text:
While not generally receptive to giving message-board folks a lot of credit, I can't let this priceless nugget from www.gomeangreen.com pass without a quick thumbs up.
Someone suggested that just maybe, the score in Norman on Saturday could get a little out of hand -- maybe even in the Sooners' favor.
Then it was theorized that a few bored Sooner fans near the UNT visitor section (read: end zone) might throw down a little smack talk.
If said smack talk occurs, then it's suggested that a brave group of UNT fans pull off their Mean Green gear to reveal a sudden undying love for Boise State.
Ticket to UNT road game at OU: $50.
Gas to Norman: $30.
Leaving with your pride intact, thanks to some other school's T-shirt: Priceless.
--Troy Phillips


text:
Granite Gear makes packs, bags, duffel bags, etc: things to put gear in. The company has recently changed hands, so we were dealing with an enthusiastic new owner. Like many other small companies, the packs have a distinctive appearance. We gathered that some packs are being upgraded and may have changed slightly or be about to change from what we have tested. However, I doubt that there will be huge differences.
Granite Gear Escape AC 60 Pack
|Escape AC 60
|Above average
|Adjustable torso length
The design of this pack's bag part is not that out of the ordinary, but the harness is very interesting, so we'll deal with that part first. In short, it has an adjustable harness based on a tough, moulded sheet of plastic. The adjustment for torso length is done by unhooking the shoulder strap from one slot and hooking it into another slot. It's sufficiently novel that I have included a detail shot of the adjustment mechanism in the photos. In the photo the right hand shoulder strap has been unhooked and you can see the metal buckle which acts as the anchor.
Getting to this adjustment is not easy, but once you figure out that the top of the plastic sheet is concealed by some fabric held in place by hook&loop fastening, you are on your way. You do have to disconnect quite a few straps along the way – the first one or two times anyhow. You also probably need to remove the floating lid, which is an exercise in itself. Once you have access to the panel, you can set the torso length to a number of values, as determined by the slots you can see. Just what the top slots (set wide apart) are for I am not sure – someone the size of a grizzly bear maybe! Having moved the metal buckle into the next slot, you then have to reassemble the harness system. It isn't that hard to do, and the ability to match the torso length to your body is good. It would help if they included an instruction sheet with each pack though.
Granite Gear Escape AC 60, 1.48 kg (3.26 lb), 49 L (3000 cuin), Short, Regular. *In addition, there are interchangeable Men's and Women's hip belts in sizes Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large.
The padding on the back looks like some Doctor Scholes massage foot bed foam covered by someone's black see-through negligee – but the mesh is actually quite strong and the padding is comfortable. The shoulder straps and hip belt are quite comfortable too. Note that there is a range of hip belts sizes and you can exchange them. The adjustment straps on the shoulder straps are long… very long. The sternum strap is long enough too – and you will need to use it with this pack. There is no stupid whistle on the sternum strap. The load-lifter straps work well, and have excellent thumb loops at the ends. You can see how I am 'resting' my arms using them. I like doing this, and it does help a bit with the balance of any pack.
Now for the bag part. This too is a little odd-ball. The bag itself is fairly standard, but all the bits around it are different. Where most packs have webbing straps, the Escape AC 60 has cord, with cord adjusters and buckles. Yes, the cord can be adjusted the same as webbing. Does the use of cord cut any weight? I doubt it very much. It works about the same, but I would be just as happy with light grosgrain myself. Anyhow, there are quite a few of these bits of cord around the pack.
What's not obvious is that the bottom of the bag can expand a bit, so you need to pack carefully to make sure the bottom end is filled up. Since the capacity is rather less than claimed, you need to use every bit of space there. The throat is of medium length – certainly adequate. There is a conventional webbing strap to go over the throat under the lid. There is a zipped sleeve for a hydration system inside – the hose has to go through a hole at the top of the sleeve. The sleeve would be useful for reserve maps maybe, or as a deep security pocket.
The pack does have two ice axe loops at the bottom, but no dedicated straps at the top to hold the shaft. Perhaps you could wind the lid straps (cords) around the shaft to hold it up. There are several other attachment points scattered around the body of the pack as well.
There is a back pocket with a central vertical waterproof zip. Exactly why it has to be waterproof is not clear, as the black sides of the back pocket are stretch mesh. Why the zip has to be vertical is not clear either: it does mean things can fall out when you undo the zip fully. It's quite a large back pocket too. More curious is the little pocket below the back pocket. It too has a zip closure, but the zip is at the bottom of the pocket. Surely an invitation to disaster – things would fall out? It turns out that this little pocket, which has a key-clip inside, is meant for holding a pack-cover (an optional extra). Not so curious after all! The side pockets are a double layer affair: there is a fabric pocket with a light mesh one outside it. The opening of the mesh pocket is tilted forwards: 'quick-draw water bottles' maybe. The fabric pockets seem capacious when the main bag is empty, but there is little room left once the main bag is full. Why manufacturers even bother with these flat side pockets puzzles me.
In keeping with the central zip on the back pocket, the lid also has a central zip, right on top. Fortunately it is a waterproof zip (if you trust such things) as there is no cover over it. The position on top does make some sense though: you get good access inside the pocket without things falling out. There is a key clip in there, but no security pocket.
The pack held all the Test Gear load in the main bag, but it was close to full. I was also able to get most of my gear for a (real) Wollemi trip into it except for 40 m of rope and slings, but it is not a big pack by any means. The pack rode fine in the field, once I got the torso length set and all the other adjustments to suit me.
Granite Gear Vapor Flash Ki Pack
|Vapor Flash Ki
|Neat, but heavy
This Vapor Flash Ki is a Women's pack: the Vapor Flash is a Men's pack, slightly larger in volume. The website claims a 48 L capacity for the Short model, which is what we tested. The hip belt comes in four sizes: Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large.
No doubt about it: this pack looks neat. The strips of tougher fabric down each back corner, combined with the compression straps, provide very useful strengthening. The colour was also rather nice. The torso length is fixed, but the hip belt is removable, although that is not obvious at first. Removing the hip belt is easy once you realise the padding on each wing sort of locks the hip belt in place. That 'lock' is reinforced by webbing and buckles at the sides.
Granite Gear Vapor Flash Ki, 1.38 kg (3.03 lb) , 37 L (2200 cuin), Short, Regular.
We were able to get most of the Test Gear inside the main bag provided the rolled-up mat was strapped on the outside. In other words, the volume is rather small: we measured just 37 L in the main bag and lid. There is no back pocket. Well, if you are travelling ultralight it may well have enough capacity, but an ordinary lightweight walker might have some trouble.
The floating lid is a bit strange. It could go up a bit if you really filled the throat section of the main bag, but it is threaded onto the load-lifter straps, and it can't be raised very far unless you unthread it from those straps. Doing so looked impossible at first, as the ends of the straps seem to have a strip of hook&loop fastening tape sewn across the webbing. That simply would not go through the buckles. However, eventually I found out that the hook&loop tape is double-sided and could be unstuck from the webbing. A bit confusing at first! Why was the hook&loop tape there anyhow? It lets you roll the excess webbing at the end of the straps up into a little ball and secure it. Um… frankly, why bother? Anyhow, if you do unthread the lid from the load-lifter straps you can raise the lid a bit – but it perches rather precariously on top, and I don't think this is a good arrangement. It's a nice looking pack, except that the lid design is not so hot when you want to fill the bag right up. Less than full – fine.
We tested a Short version. I found it too short for me, and Sue found it "not very long." I think the Regular version might have suited both of us better. This meant both of us found the 'carry' less than optimal: it was hard to get the pack onto the hip belt. However, in this case I think that this was due to the short torso length. It would suit a really petite woman, or better still a young girl. The colour scheme should appeal to either. Most people might find the Medium a better fit.
Granite Gear Nimbus Ozone Pack
|Nimbus Ozone
|Above average
|Adjustable torso length
You would have to say this is a bit like a big brother to the Vapor Flash Ki – but without a lid. The back padding is similar, and so is the hip belt, except for a slightly different curvature. The difference will be due to the former being a Women's pack while this is not – the website says "Women's belts are sculpted to fit the increased angle of women's hips." You have to burrow under the bottom of the pack to undo the hook&loop flap covering the big screw which anchors the hip belt. Yes, this one uses engineering stuff!
Granite Gear Nimbus Ozone, 1.48 kg (3.26 lb) , 53 L (3200 cuin), Short. *The only size is called Short, but it didn't really seem that way to me. In addition, there are Men's and Women's hip belts in sizes Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large, plus shoulder straps in Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large.
The torso length is adjustable over a range of 100 mm (4 in), with the aid of a screwdriver. The straps are bolted to a plastic back panel. The mechanism for adjusting is a bit complex, but you shouldn't have to adjust it more than once or twice. In addition, while you are adjusting the torso length, you can also exchange the shoulder straps themselves. When you make an adjustment you have to move a horizontal padded reinforcing bar which sits behind the plastic back panel. How you could lose this bar I don't know, but the company sells spares! Having an adjustable torso length gets brownie points, but whether the different shoulder straps are really required is something I don't know. I guess they wouldn't sell them if they didn't find them useful or popular.
With all the straps and screws involved in adjusting this pack, you are going to need an Owner's Manual to work out how to drive it all. In this case the pack does come with a twenty-page Owners Manual, with good explanations and pictures. OK, some of the pages are about other packs in the range, but there are a solid twelve pages of technical stuff here for this pack!
The back is reinforced with a pretty solid plastic panel. If you didn't know better, you might think the top edge had metal reinforcing as well, but it's just plastic. While the bag fabric is quite light, there is some weight and stiffness in this harness. It showed however in the carry: it felt light.
Without a lid, this pack has to rely on a roll-top. The length is generous. The light fabric used is reinforced with those two blue stripes down the back and a number of webbing compression straps which can actually go right around from back panel to back panel, in three sections. There are two ice axe loops at the bottom of the pack, and the upper side compression straps are held with side-release buckles: they can hold the shafts in place.
There are large side-pockets of stretch-mesh, and a compression strap across the middle of each one. They should hold medium sized things and tent poles well, but don't put tiny things in them – there are little 'drain' holes at the bottom. The holes may be for letting water out. There's a short bladder pocket inside which will have to do for a security pocket, and a key clip at the top of the frame. No hip belt pockets are fitted, although there's webbing on the hip belt for attachment, and no stupid whistle on the sternum strap.
This is a mini-review in the 2010 Lightweight Internal Frame Pack State of the Market Report. The articles in this series are as follows (mini-reviews can be found in Part 2), and a subscription to our site is needed to read them.
- Part 1A covers the very basics and lists all the packs in the survey.
- Part 1B covers the frame and harness which carry the pack itself.
- Part 1C covers the main bag and all the other pockets, plus the all-important question of comfort.
- Part 2 in this series covers the individual packs tested.

