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Out Of The Sounds Of Jersey, A Familiar Voice Makes A Mosaic
If you've ridden the subway in New York City, you know Bernie Wagenblast's voice: He's the one making the subway announcements. But Wagenblast's true love lies in the sounds of his home state, New Jersey. He's been on a mission to visit every New Jersey town, collecting the sounds that define each one. Emma Jacobs of WHYY speaks to Wagenblast about his project.
What are the sounds that the define where you live or where you grew up? That's something one resident of New Jersey has been thinking a lot about, and in the last year, he has been assembling an audio portrait of the state. He wants people to hear that there's more to the garden state than meets the Turnpike. And as Emma Jacobs reports, this project comes from someone whose voice is a defining sound.
BERNIE WAGENBLAST: There is an uptown local one train to Brooklyn Park.
EMMA JACOBS, BYLINE: That voice is Bernie Wagenblast. He's the announcer on New York City's subway platforms, but he's a Jersey boy at heart, and for the last year, the semiretired broadcaster has been on a mission to record unique audio sounds from every Township in his beloved state.
WAGENBLAST: I don't want to sound, necessarily, over refinery that somebody says, oh, I see that all the time as I drive through on the turnpike - or just the sound of the seashore, but what is a unique sound from the seashore that people may not necessarily associate with New Jersey?
JACOBS: So he started last July 4 at this Independence Day parade in Milltown, which is the central part of the state. Further west in Delaware Township is New Jersey's last covered bridge. So Wagenblast waded into a creek below to record the sound of cars driving over its wooden planks.
JACOBS: Many times, he didn't actually visit places but found sounds that defined them.
JACOBS: That's the noise of M&Ms being manufactured in Hackettstown. The chocolate factory is the North American headquarters of the candy company Mars. Then, there's West Windsor where Martians landed in 1938.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen - well, I hardly know where to begin - paint for you a word picture of the strange scene before my eyes but something out of a modern Arabian Knights.
JACOBS: The year before Orson Welles' famous War of the Worlds radio hoax, there had been a real disaster above Hanover Township. The airship Hindenburg burst into flames, killing 36 people. Wagenblast chose a clip from the famous broadcast by Herbert Morrison, the only radio reporter on the scene.
HERBERT MORRISON: It's a terrific crisis, lady and gentlemen. There's smoke, and there's flames now - the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast - oh, the humanity.
JACOBS: The next sound comes from a place where one of the New Jersey's most famous sons recorded his first music album.
JACOBS: It's a Bruce Springsteen concert at the Stone Pony, a tiny music venue in the city of Asbury Park. But out of all his sounds, one of Wagenblast's favorites is a relic of New Jersey's industrial past. It's from Rahway, where a factory once produced metal disks used inside music boxes.
WAGENBLAST: In the days before radio - in the days before phonographs, this was the entertainment that people used. So I think that was one of the more fun things, finding something that I didn't realize existed and hopefully then sharing it with a larger community.
JACOBS: Wagenblast considers these metal plates with their raised pegs the ancestor of the digital recordings he collects today. So far, he's collected sounds from more than 100 places. He posts them to a page on the social media site Pinterest.
WAGENBLAST: I've lived in New Jersey all of my life. So this is - to go someplace that you wouldn't normally go. You know, we all go places and tourist places and things like that, but you don't go to some of these lesser-known spots unless you have an excuse and this is my excuse to go to those.
JACOBS: His goal is to record sounds from all 565 cities and townships in New Jersey. And that could take another five or six years. For NPR News, I'm Emma Jacobs in Philadelphia.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


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2009: The Year of the Wireless Branch Office?
Page 1 of 1
Interop has always been a popular place to unveil new products and major upgrades. 2008 was the year for enterprise-class 802.11n, with many vendors announcing Draft N-certified gear and related radio/architecture improvements. By all accounts, those products are now enjoying considerable successInStat expects enterprise AP shipments to jump from just 148,000 in 2008 to 726,000 in 2009.
At this years Interop, times have changed. Not only are budgets stretched paper-thin, but early 802.11n business adoption has uncovered IT pain points and under-served market segments. For example, 2009 seems to be the year of the wireless branch office.
Mid-market madness
As noted in our Best of Show coverage, Aruba won the Wireless/Mobile category by combining branch in a box APs with small controllers, priced for SMBs. Finalist Cisco took a whack at their price tag with a right-sized appliance that delivers advanced mobility services to SMBs. However, as we walked the 2009 expo, we found many other vendors aiming at the mid-market.
Meraki unveiled two new 11n APs: the single radio MR11 ($599) and the dual radio MR14 ($799). Both are centrally provisioned, maintained, and monitored by Merakis Enterprise Cloud Controller, a hosted WLAN management service starting at $150/AP/year. But dont let the name fool you. Were not aiming at F1000 enterprises, said CEO Sanjit Biswas. Were aiming at medium and small offices, where we can build upon our past successes [in hospitality and retail.]
Not to be left out, Motorola announced its solution to let customers quickly deploy resilient, secure and voice-enabled branch office wireless LANs. But this newly-announced solution is based on an existing product: the AP-7131 ($1299), a tri-radio 802.11a/b/g/n adaptive AP with integrated stateful firewall and 3G/4G backhaul, widely deployed in retail stores. Smaller businesses can deploy the AP-7131 solo, without a controller. Larger businesses will use Motorolas RFS6000/7000 switches and enterprise management suite to provision and control AP-7131s, applying the same security and QoS policies at BO and HQ.
Broadcom announced products to make business-grade Wi-Fi even more affordable next year. The new BCM56520 unified wireless/wireline switch implements CAPWAP processing in silicon to enable lower-cost edge controller development. The BCM4748 AP-on-a-chip combines 802.11n and GbE MACs, a baseband processor, a dual-band 802.11n radio, CPU, and power amplifiers on a single die. According to Senior Product Line Manager Mike Powell, this new AP SoC will reduce CAPX and OPX, cutting materials cost 30 to 40 percent while leaving a 20 to 30 percent margin when powering two radios with standard PoE.
WLAN pain relief
One key ingredient in branch office solutions is simplicity, realized through features like centralized AP provisioning. However, this is not the only pain point being experienced by businesses that deploy 802.11n. As WLANs grow larger, ad hoc admin practices simply cannot scale. Several other new products announced this week in Las Vegas aim to reduce TCO using better management and trouble-shooting tools.
AirMagnet announced new versions of its Survey PRO ($3695) and VoFi Analyzer PRO ($4995) that marry these products to simplify voice network design and trouble-shooting. According to Director of Product Management Wade Williamson, hospital trials have shown this combo can demystify challenging voice issues in just a day or twofor example, pin-pointing areas with good signal where calls drop or handsets make bad roaming decisions. Using these tools, admins can plot MOS scores, call handoffs, and adherence to vendor design specs on floor plans, visualizing problems that can otherwise be very tough to debug.
MetaGeek demonstrated its new Wi-Spy 2.4i , a $99 USB spectrum analyzer that pairs with the companys 3D Channelyzer to visualize, trouble-shoot, and optimize 2.4 GHz WLANs. This bargain-priced analyzer, available in June, will complement MetaGeeks dual-band Wi-Spy DBx ($599), giving even small companies an affordable way to find and resolve RF interference problems that plague the 2.4 GHz junk band.
Over in the Aerohive booth, attendees were treated to a pair of live demonstrations: Dynamic Airtime Scheduling (announced in February) and Private PSK (making its debut at Interop). Private PSK takes a novel whack at balancing security and simplicity for clients that cant or wont support 802.1X. Standard PSKs deliver group-level authentication, where all clients prove they know that same secret and must then be treated the samefor example, applying a single VLAN tag and set of firewall rules. With PPSK, a HiveManager can generate a unique, random, strong, time-bounded PSK per user. This lets you avoid the complexity of 802.1X while encrypting data and controlling precisely who can use your WLAN and what each person can do. Furthermore, Aerohive married PPSKs to its Guest Manager, so that non-technical staff can easily allocate generated PPSKs to individualsand later rescind them if necessary.
Finally, Xirrus was extremely busy at Interop Las Vegas 2009, hosting live boxing matches in their booth and using Wi-Fi arrays to deliver wireless connectivity for InteropNet. In fact, Xirrus has created a bit of a niche by providing instant WLANs for events like Interop, Cannes, and Tour de France. At Interop, Xirrus announced a Rapid Deployment Wi-Fi Kit ($3,999-$5,999) for disaster recovery and other temporary installations. This pre-packaged kit combines one Xirrus Wi-Fi Array (a single enclosure containing four to eight APs and directional antennas, a controller, switch, firewall, and RADIUS/DHCP servers), with a mounting tripod, data/power cables, and a ruggedized case for easy transport.
What a difference a year makes
Interop 2009 was rather different than Interop 2008 in many respects. From fewer, smaller booths (thanks to the economy) to declining attendance (thanks to the pre-show swine flu outbreak), the event had a cozier look and feel. On the wireless front, some vendors ramped down to table-tops in partner booths, while others skipped Interop 2009 altogether (e.g., Meru, Ruckus).
However, those who attended seemed to treat Wi-Fi as a givenwith broader 802.11n adoption underway, what can be done to make those deployments go further and overcome speed bumps? These product announcements illustrate that Wi-Fi has matured into a technology that appeals to many, but could still use a little process improvement.
Lisa Phifer owns Core Competence, a consulting firm focused on business use of emerging network and security technologies. A 27-year networking industry veteran, Lisa has been involved in the design, implementation, and testing of wireless products and services since 1996. For more Interop coverage, read Wi-Fi News from Interop 2009.

