text:
LONDON — "You must be the only American left in town!" my cabbie crackles from the front seat.
I have no idea what the deuce he means. He picked me up across the street from Parliament, a short walk from Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. You couldn't triangulate a spot more prone to lame tourist gawkers with a military satellite.


text:
I have read in a number of Forums that a poor signal has not got anything to do with a SIM card.
I have two identical Nokia phones and two SIM cards on identical PAYG plans.
One phone kept giving no Network Coverage the other had at least 40% signal strength.
Swapping the SIM and the fault was on the other phone.
This identifies that the phones are OK and the SIM is responsible.
Cleaning the SIM card contacts made no difference and packing with a thin card to give better contact made no difference.
Putting in a new SIM card worked and both phones have the same signal strength which is not very good anyway where I live.
I do not understand the pedantic responses on forums saying that the SIM card is not responsible for signal strength when it clearly can be along with numerous other reasons.
Tags. SIM, SIMM, mobile phone, signal, weak, strength.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Editorial Manager
Make-A-Wish Foundation of America
Supervises content creation aimed at outperforming competing organizations in fundraising and awareness. Manages projects from concept to completion, including the organization's most visible print collateral. Turns ideas into concrete products. Protects brand standards, oversees website content development, manages the organization's blog and creates collateral for fundraising and public awareness.


text:
This information is provided for your convenience and may no longer be valid.
Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Be the first PennLive.com user to add photos or videos of Houcks Catering Service
Philadelphia & Reading Aves


text:
Open Thread: Friends and Family and Everyone Else
Here's a place to talk about the relationships in your life whenever you want.
A few Saturdays ago, I found myself squished into a little black dress at 11 o'clock in the morning, listening to a sex educator and relationship therapist give advice on the best way to land a man for keeps.
"In the past, men were hunters," the expert said. "And women were gatherers." There was still an element of that, she said, that was present in our personalities today.
I glared at my housemate, whose blonde, curly hair I could just barely see over the heads of the hundreds of other women crammed into the conference room. She glanced over at me and grinned.
The expert was still talking. "Men don't like 'alpha women,'" she went on. "They like to feel needed."
Around me, I saw a few women nodding their heads, but most of them just looked kind of bored. As the expert started explaining how the oxytocin released when women orgasm can cause them to pair-bond, the woman next to me sighed gustily.
"Do you think we're ever going to actually meet any dudes?" she whispered to me. "Or will they just keep us here forever?"
"We're trapped," I said, widening my eyes. "Trapped like rats!"
We'd all received swag bags full of beauty products, but there was nothing in there for sustenance except Lemonheads and 5-hour-energy shots. In the case of a surprise "Hunger Games" scenario, the "alpha women" would have to fight for dominance fueled by nothing but Diet Coke and willpower, spending the night curled up on a nest of free Paul Mitchell straighteners and crafting markers of allegiance from novelty nail art.
I giggled. It's possible I was feeling a little punchy already.
The woman next to me laughed, too, before pulling out her phone to play Candy Crush. At the front of the room, the relationship expert was advising us not to sleep with a man until we'd locked down emotional monogamy.
It was going to be a long day.
I maintain that this was totally my new housemate's fault. The first weekend I moved in, she sent around an ad for a singles' event that was being held in a few weeks' time. It was being sponsored by a local television show, and it promised mingling and raffle prizes, both of which rank about even with "John Cusack marathon" and "free burritos" as motivation for me to leave the comfort of my bedroom.
I filled out the mandatory multiple-choice survey, which was full of questions about my "ideal date" and whether I wanted kids someday and attached the required photo of myself. My housemate, Jill, thought it would be a great way for us to bond -- envisioning an evening full of glitter and stealthy drinking, I agreed heartily and sent in my application.
Two weeks later, we both got an email. The call time was at 10, it informed us ("In the morning?" I asked Jill, and we both winced), and the dress code was "to impress."
"Do you still wanna do it?" Jill asked me as we ate dinner the night before.
"Sure, why not?" I said. (Please see: "mingling, raffle prizes".) "What's the worst that could happen?"
"Um, we'll get stuck in a group with random dudes who we hate and it'll be totally awkward," Jill said.
"No! No, listen," I said. "If it's awkward, we can just ditch our groups and hang out with each other. You know. Bonding."
Jill looked doubtful.
"BONDING!" I shouted, banging my fist on the kitchen table.
OK, I guess it wasn't completely her fault.
When we arrived at the event the next morning, we were immediately given numbers to hang around our necks the whole day. "I feel like a racehorse," a woman behind me muttered.
Clearly the feeling was catching. "What if they have to rate us, or something?" Jill said. "Or -- oh God. What if they call out our numbers and guys, like, write down whether or not we're pretty?"
Another lady near us whipped her head around. "Oh, Lord, don't even say that," she said. "It'd be crickets."
Jill was just being paranoid, but I knew where she was coming from. Throughout the day, I kept getting this feeling like I was being paraded around for display. The numbers didn't help, of course, but we also had to walk from the conference "holding room" down Navy Pier to stand in the late-summer heat for about an hour while the TV crew took shots of us eagerly waiting to single-mingle. All the tourists gawked at us, which I guess was understandable -- 300-odd women clomping two hundred yards in heels isn't exactly a subtle tableau -- and I waved at them, just to give my hands something to do.
I was still pretty chipper at that point, despite the weirdness of the relationship counselor session -- after all, they hadn't given away all of the raffle prizes yet, and I was meeting some pretty cool people. As the producers asked us, please, to keep smiling -- "I know it's hot, ladies, I have hair, too, but just a little while longer" -- I struck up conversations with some of the women standing near me.
"I'm working 30 hours a week as a hotel host downtown," one of the women near me said. "But I'm trying to get a non-profit together to mentor young girls about going to college."
"Awesome!" said another woman. "Here, take my card, I'm a videographer. I'd love to help."
"I like your dress," the girl next to me said.
"Thanks!" I said. "Buffalo Exchange."
"Rad," she said, and we high-fived.
"Ladies, smile!" the producers reminded us, before ushering us back up the pier to the holding room.
The second time we had to make the trip down the pier, someone pointed upwards. The windows on the second floor of the building were filled with guys -- our guys, specifically, the ones that we were supposedly eventually going to mingle with. They all stood against the glass, lined up shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the mass of dressed-up women, each of us wearing a number on our chest. The reflection from the afternoon sun didn't give me a good look at their faces, but I could see one or two of them grinning. It made my skin crawl.
By then, the rumor had gone around that we'd each been "paired" with a specific man based on our questionnaires. "If my guy's terrible, I'm going to go read fan fiction in the bathroom," I told Jill.
She laughed. "If my guy's terrible, let's just go get drunk."
At that point, the group was growing restless. We'd been there for four hours or so, our feet hurt, our makeup was melting off, and we smelled like sweat and catered sandwiches. As a result, we'd started becoming more comfortable with each other, more candid about what had brought us to the event in the first place.
"I'm just over men in this city," one woman said. "They all want a mother. It's like, I've already got a kid!"
"Honestly, I'm not that into the idea of having a boyfriend," said someone else. "But it'd be nice to have someone to, you know."
"Screw?" someone suggested, and everyone cracked up.
Everyone's reasoning was different -- they couldn't find a man to commit, they were only finding needy dudes, they just wanted to date a guy taller than them for once -- but the end result was all the same: they'd figured, meh, a singles' event is worth a shot. Better than nothing. (Plus: raffle.)
Meanwhile, I kept trying to smile at the producers and the PAs, because they'd probably been awake way longer than we had and were being awfully good sports about all the complaining going on. This was, after all, how they were spending their weekend.
"OK, ladies," the dude who seemed to be in charge said. "We're going to film you like you're all heading for the doors into the ballroom, but don't go inside yet. Just turn around!"
The pre-recorded TV host's voice advised us not all to rush in at once -- that an eligible man had been picked out for each and every one of us.
"There are bugs everywhere," said one of the women next to me flatly. "I'm more excited just to get away from these bugs."
Finally, the crew opened the doors to the ballroom. The crowd started to shuffle forward, some women leveraging themselves up from their sprawls on the steps or from where they'd been half-leaning against walls. We were all clearly a little deflated.
"Ladies, look pretty!" one of the producers called to us as we passed by.
The rumor had been true: As we filed into the ballroom, I saw hundreds of tiny tables-for-two set up, with a nervous-looking guy stationed at each one. My number was in the high 200s; as I shuffled my way toward the back of the room, I saw couples starting to greet each other, standing up straight, smiling with their heads cocked to the side. Small talk, en masse, and half of me wanted my table to be empty and half of me suddenly felt so eager for connection that I ached with it.
No such luck, either way. His name was Greg. He was fine. He told me that the relationship expert had told the guys that women like to feel "taken care of," and that hobbies were important to put on your OK Cupid profile. We talked for half an hour about "Two and a Half Men," his favorite show. He was perfectly nice. I suggested that we dance to the Top 40 being piped over the speakers, but he politely demurred. At the end of our "date," he shook my hand and wished me a good afternoon.
I didn't win any raffle prizes.
On the way out, I ran into one of my friends from the crowd. "How'd it go?" I asked her.
"Oh, well," she said, wrinkling her nose. "He told me I'd look better with long hair? Which. I guess, but you didn't have to say that."
"Rough," I said, patting her on the shoulder. She shrugged.
"Well, there's always next time."
A few weeks later, watching the show when it aired, I was struck by how smooth it all looked. Those producers did their job damn well: instead of looking grumpy and stressed-out, we all look thrilled to pieces. When the host announced that -- surprise! -- it wasn't mingling after all, that we'd just have one "first date" with a carefully selected eligible bachelor, it does actually look like we're pleasantly shocked rather than shruggingly resigned, which had definitely been the mood in my corner of the crowd.
Unsurprisingly, the sense of rigmarole involved was also magnified tenfold. Watching the show, it becomes apparent that we, the single women, had to be "caught:" we'd thought there'd be mingling, a familiar, relatively even playing field, and instead had ended up making charming small talk with a stranger for half an hour or so. I suppose it makes for better television -- like our relationship expert had taught us, the hunters and the gathered, together again -- but in reality, it just heightened that feeling that we were there as the entertainment.
I like going on first dates, I really do, but I think the fun of them lies in their potential for flexibility, or at least for weirdness. At that event, where pretty women and men had been arranged at individual tables like bouquets, the artificiality of it all made it harder to ignite that spark. (For me, anyway -- I saw a few couples making out on the dance floor, and Jill totally got her date's number.)
I'm still glad I attended, though. For one thing, I could think of way worse ways to spend a Saturday than standing around being dressed up and then making stilted conversation with a random dude. But more importantly, without exception, every woman I met at that event was smart, funny, and damn hot. Most had really fascinating careers; a few were even minor celebrities who'd been on the show before. Together, catalyzed by anxiety about flirting and grumpiness at how the humidity was fluffing our hair, we relaxed into each other. A lot of us exchanged business cards, and we promised to call.
And, at the end of the day, it was just me and Jill left on the pier. "Wow," I said. "That's a great view of the city."
"Yeah," she said. "Selfie?"
"Of course," I said. "Bonding."
"BONDING," she repeated.
We both made faces for the camera. We were just two sweaty, single ladies, tired of smiling, up against the world, ready to go home and put our sweatpants on.
Kate Tweets (not about being single) at @katchatters.


