianna Wu?
She set out to transform the gaming industry by creating a sexy, hit game aimed at female players. Then came Gamergate. And the harassment. And the death threats. Now, she's fighting to stay focused on her business.
The Places We've Been
(2012) Armageddon: That's All Folks
Remember when the Mayan calendar doomsayers predicted the world would end on December 21, 2012? Well, it inspired Popular Mechanics to embark on a journey into the cold, hard science of civilization-ending catastrophes that really could come true.
(2013) Jahar's World
In one of the most controversial editorial decisions of 2013, Rolling Stone put Boston Marathon bomber Jahar Tsarnaev on the cover. "He was a charming kid with a bright future, but no one saw the pain he hid or the monster he would become."
(2014) The Hunt for El Chapo
After Osama bin Laden, Joaquín Guzmán Loera was the most wanted fugitive on the planet. The notorious drug lord had escaped from a maximum-security prison and evaded capture many times. In 2014, The New Yorker told the dramatic story of how he was finally captured.
(2015) Becoming Tim Cook
In an issue dedicated to great leaders, this in-depth story explores Tim Cook's success as CEO of tech behemoth Apple. Along the way, he's changed the culture of the company in ways Steve Jobs never would have. Includes bonus video.
Spring Into Style (Ladies)
Best in Show
The judges have spoken: The winningest weekend look for spring is a long, airy, bohemian dress worn with high-laced gladiator sandals—and among good company…puppies, that is.
Painted Lady
Kate Moss steams up the lens, and she's dressed to thrill in haute couture, with plenty of body paint, headpieces, and antique jewelry. Photos by Paolo Roversi.
The Life Aquatic
Here, today's must-have fashion from under the sea. Mermaid-inspired style, netting, and structured coats that will sail right into spring.
Spring Fashion: Work It, Girl
Up your fashion game on the job and add a little flair to your everyday style with these catwalk-inspired looks. Here's how to be well suited, white-collar cool, and more.
Spring Into Style (Men)
The Places You'll Go
The new approach to travel-appropriate dressing means no more workout pants and oversize tees. Upgrade to sophisticated, packable basics.
How the West Was Worn
In the 70's Hollywood Westerns ushered in the age of the urban cowboy. Rediscover the movies that inspired this season's rugged Americana look.
Head Games
No great hustler's game is complete without a signature haircut and scent. Pair a tightened-up trim with masculine notes of leather, wood, and tobacco to make a powerful impression.
Portfolio #1: Up/Down
In this three-part series about dressing up or down, part one is the best of both worlds: rugged and refined, edgy and elegant, durable and desirable.
Your Next Getaway: Viva Italia!
La Dolce Via
Stroll the best little street in Rome and you'll taste the good life. Via Margutta was once home to Fellini—and it was the scene for 1953's beloved Roman Holiday.
The Lost Villaggio
Actors, artists, and writers once flocked to tiny Sperlonga, overlooking the impossibly blue Tyrrhenian Sea, for a soothing taste of la dolce vita. And then time stopped. Introducing Italy's best-kept secret.
Paradise Regained
Nestled within the jagged toe of Italy's boot, Calabria is a land of steep coastal villages, ancient sites, and surprisingly spicy cuisine. David Prior takes the train far from the tourist track to investigate the region's appeal.
All the Gnocchi
Italy's supreme comfort food takes on such an astounding variety of forms and flavors that one chef spent five years mastering all of them. Here, she shares her favorites.
Just Drive
The Cure of the Open Road
Hitting the highway with no destination in mind might be the stress-busting therapy you're missing. Time to turn the key, hit the gas, and open your mind.
25 Cars Worth Waiting For
Car and Driver's guide to the most compelling vehicles due to arrive over the next three years. Spoiler alert: The Ford GT is on the list. And check out the Jaguar SUV.
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Unbound by conventional thinking, Nissan is bringing the crazy back to Le Mans. Inside the wildest new race car in decades.
The 25 Greatest Designers of All Time
Robert Cumberford, a car designer himself, identifies the most highly influential designers in the industry (and his career). Includes nice photos of their significant work.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Call for Art: 2016 Regional Juried Exhibit, Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Deadline: October 9
The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri has opened the Call for Artists for their 2016 Regional Juried Exhibit! The two-month exhibition was developed to provide a forum to demonstrate the diversity of this region (MO, IL, AR, KY, TN) and the artists who live here. We encourage artists to submit works that interpret any aspect of the Southeast Missouri region as well as its bordering states.
Exhibition Dates: December 2, 2016 – January 28, 2017
Juror: Madeleine Marie LeMieux, http://www.madeleine-lemieux.com
For more information, including prospectus, visit http://www.capearts.org/RegionalShow.aspx


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Forget the exchange rate wahala, there are beautiful places to see in Nigeria.
We are creating an All-Nigerian bucket list and this is the first; a list of national resorts and parks you should visit in your lifetime. The best part? They are cheaper than a holiday in abroad, and there's no exchange rate to give you heart attack.
It finds its home in Bauchi State in northern Nigerian and sits on a massive 2,244km square. That's over half the size of Lagos State. The wildlife? A massive 350 bird species and the largest herd of elephants in West Africa. What else you'll be getting? Four warm water springs, an inexhaustible landscape, and a knowledge of our history at the archaeological digs.
This one is divided into two wings, Okwangwo and Oban, but both have a total area of 4000km, bigger than the entire Lagos, Calabar, and Port Harcourt combined. If it was a city, it would be one of the top ten largest cities in Nigeria.
You'll find breathtaking waterfalls, amazing wildlife.
This is not only Nigeria's largest park, it is also home to the highest peak in Nigeria, Chappal Waddi. It cuts into Taraba and Adamawa State, all the way to the borders with Cameroon.
You'll find a wide range of 500 bird species, leopards, primates, and maybe even a Mountain hiking team. Then again, you can just start your own team.
The collection of caves has had a strong spiritual significance to the people of Ogbunike since it was first discovered centuries ago.. This significance is still apparent, as the "Ime Ogbe" celebration is undertaken every year to commemorate the discovery of the caves. Its also a UNESCO Heritage site.
Fun fact: The epic Igodo movie was shot here.
So be sure you'll find divine artistry in nature and a rich culture to bask in.
Probably the most popular on this list in recent times, the greatness of this place was first tapped into in 1951 by a Scot camper. The glory was restored when the government of Cross Rivers State revamped it and made it one of the most popular tourist attractions in West Africa.
Most importantly, you'll find a breathtaking view from aboard cable cars, wildlife, and clean, untainted nature at its finest.


text:
Calcium, magnesium, strontium and carbonate are the basic foundation elements of coral skeletons.
All of these elements need to be available in balanced proportions for positive coral health and growth.
1ml will raise the Mg level of 100 liters (25gal) by 1ppm.
package size/volume:
250 ml (8.5 fl. Oz.)
500 ml (16.9 fl. Oz.)
5 L (1.32 gal)
1 kg – powder (2.2 lb)


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Facing an economic crisis and demands to control public spending, money for the Constellation project is set be dropped from Monday's budget blueprint, along with 120 other government schemes across various departments.
Instead, the White House will propose boosting cooperation with private industry to develop rockets and other vehicles that could ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station.
In the meantime, Nasa will rely on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to carry its astronauts after the shuttle programme ends in the next couple of years.
Former astronauts and Nasa officials have long complained about the agency's lack of funding, arguing that the technology involved in space exploration has huge industrial benefits.
Michael Griffin, a former head of the agency, warned that the US would "abandon its leadership on the space frontier" to China or Russia if it halted Constellation.
The agency has, however, seen its political support dwindle, with its White House and Congressional funders reluctant to support the type of expensive manned space exploration that saw the agency put 12 men on the Moon, all before 1972.
The budget is forecast to total $3.8 trillion, up from $3.6 trillion last year, as Mr Obama attempts to balance the short-term goal of boosting jobs with reducing record deficits in the long term.
"The President believes we need to be honest about what is working," said Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director.
With midterm Congressional elections approaching in November, the Democrats risk being portrayed as tax-and-spend liberals after pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy.


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Retora Game Studios is a student-run game studio in Phoenix, Arizona.
No mods were found matching the criteria specified. We suggest you try the mod list with no filter applied, to browse all available. Add mod and help us achieve our mission of showcasing the best content from all developers. Join now to share your own content, we welcome creators and consumers alike and look forward to your comments.


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The Pizza Planet restaurant at Disney's Hollywood Studios is being rethemed around the Muppets and being renamed "Pizza Rizzo." It's been rumored for awhile, but WDW News Today says the news is now official, according to "internal documents and permits filed in relation to the ongoing project."
The location will remain a counter-service pizza restaurant, but will have a new theme to better fit with its location in Muppets Courtyard. The article mentions that Rizzo the Rat and his family work in food service in New York in the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Pizza Rizzo is expected to open later this year.
News source/photo credit: WDW News Today


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Order food online in Bristol! It's so easy to use, fast and convenient. Try our new, online website which contains our entire takeaway menu. Mirchi Indian Takeaway is located in Bristol, City of Bristol.You can now order online, all your favourite dishes and many more delicious options, and have them delivered straight to your door in no time at all.
Thank you for visiting Mirchi Indian Takeaway in Bristol, City of Bristol. We hope you enjoy our online ordering website and your food.
141 Church Road, Bristol City of Bristol, BS5 9LA
Mon, Wed, Thur, Sun :
Fri & Sat - 5:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Tuesday : Closed


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Jason Patric Has a Macho Preshow Ritual, Says Jim Gaffigan
It's so manly, it burns.
If there's one take-home message from our recent interview with Jason Patric, it's that he's all man. (One excerpt: "I'm not addicted to [fame] like 99 percent of every actor in Hollywood, even our 65-year-old so-called legends are so addicted to remaining stars that they're in the kind of movies that would not be toilet paper in their classics.") Today on The View, his co-star in the Broadway revival of That Championship Season, Jim Gaffigan, told the ladies a story about the boozy preshow ritual that Patric has lured him into, and it's just the kind of manly thing you could picture Patric doing. (No, the ritual is not slapping some sense into Robert De Niro.)


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Neeta Catering Services was established in August 2007 by Nutritionist Ms. Neeta Patil with the sole aim of providing all types of meal services of the highest quality, prepared using the best ingredients and in hygienic conditions to our customers in close interaction with the establishments ensuring complete food safety and customer satisfaction.
- Since 2007 we have been catering exclusively to schools. Though we have diversified into office and IT company catering, school catering remains our forte.
- We understand the nutritional needs of the children and design our menu accordingly. We know just where to hide the veggies and green's
- We understand their likes and dislikes and have achieved a fair balance in our menu.
- We know how fussy they are when it comes to taste, texture and presentation and know how to get past it.
- We understand their sensitive stomachs, hence hygiene and quality is our No.1 priority.
And many more little secrets that keep our children and clients happy.
We have successfully diversified into catering to corporate companies in and around Hinjewadi and Baner. Some of our well established and elite corporate clients are:
- Cognizant Technologies Pvt. Ltd, under the brand name Puneri Tadka ( An Authentic Maharashtrian Food Counter )
- Impact Automotive Solutions ( A unit of KPIT Cummins )
- Cloud Moyo, Baner.
- Centaur Pharmaceuticals
- GS Labs Pvt. Ltd and more...
- Setting up an on site kitchen at client site to cater to its employees a la carte and fixed meals.
- Set up multiple or single specialty food counters at client site.
- Deliver cooked food in sealed containers from our central kitchen and serve on site.
- Set up and manage food courts with multiple food counters and kiosks.
- Set up and manage MRP counters / Snack bars / Tuck shops.


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Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I believe I heard at the tail end of the noble Baroness's speech the words "we shall review it". That is certainly a long way short of what I remember being assailed with day after day when we took the Bill through your Lordships' House. Indeed, "reviewing" seems to be the policy for everything as far as the party opposite is concerned. I notice that at least I have made some progress, which is more than my colleagues in the other place have managed to do, in that I have some kind of statement from the noble Baroness that the party opposite will review the jobseeker's allowance. Therefore, I am not surprised that poor Mr. Meacher was reprimanded for
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for interrupting so early. Our difficulty is that all the evidence shows that the financial situation that the Labour government will inherit appears to be deteriorating by the day. Only when we see the books can we know what we can afford to do.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, that is a good try, but the books are clear. Every year we publish what is called, the Red Book. I commend the noble Baroness to read it where she will see the situation. It is the lamest of lame excuses that her party cannot make up their minds on policy until they win the election. That will not go down very well. Talk about buying a pig in a poke! As I was about to say, my recollection is that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who is sorry that he cannot be here this evening, made it very clear that if his party were to gain power or to gain influence, it would abolish the jobseeker's allowance. I suspect that he retains that position. Anyway, we have had a commitment that the Opposition will review it. It does not sound as though they are as concerned about the jobseeker's allowance as some of their rhetoric might lead one to believe. However, I welcome that half-conversion that the scheme is so well founded that a review is all that will be necessary to keep it going.
Turning to the regulations, I have tried to explain why we need them. They are largely minor and, essentially, we need them for three reasons: first, to replicate recent income support changes in JSA. Those changes have occurred since we brought forward the JSA regulations. One of those changes is that mentioned by the noble Baroness and relates to persons from abroad and asylum-seekers. I shall come to that in a moment.
The second reason is that following the passage of the regulations, the Central Adjudication Service started work on them and has advised us that some amendments are necessary to ensure that there is no confusion over interpretation. I should have thought that that was a sensible way for government to proceed in the interests of both good administration and customer service.
The third reason is that a few typographical and cross-referencing errors occurred in the main regulations. Indeed, I recall pointing one out when we dealt with those regulations earlier this year. We have taken this opportunity to put right those errors. I think that those are perfectly reasonable reasons for bringing forward the regulations.
I turn now to implementation. We have always made it clear that it is our intention to implement JSA in October as planned and we are holding to the timetable. The noble Baroness will be happy to hear that trials are running successfully in 29 offices. Those trials are a valuable step in our preparations for the introduction of JSA as we seek to ensure that a high quality service continues and that staff are fully prepared when JSA is implemented in October. Training is a very important aspect of social security matters and is being delivered on schedule to all staff in response to their detailed training needs as analysed.
Work on the IT systems is continuing and is progressing on schedule. We have said for more than a year that we are retaining the other two systems--the National Unemployment Benefit System (NUBS2) and the Income Support Computer System (ISCS)--to reduce the risk which anybody who knows about computers is aware accompanies any large-scale new computer system. Existing claims on 7th October will remain on those systems. New claims will be handled on the new system (JSAPS). We shall move gradually from three computer payment systems to a single computer payment system by August 1997. However, there will be a seamless service for jobseekers who will certainly not be aware that three systems are in operation.
The noble Baroness drew your Lordships' attention to the error rate with income support. We are, indeed, concerned about that error rate and are looking at the reasons for it and at the ways in which we can improve upon that situation. It is exactly that which has led us to believe that the far-reaching change programme on which we have embarked in the Department of Social Security must play a key part in reducing that error rate. Frankly, our system is far too complex. It is often driven by the demands of various very small groups which want everything tailored to the very last dot and comma. That complexity alone leads to errors. We are looking for ways to simplify the whole system so that it is fair and can deliver benefits quickly, efficiently and correctly. I hope that, as the years progress, the noble Baroness will applaud our work on the change programme.
I turn now to persons from abroad. The amendments simply bring JSA into line with the changes introduced with regard to income support. If people from abroad apply for asylum at the port of entry, they will be eligible for income support, but naturally they will not have to consider JSA until they have been here for at least six months and until they have asked for and been granted leave to seek work. I suspect that very few will make that move.
On costs and the general point about asylum seekers, we are working with local authorities with regard to some of the costs that may arise for them initially because of the changes that we have made. Of course, there will be great savings to them when the number of people who come here seeking asylum and are proved to have no justifiable grounds for the granting of asylum or of exceptional leave to remain is reduced. There will be great savings for local authorities when that flow decreases, as it has done over the years for most of our European friends. When that flow decreases, which I hope will happen as quickly as it has increased over the past seven to eight years, not only will we be able to deal with applications much more speedily, including appeals, but local authorities will find that they save a great deal of money--
Baroness Seear: My Lords, can the Minister tell us who our "European friends" are?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the noble Baroness knows very well that our European friends are all those other members with which we share the European Union, as well as Norway and some other countries in Eastern Europe which are not yet members of the European Union, including Slovenia, which one day we hope to welcome. Many of those countries, with perhaps the exception of Germany, have seen a quite dramatic reduction in the number of their asylum-seekers, following the firm steps that they have had to take following considerable increases earlier.
I know that the noble Baroness will be more than delighted to learn that comparing month for month last year and this year we have seen a steady and gradual decrease in the number of asylum applications. Indeed, the figures for May show a reduction of 49.16 per cent. from 3,450 in May 1995 to 1,754 in May 1996. If that trend continues, what I said when I introduced the regulations on asylum-seekers will, indeed, come about. We shall be able to deal much more speedily with asylum-seekers' first applications with appeals also. Local authorities and others will be saved a great deal of money because they will no longer have to look after the large numbers of people who come here who have no justifiable grounds for the asylum that they seek.
It seems to me that the early figures are encouraging. As I have already explained to the House, most of those who come here are, understandably, economic migrants who see this country as a far better place in which to live than their country of origin.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister can answer another two questions about asylum-seekers. What is the Government's current estimate of the net saving and what percentage of asylum-seekers do the Government expect to fall within the local authorities' remit in terms of the Children Act 1989?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, it is difficult to judge how many people will fall within that remit. If the decline that I have quoted from last year's May to this year's May continues, the number of people coming within the ambit of a local authority in that regard will fall considerably.
As I have said in this House--and as my right honourable friends have said down the corridor--we have promised that we shall help local authorities with unavoidable additional costs which, to be honest, have still to be seen. We have already agreed how that will be calculated with the local authorities. We shall have to see how much money we shall have to give local authorities in order to help them over the problem, as opposed to the £200 million which we estimate will be the benefit saving from not paying benefit to people who apply in-country, who are found not to be genuine asylum-seekers or not to justify the granting of exceptional leave to remain and who appeal. They are no longer eligible for benefit. Against that benefit saving of £200 million, social services and housing authorities will have to spend some money. We have been negotiating on that with the local authorities. We have made clear what we are prepared to
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Dozens of experts will be weighing in, in coming days, on Israel's right to self-defence in response to hundreds of Hamas rockets raining down. But what about the Palestinian people, and what's good for them?
Yesterday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza with their current operation "Protective Edge." This type of inflammatory rhetoric is particularly rich coming from someone who is responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis (including the murder of the 1972 Israeli Olympic Team in Munich).
Sadly, this is hardly the first time Abbas has made statements that, in light of reality, are downright obscene. And the effects of such delusional Palestinian statements, whether from Abbas, his party Fatah, or Fatah's partner in government Hamas, are deadly in real life.
It's well documented that Abbas and the leaders of Hamas, have praised and encouraged terrorism against Israel. In fact, the Palestinian Authority actually pays their terrorists more than they pay their policemen. Convicted terrorists receive between $386 and $3,500 month while policemen receive $270 each month. If you're thinking, 'that can't be good for any society,' you'd be spot on.
The pathetic excuse for leadership from not only Abbas, but Hamas too, leads directly to acts of violence against Israel. For Hamas, that means kidnappings, suicide bombings, and a constant barrage of rockets aimed at civilian Israelis for over a decade. Most recently, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.
In response, calls for Israel to take back Gaza are erupting throughout the Jewish world. But those calls should be not only for the sake of Israel's security, but for the sake of Palestinians as well.
Hamas' obsession with eliminating Israel breeds radicalism and creates a society that doesn't value life. Hamas even trains Palestinian children in summer "training camps" to prepare for the day they will "push Israel into the sea." Time and time again we see families of terrorists, proudly praising the actions of their murderous children on Palestinian television.
Aside from the fact that promoting terrorism is morally abhorrent, a larger problem arises from the climate in the Gaza Strip – those who support Hamas endanger themselves and worsen conditions for all Palestinians in Gaza, and those who don't are punished by dictatorial Hamas.
In the face of criticism, Israel has been forced to maintain the blockade of Gaza precisely because of Hamas. And while Israel makes every effort to transport truckloads of food to innocent Palestinians in Gaza, even during conflict; medically treat Palestinians in Gaza, including Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's granddaughter; and warn Palestinian civilians before striking any target, Israel is still swimming upstream.
Just yesterday, Hamas was distributing pamphlets encouraging Palestinians to "be martyrs" by forming human shields on the roofs of buildings so that if Israel strikes, they will kill more civilians. In fact, Hamas's use of human shields throughout their time in power is one of their most common and well-documented war crimes. Contrast this with Israel's efforts to protect all civilians with costly anti-missile defence systems like the Iron Dome, or even Israel's warnings by phone to Palestinians before striking a location in Gaza.
It's easy for those in the western world to say Palestinians should stand up to Hamas, or that they should never have "voted" for them in the first place, but remember that Hamas won their "election" by literally throwing their political opponents off of rooftops.
Likewise, when Palestinians actively (and sometimes passively) oppose Hamas, they risk being Zionist spies and brutally murdered. Speaking of "Zionist spies," Palestinians don't even have to oppose Hamas to be labelled as such. Publicly disagree with Hamas on any issue: gay rights, religion, politics, and he/she will be labelled a "Zionist sympathizer," and dealt with accordingly.
For the sake of all innocent Palestinians, Israel should take back Gaza in this operation. Israeli control of Gaza would provide the Palestinians with a higher quality of life and ensure that basic freedoms are protected. The Palestinian people in Gaza deserve better than Hamas and their only hope, at this point, is Israel.


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Nov. 6, 1959-Dec. 12, 2012
Derrick Tyrone Smith, 53, 414 Creech St., died Wednesday at Wayne Memorial Hospital.
Funeral will be Monday at 1 p.m. in the James T. Haskins Memorial Chapel of Haskins Funeral Home. Burial will be at Wayne Memorial Park.
He was born Nov. 6, 1959, in Wayne County to Harvey and Alice Earl Jones Smith. He was married to Marie J. Hill Smith.
He is survived by a daughter.
Visitation will be Sunday from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the funeral home.
The family will assemble at the home in preparation for the funeral procession.
Published in Obituaries on December 14, 2012 1:48 PM


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Re: Daniel McCurdy from Ireland, my great grandfather
In reply to:
Re: Daniel McCurdy from Ireland, my great grandfather
Jamie Raleigh 9/22/10
The names of Alexander and Victoria's siblings would have helped as would any death dates for anybody. Even approximate dates help.
The 1930 census of Norristown, Montgomery County, PA includes an Alex McCurdy 16 as the son of Daniel 41, born in PA and Martha 37 also born in PA. They were married ca 1912. Allegedly their parents were born in England. Their other children included Thelma, Mary and Martha.
The family was living in Plymouth Twp. according to the 1920 census. This time it shows Daniel's parents born in PA and Martha born in England. Such discrepancies are common. The WWI and II draft cards for Dan (Daniel) shows he was born Oct 14, 1888 in Plymouth (probably Plymouth Twp.), PA.
The 1920 census of Bridgeport, Montgomery Co., PA shows a Victoria Linfante 10/12 as the daughter of Nickeles 41 and Anna 30. He immigrated in 1897 and she in 1906. They are married ca 1908. Their other children included Eliza, Amelia, Mario, and Hugo.
The 1930 census shows them in the same location with additional children: Florence, Gloria, Raymond and Olga.
The Social Security Death Index includes a Martha McCurdy, born June 27, 1893, died March 1981, last resided in Philadelphia. Also included is Victoria McCurdy, born March 16, 1919 and died Jan 1980.
Some of these records you can look at for free at labs.familysearch.org and Ancestry.com. For those you cannot see for free I suggest checking with your local libraries to see if they have Ancestry or Heritage Quest.
The best thing to do is to get some hard birth and death dates for the people you are looking for. This may require a visit to the cemeteries the families are buried in. With some hard dates it becomes easier to confirm the connection found in other records such as the census. You can also try to get birth and death certificates for anyone born or had died since 1906 in Pennsylvania from the PA Dept of Health. The death certificates will give you who the parents were. Obituaries also help.
Since the families were from the Norristown area check with the Historical Society of Montgomery County. Most likely the couples got their marriage licenses at the Montgomery County Register of Wills. Often these records have data on birth places and parents.
More Replies:
Re: Daniel McCurdy from Ireland, my great grandfather
Jamie Raleigh 1/17/13
Re: Daniel McCurdy from Ireland, my great grandfather
Jamie Raleigh 1/17/13


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The Zurich Pride Festival (ZHPF) 2016 offers many different interesting events culminating in a festival on Friday/Saturday 10/11 June and a great parade through the city. For more informations about the events, please have a look at:
Make sure to visit the parade and join us there! What a great day to be a gay student!


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WAYNE ROONEY has moved a step closer to leaving Everton after handing in a formal transfer request today.
Manchester United and Newcastle United have had bids for the player in excess of #20m turned down this week by the Blues but are both expected to return with increased offers before the transfer window closes on Monday night (31st Aug).
It has been long assumed that Manchester would be Rooney's preferred destination although Newcastle are now reported to be favourites to land the England striker.
Rooney said: "I hope Everton's fans will understand my decision."
"This has been one of the hardest decisions of my life but I feel the time is now right for me to move forward with my career. "The Euros were a fantastic experience for me. It made me realise I could play at the highest level. "To do that I need to be with a club that is playing in Europe every year. I hope the Everton fans can come to understand my decision and I hope the transfer fee Everton Football Club receive will help the club move forward. "The Everton fans have always been fantastic in their support of me. I hope they respect my decision and I also hope that some day in the future I could be welcomed back to watch the team I have supported since boyhood."
More to follow


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Masnick has some thoughtful commentary up on where he sees record labels, and this ought to stand true for any sort of publisher, heading.
Picture uploaded by ToniVC
...thanks to the vast explosion of music available these days, bands don't need help getting "out there" any more -- they need help standing out from the clutter. Fans, on the other side, need a better filter to figure out what's worth listening to, and that's something that an affinity label could stand for. It plays the role of the filter, and allows the major label (like EMI) to leverage its connections with big name bands, to drive additional interest to lesser known bands by associating the names on the same affinity label. It's an idea that makes plenty of sense (in fact, there are a few small independent labels that already live via this concept -- within certain niches, you can find people who will buy nearly every album released on a specific label).________________________
Picture uploaded by ToniVC


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Making it Minimal
It's Over Now
by craig burton & sam butler
This is the first in a series of articles covering London's burgeoning minimal techno community. With its origins principally in Detroit and Berlin, minimal techno takes some of the best elements of house and techno, creating tight, snapping rhythms and spaced-out vibes. The genre is breathing new life into London's tired dance scene. The articles, written from the perspective of two of Shoreditch's party regulars "lucky" enough to live above one of Brick Lane's infamous curry houses, are a round-up of exciting new releases, parties and general shenanigans of the minimal techno community in the great metropolis that is London.
I always look forward to summer. Sun, blue skies, chirping birds, foreign girls in dresses and best of all, great parties. The season of summer rarely lets me down. Everyone has either just returned or is moments away from leaving to soak up some European culture and work on their cancer; smiles are inevitable. I've been doing the same, but without taking gas-guzzling Ryan Air flights to unheard of airports or falling in love with depressed western European girls (ahem). I've found that summer and Europe can be easily accessed and enjoyed from the comfort of a good set of earphones and a few imported records. This summer has been no exception, as East London's streets pulse with clicks, clacks, taps and bumps. In a city of endless routines, minimal techno is a friendly soundtrack for not only those of the trendy East End, but to the greater electronic music community.
The first party of the summer was in Hoxton's snug Troy Bar, a stunning return to form for the Sud label crew after a brief spring spent touring. Along with Run they've been throwing some of the most exciting underground parties in London's East End. Kicking off at around 1:00 am and finishing at some point the following afternoon, there are a number of elements that make these parties special. At locations you'll only reach after struggling with a map book and a network of London city buses, you'll find a disparate collection of geeky indie-kids, unimpressed looking Detroit headz and insanely-sexy swaying Spanish girls, all in pairs. Sure, it's an odd bunch, but it's a friendly one, brought together by a desire to be prodded into the next day by the effervescent noises of Matthew Dear, Jay Haze, Mathew Jonson, Lawrence, Luciano and the like.
The past month has seen an incredible stream of releases, including Haze's funky Berlin Pimpin' EP on Muzik Krause (which is distrubted by Kompakt). Haze, a perpetual nomad from Philadelphia, has battled with respiratory disease, drug addiction and life on the streets, but after a brief spell in Amsterdam, he found himself in the heart of Berlin's thriving minimal techno scene. He records tracks with the Chilean-German wackjob Ricardo Villalobos, who's better known to his German fans as "Retardo" for his incredible train wreck-smattered DJ marathons. You just need to listen to his latest LP The Au Harem d'Archimedes to get an idea of what frame of mind Villalobos is in. Check the Pink Floyd influences particularly on the title track. Meanwhile, Peter M Kersten, under his Lawrence moniker, takes a different route with his latest LP, The Night Will Last Forever, creating an entire world for the appreciative ear to wallow in; you'd be justified in drawing comparisons with other microhouse producers such as Matthew Dear [Ghostly International] and Matthew Herbert [Accidental]. With his piano chords and strings, he constructs a vista of long shadows, suspense, and great beauty. It's hard not to imagine members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor sitting in the dark with laptops. If they had the machines to make techno in the ruins of post-war Europe, this is what it would sound like.
By the end of July, I could no longer stand the solitude my earphones were affording me and decided it was time to travel to the source. I yearned to share the beauty of it all with my peers. Flying to Geneva, then traveling 1000 metres above sea level, found me at the top of a mountain with 500 Swiss haircuts under the stars. In the fine company of Minus label stalwarts Magda and Troy Pierce, the stage was set for an amazing continental minimal experience. The Imploz Open Air Festival gave the typical Swiss electronic music fan an incredible selection of minimal, acid and techno along with Sten, Peter Kersten's minimal techno persona, providing the highlight of the 24 hour party with an incredible 10am DJ set. Leaving The Frantic, a compilation of his 12" output is available in CD format now.
Back in London it's Secretsundaze' final outing of the summer with a shameful corporate-feel rooftop affair, attended by a disheartening array of Nathan Barley-types and their sunglasses. Thankfully, there's a smattering of fans that have turned up to catch Villalobos spin. Cell phone communiqué from those who've already made it onto the roof are encouraging, and you can hear the chugging bass-lines from the queue back on the ground. After at least two hours of queuing, us plebs finally got inside to find a closed rooftop and an overcrowded basement. Disheartened and getting ready to leave, I was lucky enough to catch Ricardo himself making a camp dash for the exit. "The party's over," he says with an unknowing grin. Asked if he'll be making any further appearances he suggests, smiling, "maybe Public Life, 2 o'clock or so…yeah, 2 o'clock," before mincing off with his entourage. Later on I find out the after-party is indeed scheduled to be in a former public toilet, and my hopes remain high as I head over to the venue. Unfortunately, a quick word with the warm-up DJ at the entrance to the club dashes my hopes. "Yer, I spoke to him on the phone earlier on…he couldn't really talk," he said. I ask him why – was he busy or just wasted? He chuckles, "ah, yeah, yeah, I think he's…I don't think he's coming out." So, Ricardo was right – the party's over. Well, for him it at was. It later was revealed he played records at a flat off of Kingsland road till early the next day, sitting down.
For the rest of us, the party in London's inner confines continues with more intimate electronic gatherings hosted by Sud, Run, Sprawl and more. London kids can expect to catch South Africa native Alan Abrahams showcasing his exciting new dance-floor orientated material on Ghostly International under the clever moniker – Bodycode.
For the original article..Click Here


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The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering provides instruction and research in areas of electrical and computer engineering such as power systems, optoelectronics, digital systems, VLSI design, data communications and networking, automatic control systems, electronics, embedded systems, microelectronics, power electronics, robotics, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering.
The Department offers a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (B.S.E.E.) degree and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering (B.S.Cp.E.) degree. An eight-semester sequence of courses that is designed to develop the concepts and design and analysis techniques fundamental to the various areas of specializations forms the core of the curricula. Emphasis is placed on the utilization of computers throughout the curricula. Our graduates have a wide range of job opportunities as power engineers, communication engineers, digital design engineers, test engineers, embedded system developers, network engineers, control engineers, project engineers, robotic system engineers, optoelectronic engineers, application engineers, analog engineers, medical product engineers, and process engineers.
Accreditation: The Electrical and Computer Engineering programs are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET.


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Banks have been able to buy coverage against the financial and reputational costs of data-security breaches for more than a decade. It's only in the past few years, however, that the insurance industry has begun expanding the scope of such coverage and edging toward de facto standards for what is insured and how much it costs.
The actuarial basis on which premiums are set remains sketchy to bankers and others on the outside. But what's covered has become fairly standard. That includes the cost of security breakdowns caused by low-level employee misconduct and protection against the loss of data that was in the hands of outside vendors.
When breaches occur, insurers now typically cover the cost of credit monitoring and other services. In previous iterations of so called "cyber insurance," these features were not always clearly covered.
"Money goes out to cover crisis management, regulatory notifications, computer forensics, PR people, lawyers and a whole cadre of vendors," says Richard Bortnick, a Philadelphia-based attorney with Cozen O'Connor, who helps banks acquire such insurance. "The policy coverage is broader than it's historically been."
Cyber insurance fills gaps in banks' traditional liability and business insurance policies, which typically cover only physical losses and direct costs, such as robberies, fires and lawsuits.
Plenty of questions remain about how cyber policies are priced, but insurers and brokers say the market's been expanding at a rapid clip anyway, thanks to heightened breach disclosure requirements and a patchwork of state regulations that requires banks to compensate clients for damages suffered as a result of data breaches.
Marsh, a major data-breach insurance broker, says around one-third of its financial institution clients hold such policies. It expects the market to grow 15% annually over the next few years, driven in part by regulatory pressures.
Last October, the Securities and Exchange Commission declared that public companies of all stripes must include the costs of data breaches in financial reports and disclose to investors the extent of their data-theft vulnerabilities. That, in turn, has raised awareness of related risks, insurers, brokers and attorneys say.
Because data-breach coverage remains an immature product, specifics on the scope of the market remain scarce. Nor are insurers anxious to divulge the details of what they charge or how much it costs them to provide coverage. What's more, the filings that insurers make with state regulators typically lump in data breach coverage with other forms of commercial insurance.
Industry sources peg the value of the overall cyber-insurance market - which includes healthcare providers and retailers, as well as financial institutions - at anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion a year in premiums paid.
For their part, insurers are still working to gauge the risk of covering banks, says Robert Parisi, a senior vice president at Marsh's Financial and Professional Liability Practice. Among the insurers that have pursued the business most aggressively are Chubb, Chartis and Beazley. Other carriers have balked at taking on financial companies as clients, regarding them as overly attractive targets.
The companies anxious to sell coverage go to considerable lengths to impress potential clients with its value. Chartis offers a lengthy list of recent payouts.
"A rogue employee used a personal USB drive on the company computer system to steal and sell the identities of over 4,000,000 customers and applicants," one anonymous claim scenario says. The episode triggered a settlement north of $15 million for credit monitoring and identity theft insurance for consumers, Chartis adds.
The cost of such protection can vary greatly, in part based on insurers' evaluation of how well banks have addressed their own risks.
"I've seen the price per million dollars of coverage as low as $5,000 and as high as $65,000," says Marsh's Parisi. "It's not like workers comp, where the main determinant is the type of work and how many workers you have. This is still highly specialized, highly focused, very subjective underwriting."
Individual insurers generally cap coverage at about $20 million, but brokers can bundle multiple insurers to create policies worth many multiples of that. Small banks are increasingly a target of their sales efforts, according to Bortnick and Parisi.
Market share data is lacking, but both say one big player in the area is Beazley, which began offering a combined insurance and data-breach response package to community banks and credit unions around the beginning of 2011. Under Beazley's terms, a financial institution suffering a breach notifies it of the breakdown, and the insurer hires lawyers, forensic firms and credit monitoring servicers necessary to handle the problem.
"A lot of smaller institutions don't have a good sense of how to comply with the laws if there's a breach," says Bob Wice, an underwriter for Beazley's specialty insurance business.
Wice, Bortnick, and Parisi all declined to name individual bank clients for the insurance. The absence of legal disputes over such policies seems to reflect a level of satisfaction with the coverage, as well as its relatively broad boundaries, says Bortnick. With the market still in its early stages, insurers are also averse to get into public spats over policy limits.
"Because the product is still developing and everyone in the insurance industry wants to get in, you need to be seen as taking care of your policyholders," Bortnick says. "If you become known as someone who denies claims, nobody's going to be buying from you."


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Kai ForbathMinnesota Vikings
Place Kicker
Ht: 5.9 | Wt: 197
News | Stats | Stat vs. Team | Targets | Injury | Depth Chart | Roster
|FG Atts
|FG Made
|FG Miss
|FG Pct
|XP Att
|XP Made
|XP Miss
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|NFL Pts
|Vikings | Kai Forbath re-signs
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 11:13:02 -0700
Free-agent PK Kai Forbath (Vikings) is re-signing to an undisclosed deal with the Minnesota Vikings Tuesday, March 20, according to a source.
Fantasy Tip: Forbath was a quality starting fantasy kicker in 2017 despite missing six field goals and five extra points. With Kirk Cousins in town the Vikings should be scoring plenty again this year, making Forbath a No. 1 fantasy kicker for a second straight year.
|Comment (0)
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|| Source: NFL Network - Mike Garafolo
|Vikings | Kai Forbath suffers minor foot injury
Sat, 25 Nov 2017 07:30:34 -0800
Minnesota Vikings PK Kai Forbath (foot) said he cut his foot when he kicked Detroit Lions CB Darius Slay on a blocked field goal attempt during the fourth quarter of Week 12's game. However, he believes he'll be fine going forward.
Fantasy Tip: Forbath has been one of the league's more reliable placekickers this season, converting 85.7 percent of his field goal attempts and 82.1 percent of his extra point attempts. He makes a solid option for fantasy owners.
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|| Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press - Chris Tomasson
|Vikings | Kai Forbath perfect on field goals
Sun, 22 Oct 2017 14:09:09 -0700
Minnesota Vikings PK Kai Forbath made all six of his field goal attempts against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 7. He did miss his only extra point attempt during the game.
Fantasy Tip: Forbath had made 17 of his 18 field goal attempts so far this season and is a solid weekly starting option for owners.
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|| Source: NFL.com
|Vikings | Kai Forbath wins kicking competition
Sat, 02 Sep 2017 07:46:05 -0700
Minnesota Vikings PK Kai Forbath appears to have won the team's placekicking competition, as a result of PK Marshall Koehn being released Saturday, Sept. 2.
Fantasy Tip: It doesn't sound like Forbath has a great deal of job security, so fantasy owners should look elsewhere for safer kicking options.
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|| Source: NFL Network - Ian Rapoport
|Vikings | Kai Forbath joining Vikings
Tue, 15 Nov 2016 12:15:24 -0800
Updating a previous report, free-agent PK Kai Forbath (Saints) is signing an undisclosed deal with the Minnesota Vikings Tuesday, Nov. 15.
Fantasy Tip: Forbath isn't a top notch kicker, but he's experienced. He should only be picked up as a desperation move for those who owned Blair Walsh.
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|| Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune - Andrew Krammer
|Vikings | Minnesota likely to turn to Kai Forbath
Tue, 15 Nov 2016 09:31:46 -0800
Free-agent PK Kai Forbath (Saints) is expected to sign with the Minnesota Vikings shortly to replace Blair Walsh, who was released Tuesday, Nov. 15.
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|| Source: USA TODAY Sports - Tom Pelissero
|Vikings | Kai Forbath auditions
Tue, 08 Nov 2016 18:26:51 -0800
Free-agent K Kai Forbath (Saints) auditioned for the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
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|| Source: ESPN - Adam Schefter
|Bengals | Cincinnati looking at kickers
Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:26:53 -0700
Free-agent PK Kai Forbath (Saints) and PK Randy Bullock (Giants) were among the kickers that recently worked out for the Cincinnati Bengals.
|Comment (0)
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|| Source: NFL Network - Mike Garafalo
|Cowboys | Dallas working out kickers
Thu, 06 Oct 2016 09:07:21 -0700
Free-agent PKs Robbie Gould (Bears) and Kai Forbath (Saints) will work out for the Dallas Cowboys because PK Dan Bailey (back) is dealing with an injury, according to sources.
Fantasy Tip: Owners should keep an eye on the situation to see if Bailey will miss any time because of the injury. Owners will be able to find other kickers if they need one.
|Comment (0)
|| Share:
|| Source: NFL Network - Ian Rapoport
|Saints | Kai Forbath released, Will Lutz signed
Tue, 06 Sep 2016 15:05:42 -0700
New Orleans Saints PK Kai Forbath was released Tuesday, Sept. 6, and free-agent PK Will Lutz (Ravens) was signed to an undisclosed deal.
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|| Source: NFL Network - Ian Rapoport
Also see
11/07 - Fantasy football sleeper candidates for Week 10
10/24 - Fantasy Football Sleepers: Take advantage of these matchups in Week 8
10/17 - Fantasy football sleepers to consider in Week 7
10/08 - Houston to be without Owen Daniels for up to six weeks
10/07 - Costly turnovers have Matt Schaub on shaky ground
09/27 - Have we seen the end of Christian Ponder in Minnesota?
09/26 - Ahmad Bradshaw's neck injury makes Trent Richardson a stout play
09/20 - Need injury updates for several key fantasy football running backs?
09/19 - Injuries galore! How do they affect fantasy football lineups for Week 3?
09/18 - Cleveland chooses replacement for injured Brandon Weeden


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From Howard Fineman writing at The Huffington Post:
Not since the fifth century has a Germanic leader arrived at the gates of a fearful imperial capital with an offer of peace and the threat of mayhem.
Sixteen centuries ago it was a Visigoth named Alaric, who, backed by an army of Germanic tribes and former slaves, marched on Rome. He got the locals to hand over all of their wealth in tribute, then laid waste to the city anyway.
This week it is Donald the Orange, descended from the German Drumpfs, who arrives in the imperium of Washington to get a better sense of how messy — even bloody — it will be for him to become emperor of the United States.
The current occupant of that office, President Barack Obama, has vacated the city with his family for an annual educational trip abroad for his daughters, timed to spring break at their Washington private school, Sidwell Friends.
And in comes Donald Trump.
Read the rest at The Huffington Post.