subset: commoncrawl


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Since it seems like Stratos & Zodac receive a lot of ire from the fans due to their lack of accessories & perceived "bland & boring" designs, I wanted to show my support for both of them.
STRATOS: Along with Battle Cat, he was my first MOTU toy as kid(unlike the 2002 era, I had an easier time getting toys that weren't He-Man & Skeletor). What's not to love about him? Besides being the leader of his people, he's a flying ape-man!!!
ZODAC: Besides loving his "old fashioned" spaceman design, Zodac was the Boba Fett or Wolverine(before they had their origins layed out) of the Masters Of The Universe franchise; he was an anti-hero who had a mysterious past.
I know I'm not alone! Show your love for these, imho, unfairly maligned MOTU characters!!!


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When we last saw the "Mean Girls" crew, Cady Heron had learned a lesson and the "Plastics" -- Gretchen Wieners, Karen Smith and Regina George -- had split up and gone their separate ways.
But what have Lindsay Lohan, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried and Rachel McAdams, the actresses who brought those roles to life, been up to over the past decade?
Lilo, of course, has hardly stayed off the radar, what with her multiple arrests, probation violations, jail stints and rehab attempts. Cutting to the chase (no, not a high-speed one), fans and frenemies recently got a peek at her day-to-day life with the "Lindsay" docu-series. That after a few dedicated movie-watchers got a peek at lots more of La Lohan in her risque, low-budget 2013 film "The Canyons."
Lacey Chabert, recently married, is coming to the small screen soon with a movie on the Hallmark Channel, Amanda Seyfried is dating Justin Long and has "A Million Ways to Die in the West" with Liam Neeson due on the big screen in May, and Rachel McAdams' film "A Most Wanted Man," with Robin Wright and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, premiered in January at Sundance.
For more details on what those ladies have been doing since making teen-angst history, plus tidbits on Lizzy Caplan (Janis Ian), Daniel Franzse (Damian), Tina Fey (Ms. Norbury and the film's screenwriter) and Tim Meadows (Principal Duvall), click through the photo gallery above.
For the anniversary, Twitter turned pink -- it was Wednesday -- with "Mean Girls" quotes, memes and more. Seyfried took the opportunity to flip one of her character's lines on its head, posting an Instagram image that read, "You can sit with us."
"In honor of the 10 year anniversary of Mean Girls, I alongside @kindcampaign say to you, "You CAN sit with us." Repost this picture with the hashtag #youcansitwithus in an effort to bring an end to girl-against-girl bullying. #youcansitwithus #eventhoughyourenotwearingpink
Lohan, meanwhile, Instagrammed a drawing of a scene from the film with the quote, "She doesn't even go here." Maybe Lindsay just has a lot of feelings?
If all the "Mean Girls" references floating in the air have you itching to revisit the chick flick, it can be had on DVD for as little as $5, brand new. (A lucky few got a copy with a complimentary 10th-anniversary pink toaster from Toaster Strudels. You know, the breakfast food invented by Gretchen's dad?)
The comedy can also be seen streaming via Netflix, and folks who'd love to revisit the Plastics and their nemeses on the big screen can catch it at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at Los Angeles' New Beverly Cinema.
Follow Christie D'Zurilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.


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Just another lazy afternoon, pull on a pull&bear sweater as I love the squirrel and shorts.
avoiding much accessories nowadays, and the docs to complete the look.
signing off,
Gladys Ganda
hi Gladys, you look so adorable :)
loving the docs! and that camera is such a great props
have a great day
hai Gladys nice look you at this post :))
what a lovely doc mart
Love the specs and dms! :) You're so pretty :)
I WANT that camera so much!!
The Picnic Girl
awwe sweet <3
wow. cute glasses. nice doc martens :) lovely prop :)))
cute girl! perfectionlahh
you look adorable with those doc marts on !
glisters and blisters
Love the docmarts! Your sister rock!!
cool outfit, really like it!
nice blog ! i follow u !


