text:
Opening Remarks: "There were no injuries really to report. Everybody came out of this healthy. It was good to get the rookies and the quarterbacks some work. Today, (QB) Michael (Vick) had the day off like we've done for the last 14 years here. The starting quarterback gets this morning practice off. We have the veterans coming in this afternoon, and this evening is a meeting with them, and they'll also get their equipment. We kick it off tomorrow afternoon with a 10/10/10."
On how nice it is not to have any lingering contract situations and to know all the veterans will report on time barring any unforeseen circumstances: "Having everybody here is a plus, just from a continuity and team camaraderie standpoint. There are less distractions, right, so I think it's absolutely a plus. I'm glad the league worked all that out and that it is set up the way it is today."
On signing P Mat McBriar and providing competition with P Chas Henry: "It should be a great competition, and that's what we're trying to do. I mentioned that at all the positions, we are trying to create that. You are talking about a kid who is one of the best in the National Football League and he's coming off an injury, so we'll see how that all works out and how he works through that. He had a workout and impressed us there. I don't expect Chas to bow down to him at all, and he's going to come out and compete. It should be a good battle."
On the specifics of McBriar's previous injury: "He had a cyst removed, and when they removed the cyst, it created drop foot and nerve damage. It's coming back. We didn't work him out earlier because of that. This was a time that he felt comfortable doing it and the doctors felt comfortable doing it. He wears a brace there, and I'll tell you that it's similar to J.R. Reed's, but not quite as severe."
On whether he has totally healed from that: "He's not totally healed but he's close. He's about 90 percent."
On how much he looks forward to having the energy and focus from OTAs carrying over into training camp: "I think it will. I have had a chance to talk with a number of the players and I'm feeling the same energy that we left with. You saw the young guys here who went through the OTAs who created the energy are out here doing that again. You look at the quarterbacks and you have a couple of veteran ones in there, and they feel really good about these practices. I think it will carry over, and they'll need that. This isn't an easy thing that you go through. They'll need that energy, especially after the first week."
On the players' attitude that this year can serve as a do-over using last year as motivation: "I think that's human nature and a natural thing. We obviously did not play well enough last year. We finished strong so we take what we learned there and let's go. So I think that's a positive thing."
On whether the tight end position is an area of focus for the front office to improve: "Listen, we're keeping all of our options open and it has nothing to do with (tight end Clay Harbor), or (tight end Brent Celek) and coming off of the injury. That's not what it is. There are a couple good tight ends out there that we like and thought we'd look at. That's really where that went."
On the status of DT Mike Patterson: "Yeah, he's been working out every day. He feels great. He just doesn't have the doctor's clearance. We're ok with that. We just want to make sure that he's alright. That's the primary thing especially when you start talking about brain surgery. That's not a common thing in the National Football League so you take precaution and make sure the kid is okay before you put him out there."
On the play of CB Cliff Harris early in camp: "He did some good things. Yesterday he learned a couple lessons down in the red zone. We ran the same route against him today and he broke it up. That's a good sign that he could learn from his mistakes."
On whether Cliff Harris' past issues make the coaching staff wary of future trouble: "We have a strong team and hope that he learns from his mistakes. You put him in and you bank on the veterans to help teach him and the coaches help teach him. Hopefully he learned from what he did before and doesn't do it again."
On the benefits of having rookies come to camp prior to the veterans: "One of the biggest things is that they get the first three installs. When the veterans come in its all from those first three days. That will help them going into the hitting part of it when they start getting physically tired. They don't have to think as much and can go play."
On what things QB Michael Vick has been working on early in camp: "Well the quarterbacks are getting back in a rhythm. That's the primary thing they do. They get their timing down even though some of these receivers are not the ones they will throw to later in the season. Refreshing the plays. Making sure you know where everybody is at and then you can slow down the protections. You saw us do the blitz period so we are able to back up and talk through it. I think that allows us to come into camp loosened up and ready to go."


text:
Challenge № 4 March | « Brighten up your neighbourhood »
Since the beginning of the month, we've been suggesting that you abandon the car for more gentle and/or shared mobility. Our aim has not escaped you: to encourage you to discover your neighbourhood, even if it means getting a bit lost sometimes. What did you discover? A bit of sad grass, a little corner to read, a passage that lacks flowers, a wall that is sad in its whiteness?
Today, we propose that you take a step forward in your relations with your neighbours. Social distance does not prevent us from doing things together! So write a small invitation card to put in your neighbours' mailboxes and meet them in a park, on a square or even on a Facebook group… to organise a development in your neighbourhood. You've been going through it all month (and if you haven't yet, put on your shoes and go see what it looks like), you know what's missing and what you want to see: a give box? You can build it with that neighbour who knows a thing or two about carpentry, paint it with the kids across the street, and manage it with the kids in a nearby flat. A neighbourhood notice board? You can contact the town hall to put it up in a nice or sheltered spot, or talk to the owners of a house that has a wall well situated for it. Your design can be as big as a new shared garden, as small as a bench or as pretty as a flower bed.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Firstly, adjust that Babelfish for Fabianese. It is important to note words like 'progressive' and 'radical' have meanings significantly different than their counterparts in standard, freeborn English. With all such value words, it is useful to assume the antonym is intended.
This is clear in the party's name, where 'Liberal' has come to include a belief in a benevolent, hegelian state -an oxymoron if ever there was one.
And whatever 'democrat' means must be discerned with reference to the party's foul betrayal of its manifesto commitment to support a referendum on the last EU treaty.
Anyway, turning to Polly, we find:
"If he [Nick Cleg] was serious, he could go for Labour's jugular with an unequivocally radical message. The empty political ground is not in the crowded centre, but out in the near-deserted radical wastelands. But Clegg looks over his shoulder, anxiously protecting those essentially conservative seats that so many of his MPs hold."
Polly offers no real clue as to what she means by 'radical', although she mentions the party's opposition to the Iraq war and tuition fees as possible moments of radicalism, and when she concludes she seems to contrast 'slash and burn' cuts with being radical.
But what of the 'near-deserted radical wastelands'? I would say those wastelands are far from deserted, indeed they're not even wastelands. That's where you find all the rest of us who can't stand the Lib-Lab-Con brigade, all the ideas that that lot doesn't dare to even contemplate out loud, in other words the majority of the people. Out in the wasteland, we're not a bunch of savages waiting for the missionary man to proselytise us back to the centre ground, we're organising. We're trying to think up a way, not to return to the centre ground, but to march on it, besiege it, smash it to smithereens.


text:
Mysterious and exotic, the Middle East motivates travelers to purchase flight tickets into the area from far off lands.
Scenic beauty, cultural and spiritual attraction, multi-cultural culinary delights, and endless holiday attractions all make the Middle East a sexy name in the traveling circuit. You can visit https://esperanso.com/tour/the-christian-story/ for christian tours to Israel.
While the appeal of Egypt is mythical, Middle Eastern nations like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon make for exceptional and unforgettable holidays.
Israel is your need to visit destination for all travelers who intend to purchase Middle East airline tickets. When it's a cultural or spiritual excursion, or even a leisure beach holiday – Israel satiates virtually every visitor.
Mesmerizing biblical spots scattered across the ruins of temples, cities, and temples make a rich intoxicating atmosphere.
Located on the East of the Mediterranean, Lebanon is just another attractive Middle Eastern destination.
The nation is filled with UNESCO world heritage sites and contains an endearing old saying charm. Among the most enchanting places is that the capital city of Beirut, that was called 'Paris of the East'.
Saudi Arabia
Anyone intending to take cheap vacations to the Middle East could be wise to throw a visit to Saudi Arabia.
Total of tranquil oases, snaky rivers, virginal shores, and amazing mountains, the nation is a treat to the eyes.
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Muhammad and is currently home to a number of the holiest cities of the Islamic world.
Going on a cruise around the rugged Nile and seeing some of the greatest sightseeing places on the planet, a vacation to Egypt provides this entire plus far more.


text:
A man was killed after arranging a meeting on a hook up site. Four men have been charged with his murder.
A man in his 40s was robbed, brutally beaten, stripped and left for dead after he arranged to meet someone for sex online in Nampa, Idaho.
Four men charged with robbery and murder could now face the death penalty. Three Nampa residents, Kelly Schneider, 22, Kevin Tracy, 21, Jayson Woods, 28, and Daniel Henkel, 23 were arraigned in Canyon County court. They face charges of felony robbery and first-degree murder.
According to KTVB.com the victim, Steven Nelson, 49 arranged to meet with Kelly Schneider after meeting him on a hook up site. They arranged to meet at Gotts Point at Lake Lowell. When they arrived it is alleged that "Schneider threw Nelson to the ground and kicked him repeatedly."
During the attack Mr Nelson is reported to have pleaded for his life, begging his attackers not to kill him.
They then allegedly stole his credit cards and wallet and keys, later withdrew $123 from Mr Nelson's account. Henkel and Schneider were captured on CCTV using the victim's bank cards to withdraw funds.
Prosecutors: Lake Lowell suspects used Backpage ad to lure murder victim into trap https://t.co/UItt2YtQau pic.twitter.com/gXUYX0b8PH
— KTVB.COM (@KTVB) May 3, 2016
After the attack Mr Nelson managed to seek the attention of nearby homeowners, who immediately called the emergency services. He had suffered broken ribs and was bleeding from the ear. He later died from a cardiac arrest a number of hours after the attack.
Before he died Mr Nelson was able to speak to police about his attackers and was able to give descriptions leading to the arrest of the four men.


text:
Our CPSIA Compliant 18 oz. Vinyl Coated Polyester fabric is a great fabric for many children's products. This 18 oz. vinyl is often used to make wall pads, gym/athletic mats, punching bags, inflatables, athletic dummies, gym floor covers, ball field covers, and swing set canopies.
2 Reviews Hide Reviews Show Reviews
Sturdy attractive smooth. Nice flat. Excellent shipping rapper.
Very sturdy material, attractive, smooth. Lies flat. Excellent shipping wrappings. Would order again from this company.
18 oz vinyl coated polyester
I ordered sample 1st to verify even though web site mini video was pretty damn conclusive. Sample verified the video. I ordered yardage but haven't started my DIY fish kill bag yet.