text:
Written driving tests are cancelled for this week at the Warren County department of Motor Vehicles office and will resume Tuesday Oct. 8 during limited hours — as the DMV staff adjusts its operation to comply with new state mandates for testing oversight.
The state sent out new mandates requiring counties' DMV staff to monitor people taking written and audio driving tests, in reaction to a recent cheating scandal in New York City in which eight people were arrested.
County Clerk Pam Vogel told county supervisors Wednesday that DMV offices across the state have been directed to have test-takers continually observed by a county employee to assure that they don't attempt to cheat, and don't talk or use electronic devices.
This mandate, received Sept. 26, means a DMV employee will have to be taken away from a customer-service window and reassigned to testing. Until this week driver tests were administered generally when drivers requested to take them.
In response to the mandate, the tests will now be given during specific hours -- times that the customer service windows are not normally busy, Vogel said. The change affects all tests offered including: learners permits, as well as general auto operator, motorcycle, CDL, escort, tow truck and "metal coil" exams, Vogel said.
"We're going to do the best we can in this situation," she said. "Hopefully our efforts will be positive and not inconvenience the public much."
According to the new schedule, operator & motorcycle permits will be administered Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.. As in the past, no appointment is necessary.
The CDL, escort, tow truck and metal coil tests will be administered Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. by appointment only.
To schedule a test, call 761-6438, and leave name and phone number.
Wednesday, Vogel suggested to the supervisors that a county building security officer be assigned to monitor the DMV testing, and the request was forwarded to the facilities committee.


text:
Sony has unveiled two new lens-style cameras for smartphones, the Cyber-shot DSC-QX100 and DSC-QX10 at IFA 2013 in Berlin today.
The two cameras, which attach to a variety of smartphones, feature a BIONZ image processor, Wi-Fi, NFC and shoot 1440 x 1040 video at 30fps.
The $599 DSC-QX100 packs a 20.2 megapixel, 1.o type Exmor R CMOS sensor with 3.6x optical zoom into a 62.5 x 62.5 x 55.5 mm, 179g package.
The $279 DSC-QX10 offers a slightly smaller 18.2 megapixel, 1/2.3 type Exmor R CMOS sensor with 10x optical zoom and weighs 105g.
Connecting wirelessly, the cameras use a smartphone as the real-time viewfinder, to control the shutter, start and end video recordings and alter the shooting settings.
The Wi-Fi connection allows the cameras to operate away from the smartphone, meaning the DSC-QX100 and the DSC-QX10 can be placed in hard-to-take locations and controlled with the smartphone.
Both lens-style cameras boast a rechargeable battery, micro USB cable and a memory card slot.


text:
A herd of deer decide to hang out in a Japanese town
Trending now in Japan: With the recent news of an earthquake alert in Nara Prefecture in Japan, a photo on @NAMAZUr Twitter is currently going viral. The photo shows a surprising view of a herd of deer lying by the roadside of what appears to be Nara Prefecture. The caption reads: "Came into local video of the super-giant earthquake of Nara… This is terrible…."
- Read more -
What's going on? Are the deer protesting something? Are they trying to move into town, to maybe start a new life with the pleasures of modern technology? Will there be enough jobs for them?
Regarding the Nara earthquake, thankfully the latest updates state that it was actually just a false alarm.
(source: Twitter)


text:
The Association of Central Eurasian Students (ACES) at Indiana University is pleased to announce the program for the 19th Annual Central Eurasian Studies Conference, to be held on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University, Saturday, March 3, 2012.
The formal program will run from 8:30 AM until 5:15 PM, with 16 panels and more than 60 speakers addressing issues pertaining to the Central Eurasian region, which for the purposes of this conference refers to the study of the historical and contemporary Afghan, Balto-Finnic,Hungarian, Iranian, Mongolic, Tibetan, Tungusic, and Turkic peoples, languages, cultures, and states.
The keynote lecture this year will be given by James Millward, Professor of Intersocietal History at the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The topic of his talk will be "What is the Silk Road? Musings on Central Eurasian Studies and the Field of History."
Registration for panel speakers, panel chairs and other participants will commence at 7:30 AM in Woodburn Hall 104 and the first panel sessions will begin at 8:30 AM. The conference is free and open to the public.
An outline of the schedule and preliminary program (subject to change) may be found below. The final program will be posted one week prior to the conference. For more information regarding travel and accommodations please visit the "Bloomington" section of our website.For any questions or further information please contact the Conference Committee at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Customer Service representatives are available Monday to Friday, 3AM to 9PM Eastern Standard Time.
World Wide: Phone: 1-703-793-7800
From United Kingdom: Phone: 0203 3007093
Online Support
You can create your own support case online. Click here to describe your issue or question. You can also send attachments, such as a screenshot. A case number is sent to you by email for tracking. A customer service representative will contact you by email or phone.
Billing and Support Center
If you have access to the Billing and Support Center (located in Managed Access Gateway - Exostar's sign-on application) you can create an online case and then track the case's details and progress. To access the Billing and Support Center - log into MAG and then click the 'Billing and Support' button in the top right corner of the page.
For more information on Exostar's solutions please contact us at:
Phone: 703-793-7733
Website: www.exostar.com
Exostar Corporate Office:
2325 Dulles Corner Boulevard
6th Floor
Herndon, VA 20171


text:
Ours is an industry of constant change and evolution. As new technologies and practices emerge the need for continued education becomes more important. So every year members of the Toronto meetings and event community gather together at the MPI Toronto Chapter's TEC (Toronto Education Conference) event, the associations annual education conference, to come together and learn from each other, experience new and emerging technologies, and gather credits towards their industry designations. The three-day event includes keynote presentations focused on giving attendees a big picture view of the industry, networking sessions to meet new peers and reconnect with familiar faces and most importantly breakout sessions where accredited presentations keep attendees up to date with the newest tools, technologies and practices of the events industry.
Topics: News & Events, projection mapping technology, Sponsor, TEC, technology, throwable microphones, unmanned aerial vehicle, virtual reality for associations, virtual reality for live events, vr, widescreen projection, audio visual calgary, audio visual canada, audio visual equipment, AV Technology, audio visual equipment canada, audio visual halifax, audio visual ottawa, audio visual solutions, audio visual toronto, audio visual vancouver, audiovisual, av, drone, event management
They say communication is a two-way street – and although the specific objectives of an event are as varied as the events themselves, the foundational element of events is to communicate - to make a connection.
Topics: holographic presentations, How To's & Best Practices, multi gesture technology, projection mapping technology, second screen technology, throwable microphones, audio visual calgary, audio visual canada, audio visual equipment, AV Technology, audio visual halifax, audio visual montreal, audio visual ottawa, audio visual toronto, audio visual vancouver, av canada, event management


text:
From modeling and simulation programs to advanced electric powertrains, engines, biofuels, lubricants, and batteries, Argonne's transportation research is vital to the development of next-generation vehicles.
Revolutionary advances in transportation are critical to reducing our nation's petroleum consumption and the environmental impact of our vehicles. Some of the most exciting new vehicle technologies are being ushered along by research conducted at Argonne National Laboratory.
Our Transportation Technology R&D Center (TTRDC) brings together scientists and engineers from many disciplines across the laboratory to work with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), automakers and other industrial partners. Our goal is to put new transportation technologies on the road that improve the way we live and contribute to a better, cleaner future for all.
Related Research
- Autonomie vehicle simulation tool
- Advanced Powertrain Research Facility
- Electrochemical Analysis & Diagnostics Laboratory
- Engine Research Facility
- Internal Combustion Engine Modeling
- Electric vehicles
- Materials Engineering Research Facility
- Transportation Research & Analysis Computing Center
- Transportation Research Facilities
- Tribology Laboratory
Latest News
Featured Expert: Ann M. Schlenker
Director, Center for Transportation Research, Energy Systems