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One of the most challenging aspects of managing diabetes is meal planning. Work closely with the doctor and dietician to design a meal plan that maintains near-normal blood glucose levels. The meal plan should give you or your child the proper amount of calories to maintain a healthy body weight.
The food you eat increases the amount of glucose in the blood. In contrast, insulin decreases blood glucose. By balancing food and insulin together, you can keep blood glucose within normal range. Keep these points in mind:
Click here to read more about nutritional recommendations for people with diabetes
American Diabetes Association. Nutrition recommendations and interventions for diabetes -- 2006. Diabetes Care. 2006;29:2140-2157.
American Diabetes Association. Standards of medical care in diabetes--2009. Diabetes Care. 2009 Jan;32 Suppl 1:S13-61.


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I think the only thing more controversial thing to talk about than politics is religion.
This post is not about politics.
Then again, it's not really about religion, either. It's about faith.
I have had a few more than my share of challenging glass not so full moments recently.
I miss my mother-in-law a whole lot. She may have been over the top but she had a heart of gold and loved me without reserve. She left us a few months ago and left a huge gap.
I miss my son a whole lot. Soon after his grandmother passed away he moved to New York City for a fabulous job at a Big Four accounting firm. It warms my heart that he misses me, too but doesn't change the mist in my eyes when I think about it.
I miss my administrative associate a whole lot. My long time assistant transferred out of my department for a full time position somewhere else on campus. She was amazing and allowed me to do my work without worrying about hers. You don't realize how much that means to you until it's gone. She was replaced temporarily with another woman with a huge amount of institutional knowledge but was redeployed last month. So, now I'm doing one and a half jobs…woohoo!!
I know I'm not alone. A lot of my friends and family are going through similar things…aging parents, grown children and work place turmoil. But knowing you are not alone is sometimes not enough.
Yesterday was a turning point for me. It started with a bang and didn't let up until I finally fell asleep (with the help of an allergy med and a PM).
At one point in the day, after several different negative experiences I banged my hand on the desk so hard I needed ice to sooth the damage. Several colleagues suggested that throwing things is a better outlet…perhaps so but I think the mom in me overturned that idea because I would have had to clean up the mess, adding to the indignity.
So, after getting the ice and writing two separate emails (which I am proud to report I deleted after reading them) I decided to take a walk to the chapel on campus.
My glass may have been half full but the holes in the bottom prevented me from seeing it. I'm not sure what I expected to find there. I honestly don't. But I knew I needed to do something at least tangible to me that would break the fall.
As I approached the beautiful building I saw several people walking out. Oh dear God, I just wanted to be alone…
As fate would have it, I was alone when I entered. I walked up to the front pew and sat down. Never once while I was in that acoustically perfect church did I say a pray, at least not the prayers we chant mindlessly during Mass. No Hail Mary, no Lord's Prayer…nothing but my own words, said through tears.
At one point I panicked because I thought someone was in there. I've sung in this church many times and it has perfect architectural amplification. A microphone is totally unnecessary. My own pleas where audible throughout.
Oh God, what if someone hears me?
Oh God, what if He does not?
Both of those thoughts gave me pause. I sat still and stopped crying. I dried my face on my coat sleeves.
I sat still waiting for something. Anything. My breathing restored to a reasonable calm.
Oh God, what if someone hears me? I'm in church. So what. People pray there, right? Isn't a temper tantrum a form of prayer? Think about that one for a second. Replace any words during any tantrum with please help me and there you have it…a prayer.
Oh God, what if He does not? Really? How could I believe that for any second. He will hear me. Will I be open to His answer?
Then it happened. I didn't want to believe it for a moment but the sound was undeniable. When it happened again I had to acknowledge it.
It was a text message from my husband. "Just let it roll off your back."
Now I'm not suggesting to you my husband is God…no, not at all. But isn't that message well timed if not divine?
"Just let it roll off your back."
Ok, I responded. I put the phone back into my pocket, bought myself a coffee and donut (chocolate glazed) and walked back to my office. I only took a few bites of the donut and threw it away. I didn't need it anymore.
I figured out what to do on my walk. I shared my thoughts with the people who needed to hear them, brushed myself off and went home.
Today the actual situation here is unchanged but I am completely ready to deal with it.
All because of my prayer through tantrum.
You will never know how honored I am you just read this. Have a blessed (and yummy) day.


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A MATLAB file is needed to perform the animation for a cam/follower motion.
Budget $10-30 USD
A MATLAB file is needed to plot the figures and perform the animation for a cam/follower motion.
A disc cam profile is attached to a flat follower. The motion of the follower is described as follows: Cycloidal motion rise 100°, dwell 80°, cycloidal motion return 120° and dwell 60°. The lift for the follower is 15 mm. The minimum allowed radius of curvature for the cam is 20 mm.
The MATLAB code should generates the following figures:
1. The displacement diagrams and their derivatives.
2. The cam profile for each of the following cases:
- Ro that generates minimum cam curvature.•
- Ro that generates a zero cam curvature.
The MATLAB code should also Show an animation for the cam and follower when we choose Ro that generates minimum cam curvature.
Awarded to:
3 freelancers are bidding on average $53 for this job
I'm a mechanical engineer with a PhD degree and extensive experience with Matlab. I've done cam analysis in Matlab before. I know exactly how to do that. It would be my pleasure to complete your project.
Hi I am personally an Electrical Engineer. I am head of my team. Our team is new on this website. We will provide you best quality work in your given deadline. Its your choice if you work with us!!


text:
Kite Studs 14k Solid Gold
These folded studs give dimension in a modern way. We promise they'll catch the light just right.
- 5mm folded kite shapes
- 14k solid gold
- post back studs
We pride ourselves on the quick handling of your orders, with most in stock items shipping within 1-3 business days. We do not ship on Saturdays, Sundays or Holidays. Once an order has been placed, it cannot be cancelled.
We ship all orders via Canada Post Expedited, with an estimated 2-10 days for delivery.
All items ship from Vancouver, if purchased on melanieauld.ca
Please note that delivery dates are not guaranteed in the event of service interruptions or failures caused by events beyond the control of melanieauld.ca. Such as, but not limited to, interruptions of our transportation systems or the services provided by our carriers, your bank or credit card. We are not responsible for lost parcels in the event that an incorrect shipping address was entered.
In order to track your order, copy your tracking number that is provided in the shipping notification email and paste it in the tracking field on the website www.canadapost.ca.
If you run into any delivery issues, please contact email@example.com and we will be happy to help!
Be Inspired
#melanieauld to be featured here