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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Never one to shy away from attempting to capitalize on her name and infamy, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has decided to open a new gym, devoted only to the style of athletic training and workouts known as "qrossfit."
"What's Qrossfit you ask? Well, I'll show you," Greene says in a new video hyping the launch of her new gym. "First, you pull out your trusty crack pipe. I go literally nowhere without ol' Cracky here."
MORE: Trump to Visit the Border Between Burger King and McDonald's
Greene can then be seen lighting a small butane torch. She applies the heat from the torch to a crack rock, which is resting in Cracky's bowl. After taking a good, long hit, Greene holds it in, then exhales before continuing.
"The next thing you do is you go to www.Qdrops.com," Greene said, sucking in crack smoke from Cracky as she continued, "and you read a good, solid, six or seven hours worth of the most wacky stuff you can find. Then you tell your little brain to go ahead and think of that wacky stuff as truth. Don't forget! You have your trust crack pipe for a reason, in case your brain doesn't want to accept the wackiness as true."
While she doesn't demonstrate any of the actual exercises that Qrossfit entail, Rep. Greene did preview her general workout routine for the American people earlier this week. In a tweet that went viral, Greene posted a short clip of herself working out, and implied that she doesn't want or need to get a covid-19 vaccine because of it. Many people commented on her unorthodox form, and were reminded that Greene, a noted and avid fan of working out, was using crossfit techniques.
This is my Covid protection 💪#MakeAmericaHealthyAgain
It's time to #FireFauci pic.twitter.com/IgWlTJyBYQ
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) April 1, 2021
"Fam, qcrossfit is going to absolutely blow your mind and body up like it was hit with a secret space laser," Greene promised. "So, look for Qrazy Qrossfit to open in your neighborhood, sometime in the fall!"
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MORE: Hillary Clinton's Been Circling Matt Gaetz Home and Shouting 'Lock Him Up!'
Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because Twitter is a cesspool.


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In a perfect world, and one they can certainly try to shape as such, compliance officers should not be an afterthought for the board of directors.
Corporate crises—from the old-school, SOX-birthing accounting scandals of Enron and WorldCom, to the troubles of AIG, and systemic woes that bought Volkswagen and GM bad press by the ink barrel—show that a failure to link strategy with compliance and adequate risk assessment can be disastrous.
During a panel at CW's annual conference in Washington D.C., compliance officers discussed strategies for gaining the ear, if not mindshare, of directors. On that panel: Jim DeLoach, with 35 years of experience as a member of the global consulting firm Protiviti's solutions leadership team, and a 10-year-veteran of the COSO advisory board; and Jay Taylor, former general director for strategic risk management at General Motors.
"Boards are under a lot of pressure," Taylor said. "They are attacked by activist investors. Even insurance companies and regulators are going after boards about risk oversight. Boards are also under pressure from an efficiency and effectiveness standpoint. How effective is the board not just in terms of overseeing risk, but in driving value?"
Those pressures offer both challenge and opportunity for compliance officers. "As CCOs, you want to understand those things because you don't want to become irrelevant," Taylor said. "You want to be on the playing field." Better CCO engagement means, "if you want a seat at the table you have to bring relevant information to the board and you have to talk at their level."
Recent surveys underscore the hardships endemic to making that happen. Research by KPMG, from a pool of 1,200 respondents that included directors and senior executives, found that 78 percent were "very" or "somewhat concerned" that management uses outdated assumptions when setting strategy.
"The biggest play we have as compliance and risk professionals is reputation. When we talk about compliance issues sometimes eyes glaze over, but when we talk about reputation, people sit up straight in their seats."
Jim DeLoach, Member, COSO Advisory Council
"Oftentimes your assumptions are locked in," Taylor said. "You think you understand how things work and this is how the industry is. If you don't challenge those assumptions from time to time you can really get into a lot of trouble."
"Organizations fall in love with their business model and that creates blind spots," DeLoach says. "They don't pay attention to the warning signs that are out there." The approach to contrary news and opinion is often met with a response that combines "see no evil" with "shoot the messenger." Nevertheless, the goal of a compliance officer should be to reach the point where the board views them as strategically integrated and "not as just another appendage."
Being a party to strategic decisions cannot be an exercise in drinking the corporate Kool-Aid. DeLoach recalls an executive who, interviewed at the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, was asked about taking on too much concentrated risk in the area of sub-prime loans. The response: "As long as the music continues, we are going to keep dancing."
"What's the purpose of risk management if you are just going to dance until the music stops?" DeLoach asked. "We need to understand the critical assumptions underlying strategy and get a sense of what makes those assumptions become invalid."
Taylor detailed mistakes that can open the door to risk, including a failure to listen to what customers want, living on past successes, and not recognizing that the business has changed from right beneath you. Examples of the latter concern as applied to the automotive sector: the rise of autonomous vehicles and ride shares like Uber and Lyft.
Protiviti outlines several key elements of an effective compliance program for boards to consider:
Board oversight: Proactive understanding of potentially significant compliance risks and oversight of relevant compliance programs by the board or one of its standing committees helps to establish an effective tone at the top.
Executive management supervision: Coordination and management of the compliance program by a designated senior executive are vital for organizations with complex, diverse operations.
Policies, standards, procedures and reporting mechanisms: These elements should be documented and up-to-date in critical areas and communicated to employees across the organization.
Risk assessment and due diligence activities: The risk identification process should include explicit consideration of compliance risks. Appropriate subject-matter experts should be accountable for monitoring changes to the regulatory environment continuously and identifying modifications required in the compliance risk area for which they are responsible. The organization should exercise appropriate due diligence with respect to acquisitions, new employees, joint venture partners and third-party agents to ensure they have the necessary background, resources and experience to discharge their responsibilities. Appropriate compliance language and representations should be incorporated in third-party contracts.
Effective internal controls and monitoring: There are many compliance areas with reputational impact. Effective internal control over financial reporting is critical, as are environmental, health and safety issues, security and privacy matters, FDA compliance, anti-money laundering and other compliance domains, depending on the industry. Due to the nature of compliance being managed in silos by different groups, it is important that gaps and overlaps be avoided. Periodic audits of compliance program policies, procedures and controls to assess their effectiveness at ensuring compliance at all levels and across the organization provide assurance to executive management and the board. In addition, significant areas of noncompliance and recommended solutions to enhance compliance should be reported.
Training and awareness programs: Compliance awareness education for employees, third-party agents and consultants conducting business on behalf of the organization, both in and out of the home country, should ensure that everyone is knowledgeable about the appropriate behavior, legal requirements and company policies.
Investigatory and disciplinary mechanisms: Thorough investigation and remediation of reported compliance violations are necessary to establish the appropriate discipline. Disciplinary mechanisms that are consistently enforced for those who violate compliance policy send an important message.
Source: Protiviti
There are tools to assist with strategic counsel for CCOS. Risk sensing is scanning the external environment for things that could affect a company in the future. At GM these assessments were often siloed.
"We found 12 groups doing scaling, but for their own reasons," Taylor says. "Physical security people were watching for terrorism, things that could disrupt suppliers, and protection of executives and employees as they travelled. The marketing teams were scanning social media. Competitive intelligence people were going in to look at competitors' products. What we were able to do is get those groups together in a network, applying a risk lens, bringing that information in, and then doing an assessment to see what's important enough to get an executive involved in."
"War-gaming" and game theory exercises further helped brainstorm as-yet-unknown developments that could rise to a board's need for risk management.
Scenario analysis and stress testing is also applied to the business plan. Taylor said that, at GM, even scenarios weighted with a probability of just 20 percent still emerged to have an effect on the bottom line.
"Tough competition can put fundamental, underlying assumptions at risk," DeLoach says. "We want a seat at the table, and one way to get there is that, when we have an opportunity to meet before the board or with the CEO, bring a big-picture view as opposed to just focusing on your specific domain. I know it is not easy, but that is the price of entry we pay as professionals to have that seat at the table."
CCOs, he adds, must understand the business, its underlying assumptions, and "big picture strategy."
"The biggest play we have as compliance and risk professionals is reputation," DeLoach adds. "When we talk about compliance issues sometimes eyes glaze over, but when we talk about reputation—people sit up straight in their seats. They recognize brand image is a precious enterprise asset. [At Andersen] I saw a brand I worked 30 years to build disappear in 60 days. It was tough to watch."
"The era of plausible deniability has evaporated," he added. "It is no longer possible for a board or CEO to separate themselves from a debacle. Issues can define an organization for a long, long time."
"As compliance and risk professionals we have an opportunity to pick up on warning signs, connect the dots, and put ourselves at risk in communicating, at a high level, the issues we see are germane to the sustainability of the organization."
Taylor stressed that compliance and ethics outreach needs to be carefully monitored and measured. "When you see a CEO talking and saying all the right things, that's evidence of a strong tone at the top," he said. "But I think a lot of senior level executives have a fundamental assumption that the tone in the middle of the organization reflects the tone at the top. How do we really know that? Compliance, risk, and audit professionals have an opportunity to provide the red flags where the tone in the middle is not consistent. The CEO may have a strong voice, but the rank and file of the organization might not be listening."