text:
{{search.results.count}} results {{searchFilter()}} {{searchQuery()}}
{{search.results.count}} results {{searchFilter()}} {{searchQuery()}}
Enter a search term such as "mobile analytics" or browse our content using the filters above.
That's not only a poor Scrabble score but we also couldn't find any results matching
Check your spelling or try broadening your search.
This service is currently undergoing maintenance.
Please try again later.
Responsive design is just one of a number of options available for businesses currently devising a mobile strategy, however it is seen by many to be the only sensible long-term option.
For the uninitiated, responsive design allows websites to work from a single set of code that resizes itself to fit whatever screen a particular visitor is using, thereby negating the need for a separate mobile site.
We previously investigated the benefits of the technology in our posts looking at why Google loves responsive design and this roundup of 10 brilliant examples of responsive design in ecommerce.
But as with any new technology there are also potential downsides that businesses need to consider.
I should note at this point that I am an advocate of responsive design, so this is meant to be a point of discussion rather than a backwards-thinking attack on a new method of design.
Nonetheless, here are six potential problems that site owners should be aware of before they decide to embrace responsive design...
1. Slow loading time
Responsive design uses a single set of code so mobile users have to download the same amount of content as a desktop user.
However, a lot of the content that would load on desktop is set to "display: none" through the mobile media query, so the user is downloading a lot of unnecessary content that they won't even see.
2. Development time and resources
It's a fairly obvious one, but will still be one of the key considerations for businesses toying with the idea of building a responsive site.
Glance over at your overworked tech team – do they have the time and budget to undertake the project and all of its complexities?
It's likely that it will require new hires or training of existing staff to build a responsive site, which is likely to be a major issue for most businesses.
If you have an existing mobile site that caters to your customer's needs, there needs to be an extremely good reason to start from scratch with a responsive site.
3. Catering for different user behaviours
Smartphones, tablets and desktops are different devices that encourage very different visitor behaviour.
Tablet and desktop users expect a 'lean back' experience where they can conveniently browse websites and spend time viewing content or researching a purchase.
In contrast, smartphone users are impatient and expect websites to give them exactly what they're looking for with a minimum of fuss and clicks. In general they don't want to be bothered with all the content that one would expect to see on a full desktop site.
Most of the best mobile sites available today have been designed specifically for mobile screens, taking into account user behaviour, navigation and usability.
Catering to these different expectations is difficult when using one set of code, and could possibly result in a compromised user experience on all devices.
4. Advertising
Rescaling desktop images for a mobile screen is a tricky challenge that is made more important when you consider the impact on third-party adverts.
There are established sizes for display ads, and rescaling them for a 320x480 screen could result in distorted images and unhappy advertisers.
5. Keep on scrolling
This may be an issue with poor design rather than responsive design, but rescaling desktop pages for mobile screens often results in very long pages that require a lot of scrolling.
This obviously isn't a great user experience, as one of the key design features of mobile optimised sites is that they don't require a great deal of pinching and scrolling.
6. More coding and testing
Though having a single set of code is supposed to make things simpler, it will have an impact on how quickly you can roll out updates and redesigns.
The reason being that if you decide to adopt responsive design then you can no longer update the desktop site in isolation, you have to consider the impact on all other devices.
This will require a lot more testing and may impede your ability to react quickly to problems.
7. Images
This is one of the main problems that mobile developers are battling with at the moment.
The basic issue is that an image that suits a 27" desktop screen probably isn't what you'd choose for a 3.5" smartphone screen.
For example, say you're showing off a brand new product – on a desktop screen you might show an image of somebody using the product, but on a smartphone screen where space is tight you'd probably choose a more functional, close up image.
You're also wasting bandwidth scaling down a hi-res desktop image for a smartphone screen.
There are several hacks that attempt to get around the problem, but none of them works every time and all have potential problems.
Comments (14)
I don't hink we can really talk of "downsides". Your first point for example depends on how you build your site. You can provide richer content to your desktop user without impacting on the loading time for mobile user. Start mobile first and use conditional loading to enhance the experience.
It's our work researching and improving. If you do a "bad" responsive design, it's your fault.
Talking about content you can use off-canvas techinuque to allow accessing more quiclky the right content.
To round up: responsive web design is hard becouse it's new and we have to study to get it right but it's our fault if we can't implement it in the right way.
The only "downside" is that we have to resarch and learn, but I repeat it's our job!
Hi David
Another interesting post !, you raise a lot of good questions about responsive design and the implications.
Point three for me carries the biggest issue, but only through analysis can we define the users behavior.
For me the key element here is testing this will define the best course of action. Like most things will take time and money !
Kind regards
Hi David, I've just completed the third responsive rewrite of our website, since our first responsive site in 2011. Once you've worked with some of the many robust frameworks (Bootstrap, Foundation, Boilerplate) there's really no going back – while there's a steep learning curve, once you've got there it's much quicker to turn out new sites (from concept through to full-tested and live environments).
I wouldn't overplay the slow loading time, especially when you design mobile-first. While there may be additional scripts loaded (such as html5shiv), the amount of content (especially image sprites) can be tailored using CSS and javascript. Development time will be shorter, of that I'm certain, although initially higher when first starting out. One of the most common benefits of a responsive workflow is that it pushes the design away from wireframes and photoshop, with design being started using markup (i.e. you build a real prototype rather than saying 'this is what the prototype will look like'). The time saved by adopting a truly iterative development is not to be underestimated, likewise the benefit of applying client changes to a real website, so nothing gets lost in translation.
Web developers should be catering for different user's behaviours (responsive or not), so this is not a real overhead.
Advertising is the biggest PITA – it's simpler to deal with flash based object code (which can be targeting through javascript) than the increasingly common iframe ads, which are inflexible and troublesome. Most sites choose to stack (or hide) ads rather than trying to make them fit the site's fluid resizing. Add in the nasty habits of interstitials or page takeovers and the headaches multiply.
Scrolling is fully within the designer's scope, and not a given. Content can be located off-page (and swing open when requested), tabs can be used and/or accordion-type stacking – there's no excuse for an overly long page that spoils the user experience.
As I say, testing is eventually easier, because the use cases are more consistent between projects. There are also some great tools available, such as Firefox's Responsive Design View which is build into every browser.
We use large images on our desktop view of the site, most of which have a wide-frame composition, but also detailed close-ups for specific articles. Using one of the modernizr based toolsets it's pretty straightforward to detect and provide a different image per device, although this is usually a matter of choice rather than necessity.
In our experience, the biggest problems come from third-party content (Ads, Twitter or Facebook widgets) and Internet Explorer which continues to be the browser most developers would put in the Room 101 bin. It seems that whenever web standards advance IE is left behind, causing a train wreck of frustration for anyone that has to work with it.
Repsonsive makes sense for any site where accessibility and a consistent user experience is of value. Ours can be viewed at http://skiddmark.com
I read point three with interest, especailly this part: "smartphone users are impatient [...] In general they don't want to be bothered with all the content that one would expect to see on a full desktop site.
I've recently been reading Karen McGrane's book, Content Strategy for Mobile, and she makes a compelling case that mobile sites should offer users the same content as the desktop site, even if it's displayed in a different way. I think we make assumptions about smartphone users' expectations and behaviour at our peril.
For years I hated when a company automatically directed me to a mobile site and I would load the desktop version where possible. I now realise that it wasn't the fact that it was a mobile site that bothered me - it was that so often I couldn't carry out the task I wanted to on the mobile site because it was so pared down.
Ill informed and poorly presented.
None of your points are accurate or fair.
The many people working hard to resolve issues for image resolutions and files sizes do so to help overcome issues that network providers have given us with bad tarriff and bandwidth caps. They are far from 'hacks' - there is nothing to hack.
Slow loading times come down to working with developers who don't know what they're doing (or know yet)
There are in fact HACKS for all that advertising to work on responsive platforms - it isn't our fault as web designers and developers that sales and advertising have failed to keep up with the shift in user engagement, their fault not ours.
I actually don't want to continue correcting you here, this is just piffle.
As Steve mentioned, load time doesn't necessarily have to be an issue, especially if your devs know a bit about using Ajax with their queries. With the right methods, you can set a page to load only the primary queries and javascript when viewed on mobile, and more time-intensive queries when the page is viewed on desktop.
I do agree with the ad problem though. If someone figures out how to fix that, they'll be a millionaire.
Use the combination of RWD and server side sniffer to optimise memory payload for 3g and smartphones. No loading issues.
Shown that users are happy to scroll on phones.
Very generalist, misleading article.
@Steve, thanks for your excellent response. It's great to hear from a site owner who has been using responsive design successfully for several years. Your points about advertising are interesting - would you be up for a more in-depth Q&A? If so, email me at email@example.com and we'll set something up.
@Colin, personally I don't have the patience to pinch and scroll round desktop sites on my mobile. This is a bit of a generalisation, but mobile visitors tend to exhibit different behaviours to desktop visitors, so it's up to site owners to make sure the relevant content is easily accessible.
@Jon L, as mentioned in the intro, this was meant to be a brief look at some of the possible downsides of RWD in order to start some debate.
@David, thanks for your reply. I think the best solution is a mobile-friendly site (responsive or otherwise) that has the same content as the desktop site. You mention relevant content - I think if we regard some of our content as of questionable importance it's worth asking if it even needs to be on the desktop site. Karen McGrane advocates using mobile as the lens through which to evaluate your content - it's a good yardstick of whether a piece of content is needed at all.
Many web users now rely solely for internet access, particularly in the developing world and the less well off in developed countries. Restricting content for mobile sites is an accessibility issue in my opinion. However, I'm coming at this as a content strategist in the public sector (where wide engagement is a requirement) rather than as a developer.
Point one kinda undermines the quality and depth of this article and many of the other points don't really relate to downsides - more things to consider or workaround. For example, progressive enhancement is a solution to point 1 - slow load size/speed and any decent article on responsive should cover this. Development time and resources is a resource issue not a 'downside' since, if you're going from mobile, you'll need resources and responsive may offer the most economic approach.
@David, I think the aim should be to offer the same content on mobile as on the desktop site. For many users, mobile is their only form of internet access - this is especially true in the developing world and among the less well off in developed nations. For content strategists like me who work in the public sector, reducing content for mobile users means giving them a second-rate experience and potentially excluding an already-marginalised group.
If content isn't deemed relevant to mobile users (who, let's remember, will often be at home or work and not necessarily on the move), we should probably question whether it's needed at all.
all these points can be overcome if done correctly - I suspect the list of negatives would be much longer if you had to now explore the alternatives.
Most any technological solution with have "downsides" (inherently every solution has pros and cons), with Responsive Web Design it's important to note that it is not a universal "one-size-fits-all" solution but an option whose benefits may out weigh it's drawbacks as a way of implementing a site across a diverse population of devices. It's worthwhile to consider the points outlined in this post when making a decision, particularly if your application will benefit form the device's native capabilities which don't yet have a tie into the responsive web design technology.
Seems like if a site is built well, most of these points are irrelevant. I would argue about more code and testing -- if you had a separate mobile-optimized version of your site, wouldn't that require more code and testing anyways?