text:
I've known Mark for years, and he frequently stops by this blog and offers his insights.
His new thriller, THE FALLEN, just came out. I encourage you all to buy it. His Derek Stillwater novels remind me a lot of Lee Child crossed with Tom Clancy.
If you have a Kindle, I also encourage you to buy DANCING IN THE DARK. Hopefully someone will after reading this blog post...
E-BOOKS AND ME by Mark Terry
Everyone here pretty much reads Joe's successes with e-books with their mouths dropped open in astonishment. I mean that. He's so far ahead of the curve on this that he's out of sight.
Which also means he's not typical.
Last summer, inspired by Joe's adventures, I looked through my various projects, found one that I thought was good enough to be published, wasn't being marketed by my agent, or wasn't tied up contractually, and published DANCING IN THE DARK as an e-book. To say my sales are different than Joe's is to compare a AAA battery to a lightning bolt. Here's my sales to-date:
Invoice Date Amount Paid:
Yeah, man, I'm rocking. Let's not spend that $10.92 all in one place.
But first, let's discuss the possible reasons why my sales here are a bit sluggish (to say the least), particularly in comparison to Joe's.
1. Joe's better known than I am. Although my novels have been well-received critically, I'm typically published by independent presses with limited distribution. Sales have been modest. And in fact, although THE FALLEN, the third in the Derek Stillwater series, is officially released this week in hardcover, the two previous Derek Stillwater novels, THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK and THE SERPENT'S KISS, are essentially out of print (except they will soon be available on Kindle, more about that later).
2. Although I think the cover of DANCING IN THE DARK is pretty good, my cover person laid it out in a 3-D fashion that I initially liked, but am now not so wild about, primarily because it's different from everything else you see on Amazon. Needs to be changed.
3. I was in between books. As mentioned before, my first two Derek Stillwater novels are out of print. There was a lag of several years before I found another publisher and in that period, although I was very busy making a good living as a freelance writer, I wasn't spending much time promoting books that were out of print. Now that I'm promoting THE FALLEN, I'm hearing an overall interest in my e-books, simply because readers are once again being made aware of me.
4. Someone recently pointed out to me that my Amazon page was a mess and not all my books were linked. I took care of that, but the fact is, there's a lot of housekeeping involved in making sure that if someone hears your name, it's then very easy for them to find your books—all of them (and publishers do not always make this easy, being far more interested in selling their books, rather than the author's backlist from other publishers).
So what's going on? Well, a couple things. As anyone who's following the e-books and publishing, e-rights have becoming a big bouncing ball. Publishers want to hold onto all e-rights and give the author a very small percentage, anywhere from 10% to 25% for those rights. Authors, naturally, want to hold on to them or get significantly better percentages of e-rights. Publishers are dragging their heels, pushing for 25% or less, but agents are pushing for 50% to be standard. Meanwhile, Amazon, currently the biggest purveyor of e-books via the Kindle, is offering a 70% royalty if you publish them yourself. A "standard" agreement on this hasn't really been worked out yet in the way that a "standard" agreement has been more or less worked out for mass market paperback, trade paperback, and hardcover royalty rates.
Here's where my own experiences start getting rather across-the-board. First, in addition to the novels, I'm a freelance writer. I'm collaborating on a nonfiction book with a pair of doctors and due to a weird set of circumstances, I ended up negotiating the contract rather than our agent (very long story). One of the sticking points, for me anyway, was e-rights. I really felt that either the publisher needed to tell me what their plan was for an e-book version of the book and then negotiate a decent royalty (50%), or let us keep the e-rights. After much haggling we got a 25% royalty, but the rights will revert to us within 18 months of paper publication if the publisher doesn't actually get around to doing an e-book version. (Book contracts are all about compromise. Was I happy about this? Well, it was a compromise. I could live with it).
When my former publisher and I parted ways, they returned all print rights to us for THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK and THE SERPENT'S KISS, as well as ALL rights to THE FALLEN and the 4th Derek Stillwater novel, THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS (scheduled for September 2011 now). However, for Pitchfork and Serpent, the publisher hung on to all the foreign rights because they were still marketing them, AND, digital rights. Recently we got most of the foreign rights back and went after the e-rights. But the publisher wouldn't release them because they have plans to publish an e-book version and had, in fact, already submitted the manuscripts to Amazon and B&N and others (without telling us). They aren't, as far as I can tell, available yet, but should be soon.
My publisher for THE FALLEN did not have a negotiated right to the e-books … but apparently planned on publishing a Kindle version simultaneously with the hardcover version. Something I found out only recently. Again, you can hear the ball bouncing, so my agent and I are in discussions about exactly what our royalty rate is going to be for this.
And so it goes.
Will I be self-publishing more books? Oh, most definitely. The more I have around, the more synergy I'll create, the more sales I'll get. Besides, more and more people are buying e-readers—my iPad arrived Saturday!—so the market's only going to grow. I plan to put forth a Kindle version of DIRTY DEEDS just as soon as I figure out where the original files are, see if I can find a floppy disk drive to attach to my computer, get cover art … oh, and find the original contract and see who actually has the e-rights. And I wrote a follow-up that never got picked up, and there are some other projects that I still like that won't embarrass me to see them in print and available to readers.
The entire e-book world is exploding (while traditional publishing seems to be slowly imploding). No one really knows where it's going to land in five or ten years, and so far most prognosticators have been totally full of crap. If everything goes to e-books and paper books become dinosaurs, I'm concerned about the millions of books currently sold at non-bookstore venues that are bought by millions of people who buy a book or two a year to take on vacation or for their business plane trip. Are they going to buy an e-reader when they don't regularly read? Will they buy multi-media devices like the iPad, and if they do, will they buy books or just surf the web or watch a movie instead? Will they start selling e-reader individual books, a cheap, almost disposable one-shot, like you occasionally see (or saw, I haven't seen one lately) for audiobooks? I don't know. But writers should probably pay attention and get involved in it.
Joe's response.
Here's a case of a professional writer with a good book, good cover, good product description, and terrible sales. He's got a good website, www.markterrybooks.com, and has several previous books in print. He's selling DANCING IN THE DARK for a very reasonable $1.49.
So what do I think is going on? I have a few theories.
1. Mark hasn't mentioned that he's done any sort of marketing for this book. At the very least, he should visit www.kindleboards.com and post about his book, join the community, and maybe politely ask Red Adept to read a copy to review. There are other Kindle forums, including on on Yahoo, that could also use an announcement.
2. Mark's been out of commission for a while, so who is going to go looking for this ebook? He didn't mention sending a newsletter to fans, though he has a mailing list. He has blogged about ebooks, but I'm not sure what kind of blog traffic he gets. One thing I'd do if I were Mark is trade links with more blogs, and offer to guest post on blogs (which he's doing here.)
3. Mark could consider cross-promoting with some of his author friends who have Kindle titles, trading chapter excerpts for inclusion in the back matter.
4. DANCING is buried on his website, and isn't listed in the sidebar on his blog. Compare that to my website and blog.
5. Does Mark have an Amazon plog? Is he using his social networks to the fullest (Twitter, Facebook, Crimespace, Goodreads, etc.)?
6. Weird as it sounds, $1.49 seems to be an awkward price. I don't see any other books priced like that. I'd either raise it to $1.99 or drop it to 99 cents.
7. The problem with the 3D book cover is its size. When it is viewed as a thumbnail, its too small to make out any real details.
8. I hope he went the Smashwords route and got this up on the iBooks for the iPad launch, and that it's also available on the Nook and Sony Reader.
Mark also seems to know that this is the very beginning of the ebook revolution, and there's a very long tail here. Okay, so the first six months were terrible. But the more he gets his name out there, the more he and others link to his books, the more Kindle books he posts, the easier he'll be to find.
With a little work, his sales will go up. Hell, they can't go down... :)
Monday, April 05, 2010
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When life hands you lemons – or a vintage recipe for Lemon Sponge Pie – make popsicles. (That's what I always say, anyway…)
For this installment of the Recipe Swap, Christianna from Burwell General Store selected a recipe for Lemon Sponge Pie. The recipe actually looks pretty great (unlike the infamous "Ham Snails"), but I just couldn't bring myself to bake a pie.
It doesn't get hot in Portland very often, but when it does the whole city shuts down. We all turn into whiny, melty puddles. It's a bit pathetic, really.
That being said, I am guilty of being a whiny, melty puddle this week. It was 102 degrees! There was zero chance I was going to turn on my oven. So, I turned Lemon Sponge Pie into Strawberry Lemon Gingerale Pops. I was really pleased with the results.
They were frosty, tangy, refreshing, and delicious – the perfect cure to my summertime woes.
(Inspired by this recipe from What I Do)
Makes 4 popsicles
1 bottle good quality ginger ale or ginger beer
1 pint of lemon sorbet, softened (Note: you will have sorbet leftover!)
6-8 strawberries, stems removed and diced
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon lemon zest
In a small bowl, mix together the diced strawberries, lemon zest, and grated ginger.
Place a spoonful of the strawberry mixture in each popsicle mold. Pour a bit of ginger ale (slowly, as it will fizz!) over the mixture, and top with a dollop of lemon sorbet. Repeat with each mold – strawberries, ginger beer, sorbet – until each is nearly full. Leave a very small amount of headspace at the top. Place lids/sticks the in the molds and freeze overnight.
And, please see below for the other creative contributions to this month's recipe swap!


