text:
It's been a week of horror on the Hume for truck drivers and motorists.
Four people have died on roads in our region within seven days, two semi trailers have caught alight, and several more motorists have been injured in a spate of incidents within the local area.
Yass highway patrol senior constable Mat Carroll lamented the number of recent road deaths here.
"The Gouburn Local Area Command has had four fatalities since last Friday, we've lost people from the age of seven to 59," he said on Tuesday.
He said Yass' location on a major freight route meant a large number of heavy vehicles travelled through the valley and police did see a lot of heavy vehicle accidents.
But our smaller country roads were faring no better.
"Two out of three of these fatals have been on back roads," he said.
The most recent accident was a double fatality on the Hume Highway near Gunning on Tuesday. A 58-year-old male driver and his 59-year-old male passenger were killed when their b-double truck crossed over the median and northbound lanes and down a steep embankment.
The cause of the crash is still being investigated. The driver had relatives living in Yass.
A seven-year-old boy was killed near Bungonia on Sunday. The car had been carrying two adults and four children on Jerrara Road, near Goulburn, about 4.45pm on Sunday when the vehicle left the roadway and crashed into a tree. A ten-year-old girl was airlifted to Canberra Hospital for treatment.
A 16-year-old Crookwell boy was killed in a single vehicle road accident driving from Crookwell to Grabben Gullen at about 4am November 30 when his ute left the road and crashed into a tree.
Motorists were forced to veer out of the way as an ACT car was driven the wrong direction along the Hume Highway near Goulburn on Sunday. Three police cars had to respond and the car was eventually stopped at Boxers Creek by another motorist after about 20 kilometres.
The 59-year-old driver, who was unwell and confused at the time, was charged with driving in a manner dangerous and had his licence automatically suspended.
The Hume Highway was completely closed southbound at Yass on November 29 after a truck carrying toxic tile bonding agent crashed and burst into flames 500 metres south of the Yass Service Centre on November 29. The truck had been transporting toxic tile bonding agent which caught fire. The driver escaped without injury.
One lane of the Hume Highway at Gunning was blocked the same morning after a prime mover caught alight at about 10.30am. The truck had been carrying non-toxic building materials at the time and the driver was uninjured.
Several other motorists had been involved in minor accidents during the past week.
A truck veered off Lachlan Valley way on Wednesday December 5, with the truck crashing down an embankment. The driver was unhurt but the truck had to be retrieved.
A hot wheel bearing which came off a truck on the Hume Highway at Manton in high winds on Wednesday started a fire which burnt out two acres of grassland.
Senior constable Carroll said during the Christmas period, highway patrol would be out in force.
"Police will be maintaining a high presence on back roads and main roads to keep the road toll as low as possible.
"In the lead up to Christmas we're doing the same message as previous years – we encourage motorists to drive to the conditions, wear seat belts, don't drink and drive, and if they feel fatigued they should pull over.
"Leading up to Christmas there is going to be increased traffic flow and all of the above factors are going to come into play."
Indicators show accidents within a small radius of Yass town within the last 10 days, including:
- Lachlan Valley Way: truck veered off the road, crashing through bushland.
- Hume Highway: truck engulfed in fire, about 500 mstres south of the Yass Service Centre.
- Hume Highway: a hot wheel bearing from a truck starts a grass fire at Manton.
- Hume Highway: two men are killed after their truck careers across four lanes and penetrates deep into bushland, south of Gunning.
- Hume Highway: a truck catches fire near Gunning, with driver escaping okay.


text:
Deadly animals drive BBC Earth to walk on the wild side
Bringing the best of natural history filmmaking to a large audience has never been easy. But what happens when you get the taste for something a little darker? Something a little more sinister, a little harder to find, something that's intentionally keeping itself far from your reach.
This month BBC Earth is hunting down all that is Deadly! Gathering together the incredible knowledge of the BBC Earth natural history teams, with the most interesting and thrilling nature photography and film from the BBC. July on Life Is is set to be a truly captivating month!
Deadly fact: The Panther Chameleon has a wicked tongue, coated with mucus and tipped with a vacuum, absolutely perfect for picking up prey!
Take your own journey through the deadliest animals, plants and people on our planet.
The BBC Earth blog will be taking the road less traveled in bringing you exclusive insights from behind the lens with none other than Steve Backshall, the Deadly 60 presenter and naturalist who reaches parts of the world others just wouldn't dare to visit! Their journey into the dangerous side of the natural world will also be traveling far and wide, uncovering where are the most dangerous places on the planet and the stories of the people brave enough to live there.
On our YouTube, BBC Earth will be dedicating a play-list especially to Steve who has made his pain - while the filming of the Deadly 60 series (now airing on Nat Geo Wild on Mondays from 10pm).
So join the hunt with BBC Earth! Dance with sharks, meet some lethal giants and discover oddities you cannot help but share...even with the most squeamish of your friends.
Link to: BBC Earth

subset: commoncrawl


text:
"Stereotype Threat" a.k.a. Occam`s Butterknife
The identical twin brothers Claude M. Steele and
Shelby Steele offer a fascinating living experiment
in the effects of nature and nurture.
Both are celebrated black intellectuals who have
achieved comparable academic eminence—Claude
is a professor of social psychology at Stanford, while
Shelby, the author of The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in
America (1990),
is a research fellow across campus at
the Hoover Institution. Both are graceful writers—Shelby
writes for
Harper`s Monthly and Claude for The Atlantic
Monthly—although Shelby is more literary and Claude
more quantitative.
And both have devised psychological theories to account
for shortcomings in
black academic performance.
Shelby says blacks suffer from "racial
vulnerability." Claude claims they are victimized by
"stereotype threat."
Yet although the Steeles are famous blacks, they
aren`t terribly black-looking. When I asked my wife
to inspect
Shelby on TV and guess his ancestry, she said he
looked Greek. (Here are pictures of
Shelby and
Shelby is a conservative and Claude is a liberal, and
don`t get along terribly well because of their
disagreement over affirmative action. Shelby thinks
Claude stole and distorted his racial vulnerability
concept. Claude, in contrast, thinks Shelby`s tough-love
policy blames the black victims of white prejudice for
educational failings that are actually
caused by—follow me closely here—blacks` anxiety
over the danger of proving correct whites` stereotypes
about blacks` lack of intelligence.
A little
experiment Claude performed on some Stanford
sophomores almost a decade ago has become wildly popular
among liberals. They see it as the Rosetta Stone
explaining the mystery of
racial inequality. It supposedly proved that on
standardized tests like the SAT college entrance
exam, blacks would score the same as whites on average
if only mean people like me
wouldn`t ever mention the fact that they, uh,
don`t score the same.
What Steele found was that when he told his black
subjects that the little custom-made verbal test he was
giving them would measure their intellectual ability,
they scored worse than when he provided a less
threatening description of the exam.
Here`s the logic behind this extrapolation: At some
point back in the mists of time, a
stereotype somehow emerged that blacks do less well
on the SAT. So, now, blacks are seized by panic over the
possibility they might mess up and score so poorly that
they validate this stereotype.
And, indeed, this nervousness makes them score
exactly as badly as the stereotype predicted they
It`s really a lovely theory. In its solipsistic
circularity, it`s practically unfalsifiable.
Still, you might object that
Occam`s Razor suggests a simpler
explanation—that the arrow of causation runs in the
opposite direction, with the stereotype being the
result, not the cause, of decades of poor black
performance on the SAT.
But that just shows you are a mean person, too.
If you were a nice person, then you would know that if
we all just believe that everybody will score the
same, then everybody will score the same!
Just like when we were children and all clapped at a
performance of
Peter Pan to show we had faith that Tinkerbell
would recover.
Of course, to me as a former marketing executive,
there`s an obvious alternative explanation of Steele`s
findings: the students figured out what this prominent
professor wanted to see, and, being nice kids, they
delivered the results he longed for. This happens all
the time in
market research. After all, this was just a
meaningless little test, unlike a real SAT where the
students would all want to do as well as possible.
Nevertheless, countless commentators have claimed
Steele`s study proves the only reason blacks score worse
on the SAT than whites is because of this "stereotype
Here are a few examples:
- "When students were told they were being tested for
ability, the Black students performed more poorly than
the White students. Was this because of stereotype
threat? The researchers administered the test to other
students, telling them the goal was to find out how
people approach difficult problems. This time the
researchers found no discernible difference between
the performance of Black and White students."
and Guts, Jennifer Roback Morse, December 27,
1999, in Forbes, p. 165)
- "A Stanford psychology professor, Steele has done
research indicating that Black students who think a
test is unimportant match their White counterparts`
scores. But if told a test measures intellect, Black
students do worse than White students." (
the Fairness Test," October 5, 1999, The Boston
Globe, p. A16)
- "In another experiment, when Blacks were told that
they were taking a test that would evaluate their
intellectual skills, they scored below Whites. Blacks
who were told that the test was a laboratory
problem-solving task that was not diagnostic of
ability scored about the same as Whites." (
November 6, 1995, in Newsweek, p. 82)
This enthusiasm is particularly odd because the idea that blacks collapse
under a pressure would seem racially derogatory. Back in the bad old days,
it was bigoted whites who jeered that black sports pioneers like
Joe Louis,
Jesse Owens,
and Jackie Robinson
would choke as soon as the spotlight was on them. They didn`t. Similarly,
Paul Robeson
didn`t suddenly forget his lines when the curtain came up on
Othello, nor did Marian Anderson sing off-key at the
Lincoln Memorial. In fact, they all seemed to experience the opposite of
stereotype threat: "stereotype stimulation," a burning desire
to prove their naysayers wrong.
So eventually, that old stereotype died out.
In reality, however, nobody cares about these logical
implications because nobody truly believes in
stereotype theory.
Stereotype theory`s fans just want to use it to wish
away the white-black test score gap.
Unfortunately for them, the January 2004 issue of the
scientific journal American Psychologist, the
publication of the American Psychology Association, ran
a pointed
article by
Paul R. Sackett, Chaitra M. Hardison, and Michael J.
Cullen documenting that Steele`s research is
misinterpreted in both popular and scholarly
publications as showing that eliminating stereotype
threat eliminates the African American-White difference
in test performance."
The psychologists` point:
than showing that eliminating threat eliminates the
large score gap on standardized tests, the research
actually shows something very different. Specifically,
absent stereotype threat, the African American–White
difference is just what one would expect based on the
African American–White difference in SAT scores, whereas
in the presence of stereotype threat, the difference is
larger than would be expected based on the difference in
SAT scores."
In other words, Steele only showed he could persuade
black students to do worse than they did on the
SAT. He did not show he could make black Stanford
students score better than they had on the Verbal
SAT—which was about a half-standard deviation below the
white Stanford students in the study.
Far from than debunking the SAT, Steele tacitly relied
on the SAT as a fair measure of ability. (Curtis
Crawford of the
www.DebatingRacialPreference.org website has
examined the new critique in detail for the
National Association of Scholars.)
What Steele`s fans have failed to grasp is that Steele
was not investigating how the SAT was too hard on
blacks, but how it was too easy on them. Blacks
at elite colleges tend to get
worse grades
than their SAT or ACT scores (or high school GPA) would
In a
1992 Atlantic article, Steele dealt frankly
with this little-known fact:
"This pattern has been documented so broadly across so
many regions of the country, and by so many
investigations (literally hundreds), that it is
virtually a social law in this society–as well as a
racial tragedy."
Why do
blacks at top schools do even worse than their scores
Steele found
that in the Fifties and Sixties, back before racial
quotas, the grades of a black student at an elite
college tended to rise from freshman to senior year.
Today, though, Steele finds that their GPAs typically
decline. Apparently, many
quota kids, who could be
doing fine at less selective schools, shield their
self-esteem by "disidentifying with" (i.e.,
downplaying) academic achievement.
"To make
matters worse," wrote Steele in 1992, "Once
disidentification occurs at a school, it can spread like
a common cold… Pressure to make it a group norm can
evolve quickly and become fierce."
This fear of
being labeled an "oreo"
or "incognegro"
helps explain Steele`s disheartening finding that even
blacks more qualified than the average white
student on campus tend to underachieve, with the same
grade deterioration.
The real
implication of stereotype threat theory: the simplest
way to destroy the stereotype that college`s black
students` qualifications are inferior is to stop
admitting blacks with inferior qualifications
affirmative action programs.
Bottom line:
those of us who
talk honestly about racial differences in test
scores don`t do it because we are mean.
We do it
because only honesty will help us all to figure out how
to do anything about it.
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily


text:
The lecturer is very knowledgeable and can substantiate theories with his own personal experiences.
Harry Estipona - Government Service Insurance System
Financial Markets Courses
|Stock Exchange and Investment
|7 hours
|This training is designed for anyone who is interested in the stock exchange and investment. It intends to make people understand the technicalities with simple examples. This course will explain how the stock exchange works in relation to the London Stock Exchange. It guides you through the history of LSE and other Stock Exchanges. The participant will get familiar with financial site of LSE, how the share prices are calculated and what derivatives are and how the stock exchange is regulated by the government. This course does NOT advise you what to invest in! Exchange Markets The need of price discovery Demand and Supply Types of Exchange Markets and their implementations Short history of stock exchange Stock Exchange and alternative markets Stock Exchange Technicalities Types of financial instruments Shares, bonds Derivatives Shares How share price is calculated Types of shares Demand and supply Factors which may effect demand and supply Market and net value Source of income from shares Dividends Profit from sale Gilts and Bonds Derivatives What are derivatives? Risk hedge and speculation Futures Forward contracts Options Covered warrants Indexes How a value of indices is calculated LSE indices Stock Exchange and Regulation How Stock Exchanges are regulated by government in the UK and the US London Stock Exchange Finding a stockbroker Trading over the Internet
|Foreign Exchange and the Currency Markets for Business - Basic and Intermediate Course
|7 hours
|The course covers issues related to foreign exchange risk management in the company. It shows how, using various financial instruments and foreign exchange analysis (technical and fundamental) can be almost completely eliminated in many cases, the negative impact of exchange rate fluctuations on cash flow and turnover of the main activities of the importer and the exporter (the core business). Participants in the international currency market Forex Relationships and dependencies between banks, brokers, marketers, exporters, importers and investors Why to manage currency risk Who should protect themselves against exchange rate risk Examples of graphs (importer, exporter, manufacturer of domestic public tender) Consultancy and currency speculation Facts and Myths Examples Discussion of the corridor option Practical examples Annual Financial Plan Business Plan of the commercial contract Tender Offer Ongoing monitoring (daily reports, etc.). Brokerage services About the Warsaw Commodity Exchange SA Product range Price conditions (spreads, commissions, fees)
|Financial Markets
|14 hours
|This introductory course will provide participants with a first class and detailed working knowledge of the key financial markets, their purpose, function, main activities and their regulation. It is intended to be part refresher, part educational and part challenging so that all delegates will derive the maximum benefit from it. Feedback and discussion will be actively encouraged throughout the sessions which are intended to be interactive not just reactive and factual. The primary function is to ensure that by completion, all course delegates will be much better equipped to deal with clients and their ongoing needs and to put into context the services and markets in which they are trading and participating. The Global Capital Markets What is a 'financial market place' Historical development of today's global financial market The role of the financial media Structure of the major capital markets: Exchanges, Clearers, Regulators The modern day surge in global investment The different types of 'Stock Exchanges' Where Stock Exchanges fit in today's markets US, European, Middle Eastern and Asian Stock Exchanges Financial Markets Regulation: Capital Adequacy Requirement Basel I Basel II Basel III and its implications Source for New Product Development The Different Asset Classes and Their Markets What is traded on Stock Exchanges today? Equities – Common and Preferred Bonds – Corporate and Government Bonds – Fixed, Floating and Zero coupon, the Yield Curve Money Market instruments The currency markets Why do investors buy them, and what makes them sell? Income/Capital Gain The relationships between the various asset classes How Exchange traded and Over-The-Counter markets interrelate Short Term Money Market Certificates of deposit T Bills Commercial paper Trade paper & BAs Market norms and practices Market participants The Different Types of Stock Exchange investor Investors Fund managers Hedge funds Stock Exchange participants Investment banks, Stockbrokers, Hedge Funds and Prime Brokers Intra-market relationships – the buy and sell side of the industry The Role of the Stock Exchange Where are these products traded? The importance of the OTC market The past development of Stock Exchanges The main Stock Exchanges in today's markets US, European and Asian Markets and their differing architecture Asset classes traded on different Stock Exchanges around the world The major Primary and Secondary markets New York, Euronext, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong The attraction of "listed" companies to investors Using Stock Exchanges to pool liquidity and raise capital Methods of Capital Raising 'Floating' the company – different methods Clearing & Settlement Settlement and settlement risk The different Settlement Conventions in the major markets Equities, Bonds and derivatives The process for Derivatives Clearing The Central Counterparty (CCP) CCP services provided to Stock Exchanges Margin The security trade settlement process Pre-settlement Settlement Potential problems – unmatched trades, delayed settlement, bad delivery Stock Exchange Settlement Discipline The 'life cycle of a trade'– how the process links up from trade to settlement The role of International Central Securities Depositories (ICSDs) and Central Securities Depositories (CSDs) – LCH.Clearnet, Euroclear,Crest, Clearstream International, the DTC Custody The role of Custodians in the Stock markets Settlement and safe keeping Income collection and Corporate Actions Cash management and funding transactions Additional services Accounting Stock Lending and collateral management Trustee services Valuation reports Alternative Investments What are Alternative Investments? Structured products - Risks and returns Hedge funds - Risks and Control Venture Capital Valuation issues, Risk and Control Private Equity/Angel Finance The use of derivatives in Asset Management OTC vs ETD Types of Derivatives used in Asset Management Futures Options Risks and controls associated with derivatives, including documentation, valuation and reporting issues The Management of Quoted Equity Investment The risks associated with acquiring securities The risks associated with managing securities Risk associated with corporate actions Pricing of quoted equity investments Major sources of risk General controls within equity investment Risks associated with international equity markets The Management of Quoted Fixed Income Investment The risks associated with acquiring and disposing of fixed income securities The use of ratings and associated risk issues The risks associated with pricing of fixed income securities Risk and controls within the corporate fixed income processing Risks associated with Government Securities Sovereign risk ratings The valuation of government securities Risk and controls within sovereign bond processing The Market and Credit Risks of investing in Global Market Market risks VAR calculations Market risk modelling Credit Risks Measuring Credit risks Global Market Risks Money Market Risks OTC Risks Exchange risks
|Introduction to Fixed Income
|14 hours
|The Introduction to Fixed Income training course is an overview of the fixed income securities designed for anyone seeking a solid understanding of fixed income securities and financial markets. What is Fixed Income Securities? Types of Fixed Income Securities - Government Bonds (Billds, Notes, Bonds) - Corporate Bonds - Zero Coupon Bonds - High Yield Bonds - Medium Term Notes - Commercial Paper - Structure Note - Asset Backed Securities - Mortgage Backed Securities Fixed Income vs Equity - What is Equity - What is the difference between Fixed Income and Equity Structure of Fixed Income Market - Introduction to the Fixed Income Market - Major players - How to buy bonds Basic Features of Bonds - Maturity - Par Value - Coupon Rate - Currency Denomination Bond Indenture and Covenants Legal, Regulatory and Tax Considerations - International bonds - Government bonds - Tax Considerations Fixed Income Risks - Interest Rate Risk - Reinvestment Risk - Inflation Risk - Credit/Default Risk - Rating Downgrades Risk - Liquidity Risk - Volatility Risk - Exchange-rate Risk - Event Risk Pricing of the Fixed Income Securities - How to determine a fair price - Features of a bond and yield measures - Basic Calculation of a bond price Introduction to Fixed Income Valuation - Bond pricing with a market discount rate - Relationship between the bond price and bond characteristics - Pricing Bonds - Flat Price and Full Price - Matrix Pricing - Yield measures for fixed-rate bonds - Discount Basis yield and Add On Rate - Maturity structure of interest rates - Forward rate and Spot rate - Yield Spreads Principal Repayment Structures - Bullet Bond - Fully Amortised Bond - Partially Amortised Bond Coupon Payment Structures Bonds with Contingency Provisions - Callable Bond - Putable Bond - Convertible Bond Fixed Income Derivatives - Credit Default Swaps - Interest Swaps - Inflation Swaps - Bond Futures - Interest Rate Futures - Forward Rate Agreements
|Course Date
|Course Price [Remote / Classroom]
|Foreign Exchange and the Currency Markets for Business - Basic and Intermediate Course - Białystok, ul. Malmeda 1
|Mon, 2018-02-05 09:00
|Stock Exchange and Investment - Częstochowa, ul. Wały Dwernickiego 117/121
|Tue, 2018-02-06 09:00
|Financial Markets - Szczecin, ul. Sienna 9
|Tue, 2018-02-06 09:00
|Introduction to Fixed Income - Toruń, ul. Żeglarska 10/14
|Thu, 2018-02-08 09:00
|Stock Exchange and Investment - Warszawa, ul. Złota 3/11
|Thu, 2018-02-08 09:00
|Course Date
|Course Price [Remote / Classroom]
|BPMN 2.0 for Business Analysts
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-01-22 09:00
|Adobe Creative Cloud - Montaż video
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-01-29 09:00
|DTP (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat)
|Kielce, ul. Warszawska 19
|Mon, 2018-01-29 09:00
|Angular 4 - dobre praktyki
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Tue, 2018-01-30 09:00
|Psychology of interpersonal cooperation
|Wrocław, ul.Ludwika Rydygiera 2a/22
|Tue, 2018-01-30 09:00
|Effective interpersonal communication with elements of assertiveness
|Warszawa, ul. Złota 3/11
|Wed, 2018-01-31 09:00
|Agile Software Testing
|Zielona Góra, ul. Reja 6
|Thu, 2018-02-01 09:00
|PostgreSQL Administration and Development
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-02-05 09:00
|DTP (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat)
|Opole, Wladyslawa Reymonta 29
|Mon, 2018-02-05 09:00
|Międzynarodowe Standardy Rachunkowości i Sprawozdawczości Finansowej (MSR, MSSF) (IAS, IFRS)
|Poznan, Garbary 100/63
|Fri, 2018-02-09 09:00
|Creating and managing Web sites
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-02-12 09:00
|Javascript Basics
|Poznan, Garbary 100/63
|Tue, 2018-02-13 09:00
|Social Media - facebook, twitter, blog, youtube, google+
|Rzeszów, Plac Wolności 13
|Tue, 2018-02-13 09:00
|SQL in Microsoft Access
|Kraków, ul. Rzemieślnicza 1
|Thu, 2018-02-15 09:00
|Effective interpersonal communication with elements of assertiveness
|Gdynia, ul. Ejsmonda 2
|Mon, 2018-02-19 09:00
|DTP (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat)
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-03-05 09:00
|Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in Excel - Introduction to programming
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-03-05 09:00
|Certified Agile Tester
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Mon, 2018-04-02 09:00
|Perfect tester
|Szczecin, ul. Sienna 9
|Wed, 2018-04-04 09:00
|Quality Assurance and Continuous Integration
|Katowice ul. Opolska 22
|Thu, 2018-04-12 09:00
|Oracle 12c – wprowadzenie do języka SQL
|Łódź, ul. Tatrzańska 11
|Tue, 2018-06-12 09:00