text:
Basic Information
Dates: January 25–28, 2009
Location: LBNL, Berkeley, California
Update: Please see the Local Info section for information about the shuttle schedule.
Hotel: We have reserved a block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn Emeryville. This block of rooms will be released on December 25, so make your reservations now! Click Local Info in the navigation bar for instructions.
Registration: There is no registration fee. However, participants must register to gain site acccess. A list of participants will be given to the guard at the gate so that you will be allowed access to the lab site. Please register as soon as possible, but no later than Friday, January 9. Remember, the block of rooms for the conference hotel will be released much earlier, on December 25, so be sure to take care of your hotel reservation as soon as possible!
Banquet and Lunch: There will be a banquet Tuesday evening at Venezia Cafe, 1799 University Ave. at 7 PM. The cost will be $50 per person including tip, paid at the conference by cash or a check drawn from a U.S. bank. Those attending should have indicated their menu choices to Mike Zisman by now. On most days, participants can eat lunch at the cafeteria, but on Sunday the cafeteria is closed, so lunch will be provided at a cost of approximately $10 per person, paid in cash the first morning. Participants should sign up for these options on the registration form.


text:
Enhance your search results with the power of ChatGPT! Compatible with top search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Unlock the…
GPT Search is an extension that allows you to access ChatGPT answers alongside Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines. This AI Copilot will help you digest information from the web quickly, regardless of the content's length or difficulty.
* Supports all popular search engines
* Chat with ChatGPT about the query and answer
* Supports official OpenAI API (Both GPT-3.5-Turbo and GPT-3)
* Supports ChatGPT Plus and GPT-4 (GPT-4 requires manual enable in options)
* Access ChatGPT from extension popup
* Markdown rendering
* Code highlights
* Dark mode
* Feedback to improve ChatGPT
* Custom trigger mode
* Copy to clipboard
* Summarize YouTube videos and web articles
**How to use**
1. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open a search engine in your Chrome browser.
3. Type in a search query.
4. The ChatGPT response will appear alongside the normal search engine results.
5. You can click on the ChatGPT response to open a chat window with ChatGPT.
6. In the chat window, you can ask ChatGPT questions about the search query.
7. ChatGPT will answer your questions and provide additional information.
8. To summarize a web page, right click on the webpage and then click on the "Summarize Page" button. You can also summarize a YouTube video by this way.
* Save time and effort by getting the information you need quickly and easily.
* Get more comprehensive and informative answers by asking ChatGPT questions.
* Improve your research skills by learning from ChatGPT's insights.
Latest reviews
- (2023-11-27) Pierre Collenot: Chat GPT invente des informations complètement fausses, qu'il n'a pas vérifiées. Si on lui demande ses sources, il invente des titres de livres ou articles inexistants. Prenez le temps de chercher des sources. Ca prend un peu de temps mais vous en saurez plus que ChatGPT.
- (2023-11-25) Sujata Sudesh: A reliable source to go back to.
- (2023-11-19) Eric Ketzer: it works very well but the text is a bit small and the blue-ish background on the dark mode make the generated text almost illegible. Would be much better if we could make the widget at least wider. Otherwise it is a real complete extension that resumes pages, able to chat in the search engine widget, etc.
- (2023-11-14) Kithsiri Rathnayake: Excellent
- (2023-10-30) Josh Science (Teaching with AI): Very difficult activate, recreated and purchased the license twice.... WILL NOT ACTIVATE... why is this so hard?
- (2023-10-26) Tucker Smith: It is not working! It has not worked for about a week now.
- (2023-10-26) Samuel Kpassegna: Not working!
- (2023-10-20) Людмила: Отличное расширение, простое и понятное в использовании. Настоящая палочка-выручалочка, когда надо быстро выполнить заказ, а с идеями затык. Спасибо разрабочикам
- (2023-10-15) Mauricio Togawa: You can't write a second line without send the text. There's no Shift+Enter which is very useful for example: translate to Japanese "Text to be translated" Update: Now, it's in a whole new level of awesomeness! The copy button is not working though. lol Congrats to the devs!
- (2023-10-13) ruben dario sanchez brito: machete, aunque le falta aprender y no lo digo a mal puede y va a dar mas...
- (2023-09-28) Ana Manan: Love it, use it all the time to assist with email or wording
- (2023-09-21) Hongrui Zhang: Why does it set the opttion of " Occasionally delete all conversations"?
- (2023-09-14) Devansh Upadhyay: Hated it
- (2023-09-02) IT Assure: it is only providing generic answers, and currently it has some technical issues, it is freezes on the page. i.e. it would not go off from last post
- (2023-08-12) Zoran M: There is a spate of extensions that provide a shell for accessing ChatGPT with minimal functionality, and this is one of them.
- (2023-08-10) Hal Henke: Deleted all my Chat History in ChatGPT - really angry
- (2023-07-23) Robert Francis Beck: Caution! This extension is NOT an Open AI product! It might be useful but use at our own risk!
- (2023-07-12) Youngseob Cha: Great !!!
- (2023-07-11) Leon Kim: Helped me a lot. To be honest, this is just... amazing.
- (2023-06-07) Cyro Wing: its the best extension since you are able to uses the chatGpt api instead of the normal chat in the web. this prevents you chat gpt history from spam. however if the " Remove dialogs generated by search" option is turned on. it clears all you current conversations. So take care of this and please fix this.
- (2023-05-24) Jean-Baptiste Hayter: DO NOT INSTALL ON EDGE BROWSER Deleted ALL my chat history. Very important information lost for ever.
- (2023-05-17) RICHARD JUNIOR: Having interacted with ChatGPT, I can say that it is one of the most remarkable language models I have ever seen. It has excellent question-and-prompt-handling skills and can provide appropriate responses in most cases. This is a great resource for both your personal and professional writing since the answers are always well-written and relevant. ChatGPT is an excellent service, and I promise you won't be let down.
- (2023-05-17) Altamiro 673: Responses to questions were very well written, but somewhat generalized. Will continue to analyze my results as I continue to use the extension.
- (2023-05-14) Anderson Czismoski: It's by far the most amazing extension here. I am in love with it.
- (2023-05-14) Tatiane de Souza: Absolutely amazing, I wasn't sure if this extention was gonna be what I thought it was, but it delivered.
- (2023-05-13) Rafael Gustavo: Great Idea Great ExtensionnShows solution instead of links to many sitesnEven I found direct solution to use phone as webcam using droidcam but it was not working and ChatGPT said it sometimes does not work on a browser so try another browser so I tried firefox and it worked
- (2023-05-05) Sena Nur Bozan (Sall): Very helpful and very fast. Enjoyed it and use it in my everyday life!
- (2023-05-04) Rmassola Diversao: totally awesome and most helpful
- (2023-04-30) Metin SARAÇ: Thanks for making this awesome extension
- (2023-04-29) Serhat Ebil: Easy to install/use, free, and is very useful. I see no reason why you would not want to install it.
- (2023-04-28) Bruno Santos: This is a search engine beast!nAgree with the guy who said that this is Googling in steroids!
- (2023-04-27) Troy Pyne: It is just incredible to say the least.. it needs to be consistent in citing references in the middle of a write-up
- (2023-04-25) Miriam Kawakami: OMG what a time saver :) Simply fantastic!
- (2023-04-25) Marlova de Vargas Minato: So far its brilliant, always provides access to chatgpt results and much needed extension if you want to augment your work with AI. Results are slowish, but that is ChatGPT and not the extensions fault.
- (2023-04-24) OCP TECNOLOGIA: Thanks! I was about to mention that option to you :)
- (2023-04-21) Norihisa Yamada: thanks for creating such a great tool!!!
- (2023-04-21) João Guilherme Guimbala Berberi: So helpful for those oddly specific questions you run into, although I recommend setting the plugin to only offer ChatGPT responses when requested otherwise you will quickly chew through your hourly free responses from OpenAI.
- (2023-04-19) Anderson Santiago: Excellent blend of 2 great tools
- (2023-04-19) pancho pistolas congregado: Loved it. Works like a charm.
- (2023-04-18) زينب فيصل مزهر سلطان: Thank you for your chatgpt chrome web store.
- (2023-04-15) 조영석: Just amazing, a bit slow but I'm sure it will get much better.
- (2023-04-12) Emna Kriaa: 最新版本baidu样式错乱了n* {n box-sizing: border-box;n}n看了好像这个引起的改成content-box
- (2023-04-11) Mayki Santos: should enhance with updates
- (2023-04-11) Lucas Costa: auto logout again and again
- (2023-04-08) vinicius farinha: very helpful and useful this is the best extension on the webstore thanks for making this you are awesome
- (2023-04-08) Lucsiana Etienne: the best tools
- (2023-04-08) Junior Lexis: It's a very good extension.
- (2023-04-07) Sabrina Gama: the extension is down and can not connect to OpenAI server
Latest issues
- (2024-02-17, v:1.0.3) Pas Rh: Doesn't work anymore
Fix it, i loved the app so far but now i can't use it - (2024-02-05, v:1.0.3) Antonio Fucek: it doesnt work
IT SIMPLY doesn't work, i don't know why - (2024-01-18, v:1.0.2) Brian Beecher: I have a personal Chatgpt and company account
I can't get past the screen that asks me what account to use when I try to use the plugin it says personal or dearreader.com which is my work account and after I select one it just pops up again with the same options asking me which account I want to use. I'm stuck in a loop. - (2024-01-03, v:1.0.2) simon foo: need to unsubscribe from this app and refund
word2gpt charge me for 1 year subscription, as i did not aware that i confirm using it, i need to refund and stop the service, how can i do it. my email is [email protected] - (2023-11-28, v:1.0.2) Shojan chandra kar: write about Bangladesh GASP facility 2024
Tell me about Bangladesh GASP facility 2024 - (2023-11-08, v:1.0.2) Connor Halterman: We're experiencing exceptionally high demand. Please hang tight as we work on scaling our systems.
That is all mine says - (2023-11-02, v:1.0.2) It repeats my query. It does not respond anything.
The extension repeats my query and does not respond anything else. - (2023-11-01, v:1.0.2) Stephen Messer (Steve): IT SIMPLY REPEATS MY OPENAI CHAT GPT QUERY, NO RESPONSE, THEN PROMPTS "CONTINUE DIALOG".
IT SIMPLY REPEATS MY OPENAI CHAT GPT QUERY, NO RESPONSE, THEN PROMPTS "CONTINUE DIALOG". Am I doing something wrong? I am loggied into chat.openai.com. Please respond to numerous concerns because we are dropping the extension. - (2023-10-31, v:1.0.2) loqmane mars: ITS BAD
I HATE IT - (2023-10-28, v:1.0.2) Talab Abuanza: No answers
I keep getting my own question asked back to me when I use the extension. I have removed the extension and added it back with no luck - (2023-10-28, v:1.0.2) Nazar Abdulhaleem: not work auto with search Google chrome just manually
not work auto with search Google chrome just manually - (2023-10-26, v:1.0.2) Tucker Smith: Not working correctly
Whenever I type something it answers with what I typed and thats it, it doesnt matter what I type. - (2023-10-25, v:1.0.2) Peter Bittner: Not working
I keep getting my own question asked back to me when I use the extension, for example: Me: how do I create my own portfolio website? ChatGPT responded: how do I create my own portfolio website? Any idea what's going on? Thanks for your help! - (2023-10-23, v:1.0.2) Jose Mino: chatgpt para google chrome
Porque ahora me aparece un cuadro de dialogo en el costado derecho del buscador google chrome...antes chatgpt me sugeria el resultado de la busqueda en google sin este cuadro de dialogo... - (2023-09-30, v:1.0.2) Osman Fajardo: NO me funciona
NO me funciona 'Motor de Búsqueda con ChatGPT' Gracias - (2023-09-04, v:1.0.2) Blake Gearin: DuckDuckGo
The position of the box in DuckDuckGo is not appropriate or convenient. I see it is listed in the extension description. So this issue needs to be resolved or if it's not supported then please remove it from the description. - (2023-09-01, v:1.0.2) Elizabeth Castro: constantemente no me da la información
constantemente me falla y no me da la informacion ¿que puedo hacer? - (2023-08-14, v:1.0.2) Richard Sweeney: "occaisionally delete all conversations"
the option in the plugin for "occaisionally delete all conversations" is that simply for the conversations created by the plugin, or ALL GPT conversations? That's kinda important to know, if its just my google searches then yes i'd love them to be deleted, if the whole thing, absolutely not - (2023-07-24, v:1.0.1) Clabegin K.: ChatGPT Lite for Chrome <Stop>이라는 문구는 왜?
네이버에서 검색을 하면 자동으로 오른쪽화면에서 ChatGPT로 검색해서 제공해주던 서비스가 갑자기 ChatGPT Lite for Chrome <Stop>이라는 문구가 뜨면서 중지되어있는데 왜 그런가요? - (2023-07-17, v:1.0.1) Frank: The Location where window appears
The plugin is great, but could you add a "open in sidebar" option? A setting for "default open window location" and "shotcut to toggle extension" is also needed for us. These are great great feature in MaxAI.me, hope you can add it to chatgpt-lite too! - (2023-05-25, v:1.0.1) Sebastian her: Asunto
Que clase de numero de teléfono quieres solo tengo celular... - (2023-04-09, v:1.0.0) 佐藤聡: なぜか日本語ではなく