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However, energy self-sufficiency requires more than temporarily available photovoltaic electricity, which is why Fronius has already spent many years researching into efficient ways of storing solar power. Our development of the Fronius Energy Cell represents a milestone for this sector. The objective is to store excess PV current in the form of hydrogen and to release it again as electricity when required.
The high quality of Fronius is not only apparent from our products: our technical support and unmatched Fronius Service Partner Programme are unique selling points and an important part of our philosophy.
Whenever it starts to develop a new product, Fronius critically examines the prevailing technology on the market and comes up with innovative ideas and new solutions. Solutions that we use in Solar Electronics every day in shifting the limits.
Fronius Solar Products home page


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TOKYO (Reuters) - Applied Materials Inc's (AMAT.O) $10 billion acquisition of Tokyo Electron Ltd (8035.T) is more than just a milestone foreign takeover in Japan - it's a rare forward-looking deal in a country where selling to an overseas rival is usually a last resort.
U.S.-based Applied Materials, the world's largest maker of chipmaking equipment, and third-ranked Tokyo Electron announced the all-stock deal late on Tuesday. On completion, it would be the biggest foreign takeover of a Japanese manufacturer. While board representation is to be split evenly, Applied Materials shareholders will own 68 percent of the new company, keeping them firmly in control.
Analysts were surprised by the move in part because Tokyo Electron has a solid balance sheet and didn't need a deal to survive. That makes the deal stand out against other big inbound transactions, many of which involved a struggling target - such as Citigroup Inc's (C.N) $16 billion acquisition of broker Nikko Cordial in 2007-08 and Renault SA's (RENA.PA) $5 billion injection into Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) almost a decade earlier.
Edward Johnson, a partner at law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, said the willingness of a blue-chip Japanese company like Tokyo Electron to cede control to a foreign rival could encourage other Japanese firms to consider similar moves.
"I don't think it's a one-off. I think it has broader implications," said Johnson, whose practice includes advising foreign companies on investments in Japan.
While Japanese companies spent a record $83 billion on overseas acquisitions in 2012, inbound deals totaled just $15 billion. Over the past 10 years, there have been far fewer foreign acquisitions in Japan than anywhere else in Asia. Foreign deals accounted for just 5.85 percent of acquisitions in Japan compared to Asia ex-Japan's 26.48 percent, Datastream data show.
Many international companies have refrained from making major investments in Japan due to a general perception the country is not open to foreign capital and a belief they would have trouble cutting costs.
In a development last year that seemed to confirm those concerns, a state-backed fund emerged to lead a bailout of struggling chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp (6723.T), beating off a rival bid by U.S. private equity firm KKR & Co (KKR.N).
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made inviting foreign investment one of the components of his strategy to revive the world's third-largest economy, and investment bankers hope the Tokyo Electron deal will provide a spark.
An executive at a European investment bank said his firm was helping foreign clients scout possible targets among Japanese electronics and auto parts makers, although the size of those transactions would be much smaller than the Tokyo Electron deal.
Ken Siegel, managing partner at law firm Morrison & Foerster in Tokyo, said private equity funds continue to seek opportunities in Japan, but it could take time before corporate buyers follow Applied Materials' lead.
"You would expect this would lead to some strategic transactions as well," Siegel said, referring to the Tokyo Electron deal. "This is probably the first one. I don't see a metric ton (1.1023 tons) of other strategic inbound deals lined up right this minute."
Additional reporting by Emi Emoto in Tokyo and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bangalore; Editing by Ian Geoghegan