subset: commoncrawl


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So, with part IV having reached over 150 posts, it's time for a new Lost and Found.
I'm sure you all know how it goes, but this is the thread to post in if you're trying to find a story which you remember reading a long time ago but didn't add to your favourite list. Hopefully one of fellow readers will be able to help you out.
If you are trying to find a story, please include as much of the following information as possible, so that people can be as helpful as possible.
Title or What You Think the Title is:
Time Period:
General Plot:
If you posted a request in the last thread that was not answered, you may re-post


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Intel Simmers Social's Secret Sauce
2 comments post a comment
Wolfe's Den went to Intel Labs to learn about Emotions through Images and Displays without Walls.
Is social media a bunch of BS? (There's a new book which argues yes.) Even if we stipulate that it's not, there's an unspoken consensus that our online interactions with the friends we've never met isn't achieving its full potential.
Enter Intel Labs, where scientists and engineers are investigating what I'd call Social 4.0 (my phrase, not theirs.) Back in October, the folks at Intel were kind enough to take me around their facilities in Hillsboro, Ore. and in Santa Clara, Calif. My payback for their generosity has been a three-month delay in reporting on what I saw, perhaps because I was so awed by the breadth and depth of the research. Beginning today, I intent to tilt the other way, with a series of posts that'll Intel you out by the time we're done.
As regards social, Intel is doing a lot of heavy lifting, which could better knit heavily hyped but underachieving social tools into the core of our daily computing habits. (See, social is still so amorphous that it resists a coherent explanation of what it requires to become really useful.) Perhaps it'll take a psychologist with computer smarts -- or vice versa -- to uncover the answer.
"Social media is going to become far more dynamic," Intel senior research Margie Morris told me. "It's going to help people [voice emotions] in a more fluid way." With her background as a clinical psychologist -- I was hoping she wouldn't send me a bill after fielding all my questions -- http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/people/intel-labs-bio-margie-morris.html Morris has standing to help cook social's secret sauce.
She's leading an Intel Labs project dubbed Emotions through Images, which I'd characterize as adding Intel's deep technical smarts alongside the still-lightweight apps pushing out social content. Then, the whole thing is projected out en masse to hopefully engage the masses. Consider it a kind of virtual Middle Ages town square, updated for the twenty-first century, but without the bubonic plague.
As Intel's formal description (edited) puts it: "Images taken by individuals on mobile phones with Instagram are projected on a large interactive display. Intel sentiment analysis software studies the captions to infer the "mood" of the images, which are categorize according to the Circumplex Model of emotion. [This is a kind of psychologist's heat map, which color-codes the pictures.] Individuals are invited to express how an image makes them feel with a touch screen Mood Map. Individuals can also associate images, using emotion to compose arrangements and colors of the entire installation. These compositions allow us to capture and share the collective vibe of events."
Vibe -- that's the ticket. Here, look:
The pix are projected by a separate Intel Labs project called Display with Boundaries. Led by Intel researchers Doug Carmean and Carl Marshall, the objective is to change how and where we display and interact with our content.
Success entails much more than just right-angling the image so it's projected onto a wall. Flat-panel displays are clear and regular. Not so painted walls or tables, which have irregularities and different absorption characteristics peppered throughout their surfaces.


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"Nineteen years is probably the longest I've heard of. But we don't hear about everything. There's nobody that tracks this stuff precisely."
Related quotes
"Nobody is quite so blase and sophisticated as a boy of nineteen who is just recovering from a baby grand passion"
"But it's hard to be hip over thirty when everyone else is nineteen, when the last dance we learned was the Lindy, and the last we heard, girls who looked like Barbara Streisand were trying to do something about it."
"The difference between winning nineteen games and winning twenty for a pitcher is bigger than anyone out of baseball realizes. It's the same for hitters - someone who hits .300 looks back on the guy who batted .295 and says 'tough luck buddy."
"Sexual intercourse began
in nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me)
between the end of the Chatterley ban
and the Beatles' first LP."
"Here you walk in, say you have 19 minutes (in the locker room). Nineteen minutes? You can talk to your coaches, talk to the team, write openers (plays to be used early in the second half), come back and talk to your team again, then go out."


text:
[Verse 1: Meyhem Lauren]
Respect the fly shit, glorious stature
My words capture
New York City's fear before the Taliban disaster
Self Induced Illness, floating in my own rapture
My niggas make flips and play cakes without a spatula
We gets it in, sample my aura as a indication
I know your story, son, your soap opera's in syndication
Exposing fraudulence with fact, your dead off vindication
Hit the bottom first to reach the top
I call it innovation
An invasion, incineration is how we burning 'em
Mean chucking a philosophy book
My voice is learning 'em
Dollar bills never came free
We steady earning 'em
At all costs, we all floss
Your team lost, I'm so boss
At least my own, release my chrome
Get blown into a different zone
X'd out and wonder Y like a male chromosome (What!)
I hold my own and my squad's well known
Don't make a nigga hand deliver punishment to your dome
It's all!
[Verse 2: Action Bronson]
My mind ready like Ray Lewis
Jumping out the gray Buick
Twisted ankles never stop us
Cause we play through it
I spit that shit that make Jordan jumper a sure shot
Same shit to make 'em build a wooden room up in a whore spot
Right out the sewer, deadly with maneuver
Got the power of a rhino
And I'm agile as a puma
Suede shit be the basic
Empty clips and then replace it
Cause the verbal .47 chopping pussies get erase-d
Off the map
My silhouette, it got the hookers crazy
Poking holes up in the condom
Trying to trap me with a baby
But I keep 'em dreaming, that's for the semen
They keep on fiending
Cause nowadays it's just Brain, just call me Bobby Heenan
I'm Marley steaming
Lace the swordfish with the garlic cream and
The lemon basil caper dil, play the street for real
Cream de Ville is what I used to sport
The Yiddish lawyer with a yarmi, how this muthafucka do in court
Peugeot Sport was purchased by my father first, man
Shift with the left hand, back then he was a Mets fan
To be specific, I'm horizontal once the trees are twisted
Absorb the essence cause it changes with the seeds sifted
[Verse 3: AG Da Coroner]
You muthafuckas ain't telling me nothing
We pack the power of a Roman candle
Outdoorsmen animal, so catch us on the nature channel
Rare species, mush you in the face with feces
This is HBO rap, not regular TV
I be the type to make your wifey hand you papers
And say ya'll splitting up
Because my semen is her favorite flavor
Vanilla ice cream, Baskin Robbins got nothing on me
I'm in the hooker house with Bronson
Bitches sucking on me
Free of charge, we at large
"Love Me In a Special Way" like El DeBarge
Big time like Vinny Chase in Entourage
My team's the hardest, we like TS back in '99
Go try and find another squadron with our kind of grind
You got the king, you got the chef, you got the Coroner
You got the beast, Meyhem Lauren right in your corridor
Killa Sha, Prince, Take-It and the Animal
There's only Science, we eat rappers like a cannibal
Check the manual, wack rap niggas is food
Fuck a Ross, only Rick is Ravishing Rude
I'm from a era where your skills got you recognized
Ya'll from an era where your favorite rapper testifies
Fraudulent fucks, the game's being twisted up
And don't approach me if you ain't nice with your fisticuffs
We beat a artist down, dig his pockets, split his bucks
And that's a threat, so I dare you to try to shit on us
In honor of NFL football player, Ray Lewis's, retirement after the 2012-2013 NFL season, here's an Outdoorsmen joint from Meyhem Lauren's 2010 mixtape, Clarified Butter. It features Meyhem's fellow Outdoorsmen, Action Bronson and AG Da Coroner and was produced by Don Producci.


