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By Mtega.com
Tanzania has made strong statements about the Open Government Partnership (OGP). It has also promised to deliver. When President Kikwete spoke at the OGP Summit in Brazil in April 2012, he said:
"I promise that we will do our best to live up to the expectations of this partnership to promote transparency and accountability of our government to the people of Tanzania. I wish to reaffirm that our political will to achieve the OGP goals will not falter because open government is at the heart of the contract between state and citizens"But is Tanzania is living up to these bold words? The sceptics out there are not so sure.
Just six months remain on the first two-year Action Plan. And while some progress has been made, overall it has been disappointing. The government has published its own self-assessment report on the OGP website. By my calculations, of the 25 commitments in Tanzania's Action Plan, only two have been fully met – to publish a citizens' budget and to establish an OGP focal person within government. Given that the first of these was already happening before the OGP, and was largely delivered by Policy Forum, this is not great.
But that harsh judgement may not be wholly fair. Though other commitments may have been met only in part, there is significant progress to report. Take a look at the Nifanyeje? website, the new NECTA exam results open data site and the National Audit Office website, or take have a sneak peak at the Ministry of Water's forthcoming Waterpoint Mapping site. They're all part of Tanzania's OGP Action Plan commitments. None of them are perfect, they may not be beautiful and some of them are not finished, but at least they're something.
The sense I have is that there's a struggle going on within government. Some ministers and officials support the open government idea, others couldn't care less. In parts of government where there is more support, where individual politicians or civil servants have been willing to push, there has been quicker progress.
Nevertheless, overall, progress has been slow and disappointing. A lot of work needs to be done if Tanzania is going to prove the OGP sceptics wrong. In particular, as world leaders (and I) gather in London this week for the next OGP Summit, where President Kikwete is expected to speak, here are five questions that Tanzania needs to answer.
1. What will the government do differently next time? Most of Tanzania's commitments in the first OGP Action Plan have not been met. So how will the government make sure it delivers on the next set of commitments? And will someone be held accountable for it?
2. Will the next plan include some more ambitious commitments in key OGP areas? Tanzania's first Action Plan covered a lot of different issues, but lacked ambition in key areas. The commitments on Freedom of Information Law and public officials' asset disclosures were very minimal, for example. How about including commitments to open contracting, freedom of information, asset disclosures and freedom of the press?
3. Will the Tanzanian government be more open about open government? Tanzania's engagement with the OGP has been far from perfect. Aside from the key gaps in the Action Plan and slow pace of delivery, the process has not lived up to the expected standards of transparency and participation, as the government's own progress report admits. The Action Plan is not even available on the OGP website (though it can be found on the Ministry of Water's site), and very little information on progress has been made public.
4. Will the government embrace fully open data standards? Even where Tanzania has fulfilled some parts of the first Action Plan, there are signs that the commitment to "open" is only partial. The Waterpoint mapping website, for example, is designed to make only some of the data public, and the National Audit Office site publishes reports in pdf format rather than machine-readable formats.
5. How does the government reconcile the suspension of Mwananchi, Mtanzania and MwanaHalisi newspapers and the Prime Minister's exhortation in Parliament for the police to "beat" protesters with Tanzania's commitment to open government? Open government means much more than delivering on a list of technical actions. It involves a change of mindset and a different approach to how government works.
The benefits of open government are worth struggling for. And the Open Government Partnership, for all its imperfections, may be one of the best mechanisms to help us achieve greater transparency and accountability. I will be listening carefully to see what President Kikwete and his fellow leaders say this week in relation to these 5 questions, and I encourage you to do the same. And even more importantly, watch carefully what is done. Because, as all good politicians know, actions speak louder than words.


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Twin MTU 8V 2000 M93 (2 x 1216 hp)
SAT TV Raymarine 60
Yacht controller
Crew cabin with sink & WC
ONAN 13,5 kW generator
El. Hydraulic passarelle 3,5m
Bow thruster 210 kgf
Stern thruster
Air-conditioning/Heating inc.l Crew cabin
19" LCD TV/DVD in forward cabin
Premium Audio System Bose Lifestyle 48 media
32" LCD TV/DVD in upper saloon
26" LCD TV/DVD in Master cabin
iPOD docking station (master cabin, saloon)
Washer/ Dryer
Princess china, cutlery and glasses
Platinum Leather upholstery
Bedding for all cabins
Electric Stern Winches (2)
Underwater transom lights (4) high voltage
Large oval mosquito screens for Master cabin
Mosquito screens (6)
Foredeck sunbed cushions Movida Met Weiss
Additional 20m of anchor chain
Continental sockets
Hull color Midnight Blue
Wood interior Light Oak Satin finish
Galley worktop Midnight Sky
Interior upholstery color Maritim Chocolate
Exterior upholstery color Movida Met Beige
Power – assisted electro-hydraulic steering system
24 DC/240v AC electrical system
240v shore power with 75 amp float battery charger
Remote control electric anchor winch
Electric trim tabs with indicators
VHF with DSC R/T
Colour Radar / Chartplotter / GPS
Speed and distance log
Echo sounder with alarm system
Remote control searchlight
Combination microwave/conventional oven/grill
Full height Refrigerator with deep freezer
Cockpit wet bar including sink and electric BBQ
Cockpit top loading cool box
Vacuumflush toilets with holding tank
Lower saloon LCD TV/DVD with Bose surround sound system
Deck saloon stereo radio/CD
Teak laid transom platform/cockpit deck/stairs to side decks
Cockpit snubbed and cushions
Double opening stainless steel framed saloon door
Hard top with electrically operated sliding sunroof
Electro-hydraulically opening garage with storage for tender/wetbike
Transom door
Transom platform with electro-hydraulic raise/lower system
Hot and cold transom shower
Cockpit hood and tonneau cover
Sven Delic
sales manager
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mob:+385 95 9024761
Skype name : sven.delic
E-mail: email@example.com
Koturaska 51

subset: commoncrawl


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Hammo Surfboards provides customized handcrafted surfboards and equipment. We shape for waves and individuals, as we share the same passion with surfing. One of the main reasons why we do this is about the equipment that you're riding. We want you to feel comfortable under your feet. We want it to be purely an extension of one's self and walk or ride to your own style. You may visit our website to view the list of different boards that we have, or you may also visit our showroom and say hi to the crew and to the boards.
Other Categories :
Surfboard Shop Australia,
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Year Established
Write a Review For


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Social Security recipients received an average monthly benefit of $1,223.45 in July 2015, according to statistics provided by the Social Security Administration. A total of 59.5 million people received Social Security benefits, including 42.6 million retired workers and 8.9 million disabled workers.Continue Reading
Retired workers received an average benefit of $1,335.97 in July 2015, while disabled workers received an average of $1,165.18. Another 6 million people received survivor benefits with an average payout of $1,112.29.
The maximum possible benefit for a retired worker is $2,663 a month in 2015, which is roughly twice the average benefit for a retired worker. There is no minimum benefit. The average benefit increased by only $33.17 between July 2014 and July 2015.Learn more about US Government


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Recently, I've been looking at notebook computers quite a bit. From friends with kids heading off to college and business associates asking for advice about standardizing and revamping their office computer systems, I've heard a lot of opinions about what makes a good notebook computer.
One factor people used to look at first—weight—doesn't seem to be much of a concern anymore. For truly lightweight tasks, serious business types are moving to wireless alternatives, such as the RIM BlackBerry, and therefore, aren't as interested in a super-light subnotebook-style computer. These users want a full-featured unit. That being said, quite a difference in market definition still exists between run-of-the-mill notebook computers and full desktop-replacement units.
To get a feel for the current notebook market, I've been using two very different notebooks for the past few months: a Compaq Armada M700 and an NEC Versa LXi. The Armada is a typical travelers' companion notebook: good feature set, not too heavy, adequate keyboard, and decent accessories. The NEC is a full-featured desktop replacement.
Although I'm not overly concerned with speeds and feeds, I was initially concerned that processor differences would be noticeable; the M700 has a 700MHz Pentium III processor, and the LXi has an 850MHz Pentium III processor. But in day-to-day knowledge-worker type tasks running Windows XP/Windows 2000 and Office XP/Office 2000, I noticed no real performance difference that affected my work.
The LXi feels much more solid than the M700, but the LXi is also much heavier and thicker. The LXi also has twice as much video memory as the M700 has, letting me run an external monitor at higher resolution and greater color depth. And games functioned somewhat better on the LXi, probably because of the better video and faster CPU. In a somewhat curious twist, the LXi (which I'm less likely to carry around all the time) has better protection for all of the ports (NIC, modem, USB) that now come standard with notebooks; the M700 leaves these ports open to the world. Both units have built-in keyboards that are about equal for typing ease.
If I owned only one computer, which type would it be? Well, after several months of traveling with both machines and using both machines at my desk, I would choose the LXi desktop–replacement system. The lighter M700 is a hands-down winner in an airplane's tight confines, but in all other cases, the LXi provides better access to ports, and somewhat better functionality overall. I do, however, prefer the M700's pointing stick to the LXi's touchpad.
The choice was a tossup for most of my comparison, but it finally boiled down to an unexpected issue: The LXi offers better thermal management. After sitting for several days without being turned off, the M700 had a few very hot areas on the case and the table below it. The LXi never reached more than warm.
Of course, I don't use one computer for all my needs, so I didn't have to decide between a desktop-replacement system and a notebook dedicated to traveling. But if you plan to give your users notebook computers that do double-duty on the desktop, pay careful attention to how the users will actually use their systems.


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IT 2017 720p HDRip English x264 1GB HD DVDRIP Watch Online | Download
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Movie Title: It (2017) Director: Andy Muschietti Stars: Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard Release Date: 8 September 2017 (UK) Genres: Drama, Horror, Thriller Format: MatRoska (Mkv) File Size: 1GB Resolution: 1280x720 Runtime: 02:09:11 Language: English Subtitles: None Source: EVO
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It (also known as It: Chapter One) is a 2017 American supernatural horror film[5] directed by Andy Muschietti, based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The screenplay is by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman.[6][7] A second installment is planned. The film tells the story of seven children in Derry, Maine, who are terrorized by the eponymous being, only to face their own personal demons in the process. The novel was previously adapted into a 1990 miniseries.
The film stars Jaeden Lieberher and Bill Skarsgård as Bill Denbrough and Pennywise the Dancing Clown, respectively, with Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Nicholas Hamilton, and Jackson Robert Scott in supporting roles.[11][6] Principal photography began in the Riverdale neighborhood of Toronto on June 27, 2016, and ended on September 21, 2016.[12][13] Other Ontario locations included Port Hope and Oshawa
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Dr. Jindong Cai, Music Director
The El Camino Wind Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Richard Roper, is a woodwind, brass, and percussion ensemble composed of bright young middle and high school students from across the Bay Area.
ECWO musicians experience a wide breadth of repertoire, ranging from classical transcriptions to modern works just a few years old.
As an advanced/intermediate orchestra, students are given thorough instruction on ensemble balance and intonation while experiencing a rigorous challenge of their technical skills.
A truly "20th Century ensemble," the Wind Orchestra aims to expose its musicians to contemporary sounds in addition to the more common classic style. While the ECWO serves as a preparatory ensemble for some students, it is also often a destination for musicians who prefer a wind orchestra program.
The ECWO season runs September through May, and the musicians perform in three concerts during the year. Recent concerts include performances at the Menlo-Atherton Center for the Performing Arts and the Albert and Janet Schultz Cultural Arts Hall of Palo Alto.
Wind Orchestra musicians are encouraged to enroll in ECYS Summer Music Workshop III - Wind Ensemble.
Wind Orchestra musicians are eligible to enroll in the ECYS Chamber Music and Performance Outreach Program.
Tuesday Rehearsals
Terman Middle School, Palo Alto
Remember Me
The upcoming calendar is currently empty.
Click here to view past events and photos »


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Strawberry 40 gr
Rp 20.000
This excellent strawberry fruit paste is covered by our 58% of cocoa dark chocolate. Enjoy it straight from the refrigerator on a warm summer day. It gives you a burst of energy and the cool strawberry fruit paste reminds you of all the good things out there.
It is refreshing for your body and your mind. Pure strawberry fruit paste covered by fine dark Indonesian chocolate, what more do you need? Monggo!
Dark Chocolate Couverture 58 % Cocoa (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanillin), Strawberry Filling (sugar, water, glucose syrup, vegetable thickener, citric acid, strawberry flavor, potassium sorbate, tartrazine CI No. 19140, ponceu : 4R Cl 16255).


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Other Requirements: Must be an expatriate person
How to Apply: Interested and qualified candidates should:
A Financial Institution is recruiting to fill the vacant position below:
Job Title: Facility Manager
Job Location: Lagos
Educational Qualification: B.Sc in any Engineering field. M.Sc is an advantage.
Years of Experience: Possess a minimum of 5 years of experience as Facility manager or in a related position.
Other Requirements: Must be an expatriate person
Job Descriptions
- Manage and oversee operations, maintenance, administration, and improvement of commercial, industrial, or residential properties.
- Plan, schedule, and coordinate general maintenance, major repairs, and remodeling or construction projects for commercial or residential properties.
- Direct collection of monthly assessments, rental fees, and deposits and payment of insurance premiums, mortgage, taxes, and incurred operating expenses.
- Inspect grounds, facilities, and equipment routinely to determine necessity of repairs or maintenance.
- Act as liaisons between on-site managers or tenants and owners.
- Meet with prospective tenants to show properties, explain terms of occupancy, and provide information about local areas.
- Market vacant space to prospective tenants through leasing agents, advertising, or other methods.
- Solicit and analyze bids from contractors for repairs, renovations, and maintenance.
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- Coordinating and leading one or more teams to cover various areas of responsibility.
- Develop a facility management framework for the organization.
- Conduct regular assessment to ensure that facilities conform to global health Safety standard.
- Purchase building and maintenance supplies, equipment, or furniture.
- Determine and certify the eligibility of prospective tenants, following government regulations.
- Negotiate the sale, lease, or development of property and complete or review appropriate documents and forms.
- Ensure cleaning of common areas, change light bulbs, and make minor property repairs.
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- Analyze information on property values, taxes, zoning, population growth, and traffic volume and patterns to determine if properties should be acquired.
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- Maintain records of sales, rental or usage activity, special permits issued, maintenance and operating costs, or property availability.
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- Maintain contact with insurance carriers, fire and police departments, and other agencies to ensure protection and compliance with codes and regulations.
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- Using performance management techniques to monitor and demonstrate achievement of agreed service levels and to lead on improvement.
Apply Before: 11th May, 2016.
How to Apply: Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply


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5 Amazing Benefits Of Oakmoss Essential Oil
Did you know that moss and lichen could help cure sepsis? Before you go out hunting for some moss, know that oakmoss is a special kind of moss that grows on the oak tree branches.
It has many health benefits, and its essential oil is especially popular. You may ask why? Well, read on and find out about the amazing health benefits of oakmoss essential oil.
What Is Oakmoss Essential Oil?
Like we mentioned above, oakmoss is moss that grows on oak tree branches. Oaks are indigenous to Europe and North America and so is oakmoss.
European nations have many uses for the moss, but France is where they extract the essential oil. It is one of the few producers of Oakmoss essential Oil. Other than France, few other nations like Bulgaria and the USA also produce oakmoss oil.
Following are the Oakmoss essential oil benefits:
1. Demulcent:
A demulcent is a soothing agent, which helps soothe any inflammation or irritation you may be experiencing. Oakmoss Essential Oil soothes the skin and keeps it smooth and soft by maintaining the moisture and oil balance of the skin.
The oil has soothing effects on your digestive system as well. It also provides relief from wounds, inflammation, scratches and irritation in the esophagus, intestines, and stomach. Acidity and highly spicy food are the usual reasons for the conditions mentioned above.
Oakmoss oil can also soothe inflammation and reduce irritation in the nervous system. Lastly, it also soothes the excretory tracts and mucous membranes (1).
2. Antiseptic:
Oakmoss essential oil has antiseptic properties and helps reduce sepsis, a dreaded infection that affects open wounds. The essential oil also inhibits microbial growth and protects any open wounds from contracting infections. It has another benefit: it does not burn like other antiseptic solutions and has a pleasing and relaxing aroma (2).
[ Read: Benefits Of Galbanum Essential Oil ]
3. Restorative:
A restorative agent does what its name suggests; it restores something to its initial condition. Oakmoss oil is an effective restorative, which helps reduce the effect of aging and helps your body recover.
It quickens healing processes and helps restore cells, tissues, muscles and organs to a healthy state. Apart from that, a restorative agent also restores your health and boosts your immunity.
4. Expectorant:
An expectorant is an agent, which helps loosen accumulated hard phlegm or catarrh from the respiratory tract. It helps clear your bronchial tubes, lungs, trachea, pharynx and larynx and removes any excess mucous build-up.
Expectorants provide immediate congestion relief and alleviate breathing troubles, asthma attacks, and cough. Oakmoss essential oil is an effective expectorant. It helps flush excess phlegm and catarrh from your body and relieves other related symptoms as well. Another good thing about having some oakmoss oil is that it doesn't make you drowsy like other expectorants in the market.
5. Other Benefits:
Oakmoss essential oil has many important health benefits. It also features as a popular ingredient in skin care products like sprays and other cosmetics, due to its antiseptic and demulcent properties. Oakmoss essential oil also has fixative properties, which means that it helps stabilize and preserves your body strength.
[ Read: Benefits Of Tuberose Essential Oil ]
Side Effects Of Oakmoss Essential Oil:
Oakmoss essential oil has many health benefits and is a useful essential oil. However, it does have some side effects. So, avoid using the essential oil if:
- You are pregnant
- You are prone to neurological disorders
- You are prone to hysteria or epilepsy
So, we hope you found the post helpful. Have you used oakmoss essential oil? Let us know by commenting in the box below!
Recommended Articles:
- 10 Amazing Benefits Of Niaouli Essential Oil
- 8 Amazing Benefits Of Tangerine Essential Oil
- 7 Amazing Benefits And Uses Of Coffee Essential Oil
- 14 Amazing Health Benefits And Uses Of Lemon Essential Oil
- 10 Amazing Benefits And Uses Of Lemon Verbena Essential Oil
Ameya C
Latest posts by Ameya C (see all)
- 8 Facts About Washing Hands That You Don't Want To Ignore - February 23, 2016
- 5 Amazing Benefits Of Castor Oil Bath - June 12, 2015
- Top 9 Foam Rollers For Runners - June 8, 2015
- 6 Amazing Benefits Of Elemi Essential Oil - May 6, 2015
- What Is Reverse Prayer Yoga And What Are Its Benefits? - May 5, 2015


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Quick Reference
A court order under the Children Act 1989 that a probation officer, or an officer of a local authority, should advise, assist, and befriend a particular child or a person closely connected with the child (such as a parent) in order to provide short-term support for the family. The order can only be made with the consent of the person it concerns (other than the child) and has effect for up to six months.
Subjects: Law.
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Love Stories @ RomanceClass -
He loves me
Well i met a guy my freshmen year when i was 15 and he was 3 years older then me.we started talking and seeing each other for 5 months then i decided to have my first time with him because i felt he was the one.when i told him, he was shocked that i choose him and of course was looking foward to it .But the same day i lost it to him he told me he was moving.i was sad and mad because he was leaving and mader because he told me after we had done it.We stopped talking after that day and we said our goodbyes then a week later i found out by a friend of he's that he never left and got back with he's ex and i was pretty devestated.i called him to clear things up but he never returned my calls.i soon gave up and another 6 months later i randomly called him on hes birthday.that day we spoke and he admitted to me that what he did was a mistake and that he had grown and realized how stupid he was.he apologized and told me i was a great girl who didnt deserve that.Since that day he felt the need to call me everyday and soon we bacame very close again and i got to really know him and i slowly started to fall for him again and soon we started having converstations about him being confused about me and scared because he was having these feelings for me.This took time to convey but i could tell he was scared to love me in the way he spoke and tried to express himself.We were also making love during this time.since he's birthday we continue talking never running out of things to say i was always there for him when he needed me.i love him but confused because i dont know if he feels the same.he sometimes shows signs that he is then that he isnt.In the end he broke up with he's girlfriend who he had been with for 4 years and seriously thought about being with me ,except for the fact that i have some really bad habits so right now were both still lovers and friends and he's still deciding what he wants.Im a Senior now and we continue to talk and he continues to be the only person that knows me best.He's now in base training but will soon come back home.i doubt he doesnt love me,After everything we've been through who wouldnt?
3.14 out of 5 hearts
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A. When you search the Microsoft Proxy 2.0 online documentation for a particular topic, you might receive the following error message:
HTTP Error 403

 403.1 Forbidden: Execute Access Forbidden

 This error can be caused if you try to execute a CGI, ISAPI, or other executable program from a directory that does not allow programs to be executed.

 Please contact the Web server's administrator if the problem persists.

This behavior occurs during the Proxy 2.0 installation within BackOffice Server (BOS) 4.5 or BackOffice Small Business Server (SBS) 4.5 because script access isn't granted to the virtual directory in which the Index Server search file (.htx) is located.
To resolve this issue, perform the following steps:
- Go to Start, Programs, Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, Internet Information Server, Internet Service Manager.
- In Microsoft Management Console (MMC), expand the following items: Console Root, Internet Information Server, \[ServerName\], Default Web Site, PrxDocs.
- Select the Misc folder.
- On the Action menu, click Properties.
- In the lower portion of the Properties window, change the permissions to Script.
- Click Apply, and then click OK.
- Click Default Web Site.
- On the Action menu, click Stop.
- On the Action menu, click Start.
- Quit MMC.
Hide comments


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Community Innovations Alliance
10 Sunday Mar 2013
Written by KYCcia in information
≈ Comments Off
Expressions of Interest Invited
KYC Trust has registered the Business Name: Community Innovations Alliance with the vision of forming an alliance of local, grass roots organisations to strengthen their capacity and increase their potential in securing funding through partnership in the alliance. The alliance will provide high level marketing support, create business based planning to increase capacity to receive sponsorship, donations and fundraising as well as applications for suitable grants and tenders.
Please click here for further information.


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It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by jimmyx
all they got was t-shirts??....maybe samsung, or sony, or ibm, or cisco, or microsoft...would have paid big money for it...boy, one opportunity for some easy cash and they blew it. you don't think these companies would be ruthless enough to do that?? guess again.edit on 10-9-2012 by jimmyx because: spell
Originally posted by tracehd1
What confuses me is what they're calling a mystery....how did the package get to the wrong address? They say: delivered to wrong address by carrier. Ok... Whomever sent the package did they put a Person or Companies name on the package? Did they also put an address or re- turn address on the package? If not...did the carrier just guess whom the package belonged too?
If (whomever) did in fact put a name and address on the package why would another company whose name and address aren't on the package open it? Isn't normal protocol to mark the package ... Wrong address?
So, if the name and address did not belong to the person or persons receiving the package and they did open it...and not only did they open it but they took pictures of it and tried to figure out how it worked, wouldn't that be a federal offense? Tampering w/ mail?
I read the article 2x's and did not find anywhere how the package was sent... Did I miss the elementary? The 2 + 2? The smoking gun? It's almost as if someone wanted this scandal....something about the whole thing is perplexing....
The OP writes this..." "At first, Google didn't respond to their phone calls, the men said, and when it did, it wouldn't explain the switch. "
Why would google sit w/ these two guys and explain anything to them? As if they thought google owed them? Everything about this story stinks...
But I still want to know what Project Watchtower is!!!
Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
reply to post by JohnPhoenix
Can you cite that? I have always wondered what the answer to that would be and have heard conflicting answers.
Is this a joint operation Google - GOSCC ? I mean Google meet all the requirement for such tasks.
Is the Pluto switch's part of the gears used in Project Watchtower ?
Is it possible that this particular switch's were used in some data mining / repository center ? still containing info?


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Skin is your body's largest organ.
It serves as an important protection device for the body and plays a role in:
Your skin is affected in many different ways after a spinal cord injury.
You may:
It is important to take steps to help prevent injury:
To make an appointment in the outpatient spinal cord injury clinic at UPMC Mercy, please call 412-232-8901.
Affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences
| Supplemental content provided by Healthwise, Incorporated. To learn more, visit www.healthwise.org
For help in finding a doctor or health service that suits your needs, call the UPMC Referral Service at 412-647-UPMC (8762) or 1-800-533-UPMC (8762). Select option 1.
UPMC is an equal opportunity employer. UPMC policy prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected group status. Further, UPMC will continue to support and promote equal employment opportunity, human dignity, and racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in UPMC programs and activities. This commitment is made by UPMC in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.
Medical information made available on UPMC.com is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not rely entirely on this information for your health care needs. Ask your own doctor or health care provider any specific medical questions that you have. Further, UPMC.com is not a tool to be used in the case of an emergency. If an emergency arises, you should seek appropriate emergency medical services.
Pittsburgh, PA, USA | UPMC.com


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The Gulag Argumento
Martin Amis swings at Stalin and hits his own best friend instead.
Judging by the reviews, Martin Amis' new book, Koba the Dread, will produce an unusually wide range of reactions—but that is hardly surprising. Although Amis is best known as a novelist, Koba the Dread is a truly unique, not to say peculiar, work of nonfiction: a potted history of Stalin's reign ("Koba" was Stalin's nickname), plus a few random, mostly trivial vignettes from Amis' own life, plus some less trivial but out-of-context ruminations on the deaths of Amis' father and sister. Michiko Kakatuni in the New York Times called Koba the Dread"the narcissistic musings of a spoiled, upper-middle class litterateur who has never known the kind of real suffering Stalin's victims did." By contrast, Paul Berman, in the Sunday New York Times, thought it a "very curiously tinted book, idiosyncratic in the extreme," which nevertheless "carries a punch, artfully delivered."
Still, most reviewers seem to agree that whatever the book's faults—and however odd its digressions into subjects like the Bolsheviks' "politicization of sleep"—Amis has at least done us all a favor by bringing attention to a neglected subject. Kakutani writes that the book "does a credible job of conveying just how Stalin went about 'breaking the truth.' " Andrew Stuttaford, in the National Review, compliments Amis on the grounds that he offers readers a "brief, competent introduction to the Stalin years." And now Christopher Hitchens, writing in this month's issue of the Atlantic, applauds Amis because he "makes us wince again at things we already 'knew.' "
This compliment is not, however, why most people will remember Hitchens' review. For in this context, Hitchens is no ordinary book reviewer. Rather, he is both Martin Amis' best friend and—strange though it sounds—the anti-hero of Koba the Dread. In the course of the book, Amis effectively accuses Hitchens, a youthful Trotskyite (who will still call himself a Trotskyite, if asked), of covering up the truth about communism and links him to the socialist fellow-travelers of the past: H.G. Wells, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw. In the final pages of the book, Amis addresses his friend as "Comrade Hitchens," and solemnly lectures him about the "formula of dead freedom, lies and violence" with which the Bolsheviks ran revolutionary Russia.
As might be expected of one of the most acerbic writers of contemporary English prose, Hitchens responds in kind. After dispensing with the introductory compliments, he goes on to quote George Orwell's remark that terrible things happened during the Spanish Civil War, and "they did not happen any the less because the Daily Telegraph found out about them five years too late." Amis, he writes, can just about be excused for coming across Vorkuta and Kolyma (names of Soviet concentration camps) or Yezhov and Dzierzhinsky (names of Soviet secret police bosses) rather late in life, "but he cannot hope to get away with accusing others of keeping these facts and names from him, or from themselves."
The subsequent insults are a delight to read. Hitchens accuses Amis of "solipsism" and of "mushy secondhand observations," and quotes some satisfyingly silly bits of Amis prose. Among other things, we learn in Koba the Dread that Amis has nicknamed his baby daughter "Butyrka," on the grounds that her nocturnal screams "would not have been out of place in the deepest cellars of the Butyrki Prison in Moscow during the Great Terror." We have moved, writes Hitchens, "from darkness at noon to … lightness at midnight."
Few things are more amusing than the sight of fashionable literati insulting one another in print. Yet one finishes the review feeling that Hitchens isn't trying very hard. Of course Christopher Hitchens, a man who has publicly attacked Mother Teresa, can bat away a book that contains sentences like "I didn't read The Great Terror [Robert Conquest's classic account of the purge years] in 1968 … but I spent an hour with it" without blinking an eye. More to the point—and contrary to the reviews—Koba the Dread is not, in fact, a competent account of Stalin's reign but rather a muddled misrendering of both Soviet and Western intellectual history. For that reason, the deeper points Amis seems to have been trying to make about the Western relationship to Soviet terror are lost on Hitchens and will probably be lost on everyone else as well.
Here I will resist the pedantic temptation to list Amis' many small errors of fact and emphasis (declaration of interest: I've spent the past five years writing a history of the Soviet Gulag). Suffice to say that while Amis has read perhaps a dozen-odd books about Soviet communism and the Russian revolution, he has done no original research; has hardly availed himself of any of the new, archive-based scholarship; and appears never to have met an actual camp survivor. If he has been to Russia, he doesn't tell us.
As a result, his account of the Soviet camps is skewed toward the sensational—the most extreme camps, the most horrific tortures—and fails to convey either the dull, gray, repetitiveness of daily life in the Gulag or the size and variety of the camp system, which had branches in virtually every region of the USSR and participated in virtually every industry. He also masks the true nature of the vast secret police bureaucracy, which was far likelier to arrest, sentence, and forget about people for a decade or two than to gouge their eyes out. For the most part, the "meat-grinder," as Solzhenitsyn called the system of Soviet repression, was not intended to kill or torture people but to reduce them to the status of cattle, who were worth feeding only as long as they could help boost production figures. For the most part, the horror of Soviet camp guards lay not in their sadism but in their total indifference to prisoners' fate.
Misleadingly, Amis also focuses at least a third of this book on the ghoulish personality of Stalin. While it is perfectly true that recent archival research has vindicated Conquest, an Amis family friend, in his long-held belief that Stalin himself was the main author of Soviet terror, Stalin didn't kill and imprison millions of his countrymen by himself. On the contrary—as archival documents show—Stalin issued orders commanding his secret policemen to execute precise numbers of people, and they wrote back, asking if they might possibly be allowed to execute even more. Amis writes that "since 1929 the Soviet Union had been a reflection of Stalin's mind"—but totalitarianism did not function, as the novelist seems to imagine, like a magic beam of light that emanated from a single brain. It was the product of institutions, of bureaucracies, and above all individual choices and decisions of millions of people. This is supposed to be a book about evil, in other words, but it doesn't even attempt to describe the base, nasty, and small-minded forms of evil of which even the most ordinary human beings are easily capable, given a base and nasty form of government.
Reading Amis' tale of horrors, tortures, and the human monster at the heart of it all, one would not know that ordinary people were involved at all. By the same token, it is impossible even to guess at what conceivable appeal the Soviet Union could ever have had to its many Western sympathizers and fellow-travelers. The only logical explanation is extreme stupidity, which is perhaps why even Hitchens comes off seeming idiotic in Amis' account. Yet while plenty of fellow-travelers were quite stupid (the Webbs come to mind here), far more found the slogans and the language of totalitarianism genuinely appealing. The masses, the struggle, the proletariat, the exploiters and exploited, the ownership of the means of production—these were all terms close to the hearts of the Western left, too.
But it wasn't even necessary to sympathize in order to be taken in. Henry Wallace, Roosevelt's vice president, actually visited Kolyma in 1944 and left without realizing that the healthy, well-fed workers he had seen were apparatchiks dressed up in miners' clothes for the day, or that the fine "amateur choir" he heard was composed entirely of prisoners, including many arrested musicians. The lesson here is not that Wallace was stupid, but that even people of average intelligence usually ask the wrong questions, usually find it hard to recognize horror when it doesn't look like a horror movie (or a paragraph from an Amis book)—and are therefore quite easily fooled.
But then, Martin Amis, who we must presume to possess at least average intelligence, is also capable of asking the wrong questions. Indeed, if we're talking about misunderstanding history, Amis' decision to focus his diatribe against the Western left on Hitchens, the self-confessed Trotskyite, was rather strange. While Trotskyites may not have emerged from the debris of the 20th century covered in glory, it is perfectly true that if anybody knew or cared about Stalinist terror, then it was they. Not only did Stalin murder all identifiable Soviet Trotskyites, after all, he also ordered one of his minions to use the sharp end of an ice pick on Trotsky himself.
By picking on his friend, in other words, Amis has also avoided—and allowed Hitchens to avoid—the larger and more important questions. Trotsky's extremist band of Stalin-obsessed followers aside, why did so many Western liberals fail to absorb the full horror of Stalinism while it was happening? Arguments among the comrades on the far left notwithstanding, why does Stalinism still not inspire anywhere near the same kind of horror as Nazism today? Hitchens writes that Amis occasionally makes us wince at things we "already know"—but who really does already know them? And who really cares? Certainly they aren't part of what one would call popular knowledge, or popular culture, or public debate. Certainly the people Martin Amis has been meeting at cocktail parties for the last few decades—with the possible exception of Hitchens—don't talk about them. Amis himself didn't have the slightest interest in the Soviet Union for most of his life, except to oppose the missiles that were aimed at it; that's part of why he's so enthusiastically telling us all about it now.
I long to hear Hitchens answer these points. Instead, he gets away with defending himself, George Orwell, and the small slice of the Western left that did know about, and did fight against, Stalinism. Which is perfectly legitimate but much too easy. What about everybody else?
In the end, one puts down Koba the Dread and wonders why it was written. Yes, indeed, Martin Amis appears to be very angry about something. Perhaps he is very angry about his father's death. Perhaps he is very angry about being a fiftysomething novelist who has run out of things to write about. Yet by inexplicably funneling his displaced anger into a poorly conceived, improbably hysterical diatribe against Stalinism, he has neither revealed anything new, nor retold old stories in an interesting way, nor done any victims any favors. Amis poses, at the start of the book, a legitimate question: Why do we think it is OK to make jokes about Stalinism, to laugh at a political system that killed millions of people? By the end of the book, we no longer want to know the answer.


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about two months ago, i was at the shiseido white lucent relaunch as a partner blogger for the sample room. this foundation was used on me that day as part of my free makeover, and i knew i had to have it! at any rate there was a 15% discount on all products during the event so i got this baby at a marked down price (but it's actually PhP2250 for 30ml). and thus this is the reason why i've yet another foundation in my arsenal. ♥☺
Please click on the pictures to enlarge them and that you'll be able to read the description written on the box.
as compared to my other favorite Japanese brand (where my shade is OCC03, my shade with Shiseido is Light Ocre 02
the ingredients are below.
without flash, the coverage is amazing, and it softened my features.
it's slightly reflective with flash photography
but in day light, i just look polished and much more put together.
like, here
and here, very little eye makeup and a less than ostentatious or not a gaudy lip color yet finished face like this makes me look less tired and less in need of sleep.
foundation, foundation, foundation and the rest will follow.
- travel size/friendly
- shade match is perfect
- really easy to blend
- does not cake up
- oil control is moderate a 3.5/5 1 being almost no oil control and 5 being bone dry
- matte but not flat finish
- superior pore coverage
- medium to buildable coverage
- does not break me out
- does not collect in dry patches or pores
- long lasting, lasts until you remove it
- doesn't affect or change the shade of your blush because
- it does not oxidize
- feels so light on my skin and it doesn't get heavy as the day drags on
- no weird scents or fragrance
- can be used with a natural or synthetic haired brush, sponge or just with your fingers
- doesn't dry TOO quickly gives enough time to blend out
- available in Manila (for a long time now) at Shiseido boutiques in major malls in metro Manila
- the price, for the same price you can get a 50 ml high end foundation
- SPF15? stuck in 90's are we?


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- Dean Ambrose vs. Luke Harper with SmackDown Tag Team Champions Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton at ringside has been announced for tomorrow's WWE SmackDown. Above is a promo.
- As seen on tonight's RAW, Nia Jax attacked Sasha Banks. Tamina Snuka, who's expected back in action soon, tweeted the following reaction, which was re-tweeted by WWE:
Mmmmhhhh..... https://t.co/PukzYnpQxl� Tamina Snuka (@TaminaSnuka) December 20, 2016
Follow Marc Middleton on Twitter at @this_is_marc. Got a news tip or correction? Send it to us by clicking here.


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Life Groups are where we make deeper friendships and grow in our faith. Each one meets at least fortnightly on a weekday, usually in people's homes, either in the day time or evening.
Why not join one of our groups:
Bible Study with Betty
Meets every other Wednesday, 10.45am
We're warm and welcoming and enjoy studying God's word together in greater depth, applying it to our lives today. We use a range of structured study material and pray together in the sessions.
Green Shoots
Meets every other Wednesday, 8-10pm
We're passionate about getting to grips with pure Christianity and encouraging personal spiritual growth. We meet to study, pray and discuss in a relaxed environment where anything can be asked or studied. We're involved in working with the elderly at CCC and prayerfully support the work of SMILE.
Meets every other Wednesday, 9.30am
This group is exclusive to women of all ages and phases who value opportunities to chat, pray and support each other through the challenges of life in a relaxed informal context. We spend time exploring life issues and seeking God's guidance through prayer and study.
Meets every other Tuesday, 8pm
We have a passion for reaching out to others and praying in difficult circumstances, taking the example from Jesus: 'Who is like God?' We're primarily involved in our monthly Foodbank collections and other local initiatives when appropriate. We meet to pray, study God's Word and discuss.
Meets every Tuesday, 8pm
Contact Penny Russell Ross
We're often pro-active in many church activities, whether that means praying behind the scenes or organising and running one-off activities and events. We have a passion for building friendships and relationships with a heart for hospitality and welcome. We enjoy praying for each other and with each other in our group.
Mustard Seed
Meets every Wednesday, 10.30am
Contact Angela Scott
We're a sociable and passionate group that embraces diversity and values the richness of life's experiences in shaping our individual journeys with God. We study together using a range of material. We seek to pray together and support each other. We're Bible centred and enjoy honest and open discussion.
Spirit in the Skype
Meets monthly online
Contact Dan Greenwood
We welcome anyone who maybe away from Chislehurst for long periods of time due to being at uni, taking a gap year, travelling or away on business trips. We meet online for Bible studies and support. Social events are organised when a number of the group are back in Chislehurst together.
Wonderfully Made
Meets weekly in term time
Contact Gemma Dobbs
We're a friendly Life Group welcoming Mums with babies and toddlers, on Wednesday mornings in term time, at 10.15am in the Link at Christ Church. We want to support each other, discovering how Wonderfully We Are Made.
Girls Only
Meets 1st Tuesday of the month in term time 6.30pm to 8pm. Contact Deanna Murray
A lifegroup for girls in school years 8 – 13. We meet at Christ Church to talk about all things Life, Faith and God. There's loads more about the Engage youth group here.


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CLARK – Earlier this fall, the Clark Recreation Department ran a clinic featuring retired New Jersey Devils hockey player Grant Marshall at the roller hockey rink in Clark. Marshall coached about 45 kids for an hour than signed autographs. (Photos courtesy of Clark Recreation)
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Looking for a room (Dubai)
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CHICAGO — Last fall a contractor had the job of cutting out tree stumps with a machine that was pulled by a small pick-up truck. The driver of the truck would back the trailered equipment up to the stump and then operate the equipment. A one-man operation that took a half-hour for a large tree.
Now the city has taken over this job with new, blue pick-up trucks and equipment, but the difference is that now there are two men and while one of them operates the equipment, the driver sits in the truck reading the paper.


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Fort Foster State Historic Park [FL]
Fort Foster was one of the original Seminole War forts constructed in Florida during the early 1800s. Today a replica wood-picket-style fort has been constructed on the original site. Park rangers provide tours, and explain the Fort operations and living conditions, as well as telling the history of the Seminole Wars in Florida. The interpretive center contains exhibits about the fort, the Seminoles, and the Second Seminole War.
The park offers exhibits, tours, and occasional living history events.


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Ep. 63: Kinect, Multi-touch, and the future of interfacesFinally, our touch-points with technology are expanding beyond the mouse and keyboard. Console gamers are using their entire bodies for control; Apple ahd ushered in an era of multi-touch gesture-based interfaces. What's next? We discuss with Ars Technica's...
No I was -- I was too busy dancing that you. -- -- and don't. Hi everyone -- the reporters' roundtable. -- -- -- San Francisco today we're talking about the future of how you interact with your computer. -- the future computer that you you future computers the multi touch will they'd be reading your gestures would be reading your mind. That's are gonna be talking about today we think a lot of interesting new technologies come along just the last couple months. Of course multi touch on the iPad we've got -- -- -- with the -- And -- the -- three remote and now we've got Kinect which is full motion capture. What is the future of how we interact with our computers. That is the topic for today we've got two great guest first in the studio Jon stokes is the co-founder of the awesome site -- technical thanks for joining us. The world and -- future writer of -- of on this very topic on the site check it out and then via Skype James liquidity is a principal analyst at Forrester. And the author ever really interesting report. How to prepare for the error of experience. If before departure subscriber to get that report on -- You do yes good reason to subscribe. Talk to your boss about that one that's all right eight. You make the point early in that report that one of the reasons that the television took off in the 1940s with that had. In extremely simple user interface power volume channel. Now while you may have had to stand like -- crane in order to get the antenna to work he was a simple interface by design. Do you think that what's happening with technology today that were over complex flying it and actually holding back the growth of technology. Maybe not today but certainly over the last 2030 years you know I don't think the TV designers. Landed on a spectacular user interface benefit to sixty years ago. Because they planned it I really think they were just constrained by what was available to them technologically and it just happened to be brilliant. -- remember there were only getting access to him for three channels at the time. And so it's very very easy to end up with a really easy user experience all of -- sudden though moved forward into the ninety's. When suddenly have hundreds of TV channels or in any other platform like imagine the Apple Newton or even though Palm Pilot which was relatively successful. These devices were designed to make you do -- let you do hundreds. -- thousands of things and no one stopped to think through whether or not you can actually make that experience easy and intuitive. And as a result these were very hard to use. Very complex even things as legendary early simple. As the Tivo device which -- -- in the year 2000 still unfortunately tried to get to -- so many things that it was some. Relatively hard to even use all of those things even though designed was was not an afterthought in the case of Tivo -- It's really been just the last 23 years kind of led by Apple let's admit it -- that we started to focus on making things dramatically simpler and we're making great progress. So what -- the new. Had a motive interface they right now we think about using technology we think about pressing buttons leased to Portland me for my -- anyway it's all about the buttons. What -- the new modes that that move us forward in how we use technology at -- well I mean gesture and touch of the two obvious you know. Multi touch is. One of -- important things to come along since the the mouse and keyboard. Arm gestures important to buy it. These are things that we're gonna do all different kinds -- tasked with them. You're not gonna do a spreadsheet using gestures in your probably not gonna do one and using multi touch you're gonna stay with the mouse and keyboard paradigm for -- By gesture and multi touch will enable new kinds -- -- with these machines. And so -- it's not a matter of -- what we -- on -- PC. And find in a faster better way to do it with. A different interface paradigm that's more of in -- the interface paradigm let's. Devices expand into different roles in our lives that that they couldn't before they were there they -- constrained because the needs of a mouse and keyboard lately may expand it to different roles. -- for instance I'll take my my iPad downstairs and watch TV whether it and in check Wikipedia or check an episode -- had I indeed be simply this. On because it's portable and because it's it's easy convenient and it has good battery life and so that's the thing that I did on the iPad that are a wouldn't have done certainly with a desktop PC. And probably would've done without the multi -- you know hot and heavy laptop. That -- -- go to market. But up but I but I do that anything now in a similar -- a -- you could make some arguments about the phone. In a lot of things -- do on my Android phone. Or an iPhone on Twitter things like those are things that I can I can take with me because some because the touch screen. James who could be part to what -- think the worst interface that we have right now is it the standard desktop OS is of the remote controlling what what needs to change the most in order for the premiere. -- is it is categorically the television remote control and and the fact that there are so many of them in your home. And that they are all slightly competing with each other for your attention in any given moment yet none of them are particularly good at what they do. And that's just frustration with helping you watch television imagine making a connected television or entering it connect to televisions that next. And then you have to figure out what do I use the traditional remote control with all its buttons and all of its waste. Or do what -- Google TV. Folks have done at Sony and Logitech -- -- -- Yet another even bigger remote control device to your life. And suddenly now -- -- I'm just absolutely overpopulated with. Wii's that I can interact with the videos and now the computing behaviors in my living room and it is just as he chokes out any user experience innovation are. I do believe that the -- the Sony version of the Google TV's remote control about the size of VW bug. Fifth and it -- it's just festooned with buttons. -- it -- it feels like it it feels like a really big game. Console controller that happens to have you know. Become pregnant multiple times and it's very very large and this is just compounding the problem but don't talk to us Jon stokes from from our -- talked with about the upcoming clash. Or is it emerged between TV and the -- -- you've done some work on threading on this. -- sue the web comes out of a context where -- use the mouse and keyboard and that's that's its whole history and so what the -- this most of the first wave of web enabled TVs is done is to say either won't give you a cramped keyboard or will give you something approximating a mouse so that LG things have a winner that's -- -- button where you can. You know aim at the screen and you can you know move a pointer around some of the other the Sony for instance as you mentioned has -- -- enormous. Remote control keyboard -- hybrid. And so you end up with the experience of the web ports -- your circle of one hand tied behind your back you either have a mouse or you have a keyboard. But nobody wants to give you a mouse and a keyboard but it. It was really the future is to ditch the whole thing in in goes something like a tablet for instance where -- -- on deep and rich and put it. On a multi touch device or maybe you'd do it on a netbook or on -- PC and then the TV does what it's good -- which is this. Boy now one of the things that people have been complaining that as we move towards -- Apple has been driving this multi touch and the iPhone. Is that there are no buttons -- touch which -- -- to look at it. Is that in issuers that and hold over from people like me who are used actually having physical -- I think it is an issue -- are done they'll go no you you're gonna fix -- I think it is an issue of because. Usually the human mind is really really good at finding the simplest way to accomplish that task in if -- unnecessarily complex -- what is otherwise a simple tasks like changing the volume. Where it's always in the same place and you can always go up and down that's one of the few things that a television remote as it exists today is very good. And so what I would add to -- -- mentioned earlier about ditching the whole -- With in terms of the control paradigms for these devices is that it's not just that we would have a tablet maybe for deep input as he suggests. But also adding other layers so you have voice for example which is proving to be extremely popular in the control of the Xbox including the Zune. The on demand system and now we're told by Microsoft to very soon well I'll be able to control -- Netflix queue. And are Netflix -- back using her voice so you need only have to look at -- you don't have to touch it it is simply say Xbox stopped. And the program comes to a halt its remarkably liberating now you can't use that to do a deep search. For the latest Tom Cruise movie if you want to see such a thing. That's when you would need a tablet the John is referring to and to me that's the interesting ecosystem that organs -- evolved where we have. The ability to choose the right tool at the right time because all those tools are available to you in your living room -- -- do you agree that in the future that instead of having. A remote -- or a tablet that we will. Just a automatically choose many interface models to do we want -- do our bidding that's right -- we're gonna have if you're gonna have multiple devices at your disposal phone a tablet. -- a new -- or a -- -- laptop and you'll use the device that's appropriate. To manage different parts of the TV experience you may populate your Netflix queue. Com on your PC you're on your tablet in the and you may interact with -- IQ and select items and it from the PC for more simple interface and I think that that's right and people will juggle multitude devices but it will be seamless. Now one of things we we start talking about. While -- was multi touch. And now that's become very popular and certainly anybody who uses modern tablet especially an iPad is or and I iPhone is accustomed to. The things you can do with. Not just one finger but -- hand. The other related topic that is the gestures you -- where instead of were -- He explained it I mean there's gestures that you do on a screen and then there's minority report where you're waving your hands in the air is that a an up and coming in useful new interface for anything other than games. I wanna -- on now because that's really its super critical that we understand that. Even though they connect user experience that we see -- gestures on the Xbox. Is very very good at certain types of games and hardcore gaming disease will say oh we can't do first person shooter with -- -- my answer is no not yet because wait until we add another. But got a fake rifle and your arms and you can use jester at the same time that I'm getting -- -- myself there. Winning winning gets beyond gaming to mean that's where gesture really matters because we gesture as human beings all the time. There have been to Italy -- lived in Argentina for a -- where they're very Italian in their hand gestures. Gestures are. 40% 60%. Of your communication not just your hands for your shoulders your eyebrows. And that's what's really remarkable I don't think if you go -- survey people which I do haven't done this particular survey yet. I asked -- do you want to control things with a shrug of the shoulders or a wave of the hand or your eyebrows and -- -- -- get -- done. But yet they use these gestures in their everyday lives is so intuitive and so normal and so natural. But I think you ever figures out how to get people to control computing devices with gestures. Beyond gaming environments is going to be absolutely writing the rules of future human machine interaction. Irritate something what you're describing is a boon for localization expert doesn't mean it's one thing to localize for language review -- -- A connect or -- -- a computer interface. For the differences between say the Chinese gesture language and an Italian gesture language and that sounds like an -- X I was hoping not to get into that problem is your right but I think generally -- like the attention to squeeze on the touch. Interface. Modernize the iPhone and -- -- US and -- -- will take you to court army corps. Well so we -- images to work I'll admit but the fact is gestures are very human we we use them. It's -- natural to us and we -- the abstraction layer of a mouse and keyboard is quite an abstraction. Even using a touch interface on a tablet is an abstraction. It's more direct than a mouse -- is still an abstraction. When you're using your hands minority report style and controlling things and feeling -- virtual feeling of grabbing an object in the -- removing -- from one place to another. That's a remarkably satisfying. Experience and we're seeing people respond to -- by the millions. Now you said the virtual feeling of course when you are controlling and the technology from ever are. With gestures there's -- feeling it's all invented in your mind I mean is is haptic feedback the next step for gesture interfaces. I hope so John I don't know if you have -- I've played with some model with some haptic feedback devices most recently it Nvidia's. Conference and it it it is actually. -- -- -- Easily see industrial medical applications for this is not because you can take a set of balls and you can -- them and move them around and get resistance when you run into a barrier of things like this. And so anything where you have to a home really manipulate. Some objects with like a high degree they'll leave that works. I think for rich and -- it. I am a little skeptical with gestures I think. That deer they can be tiring to do for sustained periods I think that nurse there -- contacts. -- possibly in your car in your living room. -- places were a fast gesture are a set -- gestures work better. Then stick and a mouse -- -- word from somebody. Because as this to point out the mouse and you border. Or credit expert interfaces their interfaces that you train on a new gig -- But when you train aren't in -- could -- them the you have they have a high amount of input -- leave. Anaheim -- a granular the control and you're able to really manipulate. Text strings in certain kinds of things and and and really highly detailed way -- a mouse tracking. You can get -- pixel accuracy. The -- with with their little training so I think there'll be a place for for expert interfaces that require some training. And then they'll be a place for interfaces that are a little more natural -- gestures. The other place with gestures are with some -- -- -- skepticism as. I mean we all -- Microsoft Bob -- mean computers are often really bad at understanding what we're trying to communicate and in a lot of cases gestures are communicative act. And when. Near the situation with a computer we're trying to -- up into as opposed to just manipulate it on off. In a forward backward things like this from your really trying to communicate and computers will quite often misread -- and that that's frustrating and our tolerance for that is very well. A few have an interface experience -- the computer is is even at 1% of the time. In a blatantly mystery in Q are making a large mistake. -- you're gonna find it distracting. I saw at MacWorld. While -- know the typical. Nuance dragon dictate voice recognition. Demo where the -- -- you know open new document. New paragraph. Today I want to the -- period new paragraph with its. You get one of those things wrong and the whole -- took -- screw -- I'm just gonna use the keyboard. And while it's gotten better are we ever going to get to the point where we don't have to. Say period new -- -- prayer -- which is -- compared to just going. -- press. Are we ever gonna get that when -- knows what we want when we finish the sentence for example. I don't know and I I leave that to Leo I mean half the time I don't even know what other people want you know my wife my daughter I think it's so. So I I think this is a very tall order. -- home to -- computers to interpret. Basically it is opposed to just -- Listen for a -- -- of keywords or quirky gestures -- -- -- can understand when you ask them to interpret them and when you get over the line into interpretation. The these are have a lot problems now wanna take it I -- we. I dare you to add to that though because you your 100% right John that the thing I would -- though. Is that. The way these things improve is through training and just as you said that the human can and can learn to use a keyboard a mouse to a high degree of fidelity. And precision of the same thing is true of other inputs. As well. The issue is where we are with gesture training. Is that instead of sitting in front of television and having you -- gesture over and over and over until you get it right and the computer now knows what you want. There's a world in which especially in voice recognition were eventually. Let me go ten years now you have an audio recording device attached to -- There is actually capturing everything you're saying all the time in applying all these different. Algorithms try to figure out what you were saying and then listens to what other people responded. And converts that into text as well and tries to compare whether the sense that you created match the sense that someone responded to -- with. And eventually over a year of following you around just like I learned to understand my wife and I'm sure it you do to. Is by listening to -- over and over and over until you figure of that's what she means when she says don't get me a present for Christmas this year she really means getting a present for Christmas this year. Same kind of thing that the algorithms can eventually learn old that's what he means when he says that or acts that layer means that what this is not at all. How things are done today but ten years from now it's very hard to imagine that we won't have made significant progress towards that. I thought they're -- to me -- It's it's kind of frightening but I mean we -- we do carriers since around a cellphone unit -- is our location a lot of things and that's only -- expand. It's oil -- -- that I a grid yes I. I don't com. That's why and what that is I'm not sure I mean I'm I'm a little skeptical but I can definitely see where you have the machine has a year's worth of training and has a nice cloud back and where it can capture all this data that -- throwing off -- in storage and look for patterns. Maybe. Well we're talking about a motion intent here one of -- things. Month to Rebecca ointment that I talked to the guys that the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford cars -- bigger. And what they were saying what I think they were saying there is the human machine interface when it comes to automobiles is a very tricky the -- the -- gets because you have to deal with. Attention the human stops paying attention. And unless the cars completely -- that the problem so you have to have it's they're human pay attention to what the car is saying now -- -- -- if interest in -- related to this. Is what they're saying is the car's attitude has to -- in humans so if the cars happy when you're grumpy you're gonna ignore the carcass like that screw that I -- to open. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Your app back your emotion. Has invited you looked at the concept of having -- technology. Kind of react to how we're feeling in order to be more effective. Aside from a car guys know. But so did the the answer to that is I've looked at it but I'm not encourage but anything that I've seen on so it's hard to comment. Because what what you see is you know we even as humans are not conscious of all the ways that we -- each other's emotions much of what we do happens below. The level of I'm so it's very hard for -- translate the rules of emotional interpretation. Into any kind of expert system but no matter how good because we can only -- conscious perceptions of -- Eyebrows -- means this -- -- Leo lips -- means that and the so many of those potential rules and we -- learning those rules more and more in the face recognition guys. Have come so far in decoding those rules but so far in terms of creating a system that can quickly determine. What your face is saying and what that might mean fear -- effect and then turning it into an output. He just because it knows that an angry does it mean it should active one particular -- -- only one way to act to me when I'm angry. That's not true the numbers as anybody who's in a long term marriage relationship not to come back there. You know that did it does depend on the context the reason why your angry not just how to treat you because you're mad that why you're mad and so it's it no no system I've seen I'm sure there's some great work being done out there are different institutes but no system I've seen has managed to solve that problem. -- The only thing that occurs to me is this were related is from you to the health product dental work on where. -- -- -- where there is a a camera in your home and -- the -- -- the place and -- they want to eventually do some -- analysis so they can tell. The late for an elderly person is that person off their medications or did they take -- much -- they -- trouble walking are they about fall and -- there's a sense of the the camera watches and does costly gait analysis to trying to discern aspect. From that actually sell more viscerally with national security you know the idea the -- camera and airport to begin analysis. Under the theory that somebody who's trying to hide something -- walk and you know a certain way may be a terrorist and the computer can pick that up so there -- these sort of specific applications for -- looking for. A home really really specific kinds of kinds of information about a person's computer or state. Let's talk a little about that we're all that development dollars are going this year which is mobile I mean Google's that you know. Most if not all their new projects -- mobile is here. What how how does the user interface for these. Small they're gonna remain small devices. How is that evolving gaming do we continue to have to -- -- and out and hunt and peck at our little touch screen or are their new ways first interact with mobile devices coming island. Glasses lost three B three B sans glasses that we're gonna seal water -- -- the bomb you know with the Nintendo DS and and there are few panel makers that are pushing us and people are already working on interfaces that take advantage of so far -- They're basically the same TV interface idea of buy it. -- -- with some added depth Ortiz forty see -- going so we've got the 3-D out so we can now see our phone in in some depth. How does that affect how we interact into it. -- I don't have a good answer their -- has all the prototypes they've seen are essentially com and not that interest and they're they're basically. Pretty -- translations of of of a standard to be interface. With with a three aspect that is not that compelling could be done away with you could collapse it back to -- it would be five. -- Yeah I'm sorry to say it's on -- percent should Toshiba was showing some of these at CES this year and and they're beautiful and they're fine. But the if it doesn't actually change the way you experience the content and it certainly -- -- input to view what you intend to input so. Until we figure out a way to make that meaningful I'm not sure it's anything more than a novelty. -- But that augmented reality and Smartphones. How much of the factors that for. For developers moving forward. The idea that you can take your phone hold it up and -- its camera -- CNET some kind of overlay of the virtual world on top of the real world. Given this is one of those areas -- we're -- -- some kind of killer app to show everyone why it matters and Google goggles is a lot of fun and there's a lot of other. Augmented reality things that allow you to play acted as if we're sort of children play acting. But real augmented reality might look like another strange phrase real augmented reality but. You know when I see for example the tablets coming out with cameras that's where -- see augmented reality potentially being much more powerful hold up that tablet. In front of you and basically be looking through a window. At a world that has its digital overlay is on top of it but. We just don't have that app that compels people to want to do this yet it might even be I thought of the assassin game. That page has to say -- for any -- into assassin games but it could be an amazing thing. To be able to sweep your tablet across of the quad -- your -- crossing from one class and other it. And MIT and and see that there's a couple of enemies in the crowd and take some shots at them -- score points and game five the whole idea of augmented reality something like that to make everybody. Try this because up until now it has costs. Circulated for over -- kill yourself certain I think I I think that the big -- enabling technology for those for the stopped is really. Some kind of higher resolution location location based chip -- -- gyro chip something that can tell. In -- within com. Well within sub meter accuracy and -- maybe within a matter of inches in -- where you point of the phone what the orientation is because in a right now. You can do location based services in a bitter that are kind of have an augmented reality XP or aspect work. You're walking by -- store may be and it can tweak it in a bit you have a sale that -- have a sale or personally at some some kinds of things like this but. You'd be able to go into a regional virus for instance and whole of the camera and look at -- sweater and get a price and other information. RR a lot of other kinds of things mean you may need to. To have. Preferable for one you need -- -- To -- to transmit camera images and and we have that now we will have a forgy but also for a lot of the more interesting augment a -- things he made remarked. You really needs to know exactly where in space the phone is positioned in what the users looking at where the user does. So and the compass by the way in the phone I have anyway is. Pretty much useless yeah so -- I mean or a patient is a very very big part of from a phone knows which way it's being held but not what direction -- pointing. Most of time let's talk about a couple different application types the big one of courses games and -- we're seeing so much innovation in control interfaces. We PS3 and connect in particular. What else is happening in the world of gaming where we're seeing innovation in user control user -- I think the what we see is mostly the multi touch stuff in of something like a river -- is a great example or in laws and those -- any of these iPad games are fantastic. And they really take advantage of the multi touch by it. You know a lot of the and I you know I talked to John. -- a lot of the a lot of guys are just sort of waiting for on the killer app of the game that really shows off. With these interface types can do because right now. A lot of games are still in a mood of okay what's -- what their previous game experience aside stroller -- first person shooter in -- things -- this -- -- stuff like that. And and you translate that to a tablet. And it's still a game experience that you've already had. But with this touch -- data on -- -- -- -- kind of waiting for. In and for that for a set of compelling truly native. Touch experiences or are compelling a truly native -- experiences of disease huge thing with them connect. Men with. Unit with moved in with Wii is a lot of cases the games are things that we've seen before. Problem buy it you you. You kind of have and an added late in new touch -- or gesture based component but it's still supply only it's not that -- became experts on the connects them. Yet -- -- that James and what about health and -- in the real things the real -- were we've seen new interfaces and open up new areas of applications and games. Is in. These fitness games where where are we going with that. They added the thing that's so remarkable about the new breed of fitness games and we're not quite there yet perfectly but most of -- -- -- -- -- connect. Is taking advantage of the fact that the -- these cameras can actually calculate the angle at which you're extending your arm. And they can do things to a level that at professional trainer. Can't really -- as a professional trainer can't locate you and be certain that your arms extended to exactly the right -- -- whereas these cameras can. And -- the fitness. Programs have tried to use this now they don't have a trainers knowledge programmed into them just yet so. But they are saying look I'm not gonna give -- full points for this exercise because your. Your -- didn't come up high enough off the ground I measured it in only chemical foot exposed come up to feed off the ground doesn't count as -- -- -- -- two feet off the ground. That kinda stuff is very very rewarding to the person who genuinely wants to improve and get. You know more dexterity you're or be more physically fit because it -- okay I can actually just do a better job and I'll be able to get that. Feedback from the screen this is -- you -- your leg behind enough now where it can go in the future is all sorts of more powerful things not just angle of your arm. But we can actually get two point where we're looking at infrared heat coming off of your body. And determined you know just how much you're working out -- is. Yes you could add a heart sensor to get your pulse rate or even blood pressure cuff and so on. To get those kinds of things. But imagine that some of that might be actually discernible at a distance by checking the rate at which. Your route respiration changes or -- at which the heat running through your body is changing. -- -- -- interest in things that could yet come out of this that wouldn't just be around fitness but could actually be medically diagnostic. I eighty hope that anybody who's in the insurance business is listening to something else that I don't want them getting all of this information on me -- -- -- Went -- and productivity are we stuck with keyboard amounts. I think that for. For basic desktop apps I mean the keyboard and bounces it's a fast and that it -- -- to do to do good the large. Insanely large number of things that we all know how to do with computers and we're gonna keep doing the money keyboard and mouse. Again that the gestures the voice the touch. I think than 90% of what we do with those kinds of interfaces will be new things that we weren't doing who were using the computer for before. But now maybe like -- and striving. And there'll be places in the driving experience where we were not using the computer. Where we're gonna start. You know with you know tracking road conditions are openly thus become. And -- the computer will give us feedback on you know. Roof conditions up ahead on and tire pressure on all in a lot of a lot of things and will be able to control what those. You know I I think as we talk -- added. I agree with John that it is the productivity issues that -- managed so much more effectively with the interface is that we have been some kind of pointer and a keyboard. But. Again it's additive there's no reason not to add these other layers so. Constant issue that I have and this sounds really small minded to me that as I'm walking down to my office in my mind I'm thinking okay -- -- -- fire this program. -- got to make sure I can get that email attachment downloaded. Open it up and make these couple of and it's. Why can't -- be issuing those those are relatively straightforward commands I could be issuing those verbally as I'm walking down the stairs to my office. To do those actions so that when I sit down fingers at the keyboard. It's ready to go it's got the right file opened its -- the right email attachment why not. And that's to me the power of adding these things is that they extend what we can do. Even when we know we're gonna actually do they do hard business. With our hands on a keyboard. I agree I would -- -- to call my computer while I'm long roundabout and to say hey can you close that file lurk in your open this file. Or can you read me back and address entry for such and such. American -- you know so that way I don't have the lake dual lot of stuff on my phone. Or things like that -- -- so what are we predict let's wrap up here what do we think get a big user interface changes that become. Mainstream in 2011 will be and then maybe 201520111. John and I think we're gonna continue to see a lot of efforts. And marriages of the web and TV I think the best ones are gonna be. Based around tab order -- Smartphone. -- -- you're able to have a separate control and input experience. On I think that these pointer based ones are or may be okay I think the keyboard based off. Is probably not gonna do so all. You know as far as connect -- there's going to be. There's going to be that a large effort to figure out like how to use that and a native says how to do more than just. -- reproduce the kinds of games that we've seen on the -- I don't know that's gonna succeed. Of course one of the great things that connect is that Microsoft admitted has made open to hackers so we're seeing a real explosion of creativity there -- currently -- stuff. -- stay tuned for that -- any any predictions for -- this year or couple years out. We know we're watching very closely this year they increased use of voice and we even though the mobile device has a really wonderful touch screen there's a lot of circumstances where it's just not. As effective to use that touch screen as it might be to just speak a few commands. Now it it makes a lot of mistakes we're seeing a lot of processing issues with you know one gigahertz processors not being powerful enough to capture the voice. Push it up to the cloud analyzed and bring him back. In a time -- and makes any sense. But it's still happen. And so we're watching in -- try to measure it see how many people use voice on a mobile device or connect. And how frequently they do it because that's the next thing to watch it's one thing -- someone did it. But it's another entirely to say they do it with some regularity so we wanna see if -- regularity starts. In this year I think voice is the thing that's that's probably the most intuitive of the tools that are currently available and because you're carrying it around with you in your pocket more and more. It seems like the next one to explode even before gesture captures. Everybody's imagination and goes -- which I think is the 2015. Then I'm gonna be looking at is what gesture things -- we have accomplished by them. Great James -- from -- on any final -- guys spent I was gonna agree I think voice has a brighter immediate future the gesture. Real problem yeah I think gestures that is a little further out but I think -- -- has been very good are we gonna start yelling at our -- soon. We may we -- -- -- I think it's more likely we're gonna be talked into our phones into our computers I mean I use school bump when I navigate I I have an Android. Phone and I I talk to it quite more often -- I type things new missile from point to a restaurant -- last night went to Gary -- attempt to scale very good so I decided. You know Gary -- -- Cisco and Google Voice finds it. And it's -- off. I'm more impressed they went to Gary -- -- restaurants. Gentleman that Jon -- -- technical thank you so much James oblivion principal analyst at -- to thank you for European. Thank you this has been report roundtable -- thanks for producing. It back next week with another great episode I don't know on what yet but it's gonna be great so stay tuned -- Twitter RAF eat for updates. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- From I'm him Oracle and Twitter but it you know follow ours so long Peretz. And James anything. -- quickly on Twitter are right guys thanks -- -- we'll see you next time they care.


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