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This expansion contains everything a player needs to add a Droid Tri-Fighter to players' Separatist squadrons, including a beautifully painted miniature and six ship cards that give players access to a variety of Droid Tri-Fighter programming. Alongside these, seven upgrade cards give players the chance to augment their Droid Tri-Fighter with additional weapons, systems, and more.
17 Cards
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1 Painted Plastic Ship with Bases and Pegs


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Did you know that Vanilla is the second most expensive spice on the planet? Me neither. But why is it that one bottle of vanilla essence can set you back $3 and another jar of powder set you back $25+? Even when we compare apples with apples (let's say powders with powders for example), why is it that some brands are so much more expensive than others? In order to get to the bottom of this, I knew I had to ask an expert so I sat down with Bronwyn from Loving Earth to discuss.
When I started researching this topic on the internet, here is a quick summary of what I found…
- Vanilla beans are the closest we can get to vanilla in it's most natural state, but they can be fiddly and expensive.
- Vanilla powders are usually made from ground vanilla beans however, we need to be aware that some producers add sweeteners and fillers to reduce cost.
- Vanilla extract is made by soaking vanilla pods in a mixture of ethyl alcohol and water. The alcohol absorbs this flavour and voila, extract is born.
- Vanilla pastes are a thicker form of vanilla extract which may contain some of the seeds from the vanilla bean. The paste is usually thickened with a natural or synthetic thickener.
- Vanilla essence is usually a synthetic vanilla flavouring.
- Vanillin... Look, I'm not even going to go there. Let's just say I recommend avoiding this one.
So why does Loving Earth produce Vanilla Bean Powder and not extract or essence?
We are Loving Earth ground down the bean into a fine powder. Nothing else is added. There are some good quality extracts available on the market however most extracts or essences are created in a laboratory with chemicals or ethyl alcohol – we like to use products that are as close to their natural state as possible.
Sounds good to me! What is meant by the term 'Vanilla Bean Grade'?
This refers to the quality of the vanilla bean. Grade "A" denotes the premium gourmet beans. An oily, moist and highly fragrant bean usually distinguishes these. Lesser quality beans can sometimes be 'exhausted' or stripped from of the qualities that distinguish it as a quality product.
Whilst doing research for this piece, I discovered that Vanilla is the second most expensive spice on the planet (behind saffron). Do you know why?
Vanilla in general is a very expensive spice as it's very labour and time intensive to produce. The vanilla orchid needs to be pollinated by hand within a small window of time. The Vanilla then undergoes a fermentation process, where they are stored in wooden crates for 48 hours. After this the beans are wrapped in a black cloth and sun dried for 2-3 hours daily for three weeks until an optimal moisture is reached. There is a lot of Vanilla on the market where shortcuts are taken during this drying process, where propane heaters are used to speed up the drying stage. The heat can chemically change the vanilla by burning off some of the flavour elements and adding a smoking tone. This is not the case with our Vanilla.
Obviously you can only speak for Loving Earth, but can you explain why vanilla bean powder is so much expensive than most other forms of vanilla?
Firstly as its more compact way of storing vanilla. At Loving Earth a 75g jar is the equivalent of around 19 Vanilla Beans. In addition, our Vanilla Powder is organically grown. Some other powders, like the extracts and essences dilute with product with added sugars or dextrose. Our Vanilla Powder uses the whole bean with nothing else added.
What are the key things we need to look for when buying Vanilla?
The product should have a pungent, fragrant smell. The powder should be somewhat moist and slightly oily but not stick together. It should also not be too sweet and have a deep, darker brown colour.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share that information with us Bronwyn. I hope that cleared it up for our readers 🙂
For those looking for a top notch Vanilla powder, I use Loving Earth (available here). For all of those of you skeptics out there, I applaud your interest, but you'll be happy to know that no, I'm not getting paid for this post, this is a completely genuine recommendation.


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The modified Friedreich's Ataxia Rating Scale (mFARS) is a clinically validated set of assessments that measures Friedreich's ataxia (FA) progression and its impact on a patient's ability to perform activities of daily living.1
In addition to evaluating disease progression, changes to mFARS scores over time have been typically accepted as an endpoint in clinical trials for potential new FA treatments.1
Patient mFARS Composite Scores Will Typically Increase ~2 Points Per Year2
The mFARS identifies milestones in clinical outcome measures of FA progression.
A multicenter natural history study evaluated 812 patients diagnosed with FA annually, using multiple tests, including FARS and mFARS. The mean length of GAA triplet repeat was 636 and mean age of onset was 13.7 years.2
*Noted ages are at baseline.
The 4 mFARS Components
The mFARS includes traditional elements of a neuromuscular assessment that specifically focus on a patient's disabilities.
Watch Sub Subramony, MD, Neurology, University of Florida Health, discuss the clinical relevance of mFARS scores for patient mobility and independence.
An overview of the mFARS assessments to measure disease progression and help predict the pace of future progression, with the goal of supporting independence as long as possible.
Bulbar Function
An important measure of the strength and volume of coughing and clarity of speech.
Upper Limb Coordination
Key assessments for motor abilities related to tremors, fine motor coordination, and steadiness of hands and arms.
Lower Limb Coordination and Upright Stability
Two essential assessments of sitting, standing, and walking, focusing on coordination of legs and feet, status of ambulation, and ability to coordinate voluntary movements.
Stay Connected
Sign up to receive the latest news and resources for FA.References: 1. Rummey C, Corben LA, Delatycki MB, et al. Psychometric properties of the Friedreich Ataxia Rating Scale. Neurol Genet. 2019;5(6):371. 2. Patel M, Isaacs CJ, Seyer L, et al. Progression of Friedreich ataxia: quantitative characterization over 5 years. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2016;3(9):684-694.
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Elder Scrolls Online Tamriel Unlimited Review for the PS4 and Xbox One
The hotly anticipated, much delayed Elder Scrolls Online Tamriel Unlimited at last shows up on the PS4 and the Xbox One. You mean I can play Skyrim as a MMO? Using a regulator rather than a console? Zero cost in membership charges? How is not to? Sign me up!
Playing this game on the PS4 or the Xbox One resembles slipping into your #1 pair of Levi's. It some way or another makes the Elder Scrolls Online more suggestive of Skyrim, and for devotees of that title, this is an incredible inclination.
The worries I had about the mechanics for this Elder Scrolls Online Builds game preceding playing it have everything except vanished. I would have gotten a kick out of the chance to have had the option to switch a few activities around, for example weapon trade and guide uncover, however this is as a matter of fact being excessively fussy. The controls accomplish function admirably and are amazingly responsive. You do be able to plan certain abilities to the catches you pick. This makes early battle simple, first utilize a harm after some time aptitude, trailed by a couple of prompt harm assaults, and take care of business with your #1 finisher. At that point simply do this process again for snappy executes.
The tenderfoot territory is sufficient in size and offers numerous miniature missions. Simply head off toward any path and soon you discover some mouth-watering experience. These missions are not the normal, worn out murder 50 insects or run here to converse with this worker (well perhaps they are to some degree comparable) however Bethesda has made them considerably more intriguing and engaging.
You do go through your endurance bar immediately when running so you might need to think about putting resources into a mount. The Imperial Edition of Elder Scrolls Online offers a white steed for one gold right away. This expansion alone might merit the extra $20 for the Imperial Edition redesign. Something else, ponies are accessible structure the Crown Store in-game for genuine cash. The Imperial Edition overhaul likewise gives you the advantage of playing as an Imperial, who look fundamentally the same as the Bretons. Imperials can play in any of the three principle coalitions and have balanced capacities, making them compelling for any class you like.
Elder Scrolls Online at first arranged a month to month membership expense of $15, They shrewdly turned around that choice to make the game free after buy. Indeed, they incorporated the Crown Store, yet buys made here are primarily for restorative and comfort purposes as it were. You never need to pay one penny extra after the underlying price tag of the game to stay serious. No compelling reason to stress that some substandard player will just pay to be acceptable and own you in battle.