text: I read the excellent comics to Ghost Prison today which was set a couple years after the clone wars but Vader seemed to be totally in the dark still about the role the Emperor played in Separatist Movement which (doubly still) "seemed' to be run by Dooku... Which meant that he still had a hard on for frakking back for eveyrthing Dooku did to his friends and "family" even though most of who he eventually killed himself after order 66 came into play. In the pages of Ghost Prison, Vader saw a recording of Jedi Council meeting where they are saying that they are worried about Anikan, and worried about his relationship with the Chancellor and that they should play things close tot he vest which he took as validation that he made the right choice in killing them all, and not that they were right to be worried becuase he killed them all. What a nutcake.


text: I've always heard it's never to late to start...we shall see! I'm brand new at quilting (am completing my first machine quilt for grandbaby #6, due in August). I have A LOT to learn, but everyone here sounds so friendly! I'm excited to be here - and I'll have plenty of questions!


text:
Notes: Greinke back in rotation
Will start Friday night against Indians; six-man rotation planned
By Dick Kaegel / MLB.com
Greinke will replace Odalis Perez, who might be headed for the disabled list because of a sore left knee. Perez was in Kansas City on Tuesday for an MRI.
That wasn't the only medical news.
Manager Buddy Bell scratched right fielder Mark Teahen from Tuesday night's lineup against Chicago and speculated that he might be a DL candidate, too.
Teahen has a hyperextended left elbow, suffered last Saturday night diving for a ball at Oakland. This was the third straight game that he's missed.
He was in the lineup until he took some swings in the batting cage late Tuesday afternoon.
Perez has an 8-11 record after back-to-back victories over Toronto and Oakland. He's made 26 starts and has a 5.57 ERA.
Greinke began the season in the rotation and made seven starts. But he was 1-4 with a 5.71 ERA and was moved to the bullpen where he prospered.
"I've never seen him more confident," Bell said. "[Starting] is what he wants to do."
Bell said that Greinke will start for the remainder of the season as part of what is envisioned as a six-man rotation during September.
"I think you're more valuable to a team as a starter," Greinke said. "So, if you're good, then it's better to be a starter. It's harder to be good as a starter, in my opinion."
As a reliever used mostly in middle relief and setup situations, Greinke was in 38 games and had a 3.54 ERA, a 4-1 record and one save. In 53 1/3 innings, he struck out 55 and walked just 15. Opponents batted .226 against him.
"I always thought it'd be good for me to do the bullpen for a year or a half year because my arm has never gotten used to throwing as hard as it could. I always thought that throwing in the bullpen, I could get my arm speed up and, hopefully, my stuff improves," Greinke said.
"I assume I can throw it [hard] consistently for one inning or two, sometimes even three. I think I can, but I don't know for sure if I can do that for full game."
Bell said he'd "piggyback" Greinke with another pitcher because his pitch count will be limited after four months in the bullpen.
"It'll be more like using a bunch of relievers instead of a starter and relievers," Greinke said. "But September's coming soon and they'll have lots of support coming in."
When Bell does kick in his six-man rotation, it's likely to include Jorge De La Rosa, currently on the DL because of a strained elbow. De La Rosa is scheduled for an injury rehabilitation start for Double-A Wichita on Wednesday night and another before returning on Sept. 1.
Brandon Duckworth also is working his way back. On Tuesday, he pitched six innings for Triple-A Omaha and gave up one run, Valentino Pascucci's 33rd homer, in a 5-1 loss to Albuquerque. Duckworth threw 71 pitches as he comes back from a rib cage injury.
Although there will be six starters, Bell will try to have Gil Meche continue to work every fifth day.
Sweeney plan: The Royals finally clued in team captain Mike Sweeney on plans for his rehab assignment with Omaha.
"I'll head out Thursday and drive to Omaha and play a few games up there, then accompany them to Nashville. Then I'll be ready to go," Sweeney said.
He said the plan is for him to be activated on Sept. 1 when the 25-man rosters are expanded.
"It's two weeks longer than I planned on but the team makes the decisions. I'm just following orders," Sweeney said.
"I'm feeling good and my hope is to get going and play the whole month and help these guys get ready for next year -- with me or without me."
Sweeney's contract expires this year and his Kansas City future remains unknown.
You're the top: Joey Gathright, on a hitting surge, was the leadoff batter in the Royals lineup for the first time this season Tuesday night against the Chicago White Sox.
Bell also dropped David DeJesus, his leadoff batter most of the season, into the No. 3 spot, with Mark Grudzielanek hitting No. 2. For DeJesus, batting third was a season first, but he'd done it eight times in 2006.
When Teahen was scratched, Emil Brown replaced him in right field and in the No. 6 spot in the order.
Royals rundown: Mike Stodolka had three hits, three runs and two RBIs in Wichita's 7-5 win over Frisco on Monday. ... Derrick Robinson stole his 33rd base for Class A Burlington (Iowa), in a 1-0 loss at Cedar Rapids. ... Clinton Robinson's 13th homer, a three-run shot in the ninth, gave rookie Idaho Falls a 9-7 victory over Billings. Anthony Seratelli hit his eighth homer and is batting .335. ... Jake Lane's two-run single pulled rookie Burlington (N.C.) ahead in a 9-7 win at Greeneville. Patrick Norris had three hits and swiped his league-leading 27th base.
Coming up: The Royals wrap up their trip against the White Sox at 1:05 p.m. CT on Wednesday at U.S. Cellular Field. Right-hander Brian Bannister will start for the Royals; right-hander Jose Contreras gets the nod for the Sox.
Dick Kaegel is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


text:
He was born Oct. 30, 1949, at Clarksville.
He attended Christian Life Center and was a retired truck driver.
He was preceded in death by his father, Ernest Troy Henderson; and brother, John Wayne Henderson.
Survivors include his wife, Iva Henderson, Lamar; son, Michael Henderson, Lamar; daughter, Rebecca Henderson, Lamar; brother, William Henderson, London; mother, Wanda Jean Henderson, Lamar; one nephew; and three grandchildren.
Visitation will be 6-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, 2013, at Broussard-Pledger Funeral Home, Clarksville. Funeral will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013, at the Christian Life Center, Clarksville. Burial will be in Coal Hill Cemetery. Revs. Larry Farris and Johnny Price will officiate.
Arrangements are by Broussard-Pledger Funeral Home.


text:
A couple days before he purchased enough jewelry to launch his own Kay franchise, Lance Thomas played in the 10th basketball game of his senior season at Duke. He scored two points. This was not long after he'd scored five against Gardner-Webb, and one against UNC-Charlotte, as well as that glorious night when he took the collar in a loss to Wisconsin.
No, that collar was not encrusted with diamonds.
It seems a pretty far leap from these numbers, from the reality of Thomas' relatively unspectacular skills to the assumption he was able to trade on his basketball reputation to walk away with nearly six figures in jewels after a down payment of less than 30 percent.
We learned of Thomas' apparent profligacy Friday, as the result of a lawsuit filed months ago in Texas by New York jeweler Rafaello & Co. to recover the unpaid portion of his bill. According to the suit, Thomas took possession of the property after making a $30,000 down payment with the remainder due within 15 days -- but never presented the rest of what was owed.
Now, not every charge in every lawsuit is entirely accurate. That's why there are negotiations and trials. And the likelihood is this suit will be settled soon without most of the details becoming public. None of us has yet heard Thomas' position on what occurred.
There are a few reasonable questions, though, given the charges that have been presented in this civil case:
• Why would any young man about to confront the fulltime pursuit of his livelihood want to begin that endeavor with a $97,800 purchase, much of it apparently financed, that wouldn't even get him to and from work?
•Why would a jewelry store present such a considerable line of credit to a college student? That's something the NCAA is bound to consider, because if the answer were to involve his status as a Duke basketball player and potential future NBA earnings, Thomas quite possibly would have been guilty of accepting what the NCAA considers to be impermissible "extra benefits."
• Why would anyone, including Lance Thomas, think Lance Thomas was a dead-solid-lock for an NBA future? If indeed the folks at Rafaello did their deal on this basis, it begs another question: Did any of them own a TV? Thomas' contributions to Duke throughout even his best season were so esoteric we had to be constantly reminded by his coaches of his leadership and defensive commitment. At the time he was said to have entered Rafaello's location on West 47th in Manhattan, just before Christmas 2009, Thomas was averaging 5.9 points per game for the Blue Devils.
As it happens, Thomas managed to battle his way into the NBA after spending his first pro season earning peanuts — not nearly enough to pay off the nut on that much ice — in the D-League. It was no surprise he went undrafted in 2010 even after helping Duke to an NCAA championship.
Along with all this, there is one unreasonable question many have posed, quite persistently, that the NCAA might examine but that still seems untoward: Where'd he get the first 30 grand?
That so many immediately presumed Thomas' only access to that sort of money would have taken him outside the boundaries of NCAA rules is both distressing and depressing. He'd been an athlete on scholarship for four years at that point. His mother, according to the Duke website, worked as a manager at a Ford plant. None of us can presume to know what the finances of Thomas' family might have been — but few in the media wasted much time considering this.
Duke became aware of the charges in the suit recently and forwarded the information onto the NCAA. The school is being proactive in trying to assist the NCAA with determining what transpired in a circumstance that developed nearly three years ago.
What is beyond question at this point is Thomas' impatience and impudence have put all of Duke in an unsettling position: The coaches who lauded his maturity and unselfishness during the Devils' NCAA Tournament run (without irony at the time); the players who followed his example on the court (but hopefully not off of it); the fans who applauded his role in the 2010 championship and now are seeing its validity imperiled.
Thomas was an important component of that title drive, though he never looked like a budding NBA superstar in the process.
At least he never did with a basketball in his hands. Whether he did upon dressing himself appears to be a different matter entirely.


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At Tropicana Field on Thursday afternoon, Matt Moore, the Rays' 25-year-old lefty, took a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the Twins and ran his streak of scoreless innings to 22 1/3 before surrendering a run. After notching 10 strikeouts and securing his 13th win in Tampa Bays 4-3 victory -- its eight straight triumph -- he was named to the American League All-Star team to replace the injured Yu Darvish.
Moore buzzed through the lineup of the hapless Twins, who came in having lost 10 of their last 11 games. He struck out four hitters in his first time through the order, needing only 31 pitches to do so, and didn't allow a baserunner until walking Joe Mauer with two outs in the fourth. He allowed his first hit with two outs in the sixth, a double by Brian Dozier, and then surrendered a game-tying RBI single to Jamey Carroll before striking out Mauer for the second time of the day. He threw 22 pitches in that inning, the only time he needed more than 15 to get through a frame. He rebounded to strike out two of three Twins in the seventh, but ran out of gas in the eighth, issuing a one-out walk to Clete Thomas and then a single to Pedro Florimon before being lifted.
In all, Moore got 16 swings and misses out of his 106 pitches according to the PITCHf/x data at BrooksBaseball.net. Five came via his four-seam fastball, which averaged 93.9 mph; he threw a total of 46 four-seamers and another 12 two-seamers. Nine swings and misses came from among his 25 changeups, continuing his recent trend of featuring the change as his primary offspeed pitch. By comparison, he threw 15 sliders, only two of which netted swings and misses.
The outing was the deepest Moore pitched into a game since April 22, when he threw eight innings against the Yankees. It was his fifth straight quality start since an ugly three-start stretch in early June in which he allowed 20 runs in 12 1/3 innings, nearly doubling his ERA (from 2.18 to 4.12) in the process. Currently, he has a 3.44 mark while striking out 9.1 per nine, a rate that ranks eighth in the league. With the outing, he has now allowed one home run in his last 59 1/3 innings, covering a total of 11 starts.
Moore joins an AL All-Star team that is already loaded with starters. Clay Buchholz and Darvish are injured and Bartolo Colon will pitch Sunday, ruling him out as a participant on Tuesday, but Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma, Justin Masterson, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are all on the roster.
As to who will take the mound first for the AL at the Midsummer Classic, neither NL manager Bruce Bochy nor AL manager Jim Leyland has tabbed his starting pitcher yet. While much attention has been focused on whether or not the Mets' Matt Harvey will take the ball for the NL, there's been comparatively less discussion of who should start for the AL. Scherzer, who is tied for the league lead with 13 wins (and has no losses) and who ranks second in strikeout rate (10.6 per nine), third in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.0) and fourth in Wins Above Replacement (3.9) would seem to be the obvious choice, particularly with his own manager making the call. However, he's scheduled to start for the Tigers on Saturday. From a story in the Central Michigan Morning Sun:
Leyland has said, even though those pitchers who start the Sunday before the All-Star Game are eligible to pitch, if their team OKs it, he won't pitch them. He also won't pitch any Saturday starter more than an inning, meaning that his own Max Scherzer — 13-0 after Wednesday's win — may not be eligible for the honor of starting the All-Star Game.
That pitcher will need to be able to go at least two innings, the manager has said.
From among the other starters, Hernandez and Iwakuma are scheduled to start for the Mariners on Saturday and Sunday, while Verlander is set to go for the Tigers on Sunday as well. That would appear to narrow the choice to Masterson, Moore and Sale. Statistically, the 24-year-old White Sox' southpaw would appear to have the upper hand, given that he came into the day leading the league in WAR (4.5), and after striking out eight while allowing three runs in 6 2/3 innings in a win over Detroit, he's fourth in strikeout rate (9.8 per nine), and a close fifth in ERA (2.85, just 0.16 behind league leader Hernandez). Across the board, those numbers are stronger than those of Moore (who had 1.7 WAR coming into the day) or Masterson (2.2 WAR, 3.78 ERA, 9.1 strikeouts per nine).
There doesn't appear to be a timetable for Leyland and Bochy to announce their starting pitchers. But after Moore's latest gem, Leyland must at least now give serious consideration to a man who wasn't even on his roster when Thursday began.JAFFE: Mets skip Harvey with eye on All-Star Game and beyond


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One Light Only (OLO) is a collection of striking pendant lights that draw on Lee Broom's fashion background. Characterised by its gem-like faceted exterior, OLO references both Art Deco jewellery and late 1970's fashion photography.
OLO is now presented in three finishes. Two stunning matt finishes - matt white and matt gold - producing sharp lines and graphic, angled shadows on its surface. The form of the light is also reinterpreted in solid walnut - the wood grain adding a natural and tactile element to the geometric shape of the shade. A polished gold interior ensures a warm glow is emitted on all.
OLO is available in two sizes and works equally well in clusters or as a stand alone piece.
Dimensions: w 150mm h 100mm
Materials: Powder coated ABS resin
Bulb: E27 fitting/max 40w/50-60hz - bulb not supplied
© All Rights Reserved 2015, Lee Broom. Site by Groundnation.