text:
Port Everglades has posted guards round-the-clock at its main gate to inspect all who enter, and officials at two major South Florida airports told employees on Tuesday to stay alert.
The reason: the chance of a terrorist backlash from the U.S. attacks on Libya.
``There is no indication of any problem or danger,`` said Port Everglades spokeswoman Jan Idelman. ``But in light of world problems, we`re tightening up our security.``
Officials said the port is the second-largest fuel storage site in the country, supplying most of the military jets in South Florida. Navy ships frequently visit.
``It might be considered a prime target,`` said Lt. Robert O`Neill of the Broward Sheriff`s Office. ``Any facility of this nature would be a favorite target of terrorists.``
Sheriff`s Lt. Dale Adams said he found several unlocked and unattended fence gates at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Tuesday. It was nothing to get too excited about, he said, calling it a ``minor breach of security.``
But it will be reported to airport officials, said Adams, deputy commander of the Sheriff`s Office district covering the airport.
No one is being too careful.
``We`re asking employees to increase their watchfulness, especially those employees that are responsible for secured areas,`` said Amalia Fernandez, spokeswoman for the Dade County Aviation Department, which operates Miami International Airport.
``The recent events have heightened concerns. You can be assured that we are reviewing everything,`` said Leonard Peterson, manager of the Federal Aviation Administration`s civil aviation security field office in Miami.
No additional security precautions against terrorism were taken at the Port of Palm Beach or at Palm Beach International Airport on Tuesday.


text:
There's some nice, ripe characters here in a vintage in which many others struggled to reach the finish line. Ripe cherry and boysenberry, red fruits too, gently fragrant and a lightly musky nose. The palate's supple with lilting cherry flavour. A mellow wine with soft tannins and a bright, crunchy finish.
91, Nick Stock, 2013 Good Wine Guide, November 2012
Deep, soused forest berries, with richness, but also cut and an edge. Woodsy smelling with a sniff of gentle pepper spice. Silky palate with pure squeezed blackberries; a touch of poached rhubarb. Light valedictory spicy mouth-aromas. Excellent wine from a tricky, cool, wet vintage.
90, Tim White, Australian Financial Review, October 2012
This has become one of the Mornington Peninsula's best wine estates, judged by what's in the glass. This 2011 release bursts from the glass. Aroma galore. Stalks, dried peppers, mulch, red berries. Sweet, fragrant, savoury, twiggy. This riot is followed by more of the same in the mouth, with smoky, drying, gamey tannin to boot. Seriously shaped/styled; nothing cheap and cheerful about this. Juicy citrus notes, forest berries, beetroot and rose-petal lift through the finish. Impressive. Drink: 2012-2016+.
91, Campbell Mattinson, Winefront, September 2012
With raucous black and red fruit notes on the nose of this boisterous Pinot, this is one of the more modern and edgy wines of the day. Inevitably appealing to classicists and newcomers alike, TMBT has the unnerving knack of nailing every wine they make and encouraging more and more people to experience the unbridled joys of serious Pinot Noir. Don't stress about what to serve with this wine, just take the top off, find some large glasses and get on with it.
Matthew Jukes, Wine Rules, August 2012


text:
Overwhelming number of voters believe every student deserves the same level of state funding; GLEP urges legislature to eliminate $1,000 per pupil funding equity gap
Lansing, MI – According to survey data released today by the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), an overwhelming number of Michigan voters agree that every student should receive the same level of state support for their education.
When told that roughly one half of students receive about $7,000 per year while the other half receives up to $8,000 or more a year, 87% of respondents agreed that every student in Michigan should receive the same level of state support for their education.
"This is tremendous support to address the serious opportunity gap in Michigan when one student is worth nearly $1,000 more than their next door neighbor," said Gary Naeyaert, GLEP Executive Director. "We've made some progress since 1994 in closing the equity funding gap, but at our current rate it will be another 20 years before the gap is closed. We urge the Michigan Legislature to act more quickly to provide fair funding for every student, because our kids can't wait," Naeyaert continued.
GLEP is advocating that at least 90% of available state and local K-12 funding be used to provide per-pupil support in the School Aid Budget, leaving up to 10% for targeted investments. Doing so will provide a uniform foundation grant of $8,250 per pupil, eliminating the funding equity gap. The Michigan legislature is currently debating the FY 2014-15 School Aid Budget.
Methodology: This survey was part of a Denno Research Periodic Survey of the Michigan electorate. 600 respondents in the state of Michigan were surveyed between March 9-10, 2014, with a margin of error of plus/minus 4%, and the participation was stratified based on census data and past voter behavior. 120 respondents (20%) were from cell phone users, in an attempt to gather younger voters who do not have a land line. A screen was employed to include only those participants who said they would vote, either at the polls or by absentee ballot, in the November 2014 General Election. All numbers are rounded and may exceed 100%. Visit www.dennoresearch.com or www.glep.org for additional details.


text:
NEWARK–In 2008, more than half a million people were involved in car crashes where a teen driver was behind the wheel. Nearly 30 percent of those who died in these crashes were not in cars driven by teens.
Since teenage driving has an impact on all of the drivers on the road, it is important for families to have open discussions with these new drivers and set guidelines for behavior.
"More teenagers die from car crashes than from cancer, homicide, and suicide combined," reports Michael Rosen, MD, director of the Pediatric Emergency Department at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Children's Hospital of New Jersey. "Parents should know that the main cause of teen crashes is driver inexperience. All new drivers—even straight-A students—are at risk for a fatal crash."
In one year alone, crash-related injuries and deaths among teens ages 15 to 19 cost $14 billion in medical care.
The following are teen driving facts and recommendations from The Emergency Department at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
- Most teen crashes involve "rookie" mistakes. Teens need time to gain driving experience under varying road conditions. Make sure that your teen receives at least 50 hours of supervised practice under a wide variety of conditions while learning to drive.
- Parents play a crucial role in teen driving safety, including peer pressure. You can help by taking the blame – for the rules they have to follow to drive or ride in a car. Sometimes they need an excuse to get out of difficult situations
- According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), two-thirds of teens killed in crashes were not wearing seat belts. Insist on the use of seatbelts and wear one yourself. Have consequences for not using seatbelts.
- Two or more peer passengers triples the risk of a fatal crash when a teen is behind the wheel. Parents who set rules and monitor their teens' driving behavior in a supportive way can cut their crash risk in half. Insist that limits on the number of passengers are followed.
- According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), crash risk is four times higher when a driver uses a cell phone, whether or not it's hands-free. Let your teen driver know that using a cell phone while driving is only acceptable in an emergency (and only then, by pulling over). Be sure to emphasize that texting behind the wheel is never okay.
- The effects of being awake for 18 hours are similar to having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of 0.08, which is legally drunk. Do not underestimate the importance of sleep for your teen, especially in regard to driving.
- Although teens are actually less likely than adults to get behind the wheel after drinking, their risk of crashing is far greater, even with low to moderate blood alcohol content levels. Talk to your teen about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Always offer to pick up your teen from any location without repercussions.
- Speed is a major factor in teen crash fatalities. As part of driving practice, be sure to cover speed management for various conditions with your teen.
Connect with NJTODAY.NET
Join NJTODAY.NET's free Email List to receive occasional updates delivered right to your email address!


text:
Kolkata, April 3 (IANS) West Indies captain Darren Sammy won the toss and elected to field against England in the World Twenty20 final at the Eden Gardens here on Sunday.
Both teams go unchanged into the title showdown.
The teams:
England: Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (captain), Jos Buttler (wicket-keeper), Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Chris Jordan, David Willey, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett.
West Indies: Johnson Charles, Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Lendl Simmons, Andre Russell, Denesh Ramdin (wicket-keeper), Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy (captain), Carlos Brathwaite, Samuel Badree, Sulieman Benn.


text:
Still a mystery: Years later, no one knows what happened to JonBenet
The name Patsy Ramsey is, unfortunately, synonymous with one of the greatest unsolved mysteries ever to hit the American airwaves — and one for which we might never find a guilty party.
"Who killed JonBenet?" has been a question asked for nearly a decade, and after much speculation, police are no closer to determining what happened to John and Patsy Ramsey's little girl.
This weekend, Mrs. Ramsey succumbed to ovarian cancer — a disease she had beaten before her daughter was found tied up and strangled to death in their Denver home.
She told interviewers that she understood that she was dying — and that she was looking forward to reuniting with her daughter.
That is a heart-wrenching realization that although this story has been out of the news for years, this family is still struggling with the aftermath of that December day so many years ago.
Mrs. Ramsey's death is a sad end to a family's continuing struggles and tragedy.
But even though Mrs. Ramsey is gone, the effort to learn the truth about JonBenet's death should continue — as it should when any person, young or old, is lost in so horrible and senseless a manner.
Feel as you will about the Ramseys. Believe they are guilty if you think that assertion might be true. There will be plenty of others speculating about what really happened that fateful day.
Law enforcement officers should not stop looking even though JonBenet's mother is no longer there to fight for her. The little girl who charmed a nation and touched parents' hearts across the country will not be laid to rest officially until her killer is found and punished.
She deserves no less than the truth and justice.
That is what her mother would have wanted, too.
Published in Editorials on June 26, 2006 11:03 AM


text:
AQ Worlds is a free MMORPG game (massively multiplayer role-playing game) that plays right inside your web browser. There is no software to download or install -- and this MMORPG is FREE! Battle monsters in real-time RPG combat alongside your friends and Battle On!
No mods were found matching the criteria specified. We suggest you try the mod list with no filter applied, to browse all available. Add mod and help us achieve our mission of showcasing the best content from all developers. Join now to share your own content, we welcome creators and consumers alike and look forward to your comments.


text:
We moved to 3307 Shady Ave. Ext., Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Romibo and Lazlo helped Fine Art Miracles, Inc. move to a new location over the weekend, and they are now in the process of unpacking–truly an amazing feat for two little bots…
We can help! We can't wait to live at 3307 Shady Ave. Ext.!
Who is this helping? Aw, that's just Tess in disguise! Welcome to your new home!


text:
Lunnye Devitsy1.1 Portable
- Category Games
- Type PC Game
- Language English
- Total size 39.4 MB
- Uploaded By oziman
- Downloads 153
- Last checked 3 months ago
- Date uploaded 8 years ago
- Seeders 0
- Leechers 0
Infohash : C709A73CA8ACE8F3C5393CF506183B2D84CE561D
"Lunnye is a mystery/puzzle platformer. You play as a little alien that falls off the moon and you have to make your way back. But it's a lot tougher than it sounds, take it from me, I'm the one who made it! The objective is to find your way back to the moon using 6 possible exits on a large mountainside."
The player cannot die in this game; just explore, collect and solve puzzles.
It's also in celebration of the moon landings, which was all just over 40 years ago.
System requirements:
Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
DirectX 9
800 MHz
Extract to were ever you want and play
(it's best to crate a new folder and start game from there)
- Lunnye Devitsy.rar (39.4 MB)
There are currently no comments. Feel free to leave one :)
- http://nemesis.1337x.org/announce
- http://denis.stalker.h3q.com/announce
- http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
- http://tracker.openbittorrent.com/announce
- http://tracker.bittorrent.am/announce
- http://tracker.publicbt.com/announce
- http://genesis.1337x.org:1337/announce
- http://pow7.com:80/announce
- http://tracker.edgebooster.com:6969/announce
- http://tracker.harryy.us:80/announce
- http://photodiode.mine.nu:80/announce
- http://tracker.torrentparty.com:80/announce
- http://tracker.bitreactor.to:2710/announce
- udp://tracker.1337x.org:80/announce


text:
But now the Prius is in danger of becoming the car that no one wants.
Demi Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Cameron Diaz and Renee Zellweger have all been spotted at the wheel of a Prius. While in Britain, Gary Neville, the Manchester United defender likes the car so much he has two in preference to the Porsches and Bentleys driven by his team-mates.
Following the global recall of nearly 400,000 third generation Priuses because of problems with the braking system, the price is set to drop by as much as £2,000 as motorists decide that self-preservation is more important than cutting carbon.
Toyota stockists have already started to offer discounts in America and it is expected that similar offers will start to appear in the UK.
Motoring industry analysts have warned that when it comes to the choice between saving the planet, or saving themselves, motorists will chose themselves.
Kevin Ruston, who runs the CarPricechecker website, said motorists would start to see hefty discounts.
"Discounts on the Prius used to be non-existent or at least very small compared to non-hybrids, because there has always been a premium on the car," he said.
"People who were going to buy a Prius will probably stop for a while. Now we could see £2,000 come off the price of a Prius if they want the company wants to drive sales back up."
His views are shared by Prof Garel Rhys of Cardiff Business School and one of Britain's leading authorities on the motor industry, believes the Prius will be badly hit by the recall and is likely to be forced to cut prices.
"The Prius is already a very expensive car and the question is whether people want to spend money on what is a flawed car. They may choose a conventional model, or see what other people have to offer.
"They are already discounting in the United States and dealers are already taking action to minimise harm. That is clearly a straw in the wind"
There are currently just over 37,000 Priuses in Britain, of which just under 7,000 third generation models – the ones subject to the latest recall – have already been sold to British motorists.
About another 1,500 are awaiting delivery to their owners. They sell for around £20,000.
Up until the brake scare, motorists could expect to wait up to three months to take delivery of a new Prius. Yesterday dealers were saying that they had some cars in stock.
"When it comes down to a choice between saving the environment or saving yourself, a motorist will choose the latter," said Mike Allen, analyst with Panmure Gordon, stockbrokers. "You have to look at the profile of a Prius driver and this sort of thing can be a worry."
Yannick Read, spokesman for the Environmental Transport Association – which promotes green motoring – admitted that he feared the Prius recall did little for the image of green motoring.
"The Prius achieved household status and Toyota did a very good job marketing it taking photos of the car with Cameron Diaz."
Now, with nearly 190,000 of its cars in Britain facing a recall, Toyota is having to shore up its position as best it can.
Even though the Association of British Insurers said that driving a car subject to a recall would not invalidate a motorist's insurance, Toyota still felt it necessary to say that its own insurance arm would take over any policy if necessary.
Several lawyers also warned that motorists could face prosecution if they drove a car subject to a recall.
The Department for Transport said that a driver would only likely to be committing an offence if they took a car on to the road in a manifestly dangerous condition where it was exhibiting the problems which triggered the recall.


text:
America's Original Pioneer Girl
Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas, and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and her family are kept busy and happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.
Little House on the Prairie is the second book in the Laura Years series.
Series: Little House
Audience: General
For Ages: 8 - 11 years old
For Grades: 3 - 6
Format: Audio CD
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 6
Published: 6th May 2008
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Country of Publication: US
Dimensions (cm): 14.8 x 13.6 x 1.2
Weight (kg): 0.17


text:
A Prayer for Bill
The story below was authored by Miles Wright, one of the founders of Hearts with Haiti and a long time friend of the St. Joseph Family. Miles was instrumental in rescuing Bill Nathan after the earthquake; what follows is his story of that rescue.
It was pitch black and we're circling Port au Prince in a small twin-engine plane, straining to see the large C-130 and 777 cargo planes locked in long holding patterns around us. Pilots and ground crew alike were tense and testy – some planes reporting up to 20 hours in the air. A voice comes on the radio that we do not have military clearance to land – our hearts sank and we started calculating our remaining fuel.
Just 36 hours earlier, I decided to find a way to get emergency supplies to Haiti, specifically the homes of the St. Joseph Family. St. Joseph's consists of three Haitian homes that shelter over 100 children from homelessness and child slavery. My ten years of relationship with these amazing sanctuaries transformed ordinary board service into something much more rare and precious – family.
Family members in the U.S. did not know the earthquake's damage to Port au Prince and could only rely on very short cell phone calls we managed to receive. Tremors still shook the city, we were told.
Food and water were already in short supply and robberies were starting. The calculation, however, was simple – when your family needs you, you show up.
In those 36 hours, an incredible outpouring of love and concern filled the internet with emails and the airwaves with cell calls. Ironically, I had just complained to a friend about quietness in my life. Now I was managing a flood of daily emails and at least a hundred phone calls related to Hearts With Haiti, a 501(c)3 organization formed in 2001 to support St. Josephs. It seemed just our little bits of information were virtual diamonds, sought after by CNN, NPR, ABC, and a host of other news organizations across the country. Our small organization was suddenly caught in the spotlight of a media feeding frenzy.
Sadly, many of the calls and emails were from people seeking loved ones in Haiti. "Can you get a message to someone in Carrefour?" we were asked. "Have you heard anything about the mission team from Maryland?" "Can you find my daughter?" I heard bravery and fear in all these voices.
How do you pack for a disaster? One tee shirt, a passport and a toothbrush, I decided. At least I won't be lugging Costco containers of Huggies through the Miami airport – a rare happy thought.
The harder question was the supply list. Three homes and over one hundred children affected – what to take? Because of the small plane's weight limit, it had to be a short list. The decision was to establish reliable communication with SAT phones, clean water with state-of-the-art mobile filtration systems, and solar powered portable generators to keep phones charged. And lots of cash. I consciously chose not to take at least twenty items, each decision reached with agonizing practicality.
The main reason for the rushed trip, however, was to provide medical care for two of our family members who sustained serious injuries – 25 year-old Bill Nathan and 10 year-old Ti Patrick. We heard that their condition was critical, but they had supposedly been released from the hospital.
Rumors suggested that Bill fell approximately 75 feet from the 7th floor of his home. We were unable to confirm, and we feared the worst.
Miraculously, two Haitian doctors in the United States suddenly materialized from the network of St. Joseph friends and volunteered their services in exchange for passage to check on their own families.
Our final traveler was Ben Skinner, a Harvard Fellow and author of A Crime So Monstrous, a captivating narrative detailing child slavery in Haiti. He was looking for a way into the country to provide coverage for Time magazine and ABC, but his real motivation was the same as mine. In his previous trip to Haiti he contracted malaria – and Bill Nathan nursed him back to health. Bill, he asserted, saved his life, and he needed that extra seat. He sounded like a man who would not be denied. He soon became a vital addition.
The plan was simple – everyone get to Ft. Lauderdale ASAP and get the plane airborne on Friday.
The only reason we got into Haiti (when no private or charter planes were allowed to land) was the good folks at EcoAir. Owner Michael Lewis-Keister, with North Carolina and military connections, projected a calm, confident front. We'll get you into PAP no matter what it takes, he promised. Haiti is easy, he explained – they don't even shoot at you. St. Joseph's network of friends came through again, and knew I found my pilot.
Our day of departure started very early at a Florida Waffle House. Ben plopped down in the seat across the booth and we both took deep breaths at what lay ahead for us. We scanned each other for signs of trepidation or fear. To break the tension, I told him that we were about to face our greatest danger of the day – eating at Waffle House. We laughed and decided levity would also accompany us on the trip.
While we waited for our Haitian doctors to materialize, Ben and I made a quick trip to a 24-hour WalMart. We pushed carts inside and soon became lost in excessive choices, Musak and the fluorescent glow – how do you pick up a few items when your three homes have been destroyed by an earthquake? I separated from Ben and sought refuge in the toy department.
Quickly I realized a serious miscalculation as carefree dolls seemed to flaunt their suburban bliss. Shrunken Hummers and Land Rovers lined the aisles. Even the balls seemed manipulative and over-the-top, complete with corporate logos and signatures that mean nothing to a Haitian child. The excess filled me with more sadness than any street scene in Jacmel or Cap Haitien.
Our doctors arrived late and we eventually left the airfield after much delay. Our cell phones were going crazy and there were a thousand loose ends – it was a relief to be in the air. We stopped at the island of Inagua, the southernmost Bahamian island known as the home of Morton salt marshes. A little fuel and off to Haiti. The plane got quiet and serious.
I still don't know how we ended up on the Port au Prince tarmac. Ground control told us we were not cleared to land, then suddenly told us we were in the 5th slot. Expect at least a two hour wait because the tarmac is full and there was no fuel on the island, we heard. Just 10 minutes later I listened to the best news of the day – N821B cleared to land. Miracle number one.
Chaos. News crews, military, and medics mingled on the tarmac. I was suddenly rubbing elbows with Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts, Anderson Cooper and other television personalities seeking stories from the relative calm of the airport. We had no information about how feasible ground transportation would be. Let's get there and wing it, I remember thinking. Incredibly, out in front of the airport was Rony, the best driver in Haiti we knew from other trips. I still don't know how we connected – miracle number two.
As we headed into the darkness, it seemed the entire city was sleeping in streets, parks – any place without walls. Even in extremely crowded parks, Haitians would not sleep under small trees out of fear of further collapse and devastation. Over the next 24 hours, we heard and saw firsthand the psychological torment among Haiti's citizens. Winding our way through open streets, we came upon a large circle of perhaps 100 Haitians gathered around a solitary flaming paint can. The illuminated faces had both smiles and tears while their voices reverently sang Bondye Bon…God is good.
We found Bill in a small two-room neighborhood clinic, no electricity, face down on a thin mattress. His eyes were glazed over and pain filled his body. The doctors quickly determined we had to get him out soon. Our abstract mission suddenly became real and terrifying – we were in a rubble-strewn back alley in Port au Prince and Bill might die in our care. Lots of things would have to go very right for him to even have a chance.
After making other stops around Port au Prince, the night ended on a pad at Wings of Hope, one of our homes about 8 miles outside the city. Approximately 40 children slept in the small former dining area.
All night long the kids would awaken screaming from nightmares fed by earthquake memories. For the next five hours I stared into the darkness and witnessed their fear.
With an extra seat on the return flight, we picked up a 19 year-old American, Patrick Henry. This young man from Baltimore signed up for a routine week of mission work and instead received his first brush with mortality. He simply had seen too much and needed to return home. We managed to get Bill into Rony's van and headed to the airport. During this ride Bill told us that he actually landed on his friend Walnus' chicken and had blood all over his tee shirt. He then was attacked by three dogs who smelled and saw the blood. No one gets a break in Haiti.
The scene at the airport closely resembled the grainy new footage of people trying to get out of Vietnam at the end. American military personnel stood guard at the entrances and tried to keep some type of order and control. Hundreds of people pushed to gain access to the empty terminal, despite the fact that no commercial flights were scheduled to leave. We were blocked from entering as well, perhaps because we were trying to get a Haitian national out of the country (though he possesses a five year unlimited visa to the United States). Ben showed letters from Time magazine but the soldiers could not be certain they were authentic. We needed official press passes to enter.
Salvation came in the form of the Duke-Carolina rivalry. As we shouted over the crowd and tried all means possible to get in, the soldiers kept a tight grip on their rifles and their words. Nothing we said seemed to have any impact. I could tell from their voices they were likely from Ft. Bragg – clearly from North Carolina – and I suddenly realized I wore a Duke tee shirt. "I know why you aren't letting us in," I shouted. "Your whole patrol is a bunch of f@#%@*' Carolina fans!"
They laughed, and suddenly we were talking about barbecue and getting out to Wrightsville in the spring. They soon found their commander and we were escorted inside. Miracle number three.
In all the turmoil, Bill took a turn for the worse. He collapsed and was spread on a luggage rack on the tarmac while massive cargo planes roared nearby. Medics from France and Qatar worked on him while we frantically searched for our pilot and plane. The chances were slim that our pilot would twice gain entry to the country (he had to overnight in the Dominican Republic). Miracle number four when we spotted his mosquito-like plane out in the grass – against all odds he somehow made it in.
We were given immediate clearance to leave and needed to solve our next problems, finding fuel and passport stamps for entry back to the United States (all emigration processes vanished in Haiti with the earthquake). We headed for the Bahamas. The flight finally gave us time to reflect on the horrors in Haiti while Bill rested on a makeshift bed of backpacks. Dead bodies, stories of luck and courage, and the shock in everyones' eyes. Around 11 am on Saturday we experienced a significant aftershock after a night of small tremors, and it sent the Haitians into full panic. In that brief moment, we understood this quake took something far more valuable than just property.
If you are a problem solver, you've met your match in Haiti – the logistical challenges boggle even the most task-oriented, analytical mind. The wise words of Anne Lamott rung in my ears during those 16 hours on the ground – was it really only 16 hours? – that we needed to take it bird by bird. Get the people food and water. Hold their hands and listen to their stories. Feel their pain.
Haitians are wonderful storytellers. As a Texan, I bale metaphors and feed 'em to the cows – but I concede mastery to this culture. Out of the dust and rubble already are fabulous parallels to resurrection and talk of a bigger Haitian family that stretches across the globe. They know the road is hard – everything is hard in Haiti. But they learn as small children the phrase piti, piti, wazo fe nich li. Little by little, the bird builds its nest.
We land in Nassau. Everyone in the Bahamas is laid-back except the stern-faced customs woman sitting across the desk from us……clearly she had a miserable childhood. We eyed her stamp as if it were a large glass of cold water. We tried being nice. We tried funny. Woch nan dio pa konnen doule woch nan soley, I explained – the rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun. She crumpled the proverb and tossed it into her trashcan. Did we come this far just to land in customs purgatory?
Then something amazing happened – she excused herself for the bathroom and re-emerged as a different, pleasant person. I suddenly felt bad for my projections of her childhood – she just needed to pee.
South Florida was a blur. Emergency ambulance at the airport, Broward General Hospital, a CAT scan for Bill, discussing God vs. luck/physics with a doctor from Tel Aviv. We later found out the EMS workers, who heard Bill's story in a seven minute ride, took up a collection for him. This man needs to live, they concluded.
Miracle number five is Bill himself. He fell 75 feet onto concrete and suffered broken ribs, an abrasion to his liver and some damage to his vertebrae that will heal over time without surgery. He survived three days in immense pain while the ground continued to shake. He survived a rough six hour plane flight back to the States. He survived a 12-hour road trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Raleigh. Despite all these challenges, the pain that seems to hurt the most is being separated from St. Joseph's children and his country of Haiti. Bill is completely out of his element recuperating in the US – he is a man who only knows how to give.
I do not know if Haiti's prayers will be answered, but the spirit that makes Haiti special cannot be taken away by natural disaster. It is a country of survivors against all odds – never bet against the Haitian people.
— Miles WrightShare this:


text:
|Education Bill
Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend said that it was not.
Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman is intelligent enough to know that the amendment is incomplete as it stands. However, he has raised an important issue, and it will be interesting to see how the Minister responds.
Mr. Timms: Local authorities will have the opportunity to object to a minimum budget, if one is set. That is set out in new section 45C(1). If they object, the Bill will also allow them to set out the impact on other services that they run as part of the process, so the amendment would not be necessary to gather information on the impact on other services.
The hon. Member for Isle of Wight may be concerned about consultation with other Ministers. I can reassure him completely that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills would certainly consult colleagues with an interest in other local services before setting a minimum budget for an authority's schools. The Committee will know that the current Home Secretary is a strong supporter of the measure and worked hard to achieve it.
I accept that the topic is a matter for debate and that different people can take different views. The fact that the measure is in the Bill reflects this Government's view that raising standards in education is right at the top of our list of priorities. We need to ensure that the substantial increases in education spending that we will make this year, next year and the year after reach their target and are delivered to schools. Many people will feel that other things are more important and that that priority should not be assigned to education, but it is our clear
Column Number: 328view that education should be at the top of our list of priorities.
Mr. Brady: The Minister says that this shows the priorities that the Government attach to education, which is welcome, although the fact that he has also said that this is a power that he would envisage using extremely infrequently casts some doubt on his claim. Can he give an absolute assurance that there is no possibility that similar powers will be taken in future legislation, during this Parliament by other departmental Ministers, and that there will be no comparable ring fencing for police budgets, transport budgets or other local authority matters?
Mr. Timms: There are no proposals to introduce powers along these lines in any other areas. We would not want to restrict local decision-making abilities further. That reflects the Prime Minister's clear statement before he become Prime Minister that our top three priorities were ''education, education, education''. That is reflected in the clause. The Bill already provides that the Secretary of State must take account of all relevant circumstances before deciding to exercise the power to set a minimum level for the schools budget. There is no doubt that the effect on other services is a relevant consideration. That will certainly need to be taken into account. If there is any doubt about that, I am happy to place that assurance on the record. That may be helpful to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight.
Mr. Turner: The Minister said the Secretary of State would consult other Ministers. He amplified the fact that the views of other Ministers will be relevant in determining the decision that the Secretary of State eventually reaches. He did not say, however, that the Secretary of State would ensure that the views of other Ministers were reported and made clear to the local authority at that time. Is that the case?
Mr. Timms: No, I would not introduce a system whereby the views of many different Ministers would be published. That would be an unusual arrangement. Those concerns would certainly be taken into account, as would the local authority's concerns about the impact on its other services. I hope that the Committee will take the view that the amendment does not help and that the way that the clause currently sets out the proposal is right.
Mr. Turner: I am afraid that the Minister has made it clear that he is not willing for there to be transparency. There may be joined-up government, but it would be under a veil. Frankly joined-up government under a veil is of no help to local authorities going through the difficult process of setting their budgets. Time after time, local authorities are told that there is enough money because the revenue support grant, or whatever, ensures that enough money comes through. That is not widely believed by local authorities.
If the Secretary of State believes that he is setting a reasonable budget, that is one thing, but convincing the members of the local authority of that is a different matter. Effectively, local authority members escape responsibility. I emphasise that because it is something with which I am terribly familiar in my local authority.
Column Number: 329The tendency to blame the Government for everything that goes wrong is widespread, but occurs particularly in local authorities led by the party that is not in the habit of being in government.
I do not want my local authority or others to be able to say, ''We know that your elderly grandparents are suffering a total lack of domiciliary care and that your elderly parents are being thrown out of residential homes, but it is the fault of the wicked Government. It is not our fault, but theirs.''
We want the Secretary of State for Health to be able to say in public, hand on heart, that there is enough money—
It being Seven o'clock, The Chairman proceeded, pursuant to Sessional Order D [28 June 2001] and the Order of the Committee [11, 13 and 18 December 2001], to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
Amendment negatived.
The Chairman then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that time.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): On a point of order, Mr. Griffiths. We had the opportunity to discuss clause 40, although we have not concluded our discussions. We have not had the opportunity to discuss clauses 41 and 42, to which amendments have been tabled. It would be logical to be able to vote
Column Number: 330against clauses 41, 42 and even 43, as we have not even considered them. We would like to take those clauses separately, if that is convenient for you.
The Chairman: Unfortunately, under the programme resolution, hon. Members cannot vote separately on the clauses that are left. They must be considered under one Question.
Question put, That clause 40, as amended, and clauses 41 to 43 stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 6.
Division No. 23]
Clause 40, as amended, and clauses 41 to 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Adjourned accordingly at four minutes past Seven o'clock till Thursday 10 January at half-past Nine o'clock.
The following Members attended the Committee:
|©Parliamentary copyright 2002
|Prepared 8 January 2002


text:
A critical technological development in high-definition video was the development of cords that can transmit enough information to connect a high-definition video player to a high-definition screen. The cable that was developed is the high-definition HDMI cable. Many older video playback devices, however, still exclusively have output jacks for the older technology, RCA cables. This can present a problem if you have a newer video display with only an HDMI input. Fortunately, simple hardware converters allow an RCA cable end to be connected to an HDMI cable end.
Video of the Day
RCA Plugs
RCA cables have been in common usage for sending video signals since the 1970s. They come in a variety of shapes and colors, with the most common configuration being a single transmission cable with three color-coded plugs on the end. Although RCA cables are fairly universal and can be used on most TVs and projectors, RCA technology is limited in how much data can be transmitted. For this reason, RCA cables cannot transmit a high-definition signal. As high-definition televisions become more common, RCA cables are being replaced with new, high-definition cables.
HDMI Cables
HDMI cables were developed to facilitate sending a high-definition signal from a video playback device to a high-definition screen. These cables can support a much stronger signal, transmitting up to 1080 pixels at 60 frames/second. This is the highest available resolution for digital video at this writing and cannot be transmitted over RCA cables. Due to the superior transmission capabilities of this technology, HDMI connectors are becoming more common in contemporary TVs and projectors. It is likely that HDMI cables will soon be considered the standard cable for transmitting audio and video in home audio-visual devices.
Converting RCA to HDMI
If you are connecting a video player to a screen in which one of the devices only has RCA jacks and the other device only has HDMI jacks, it is necessary to use a converter to transmit the video and audio signals. This can be accomplished either through a converter cable or a converter box. In both cases, the converter have a female RCA input and a female HDMI output. From your standpoint as a user, it is a simple conversion process. Simply plug the RCA cable into the converter's RCA input and the HDMI cable into the converter's HDMI output.
Signal Loss
In certain video device configurations, it is possible to have a high-definition video player and high-definition screen, but still have RCA cables involved. This only occurs if an extra device is in the system, such as a signal splitter or game system, or if you simply do not have an HDMI cable. If RCA cables are used at any point when transmitting a high-definition video, the result is a downgraded signal. Since the RCA cable cannot transmit enough data for a high-definition signal, it functions as a kind of choke point, preventing the ultimate signal from being high definition.


text:
ROANOKE, Va. — The Virginia Tech football team is honoring the Connecticut school shooting victims and the similar tragedy on its own campus in 2007 with a helmet decal.
The Hokies are in Orlando, Fla., preparing to take on Rutgers on Friday in the Russell Athletic Bowl. The team is wearing a large ribbon on the side of their practice helmets this week.
The decal is half green for Sandy Hook Elementary School and half orange for Virginia Tech with the number 58 in the center. That's the combined number of victims at the schools in the shooting incidents. It also has the word "Prevail" written across it.
A smaller decal will be placed on the back of the helmet for the bowl game.
"It's just one of those things that we've been through what those people up in Sandy Hook are going through," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday. "We prevailed in Blacksburg. I think if anything, it brought us closer and more determined, and the same thing is going to happen there.
"We've got to prevail."