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New month, new DLC for us Elite subscribers. The new maps are out and I most say, they are the best of the maps. I feel like I am saying that every month, but what I am seeing is a trend that the maps keep getting better and better. Unfortunately there is no Rob Riggle ad this time around. Personally, he is one of my favorite part of the new DLC, so I hope they didn't stop doing them all together. Next month should be a big month because they will be dropping, not 1 or 2 maps, but a whopping 4 maps! I am much more excited about that, but for now let me get to the latest two editions: Sanctuary and Foundation!
This is has easily become one of my favorite maps in all of Modern Warfare 3. Unlike the other maps released, this one lacks verticality so you won't have to worry too much about being shot from high, but there are a lot of tricky paths. The level is mainly divided into two areas because of a large crevasse in the middle of the map. When it comes to weapon selection, this is one of the most versatile maps. There are plenty of long, medium, and short ranges in this map. I even found running around with a shotgun can be effective as long as you make use of the shortcuts and hidden paths. The best way to play this map is to learn those paths so you can navigate the map while keeping yourself out of sight. There is a lot of cover in this map too so using it effectively, whether it is to fire safely from or to keep yourself hidden, will prove to be the winning factor in this map. While I can't say any mode will be better than the other for this map, what I can say is that Search and Destroy will be the most fun mode.
Also if you want to add ambiance while you play, every time you enter the Church you should sing the Halo theme. Ah-Ha-Ah-Oh-Aaaaah.
This is also a very good map, but it is also the hardest of the two. What makes this map both good and hard is the fact that most of the walls that divide areas of the map can be climbed up on. Plus this is a small-ish map with quite a bit of verticality, so you can see large portions of the map from higher ground. The only way to be good at this map is to keep a watchful eye. This makes both camping and attacking a lot harder because bullets can come from a variety of locations. Keeping mobile is probably your best option, but rushing around too much can get you into a tough spot. Staying in one place too long will get you overrun or shot from a distance. Because of those long range sight lines and having to keep mobile assault rifles are the ideal weapon. Sniper Riffles might also prove to be effective, but again staying in one place will prove to be tricky so I don't see you getting massive kill streaks unless you keep shifting positions. This map is best for killing modes because defense will be tricky. Kill Confirmed and Team Deathmatch will be the ideal modes.


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Thank you to all who supported CPR during the drive! You're making it all happen.
Boulder may extend a smoking ban to cover its entire downtown business district, including alleys behind businesses where smokers frequently take breaks.
The Daily Camera reports that an ordinance to be introduced this fall would also ban smoking at all city parks, on multi-use paths and anywhere within 25 feet of public bus stops and libraries.
On Tuesday, the city extended its existing smoking ban to include Boulder High School's campus. One end of the school property has attracted smokers driven from a lawn outside a library that bans smoking. The school has its own smoking ban but not one enforced by the city.
Boulder's smoking ban applies to flammable tobacco products, such as cigarettes and cigars, as well as e-cigarettes. Chewing tobacco is not affected.
Information from: The Daily Camera
You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!


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Mike Fal is excited about direct seeding of Availability Groups in SQL Server 2016:
In SQL Server 2012 and 2014, creating an Availability Group could take a significant amount of work. One of the more tedious tasks is setting up your replica databases. This is because that you need to restore your database to your replica node in a state close enough to the primary to allow synchronization to happen. It can take several log backup restores to hit that magic window where you can join the database on the secondary node. Then, you get to do it again on the next replica!
Enter direct seeding in 2016. With this feature you no longer have to do any of the restores. You simply create your replicas with direct seeding enabled, then when you add a database to the AG, SQL Server will directly seed the database to your replica nodes. It's surprisingly simple.
This sounds pretty interesting.


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Score An Unlocked Google Pixel 2 For $89 Or Pixel 2 XL At $119 With This Hot Deal
It's only been in recent years that smartphone makers have had the audacity to routinely charge four figures for their flagship phones, and even for some models that are a step below. If you find that to be a tough pill to swallow and don't need to be on the cutting edge, we have good news—all the way on the opposite side of the spectrum, you can snag a Google Pixel 2 for $89.99 right now, or a larger Pixel 2 XL for just $119.99.
Both phones are currently available on Woot, the daily deals site that is owned by Amazon. These are also fully unlocked handsets. So, what's the catch? Well, there are two. The first is that we're dealing with older phone models released in late 2017 (though they're still capable handsets, especially at these price points). And secondly, they are refurbished models that may come scratched or dented.
"Hey, you there! These items are expected to have a moderate level of wear & tear including (but not limited to) scratches, dents, and dings. Outside of their physical appearance, they have been tested to be in full working condition. Batteries are tested to function at minimum 85 percent capacity," Woot says.
They're also backed by a 90-day warranty, so you have a good three months to whichever one you choose through its paces and ensure it's working properly.
- Google Pixel 2 XL (64GB): $119.99, Woot
- Google Pixel 2 (128GB): $109.99, Woot
- Google Pixel 2 (64GB): $89.99, Woot
So yes, there are caveats. But at the same time, you're getting a serviceable smartphone for dirt cheap, compared to what they sold for when they first launched—the Pixel 2 started at $649 and the Pixel 2 XL started at $849.
To recap, the Pixel 2 features a 5-inch 1080p AMOLED display and the Pixel 2 XL sports a 6-inch QHD+ pOLED display. Both are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and 4GB of RAM, with either 64GB or 128GB of storage. For taking pictures, they're equipped with an 8-megapixel selfie camera with HDR support, and a 12.5-megapixel rear camera with HDR support and dual LED flash.
Check out our review of both models, and if you're interested, hit the links above to order one!


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How to Make Hot Ice with Sodium Acetate
If you have ever used a hand warmer or a heating pad, you must be aware of what hot ice is. If you like the idea of playing with ice, but cannot gather the courage because it's too cold to touch, then hot ice is the best solution for you. Actually, hot ice is super-saturated sodium acetate that can be frozen with a very slight trigger. While forming solid crystals, a burst of heat is released that ultimately creates hot ice. It is similar in appearance and texture as cold ice, and allows you to do things without making things too cold. Here at OneHowTo.com, we are going to discuss about how to make hot ice with sodium acetate.
You can purchase sodium acetate from an online or offline store, or you can make it on your own. If you have decided to make it yourself, you will need the following ingredients:
- 16 oz sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
- 1 gallon acedic acid (distilled white vinegar)
- One 5.5 quart pot and one 4 quart pot for boiling and filtering respectively
- 1 packet of basket style coffee filters
- 1 small strainer, a stove, a measuring cup, a cooking spoon, 2 dark dishes and a clean jar in which you will pour the final solution
The first step to make hot ice with sodium acetate is to save one cup of distilled white vinegar and pour the rest in the 5.5 quart pot. Now gradually add baking soda to it one spoon at a time. It is important to do it gradually, as dumping it in can cause overflowing. Reaction will start taking place, and when you can no longer see any bubbles in the solution, stop adding the baking soda. Now add the cup of vinegar that you saved before into the mixture.
After this reaction, only the sodium acetate will be left with remaining acetic acid. Now put the solution on medium heat and allow it to boil. When the solution remains half, its color will change. First, it will turn straw like in color, and then turn gold. When it starts turning amber in color, it's time to turn down the heat and stop boiling it.
Nest 6 coffee filters with each other and stick them on a strainer. Hold it above the 4 quart opt and use a measuring cup to pour the solution into the filter. Do it gradually, otherwise it will overflow. Now heat this filtered solution and reduce it to half by boiling on medium heat.
To test the solution, take some ice cubes in a dark dish, and pour some solution on another dish. Place this dish on top of the dish with ice cubes. If the solution if correctly made, the crystals will start forming as it cools. Now this is your sodium acetate in liquid form. Store it in some cool place and let it crystallize. Store it in a container, and it is ready to make hot ice.
To make hot ice from this sodium acetate solution, you will need a pan, stove and distilled water. Boil distilled water and add sodium acetate to it. Wait until you see crystals forming on the pan's sides. Immediately pour it in a small container and put a lit over it. Make sure to secure the lid properly, otherwise heat will escape. Scrape off the remaining crystals from the bottom of the pan, and store them in a small container too.
Now cool it in the refrigerator and it will cool within 10 minutes. Your hot ice is ready to use, whether you want to play with it, or apply it to a more productive usage.
If you want to read similar articles to How to Make Hot Ice with Sodium Acetate, we recommend you visit our Learning category.


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Mountain Springs Decision Pushed Back To August
Sonora, CA — Due to the voluminous paperwork involved and a two week, end-of-the-month hiatus for the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors a decision will not be handed down on the Mountain Springs Community project until August 5 at the earliest.
According to Mountain Springs General Manager Ron Kopf, there is such a great volumne of paperwork to be completed it would be impossible for a review to be made and a decision rendered by tomorrow.
The next available date will be August 5 because the supervisors will be on hiatus the final two weeks of July.
Additions to the plans coming out of last week´s meeting include agricultural mitigation asked for by Supervisor Teri Murrison and fire protection mitigation requested by Board Chair Dick Pland.
Written by Bill Johnson


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We talk with Dan Romuald Mbanga, Global Lead of Business Development for Amazon AI, about teaching students to use SageMaker for training and deploying deep learning models.
Deep Learning is one of the most exciting technology fields in the world today, and because Udacity's learning platform is built to allow for maximum adaptability, our Deep Learning Nanodegree program is one of our most dynamic and future-facing programs right now, as we continue to respond to advances in the field by augmenting and enhancing our curriculum.
We are very excited to share details about the latest additions to our program curriculum, which include new content and projects focused on PyTorch and SageMaker. In a recent post by Cezanne Camacho, Curriculum Lead for Udacity's School of Artificial Intelligence, we discussed new PyTorch content, and today, we're going to explore how we'll be teaching students to use SageMaker for training and deploying deep learning models.
To integrate the incredible new content, we teamed up with AWS and the SageMaker team, and in the updated program, students will train and deploy a sentiment analysis model on SageMaker, then connect it to a front end through an API using other AWS services. After deploying a model, students will also learn how to update their model to account for changes in the underlying data used to train their model—an especially valuable skill in industries that continuously collect user data.
To provide a closer look into the world of SageMaker, we spoke recently with Dan Romuald Mbanga, Global Lead of Business Development for Amazon AI, and a leader of business and technical initiatives for Amazon AI platforms.
Dan, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, and to share your insights with our community. Let's begin at the beginning—for those not yet familiar with SageMaker, can you give us a high-level summary of the platform?
Amazon SageMaker is a fully-managed Machine Learning (ML) service for ML practitioners at all levels of skills and interest, to get things done rapidly. SageMaker covers the entire machine learning workflow to label and prepare data, choose an algorithm, train the algorithm, tune and optimize it for deployment, make predictions, and take action. ML models get to production securely, faster, with much less effort and lower cost.
What was your driving motivation to create SageMaker in the first place, and how did you proceed initially?
"To build SageMaker, we worked backwards from the needs of our customers, external and internal."
Internally, Amazon has thousands of ML scientists and engineers building, deploying, and securing ML models at scale, every day. These teams are spread around the world, and if you think about what to do to make their work efficient from a tooling perspective, you get closer to our mindset when we built SageMaker.
Similarly, our external customers have asked us for managed ML tools that can enable and accelerate their data science practices or adoption. Our intent was to make machine learning at scale vanilla, easy, and almost common sense. SageMaker understands the ML process and delivers on requirements for data labeling, training algorithms at scale, accessible state-of-the-art and built-in algorithms, accessible deep learning frameworks, accessible reinforcement learning training and simulation environments, automatic model tuning, collaboration and sharing, experiments management, and includes additional helpful tricks for workflows management services integration, and so forth.
Where does SageMaker Neo fit into this picture?
SageMaker also provides a deep-learning model compiler, aka "SageMaker Neo." Neo lets developers and data scientists train models once and deploy them anywhere, in the cloud or at the edge, with up to 2X performance improvement at 1/10th the size of the original framework. This is very useful for low-power, low-memory devices commonly used for the internet of things. Neo will compile and optimize machine learning models with no loss in accuracy, for target hardware platforms from Intel, Nvidia, Arm, Cadence, Qualcomm, and Xilinx.
So, SageMaker is really meant for a wide user base?
It's designed to make advanced researchers comfortable with the level of control of flexibility they want, while making ML approachable and reproducible for entry-level ML practitioners or non-experts.
Security was a key factor for the team as well, is that right?
Yes, SageMaker was built around security as job-zero. It's designed to provide access control with virtual private clouds and a native integration with Amazon's IAM—identity and access management—as well as end-to-end encryption support for data at rest and in transit. SageMaker also delivers metrics and metadata for efficient experiment management, team management, audit and compliance. Its strong built-in security is what makes SageMaker the cloud ML platform of choice for many regulated companies like Moody's in Financial Services or Celgene in Healthcare; as well as many enterprises and startups that care about other things beyond training models; things like ML team building and management, access control, encryption, and more.
What are some of the key challenges with existing options that SageMaker now solves for?
It all starts with the data, and as you know, data labeling is typically the most time-consuming part of the process of building ML models based on custom data, not to mention being costly. Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth helps here, by offering easy access to public and private human labelers. Additionally, Ground Truth will kick-off a private active-learning model; learning from human labels to make high-quality, automatic annotations that significantly lower labeling costs by up to 70%.
Next, AI developers need a work environment to build ML models. Jupyter Notebooks are very commonly used for that. With a few clicks, any practitioner can get managed EC2 machines with Jupyter Notebooks up and running, pre-configured with the most popular data science tools like Scikit-learn, Pandas, TensorFlow, MXNet, PyTorch, and more. With the Notebook instances, SageMaker facilitates integration with Git repositories (publicly or privately managed), enabling seamless collaboration and sharing among ML developers.
The next thing SageMaker provides is an API-driven model training service. With a few commands aided by the publicly available Amazon SageMaker Python SDK, practitioners can summon a number of machines of their choice in order to launch a distributed ML training job. This service is peculiar in the sense that it knows the ML training process, and is built to act accordingly. For example, if you are a PyTorch developer, launching a PyTorch training job will make SageMaker kick-off an environment that comes pre-configured with PyTorch, and with understanding of how to distribute PyTorch jobs, how to download and distribute data efficiently from the cloud storage, and how to aggregate metadata, metrics, and logs in order to provide ML developers the same level of insights they'd have if they were running the job on a machine they fully control. SageMaker removes the undifferentiated heavy lifting in the context of the ML framework used by ML developers, to ensure they don't have to deal with the details while maintaining access to state-of-the-art tools. This training environment is ephemeral and only lasts for the duration of the training job, i.e. you only pay for what you use.
We've heard you use the term "algorithms as a service" before, can you tell our readers a bit more about what that means?
Ok, so, a model training environment is two things typically: an algorithm, and a framework in which that algorithm is developed. For example, you might want to implement the Word2Vec algorithm in order to compute your words transformations into vectors that you'd use for higher level tasks such as documents classification or user reviews classification. In SageMaker, we went beyond providing frameworks and rewrote the most common ML algorithms, for specific tasks such as object detection, classification, forecasting, text analytics, etc. We even released an Object2Vec algorithm recently, which is a general purpose neural embedding algorithm that is highly customizable. There are currently 15 state-of-the-art algorithms to pick and use on SageMaker, with extensive examples in Jupyter notebooks accompanying them.
"SageMaker closes the getting-things-done gap by providing 'algorithms as a service' to speed up machine learning development."
These algorithms were designed for 10x faster performance than the current implementations, and re-architected to leverage GPUs and streaming data whenever possible.
What does that mean in actual practice for data scientists?
This materially reduces the traditional model training time data scientists are accustomed to; fundamentally pushing the envelope on the expectation from a ML model in terms of training time.
In addition to speed, what about accuracy?
Once practitioners are happy with the successful training of a model—whether the algorithm is a SageMaker one or one that they provide—they typically want to get it to the best possible accuracy (or optimization, if they are optimizing for something else than accuracy). SageMaker comes with a managed automatic model tuning feature that can assist with the search of the best possible hyperparameters that can drive the best possible outcome. This is a common task for advanced ML practitioners, but not for the non-initiated. SageMaker brings this to the forefront of the mind of every user, and by making tuning easier, what we've observed is that numerous SageMaker users adopted best-practices because the feature was easy to grasp and grab.
Can you tell us a little more about this "tuning" feature?
The tuning service uses an optimization strategy called Bayesian Optimization, to automatically select and configure the parameters of your algorithm—say the learning rate, the weight decay, the number of neurons in a layer, the embedding dimension in a NLP or Object2Vec task, etc.—and drive towards the best possible outcome by launching parallel or serial training jobs in a controlled manner. Eventually delivering the "best job" with the best configuration (or hyper) parameters.
The way machine learning models are being used is changing rapidly. How does SageMaker address that?
Nowadays, many models live in a web app that serves live traffic via a REST API. While that's common, paradigms are shifting. With IoT and mobile-first approaches to delivering value to consumers via technology, artificial intelligence has to get as close to users as possible. With the large amount of data available, serving a model could also mean running a batch job which scores, say, the Year-To-Date sales transactions and seeks to classify them as fraudulent or not. So, there are real-time, edge, and batch ways of using an ML model. SageMaker supports all three and more.
With SageMaker, trained model artifacts can be deployed automatically behind a scalable and auto-scaling endpoint that would serve a REST API for real-time use cases such as checking a transaction, or validating an identity based on a model trained to classify real-time biometrics data. For batch scenarios, SageMaker has a batch deployment feature that makes it quick and easy to spin a number of pre-configured machines with one's model, and pull-in a large amount of data for a batch scoring. The infrastructure shuts itself down once the scoring job is done, which makes it agile and cost effective. Cloud inference is peculiar, in that there is sometimes a waste of resources in the event one wants the endpoint "always on"; but the GPUs might not be utilized to full capacity. That's why for SageMaker inference in the AWS cloud (batch or real-time), it is possible to provision GPUs elastically. We call that "Elastic Inference" (EI). With EI you can manage your cost of inference dynamically and only pay for GPUs when you need them.
Finally, for mobile and/or edge deployments, SageMaker supports integrations with mobile and IoT tools, to export and deploy the ML models as close to the end users as possible. Again, with SageMaker Neo, models can be compiled and optimized to use 10% of the original memory footprint the model would have used, at 2X the performance, and with no loss in accuracy.
Who should learn SageMaker?
Everyone interested in machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning! Or really, anyone interested in advanced optimization techniques that eventually drive towards artificial intelligence.
I hope what we've covered so far helps everyone understand that SageMaker is built around the flow of machine learning, and helps with guiding learners towards their goals. Within the SageMaker Notebook Instances, we made more than 30 examples available. They are packaged in end-to-end repeatable Jupyter Notebooks, and cover easy, medium, and hard examples of dealing with ML.
"We joke internally that we want to make machine learning so accessible that it becomes boring!"
That's fantastic! So, regarding that kind of accessibility, can you give us a SageMaker use case? Who out there is using it right now, and for what?
Certainly. SageMaker is designed to support a wide array of possibilities and skills levels. So, for example, if you use Zocdoc to find your doctor, you're using SageMaker in the back-end. Zocdoc provides medical care search for end users with an integrated solution about information on medical practices and individual doctor schedules. One of Zocdoc's mobile engineers was able to train and deploy a doctor specialty recommendation model from scratch in less than a day, which Zocdoc ended up rolling out to production.
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most historic professional sports league in the United States and consists of 30 member clubs in the U.S. and Canada, representing the highest level of professional baseball. SageMaker and the rest of the AWS ecosystem enable MLB to eliminate the manual, time-intensive processes associated with record keeping and statistics such as scorekeeping, capturing game notes, and classifying pitches. By using Amazon SageMaker, MLB is empowering its developers and data scientists to automate these tasks as they learn to quickly and easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models at scale.
Tinder has enabled people to meet in over 190 countries, by processing billions of daily swipes. With SageMaker, Tinder's ML models can enable new connections at a massive scale.
We've covered healthcare, sports analytics, and a very popular app connecting millions. These are just a few examples of where you can find the use of SageMaker. I've also observed many applications in Financial Services such as Intuit's fraud detection models deployed in SageMaker, or Thomson Reuters' advanced NLP algorithms for documents mining and questions answering, built on SageMaker.
So, the sky really is kind of the limit, in terms of applicability?
"Virtually every company of every size in every industry has a use case for machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, and/or artificial intelligence."
In saying that, I should note that I use ML as one term to encapsulate all the aspects of the AI practice that would require building and training algorithms to optimize for a specific set of tasks. Some tasks such as object detection and semantic segmentation used in self-driving cars are very visible. Other tasks are way less visible, tasks such as demand forecasting, supply-chain optimization, logs analysis for predictive maintenance, topic modeling for documents classification, etc. But looking at ML through these lenses, it becomes readily apparent that whatever your business is about, ML can help you. It also means that the scope of execution of an ML idea is massively large, from R&D to enterprise-grade products serving millions of production users.
What does it mean for you, to see SageMaker coming to our Udacity classrooms?
I personally believe that possibilities are endless. Udacity machine learning students have access to AWS credits and supplementary machine learning curriculum through our AWS Educate collaboration, so I can't wait to see what Udacity students come up with after learning to use Amazon SageMaker.
Udacity is all about empowering our students to advance their lives and careers through the acquisition of valuable and rewarding skills. So, for aspiring machine learning and deep learning engineers, how much of a difference in their career trajectories can having SageMaker skills make?
I think it'll be a material boost for everyone's career to inject some form of ML in their operations. Machine learning has never been easier to approach. With tools like SageMaker, and specifically the SageMaker built-in examples, learners set themselves up for success by ensuring they know the state of the arts currently used by companies like the ones I've mentioned earlier.
"SageMaker won't only help direct your ML learning process, it will also land you in a best-practices bucket—something every employer is seeking at the moment."
Anticipating what employers might need in an ML-qualified candidate, SageMaker is definitely an important piece of the puzzle as employers themselves are ramping up on it, and they'd appreciate candidates that come with some initial knowledge. If you're an aspiring ML/DL engineer, my recommendation is to learn in a context that will enable you to hit the ground running when you land your ML job; SageMaker delivers that. Besides, Udacity Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree program students already have access to free AWS credits to use to explore AWS tools and services, including SageMaker, through Udacity's collaboration with AWS Educate.
Where does the Amazon/Sagemaker/ML-DL team see these technologies heading in the next one, two, and five years?
At Amazon we obsessively listen to our customers, and work backwards from their needs. Traditionally, 90 to 95% of our roadmap has been driven by direct customers' requests. SageMaker is similar. While we're observing a growing demand in ML, we want to ensure SageMaker is future proof and meets customers' demands at scale while enabling them to operate in a flexible manner. In the next few years you should see SageMaker adopting more of the popular paradigms in ML and making them easily accessible, scalable, and cost-effective. That's our goal. I personally think it's too early to make a bet on the next five years given the rapid developments in AI lately.
"I love that the AI field is open and inviting a lot more researchers than the traditional Ph.D candidates."
What this means in my opinion is an evolution of innovation and general integration of AI in our practices. With SageMaker we want to enable fast research, data modeling, learning, scaling of workloads, production deployment, and continual re-training of intelligent systems; for every skills level. You should expect us to develop more technology designed to shorten those cycles.
What's the next big arena or field where machine learning is going to have a major impact?
I believe we're going to have this proliferation of multiple healthy streams of impactful ML applications. There are important movements done in drug discovery at the moment, as well as cancer research and other parts of Healthcare. ML models are assisting physicians, providing incredible lab assistance. I'd love to see more development in that direction as it helps humanity overall. A parallel is FinTech. There are many movements around enabling financial services with the benefits of intelligent systems. I think numerous developments are going to move in that direction as well in order to revamp the current financial technologies ecosystem, especially with new paradigms like blockchain.
This is all so great to hear! We know from our students that social good applications are a big motivation for getting into these fields and technologies, and our Blockchain Developer Nanodegree program classrooms are right now full of talented and passionate individuals eager to push the boundaries of what this transformative technology is capable of. After everything you've told us about SageMaker, we're all the more excited to see what our Deep Learning Nanodegree program students are able to achieve as they learn this powerful new platform.
On behalf of all of us at Udacity, we want to thank Dan Romuald Mbanga for his generosity, and for sharing these incredible insights! This amazing new content is now available in our Deep Learning Nanodegree program, so enroll today, and start exploring how you can use SageMaker to achieve your goals!


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Most Pakistanis had planned to watch the recently released and much awaited Bollywood movie Veere Di Wedding this weekend. However, to their utter dismay the censor board banned the movie from releasing here, due to its 'vulgar content'.
It seems that the makers of the film can feel the pain of Pakistanis who were more than excited to watch the women-centric flick. Rhea Kapoor, the producer of the film, has sent her love all the way to the fans of the movie in Pakistan via social media.
"To all our veeres (friends) in Pakistan, we love you ladies," Rhea posted in her Instagram story, a day after the movie was banned from hitting the silver screens all across Pakistan.
According to the censor board and film distributors, the film is shunned from screening due to objectionable content and indecent language.
As soon as the decision of the ban was announced, fans eagerly waiting for the release of the film took to Twitter to express their furore. Most were of the view that the ban was unnecessary and unjustified.
Directed by Shashanka Ghosh and starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Sonam Kapoor in key roles, Veere Di Wedding is about four friends who are making preps to attend a wedding.
The cast of the film also includes actors Swara Bhaskar and Sheikhs Talsamia. The film was scheduled to release in Pakistan and worldwide on June 1.


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This exclusive frontline property is located in Cabo Roig, Costa Blanca.
The big house sits on a plot of aprox. 1.500 m2 offering panoramic sea views in a privileged location. Entering the property you will see covered parking and a garage for several cars. Over a hall, you come into the very spacious living room which is divided in a sitting and dining area. As well you have a big covered terrace to the whole form of the villa with several areas for relaxing or meeting your friends.
As well on the ground floor there is a big, independent kitchen and two double bedrooms, each with an own bathroom. A wide staircase leads up to the second floor and opens the living area with a ceiling height if more than 9 meters, lending a special feeling full of character to the property.
On the second floor there are four more bedrooms, each has a private bathroom and three of the bedrooms have panoramic sea views and small balconies to step put and enjoy the morning sun.
In the well-kept garden, you will find a big, covered pool and several area which are especially adapted to make you enjoy the special location of this property regardless of the weather. There are fresh, covered summer terraces to enjoy the nice sea breeze and other, shelter corners to sit in the sun on colder and windier days.
A very special property in a privileged front line location in Cabo Roig, one of the best areas on the Costa Blanca.
is the most beautiful residential area of Orihuela Costa and probably of the Costa Blanca.
In this urbanization of private villas with their well-kept gardens, wide streets with palm trees, tranquility and well being, surrounded by several wonderful beaches of fine sand, predominate.
A small marina offers opportunities for many types of water sports, there is also a track for a romantic walk that reaches every corner around Cabo Roig with excellent views and the crystal clear waters full of fish, which are a delight for all divers whether professional or amateur. Both beaches offer space for sports, relaxation, swimming and snorkelling.
A supermarket, the tennis club and several bars and restaurants offer variety and a meeting place for neighbours and friends.
For more information and photos please contact us.


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IPFS News Link • Arizona's Top News
Arizona Needs Its Own Bank
• Republic Broadcasting NetworkArizona should have its own bank so taxpayer dollars could help fund local businesses instead of boosting the profits of big multinational banks. Bill Bradbury, Democratic candidate for governor of Oregon (and former secretary of state) is proposing the same course of action for his home state.
The Bank of North Dakota has been operating since 1919 without federal bailouts of any kind, completely funded by its own resources, non-securitized, and by charter obligated to loan to agrarian interests instate.
Moreover, North Dakota currently has a record surplus and the lowest unemployment in the country. It's the megabanks that needed TARP and all the rest. The state bank of ND is self-insured (they don't WANT FDIC insurance – why pay the fees?) and has returned revenue (not COST revenue) to the state since inception 91 YEARS ago! A state bank of Arizona could do the same thing. Read Ellen Brown's articles or her book "Web of Debt" to understand this.
July 13, 2010
U.S. Mail:
The Honorable Jan Brewer
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Dear Governor Brewer:
Arizona needs its own bank and you can make it happen.
You have probably heard of attorney and author Ellen Brown. Her knowledge and ideas can save America and Arizona can lead the way. Ellen Brown says:
"We're being reduced to the state of a 3rd world country… because of a failed Wall Street banking system. Meanwhile the Wall Street bankers are getting trillions out of our government on the presumption that if we don't preserve this banking system then we won't have a credit system. But that is not true. In fact we can create our own credit exactly the way that (private) banks create it- we can set up an alternative credit system in which states would own their own banks."
This is not pie in the sky but a proven fact as Ellen explains:
"One state in the Union does this- North Dakota- one of only two states currently able to meet their budget. In fact the state (of North Dakota) now has the largest surplus it has ever had. North Dakota has plenty of money for everything it wants to do."
Because our new immigration law, Arizona has emerged as the leader of the vast majority of Americans who are fed up with the Federal Government and the international bankers who are trying to bring America down. Millions of Americans stand ready to participate in a peaceful revolution in which we the people and our respective state and local governments take decisive action by assuming our responsibility to protect and defend the Republic as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Computerized rigged elections have taken away our ability to control the politicians in Washington and today they all serve the same globalist bankers who have a stranglehold based upon their money monopoly- also known as the Federal Reserve. But we the people can break that monopoly. Millions of people across America are disgusted with the phony Republican-Democrat rigged system. We will no longer tolerate the abuse and tyranny we see increasing with each administration- regardless of political stripe.
There are so many things we can and must do to prevent the looming disaster but there is no more fundamental need than that of "monetary sovereignty" for our state and local governments. Unless we break the money monopoly, we will never gain the economic freedom and prosperity necessary to take our Country back.
Please watch the short video of Ellen Brown talking about her proposal for state and local banks at the following link:
Also you can go on her website at the following address:
This letter is being forwarded by e-mail (bcc) to a number of dedicated and concerned Americans including the following whose public service, writings, words and deeds inspire and give us hope:
Ellen H. Brown
Christopher Bollyn
Richard C. Cook
Jim Condit Jr.
Stewart Rhodes
Mark B. Matthews
Sheriff Richard Mack
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever
Arizona State Senator Manuel V. "Manny" Alvarez
Arizona State Representative David W. Stevens
Arizona State Representative Patricia V. Fleming
Thank you for your continued leadership and courage.
Very truly yours,
Robert W. "Bob" Walton
PO Box 16283
Portal, Arizona 85632
3 Comments in Response to Arizona Needs Its Own Bank
I agree with the author. A state owned bank similar to North Dakota's could help break the monopoly of the Federal Reserve. In addition, having a state system in place will prevent a lot of chaos if the Federal Reserve collapses or the dollar becomes hyper-inflated. Because the bank can issue its own credit, and states are constitutionally allowed to coin their own gold and silver currency, it would be a fairly simple change to switch from FRNs to gold and silver in a crash.
NO NO NO, I feel like I'm writing to third graders except for those who read Freedom Phoenix. You have experieced what a central bank has done to this country at the federal level and somebody now wants to let that happen at the state level. No one hardly lives in north Dakota and they're siting on a bunch of oil. Not a good analogy. Go on the bi-metalic monetary system and you will restore the American Dream. Fix the corrupt judicial system and you will restore the American Dream. Eliminate 3/4 of government and abolish the Income Tax and you will restore the American Dream. Repeal the War on Drugs and you will restore the American Dream. Abolish public education and you children will be taught the truth and that will help to restore the American Dream. Have you learned nothing from history?
Thats right we need some more State Socialism. Let the crooked blood sucking politicians loan you the money and reap the benefits. They swear to only use their guns for good and those delightful cages are only there for the malcontents. Whose more trustworthy then a politician?


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Every year, Plymouth Community Ambulance is proud to sponsor a toy drive to benefit Bryn Mawr Hospital and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.
Here are pictures of our most recent event. We hope you will join us next year to continue its success.
Toys will be delivered to the pediatric units at Bryn Mawr Hospital and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.
Gathering for all EMS, Police and Fire units will be at Station 308 at 11:30 am.
Units will depart for Bryn Mawr Hospital at 1:00pm sharp and then onto St. Christopher's Hospital for the final stop.
Light refreshments will be available.
Any questions please call 610-277-2776 or email at [email protected].


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Could it be the best CVT design ever?
By now you have heard Yamaha is offering a 10-year limited V-belt warranty on their Ultramatic-equipped ATV and UTV models. Obviously, this warranty comes with the purchase of a new 2019 and newer model year machine and is unfortunately not transferrable. Some may not understand why a company like Yamaha has such incredible faith in their own engineering as to offer a full 10 years of "insurance" to their consumers. Simply put, over the years it has proven itself to be one of the most reliable CVT designs on the market. When used as specified and designed, the Yamaha Ultramatic transmission has outlived many of its competitors and I hear stories ever so often of machines that have never had the CVT cover off yet still run strong 15 years later. I do not recommend neglecting the machine this way, but it is a pretty fascinating fact.
In this short read I wanted to go over just what makes up an Ultramatic transmission and how it works in laymen's terms so everyone that doesn't know can hopefully understand it a bit more. The Yamaha Ultramatic CVT has several components that all work together to make a seamless and smooth transition from a dead stop to a full-on sprint. What most see when peeking under the CVT clutch cover is the primary and secondary clutch sheaves as well as the actual belt, yet what many cannot see is the Automatic Centrifugal clutch and one-way sprag clutch hidden just inside the engine case behind the primary drive sheaves.
The automatic centrifugal clutch (also known as a wet clutch because its bathed in the engine oil) rides on the end of the crankshaft and when you add throttle, the weighted pads on the automatic centrifugal clutch make contact within a housing that intern spins the primary drive sheaves that the belt is laying in. The belt never slips in the sheaves like the flyweight style clutch designs as the drive sheave always has a firm hold on the belt. As engine speed increases the weights or rollers in the primary drive sheave then start to slide outward and this brings the outer drive sheave in towards the fixed drive sheave halve. As this is happening the secondary or driven sheave begins to open up and the belt slides down into the sheave. This is how you get a smooth, constant as well as very linear speed increase on Yamaha products. The one-way sprag clutch provides engine braking when you let off the gas and this helps riders of any skill level to negotiate steep descents without feeling like the machine is freewheeling or out of control like some other belted transmissions.
Understanding this process of Yamaha's Ultramatic transmission and the fact the belt never slips should give you a little better insight on why they offer such a bold warranty. No slipping means wear on the belt drops dramatically. So, could this be the best CVT clutch design? I personally think it certainly has its advantages and it has been copied by many other companies to this day and that just proves its value in the market. I have always heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Let us not kid ourselves here though. There have been some belt failures in Yamaha products but the vast majority of mistakes I have seen have been user error. Driving a Yamaha ATV or UTV over the maximum-rated capacity or towing over the hitch-rating can begin a downward spiral of clutching issues, and history proves it. Many do not understand you cannot simply run around in high gear when carrying or hauling heavy loads, as it could be tough on internal components. Riding in areas where deep mud is an everyday situation will also be tough on belt life if precautions are not followed. Some riders/drivers will try to climb or crawl steep grades in high gear and this is bound to destroy a drive belt sooner or later. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you are rough on your equipment and do not follow the recommended towing or hauling suggestions in your owner's manual then you will make the machine suffer sooner or later.
We could not talk about the Yamaha Ultramatic transmission without at least mentioning a few of the aftermarket modifications riders can make to their clutching. Some will add spring and weight kits, found on www.ShopYamaha.com, to get more out of their Yamaha when increasing the size of the tires / wheelsthey have on the rig. Many have opted to "Slug" the Automatic Centrifugal clutch to get a presumed better lock in of the shoe to housing connection and claim it gives a better life to the actual shoe in the ACC. Many have developed belts for this system and claim them to be stronger or more reliable. I personally feel that the factory belt is the best option for any machine. All of these modifications should be considered very carefully and be sure to read the list of "consumer responsibility" exclusions (especially number seven) before making any of these mods.
As for the 10-year belt warranty, there are some things you need to know but it is all fairly simple to understand. You can find more information on Yamaha's belt warranty here: www.Yamaha10YearBelt.com


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Welcome to the Ditching Imposter Syndrome podcast from Clare Josa!
Here's what to expect from the coming episodes.
If what's waiting for you sounds great to you, make sure you hit 'subscribe' to catch each episode.
You're going to get practical inspiration for getting out of your own way, so you can make the impact you're dreaming of making in the coming year and beyond!