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Moonroof, Third Row Seat, Heated Leather Seats, Entertainment System, Nav System, Power Liftgate, Aluminum Wheels, Rear Air. Elite trim, White Diamond Pearl exterior and MOCHA interior. EPA 28 MPG Hwy/19 MPG City! Warranty 5 yrs/60k Miles - Drivetrain Warranty, CLICK ME!KEY FEATURES INCLUDELeather Seats, Third Row Seat, Navigation, DVD, Sunroof, Power Liftgate, Rear Air, Heated Driver Seat, Cooled Driver Seat, Back-Up Camera, Satellite Radio, iPod/MP3 Input, Bluetooth, CD Player, Aluminum Wheels Rear Spoiler, MP3 Player, Power Third Passenger Door, Rear Seat Audio Controls, Remote Trunk Release.EXCELLENT SAFETY FOR YOUR FAMILYChild Safety Locks, Electronic Stability Control, Brake Assist, 4-Wheel ABS, 4-Wheel Disc Brakes, Tire Pressure Monitoring System Honda Elite with White Diamond Pearl exterior and MOCHA interior features a V6 Cylinder Engine with 280 HP at 6000 RPM*.EXPERTS 's review says The 2018 Honda Odyssey is the driver's choice in the minivan class. A strong V6 gives you plenty of power for passing while the van's precise steering and stable handling instill confidence..BUY FROM AN AWARD WINNING DEALERMoss Honda is your go-to Honda dealer in the Lafayette, LA area and beyond for many reasons. It starts with our extensive selection of the latest Honda models as well as our friendly, knowledgeable sales team. If you're still not convinced Moss Honda is the place to be for all your Honda needs, stop by our dealership to experience the Moss difference today!Horsepower calculations based on trim engine configuration. Fuel economy calculations based on original manufacturer data for trim engine configuration. Please confirm the accuracy of the included equipment by calling us prior to purchase.
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Brahma Clusters
|Duke University Physics Department
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Brahma History
The Duke Physics Department is not new to cluster computing, nor did its cluster computing efforts begin with the beowulf in 1995. The department has run a Unix-based TCP/IP client/server network of commodity workstations since roughly the mid-80's. Originally this network was built around a PDP-11, a Sun 110M server with many serial ports and a serial port terminal, a handful of Sun 3's, a SGI Iris, and a Sun 386i.
A number of these systems were being used to perform computations in granular flow (Robert Behringer), quantum optics and condensed matter physics (Robert G. Brown and Mikael Ciftan) and of course there were numerous computations run on specific topics on individual systems over the years (we are a physics department, after all:-).
Over almost a ten year period, workstations (mostly Sun Sparcstations, but with SGI Iris's, a SGI 220S, and various PC's augmenting the mix) were added to the department's original thinwire 10Base2 network, and the group of Berndt Mueller in particular began using the network of systems for high performance computing in nuclear physics. SunOS did an excellent job of multitasking, so it was very natural to start to spread numerical jobs around and run them "in parallel" in the background on a workstation where some user was logged in and working interactively (but not computationally) in the foreground.
In about 1993, Brown learned about PVM -- one of the original parallel libraries designed to turn a cluster of networked workstations in to a "virtual supercomputer". Inside six months, his computations were running on top of PVM, using virtually all the systems in the physics department network as a compute cluster. In this way the jobs rapidly accumulated supercomputer-level quantities of time and permitted him to publish very precise Monte Carlo results without the tremendous expense of a real supercomputer, using what amounted to "free" computing (otherwise wasted idle cycles on desktop workstations).
This worked so well that by 1994 Brown was using all of the physics department and the math department's architecturally similar Sun LAN as well, over thirty two Sparc CPUs all total, in a single ongoing computation, and looking for more "free" compute power.
This was found in 1995 in form of new Academic Computing clusters set up by Duke all over campus for student use. These were (mostly) Sparc 5 systems running Solaris 2.2 and 2.3, which had recently replaced the venerable BSD-based SunOS on all newly sold Sparc systems. Brown had account access on the systems already by virtue of being on the faculty; the systems (like all workstations used as interactive desktops) were 90% idle 90% of the time, and it looked like an ideal opportunity to extend the computation out over 100 or more systems delivering on the order of GFLOPs of total compute power.
Brown sought permission to run his (Monte Carlo) code in the background on these systems. Permission was granted on an experimental basis, and he promptly did so. For a bit more than six months, the "OnSpin3d" computation was spread out over as many as 150 systems at once in acpub, in the physics department, and in the math department.
Many GFLOP-years of cycles (depending on what you count as a "GFLOP") were accumulated on his embarrassingly parallel computation (which was no longer being run on top of PVM to avoid stressing the campus backbone network, but rather was being run more like a Grid application with remote, scripted job submission and occasional expect/tcl/rsh grazing of accumulated results). All this work went into a lovely Physical Review paper.
Alas, it turned out that althought the idea of recovering cycles like this was conceptually sound and worked perfectly under BSD-based SunOS, SysV-based Solaris had a different, badly broken, scheduler. A process that could run on a Sparcstation 1 in the background "invisible" to the interactive user of the Sparcstation console would gradually de facto boost its priority on a ten or more times faster Sparcstation 5 to where it would ultimately render the interactive console unusably slow. In its early years and revisions, Solaris was known not-so-fondly as "Slowaris" among computer cognoscenti, largely for this reason.
Obviously, this was unacceptable, and Brown's "grand experiment" with turning an entire University WAN into a (for the time) enormous compute cluster ended. At the time there seemed to be little reason to "publish" the experiment for public accolade, but using published linpack results of roughly 10 MFLOPS for the Sparc 5, the aggregate peak power of this "Grid" style cluster in application to OnSpin3d was in the ballpark of 12-15 GLOPs, enough to have easily put it in the top 100 on the top 500 list for 1995 (recognizing, of course, that the aggregate linpack results for that list were based on a slightly different benchmark and hence not directly comparable).
Even so, the GFLOP-years of computation accumulated during the six months that OnSpin3d ran on the cluster were sufficient to allow a lovely paper to be written, and provided direct inspiration to Brown to build a dedicated cluster computer in the physics department to continue his work. He faced two problems. Sparcs (up to then the architecture of choice for the price/performance senstive, especially at Duke, which had excellent pricing from Sun) were proving too expensive to buy in large quantities. At the same time Solaris had proven to be a spectacular failure as a potential cluster operating system, and although the physics department had clung to SunOS 4.x for that very reason, it was increasingly difficult to resist Sun's pressure to "upgrade" to Solaris on new hardware.
Brown had already encountered linux and was experimenting with floppy-based Slackware and SLS on his home PC's, but the 133 MHz Pentium and AMD processors of the day, although "decent" performers in terms of the interactive desktop, were not stellar numerical performers compared to the 10 MFLOP or better Sparcs. In 1995, however, Intel had released its new Pentium Pro (P6 architecture) chips.
These chips promised several very signficant improvements over the Pentium. Their floating point performance was much improved and actually compared well to the Sparcs, including the new Ultra Sparcs, in absolute terms while significantly beating them in price/performance. Also, they were architected to work in a dual processor configuration. At the time, the chassis, hard disk, and other supporting hardware that comprised a "system" were a significant fraction of its total cost. Packing two processors in one chassis represented a further improvement in the cost/benefit ratio for CPU bound code like OnSpin3d.
Brown did not have tremendously great resources to spend on computer hardware, and there were limits on what could reasonably be sought from the agency funding his research. This meant that building a cluster with 32 or more nodes was out of the question, as it would have cost well over $100,000 at the time. The design of a linux-based Pentium Pro cluster to run OnSpin3d was obvious, it was a matter of matching the scale of the design to the funding. Support was obtained from the Army Research Office to purchase four dual processor 200 MHz Pentium Pro systems, with the University providing a brand new switched 100BT ethernet for the entire department as part of a campus wide networking project.
Shortly after the system was designed and its funding sought, a visitor to the department from Drexel gave a short presentation on cluster computing and for the first time we learned of the linux-based "beowulf" built the previous year, with similar clusters duplicated at Drexel and a few other institutions (the ones at the top of the "clusters" list on the beowulf.org website). We were not alone! This came as a welcome surprise, and Brown soon joined the beowulf mailing list and made lots of new friends, all heavily involved in building, designing, using and even studying COTS high-performance compute clusters.
The systems funded by the ARO were ordered and delivered in mid-1996, with a few additional systems purchased with DOE and NSF funds by individual groups in the department over the next year. The 2.0.0 linux kernel, the first production kernel that would support SMP operation on the Pentium Pro, had literally just been released in June and was promptly installed. A minor glitch with the vendor (the systems were ordered with TWO processors, but shipped with only one, making it remarkably difficult to get the right process scaling:-) was resolved satisfactorily.
Some interesting glitches in system operation caused Brown to make his first somewhat desperate foray into the new world of "kernel hacking", and gave him a deep insight into the benefits of running an open source operating system on compute nodes where one could try to fix things instead of wait "forever" for Sun to e.g. fix their scheduler. Nevertheless, by mid-September these initial problems were resolved, OnSpin3d was running on all four linux-based SMP systems (three as "cluster nodes", one as a server and desktop console). Eight CPUs, 1600 aggregate MHz, and a reasonable fraction of a GFLOP at a cost of less than $20,000.
Brown's desktop had been named "ganesh" for years as Brown grew up in India (a tradition that continues to this very day:-), and a motif of Hindu gods as names for Unix systems had been in use in the department for many years. The new systems were therefore christened Brahma, Shiva, Ganesh, and Arjuna, with the cluster itself named Brahma in honor of the "B" in "Beowulf" and ganesh the "head node" on Brown's desktop.
Linux 2.0.0 soon proved to have a much better multitasking scheduler than Solaris (as did the earlier 0.9+ versions he had played with before), comparable in efficiency to the SunOS scheduler of days past. OnSpin3d ran happily in the background of desktop systems with no visible impact on interactive performance, so Brown rapidly pushed most of his nodes out to desktops within the physics department, which was somewhat starved at the time for desktop workstations. Graduate offices and faculty desks were graced with the original systems, and new systems were given out to anyone willing to buy a monitor, keyboard and mouse (not essential to their cluster functionality and hence not purchased with grant money). Brahma was architected as a "distributed parallel supercomputer" on the original PVM model, which could freely mix dedicated and desktop systems into a single organized model applied to a single (fairly coarse grained) parallel problem.
More and more systems were added to Brahma, and eventually systems started to be shelved up on our relatively small server room. At any given time over half of the systems were out on desktops, but all the systems were typically at a load average of 1.0 or slightly higher, running OnSpin3d and other programs continuously in the background while permitting the interactive user to browse the burgeoning Web, read and send mail, run Mathematica, and do many other physics or instructionally related tasks. Few networks in the world squeezed more value out of its systems than our physics department, which rapidly converted from all other operating systems to almost exclusive use of Linux as its overwhelming cost/benefit advantage became apparent.
All things pass in time, however, and clusters are no exception. Moore's law continued its inexorable advance, and PII's and the PIII's appeared. The first two major "all at once" additions of cluster nodes (the Intel equipment grant systems indicated as Brahma 2 and (the Intel equipment grant systems indicated as Brahma 3) continued to be named Brahma, and a node-naming scheme of b1, b2, b3... was introduced to differentiate "dedicated" compute nodes from nodes on people's desktops. This scheme failed to indicate processor generation or node architecture, however, and users had to keep track of where the 400 MHz CPUs ended and the older 933 MHz systems began by hand. The use of desktop systems as compute nodes began to gradually decline as well, not because it was obtrusive but because it simply became too difficult to know what was available and free.
Beginning with the ganesh cluster (g01-g15 and ganesh itself) all new "Brahma" clusters have subsequently been given unique "names" of their own that are associated with their ownership, application, and numbering scheme. This, together with xmlsysd and wulfstat, have made it very simple indeed to track the clusters for utilization, load, availability, and so forth.
At the time of this writing (April, 2003) Brahma has grown from its original GFLOP or so of aggregate power to somewhere in the ballpark of 50-100 GFLOPs, with over a hundred nodes and two hundred CPUs. Its power keeps growing, as well, as by now the power of COTS cluster computing is no secret, and Duke has gone from a couple of clusters in 1996 to literally more clusters and sub-clusters than can be counted in 2003. The newly renovated cluster/server room the Duke physics building houses both our own brahma-related cluster(s) and the 96 CPU (Dual Athlon 1800+) "genie" cluster owned and operated by the Institute for Statistics and Decision Sciences at Duke, for example.
Commodity computer based network cluster computing was not invented by any single individual or group (although, as noted above, Jack Dongarra and the inventors of PVM would have one of the most valid claims based on the fact that this software package was one of the first explicitly designed to support this very thing). It has come into its present form by means of the collective effort of hundreds of individuals and groups in institutions and universities all over the world. Since the mid-90's, the organizing "brain" of that effort has without question been the beowulf mailing list, organized by Thomas Sterling and Donald Becker as an outgrowth of their "beowulf" project at NASA-Goddard.
Duke University and the Duke University Physics Department via the Brahma project is proud to have been one of the first major cluster computing sites, and one of the major contributors to the development and promotion of linux and cluster computing on the beowulf list for many years.
|Duke University Physics Department


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Beloit College's Advising Practicum was once again featured in a major news outlet. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote about the program, now in its second year, in "Liberal arts colleges emphasizing practical experience" published on Nov. 22.
Reporter Karen Herzog came to Beloit to cover Advising Practicum where she interviewed students and attended sessions including "Choosing a Major: Life Partner or Social Change?" led by Charles Westerberg, director of the Liberal Arts in Practice Center.
"CEOS are looking for critical thinking, creative problem solving, communication skills, the ability to work as part of a team," Herzog noted Westerberg as telling the packed classroom of approximately 50 students.
To read the article in its entirety, click here.


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Connecticut Lighting Centers, Hartford, CT
The first in its area to promote the "lighting center" concept, family-owned and -operated Connecticut Lighting Centers was established in 1972 by the Director family and a staff of six employees. Comprised today of three showrooms, including Restoration Lighting Gallery, the business has thrived thanks to a team of experienced lighting and home décor professionals whose priority is serving their customers' every need. Founder Arthur Director's business philosophy ("The Customer Is Boss!") has been handed down to his son, David, who continues to run a retail business that's open seven days and five nights each week. If need be, the store will open early or close late to make sure every customer is served.
"Any project we handle, whether large or small, we will handle professionally, efficiently and within budget," says the company's recently revamped website.
A new decorative hardware department in the Hartford and Southington showrooms is giving customers yet another reason to shop. Cabinet hardware, decorative knobs and pulls, locksets, door knockers, grab bars and lots more are merchandised to suit consumers and contractors alike. Opened recently, the decorative hardware department is promoted with magazine and broadcast ads, and on the company's website and Facebook page, to create customer awareness and excitement. A consistent e-mail effort also helps customers stay in the know.
Knowledgeable, friendly employees are the backbone of Connecticut Lighting's business success. Regular training on a wide variety of topics keeps the staff on top of the latest developments and trends in lighting and home décor. Because it prides itself on a huge product selection, this "one-stop shopping" retailer depends on courses from the American Lighting Assn. (ALA) and sessions with sales representatives to ensure its staff has the most up-to-date information.
One exceptional long-term employee, Outside Sales Manager Jim Meltzer, enabled the company to win the prestigious 2012 HomeWorks Job of the Year Award from Lutron. The winning project in an 18,000-square-foot custom home called for programming 288 buttons, a garage entry and a variety of time clock programs.
Design Lighting, Surrey, BC
Voted the "Best of the Best" by local residents for six years running, Design Lighting bills itself as Western Canada's only lighting showroom with a complete design center. This remarkable center includes full-size kitchen, dining and living areas, as well as a comprehensive landscape lighting lab that enables customers to see how their fixtures would look in a dark sky setting.
The showroom's Optiwatt switching system allows every fixture to be turned on while conserving energy since only
10 percent of the display fixtures are actually on through a wired relay system. Some showrooms use Optiwatt for some of their displays, but Design Lighting has 100 percent of its 3,000-plus fixtures on this energy-saving system.
Each one of the company's contract sales specialists is assigned a full-time project coordinator who handles after-sale service and facilitates the logistics of every order. This ensures customers are properly serviced every step along the way and allows salespeople to focus on selling.
Many lighting showrooms consider salespeople part of the "family," but Design Lighting's customers are also given family status. Every customer is greeted individually when walking into the store, a personal touch that resonates through the entire company and with its vendors as well. Employees have passionately embraced a new bonus incentive program based on quarterly sales levels.
Thanks to a consistent print and radio advertising effort, Design Lighting is well-known throughout its market. The public recognizes it as a product leader, especially in the area of "green" technology. Twice yearly "garage sales" designed to blow out excess inventory are advertised heavily; at the last two events, the store had crowds of 20 people deep waiting for the doors to open.
A full-time staff is charged with keeping the showroom fresh by constantly moving around merchandise. Two fully decorated vignettes that pair lighting with furniture and accessories are updated weekly — and customers notice. They have been delighted with Design Lighting's new display of Lutron's electric- and battery-operated window blinds. The goal is to create showroom ambience that is second-to-none in the market.
Elements Distinctive Lighting & Home Furnishings, Carle Place, NY
For more than 25 years, Elements Distinctive Lighting & Home Furnishings has grown its business by doing things differently. Known in its local market as the showroom that designs its own products, the company has also built a national following among trade professionals. A national sales force backs up a comprehensive trade website and full-line catalog. A proprietary coded number system creates a layer of pricing protection for interior designers and the like.
A unique product offering sets Elements apart from the pack. Buyers tirelessly bring in new products from every corner of the globe, which are presented in the showroom as collections. Management takes great pride in its ability to constantly reinvent the showroom through a unique product mix, stylized visual merchandising and the personal touch of the company's dedicated design sales associates.
Having a design-savvy staff is a very important ingredient to Elements' business growth. A number of associates are graduates of the Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Members of the staff teach lighting courses at Nassau Community College, as well as at a local design school, the Metropolitan Institute. These courses are offered to students and company employees, and are supplemented by in-store seminars.
Being a community leader is a keystone of Elements' success. When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, Elements went into action to help residents recover. During a four-day Black Friday sale, 10 percent of proceeds were donated to a local relief effort, Long Island Cares. Two employees reached out to local families by collecting donations that paid for food baskets and products from Elements, while also supplying much-needed cash.
When it comes to advertising, marketing and publicity, Elements takes a long-term approach with monthly calendars that take all media into account. Recently the company has focused on Facebook and other social media, as well as targeted e-mail blasts. These e-mail blasts are a blend of informational content and promotion, giving readers insight into new design trends, hot products and overstock specials.
Lighting By Gregory, New York City
Since it opened in 1985, this 8,000-square-foot showroom in New York's famous Bowery has depended on a broad range of products and excellent customer service to bring in customers from near and far. That combination has allowed the company to become one of the oldest lighting showrooms in Manhattan's lighting district and a bona fide New York landmark. The most influential lighting minds and everyday consumers walk under the famed golden canopy above the showroom's front door every day — month in, month out. Set dressers from television and motion pictures have been using designs from Lighting by Gregory for years.
Famous folks or just everyday people, loyal customers are drawn to Lighting by Gregory by salespeople who have between 15 and 20 years of experience. One employee who joined the company when he was still in high school is a part owner today. Each sales associate is truly exceptional in his or her ability to service customers, from one small part to the largest projects. Even with their collective experience, employees are paid to attend ongoing educational seminars that help them stay abreast of new trends and developments.
A huge amount of inventory is maintained in on-site warehouses that span four buildings. The showroom itself is divided into four rooms, each with well-merchandised galleries representing various lighting manufacturers. The emphasis is placed on high-end contemporary lighting designs from major European brands, as well as American companies.
Buyers are always looking for fresh new product by attending trade events such as the annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. In the recent past, eight new lines were added. Displays are evaluated every quarter to determine how well they are producing on a sales-per-square-foot basis.
Lighting by Gregory's relaunched website provides comprehensive information on all the products its sells, ship times, style advice and more. Customers are often referred to the website to better understand the showroom's full product assortment. Print ads in popular media drive people to the website and the store with a powerful message: Shop Lighting by Gregory for brand names for less.
Littman Bros. Lighting, Schaumburg, IL
When brothers Benson and Dan Littman first opened Littman Bros. in 1979, the company was destined to become a ceiling fan chain, with up to 20 locations. Throughout the 1980s, Littman Bros. was importing ceiling fans directly to each store's location. At the same time, the company also began importing light fixtures. As home centers took larger pieces of the lower-end ceiling fan and lighting market, Littman began to consolidate operations. Management adjusted its focus to higher-end products to cover a side of the industry where the home centers left off. Littman also expanded to commercial sales — and eventually online sales.
Some 30 years later, full lines of retail and commercial lighting make Littman unique. Offices have been built within the showroom to run commercial and e-commerce operations. Sons and daughters of Benson Littman and Dan Littman have also joined the team in the last decade, making it truly a family business. Other key players are the sales team, with more than 120 years of combined experience in the lighting industry, solely with Littman Bros. Each is treated like a family member. Showroom managers Dave Miller and Lisa Cauldren have been working at Littman Bros. since 1983. Other sales employees have been with Littman nearly a decade.
Fresh retail displays that bring home fashion to the forefront inspire and excite customers. Among many display updates, the store's Tech Lighting area was recently modeled after the company's Dallas showroom. Designed around a stark white background, the display emphasizes the beautiful shape of each fixture in a simple, yet dramatic way.
Littman Bros. has used the Internet to build its business, too. Now an online authority, the company uses social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Houzz to show the latest lighting fashion and design ideas. Weekly blog posts on the Littman Bros. website, Blogger and Wordpress not only educate and inspire customers, they have earned the company publicity via local media outlets in the form of guest columns. Informative weekly press releases are another way Littman Bros. gets its name out.
Meletio Lighting & Electrical Supply, Dallas
Dallas-area homeowners, interior designers, builders and contractors flock to Meletio Lighting & Electrical Supply for the 10,000-square-foot showroom's one-of-a-kind product presentation and exemplary customer service. Part of the community since 1920, Meletio is the area's largest stocking distributor of many popular brands and offers next-day delivery throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
The company takes pride in going above and beyond to ensure customers will be completely satisfied with the service and their purchase. All sales associates are ALA Lighting Specialists. In addition to monthly customer service seminars for the staff, Meletio schedules regular product knowledge sessions taught by factory sales reps.
"Meletio At Your Service" is another way Meletio connects with customers. This new program makes factory-certified and -trained technicians available for house calls. These professionals handle everything from changing light bulbs
to installing light fixtures.
Meletio also caters to interior designers and custom homebuilders with a Trade Member program. Members can make use of a space within the showroom equipped with a catalog library for their own research and customer consultations. Trade pricing, a special order program, educational seminars, networking events and more are other ways Meletio attracts professionals to its Trade Member program.
Trade and end-user customers alike see Meletio advertising in high-end interior design magazines. E-mail marketing and the company's popular Facebook page are other ways of keeping customers engaged. A luxury box promotion that reached targeted consumers reinforced the Meletio brand and also got the name in front of new potential customers, too.
Marketing is a skill the company does well, but building relationships through service is a Meletio specialty. Recently employees joined forces with Habitat for Humanity to build a new home. The company paid to send five employees to Oklahoma to put new roofs on tornado-damaged homes. Teams of employees go to a local Salvation Army to work in the kitchen for one week each quarter. And the company always sponsors a family through a local church each year at Christmas.
Norburn Lighting, Burnaby, BC
"Every channel matters in the new retail landscape. And while a multi-channel approach is certainly more complex, if done strategically, it pays off." That perspective, taken from Norburn Lighting's Showroom of the Year entry statement, provides great insight into the company's long-standing success. In business for more than 40 years, Norburn has worked hard to keep in step with today's sophisticated customer, a shopper who has more choices for where to buy lighting than ever before. "In the past, it was price, quality and speed; choose any two," the entry statement reads. "Today a company that can't deliver on all three is dead in the water."
So Norburn uses strategic analytics, social media, CRM lead generation, result-oriented SEO and other facets of a 21st Century operation to build sales and profits. A thoughtful marketing program runs the gamut from informative advertorials in key publications to e-mail blasts to a blog on the company website. Targeting specific products and categories, the popular blog posts are crafted to include keywords that improve the company's ranking in Google and other search engines. Norburn has found that creative, low-cost contests with gift card prizes help to grow its social media audience on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Modern techniques aside, quality customer service is still the main ingredient in the company's recipe for success.
"Recruit for attitude, train for skill" is a philosophy that has served Norburn well. To properly service a market of great cultural diversity — more than one third of Vancouver's population was born outside Canada — the staff can converse in a total of 10 languages, from Mandarin to Farsi. Everyone on the customer service staff has earned, at the minimum, ALA Lighting Specialist credentials. In addition, Norburn has a robust, industry-leading training program and pays for any outside course that will benefit the company and staff member. Marketing Director Norm Brown was even recognized by the ALA as a Pillar of the Industry for his dedication to continued education and training.
Union Lighting and Furnishings, Toronto
A past Showroom of the Year Award winner, Union Lighting and Furnishings continues its mission of providing a retail environment and shopping experience that is unlike any other lighting, furnishings and accessories store in the metropolitan Toronto marketplace. The largest lighting showroom in Canada is also among the oldest; the company began in 1914 as Star Gas & Electric, later changing its name to reflect the "union" of the five brothers and their families who owned and operated the business. The current showroom opened in 1960 in a centrally located part of the city and today spans some 100,000 square feet of selling space, served by a staff of more than 80 men and women.
Renovations and improvements are ongoing. In the recent past, the store added a mattress gallery, enlarged the fabric selection area, created new galleries for chairs and wall sconces, and revamped its juvenile furniture area. Outdoor lighting, seating and dining furniture are now displayed in another new area designed with a life-size house façade, real cobblestones, doorways, trees and other atmospherics to closely replicate a genuine outdoor experience. Customers use iPads to control LED lighting and electronic window blinds within a new state-of-the-art "Experience Room."
While consumers account for a sizable portion of sales, Union also provides Toronto's top interior designers, builders, architects and developers with a commitment to excellence and service beyond most retailers. Union has renovated its showroom for the designer, too, with intimate, self-contained room settings that make for a better understanding of the design process. Designers' clients can literally "feel at home" and take each experience one room at a time. A new coffee bar gives designers a place where they can sit and talk with their clients in a comfortable private setting.
Union aims to be a good neighbor and works with a number of non-profits throughout the year. It is the largest contributor of new retail goods to area Salvation Army stores and is the exclusive lighting partner to the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Home Lottery. It has also provided fully furnished rooms for the Children's Wish Foundation.
Urban Lights, Denver
Urban Lights bills itself as Denver's largest, newest and coolest lighting showroom. Re-opened in November 2010, the 50,000-square-foot showroom consists of lifestyle settings presented in galleries complete with storefronts that give customers the feeling of shopping a store within a store.
According to its entry statement, Urban Lights puts an emphasis on in-store displays that "breathe." The feeling is that lighting should be shown in intimate settings or, at least, displayed in ways that don't feel congested or layered on the ceiling. Merchandisers create lighting displays that show off the artistic and sculptural nature of the products' design.
Attention to detail includes an ever-changing array of furniture, decorative accessories and artwork that keeps the showroom fresh and on-trend. Surfaces within the galleries are regularly treated to new wallpaper, paint or other materials. Recently a full travertine marble wall went up in a gallery called Italian Villa to give it a genuine Tuscan feeling. The wall not only looks great, it helped sell fixtures moved in front of it from other areas of the showroom.
Accommodating customers as much as possible is another way that Urban Lights differentiates itself, like being open all weekend. In the past year, the company also stepped up its service commitment by doing more free in-home consultations. A growing network of custom fixture makers adds another layer of the personal touch customers so appreciate.
While its website and social media efforts have become central to Urban Lights, this past year the company had great success with a spadea wrap in Denver's daily newspaper. About the same cost as an inserted tabloid ad, the wrap went around the paper's main news section, boosting visibility and readership. The residual impact lasted about two months, with weekend sales up 30 percent during each of the eight weeks following the ad.
Yale Lighting + Appliance, Boston
The way Yale Appliance management sees it, the only way to compete as a brick-and-mortar operation is to have better salespeople selling better product so customers have a better shopping experience. "In the Internet age of instant feedback and reviews on Yelp, Google and Angie's List, service must be the most important element of any business," according to the company's entry statement. "Service is our core competency."
In business since 1923, the 30,000-square-foot showroom devotes about half its selling space to lighting, with the balance going to appliances, plumbing and accessories. In the past year, the company worked hard to improve the shopping experience all the more by adding 10,000 square feet of selling space, moving its warehousing, and updating its operating and social media platforms.
A culture and commitment to excellence makes Yale unique. An expert staff is at the heart of Yale's success and associates receive ongoing training at least three days a week. This year, there will be more half-day off-site training. The company aims to hire people of good character, compensates them well and offers an extremely competitive benefits package. Quarterly bonuses are based on meeting targets and each department has different quarterly goals. This year, Yale's 110 employees will receive $400,000 in bonus pay, a sign that each team member understands his or her own role in overall company performance. Likewise, the company is generous to its community, donating merchandise and more than $100,000 each year to local causes.
Strategic blogging, targeted e-mail campaigns, Facebook and Pinterest posts are part of a well-defined social media strategy. The blog is viewed more than a million times in a year; 21 e-mail campaigns have a 45 percent open rate, with a click-through rate of more than 30 percent. The key to sales through these efforts, according to Yale's entry statement, is relevance and behavior. "We want to inform without being overbearing," the statement explains. "We have stopped advertising and shouting at people through outbound media, and started answering their questions through blogs and videos."


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Помогите нам: эти порнозвезды присутствуют в этом видео?
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Say supercalifragilisticexpialidoucousee 5 times fast
Love to get between those lovely thighs
Have you noticed that her pussy is permenently closed in all her videos
Paloma B
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hot and sexy
red socks and yellow sneakers make me harddddddd, nice peach, too...mmmmmmm.
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hallà,ca va?
Lucky Camera Man
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why she only rub her click and have not put nothing in what she waiting for
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i have the exact same mouse
she's quite a well known softcore model- uses the Name PALOMA B on sites like Met Art
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"She" looks like a he, to me atleast.
Et Dieu crea la femme.
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century regional
Does anyone know the best treatment for a cold?
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pussy is fat
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popcorn sound :)
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What is this song called
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What's her name????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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Boston Marathon bombings suspects photos
Photos released by the FBI depicting two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, now identified as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was apprehended late Friday, and 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was shot and killed by police late Thursday.
Posters revealed by the FBI depicting the two suspects of the Boston Marathon bombings.(Photo: FBI)
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text: Lake Cruise ADD TO Trip Planner Take a guided tour on Bull Shoals Lake and get a chance to see some wintering waterfowl and maybe even a bald eagle. Trips on the lake are chilly this time of year so please dress appropriately. You may want to bring along binoculars, a camera, or a field guide if you have one. Lake conditions may limit availability. Seats are limited. No reservations. First-come basis. Get Directions Gas Calculator Details Dates: January 12, 2013 Hours: 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Venue: Bull Shoals-White River State ParkBull Shoals Lake Boat Dock Address: Bull Shoals, AR 72619 Admission: $9 adults, $5 children Phone: 870-445-3629 Contact: Park Superintendent Email: email@example.com


text: spoiler alert: this may get depressing. found on TriumphRat.net http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wc6...UIFCoPs9ZmIq6i2AvJrRFZTf1xbt_GorHZxrVJg7QSomI Unknown guy and unknown story, but in the end that's what it's all about; creating your story and creating the guy (or gal) you want to be. So, philosophical question: when it's time to go, and given your druthers, is it sliding into the grave headfirst having sung the song of the sausage creature or persisting and forever exploring till the sandman cometh?


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Available in Silver or Gold.
It all started when Ivonne's first child was born. Ivonne's mom, who lives in Mexico, gave her an eye charm for her baby to wear for protection, a tradition that fascinated many people in her community. As a result, she started selling jewelry with eyes to her friends and neighbors, giving any earnings to her mom.
After realizing the importance for people to find meaning in the jewelry they buy for themselves and others, Ivonne founded her first company, I Accessories. Designing and selling high-fashion eye jewelry, she operated I Accessories for 8 years.
Blee Inara is the culmination of Ivonne's tireless efforts to offer the perfect combination of design, comfort, and beauty, all inspired by a sense of harmony, bliss, goodwill and peace. Layering the jewelry and creating your own personal combination is a key aspect of the Blee Inara concept.


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Dozens Arrested in Demos Demanding Kurdish Leader's Release
Police arrested nearly 100 people during demonstrations in several Turkish towns marking the second anniversary of the arrest of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, Anatolia news agency reported Friday.
Some 60 were held late Thursday after demonstrators hurled stones at police cars, smashing their windows in the southern town of Mersin.
Elsewhere Kurds burned tires in protest against the death sentence passed on Ocalan, head of the banned militant separatist Kurdish organization, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Ocalan was seized by Turkish agents in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in February 1999.
A Turkish court later sentenced him to death for treason and separatism. His execution was suspended pending a European Court of Human Rights ruling on complaints which he lodged that Turkey had violated human rights.
The PKK originally sought the creation of an independent Kurdish state in what is now southeastern Turkey.
But it downgraded its demands from full independence to ones of cultural rights and freer political representation following an appeal by the imprisoned Ocalan to lay down its arms and seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.
The PKK said it was withdrawing from Turkey, thus ending a violent campaign that had claimed some 36,500 lives since 1984.
Since 1999 clashes between Turkish security forces and the PKK have subsided in the south-eastern territory, and thousands of Turkish Kurdish rebels have taken refuge in neighboring northern Iraq.
Kurdish militants based in Europe had earlier this week sent messages to fellow activists in Turkey calling for 'Intifada-style demonstrations' to mark the anniversary of Ocalan, the leader of the separatist (PKK), Anatolia news agency reported.
The PKK said in a statement that "our people should express their reactions within the framework of democratic rules," the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Politika said in its Internet edition.
The seizure of Ocalan in Kenya ended a pursuit of the rebel leader who fled successively to Russia, Italy and Greece after Syria expelled him from his long-standing safe haven in Damascus in the face of Turkish threats of military action -- ANKARA (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)


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Google glitch gives Abbott government the Dame Edna Everage treatment
Googling the term "Abbott government" delivers more than 104 million results, and an image of a quizzical Dame Edna Everage at the top of the page.
Unless it's part of a soon-to-be-released Liberal media strategy, it appears the colourful picture of the Australian entertainment icon created by Barry Humphries is either a subtle satire created by a clever coder or a peculiar error somewhere in the complex web of connections plaited by Google's algorithms.
A Google spokesman said the segment at the top-right of the page, known as a "knowledge panel", is entirely algorithmically generated from a variety of sources.
Despite being given premier position on the search results, the panels have no human editors and rely on user feedback (via the feedback link directly beneath the box) to report incorrect information and associations.
The image of Ms Everage was sourced from India-based news aggregation blog Veeoz.com.au.
The image links to a summary blog post of a story published on The Age two months ago about the government's report into the inquiry of the Manus Island incident which resulted in the death of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Berati.
The Google spokesman said he was unable to comment about whether the error was more likely to be intentional or a simple accident.
He was not aware if there have been reports of coders gaming the algorithm system in the past.
The glitch has appeared in other Google searches, with the "knowledge panel" result for Metro Trains in Victoria displaying a photo that read: "Metro Trains. If you are late: they depart early. If you are early, they depart late.", for months until it was changed to resemble a more official listing.
The Dame Edna image has been taken down since Fairfax contacted Google on Wednesday morning.
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Mac and PC are showing everybody that yes, everybody can get along!
Justin Long ("Mac") and John Hodgman ("PC") played computing rivals in a series of Apple ads a few years ago. But as this Twitter photo posted by a moustached Hodgman shows, the two actors are buddies offscreen. They both attended a party at Soho House in New York City earlier this week.
FOREVER twitter.com/hodgman/status…— hodgman (@hodgman) April 30, 2013
Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign, which ran from 2006-09, featured Long as the young, cool, hipster "Mac" opposite Hodgman's buttoned-up businessman. The successful series became part of pop culture, and Adweek named "Get a Mac" the best advertising campaign of the oughts.
It also made a star out of the drily funny Hodgman. As he explained to Engadget, "The villain of any story is often the most compelling character. Justin, who is brilliantly funny, of course must play the hero, and the Luke Skywalkers of the world always catch a certain amount of flack. It's unfair, but inevitable, and I don't think it has caused people to buy more PCs anymore than it caused people to root for the empire over the Jedi. The Jedi still are the best. And they don't get viruses."
Check out the commercials:


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Mfg Item Num: TT209
Category: AMMO SHOTSHELLS
Gauge 20
Type : Target Load
Length :2 3/4
Ounces : 7/8
Shot Size 9
Muzzle Velocity :1250 fps
Rounds/box :25 Rounds Per Box, 10 Boxes Per Case
Drams : 2 1/2
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Matthew Williamson black earrings from The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel seen with Celia Imrie (Madge Hardcastle)
As Seen on Madge Hardcastle (Celia Imrie) in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
SASSY ENGLISH ROSE: In the sequel to the hit movie, the stellar cast reunites for another Eastern adventure in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. As Evelyn (Judi Dench) and Muriel (Maggie Smith) struggle with the highs and lows of love and friendship, Madge Hardcastle (Celia Imrie) steals the spotlight with her elegant draped blouses and witty one-liners.
Scroll down to see more clothes, outfits and products identified from The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
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