text:
I'm pleased to present the next featured artist in the Painterly Mobile Artist Series - Cathrine Halsør. Please visit our Flickr Group to view the work of all the members and if you're inclined to edit mobile images in a painterly way, please join us.
The Work
|My Heart is a Thousand Years Old © Cathrine Halsør
The Artist
I'm Cathrine Halsør - enjoying a simple life by the sea in Son, Norway. I'm an artist and image-maker.
My interest in photography started when I was 12 and has stayed with me on and off throughout my life, but my passion for iPhoneography started late 2012. I enjoy it immensely, and I hardly use my other cameras anymore. What I love most is the creative freedom. To shoot and edit, whenever and wherever I am. The more I discover in the world of editing, the more joyful the work gets.
I have a BA in Communication Media and a great fascination for words and images. I have a preference for photo editing apps over Photoshop or other Mac-based editors. I find it a much more intuitive way of creating. I've been working freelance making book covers, teaching students in graphic design, making cards from handmade paper. I've sold from galleries and held workshops in paper-making.
I love to transform the ordinary into something poetic. I visualize my thoughts, feelings and memories. I also practice mindfulness, and for me photography is a wonderful way of focusing on details and becoming aware of my surroundings.
Cathrine's Commentary
I was thrilled when Geri asked me to participate, and I knew right away which image I wanted to use. "My heart is a thousand years old" is a photo of my oldest daughter. We'd just finished a photo shoot for her blog, and she was about to change her clothes when I asked her to sit down for a few minutes. I shot some pictures of her, with her sunglasses still on.
I ran to catch my train home and immediately started my editing on the train. This is how excited I get! I always make numerous edits, running the image through different apps, saving it every time I switch apps.
I continued editing the next day. The image is taken with an iPhone 4 and edited both on the iPhone and my iPad mini retina, which I bought two months ago. First I used Snapseed, changing it into black and brightened the background behind her. I added texture both in Pic Grunger and in Repix. I also layered one of my own textures in the background here, with Image Blender.
I decided to add a heart to the picture. So, I cut a heart in some red fabric I found and used a white background when shooting. The background was actually one of my own handmade white papers, so it had its own inherent textures. I then edited the heart in Repix and Snapseed and finally layered the two pictures in Image Blender. I always find text to go along with my images. To me, they are incomplete until I find the right words. The quote I chose is:
I am not like other people"
~ Charles Bukowski
Find Cathrine: Instagram / Blog / Flickr
Apps Mentioned:
Pic Grunger
Image Blender
Add to Flipboard Magazine.


text:
CA Boom Prefab: Jennifer Siegel
We have followed Jennifer Siegel for years, since her 2003 Seatrain House, still the best shipping container house we have seen, through her show house (shown being installed above) her Swell House, non residential with her sustainable portables, the Takehome series of affordable designs not to mention numerous side trips through her monthly publication, Materials Monthly. Was there ever a more prolific supplier of great ideas for TreeHugger posts? Jennifer has consistently been at the head of the curve of prefab modern and sustainability, always producing something innovative and new, so we expect great things at CA boom.


text:
Traditionally folk music is boring(July 24, 2012)
Now that's going to lob a feline among the columbidae. I can almost hear legions of 'Piers the Ploughman Affiliates' beating their ploughshares into swords to prepare for the conflict. Probably because there's nothing more irksome than an observation that touches a nerve. It's true - in some points of view - traditional (and all other) folk music is desperately boring. Actually, depending on your own point of view so is progressive rock, English church music, Gregorian chant, classical music, modern jazz, country, blues, medieval music, rap, bubblegum pop - and anything else you don't happen to like.
That is of course, the essence of why some people find folk boring and some do not. It's nothing more than preference. It's what you like. Personally, I like meatballs and spaghetti ... not sure too many would agree. I also happen to like folk music, progressive rock and medieval music. And possessing fairly eclectic tastes, I appreciate a wide range of music from blues to punk (not too sure about modern jazz though). I may be passionate and ever so slightly evangelical about folk but given the title of this site, that's to be expected. However, my evangelism does not mean that I've graduated to 'folk zealot' and shut out everything else just because it falls outside my (admittedly fairly liberal) descriptions of folk.
That point is I believe one of the issues that faces folk and almost every other type of music today - the zealous belief in one style or genre to the (often ignorant) exclusion of everything else. In fact, without getting too deeply sociological it's a trend in society: "If it ain't on my restricted 'like list' it's crap." That view is the province of the closed mind and despite living in the most over-communicated society the world has ever known, that seems to be a 'tribalistic' view that proliferates – in music as much (and more in some cases) than with anything else. (See 'Tribalism in music is unavoidable' - FolkWords - November 2007.)
Now some may argue that preference is primarily a case of nurture-over-nature. If your parents force-fed you folk from an early age you'll become a dyed-in-the-wool folky, rock chicks breed rock chicks and punk boys follow their fathers. That assertion is far too simple and one that is not for debate right now, although it is interesting ... but that's another story. And incidentally, I and many thousands of others are living proof that such assertions are totally invalid.
Anyway back to the statement: 'folk is boring'. The problem is that folk (traditional or otherwise) is regularly branded as boring (much the same way as classical music) because in the face of many other mass-appeal genres it's appealing to a niche market. And as with any niche pastime, whether it's listening to folk or anything else, the majority of people outside that niche make a judgement without ever having heard the music. That's my point about ignorance – they don't know and they have no inclination to find out. The niche may be minute or sizeable, the problem remains. Time for a short aside: There was once a time when my ignorance of African folk music meant I was in danger of heading down the 'I haven't tried it but I don't like it' route. Thankfully, the 'eclecticism' gene kicked in and now, although it's not my all-time favourite music I can appreciate it and some of it I like. That is where folk along with other music needs to benefit from people willing and able to overcome their ignorance and learn about it. And for that to happen, niche music needs to become more accessible.
Where's the likelihood that folk music will make itself more accessible?
I don't think so. It's going to be what it's going to be and has always been. Mass appeal is not something that's going sweep through the folk world. That's it unless of course folk music undergoes a sudden unexpected breakout from 'niche' music to 'popular' music ... and that's not likely. There is an interesting point however, and that's the issue of effort that sometimes comes into the debate at this point.
It's arguable that we live in a world where anything requiring effort and depth of understanding is less than popular. And that's a shame. Irrespective of your personal preferences, most musical styles deserve more than a cursory listen before they're branded as boring. In any style you can find boring if you look hard enough – not every Charles Dickens's book is a classic and neither is every Ewan McColl song. Equally because something is old it doesn't necessarily acquire value in proportion to its age. There are boring trad songs that were boring ten minutes after they were written and remain so hundreds of years later.
For me the incessant thump and mindless lyric of manufactured celebrity-driven corporate-manufactured pop demands no more involvement than the average tumble dryer on fast spin. And I have given it a reasonable listen but for me it's not working. The difference with corporate-manufactured pop is this type of music permeates through every speaker system in every shopping mall and retail outlet, it pours out of most radio stations, and in doing so it catches the ears of an immense sea of humanity. Happy with its effortless embrace and (importantly) its affiliation with those modern-day Western apocalyptic horsemen 'celebrity' 'fashion' 'consumerism' and 'fame', the vast press of humanity looks no further for its satisfaction.
The outcome is immediate tribal gratification, with smaller less vast tribes tolerated or derided depending upon their size and power. Does power really impact music? You bet it does. For if the fat cats driving the corporate machines thought for one minute their prancing, 'fashionista' celebrities did not offer mass appeal they would drop them in a heartbeat. Do they consider writing songs that could have anything other than immediate gratification mass appeal? Not on your life.
So is the accusation of 'boring' a fair one?
As initially stated it all depends on taste and preference. If the statement is changed however to, folk music that does not develop is boring, there may be something to it. Now that doesn't mean that those musicians that only want to play folk in the tradition and refuse to embellish the tunes in any way are wrong it just means that they are happy playing what they play to their niche audience who are happy to listen. It doesn't mean that all folk falls into that category but while we have stereotyping in this world (and that's forever) whatever brand of folk you purvey you will run head on into the boring indictment. It also means that for many the preference is to listen to something else ... just don't throw a hissy-fit if someone calls it boring, because to their ears it is.
I continually come down on the side of exploring and expanding horizons. Perhaps that's why I rarely endorse the generalisation that folk or any other form of musical expression, is boring (although I still have a problem with modern jazz). Probably it's more accurate to say that there are boring bands and musicians currently playing everything from traditional to medieval, and new folk to weird and strange folk. The folk itself is fine it's just the calibre of the performers that's questionable. Folk isn't boring but to certain degrees it has backed itself into a bored niche ... despite revival after revival much of the predictability remains. Those artists, bands and labels leading the break out and moving beyond the 'same old same old' continue to make folk interesting. The folk they produce experiments with ancient folk and strange folk. They take the weirdness of dark and pastoral folk and embellish it with to create something new. They even regurgitate traditional with a new sound and feel. It is highly likely that some, perhaps many, don't like it. Some may even call it a step too far to call it folk. The point is the boundaries are never fixed.
The increase in new folk and all the sub genres it encompasses is perhaps one road to expanding the niche and reducing the ignorance. By the way, it also means long-established folkies need to accept that although they may not like it their traditional heritage belongs to the same tree as their weird cousins. Present the world with a united folk front. So to the old diehards and the new strange brew I say stop the in-fighting and unite - protect your right to experiment but protect your heritage too. Relish each other's tradition, artistry, style and inventiveness because if you don't, then no other bugger will.
So perhaps the future lies in casting a despairing become benignly tolerant eye towards heaven when the 'boring' word appears and trying ever so gently to assuage the ignorant with a little understanding and a lot of expanded thinking. If not ... who cares anyway,


text:
I don't have an answer.
Does anyone want to give this one a go?
Canon Elph 310 HS (IXUS 230)
Here are the reviews:
with reference to above canon model, I'm quite confused with the ratings by CNET US, which they gave 3.5 stars, against the 5 stars rating by CNET UK,..does it mean that they have different standards & criteria? in case which one is true?


text:
|Home Subscribe Logon Contact Advertising
Brandon Voss' world famous Drag Brunch comes to Fire Island Pines for Summer 2016. Bottomless cocktails, fabulous food and fierce drag on the bay!
Drag performance show times at 12:30PM and 2:30PM. $49.95 per person.
Blue Whale
Owned and produced by
All rights reserved.
This site is privately owned and is not associated with the Fire Island Pines Property Owners' Association.