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Justin Bieber has been lowering the behavior bar lately (against stiff competition) in the struggle for top slot in the Annoying Celebrity Act-Out stakes. He's been accused by a next-door neighbor of egging a house in Calabasas, Calif., arrested on DUI charges in Florida after drag racing in a rented yellow Lamborghini, caught on YouTube urinating in a bucket in a restaurant kitchen, etc.
Justin Bieber has been lowering the behavior bar lately (against stiff competition) in the struggle for top slot in the Annoying Celebrity Act-Out stakes. He's been accused by a next-door neighbor of egging a house in Calabasas, Calif., arrested on DUI charges in Florida after drag racing in a rented yellow Lamborghini, caught on YouTube urinating in a bucket in a restaurant kitchen, etc.
His antics apparently have alarmed even first lady Michelle Obama, on the record in the pages of People magazine. First lady to Bieber mom: "Pull him close"— her concern perhaps inspired by a petition, signed by 270,000 irritated U.S. citizens and forwarded to the White House, demanding that the young Canadian singer be deported and his green card revoked.
But here's a modest proposal: Why not ask one of our major universities to step up and make Bieber a professor?
We have (forgive the oxymoron) a "new tradition" of celebrity hires at institutions of higher learning. As universities "corporatize," the profession of teaching is being redefined.
Once, the modicum of "star quality" that attends educators inspired films ("Goodbye Mr. Chips," "To Sir With Love") or canonical novels celebrating the self-sacrificing lives of prairie schoolmarms. And the unsung, in-class magic of an "ordinary" qualified teacher opened student minds to worlds beyond the self.
The university of antiquity (universitas magistrorum et scholarium) was a "universe," or intact world, run by teachers (magistri) and scholars, with the well-rounded enlightened consciousness of graduates as its goal.
This ideal defined liberal arts education for centuries. Popular culture, business and technology operated in another universe. The arts and humanities taught aesthetic, empathetic and timeless lessons — like the revelation that the dead and the living converse through philosophy, science, art, history, languages and literature: knowledge leads to wisdom.
But, please, who needs "seances" or a well-rounded, enlightened consciousness, or magistri, when Big Data is on the syllabus and the Power of the Brand is at hand? Colleges and universities have spawned a new stratum of administrators who have taken over the role of internal governance once held by faculty, including the hiring of instructors at all levels, final tenure decisions, the fate of graduate programs, degrees and departments and internal merit review.
Time to forget that no student ever came to college to study with an administrator. These handsomely paid deans, "deanlets" and vice whatevers now outnumber full-time faculty, along with NTT, or non-tenure-track, adjunct faculty, who teach many more courses for far less pay than their tenured colleagues. ("Adjuncts on food stamps providing a $250,000 education," cracked a colleague of mine.)
Meanwhile, tuition costs have risen astronomically and many schools enjoy fat endowments as administrative cost-cutting (read trimming all budgets but their own) cheerfully Wal-Martizes campuses.
Kickin' it new school may mean phasing out teachers altogether! Universities are no longer content with recruiting from the academic galaxy; they seek supernovas from beyond. The star-search rockets past predictable Nobel laureates in science or literature to big names with no old school scholarship on their resumes. Former military leaders. Rap moguls. Politician-actors/actor-politicians. So what if most of these hires won't ever get to know the inside of a classroom; their institutes and policy centers will spark innovation.
Higher education is being reinvented for a selfie age in which the humanities may cease to exist as a field of scholarship. Students who spend a mint and get a college degree encounter a post-grad world in which jobs for those who are educated in critical judgment and cultural knowledge are disappearing. Now it makes sense to be trained as— yes! — a creative consumer or that elusive entrepreneur, a job creator.
Let's knock over the already crumbling ivied walls between the marketplace, pop culture and academia by recruiting the hyper-product that is JB. Scholar of stardom, our little prince of petulance and simper-singing: Professor Bieber!
And in the matter of his employment qualifications: He holds an "O-1" work permit, which qualifies him to stay in the United States as long as he wants, because of his "extraordinary ability" and achievement in the arts.
Carol Muske-Dukes is former poet laureate of California and a poetry reviewer for the Los Angeles Times. She is a tenured professor at the University of Southern California.


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Lock up your lettuce… Protect your parsley… Rescue your rutabaga! One dark and stormy night, the Monroe family brings home orphaned rabbit with mysterious habits and sharp fangs. Could this new member of the family possibly be a vampire? Find out in BUNNICULA!
Perfect for ages 4 and up!
Based on the acclaimed children's book series by Deborah & James Howe, this new musical adaptation of BUNNICULA features a book by Tony Award nominee Charles Busch (The Tale of the Allergist's Wife), music by Sam Davis and lyrics by Drama Desk nominee Mark Waldrop (When Pigs Fly).
Directed by Carl Andress (The Divine Sister), the production is choreographed by Connor Gallagher and features scenic design by Rob Odorisio (Skippyjon Jones) and costume design by Lortel Award winner Gregory Gale (The Voysey Inheritance). Orchestrations are by Greg Pliska (War Horse) and musical direction is by James Cunningham.


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Justin Bieber's Calvin Klein Ad on Houston and Lafayette
Photos by G.
I don't know his music and from what you see in the scandal mags, Justin Bieber seems like a total douche bag. However, hotness is hotness. The Beebz' Calvin Klein ads are on a massive wall on Houston and Layfayette in New York at the moment, so for all my ladies and gays, here you go.
Tell us in the comments section: Justin Bieber – hot or not?


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Mrs. Speed: "NO! But I have a complaint."
Dr. Grumpy: "What's up?"
Mrs. Speed: "That orderly, the teenage hospital lackey that you people had take me downstairs for my chest X-ray last night! You need to have her fired!"
Dr. Grumpy: "I'm sorry, was she rude to you!"
Mrs. Speed: "How should I know? She pushed my bed so fast I had to hang on for dear life! I was so scared I wasn't paying attention to what she said!"
Dr. Grumpy: "I..."
Mrs. Speed: "She's a hazard! I hate to think how she drives! She took corners at speeds so fast I was afraid the whole bed was going to fall over!"
Dr. Grumpy: "I'm sorry..."
Mrs. Speed: "You need to train them better! And you should also have speed limit signs in the halls, and educate people like her to follow them!"


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The false reality is exposed here. Turn off your cognitive dissonace before reading. If you believe ANYTHING, prepare to be insulted. FEAR NOTHING. Love really is the answer.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Evil's right hand man...?
(He doesn't deserve capitals...)
I've just spent five minutes on the tony blair faith foundation site.
That was enough.
Here's a man that carried out the orders of the sick global scum to the letter and has the blood of nearly two million innocent people on his hands posing as some sort of leader to the "multi-faith" world, reinforcing all the lies with his patronising twaddle, inventing as he goes along a kind of "Juslimanity".
Read the sycophantic comments and see if you can do so without screaming "He's a mass murderer, you dumb fools. WAKE UP!"
I guess tony wants to be the anointed leader of the new multi-faith religion, the figurehead representing the confluence of all religions when the new messiah comes along (which the scum are no doubt planning for right now!)
Maybe tony is their new false messiah?
He certainly acts in a god-like fashion.
(Not a nice god, of course. More one of those angry gods who like people to do as they are told and wreak vengeance upon them eternally if they don't.)
Now the Irish have been duped into accepting something they rejected previously and have approved the Lisbon treaty a new global power is about to enter the world stage, a massively powerful new Europe.
At its head, un-elected, will sit President Blair, wielding a combined foreign policy weapon backed up by a unified military might, strengthening the links between Europe and the United States, turning these mighty combinations into the bastions of the global elite.
As everyone knows, the EU is a criminal organisation riddled with sleaze and fraud from which billions disappear each year. The powerless elected MEP's are fed a diet of fat salaries and even fatter expenses and pensions so that they do not rock the boat, do not run screaming from their parliaments shouting "It's all a con!"
These shameful hussies are complicit in the vast thefts, aid and abet the globalisation agenda writ large across the front page of the Lisbon treaty.
They should all be taken out at dawn and hugged.
So this is what Europe has become.
A community of dumb sheeple allowing themselves to be governed by thieves and led by a mass murderer, a vile and sinister poseur who has a deeply evil ambition and messianic tendencies.
Nothing much changes does it?
tony is only in his fifties, so I guess he's got plenty of time left to make the next step and become the first and founding president of the world government once the war he will promulgate has taken its toll and , reeling from the horror, the sheeple turn to their saviour.......
Unless of course awakened humanity can get together and say "No".
And that is our job. Yours and mine.
And we do need to raise our game somewhat.
12 comments:
- Noor al Haqiqa said...
tony has always been sycophantic scum.
I hated when they drew him as bush's poodle because I LOVE poodles. My Howard, big, handsome, loving, was 1 million times the man blair was. But then dogs think clean and straight.
I did a post on Ireland and the rigged elections. These creatures have no sense of honour. And because we are wired to RUN on honour and a certain amount of "No one could possibly be THAT awful" they sneak past us every time.
Until we manage to catch on and get ahead of them, and yes not lose our honour, they will keep pulling it over on us.
They did it in Rome, France, Babylon, Persia, England, and now the planet based out of the US.
Each time they get just that much closer because they have learned to anticipate us with our every strategy.
What do you propose? Hugs just don't work my friend.
- October 6, 2009 at 1:21 PM
'Unless of course awakened humanity can get together and say "No".'
You would hope that will happen BUT so many people particularly in the city haven't even taken step 1 in waking up. They are way behind the agenda and course set for us.
Will they wake up in a hurry - that is the VERY BIG question.
Many people in Europe and around the world know blair is mad and a war criminal - you would think he would not get anywhere.
I am still very suspicious that he had something to do with the terrible bushfires in Victoria last February that killed over 100 people. He flew into Melbourne in his Lear jet that week-end.
I don't know how they did it but I believe somehow they made the fires more intense and widespread.
It seems he is satanic.
- October 6, 2009 at 1:36 PM
I understand how you'd be skeptical that simple hugs won't do it. But hugs virally transmitting real unconditional love will.
I believe it is the only thing that will.
Not the kind that charades as love in the present era.
I ran across a quote the other day by Leonard Laskow defining love that relates to our discussion. I don't have the actual quote right here so forgive me if it's slightly off:
"Love is the awareness of relatedness and the impulse toward unity."
In other words, love is that which reminds us of oneness and dissolves duality. If we can all remember just that one piece, the illusion of being separate dissolves and it will radically change the world. The question I have, is how do we help ourselves and other people on the journey with us recognize and experience that oneness in a respectful, supportive way?
An awakening from "The Lie" that has perpetuated the misery of our age.
- October 6, 2009 at 9:01 PM
A comment from http://www.truthmovementaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2298&p=17926#p17926
'IF this happens (and you will have a buffer between 25/26OCT and when it starts to impact you personally), it is smarter to shelter in place. Even those who are now fully immersed in the Matrix will be forced to re-think their position very soon. That means that your family, your friends and your neighbours will be forced to work with the rest of us for daily survival.
Sometimes you've got to work with the community you've got. Unless your current position is seriously dangerous, I would highly NOT recommend that people start buggering off into the bush right now. Plan for it but save it as a last resort. You want to be where you have support and where you have resources. This (at least initially) is a Bug-In situation. Stay put and see which way the wind is blowing before you act further. Think and stay cool.
Networking is great. Make contact with others here on TMA or other forums. Meet up and have joint plans if that's what you want to do.
You're right jek_ this is an opportunity for a new way of doing things. Out of necessity our worlds will shrink down to a local level. That's OK, that's how it has to start.
But remember: Everything you need is around you.'
- October 7, 2009 at 8:39 AM
- KathyM said...
Are you guys thinking October 25th time frame will be a turning point? I read something about the web bots prediction. Just wondering what everyone else is thinking about timing right now. Feedback from you guys around the world would be great. Thanks!
- October 7, 2009 at 2:28 PM
I don't know Kathy but I do think they are really moving for their dictatorship now. Our Australian dollar is moving up very quickly and I don't believe these so called 'natural disasters' are natural at all.
I believe they have the technology to do weather warfare on us and they are doing more intense stuff right now.
We'll beat them but they are going to throw a lot of bad stuff at us as they go down. - very best wishes and the best of luck to you Kathy. This is how a very long long era ends.
Destabilization in Pacific countries
Now this morning we have an earthquake in Vanuatu and a tsunami warning for Fiji , NZ and Australia.
Extremely suspicious - destabilizing Pacific countries so they will accept the Asia Pacific community.
- October 8, 2009 at 2:25 AM
- Daniel Edd Bland III said...
Great comments folks! I am a firm believer that everyone has great ideas. I posted a new blog tonight at www.BlandyLand.com where I stated that a mass awakening of the public is needed in order to face this evil. We need to continue speaking TRUTH to power, and we need to do it boldly. I just joined FaceBook this summer, and have connected with over 400 family and friends. I have been posting information there that gets buried by the mainstream media. Most of my family and friends strongly disagree with and reject my newly discovered sense of reality. If any of you are on FB, send me a friend request. I could use more friends with a better understanding of what is happening in the world around us. Feel free to jump in on the FB comment discussions at anytime. I have no doubt that it will be readers of sites like the Olive Farmer's who will survive the looming chaos. Peace be upon you all!
Daniel Bland
P.S. Olive- Good to see you back! How's that weeding project coming along?
- October 9, 2009 at 7:32 AM
Tony Blair or Obama for that matter are no more Leaders then anyone else dedicated to beeing a Leader.
Beeing a Leader does not provide Media consent see !?!
I am a Leader, P'haps You feel; You are One too.
( One with(Y)OUR spirit I suggest for that matter)
I, m a leader that needs to be humble in order not to become too powerfull and disrupt the natural course of happenings....
As a leader I sense no fear.... my Human Body might sense so if confronted with, but the superiority of my mind wont ever surrender to it.
By no reason of a doubt as a matter of fact!
Lately and as usual, I attend our Doughters class to catch up with the latest teachings and happenings.
In this country, school shoot-outs have been rather "popular" lately, and so I was wondering what I would do while witnessing such an event.
Well, no doubt the obvious...
In disrespect for my own life It became clear that I'd be heading for the gunman while digesting and avoiding some of his bullets eventually rendering him harmless.
For no doubt came it to my mind that I would act differently as just explained since that's just the one and only way things are supposed to go according to my sense for fearlessness an invincibleness.
Point is, one is as invinceble as one feels him/her self to be.
Now I must add to it...a while ago I did got some hard evidence of the spirit world beeing in support of my way,
and it is as if we are friends forever.
What realy could go wrong in my life from that moment on anymore? My child passing away underneath my loving care...? who knows....?
But for now, Stronger then ever and definatly much more of a leader then any PM or MP.
Just find yur innerself ppl, go stand on that rock and be one with yourself, I swere it 'll get to ya too.
don,t expect miracles at first, some time and patience will get you on your way.
Thnx Spirit world you are my (our) friend.
And about Mr Blair, uh juh well ach....
- October 10, 2009 at 1:32 AM
- KathyM said...
Von Curtis thank you and I wish the very best to you and your fellow countrymen too. I want Australia to work out fine. I've had some of the most wonderful experiences with Australian people that I thought if ever I could live somewhere else, I would wish it to be Australia!
Patriotism/nationalism is a strong idea in America. Yes we are all brainwashed to believe it's the best country on Earth. But I haven't believed that for at least 15 years. Every country has something great and unique that should be preserved as we all go forward being friends and helping each other. The parts that are best will survive these coming years.
I've been visiting your site too. It's very good! Thanks for putting out good truthful information to help wake up the masses.
Blandy I visit yours too. Thank you also. Will try to find you on facebook.
David G. over at Dangerous Creation just posted that he is taking a time out for his health. Good posts over there and I know we're all keeping him held high in our thoughts.
Goodnight to all of you. Guess we're all okay after they bombed the moon? Hope so. Love from the USA, Kathy Morgan
- October 10, 2009 at 4:01 AM
Yes I've never done facebook either , my kids do - that would be the place to go to spread some truth against the mainstream madness and lies.
I'm fairly technologically challenged really - I always prefered making pots on the wheel instead of becoming more computer savvy. Now less pottery is happening because blogging has taken over. It is such an incredible thing going on , I have to be a part of it. We would go stark raving mad though if we didn't have blogging as Blandy said many family and friends arn't exactly sympathetic to our new reality - although I did find a middle aged lady like me at a wedding the other night who thinks almost identically to my view of the agenda going on. I shall keep in touch with her.
- October 11, 2009 at 2:48 PM
- whoregisteredme said...
I loved your comment Curtis, the tecknologically impairedness, the pottery and the blogging.. ha ha, I think we could shake hands fairly well together ;)
Yeh, the Blogging is also part of my life nowadays.
I for one am pretty active on the Cannabis Culture Home page blogs disguised as some incognito Anonymous.
( Since I Ain't got fun in people trying to profile me down, besides, I apear under multiple impersonifications so there is no sense in having a signature any hows).
The cannabis activisme is something I do already for over 22 years, and this wonderfull tool the Internet realy makes me feel we're closing in on it.
( IMHO, No one should try and interferingly impair the existence of natural plants ment to be here on earth in coexistence with us or attempt to exterminate their valuable genetics out of existence! )
I,d like to put "fingers" into this world but prefer to refrain from "overdoing " it, so blogging suits just fine.
Quote Curtis: Friends ain't Exactly sympathetic... Hahaha haha,
That was the part I felled compelled replying at ya...
Lill anecdote comming up...
About 2 weeks ago, my wife called the cops and ambulance on me.
She really thought; now Ron was about to lose it all...)
Against all manner and without my consent was I under peacefull resistence beeing shipped off into some local Nutshouse....... :)
But to keep a long story short; I kept on beeing polite and cunningly negotiateble.
Got released after 4 days since there was a weekend inbetween so no one of higher authority availeble to clear up the situation to....
By now My wife' through doctors and psychologues
has figured I was n't that insane after all....
But what a Road to go down to in order to reach some people
Even as close as some who are supposed to be the closest in life... Ones partner for life.
Huggings to all, so if someone find yourselves to become crazy... Just run the Test. ..!
Huggings and love to all; Ron, We are gonna need it ;)
- October 11, 2009 at 5:32 PM
- whoregisteredme said...
To : Noor al Haqiqa.
Quote:What do you propose? Hugs just don't work my friend.
Politeness and well mannerdness does, as well as huggs on appropriate occasions.
Look what Anonimous wrote, some post above here.
My opinion too is: If you feel you are a leader then you are one, and that's an awfull lot of power we share together on the long run hun.
(sorry for losing my manner 's a bit here ;) )
And, by the looks of what you've been blogging here I can tell that you are supposed to know that.
Warm regards.
- October 11, 2009 at 5:43 PM


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text:
America's long-troubled spy service is ramping up at its fastest rate since the Vietnam War era. Money is pouring in--$1 billion so far, with more expected. So are bugged conversations, satellite photos and other raw intelligence about Al Qaeda cells and operations around the world.
"Today, the year 2002, I have more spies stealing more secrets than at any time in the history of the CIA," Jim Pavitt, head of the agency's clandestine service, told a Duke University Law School conference last month.
Among the CIA spies: an Afghan aide to Osama bin Laden who says he was paid nearly $50,000 to report on the Saudi dissident's terrorism organization, Al Qaeda, and recently was asked to pose as a prisoner and go as an informant to the U.S. detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The CIA's Counter-Terrorist Center, a hub in the war on terrorism, has nearly tripled in staff, to about 1,200. Mock street signs--including Bin Laden Way--hang from the ceiling to help newcomers negotiate the ever-expanding maze of map-lined cubicles and conference rooms filled with computers.
How well the CIA's secret war is going is far less clear, however.
Intercepted conversations and other intelligence reports suggest another major terrorist attack may be in the works. A senior intelligence official said Saturday that "threats, things of concern" have increased again in the last month.
"These things, the noise, the chatter, go in cycles," he said. "We've seen this several times since Sept. 11. We are in an up cycle at the moment."
But the official said the threats were not specific as to when, where or how an attack might take place. "There's stuff everywhere," he said. "It may indicate something is up, but we don't know what."
Another senior intelligence official warns that the CIA is at a crossroads. "If there's another terrorist act, and we're caught flat-footed again, we run the risk of being dismantled," he said. "We're on a high, but it's fragile."
Indeed, last week's disclosure that the CIA on Aug. 6 told President Bush about the possibility of an Al Qaeda hijacking attempt has fueled a furious debate about whether the U.S. intelligence apparatus failed to detect or avert the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
Moreover, the intelligence community's latest classified scorecard of Al Qaeda's top 27 leaders shows more than half--including Bin Laden--are believed to still be alive. The agency recently got a DNA sample from a Bin Laden family member in the event a body is found.
So far, the list indicates, nine Al Qaeda leaders have been killed and four are in custody, including operations chief Abu Zubeida and Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, the alleged head of a terrorist training camp.
The four-page classified accounting also names about 65 lesser Al Qaeda and Taliban members believed to have survived the U.S.-led assault so far. Not all the names are known to be accurate, however, and photographs are missing for many.
Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, says the CIA deserves an "A-plus for effort, but six or seven out of 10 for results" so far. "I'm frustrated we can't do better," Goss said.
The CIA still has too few skilled analysts and too few overseas operatives able to penetrate and eliminate terror cells and networks, he said. "We are undermanned and overwhelmed."
Spy planes, surveillance sensors and other high-tech hardware have provided "extraordinary" intelligence, Goss said, but most spy satellites were built to watch ships and tanks during the Cold War. "We have a lot of capability that's not designed to peek in a cave."
Others are more critical. A congressional aide griped that the CIA still doesn't coordinate enough with other government agencies: "Things don't get shared like they're supposed to get shared."
And a former senior CIA official who retains close ties to the intelligence community says the CIA remains in the dark about key issues.
"We don't have answers yet to the fundamental questions" about Al Qaeda, said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Who's in charge? How do they communicate? How are they wired together? What are their capabilities? Is the U.S. their principal target? