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Visa Requirements
Visa Requirements
If you are not a citizen of the European Union or the European Economic Area, you will need a Tier 4 (General) student visa to study any courses longer than 6 months in the UK. For courses which are 6 months or less, a Short-term study visa will suffice.
Once you have satisfied all conditions of your offer, or have received an unconditional offer, the school will need to supply you with a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) and must ensure you meet the minimum Tier 4 requirements.
We will carefully check each document you supply to us against the Tier 4 requirements. We will confirm that you:
When you have supplied us with all the correct documentation, we will send you a copy of your CAS via email. This email will include detailed information on what your next steps need to be and what we will expect from you.
Remember that you should keep in contact with the school at all times throughout the process and immediately let us know when you have received your visa. If you are refused by the UK visa and Immigration office you must notify us the same day and one of our admissions team will be able to advise what steps to take next.
Tier 4 English Language requirements for Non EEA/EU students (students from outside the European Economic Area/United Kingdom and rest of European Union)
Because of the technical nature of some of the language used on our filmmaking and screenwriting courses, it is essential that you have a good command of the English language.
All students whose first language is not English must provide recent evidence that their English language ability is sufficient for the programmes for which they have applied. This must be evidenced in the form of a Secure English Language Test (SELT) such as IELTS for UKVI(Academic) or Trinity (UK only).
You will need to be level B2 for our undergraduate programmes with an overall score of 6.0 on the IELTS test and C1 for our postgraduate course with an overall score of 6.5. You can test your language skills or book a test by visiting the IELTS website. Please ensure you choose IELTS for UKVI when booking for an IELTS test.
Click here to book your English Test (IELTS for UKVI).
The UK Visa and Immigration (UKVI) service require educational institutions to verify that applicants have a minimum level in English before we are permitted to issue the Confirmation of Acceptance For Studies(CAS). You need a test certificate in order to apply for your visa. See the official list of UKVI-approved English language tests.
The UKVI does not require SELTs from the following countries which they consider majority English speaking:
The UKVI will confirm your nationality using your passport.
You are also exempted from requiring a SELT if you have completed a degree from the countries listed below:
The current requirements of United Kingdom Visas and Immigration state that all students applying for a Tier 4 visa must be able to demonstrate that they have £1,265 per calendar month for living expenses for the first nine months of their course.
Since requirements are often very complex and sometimes subject to change, you are advised to consult the latest and most detailed Tier 4 guidance.
Before we issue your CAS, CFS needs to check all the documentation that you will later submit to UKVI with your visa application. This section outlines the CFS and UKVI financial requirements which must be satisfied before you can apply.
How much money do I need?
Both the school and the UK government have financial requirements. The school requires that the full first-year fee to be paid in advance before we issue a CAS to applicants who need a Tier 4 visa to study in the UK.
The UK Government specifies how much money applicants need to have at the time they apply for a Tier 4 visa. In May 2015, for example, you need to show that you have money for the following:
A maximum of £1,265 paid to your sponsor in advance for your accommodation can be deducted from the amount of maintenance you must show that you have, even if you have paid more than £1,265 in advance.
How do I show this money?
You need to be able to show that you have access to this money in one of the following ways:
For all these three sources, if your account is not held in UK pounds (GBP), you should demonstrate to us that you have sufficient funds by making a currency conversion calculation of the funds that you hold into UK pounds, and then clearly displaying this sum on the proof of your finances. The UK Home Office (the government ministry which runs UKVI) uses the OANDA website to convert currencies into GBP. You should use this site for your calculation.
You may use either an account in your name or a joint account which you hold with other people or an account in your parents' name.
The money in the account(s) must be 'cash' e.g. not shares, bonds, property or a fixed‐term deposit (a deposit which you are not allowed to withdraw whenever you want). You may use more than one account to show that you have the total money required. You should also check that your bank statement is issued by a financial institution accepted as valid by UKVI.
Your financial document will need to show the following:
Documents which you may use:
UKVI is very specific about the documents which it accepts as proof that you meet the financial requirements. The document must be either:
It must show the following information:
The document(s) which you provide must be original; copies are not accepted.
Note: If you have only internet bank statements, these must contain all of the details listed above and you must include a letter from your bank on headed paper confirming that the statements are authentic. Some banks will stamp and sign a printed internet bank statement, and you should check whether your bank offers this service. A statement of your finances (as detailed above) stamped and signed by your bank is acceptable.
Using your parents' bank statements
If you are using a bank statement provided by your parents, you have to provide additional information.
You will need to submit an original signed and dated letter from the parent(s) or legal guardian when you submit your application form, confirming
If you are using a loan made to you as your financial evidence, you must provide a document confirming the loan.
The UKVI will accept only government-provided loans or approved educational loans as proof to support a Tier 4 visa application. You will need to provide a loan letter, which must be from a regulated financial institution and be dated no earlier than 6 months before the date of your application.
The letter must be the original (not a copy) and must clearly show:
UKVI now defines an 'official financial sponsor' as:
The letter from your financial sponsor must be an original document, should be on the official headed paper of the organisation, have the official stamp of the organisation, and contain the following information:
If your official financial sponsor is providing all of the funds for your course fees and maintenance, you do not have to provide separate evidence of your savings.
If your sponsor pays only some of your costs, you will need a letter from the sponsor and proof that you have enough money of your own to meet the rest of the maintenance (living expenses) requirement - for example, your personal bank statements.


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South Africa holidays
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Accommodation rating: Superior
Please call 020 7873 5000 for more information or to make a booking.
Alternatively, discover other hotels and what to do in Garden Route & Port Elizabeth
ExceptionalTruly exclusive and exceptionally luxurious.
LuxuryVery high class accommodation with superb facilities and service.
Superior High standard accommodation, service and facilities.
Good StandardGood standard accommodation, service and facilities.
SimpleClean and comfortable with en suite bathrooms but limited facilities.
BasicVery modest with shared bathrooms and minimal facilities
Hog Hollow is approximately 18km (15-20 minute drive) from Plettenberg Bay en route to...
Set amidst emerald green pastures where the foothills of the Outeniqua mountains sweep...

subset: commoncrawl


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The first player since World War II to start as a freshman at USC in 1976, Brad is one of USC's most highly decorated offensive lineman. As a senior in 1979, besides being a Unanimous All-American, USC Offensive Player of the Year, USC Most Inspirational Player and Academic All-American, Brad was selected as the first and only Lombardi Award winner in USC's history. In 1980, Brad also earned the NCAA Post Graduate Scholarship. During his career at USC, Brad had the honor to start in three Rose Bowls; each time the USC Trojans were Rose Bowl winners. In 1978, led by the great Coach John Robinson, their Rose Bowl victory earned USC a National Championship.
In 1980, Brad again made history; as the eleventh pick in the first round by the Kansas City Chiefs, Brad and his father (Ed Budde) became the first and only father and son in NFL history to be drafted in the first round, to the same team and play the same position. For Brad, playing for eight years in the NFL was the fulfillment of his life-long dream to follow in his father's footsteps. Off the field, Brad and his wife, Nicolette, devoted themselves to working with abused and neglected children through Camp Opportunity and Division of Family Services in Kansas City, Missouri.
Following retirement from the NFL in 1988, Brad returned to college and earned his Master's in Physical Therapy from Loma Linda University. For the last 17 years, Brad has rehabilitated senior citizens as President of Budde Physical Therapy, Inc. From 1995–2005, Brad also worked as the offensive line coach at San Clemente High School and Orange Coast College. Brad was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame in 1998, USC Football Hall of Fame in 1999, and the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2010.
In 2005, Brad founded GameDay Management Systems, Inc., bringing the fundamentals of high performing sports teams into the workplace. Drawing from his unique life experience as a professional athlete and entrepreneur, Brad has worked with both private corporations and government agencies to increase team efficiency and performance, producing unprecedented results. Brad's passion for excellence, which allowed him to dominate as a football player and businessman, now empowers managers to become dynamic leaders.


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I just received my property tax appraisals from Travis Country Appraisal District (TCAD) and Williamson County Appraisal District (WCAD) for 2010. Doesn't look like I'll need to protest any property values this year. Some properties are borderline high, but not worth the time and effort to dispute because a) they are close enough, within a percent or two of my estimate, and b) some are low enough to offset the overage on the others, in my mind, and c) I still traumatized by my exposure to the utterly moronic and incompetent panel of idiots at my formal tax protest hearing last year. I need another year of recovery before I subject myself to that type of abuse again.
But as a home owner with only one property, even if your value is only a little bit high, it may be worth the effort to keep the value down so that the basis for future increases remains lower. And remember, if it's your homestead, the value upon which you are taxed can't rise more than 10% per year. This year, many of you will see an actual decrease in appraised value.
Each year Sylvia and I perform an increasing number of free comparative market analysis (CMA) for property owners seeking value guidance, or evidence to use in a property tax protest. That deal still stands. We did almost 100 of them last year, which actually benefits us as much as you because we get to really hone our CMA skills and see what home values are doing in many different parts of Austin. And many of you have turned into clients, which we really appreciate.
And here is a list of useful links to help you self-educate about the tax appraisal protest process at TCAD or WCAD in case you do decide to seek a reduction in appraised value.
Like many other Travis County residents, I found myself staring at property tax appraisal bills this year that were over-valued. In September, the Travis County Appraisal District (TCAD) unilaterally offered a lower adjusted value for one of the properties before I even attended the informal hearing. I signed off on that and mailed it back in, which dropped the home from $196K to $172K.
But that left a couple of 1+ acre lots I own, which I purchased at the peak of the Austin real estate market in 2007, valued by Travis County at 63% more than I paid. At the informal hearing, I explained to the tcad representative that the lots in the subject neighborhood are not homogeneous, and therefore the comparable sales being used were apples and oranges. I also questioned the "size and shape" adjustment they were applying, which added 35% to their "base" lot value for the neighborhood.
When the developer rolled out this neighborhood in 2006, the lots were all sold to custom builders. Some are high up on a ridge with mature oak trees and distant views. Others are down in old meadowland, no oak trees, and with waterway and floodplain issues. The two that I purchased were the two cheapest lots sold in the subdivision. The runts of the litter. The leftover lots that none of the custom builders wanted because they were in the floodplain and only had 70ft and 90ft widths at the front while the rest of the neighborhood has 100ft to 150ft lot widths. I won't go into the strategy or thinking that lead me to purchase these "problem" lots, but the fact is, they were the cheapest sold for a reason and now I was sitting in front of a TCAD bonehead who was telling me they were "better than average" for the neighborhood and therefore priced at a premium. He offered a token adjustment, which I declined.
So a month later, two days ago, I attended the Formal Hearing. This is a panel of three incompetent older people. More on them in a minute. How they are selected I know not. And a TCAD representative who was as equally unskilled in understanding facts and data as the informal hearing representative. Bottom line, I prevailed, but not to the degree I had hoped. Here's how it went.
I just received a letter from the Travis County Appraisal District with regard to my upcoming property tax protest hearing. Instead of having the hearing, they want to just offer a lower value now, by mail. If I agree, I can just sign the letter and mail it back. The value will be lowered and I won't have to attend a hearing for this particular property (though I still have several other over-valued properties awaiting hearings).
The original appraised value for this property, which is a rental house we own in SW Austin, was $196,772. TCAD is offering to drop it to $172,236, which is a value I can live with. In fact, I wasn't expecting to do that well at the hearing, so I guess I'll sign the letter and send it back.
Here's what the letter says. It starts off with:
"Based on an analysis of sales data the indicated value of your property is $172,236"
Translation: "We did a very poor analysis the first time. Because we've been deluged with property tax protest requests this year, we decided to do a proper analysis and would now like to set your appraised value at the correct amount instead of incompetently and unfairly over-assessing your value".
The letter goes on to say:
If you agree with our analysis, we can serve you better by helping you avoid a trip to our offices. If you agree, please sign and date the enclosed Settlement and Waiver of Protest form, and return it to the district using the postage paid envelope…
I'm mailing mine in back in. The county is smart to take this approach, which we are seeing for the first time ever. It's not that hard to get the assessed value closer than a 15% error, especially in neighborhoods such as the one in which this subject property is located, which are mostly homogeneous, similar homes of similar age and size.
But this raises the question as to how the "analysis" performed by TCAD could been about 15% too high in the first round. Is this an admission that they don't really try that hard to get the number right in the first place? Well, we already know that they don't. But I know how to fix that, if I have my way during the next legislative session.
Read more …


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Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2093's Military Order of the Cooties Auxiliary, which is Orange Bug No. 93, voted June 24 to donate $50 to the Tampa Veterans Hospital's wheelchair games fund. The group also voted to make a hospital trip in July and to hold a rummage sale in August.
The local Military Order of the Cooties, the VFW's highest degree, and its auxiliary were hosts June 1 for the organization's District 9 meeting.


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15,000 to attend annual Apprentice Boys' parade
Fifteen thousand people are expected in Londonderry on Saturday for the annual Apprentice Boys' parade.
A hundred and forty bands will also march through the city centre at lunchtime.
The parade is the culmination of this year's week-long Maiden City Festival.
It marks the 322nd anniversary of the ending of the Siege of Derry in 1689, when the Catholic King James II laid siege to the walled city.
Dissident republicans are planning protests against the loyal order demonstration.
However, the Governor of the Apprentice Boys, Jim Brownlee, said he hoped the protests would not disrupt the day.
"Obviously, it's something we could do without, but we have to remember that people have a right to protest," he said.
"We respect that right to protest and we hope those protests are peaceful; and we hope the two events, both ourselves - in terms of the parade - and those protests, can pass off peacefully and everybody can get on with their business."


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BBC: A network of remote weather stations in Italy's Valle d'Aosta is allowing scientists to monitor the unpredictable mountain environment for the early warning signs of life-threatening floods or landslides without having to leave their desks.
New technology has enabled the solar-powered weather stations to be connected through the mobile phone network, so scientists can watch for events such as chunks of ice falling off glaciers, which might trigger a catastrophic event. They are also using other technologies such as 3D imaging and time-lapse photography.
Data collected by the network is being compared to historical data to better understand the early warning signs of disaster. Read more here.


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Saint Laurent's 'Kate' clutch is updated for Pre-Fall '16 in glittering gold, black and silver textured-lamé - encapsulating the label's glam-rock aesthetic. It's minimally detailed with the house's iconic interlocking 'YSL' plaque and chain tassel. We love it with an evening gown.
Find out the shipping options available for your destination
Arrange your return for an exchange or refund within 28 days using our free collection service
Our Fashion Consultants are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, speaking over 14 languages. Call: +1 877 799 0627


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Betty Smith Quotes About DreamsQuotes about: Dreams
Books Children Dreams Earth Eyes Giving Growing Up Hard Work Heart Heaven House Inspirational Libraries Mothers Pain Reading Sleep Soul Struggle Suffering Understanding Water Writing
Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
Betty Smith
- Born: December 15, 1896
- Died: January 17, 1972
- Occupation: Author
- Cite this Page: Citation


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"When we went out and saw the walls which were straight and smooth, it was frightening, as in a science-fiction film" – Dennis Åsberg – Ocean Explorer Co-Founder
The original sonar images show large and unbelievably straight grooves or lines in the structure. [...] "the graves are more like 1-1,5 meter wide and 0,5-1,5 meters deep." "The lines can be made by natural causes, but they looks very "man made".
■ Completely circular plate-like exterior.
■ 180 metres in circumference.
■ Object is 200ft accross mushroom shaped comprising a thick pillar rising 8 metres out of the seabed with a 4 metre thick dome on top (like a mushroom shape) – rising a total of 12 metres (approx 40 feet) high above the surrounding seabed.
■ Cavities-like corridors inside the object.
■ Straight and smooth walls in certain areas with many right angles.
■ There are visible formations on top of the object, which are set at a 90 degree angle and look like passageways or walls, as well as something that looks like it could be a staircase.
■ Stone circles, like "fireplaces", of hard black "almost petrified" burnt looking stone each a few inches in diameter, like 4 or 5 pearls in a necklace in various arrangements on top of the dome.
■ Spherical object nicknamed "The Meringue" (pictured below) is 4 metres wide and sits on top of the object.
■ Twenty-five centimetre hole on top of the object, it's not known yet where it leads or what if anything is inside.
■ Long runway or "skid marks" leading to object point north.
And a SECOND Anomaly.....
The second anomaly
Some 200 metres away lies the second strange anomaly which is amazingly yet to be explored! The initial sidescan sonar images show something described by the team as shaped like a "gothic church window". Similar to the main anomaly this object also has an area leading up to it of disturbed seafloor or what could be a ridge. The divers were so amazed by the main anomaly that they simply didn't have time to dive on the second one. The return trip in two weeks time should present an opportunity for this to finally be explored.
There is the real possibility that the second anomaly may help give clues to the origin and nature of the main object.
Originally posted by grey580
I'm wondering... could this thing be a
Might be a more natural explanation
Originally posted by dashdespatch
reply to post by Arken
I am interested in it i just do not see why we need multiple threads about it it makes it hard to keep up
Originally posted by Zcustosmorum
Originally posted by dashdespatch
reply to post by Arken
I am interested in it i just do not see why we need multiple threads about it it makes it hard to keep up
A whole new forum could be created with the amount of threads on this.
Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by Arken
At least this story is beginning to get interesting now!! The electronic equipment failing within 200 meters of this thing, and now these awesome details!!
Thanks Arken! This might just be the biggest story we have ever heard about!!
IF, things all add up to what it is looking like so far anyways.....
S&F Arken....Great thread


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South Africa: Western Cape Extension: Apr 21—27, 2017
Register NowTour Details
Please contact us if you would like more information on upcoming departures for this tour.
Departs: Cape Town
Tour Limit: 8
Operations Manager: Erik Lindqvist
Download Itinerary: PDF (151.1 KB)
Tour Leaders
Geoff LockwoodGeoff Lockwood's interest and involvement with birds dates back to his early years at sc...
More Information
I have specific questions about this tour.
Past Field Lists:
Connecting Trips:
The Southwestern Cape lies in the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom—the richest assemblage of flowering plants on the planet. It is also home to a number of endemic and near-endemic bird and animal species including Africa's only penguin species. The area is scenically spectacular and diverse, and we will sample a variety of what this region has to offer. If necessary, our activities on the different days will be rearranged to take account of local weather conditions.
Our tour starts with a visit to the world-renowned Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens where we will be introduced to the typical fynbos vegetation of the Cape Floral Kingdom, as well as some of the charismatic birds such as Orange-breasted Sunbird and Cape Sugarbirds that are restricted to this vegetation type. We then head to Strandfontein and the False Bay Wetland Park where we can expect a variety of ducks, rallids, shorebirds, gulls, and terns, as well as a number of warblers, seedeaters, and flamingoes. Raptors such as African Marsh-Harrier and African-Fish Eagle are also possible.
Over the next few days we will explore the Cape Peninsular and surrounding region, visiting the Cape Point and the Boulders Penguin Colony for our first contact with the threatened African (or Jackass) Penguin. We will also make a day-visit to the tidal lagoon of Langebaan in the West Coast National Park where we will divide our focus between the shorebirds and other species in the lagoon and those species frequenting the surrounding scrubby "Strandveld" (lit. coastal bush) vegetation. Big target species here will be the stunning Black Harrier—undoubtedly one of the world's most striking harrier species, and the equally-striking Southern Black Korhaan (or bustard). We will also head south around False Bay towards the southern tip of the African continent, searching for some of the localized endemics in this area and also stopping at another penguin colony for a last look at these comical birds.
Our visit coincides with the last departures of birds as they head further north in Africa, or back to Europe and Asia to breed.
Excellent accommodations; some long travel days; limited walking; climate highly variable under the influence of the surrounding seas; usually cool mornings and evenings, and beautifully mild-to-warm daytime temperatures; strong winds and rain also possible.


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Joseph Buford Cox only reached the third grade in his formal education.
The History of the Chainsaw
A Safer Way of Woodcutting
The late sixties and early seventies were marked by research and development toward reducing the hazards of bar-nose kickback. In 1970, development of a kickback test machine began. In 1972, development was finalized when the third-generation kickback test machine was completed.
Development of new reduced-kickback products was made possible by the Oregon® test machine. Low profile chains such as 91 series (1974), and 76 series (1976) were among the first.
Early kickback research also revealed that smaller bar-nose sizes were effective in controlling kickback. Oregon® Guard Tip bars, dubbed the "banana bars" due to their asymmetrical shape, were introduced in 1977.
Intensive, cooperative work toward a kickback-performance standard was begun in the late seventies by many chainsaw-industry manufacturers and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Oregon® engineers played a major role during the years of work that finally, in 1985, resulted in the kickback-performance requirements found in the voluntary chain saw safety standard known as ANSI B175.1.
Also in 1985, Omark Industries, which had become the parent company of Oregon Saw Chain, was purchased by the international construction and manufacturing firm, Blount, Inc., of Montgomery, Alabama. Then in August, 1999 Blount merged with an affiliate of Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Partners, the 88th largest U.S. company on the Fortune 500 list.
Oregon Cutting Systems is part of Blount's Outdoor Products Group. The other units are Dixon Industries, Inc; Frederick Manufacturing Corp; and Windsor Forestry Tools, LLC. Dixon, located in Coffeyville, Kansas, was acquired by Blount in 1990 and has made zero-turning-radius lawnmowers and related attachments since 1974. Frederick, located in Kansas City, Missouri, was acquired in 1997. Frederick is a well-known manufacturer that supplies high-quality Silver Streak-brand accessories for lawnmowers and other outdoor products. In October, 2000 Windsor Forestry Tools of Milan , Tennessee was integrated into the Outdoor Products Group. It manufacturers chainsaw guide bars and cutting chain similar to products made by Oregon Cutting Systems.
Atom Industries have been manufacturing innovative products for many years. Their award winning inventions are sold to over 30 countries worldwide.
In 1961, Atom began importing back sprayers and chainsaws into Australia. In 1963, their first invention was a drilling attachment with automatic reverse gear that fitted onto chainsaws. This enabled farmers to drill holes into wooden posts and run wire and bolts through the post so they could erect their own fences and stockyards using their own chainsaw. It also has 100's of other uses including use in tree surgery, playgrounds and park amenities. This drill attachment is still sold today as the Auger-stop model which has an inertia safety mechanism which disconnects forward gear if the auger suddenly jams (a world first). It also features automatic reverse gear.
In 1972, Atom manufactured their own chainsaws and was the worlds first chainsaw company to have its complete range of chainsaws with electronic ignition (patented), turbo action self cleaning air cleaner (patented); as well as Atoms (patented) Anti-Vibration system fitted to most models. These features are now standard on most chainsaws sold today as the patents had expired many years ago for the air cleaner. The Atom chainsaw ceased production in 1976 when the then government abolished all tariff protection on locally manufactured goods.
Atoms patented Electronic Ignition System has been and still is used on many Original Engine Manufacture (OEM) engines in Europe, USA and Asia. The Ignition Module was also developed as a spare part to replace points and condensers in small engines, and many millions have been and are sold worldwide. In 1975, they were awarded "Inventor of the Year" for this product on the ABC program "The Inventors".
Chainsaws: A History
The 1830 osteotome was the first chainsaw.The earliest reference I could find on chainsaws comes from the Canadian Medical Association Journal in an article written by Wolf Seufert, MD, DSc: "Orthopedics became a specialty with the help of a new instrument, the osteotome, invented around 1830 by the German Bernard Heine. This illustration from a contemporary inventory of surgical tools shows clearly that this clever master of prosthetics had in fact invented the chain saw. The links of the chain carried small cutting teeth with the edges set at an angle; the chain was moved around a guiding blade by turning the handle of the sprocket wheel.
Several major manufacturers of chain saws claim to have invented the first chain saw and all their claims point to the 1920s. However, the 1830 osteotome would pre-date them all.
One claim states that a California inventor named Muir was the first person to put a chain on a blade to use for logging purposes, technically inventing the first logging chainsaw. However, Muir's invention weighed hundreds of pounds and required a crane. This invention was neither a commercial or practical success. Other examples of early automatic logging saws were: the 1861 Hamilton saw that was hand-cranked by one or two men and looked like a spinning wheel; and the American riding saw of the 1880s that resembled a rowing machine that cutters could sit on.
Andreas Stihl - Father of the Modern Chainsaw
Several foreign manufacturers have advertised over the last few years
that they invented the chain saw--around the mid twenties or so. But
read this story as reported by The Timberman magazine in its
issue of October, 1949: "Our pride is somewhat piqued by the fact that
we missed the account of the first experiment known to have been made
with a gasoline chain saw on the Pacific Coast, or perhaps anywhere in
the country. The memorable event took place in the summer of 1905 at
Eureka, California ... The locale was in the vicinity of Sequoia Park,
... The saw was driven by a two-cylinder, water cooled, marine type
motor set at 90 degrees from its normal position ... A note on the back
of one of the historic photographs ... is to the effect that the machine
sawed through a 10-foot log in 4-1/2 minutes ..." The photographs were
published with this article, and other pictures were shown of other
power saws pre-dating 1920. Unfortunately, the old photographs do not
produce well here--those interested in chain saw history will want to
track down a copy of this old magazine.
Elsewhere, the Mach 16, 1918 edition of the Scientific American featured a picture of a chainsaw on the front cover. It was said to be of German design and featured a gasoline engine separate from the saw unit. The engine was wheeled up beside the tree and the saw was connected via a drive shaft.
In 1947, the Oregon Saw Chain Manufacturing Corporation was founded with four employees and one product. Today, known as the Oregon Cutting Systems Division of Blount, Inc., the same company is part of a corporation with 5,000 employees and thousands of products ranging from a single chain link to the 72,000-seat New Orleans Super Dome.
Here are some of the people, products, and events that have marked the history of the world's number-one name in chainsaw accessories--Oregon brand.
Logger/inventor Joseph Buford Cox was chopping firewood one chilly autumn day in 1946 when he paused for a moment to examine the curious activity in a tree stump. A timber-beetle larva, the size of a man's forefinger, was easily chewing its way through sound timber, going both across and with the wood grain at will.
Joe was an experienced operator of the gas-powered saws used in those days, but the cutting chain was a problem. It required a lot of filing and maintenance time. "I spent several months looking for nature's answer to the problem," Joe recalled. "I found it in the larva of the timber beetle."
Joe knew if he could duplicate the larva's alternating C-shaped jaws in steel, it just might catch on. He went to work in the basement shop of his Portland, Oregon home and came up with a revolutionary new chain. The first Cox Chipper Chain was produced and sold in November, 1947. The basic design of Joe's original chain is still widely used today and represents one of the biggest influences in the history of timber harvesting.
In 1948, two significant things happened. First, the company moved from Joe's basement into a bigger facility (a 5,000-square-foot garage). Second, Joe hired his sixteenth employee, John D. Gray.
John was 28 and a recent graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business. When John joined the company, his original office chair was a nail keg. In spite of the humble beginnings, John said, "I like the challenge of being in on the ground floor of something so exciting with so much obvious potential." Eventually, John would see the business grow from $300 thousand to $300 million.
In 1951, sales exceeded $1 million. The company became a multinational corporation in 1952 by acquiring Planer Chain Ltd. of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
In 1953, Joe sold the company to John Gray and vigorous growth continued. The company moved into its first bona fide plant in 1955, a 65,000-square-foot facility in Portland that later served as the administration building. A new plant was built for the Canadian operation, and John Gray made a sales trip to Sweden, where he found the first European customer for Oregon-brand chain.
In 1959, the company moved into international markets, and made its first application for a patent on guard links for saw chain.
Today, guard links are usually associated with safety and kickback reduction. But in 1959, these original guard links were only expected to reduce the frequent hooking and grabbing of small brush. After a period of use, pulpwood producers observed an unexpected benefit--fewer chain saw accidents. A number of these companies mandated the use of the new chain.
In 1963, a remarkable new saw and new chain initiated the modern era of lightweight, high-speed, direct-drive chain saws. The saw was the Homelite XL12, and the chain was Oregon® 72D, the first 3/8" pitch chain specifically built for such a saw. Both products were immensely successful, and derivative chains based on the original 72D design are still widely used today.
Chainsawsculptors.com® (chainsawsculptors.com)
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text: The newspaper microfilm collection is shelved alphabetically by title and shelved in cabinets in the microform area of the Library. The collection also contains some microfilm arranged by the Library of Congress (LC) classification system and shelved in cabinets in the same area. Microfilm reader/printers are available for patrons use. A microfilm/fiche copier is available to users who wish to make paper copies. Copies cost 10 cents per copy.


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Founded in 1989, Animal Place fills a much-needed niche of farm animal rescue, sanctuary and adoption with its two facilities. The mission of Animal Place is to extend compassion to all life with a special emphasis on farmed animals.....Nothing dramatic or anything in the video, just some innocent animals that in most circumstances would be facing a death sentence....because someone thought they could make a profit from them. The animal folks are just being themselves, about a minute into the video a pretty jersey cow gives out a moo. Take a look:
Some folks greatly enjoy human animal people watching, I greatly enjoy watching fur, feather and fin animal people. I especially like watching these because I know they are all in a safe place and are not being "useful", they are just being themselves. You can watch some Animal Place chickens, or other animals at their you tube channel.
The next video is one that I first encountered on Facebook. I shared it with a couple of folks I know that are involved in rescue operations and they both felt there was much truth (humorous and dismaying and frustrating) in the video.
Having worked for several decades in the human animal "helping" professions, I do know that human animals often approach others for assistance when it is too late to assist and after they have done little or nothing themselves to re-mediate the situation. The video indicates that if nothing else, we tend to be a consistent group of animals, whether problems involve our own lives or the lives of others.


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Alright gentlemen, Valentines Day is just around the corner. And I'm sure many of you have already got a gift for that special someone. But if you haven't, an are planing on getting her something sweet. Instead of buying it why don't you make some yourself? Now don't start rolling your eyes and thinking that I must be nuts for even mentioning this. But there are some really easy recipes that anyone could whip up for their sweetheart. Besides, what girl wouldn't love to get homemade sweets from her guy this Valentines Day? If she loves chocolate — and who doesn't — then you will be sure to melt her heart with these sweet chocolate covered truffles. Oreo Truffles are so simple it will take no time at all to make them.
Oreo Truffles
1 (16 ounce) package OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, divided
2 (8 ounce) packages BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted
1 (8 ounce) package PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1. Crush nine of the cookies to fine crumbs in food processor; reserve for later use. (Cookies can also be finely crushed in a resealable plastic bag using a rolling pin.) Crush remaining 36 cookies to fine crumbs; place in medium bowl. Add cream cheese; mix until well blended. Roll cookie mixture into 42 balls, about 1-inch in diameter.
2. Add chocolate to a sauce pan and melt at medium-low heat. Stir continuously until the chocolate is nice and smooth.
3. Dip balls in chocolate; place on wax paper-covered baking sheet. (Any leftover chocolate can be stored at room temperature for another use.) Sprinkle with reserved cookie crumbs.
4. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Store leftover truffles, covered, in refrigerator.
How to Easily Dip Truffles:
Place truffle ball in melted chocolate to coat; roll if necessary. Lift truffle from chocolate using two forks (this will allow excess chocolate to run off) before placing on wax paper.
See now doesn't that sound super easy. If your not sure if that is something that will get her swooning over you. Then how about an Eclair Cake. Yes boys I said "cake". But don't worry this is one cake that you don't even have to bake. Eclair cake tastes just like the fancy eclairs you would get at any expensive restaurant. But with out the outrages price. It uses graham crackers, pudding mixture and chocolate frosting. So you don't even need any kitchen power tools. Just a bowl, a spoon and you're set.
Eclair Cake
1 (3.5 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 1/2 cups cold milk
15 graham cracker squares, broken in half
1 (16 ounce) package chocolate frosting
1. In a medium bowl, thoroughly blend the pudding mix, whipped topping, and milk.
2. Arrange a single layer of graham cracker squares in the bottom of a 13x9 inch baking pan. Evenly spread half of the pudding mixture over the crackers. Top with another layer of crackers and the remaining pudding mixture. Top with a final layer of graham crackers.
3. Put frosting in a microwaveable container. Microwave for 30 seconds. Stir until the frosting is smooth and pourable. If it is still not creamy enough, place back in microwave for 15 seconds and stir. (Repeat this step until pourable.) Pour on top of cake.
4. Spread the frosting over the whole cake up to the edges of the pan. Cover, and chill at least 4 hours before serving.
If you would like to share your own Valentines Day recipe treats. Please visit the Times-Record's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/VCTimesRecord or email Krystle at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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If you live in Texas and you're concerned about ObamaCare (especially its burdensome hidden tax hikes), there is some good news for you to report from the Texas State Legislature.
Tomorrow, Thursday, March 17, at 10:30am local time or upon adjournment of the Texas House of Representatves, the State Sovereignty Committee will be in room E2.010 for a hearing about House Joint Resolution 24, the Health Freedom Act. Sponsored by Rep. Ken Paxton (R-McKinney), this constitutional amendment keeps individuals in control of their own health care instead of allowing the government to make or influence choices for us.
The Health Freedom Act is a popular measure that has been filed in 41 separate states across the county. Last year, several states, including Arizona, Missouri, and Oklahoma, passed ballot measures declaring their rights to health care freedom in some cases by overwhelming margins. NTU and its members have been strong supporters of these measures.
According to the sponsor's office, this constitutional amendment will:
- Amend Article 1 of the state constitution to prohibit the state, a state agency, a state official, or a political subdivision from enacting, effectuating, collecting, or enforcing a penalty or sanction that would deny an individual's right to choose their health insurance coverage,
- Protect an individual's ability to participate or not to participate in the health care system, free of penalties or sanctions and the right of individuals to purchase lawful services without fear of penalties or sanctions,
- Prevent the state legislature from over-reaching on any future health care reform initiatives in the way Congress over-reached on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), and
- Keep individuals in control of their own health care instead of allowing the government to make or influence choices for us.
This is an important measure and attending the hearing will be well worth your time. You can show your support by signing a witness affirmation card in favor of the bill at the hearing. Take a few minutes out of your day to stop by the Texas State House to show your support for health care freedom!


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Justin Bieber Seen Cuddling Up To Selena Gomez At July 4 Party — Pic
Justin and Selena were first spotted back together on July 4, and now there is a brand new pic that shows just how cozy and affectionate they were on the day!
Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez look more in love than ever in a new picture that was taken on July 4! The on and off again couple reunited on Independence Day, and a brand new picture has surfaced, showing Justin standing behind Selena and they look so adorable. Click to see the pic!
Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez Together On July 4
Justin, 19, and Selena, 20, are standing together in the picture, and Selena looks hot in a flowy white dress, while Justin wears some questionable orange shorts. Justin is standing behind her — holding a beer bottle — and they physically could not be closer. They look so in love and so intimate in this picture.
Plus, it looks like a fun pool party!
Justin Bieber: Selena Gomez Is A 'Heartbreaker'?
On July 16, Justin dropped a teaser for his new song "Heartbreaker," and it definitely seems to be about Selena! They day after their PDA reunion, Justin posted a pic of himself and Selena together on Instagram and captioned it, "#heartbreaker."
And this new picture is not the only PDA they were seen showing!
As HollywoodLife.com reported earlier, Jas Prince, Christina Millian's fiance, posted a video on Instagram on July 4, and at the end of the video, Justin and Selena are seen embracing in the background.
What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers? Do YOU think this picture is adorable? Are you glad that Justin and Selena seem so happy?
WATCH: Selena Gomez 'Birthday' Music Video Released As She Turns 21
— Eleanore Hutch
More Selena Gomez & Justin Bieber News:
- Selena Gomez & Justin Bieber: Why They're Always Breaking & Making Up
- Selena Gomez Asked About Having Babies With Justin Bieber — Watch
- Selena Gomez's Night Out At Kaffe Rouge Without Justin Bieber


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GNC Total Lean™ Appetrex Control™ California Only
Item # 968217
Buy 2 Get 1 Free. *Offer valid online and at participating stores through August 29, 2018. Buy two, get one of equal or lesser value free. Mix and match. Select products only. Excludes discontinued products. Other exclusions may apply.
Free Shipping on orders over $49. Offer applies to any selected address for which the order meets the $49 qualifier.
Size: 60 Tablets
The product quantity for an item in your shopping cart has exceeded our Maximum Purchasing Policy. Please adjust your quantity to (12) and try again.
Your product couldn't be added to the basket because it is out of stock.
Product Information
- Clinically proven to reduce calorie intake
- Boosts energy and metabolism
No more excuses - GNC Total Lean™ Appetrex Control is clinically shown to help control your appetite and reduce calorie intake when you need it most - at the start of your diet. This multi-action formula combines energizing herbs such as yerba mate extract and black tea with EGCG, a major thermogenic component of green tea that helps support metabolism. In addition, Appetrex Control supplies chromium that supports your metabolism by assisting insulin and important B vitamins to help your body use glucose more efficiently and metabolize fats, protein and carbohydrates. B vitamins also play an essential role in energy production; low energy levels are a key concern among dieters.
In a clinical study of 30 healthy adults (who took Appetrex Control one week followed by a placebo one week apart, or vice versa) food intake was reduced by nearly 10% when the subjects took Appetrex Control versus the placebo prior to their first meal at the start of their diet.
To help you manage your weight, we've included an easy-to-follow meal and exercise plan. Created by expert nutritionists and dietitians, this two-week meal plan provides you with 1,500 calories each day and features healthy foods.
PRODUCT DIRECTIONS / ADDITIONAl INFOAs a dietary supplement, take two tablets once daily with water 30 to 60 minutes before lunch or dinner. Do not take near bedtime.
Consult your physician prior to using this product if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, under 18 years of age or have a medical condition. Discontinue use two weeks prior to surgery., Keep out of reach of children.
, (State of California Prop 65) This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Other IngredientsDi-Calcium Phosphate, Cellulose, Polyethylene Glycol, Vegetable Acetoglycerides, Titanium Dioxide (Natural Mineral Whitener), Caramel Color, Ethyl Vanillin
StorageStore in a cool dry place.
General Nutrition Corporation
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Nutrition Facts
4.8 / 5.0
4 Reviews
It definitely controls my appetite. I can't wait for a month to go by to see my progress.
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May 27, 2018
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Started one month ago so far so good. I've noticed a change in my appetite I'm not as hungry thru the day. I will buy ago.
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May 18, 2018
3 months ago
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I'm 2 Weeks into it and I love them so far!!
I absolutely love these pills and I recommend them to everyone!!
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March 21, 2018
5 months ago
5 months ago
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I Used This!!!
It Works I am down 46 pounds within a Year's time from using these along with walking, and a low calorie diet!!!!
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July 14, 2017
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Browse 3 questions Browse 3 questions and 4 answers
why ca only?
- Reply
- Inaccurate
- CRYSTAL C on Jul 23, 2018
What other appetite suppressant can I combine with appetrex control??
the store carries it?


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The illegal-immigrant madman charged with massacring his cousin's wife and four children said he committed the Brooklyn murders because they had tried to move him into a noisy "mahjong spot," court papers revealed Monday — as the alleged killer was found unfit for trial.
"A few days ago my cousin took me to Flushing to stay there. It's a mahjong spot," accused killer Mingdong Chen, 26, told cops, according to court papers.
"I didn't like staying there because it was too loud. So I argued and took a knife to them."
Chen told detectives after the Sunset Park quintuple homicide last October that he couldn't sleep at either the Flushing address or in his cousin's home.
"When he was in Flushing he was unable to get good rest. In Brooklyn, he couldn't sleep either so he got a knife and stabbed/cut his cousin's wife and four kids," police said in a criminal report — adding that Chen was also depressed about his unemployment and social status.
"This happened tonight because I was thinking about not having a wife and job. My friends are all doing well, I'm in this situation with no wife and no job," Chen told cops, bizarrely adding, "I thought they were using me to get a green card."
Chen even complained about the slain Zhuo kids — Linda, 9; Amy, 7; Kevin, 5; and William, 1.
"Her kids tell me to, 'Do this, do that,' " Chen said, but added that he usually had no problems with his cousin's wife.
The court papers also recount Chen's description of the order of the murders — beginning with the mom, Qiao Zhen Li, 37, and ending with William.
The madman's cousin, Yi Lin Zhuo, arrived home after the murders. Neither the cousin, who has returned to China, nor any other relatives appeared in court Monday.
Chen was diagnosed with a specific mental illness, but his attorney declined to say which one.
"The report indicates that the defendant is unfit to proceed," Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Vincent Del Giudice said in court.
When questioned by detectives, Chen became angry without warning at one point, standing up and punching a detective in the chest and then trying to kick the detective with his blood-stained foot, according to court papers.
"I reacted in self-defense and punched Chen in the head with my right hand," one detective wrote in his report.
On Monday, Chen was deemed incompetent to stand trial and will undergo psychiatric treatment until he's fit for trial. He was formally arraigned, pleaded not guilty and was held without bail.
Chen will make his first appearance before the special psychiatric judge on Feb. 6.


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Five of My Favorite Fantasy Authors
Fantasy has long been my favorite genre, and while I have dozens of favorite individual books, I wanted to give some focus to overall favorite authors in the genre. People who I have read and loved more than one book/series and from whom I am always wanting the next story! 🙂
- Juliet Marillier: My absolute favorite out of all Marillier's work is the multi-generational Sevenwaters Trilogy, which kicks off with Daughter of the Forest, a beautiful retelling of the fairy tale The Wild Swans. The second book in the trilogy is Son of the Shadows and features one of my all time top book boyfriends (BRAN)! The entire series is gorgeous. She also has a beautiful beauty and the beast style retelling titled Heart's Blood that I adore. Her current series is Blackthorn & Grim, featuring the journey of two prison mates, the healer woman Blackthorn and her devoted shadow Grim, after their escape. These all read like historical novels with magic/mysticism woven in.
- Patricia McKillip: I am a huge fan of books that feature faeries. To me, no one does this better than McKillip. Frequently the fay are written as little more than what humans would be like if they were immortal, deadly beautiful, and possessed magic powers. It doesn't seem to be easy for an author to capture that necessary alien quality they should have. At the end of the day I feel these beings should be incomprehensible and totally other. Mckillip gets this. Part of her success comes in that she does not over-expose them, her books are not set in fay worlds. When they influence the story it is always with that distinct and chilling feeling of how remote and unknowable they and their world are. The Book of Atrix Wolfe and Winter Rose are two favorites.
- Brandon Sanderson: Prolific and consistently good. I feel The Stormlight Archives are the best even if it is not necessarily the best series for a newbie to his universe. There are plenty of worthy starting places though, his Mistborn series being the most famous.
- Scott Lynch: Okay so he is still in the midst of his first series, so I can't point towards a diverse body of work yet. But seeing as The Lies of Locke Lamora is one of my absolute favorite books of all time and I continue to devour The Gentlemen Bastards series, I could not leave it out. Stories set around thievery and heists are one of my favorite themes as they inevitably feature the intelligent and morally grey characters I adore (warriors often get away with being thick as mud) and there is no character I love more than Locke.
- Laini Taylor: I loved both her Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy and the lesser known Dreamdark series (which I desperately hope she will one day finish!). She maintains a wonderful balance between consistent characters that are easy to invest in, unique world building, and a heart centered plot. In all her works there is something so unique in the manner which she weaves all three.
Honorable mention for fantasy stories by other authors I have loved over the past year: Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, and The Winners Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski.


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Pure's colorful Jongo T640B Bluetooth speakersPure's cheap, colorful Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speakers connect with your smartphone to bring music to your living room.
Hello, I'm Luke Westaway here at CES in Las Vegas taking a look at the Pure T640B. I may not have the snappiest name, but Pure is hoping that this speaker will stick in your memory. Anyway, this matte black version doesn't look particularly bombastic, but it also comes in a white version and you can spice both models up by buying accessory grills, which come and arrange in different colors. It's not too massive, so it won't take up too much space in your living room. It's got 5-inch speakers and it pumps out 100 watts of noise. Pure tells me that you'll also be able to turn the speaker around and balance it in portrait mode. Under the logo, it also swivels so that it doesn't look weird when you do that. This is a prototype model, however, so we can't show you what it look like. It sounds all right so far, but there is a kicker. The speaker doesn't have airplay, which is Apple's wireless audio technology. You can stream music over Wi-Fi still, but you're gonna have to use Pure's own app. On the plus side, the app lets you control the volume of different speakers in your house from the single interface and it works on Android and iOS. This smaller device serves as a kind of internet adaptor for your guest so you can connect this to your existing speakers and then you can control them using that Pure app that I mentioned earlier. The T640B is gonna cost $329 while the small adaptor will set you back $119. Both the T640B and the hi-fi adaptor will be out around March-April time. I'm Luke Westaway and be sure to keep in CNET where everything related to see in 2013.


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Smart plastic for LED lighting
LED luminaires from Belgian manufacturer VLUX have to be able to take a lot of punishment. The Futurix models were developed for use in damp and dusty environments such as parking garages and factory halls. They are also tough enough for outdoor use, able to withstand long exposure to wind and weather.
VLUX manufactures the energy-efficient luminaires from the high-performance polycarbonate Makrolon® from Covestro, formerly Bayer MaterialScience. The company has developed various grades of polycarbonate for lighting engineering applications.
The high-performance material is also used in the Futurix series of LED lamps. The Futurix models satisfy the requirements of the IP65 (IP stands for International Protection) safety classification and feature outstanding weather resistance thanks to the robust polycarbonate.
Tailored materials
VLUX uses translucent white colored Makrolon® 2207 for the lamp covers in the Futurix series. Covestro specially developed this diffuse grade of polycarbonate to meet the requirements for transmission and half-peak beam angle (HPA) while giving proper consideration to the required wall thickness and complex shape of the lamp cover. This is a warm white material that produces a pleasant room atmosphere with no glare.
Further advantages of Makrolon® 2207 are the material's inherent flame retardance and high impact toughness. The thermoplastic material's low shrinkage and low tendency to warp contribute to the dimensional stability and tightness of the luminaire construction. The polycarbonate thus protects the LED luminaires against the ingress of dust and low pressure jets of water from all directions.
About Covestro:
With 2015 sales of EUR 12.1 billion, Covestro is among the world's largest polymer companies. Business activities are focused on the manufacture of high-tech polymer materials and the development of innovative solutions for products used in many areas of daily life. The main segments served are the automotive, electrical and electronics, construction and the sports and leisure industries. Covestro, formerly Bayer MaterialScience, has 30 production sites around the globe and at the end of 2015 employed approximately 15,800 people (full-time equivalents).
Find more information at www.covestro.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Covestro AG. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Covestro's public reports which are available at www.covestro.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.


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Welcome to the official website of the 2018 10th International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Technology (ICBBT 2018). ICBBT 2018 will be held during May 16-18, 2018 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Previously, ICBBT series had been successfully held in Chengdu, China in 2010, Sanya, China in 2011, Singapore in 2012, Macau in 2013, Gdansk, Poland in 2014, Singapore in 2015, Barcelona, Spain in 2016, Lisbon, Portugal in 2017.
ICBBT 2018 is to bring together innovative academics and industrial experts in the field of Bioinformatics and Biomedical Technology to a common forum. The primary goal of the conference is to promote research and developmental activities in Bioinformatics and Biomedical Technology. Another goal is to promote scientific information interchange between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners working in The Netherlands and abroad. The conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in Bioinformatics and Biomedical Technology and related areas.
After a careful reviewing process by at least 2-3 experts, accepted papers for the ICBBT 2018 will be published in:
International Conference Proceedings Series by ACM (ISBN: 978-1-4503-6366-2), which will be archived in the ACM Digital Library, and indexed by Ei Compendex and submitted to be reviewed by Scopus and Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI Web of Science).
International Journal of Pharma Medicine and Biological Sciences (IJPMBS, ISSN: 2278-5221), which will be included in the Engineering & Technology Digital Library, and indexed by Embase (Under elsevier), ProQuest, Google Scholar, Chemical Abstracts Services (CAS), Indian Science, ICMJE(International Committee Medical Journal Editors), HINARI(World Health Organization), and NYU(Health Sciences Library).
Prof. José M. Fonseca
University of Lisbon, Portugal
|Prof. Tuan D.
Linkoping University, Sweden
Prof. Ralf Hofestädt
Bielefeld University, Germany
|Prof. Andre S.
Tampere University of Technology, Finland
|Prof. Kenta
University of Tokyo, Japan
|Prof. Lusheng
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
|Prof. Min Li
Central South University, China
|Assoc. Prof.
David E. Breen
Drexel University, USA
25 March 2018
Paper Acceptance Notification:
10 April, 2018
Camera-ready Paper Submission:
20 April, 2018
Conference Date: 16-17 May 2018
Academic Official Visit: 18 May 2018


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For the best experience on the Abcam website please upgrade to a modern browser such as Google Chrome
Recombinant protein fragment corresponding to a region within amino acids 67 and 204 of Human Striatin3 (AAI26222).
Our Abpromise guarantee covers the use of ab101515 in the following tested applications.
The application notes include recommended starting dilutions; optimal dilutions/concentrations should be determined by the end user.
|1/500 - 1/3000. Predicted molecular weight: 87 kDa.
|1/100 - 1/500. Perform heat mediated antigen retrieval before commencing with IHC staining protocol. using 10mM Citrate buffer or Tris-EDTA buffer (pH 8.0).
ab101515 has not yet been referenced specifically in any publications.
Please note: All products are "FOR RESEARCH USE ONLY AND ARE NOT INTENDED FOR DIAGNOSTIC OR THERAPEUTIC USE"


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Current Students
As a current Oregon State student, you probably already know your way around. But if you've never registered for summer classes before, you should explore the many opportunities available to you.
Do I need to apply for summer term?
If you are a current OSU student, you don't need to apply for summer term. Instead, just register for summer classes the same way you do for other terms by using the MyOSU portal.
How do I register for classes?
Visit the summer schedule of classes to find on-site summer courses. You might want to review the registration steps outlined on our website, and don't forget to connect with your advisor if you need assistance.
You also have the ability to take summer classes online with OSU Ecampus, which delivers more than 400 online courses in dozens of subjects no matter where you are.


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An email address is required so you can receive link(s) to download the PDF(s).
The student-athlete's personal guide to selecting the best college athletic program
Powered by Lateral Sports
Our goal is to help you make the best decision when you choose a college. We want you to have the most complete information in order to help you find the best opportunities. This Guide contains information on every NCAA and NAIA team in the country.
Already bought the Guide?Click here to access it.


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Priority: Ensure Adequate Education Funding So Every Child Can Read at Grade Level.
The Problem:
Today, more than 8 of every 10 Black and Hispanic fourth graders and almost 6 out of every 10 White fourth graders in our public schools cannot read at grade level. Those unable to read well are at high risk of grade repetition and dropping out of school.
Why It Matters:
Attainment of a high school diploma is the single most effective preventive strategy against adult poverty. Yet the U.S. has the sixth lowest high school graduation rate among the 26 industrialized market economies.
- American 15 year olds rank 17th among industrialized countries in Reading;
- American 15 year olds rank 31st among industrialized countries in Math;
- American 15 year olds rank 23rd among industrialized countries in Science.
What Must Be Done:
To help each child reach his/her full potential and succeed in work and life, we need to ensure our schools have adequate resources to provide high-quality education to every child.
Learn more about CDF-SRO's efforts to increase education funding and ensure all children in the Southern Region receive high-quality education.


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|Birth name
|Kareem Blake
|Also known as
|Chox, Chiznock, Blake Savage
March 27, 1975
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
|Toronto, Ontario, Canada
|Canadian hip hop
|Years active
|Knee Deep Records, Virgin Records, Priority Records, Greenhouse Music
|Associated acts
|Thrust, Dave McIntyre
|Official Website
Kareem Blake, (born March 27, 1975) better known by his stage name Choclair, is a Canadian rapper. He helped develop Canadian hip hop in the 1990s, as a member of the Circle.
Blake, of Jamaican descent, was born in Scarborough, Ontario, in east Toronto. Starting at the age of 11, he followed in his older brother's footsteps, and decided to become a rapper. In 1995, he released his debut single, "Twenty One Years", on his own independent label, Knee Deep Records. In 1997, he released the EP, What It Takes, which was accompanied by a music video featuring Jully Black. In June 1998, after having released 11 records (including the first international releases for Saukrates, Kardinal Offishall, Jully Black, Solitair, Marvel, Tara Chase and more from Toronto's music scene), achieving a gold record with the Rascalz for contributing to Canada's hip hop anthem, "Northern Touch", receiving two Juno Awards and a MuchMusic Video Award, Choclair then decided to expand his team and joined Virgin Music Canada.
In 1999, he signed with Priority Records, and released his debut album Ice Cold. The album was certified gold in Canada (50,000 copies)[1] and spawned the hit single "Let's Ride", produced by Kardinal Offishall. Let's Ride reached #38 on the Canadian RPM Singles Chart.[2] The hit was considered part of the late 1990s renaissance of Canadian hip hop. The underground community worldwide quickly embraced Ice Cold, establishing him as a standout rapper in the burgeoning Canadian hip-hop scene. In 2000, "Let's Ride" won a SOCAN award. It also won a MuchMusic award in 2000.[3] Ice Cold won a Juno award for Best Rap Recording in 2000.[4] He released the single "Skunk" from 2002's Memoirs of Blake Savage which featured Kurupt of Tha Dogg Pound.
Choclair started his own independent label Greenhouse Music in partnership with Sextant Records/EMI Music Canada. In 2003, he released the album Flagrant, and other Canadian hip hop albums in conjunction with Sextant Records and EMI. Greenhouse followed that with the release of My Demo, a collection of Choclair's early underground recordings.
In 2006, Choclair released his latest album, Flagship. He was also featured on Karl Wolf's single, "Desensitize".
- Ice Cold (1999)
- Memoirs of Blake Savage (2002)
- Flagrant (2003)
- My Demo (2003)
- Flagship (2006)
- What It Takes (1997)
- "Twenty One Years"
- "What It Takes"
- "So I" (Frankenstein featuring Choclair)
- "Internal Affairs"
- "Flagrant"
- "Let's Ride"
- "Rubbin'"
- "Light It Up"
- "Skunk"
- "Who Dat Is (Chiznock Pt. II)"
- "Skyline"
- "Tell 'Em"
- "Desensitize" (Karl Wolf featuring Choclair)
- "Weekend" (Karl Wolf featuring Choclair)
- "Sunshine (These Are the Days)"
- "The Essence"
- "Made (Move Mountains)"
- "T-Dot"
- ^ "Gold Platinum Database: Choclair". Canadian Recording Industry Association. Archived from the original on 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2011-07-10.
- ^ "Results - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved 2012-03-31.
- ^ Chinta Puxley (Sep 22, 2000). "Matthew Good Band good enough to claim a pair of MuchMusic awards". The Hamilton Spectator.
- ^ "Alanis, BSB, Shania, Chantal Take Junos Home". Mar 13, 2000. Retrieved 14 May 2011.
External links[edit]
- Choclair's Official Website
- Choclair at MySpace
- Smooth as Choclair — Canadian hip hop artist reveals the secrets of seduction — by Denise Ing, Varsity Staff
- Word Magazine Article
- NOW Magazine Article
- College Newspaper Interview
- Choclair Brings Canadian Hip-Hop On U.S. Tour


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Make a bouquet garni by placing the celery, thyme, bay leaf, and leek white together. Tie with twine to form a bundle. Make the beurre manie by placing 2 tablespoons of softened butter in a small bowl with the flour and mix the 2 together with your fingers until smooth. Break the mixture into pea-sized pieces and reserve.
Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepot. Add the onions and cook to color lightly. Then add the wine, crushed garlic, and bouquet garni. Bring to a boil, lower the heat immediately, and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Lift the onions and bouquet garni out with a slotted spoon and discard.
Strain the wine through a sieve and return it back to the pan. Heat until simmering. Break an egg into a teacup, and then slide it gently into the hot wine. You can poach up to 4 eggs at 1 time. Poach the eggs for 4 minutes, them lift them out with a slotted spoon. Place them on a plate and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm while poaching the second batch of eggs. Place these eggs on a plate and cover with foil as well. Add the beurre manie to the wine and bring it to a boil, stirring constantly. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
Rub 1 side of each piece of toast with a piece of garlic. Place the toast into the bottom of shallow bowls. Place 2 eggs on top of each piece of toast. Spoon the Beaujolais sauce over the eggs and serve.
This recipe was provided by a chef, restaurant or culinary professional. It has not been tested for home use.
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The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway
The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway is the result of community consultation and extensive technical and environmental studies. Following the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study, Ontario's most comprehensive environmental assessment conducted, the Parkway was approved as the right solution to address community needs and transportation goals. The Parkway is the access road portion of the new end-to-end border transportation system at Canada's busiest land border crossing and premier trade corridor. The system, which includes the Parkway, a Canadian inspection plaza, the Gordie Howe International Bridge, a U.S. inspection plaza and a U.S. interchange, will link Windsor to Detroit and connect Highway 401 to the U.S. Interstate system for the first time. Information on the DRIC study and the border transportation system can be found at www.partnershipborderstudy.com. Informati on on the Gordie Howe International Bridge can be found at www.wdbridge.com.
The Parkway is unprecedented in terms of its combination of transportation, community and environmental features.
Transportation Features:
- 11 km in length
- new urban six-lane freeway
- new parallel four-lane service road network
- below-grade freeway
- full illumination
- stormwater management facilities
- advanced traffic management system
Community and Environmental Features:
- 11 tunnels covering 1.8 km of freeway
- community connections
- more than 300 acres of green space
- approximately 20 km of recreational trails
- noise mitigation measures
- extensive landscaping
- special measures to protect wildlife
- linkages for wildlife
Project Delivery
Since 2005, Ontario's Ministry of Transportation (MTO) http://www.canadiancasinosonline.org has worked with local municipalities, other provincial ministries, the Canadian federal government, and agencies to improve the Windsor-Detroit gateway. The Parkway is the first Ontario transportation project to be delivered with an alternative financing and procurement (AFP) model – a public-private partnership delivery model managed by Infrastructure Ontario. The AFP model provides the public sector an opportunity to transfer project risks to the private sector, which commits to delivering projects on time and on budget. MTO and Infrastructure Ontario work together to oversee, monitor and assess the works delivered by the private sector partner ensuring compliance with the contract project agreement and adherence with highway construction and safety standards. Following a rigorous procurement process, the Windsor Essex Mobility Group (WEMG) was selected to design, build, finance and maintain the Parkway. On December 17, 2010, Infrastructure Ontario and MTO announced that WEMG reached financial close and signed a fixed-price contract with the Province. The value of the contract to WEMG is approximately $1.4 billion in 2010 dollars. Over the 30-year life of the contract, the total future payments will add up to approximately $2.2 billion. As part of this contract, WEMG is responsible for maintaining not only the road networks but the Parkway green space and trails as well. The contract with WEMG is performance-based. WEMG is a consortium of ACS Infrastructure Canada Inc., Acciona Concessions Canada, and Fluor Canada Ltd. Parkway Infrastructure Constructors (PIC) was under contract to WEMG to design and construct the Parkway. PIC is a joint venture of Fluor Canada Ltd., Dragados Canada Inc. and Acciona Infrastructures Canada Inc. For more information on AFP please visit www.infrastructureontario.ca
In May 2008, the Windsor-Essex Parkway (now the Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway) was presented by the DRIC study team as the Technically and Environmentally Preferred Alternative for the Ontario access road portion of a new proposed end-to-end border transportation system for the Windsor-Detroit Gateway. Between May 2008 and August 18, 2011, extensive planning, design and preparatory work was completed. Over 300 people in 16 different offices in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, worked together to reach construction start. This effort is equivalent to one person year of work completed every day or one lifetime of work achieved every month. Click here to view a Herb Gray Parkway chronology.
The first section of Highway 401 opened on June 29, 2015. The remaining section of Highway 401 (3 km) opened on November 21, 2015. Full landscaping and other minor work will be completed in spring 2016.
On November 28, 2012, the Windsor-Essex Parkway was named after one of Windsor's most popular politicians – the Right Honourable Herb Gray. Mr. Gray represented Windsor as a member of parliament for an unprecedented 13 consecutive terms. During his career, he served as minister for numerous federal departments, Deputy Prime Minister and Chair of the International Joint Commission. Mr. Gray was bestowed the title "Right Honourable" by the Governor General on January 15, 2002. Naming the Parkway after the Right Honourable Herb Gray is a fitting tribute. The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway will service a major trade gateway between Canada and the U.S. – a relationship Mr. Gray strengthened with his service.
Given the nature of this project, construction of the Parkway was no small feat. WEMG and PIC completed construction by sub-contracting out a large majority of products and services. Wherever possible, these contracts were awarded to local companies and were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Learn more about construction of the Parkway.
Community Input
Community input played an integral role in this project. Residents, business owners, stakeholders and local municipalities helped create the Parkway and its unique features. Through the DRIC study, design completion and construction, the community provided invaluable input, ideas and feedback. To view materials from public meetings visit our info centre page. To view meeting presentations and documents delivered during the DRIC study visit http://www.partnershipborderstudy.com/meetings.asp.
Windsor-Essex's unique and sensitive natural environment has been incorporated into the Parkway's design which showcases how large-scale infrastructure and public uses can co-exist with local plant and animal habitat. To learn more about sustainability efforts on the Parkway, visit our sustainability page.


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Friday, May 8, 2009
Whopper Alert!
"A call by a US official for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has raised fears in Jerusalem that the Obama administration may be seeking to block the Iranian nuclear threat by sacrificing Israel's reported nuclear arsenal. US Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said this week: 'Universal adherence to the NPT, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, remains a fundamental objective of the United States'." (Israeli nuclear ambiguity under threat, Abraham Rabinovich, 8/5/09)
He goes on to tell 2 whoppers:
Whopper 1: "The only non-signatories in the world are the 4 countries cited by Ms Gottemoeller. India, Pakistan and North Korea have tested nuclear devices. Israel has not but is reported to have up to 200 nuclear warheads." (ibid)
Israel has tested nuclear devices: "Just before dawn on the stormy morning of September 22, 1979, the clouds over the Southern Indian Ocean suddenly broke and an American satellite was able to record two distinctive bright flashes of light within a fraction of a second - probable evidence of a nuclear explosion. The nuclear detection satellite, known as VELA, had seen similar flashes of light on forty-one previous occasions, and in each case it was subsequently determined that a nuclear explosion had taken place. Most of the sightings were over Lop Nor, where the Chinese atmospheric nuclear tests took place, or in the South Pacific, site of the French tests. There were a few intelligence officials and non-proliferation experts in the Carter administration who immediately concluded that Israel had conducted a nuclear test, a test that they had tried, and failed, to accomplish two years earlier. They were right." (The Samson Option: Israel, America & the Bomb, Seymour M Hersh, p 271)
Whopper 2: "This formula ['Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East' - Shimon Peres] was put to the test in the 1973 Yom Kippur War when the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a successful surprise attack and for a few days Israel's survival appeared at stake. Whatever thoughts may have gone through the minds of the leadership, Israel did not threaten to use nuclear weapons. Eventually, its ground forces succeeded in turning the tide." (ibid)
Israel has threatened to use nuclear weapons: "Over the next hours, the Israeli leadership - faced with its greatest crisis - resolved to implement 3 critical decisions: it would rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; it would arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the Samson Option; and, finally, it would inform Washington of its unprecedented nuclear action - and unprecedented peril - and demand that the United States begin an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition needed to sustain an extended all-out war effort." (Hersh, p 225)
7 comments:
- Michael said...
Nice work from Mr R.
First there is the "Iranian nuclear threat". A fact.
And then just the "reported nuclear arsenal" of Israel. Might not be.
- May 8, 2009 at 10:51 PM
Quite right, Michael. Thanks for drawing our attention to this further level of mendacity.
- May 9, 2009 at 8:28 AM
The only porky spitter around here is you, mate. Geez, the sight of Jews successfully defending themselves against all the odds must really stick in your throat.
Why the obsession with Israel? As if the world wasn't full of much bigger stories many much closer to home? Need I ask. A bit hard to blame Darfur on the Jews.
- May 9, 2009 at 3:05 PM
Hello? I'm obsessed with Israel?!
- May 10, 2009 at 12:24 AM
Good arguments. Having google alerted Samson Option for a couple years, I can tell you people are becoming more and more aware how bad the Israeli nuclear threat is. One reason Obama may finally feel free to do something about it. Cross our fingers.
- May 10, 2009 at 1:05 AM
In Mercs world Muslims killing Muslims in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan , Sudan is all because of the Israelis and Jews , in Mercs world if the Israelis disappeared all the daily Muslim/Arab atrocities around the globe would all disappear too.
- May 10, 2009 at 7:46 AM
Degree of relevance: -0
- May 10, 2009 at 9:19 AM


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Giving feedback on student writing is incredibly time consuming. Anything that students can do to help each other and themselves before they submit their final drafts can be a huge time-saver for teachers, but also gives them a unique perspective to look at their writing. Here are some tools that can help your students analyze their work in the drafting stage of the writing process.
Note: All of these tools work on iPads, Chromebooks, and MacBooks. iPad users will need to use Safari for all these tools.
Canvas Peer Review:
In Canvas, you can automatically or manually assign peer reviews to students. Simply check the box in the settings for an assignment. While you can do anonymous peer reviews, this disables the ability to comment directly on student work. During peer review, students can use a rubric, submit comments, and annotate a fellow student's work. Click here to learn more about how to set up a peer review assignment!
If a situation arises where one student does not have someone to peer review their work, the tools below can be a great substitute!
Hemingway App:
Ernest Hemingway was known for writing concise, tight prose that was simple, bold, and effective. With the Hemingway app, you will be given feedback on use of adverbs, passive voice, and sentence complexity. Your work will be color coded to help you quickly identify issues in your writing. You will also see a readability score and word count to help you get your point across clearly and quickly.
Students simply copy and paste their writing into the Hemingway editor to begin. They will lose formatting so if students have bullet points, they will not paste correctly. When you are done, students copy their work from Hemingway and can paste it into Word or Google Docs for final editing and submission.
Slick Write:
Slick Write is similar to the Hemingway App in a lot of ways, but comes with more features. Just like Hemingway, you will need to copy and paste your work to and from Slick Write. Once you have entered your writing, you have the option of looking at "features" of your writing such as grammatical errors and adverb usage, "structure" to identify complex sentence structures, and "word variety" to identify and eliminate repetitive word usage.


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We made a promise with Trello: you can see your entire project in a single glance. That means we can show you all of your cards so you can easily see things like who is doing what, where a task is in the process, and so forth, just by scrolling.
You all make lots of cards. But when the site went to load all of your hundreds and thousands of cards at once, boards were loading pretty slow. Okay, not just pretty slow, painfully slow. If you had a thousand or so cards, it would take seven to eight seconds to completely render. In that time, the browser was totally locked up. You couldn't click anything. You couldn't scroll. You just had to sit there.
With the big redesign, one of our goals was to make switching boards really easy. We like to think that we achieved that goal. But when the browser locked up every time you switched boards, it was an awfully slow experience. Who cared if the experience was easy? We had to make it fast.
So I set out on a mission: using a 906 card board on a 1400×1000 pixel window, I wanted to improve board rendering performance by 10% every day for a week. It was bold. It was crazy. Somebody might have said it was impossible. But I proved that theoretical person wrong. We more than achieved that goal. We got perceived rendering time for our big board down to one second.
Naturally, I kept track of my daily progress and implementation details in Trello. Here's the log.
Monday (7.2 seconds down to 6.7 seconds. 7% reduction.)
Heavy styles like borders, shadows, and gradients can really slow down a browser. So the first thing we tried was removing things like borders on avatars, card borders, backgrounds and borders on card badges, shadows on lists, and the like. It made a big impact, especially for scrolling. We didn't set out for a flat design. Our primary objective was to make things faster, but the result was a cleaner, simpler look.
Tuesday (6.7 seconds down to 5.9 seconds. 12% reduction.)
On the client, we use backbone.js to structure our app. With backbone, it's really convenient to use views. Really, very convenient. For every card, we gave each member its own view. When you clicked on a member on a card, it came up with a mini-profile and a menu with an option to remove them from the card. All those extra views generated a lot of useless crap for the browser and used up a bunch of time.
So instead of using views for members, we now just render the avatars and use a generic click handler that looks for a
data-idmem attribute on the element. That's used to look up the member model to generate the menu view, but only when it's needed. That made a difference.
I also gutted more CSS.
Wednesday (5.9 seconds… to 5.9 seconds. 0% reduction.)
I tried using the browser's native innerHtml and getElementByClassName API methods instead of jQuery's html and append. I thought native APIs might be easier for the browser to optimize and what I read confirmed that. But for whatever reason, it didn't make much of a difference for Trello.
The rest of the day was a waste. I didn't make much progress.
Thursday (5.9 seconds down to 960ms)
Thursday was a breakthrough. I tried two major things: preventing layout thrashing and progressive rendering. They both made a huge difference.
Preventing layout thrashing
First, layout thrashing. The browser does two major things when rendering HTML: layouts, which are calculations to determine the dimensions and position of the element, and paints, which make the pixels show up in the right spot with the correct color. Basically. We cut out some of the paints when we removed the heavy styles. There were fewer borders, backgrounds, and other pixels that the browser had to deal with. But we still had an issue with layouts.
Rendering a single card used to work like this. The card basics like the white card frame and card name were inserted into the DOM. Then we inserted the labels, then the members, then the badges, and so on. We did it this way because of another Trello promise: real-time updates. We needed a way to atomically render a section of a card when something changed. For example, when a member was added it triggered the
cardView.renderMembers method so that it only rendered the members and didn't need to re-render the whole card and cause an annoying flash.
Instead of building all the HTML upfront, inserting it into the DOM and triggering a layout just once; we built some HTML, inserted it into the DOM, triggered a layout, built more HTML, inserted it into the DOM, triggered a layout, built more HTML, and so on. Multiple insertions for each card. Times a thousand. That's a lot of layouts. Now we render those sections before inserting the card into the DOM, which prevents a bunch of layouts and speeds things up.
In the old way, the card view render function looked something like this…
render: ->
data = model.toJSON()
@$.innerHTML = templates.fill(
) # add stuff to the DOM, layout
@renderMembers() # add more stuff to the DOM, layout
@renderLabels() # add even more stuff to the DOM, layout
With the change, the render function looks something like this…
render: ->
data = model.toJSON()
data.memberData = []
for member in members
memberData.push member.toJSON()
data.labelData = []
for labels in labels when label.isActive
labelData.push label
partials =
"member": templates.member
"label": templates.label
@$.innerHTML = templates.fill(
) # only add stuff to the DOM once, only one layout
We had more layout problems, though. In the past, the width of the list would adjust to your screen size. So if you had three lists, it would try to fill up as much as the screen as possible. It was a subtle effect. The problem was that when the adjustment happened, the layout of every list and every card would need to be changed, causing major layout thrashing. And it triggered often: when you toggled the sidebar, added a list, resized the window, or whatnot. We tried having lists be a fixed width so we didn't have to do all the calculations and layouts. It worked well so we kept it. You don't get the adjustments, but it was a trade-off we were willing to make.
Progressive rendering
Even with all the progress, the browser was still locking up for five seconds. That was unacceptable, even though I technically reached my goal. According to Chrome DevTools' Timeline, most of the time was being spent in scripts. Trello developer Brett Kiefer had fixed a previous UI lockup by deferring the initialization of jQuery UI droppables until after the board had been painted using the queue method in the async library. In that case, "click … long task … paint" became "click … paint … long task".
I wondered if a similar technique could be used for rendering cards progressively. Instead of spending all of the browser's time generating one huge amount of DOM to insert, we could generate a small amount of DOM, insert it, generate another small amount, insert it, and so forth, so that the browser could free up the UI thread, paint something quickly, and prevent locking up. This really did the trick. Perceived rendering went down to 960ms on my 1,000 card board.
That looks something like this…
Here's how the code works. Cards in a list are contained in a backbone collection. That collection has its own view. The card collection view render method with the queueing technique looks like this, roughly…
render: ->
renderQueue = new async.queue (models, next) =>
@appendSubviews(@subview(CardView, model) for model in models)
# _.defer, a.k.a. setTimeout(fn, 0), will yield the UI thread
# so the browser can paint.
_.defer next
, 1
chunkSize = 30
models = @getModels()
modelChunks = []
while models.length > 0
modelChunks.push(models.splice(0, chunkSize))
for models in modelChunks
# async.queue flattens arrays so lets wrap this array
# so it's an array on the other end...
renderQueue.push [models]
We could probably just do a for loop with a setTimeout 0 and get the same effect since we know the size of the array. But it worked, so I was happy. There is still some slowness as the cards finish rendering on really big boards, but compared to total browser lock-up, we'll accept that trade-off.
Trello developer Daniel LeCheminant chipped in by queueing event delegation on cards. Every card has a certain number of events for clicking, dragging, and so forth. It's more stuff we can put off until later.
We also used the
translateZ: 0 hack for a bit of gain. With covers, stickers, and member avatars, cards can have a lot of images. In your CSS, if you apply
translateZ: 0 to the image element, you trick the browser into using the GPU to paint it. That frees up the CPU to do one of the many other things it needs to do. This browser behavior could change any day which makes it a hack, but hey, it worked.
I made a lot of bugs that week, so I fixed them on Friday.
That was the whole week. If rendering on your web client is slow, look for excessive paints and layouts. I highly recommend using Chrome DevTool's Timeline to help you find trouble areas. If you're in a situation where you need to render a lot of things at once, look into async.queue or some other progressive rendering.
Now that we have starred boards and fast board switching and rendering, it's easier than ever to using multiple boards for your project. We wrote "Using Multiple Boards for a Super-Flexible Workflow" on the Trello blog to show you how to do it. On the UserVoice blog, there's a great article about how they structure their workflow into different boards. Check those out.
If you've got questions, I'll try and answer them on Twitter. Go try out the the latest updates on trello.com. It's faster, easier, and more beautiful than ever.


text:
Louis C.K. Not Banned From Letterman After All
He'll appear next month.
A few weeks ago, Louis C.K. told Esquire that he didn't appear on The Late Show With David Letterman anymore and hadn't in several years, even though he used to write for Letterman back in the day. "They don't have me on," he said, and "no one would tell [him]" why not. Well, the ban or whatever it was has been lifted: Louis C.K. is set to appear on Thursday, July 28, according to a show spokesperson.