text:
Quote:Think for a change... it might be a new experience.
Quote:You guys are hilarious... everybody that disagrees with you is a racist. Try something that actually addresses the problem, not just screaming "racism" and then retreating to your thrones...
Quote: More than 2,000 people have died this year in Mexico's drug war, mostly between rival gangs, in a fight for control of smuggling corridors into the United States.
Quote:However I do know they ALL cheat the system (the blacks too) and you know what?
Variety of stun gun devices for your protection
Pepper Spray
Worry about your family when you're not around? Visit us today
to protect everything you value.
Accurate information on the ancient martial traditions of the Japanese
Protect yourself and loved ones from CRIME with the latest C2 Taser
citizen model. Very effective.


text:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
After a brief stint off, Karl and Jason are back at it again with a fun new episode where they discuss which Star Wars character they feel most represent themselves in life and which character they would most like to become. Join them as they delve deep into what makes them feel connected to our beloved Star Wars universe as they reveal what it is about these characters which they can identify with. Also, they talk about Joe Hogan's motion-comic, "The Siren of Dathomir" which is beyond amazing! So sit back, relax, and tuck yourself into a Tauntaun as you listen to another exciting episode!
Powered by Sidelines


text:
Ip phone Scanning Made Easy (ISME) scans a VOIP environment, adapts to enterprise VOIP, and exploits the possibilities of being connected directly to an IP Phone VLAN. It seeks to get the phone's configuration file directly from a TFTP server, enable SIP/SIPS (TCP/UDP), communicate with an embedded Web server and Web server banner, identify the editor by MAC address, and identify potential default login/password combinations which should be changed.
Bluelog is a Bluetooth site survey tool, designed to tell you how many discoverable devices there are in an area as quickly as possible. Bluelog differs from most Bluetooth scanners in that it prioritizes speed of reporting over anything else (i.e. it doesn't spend time trying to pull detailed data from a device) and doesn't require any user intervention to function. As the name implies, its primary function is to log discovered devices to file rather than to be used interactively. Bluelog could run on a system unattended for long periods of time to collect data. In addition to basic scanning, Bluelog also has a unique feature called "Bluelog Live", which puts results in a constantly updating Web page which you can serve with your HTTP daemon of choice.
MALODOS helps you to scan, store, and easily retrieve all your personal documents. Its storage format is open and documented, so your document archive can remain accessible even without MALODOS. The documents themselves are stored as standard PDF files, while their metadata (such as title, tags, and description) are stored into a separate SQLite database in an open format. With MALODOS, you can also manage existing files in PDF, JPEG, TIFF, and other formats, so you can still use the documents that you've already scanned. You can connect to any external OCR program to give access to a fulltext search feature.
skipfish is a high-performance, easy, and sophisticated Web application security testing tool. It features a single-threaded multiplexing HTTP stack, heuristic detection of obscure Web frameworks, and advanced, differential security checks capable of detecting blind injection vulnerabilities, stored XSS, and so forth.
geoipgen is an IP network tool for generating geotargeted lists of IP addresses using MaxMind's GeoLite Country database. It can randomly enumerate all IP addresses or a specified number of IP addresses in a particular country or a list of countries. For example, to get all IPs for Japan in a random order, use "geoipgen jp". For a sample of 10,000 IPs from Australia and New Zealand, use "geoipgen -n 10000 au nz".
Scandalo is a very efficient and fast mail frontend for the clamdscan virus scanner. In other words, it is a simple mail filter that works as a wrapper for clamd, the famous Clamav antivirus daemon. Once integrated in maildrop or any MTA or MUA, it can quickly read messages and send them to the clamd process for virus scanning using the clamdscan utility. When a virus is found, the message is marked with a header, so you can easily set up your mail filter or MUA to drop, quarantine, or move the infected message to a mail folder.
An Init System for Linux with a unified configuration file
A time synchronization daemon which keeps your system time accurate.


text: Darrell L. Ruban, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Field Administrator, declared a regional emergency as of 10 a.m. EDT, May 21, 2013, for the state of Oklahoma following the May 20 tornado that cut a wide swath of destruction through the town of Moore and surrounding areas. The declaration provides broad regulatory exemptions to CFR Parts 390-399 for truck carriers and operators providing emergency relief materials and services to Oklahoma customers. Drivers for motor carriers operating ...Read More


text:
I said "could have" in probability. I know Deng has been traded. If you look at the players/assets(Novak/2016 pick included) I listed in the trade, it was obvious I was referring to a time prior...what if we had kept assets longer scenario.
Uhhhmmm let's say we trade TimBugJr
That's fairly solid and a pretty balanced team. Melo has been playing power forward for us in many games and it hasn't stopped him from getting numbers in streak fashion. What Deng allows for us to do, is guard on the other side of the basketball with our switches and help defense schemes. He'd also be a great equalizer on offense and he doesn't take bad shots and he's a ball mover.
I already stated in a previous post what we could have done assets wise applying it to a point guard acquisition. I mentioned the Deng scenario because another poster mentioned we could have gone for Zach or Deng.


text:
I found this fossil on the beach in the north east of England near to Redcar. Does anyone have an idea of what it is.
Hi Louby
You have found a Crinoid stem.
Part of a Jurassic sea lilly!
I have attached an image of one I found and polished a long time ago.
Hi Tabfish
Thank you so much I have had this fossil for several years and always wondered what it was. Who could I see to get it polished, I loved your photo of you Crinoid stem all polished up.
Thank you again
Hi Louby
In Whitby there are several fossil preparitors who would polish it for you and it would not be the first time I have taken something to a monumental mason for cutting and polishing depending on size.
Hello again Louby
I knew I had one of the sections that make up this specimen someware!
I think it is called an Ossical.


text:
Four-Point Play is One and One's attempt to highlight the best team, player, game and GIF/video from the past seven days of college hoops. We reserve the right to tweak the formula on a weekly basis. Expect this column every Sunday.
No. 21 San Diego State upsets no. 16 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse
It would be a mistake to say No. 21 San Diego State's 61-57 upset of No. 16 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse Sunday night was totally unexpected. Sure, Kansas hadn't lost a non-conference game in its home gym since November 2006. And the Jayhawks, despite having already sustained three losses this season, are one of the most talented teams in the country.
But it's not like the Aztecs entered the game with meager credentials. Steve Fisher's team had already beaten Creighton, Marquette and Washington, establishing itself as the clear favorite to win the Mountain West Conference. They ranked 24th in the country in Ken Pomeroy's team efficiency ratings, and No. 15 in points allowed per possession. SDSU also features Xavier Thames, a 6-foot-3 senior guard averaging 16.3 points per game, and Winston Shepard, a versatile defender and scorer, and capable cast of role players.
Even so, it was fair to wonder whether the Aztecs simply wouldn't be able to handle one of the toughest venues in college hoops and if they were about to face a harsh reality check. Rather than crack under the enormity of the moment, San Diego State rose to the occasion, playing lockdown defense throughout en route to securing one of the best non-conference wins in college basketball this season.
"This is a great win for us," Thames said after the game. "A lot of teams don't come in here and get victories. I'm just blessed to be a part of this one."
Thames led all scorers with 16 points, while senior forward Josh Davis added 10 points and 14 rebounds. San Diego State held an 11-point lead around the 13-minute mark, but a Naadir Tharpe layup pulled the Jayhawks within two with just over four minutes to go. Thames buried a three a minute later, and converted four key free throws in the final 10 seconds to ice the game.
Neither team shined on the offensive end, but Thames' ability to run the offense efficiently made a huge difference.
"Every play we made, it seemed like they came down, they got something positive out of the next possession," Kansas point guard Frank Mason said.
The biggest reason San Diego State was able to pull the upset, though, was its defense. The Aztecs held Kansas to just 23 first-half points and 29.8 percent shooting, the second-worst shooting performance of Bill Self's 10-plus year tenure. Freshmen Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid needed 19 shots to combine for 26 points and second-leading scorer Perry Ellis finished with just four points on 1-of-8 shooting.
Kansas's offensive futility can be blamed, at least in part, on its own poor shooting, but the Aztecs deserve plenty of credit for contesting shots, clogging passing lanes and forcing Kansas to resort to low-percentage looks.
"I think everybody, we all missed shots we usually make," Wiggins said, "and that's going to happen from time to time with a young team."
If it wasn't clear before, it certainly is now: San Diego State is not about to endure the sort of "transition year" most expected when it lost leading scorers Jamaal Franklin and Chase Tapley in the offseason. Since losing to No. 1 Arizona on Nov. 14, the Aztecs have won 11 consecutive games.
None of those wins was as impressive as what the Aztecs managed Sunday night. They will face plenty of tough road games in the Mountain West -- including Utah State (Jan. 25), Boise State (Feb. 5) and New Mexico (Feb. 22) -- but Sunday night's win should provide them plenty of confidence through the rest of the conference season.
Few would have expected Kansas, ranked No. 5 in the preseason, to incur four losses before the start of conference play. But all of the Jayhawks' defeats have come against good teams: Villanova, Colorado, Florida and San Diego State all rank in the top 40 of Kenpom's efficiency rankings and in the top 25 of the AP poll.
Still, that's no excuse for a team with conference and national championship aspirations. Kansas should be farther along the collective development curve at this point in the season. The Jayhawks' offense stagnated so frequently Sunday night, there were times when San Diego state looked like it knew what play Kansas was going to run.
There is still time for the Jayhawks to sort things out. Kansas is a young team – it ranks No. 348 in Kenpom's "experience" statistic – that should get better over the next two months. But the need to improve seems more urgent now than it did at the beginning of the season.
"We're not as good as I thought we'd be [at this point], and our players know that," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "I still think we're going to be good."
The Jayhawks' Big 12 schedule is not a cakewalk: No. 13 Iowa State, No. 6 Oklahoma State and No. 9 Baylor (and possibly Kansas State) are worthy conference championship contenders. Beating out those teams won't be easy.
Justin Jackson propels Cincinnati to two big wins
Impartial college basketball fans have better ways to spend their time than watching Cincinnati. The Bearcats play slow. They grind out possessions in the halfcourt. They don't shoot the ball particularly well, from inside or outside the three-point line. They exist near the bottom of college hoops' aesthetic totem pole.
Of course, style of play is less important than wins and losses. And over the past week Cincinnati has beaten two of the best teams in the American Athletic Conference, Southern Methodist and No. 18 Memphis. The latter win came on Saturday at FedExForum, improved Cincy's record to 13-2 and cemented its status as a league title contender.
Senior forward Justin Jackson played a huge role in both victories. He scored 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting, grabbed six rebounds, blocked five shots and recorded five steals in the Bearcats' home victory over SMU. On Saturday, he went for 13 points, eight rebounds and seven blocks to help the Bearcats deal Memphis its first loss in a conference game since February 2012.
"This is a huge win, and we have to keep everything rolling," senior guard Sean Kilpatrick said afterward about he and his excited teammates. "This is just a stepping stone for us, and we have to keep it going as we continue conference play."
While Jackson has made major contributions (11.9 ppg) on the offensive end, his defense and rebounding have been bigger factors in Cincinnati's recent success. Jackson's 14.8 block percentage ranks No. 10 in the country, and his offensive rebounding (15.1) and steal percentages (4.0) are both top-100 figures. Jackson has been especially effective at guarding opponents' post-ups. He has allowed just 0.435 points per possession on that particular play type, according to Synergy Sports.
It's possible that Cincinnati's offense could improve as the season progresses, but this team's biggest strengths undeniably are its defense (No. 3 in the country in points allowed per possession) and offensive rebounding (No. 3 in OR percentage).
Jackson has helped fuel the Bearcats' elite defensive and rebounding work to date. The two games he helped them win this week show why.
Kansas State hits its stride
You could be forgiven for overlooking Kansas State.
It lost both its leading scorer, guard Rodney McGruder, and primary playmaker, point guard Angel Rodriguez, from last season's Big 12 championship team. To defend its title, it would need to finish ahead of at least four likely NCAA Tournament teams: No. 6 Oklahoma State, No 13. Iowa State, no. 16 Kansas and No. 9 Baylor.
This was supposed to be a textbook transition year for Bruce Weber's team.
So it wasn't surprising when Kansas State didn't play well early in the season. The Wildcats lost three of their first five games – including their season opener at home against Northern Colorado, who is ranked No. 157 in Ken Pomeroy's efficiency ratings.
Since getting blown out by Georgetown (90-63) in the consolation game at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off on Nov. 22, though, Kansas State has won nine straight games. That streak includes a win Saturday night again Oklahoma State.
"We felt like that was one of the toughest games we've played so far," senior forward Thomas Gipson, who finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds, said after the game. "For us to be young and come out and get a huge win against the No. 6 team in the nation, that feels real good."
Five days earlier, Kansas State beat a George Washington team ranked No. 66 in Kenpom's ratings that has beaten Miami, Creighton, Maryland and Boston University.
Those two wins suggest Kansas State is not only playing much better than it was early in the season, but that it might be able to compete with the Bears, Cowboys, Cyclones and Jayhawks for the conference title.
What are the Wildcats doing well? What most of Weber's teams have historically excelled at: defense. Kansas State ranks No. 12 in the country in defensive efficiency, No. 22 in effective field goal percentage defense and No. 4 in opponent three-point field goal percentage defense.
On Saturday, it held Oklahoma State to just 1.01 points per possession, well below its season average (1.18), and limited preseason first-team All-American guard Marcus Smart to 15 points on 6-of-14 shooting. The Cowboys seemed rattled by Kansas State's physical defense.
"They just outplayed us. They played hard every time. They don't care what the situation is, they just play. That's what we need to do," Cowboys guard Markel Brown said. "We played tentative and we need to play hard every game. That's what I'm going to do from now on. Play 100 percent and give 100 percent."
Kansas State is also getting key contributions from freshman guards Marcus Foster and Jevon Thomas. Foster, the Wildcats' leading scorer (14.0 ppg), has helped mitigate the impact of McGruder's departure and scored 17 points and grabbed eight rebounds on Saturday. Thomas, who sat out most of the first two months of the season as a partial qualifier, has bolstered Kansas State's backcourt depth.
The two wins Kansas State picked up over the past week should vault it into the top 25. Whether it can remain ranked will depend on how it fares at Kansas next Saturday.
Dotson dunks Oregon to a win over Utah.
With the score tied and six seconds left in overtime of No. 10 Oregon's game at Utah on Thursday night, Utes guard Dakarai Tucker inbounded the ball to forward Dallin Bachynski. His back to the basket, Bachynski turned and fired a two-handed pass across the paint that was deflected and stolen by Oregon guard Damyeon Dotson, who sprinted down the court and dunked the ball with 0.6 seconds remaining to give the Ducks a two-point lead. Utes guard Jordan Loveridge missed a last-ditch three-point attempt at the buzzer.
"That was unbelievable," said Dotson said after the game. "I never had a game winner like that before. It's the greatest feeling for me. That's a great way to start conference [play]."


text:
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
Most Christians have read the biblical story of Ruth a dozen times. For many of us, it stands out as one of the most compelling narratives in the Old Testament. Some dismiss Ruth as a simple love story. But in her new book, The Gospel of Ruth, author Carolyn James compellingly challenges that narrow view.
James writes that Ruth's "loyalty to Yahweh prompts her to challenge the religious status quo and lead others into a whole new realm of allegiance to Yahweh that carries early hints of the teaching of Jesus." Ms. James goes so far as to say that Ruth herself "embodies the utter difference the gospel makes in us and in our relationships with others, generations before Jesus was born." Carolyn James hammers this theme home through every facet of Ruth's life.
Here's just one example. You may remember how Ruth goes one day to glean in the fields of Boaz. The ancient welfare system of Israel dictated that Israelites were to leave the corners of their land and the edges of their field un-harvested for widows, orphans and aliens. While many people in the days of the judges had long since abandoned keeping this aspect of the law, Boaz had not.
Now Ruth has sworn herself to care for her mother-in-law, and so she goes to Boaz's field and does something bold: She asks Boaz's foreman if she can glean behind the harvesters as they worked.
When informed by his foreman what Ruth was doing, Boaz certainly could have kicked Ruth off of his land. Instead, he talks to Ruth and allows her to gather grain with his own servant girls.
As James writes, "Sometimes newcomers have a way of showing us we've settled into a narrow, precise obedience-a tidy conformity to the law-that falls far short of what God really intends."
James goes on to show us that Jesus, another outsider to the religious establishment, did exactly the same. "The Sermon on the Mount," she writes, "knocked down the walls that religious living had constructed around God's law and pointed to a way of living that goes beyond the letter of the law to the spirit." While the letter of the law in Ruth's day simply permitted the poor to glean, the spirit of the law was that the poor and the vulnerable should have enough to eat.
"God meant for landowners like Boaz to wrestle with such basic questions as, How big is a corner? How wide is an edge? . . . How much will I leave behind for the poor?" writes James.
Into the midst of tight-fisted legalism, Boaz explodes on stage and gives Ruth permission not only to glean among the workers, but he offers her the protection of his field hands and the privilege of drinking from his wells. He also blesses her in God's name. Boaz will take this generosity even further in the chapters that come. In this, he foreshadows Christ, who would give himself in the ultimate display of lavish generosity.
How far will our generosity extend today-you and me? Are we content to hang on to the letter of the law or are we willing to follow Christ's example? Perhaps, we've grown content in writing a check that is exactly 10 percent of our income and dutifully putting it in the offering plate as it passes each week. Meanwhile, we've shut our eyes completely to the needs of modern-day Ruths.


text:
Sefko: 'I'm not blind to the fact that maybe Andrew Bynum is the way to go' for the Mavericks
Dallas Mavericks beat writer joined Norm Hitzges on The Ticket KTCK-1310 AM. Here are some highlights.
On if the Mavs would be interested in signing Nikola Pekovic:
"You could probably get him in a sign and trade easier than you could flat out offer sheet because you would really have to overpay to do that. I'm talking you'd have to start up there in the 12 stratosphere range, somewhere way up there. Listen, I'm not blind to the fact that maybe Andrew Bynum is the way to go here. He's a center that has damaged goods. But we all know when he's healthy, what he can do. He's good. Is a little bit of a knucklehead? Yeah. But he's really talented and you might get him a couple of million dollars cheaper just because of the physical problems he's had. Then again, he might play 12 games for you next season so that's the roll of the dice. Those are the kind of players you have to look at though. You have to ask yourself if it's worth the risk."
On how much money the Mavs actually have:
"They can max somebody out or they can try to get two good players. I do think they're going to make a run at Monta Ellis. Is he a perfect point guard? No, he's not. But he's a pretty good player. He's only going to be 28, and he's shown that he can help a good team win. He can run your team. He can run a good pick and roll. He's not going to defend you or me, but that's Rick Carlisle's problem so there are problems there. He's not a great 3-point shooter, but he gets to the lane and gets to the paint and he's not afraid to go in there and mix it up. I think that's what the Mavericks need."


text:
Washington, D.C. 20573       NR 01-02
CONTACT: Bryant L. VanBrakle, Secretary at (202) 523-5725
FOR RELEASE: January 17, 2001
Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Harold J. Creel, Jr., announced today that Paul B. Lang, Esquire began service as an Administrative Law Judge at the Commission.
Judge Lang was born in Detroit, Michigan, and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and George Washington University Law School. He was a partner with the Baltimore law firm of Niles, Barton & Wilmer, representing a wide variety of clients in the maritime, manufacturing, health care and insurance industries. He has had extensive experience in administrative law including practice before the Federal Maritime Commission, U.S. Coast Guard, National Labor Relations Board, Occupational Safety and Health Commission and other agencies. Judge Lang previously was Director of Law with the Steamship Trade Association of Baltimore, representing employers in their negotiations and administration of collective bargaining agreements and performing liaison with government agencies on matters affecting the Port of Baltimore. Before coming to the Commission, Judge Lang was an administrative law judge with the Social Security Administration for over three years.
Judge Lang is a member of the Maryland Bar and is a former Proctor Member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States. He also has been a business law instructor at Essex Community College, a contributing writer on legal affairs to the Baltimore Business Journal, and a mediator for the Maryland Commission on Human Relations.
Judge Lang lives in suburban Baltimore with his wife, who is a professor at Towson University. They have two sons -- one is a television reporter and the other is completing a pediatric fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.
Chairman Creel noted that: "The Commission has had a dire need for a new judge for some time now. I am confident that the addition of Judge Lang will allow us to meet our responsibilities in a more timely manner. We welcome him to the Commission."
This site is an official U.S. Government Website


text:
By Ben Golliver
Make it two double overtime game-winners in less than a month for Nets guard Joe Johnson.
Johnson, who sent the Pistons packing in double overtime on Dec. 15 with a step-back jumper over Tayshaun Prince, did it again to beat the Wizards 115-113 at the Verizon Center on Friday night.
With five seconds remaining in double overtime, Johnson isolated against Bradley Beal, milking the clock. Washington then rushed Martell Webster as a second defender at Johnson, leading him to calmly step to his right and pull up over both defenders to hit the contested mid-range jumper. The basket went through with 0.7 seconds remaining; Washington was unable to score on its ensuing possession, making Johnson's last-second jumper the game-winner.
Johnson finished with 18 points, three assists and two rebounds in 47 minutes. Brook Lopez led the Nets with 27 points and 13 rebounds. Deron Williams added 24 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds.
Beal finished with a team-high 24 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in 48 minutes. He also threw down a pretty highlight reel dunk in the fourth quarter.
Brooklyn improved to 18-15 on the season and 4-1 under interim coach P.J. Carlesimo; Washington fell to a league-worst 4-27.Video via YouTube user nbaus3030


text:
(Ame Nottori no Jutsu) - Rain Capture Technique
As it starts to raiin. I then start to gather my chakra and send it into the rain. I then channel my chakra into my opponent having the raindrops attract on him and to the ground. Keeping him in place immobilizing him
Advantage: This jutsu can use immobilize the enemy
Disadvantage: This jutsu can easily be seen as some type attack as the rain drops will be attracted to them
How to avoid: Dodge them as you see the rain attracting towards you
(Ame Bunshin) - Raining Clones
As it continue to rain. I then Start to channel my chakra all around the rain. As that happen I then form multiple rain clones around the rain. These clones cant do much and disperse after one hit
Advantage: Only way i can see this being use is as a diversion
Disadvantage: The clones disperse after one punch. As meaning they are fragile
How To avoid: Simply take out the clones
(Gouu no Jutsu) - Heavy Rain Technique
Finally. As the rain starts to fall more. I channel water chakra into your clothing. Once I do that. The rain then touchdowns on your clothing. Easily absorbing the water. Having your clothe soaked and your clothing gets real heavy. then keeps your movement slow
Advantages: This jutsu can be used to halt the opponents movement
Disadvantage: It dosent do damage really. so it cant be used as an attack move
How to avoid: Take off your clothes..


text:
A new book released today calls for more emphasis to be placed on human rights when nature conservation policies are developed and implemented.
Rights-based Approaches: Exploring issues and opportunities for conservation, a joint publication by IUCN and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), shows how taking human rights into consideration in conservation benefits nature and people.
Gonzalo Oviedo, IUCN's Senior Social Policy Adviser and co-editor, said the book is partly a result of a workshop held at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October 2008, which brought together case study writers to discuss the issues.
"Our aim was to demonstrate that, despite all the challenges, rights-based approaches are making a difference in conservation policy," says Terry Sunderland of CIFOR. "They are a promising way forward, but also raise a myriad of new challenges and questions, including what such approaches are, when and how they can be put into practice, and what their implications are for conservation."
The book explores how reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) can affect human rights. REDD is likely to be a key issue when negotiators gather in Copenhagen in December to consider a new global protocol to combat climate change.
Under a REDD scheme, countries that reduce their deforestation rates could gain credits for reduced carbon emissions, which would be sold on an international carbon market or compensated through an international fund.
But, to conserve forest carbon, REDD schemes might also restrict the activities of people who depend on forests for a living. Whether and how REDD revenue and benefits will be distributed to forest communities is a contentious issue.
Experience with previous REDD-like projects has so far yielded mixed results. Many indigenous and other traditional communities point out they have played an ongoing role in preserving and protecting tropical forests historically. They insist that REDD regimes should compensate them for that role. A rights-based approach to REDD may help to ensure this.
For more information, please contact:
- Titin Suhartini, email@example.com, +62 811 830 0264
- Kobe Lee, firstname.lastname@example.com, +86 138 1169 5576


text:
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Recently I've made my own Chicago-style deep dish a few times, to varying degrees of success. I've basically been using a very slightly modified version of Real Deep Dish's recipe. The two pizzas I've made in the last week have turned out very well overall. See the attached photos (sorry for the bad quality). I've gotten a nice thin, crispy crust, somewhat Malnati-like, and the sauce came out very nicely on the most recent one (the one without pepperoni).I've got a few questions:1) First, how long do you guys typically let your deep dish pie settle after taking it out of the oven? Today I let it sit for roughly 5 minutes, and when I cut into it I realized it wasn't long enough; the cheese and sauce immediately started oozing out once I removed a slice. Is there anything I should do besides letting it sit out longer?2) Second, the cheese in my pizzas has seemed to be somewhat bland. In the most recent one, I used 16 oz Sorrento part-skim mozzarella topped with roughly 8 slices of Sargento provolone. For some reason, the cheese just doesn't seem as flavorful as what I'm used to back home in a Malnati's or Giordano's pizza. What can I do to improve the cheese's taste? Should I use whole milk mozzarella, or maybe fresh mozzarella? Maybe some other types of cheeses in addition to the mozz?3) Finally, I've been considering trying to make a Chicago-style stuffed pizza; all I've made so far is the simple deep dish. How do you guys typically do the top layer of dough/crust? Would I just make some extra dough and roll out a thin layer to lay on top of the cheese?Thanks for whatever suggestions you may have.
As far as cheese-oozing goes, that's usually not a bad thing. 5 to 10 minute rest time is usually enough to reduce that, but it sounds like you're using too much cheese. For a 12" deep dish, 12-16 oz of cheese TOTAL is the sweet spot. YES, it is possible to use too much cheese (despite what the Wisconsin Dairy Council will tell you), which can lead to extra grease, which combines with tomato juices and meat greases (pepperoni, sausage, etc.) and any other topping that contains water, hence the oozing.What kind of tomatoes are you using? Drain if necessary, but my money says too much cheese.What size pizza was this?What temp did you bake?How long?RE: Cheese recommendations:Mozzarella, in general is a mild flavored cheese. One of my favorite tasting mozzarellas is the Bakers & Chefs (aka Stella) low moisture part skim. If you can find the whole milk version, it will have more flavor. I recommend using other sharp and tangy cheeses in combination to up the flavor if you need something more. I like an aged wisconsin brick cheese (the older, the tangier), or throw a bit of shredded cheddar or grated romano on top of the dough before laying down the sliced mozzarella.Be aware that using fresh mozz will lead to extra water being in your pizza, making your oozing problem worse.Oh, one more thing.Consider picking up a real deep dish pan / aluminized steel cake pan.Nice pics. Looks better than my first one did. :-)


text:
Dr Berhanu Nega speech in Norway on the current North African revolution and what Ethiopians can do
>>> Listen to 13 March 2011 speech audio (MP3)
ESAT interview with Dr Berhanu Nega, Chairman of Ginbot 7 together with high ranking OLF Officials and former TPLF Leader.
February 3, 2011
Interview with Dr Berhanu Nega (Ginbot 7), Dr Beyan Asoba (OLF), Mr Leenco Bati (OLF) and Mr Giday Zeratsion (Former TPLF) on current issues in Ethiopia.
Audio »» MP3 »» WMA
BBC World interview with Andergachew Tsege regarding the death sentences; 22 Dec 2009
Part 1
19 Feb '09
Part 2
26 Feb '09
Part 3
6 March '09
Get Flash to see this player.
Dr Berhanu, Part 3


text:
Mark A. Barteau
Director, University of Michigan Energy Institute
DTE Professor of Advanced Energy Research
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
(734) 615-9521
- Professor of Chemical Engineering, 2012-present
- Director of the University of Michigan Energy Institute, 2012-present
- DTE Energy Professor of Advanced Energy Research, 2012-present
- Robert L. Pigford Chair Emeritus of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 2012-present
- Senior Vice Provost for Research and Strategic Initiatives, 2008-2012
- Founding Director, University of Delaware Energy Institute, 2007-2008
- Robert L. Pigford Endowed Chair of Chemical Engineering, 2005-2012
- Chairperson, Department of Chemical Engineering, 2000-2007
- Director, Center for Catalytic Science and Technology, 1996-2000
- Robert L. Pigford Professor of Chemical Engineering, 1994-2005
- Professor of Chemical Engineering, 1990-1994
- Professor of Chemistry, 1990-2012
- Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, 1982-1996
- Associate Director, Center for Catalytic Science and Technology, 2000-2012
- Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, 1982-1987
- Visiting Professor of Chemistry, University of Auckland, 1997
- Visiting Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 1991-1992
- NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut für Festkörperphysik, Physik Department, Technische Universität München,
Research Interests:
My group studies the design of catalysts and nanomaterials to improve efficiency and sustainability of chemicals and fuels production, as well as strategies for utilization of renewable resources. I'm also delighted to devote time to furthering the mission of the Energy Institute. Energy – clean, sustainable, affordable, environmentally responsible – is the grand challenge of our time. It is critically important to focus on solutions that are scalable to levels that can make a measurable difference in energy supply, use, environmental impact, etc., while at the same time pursuing fundamental research that will supply the discoveries behind future technologies. An important challenge is to increase the flexibility of our energy resources, particularly renewable resources, to meet the world's needs for electricity, housing, manufacturing and transportation. Chemical fuels from a variety of sources will be a critical part of transportation solutions for decades to come. Catalysis is at the heart of fuel and chemicals production, and for more than a decade we have been pursuing catalyst design from nano-scale understanding of reaction mechanisms and their connection to catalyst sites. Current efforts in my lab focus on design of novel materials for selective formation of oxygen-containing products from biomass-derived feedstocks as well as from hydrocarbons, and new approaches to the utilization of nano-catalysts in unconventional reaction environments, including energy storage devices.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Friday, November 10, 2017
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Friday, June 9, 2017
Friday, June 2, 2017
Friday, May 5, 2017
Friday, April 7, 2017
Friday, March 31, 2017
Friday, March 24, 2017
Friday, March 17, 2017
Friday, February 17, 2017
Friday, February 3, 2017


text:
December 22, 2009
New/Old Cake Eaters Candid
For anyone who's not seen this, it's not your typical flick but Kristen is heart-breaking in it!
Thanks Ali :)
- Lorabell
6 comments:
- Jessica.December 22, 2009 at 11:27 PM
i cryed so much at that film :( KStew was brilliant though. She is so versatile is there anything she CAN'T do?ReplyDelete
<3 x
I enjoyed "Cake Eaters" - Mary Stewart M. directing, why wouldn't I.ReplyDelete
Why Kristen rocks-she portrays a girl who WILL die from her disease, and yet you don't feel an instant of pity for her. She portays Georgia the way I think people with Friedriechs Ataxia would want to be seen-not as victims to be pitied, but as brave people who are celebrating the life they DO have.ReplyDelete
Not too many people can do what Kristen did in portraying the sickly girl in the Cake Eaters, but why was it called the Cake Eaters?ReplyDelete
I would assume it was called Th Cake Eaters because, you can't "Have your cake, and eat it too". May-haps in reference to Georgia's life, the way Georgia's mom feels about her daughter's disease. Or something to that degree.ReplyDelete
@ CullenLovin...thanks for answering, I think I understand what you mean.ReplyDelete


text:
http://mmajunkie.com Bellator Fighting Championships female champion Zoila Gurgel (11-1 MMA, 5-0 BFC) has been forced to withdraw from a planned Bellator 57 non-title fight with Carina Damm (17-8 MMA, 0-0 BFC).
Gurgel announced the withdrawal today on her Twitter account, citing a torn ACL as the issue.
"I just took an MRI of my knee yesterday and results came back; I completely tore my ACL," Gurgel stated. "If it was up to me, I still was planning on fighting. I am able to still move forward and box, and I am very confident in that and my cardio, but doctor and coaches say 'No way in hell!' So it's off to surgery hopefully soon and back to the training ASAP."
Gurgel was expected to fight at Bellator 57, which takes place Nov. 12 at Casino Rama in Rama, Ontario, Canada. Her fight with Damm was expected to air on the evening's main card.
Bellator officials have yet to announce if Damm will remain on the card.
Gurgel (formerly Zoila Frausto before her recent marriage to Strikeforce's Jorge Gurgel) had been scheduled to rematch Jessica Aguilar at Bellator 57. The fighters met in the semifinal round of a season-three tournament, where Gurgel won a close split-decision victory. However, Aguilar was forced out of the contest fight with a foot injury.
Gurgel has not fought since March, when she scored a unanimous-decision victory over Karina Hallinan in a 125-pound non-title fight at Bellator 35. She's now won six straight fights, which includes victories over notables Rosi Sexton and Megumi Fujii in earlier Bellator appearances.
Gurgel did not announce a timetable for her return but said she is eagerly anticipated a quick recovery.
"I know this will be difficult, never been off my legs for more than a few days, but I'm sure with good people and God by my side, I'll get through it and shine once again in what I love to do under those big lights."
For more on Bellator 57, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Zoila Gurgel)


text:
Update: Nurses union to have say in NARH bankruptcy proceedings
NORTH ADAMS -- The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the labor union that represents about 100 nurses recently laid off by the North Adams Regional Hospital, has been granted intervenor status in the hospital's bankruptcy case.
The request in Berkshire Superior Court was designed to give the union a say "in any decision regarding the hospital and the nurses," said David Schildmeier, MNA spokesman. "We need to ensure the nurses will have a voice and their rights protected in any actions going forward."
The ruling by Judge John A. Agostini came during a hearing on Thursday regarding the future of NARH. The state Attorney General's office also was in court today in a bid to make permanent last week's order calling for the establishment of a satellite BMC emergency care center at the hospital.
"Our overriding concern," said Mike Fadel, director of campaigns for MNA, "is that all services are restored as quickly as possible and that the nurses return to work in an orderly fashion. We want to be a full and helpful partner in a restoration of services there."
Northern Berkshire Healthcare, parent company of NARH, closed the hospital with three days notice last week. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in Springfield earlier today.
The nurses union also has filed a lawsuit in Springfield seeking back pay and benefits it says the nurses are owed for a federally required 60-day closing notice the hospital failed to provide. That suit, which was filed March 27 -- the day before the hospital abruptly closed -- seeks back pay and benefits owed the nurses because the hospital did not adhere to proper notification requirements before closing, Schildmeier said.
Another union representing workers at NARH, 1199 SEIU, is exploring legal options.
"Our legal team has been fully engaged since the news of this hasty and reckless closure first broke," said Veronica Turner, executive vice president for 1199 SEIU. "We have been engaged in the court process and will continue to pursue whatever legal options will best serve caregivers, patients, and the community. Some of those options are still being assessed as we determine which actions will prove most effective in promoting accountability and fairness amidst this public health and economic crisis."
To reach Scott Stafford:
On Twitter: @BE_SStafford
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.


text:
Here's a trade for you guys...what do you think?
Bargs and Banks to New Orleans for Okafor and Marcus Thorton.....thoughts?
Here's a trade for you guys...what do you think?
Bargs and Banks to New Orleans for Okafor and Marcus Thorton.....thoughts?
I like it we would get rebounding and inside D, even tho Okefor is a little undersized at the 5, his quickness makes up for it down low. Also get rid Banks and his huge contract .
But i don't see the Hornets agreeing to this because of what they would lose, but CP3 needs help on the offense so u never know, maybe swap thorton for bobby jackson and we get back up pg and they dont lose an offesive threat.
I wouldn't do that trade myself. Okafor is a better player than Bargs right now (if you want to ignore injury history) but I think the difference is shrinking and ultimately AB has more potential. Plus Okafor and Bosh brings back memories of JO and Bosh last year being a terrible combo. I like Thornton but seems like that bringing him in wouldn't be so good for Derozan's development.
Definitely would do it, but Hornets wouldn't in a million years. As much as they've struggled this season Okafor is the anchor on defence that they need. We do as well, but in all honestly I don't think the Hornets are a good trade partner if the Raptors are looking to make an substantial deals anytime soon.
Doesn't solve NOH cap issues.
Doesn't change the fortunes of either team for now.
Raps give up Bargs upside for the robotic EO. I'd pass!
The best Raptors discussion board is at Raptors Republic.
Stephen Brotherston, Pro Bball Report
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)


text:
Scattered Shots is brought to you by Grandpappy Frostheim, who spends his evenings in an Ironforge tavern telling young hunters how much harder things were in his day, when they had to kite mobs uphill, both ways.
It seems like everywhere I turn these days all I see is hunters overreacting and complaining about the small bit of Cataclysm hunter changes we've seen. "I hate focus! I hate haste! We're going to become ranged rogues! I'm quitting if they do this! I'm going to hold my breath until they take it back! Huuuumph!" Kids these days, I tell ya.
Let me tell you, back in my day ... Well, back in my day hunters complained and moaned about every major change, too. I guess some things never change.
While Cataclysm may be the largest change our class has seen, it is not the first major change our class -- or our stats -- have had. Some of you are just too young to know that we've gone through this all before, although to a different degree. So have a seat, make yourselves comfortable, and shut your trap for minute and maybe you'll learn a little something about the way things were back in the day. Like Brann always says, "If ye don't know yer history, yer doomed to repeat it. Then ye'll look like a great buffoon, won't ye?"
Scattered Shots is brought to you by Grandpappy Frostheim, who spends his evenings in an Ironforge tavern telling young hunters how much harder things were in his day, when they had to kite mobs uphill, both ways.
Now back when I was a young-un, we didn't have nearly so many stats as you kids do now. We had intellect, agility, hit and crit, and that was about it. And our hit and crit were straight percentages -- if gear had crit on it, it had either 1% or 2% crit, none of these newfangled ratings. Sure, technically there was attack power, but no hunter anywhere would take AP gear -- after all, our agility gave us two attack power plus some crit.
Then came the fateful day when Blizzard finally got annoyed that hunters ignored attack power gear. They decided they were going to make agility only worth 1 attack power and put attack power on all of our gear, retroactively. They changed every piece of hunter gear in the game, took away a chunk of that agility and turned it into attack power. Whoo-eee, were hunters up in arms over that. "It's a giant hunter nerf!" they cried. After all, we'd much rather have 20 of the old agility rather than 10 new agility and 20 attack power. The old agility was just flat-out better.
Of course in the end, it turns out that Blizzard actually understood how stats worked and how they affected our DPS, and they rebalanced all of our gear so that our DPS did not go down. In fact, it went up!
Then there's all those other stat changes. Crit and hit turned into ratings, which had some people complaining that it made their gear get worse as they leveled (the yokels complaining, I suppose, that they didn't want to have to get new gear when they got to the new level cap). Then haste and armor penetration rating got added to the game. Hunters hated that! "Our stats are getting too complicated -- no one can understand them! We have useless stats clogging up our itemization! We don't want to ArP, it's garbage."
Well, I'm sure you Wrath hunters know how useless ArP is for us now. And now they're complaining that it's going away!
Of course, the kids today are also complaining about stats becoming too simple. Hmph! You don't know what simple stats are! It's kinda like the complaint about it being too easy to gear up to entry-level raid gear nowadays. Don't get me wrong, it is undeniably easier -- massively easier. And that is a good thing! Let me tell you about what it was like if you wanted to raid in my day.
This is a true story: A wee Frostheim had recently hit level 60, and like everyone else, he was endlessly pugging Strat dead and UBRS (which were 10- and 15-man raids back then) trying for the awesome tier 0 set -- the Beaststalker blue quality gear. And pugging back then meant no dungeon finder and no summoning stones. It meant going through Looking for Group channel and ending up with two people AFK the entire run and at least two gold farmers who would try to ninja every BoE.
Tired of this, our wee Frostheim started searching around the internet to see what gear was available. Why go through all that pain unless he's certain that's the gear he wants after all? There he discovered the fabled Dragonstalker set. By the Titans, that stuff was beautiful! And who wants to stalk beasts, anyway, when you can stalk dragons?
Then baby Frostheim had this conversation with the grizzled veteran in the guild, the legendary hate-filled tank, Hrist:
If you wanted to do end-game raiding in vanilla, the gearing was horrible. In order to be geared for the latest raid, you had to have run the previous tier's raid dozens of times, which required gear from the tier before, and on and on and turtles all the way down. The problem was the guilds running the current raid weren't going to gear you up -- you had to do that on your own. It didn't matter how well you knew your class or how skilled you were, if you couldn't find a guild running the content to gear you up, you couldn't raid.Frost: "Forget Strat dead and UBRS! I've run them 50 times each now, and they just drop blue gear -- I just saw Dragonstalker gear online. That's what I need!"
Hrist: "Yes, that is the hunter tier 2 gear. It drops from Blackwing Lair and the helm drops from Onyxia."
Frost: "Awesome! We need to get people together and do that!"
Hrist: "We don't have good enough gear to have any chance against the first boss in there."
Frost: "Oh ... Where do we go to get good enough gear to go there?"
Hrist: "Molten Core."
Frost: "Sweet! We need to get everyone together to do Molten Core then! It will be awesome!"
Hrist: "We don't have good enough gear to do Molten Core."
Frost: "Oh ... so where do we get the gear we need to do Molten Core?"
Hrist: "From Strat and UBRS."
Frost: "Damn it! Okay, well, I figure another 20 runs or so of each and I should have it."
Hrist: "Even if you do, we have to wait until the entire raid has run them all enough to get all of their gear. We can't go until almost everyone is ready."
Frost: "I ... I just felt a little bit of wonder and happiness wither and die in my soul."
Hrist: "It's what I do."
Let's hit that one again for the people in the back: it didn't matter how skilled or knowledgeable you were. Without the gear, you couldn't raid the end game. And you couldn't get that gear without an end-game guild. And that guild wouldn't take you without the gear. It's the doomsday device and the gnome, the chicken and the egg, catch 22 -- whatever you want to call it, it added up to fail.
This also created a problem where many raiding guilds behind on progression were used as stepping stones for would-be raiders. A guild working its way through Molten Core would get applicants who came for a few months, got enough gear to app to a Blackwing Lair guild and left. And the poor Molten Core guild would never progress, because people left as fast as they came -- and all the incoming raiders were undergeared.
No, trust me kiddos, you don't want the gearing situation we had back in the old days. In fact, the only real reason anyone would want entry-level gear to be so hard to obtain is because they desperately want most people to have worse gear than they do. It's as if they feel that somehow giving more people the opportunity to attempt end-game raids will rob them of their accomplishments. To me, it seems like an complaint of the very insecure. Probably elves, actually. After all, why else be so blasted tall, if not from insecurity?
Probably the biggest hue and cry in the olden days happened when Burning Crusade was announced. They were killing, absolutely killing, our beloved Aimed Shot. This was our go-to shot: three-second cast time and hit for a good three times the damage of any other shot. And in 2.0, they were making it an instant that hit no harder than anything else. Worse yet, they were ruining our rotation with Steady Shot -- forcing us to completely re-learn how to play. They were pinning us in place with that junk. "A two-second cast time that we'll be using non-stop? How can we move? How can we get out of the fire? How can we kite?" Oh, for the good old days of Aimed Shot, Multi-Shot, then just auto-shot for half our rotation. It was so easy to get around when we didn't have any shots to fire! "They're ruining the game! I'm holding my breath until they take it back. Hauuuumph!"
I bet you kids can guess how this one ends, can't you?
BC made the hunter rotation better and more interesting than ever. Sure, they cast MM to the curb and propelled BM to the unrivaled spec for everything for an entire expansion, and sure, that whole clipping auto-shots thing was a nightmare. But you know, they got around to fixing those things, too.
If you spend some time listening to the old-timers talk about the good old days, you'll hear a lot of rosy stories about how things were better, when men were men, and women were men too, and our pets were next to useless, but they were also men. But listen closely to the details. Every one of those stories is about how horribly painful everything was back then, from gearing to ridiculous attunements to pets to rotations to raids to soloing. We had to kite demons uphill, both ways, through the snow. You kids don't know how good you got it. The good ol' days were things of legend, yes, but they were not good days.
And that's the thing you gotta understand about Cataclysm. Some changes hurt and some changes rock, and Blizzard certainly make mistakes here and there. But take a step back; look at the big picture. Look at the game back in my day -- the weak and vulnerable pets, the empty rotation, the bugs, the grinds -- and look at it now. The game just gets better and better and better. So many of the horribly painful things from vanilla blissfully vanished in BC. So many of the horribly painful things from BC blissfully vanished in Wrath. And come Cataclysm, sure, we're going to have to relearn our rotations just like we did in BC. But who knows what horribly painful things from Wrath will vanish?
Because here's a secret: in those painful good old days, we didn't sit around and complain about how hard things were. That's just the way they were -- it's the way the game was. It wasn't bad because we had nothing but worse things to compare it to. It wasn't until the game changed -- with all the complaining and howling and breath-holding that goes with it -- that we could suddenly look back and realize, "Holy crap. We had it hard in my day. You kids don't know how good you got it ..."
And just like we didn't realize how much better all this upheaval would make our class, I have a hunch that you kids will see the same thing in Cataclysm. You'll be sitting here by this fire, telling a new group of youngsters how hard you had it back in your day, when you had mana, and if you ran out you'd have to do 40% damage until it came back. Or how there was only one pet that anyone used. Or that awful ArP stat that was so complicated even the theorycrafters couldn't figure it out until Blizzard stepped in and explained it to them. Or who knows what? Something that we take for granted now as just being a part of the game, but will seem like such a hardship when it gets changed -- even if it's a change that we rail against.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be critical, but you do need to keep the greater context in mind. Then you'll start to see that big picture that Blizzard is painting of a game that keeps being more approachable, keeps growing, of mistakes made but then corrected and made better than ever: a picture of an awesome game that just keeps improving.
You want to be a hunter, eh? Well then you came to the right place. You start with science, then you add some Dwarven Stout and round it off some elf-bashing. The end result is massive DPS. Scattered Shots is the WoW.com column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. Each week, Scattered Shots will cover topics to help you improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, get started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101 and even solo bosses with some extreme soloing.


text:
I agree with pretty much everything Madame said, the only thing that kind of stuck out at me were the ratios. I've never really seen it put in this manner but now that you have it really makes sense. I wouldn't go as far to say you have to have 3 good traits for every flaw, because real people aren't like that. I think (like others have said) that when authors are writing an OC for the first time they tend to look inside themselves and since we don't usually recognize our own flaws we incorporate our good traits and throw in a random flaw or two just to "balance things out", when humans aren't really "balanced".Originally Posted by Madame Marauder
In my opinion it's easier to write Females, because I'm a female and know how girls think. But I've never tried writing and OMC.Originally Posted by mooncalf
I can see where mooncalf is coming from. Guys don't talk about their emotions, but if you're writing a Romance fic (which revolve around emotions) then eventually the author is going to have to deal with the fact that the guy is giong to have to tell the girl he likes how he feels. Emotional turmoil is a beast to write, and I feel safe writing a girl's emotional turmoil since I can relate.


text:
I am using Borland c++ 5.02 for fetching data using an A/D/A convertor card PCL-208. I was using function inport and outport for transferring data. When I was using these functions with borland c++ 3.1 version (after including dos.h file) my program was running fine. Now I am suppossed to use these finctions with Borland c++ 5.02 version. Though the help file gives these functions but using these functions gives an error. The error says "call to undefined function outportb & call to undefined function inportb.
I am not able to find a solution.
Help me if you can


text:
Purchasing tickets from viagogo is 100% safe. You can rest assured that any order you make is both private and protected. All your personal information will be handled confidentially and securely using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer encryption. Our secure website encrypts all of your personal information including credit or debit card numbers, name and address.
The encryption process takes the characters you enter and converts them into bits of code that are then securely transmitted over the internet.
We use Verisign to ensure the security of our website. Verisign is a global provider of digital certificate solutions that provide Internet users with peace of mind when sending information to web sites, sending emails, and downloading computer code over the internet.


text: I did mention the fact that I had blocked the crank, and a picture is sure helpful. I have the white plastic block from Cycleworks ( www.cycleworks.com ) he has some great tools! One end has threads on it the other bolt head, just screw it into the alternator hole until it is snug.


text:
New For 2014
The 2014 Porsche Cayman is all-new. It sits on a slightly longer wheelbase, wears attractive new sheetmetal, has a classier interior, and is faster than ever before. It's also more efficient: the base model achieves 30 mpg on the highway.
Vehicle Summary
The 2014 Porsche Cayman is the coupe companion to the excellent Boxster convertible. It shares with the Boxster a mid-engine layout and nearly all of its mechanical components. The latest version of the Cayman, the third-generation, has grown into a more mature, better-looking, more powerful car than its predecessor. It still isn't as fast as some of the powerful coupes you can buy for $50,000, but it is one of the best to drive.
The 2014 Porsche Cayman is one of the best sports cars you can buy for any budget. It debuted in 2005 for people who wanted a Boxster with a fixed roof (necessary for driving on most racetracks). Like the Boxster, the Cayman recently underwent its most significant redesign to date. The biggest improvement may be the styling. Porsche's design team, under the direction of Michael Mauer, has nipped and tucked the Cayman's sheetmetal so that it looks like a sensuous sports car rather than a watered-down 911.
The 2014 Porsche Cayman is also a more convincing luxury car thanks to its new interior. The sweeping center console and tasteful trim lend a premium feel even to the base car — a good thing since that model commands more than $50,000. Just as important, the improved interior doesn't feel out of place when the Cayman is loaded with options. We've driven Caymans costing more than $95,000 and found them a compelling argument at that price.
As with the latest 911 and Boxster, Porsche has managed to make the Cayman slightly bigger and more powerful but at the same time more efficient. The Cayman S, in particular, has become something of a muscle car: 0 to 60 mph takes as little as 4.4 seconds, according to Porsche. Even so, the Cayman loses a lot of spec-sheet battles. Similarly priced cars such as the Chevrolet Corvette and the Audi RS5 offer more power.
To understand the appeal of the 2014 Porsche Cayman, you need to get out on a winding road or, better still, a racetrack. The mid-engine layout offers wonderful handling balance, such that the car seems to dance through corners. The steering is precise and perfectly weighted. The flat-six engine responds precisely to your right foot as only a normally aspirated engine can, producing a thrilling wail as it climbs toward its peak power (7400 rpm for both the base and S models). That's true, we should add, regardless of whether you opt for the six-speed manual or the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. If we have to complain about something, we'd say the new electric power steering doesn't communicate as well as the old hydraulic rack, especially at lower speeds. Overall, though, the Cayman is one of those special cars that reminds us why we like driving.
The Cayman's biggest competition probably comes from the other sports cars in the Porsche showroom. The Boxster performs just as well, can lower its top, and costs less. For a bit more money, the 911 offers more power and two (small) rear seats. That said, the Cayman, more than ever before, has carved out its own niche.
You'll like:
- Cars don't handle better than this
- Premium cabin
- Attractive exterior
You won't like:
- Good steering not perfect as it used to be
- Gets expensive, quickly
- The Boxster is cheaper
Key Competitors
- Audi RS5
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Jaguar F-type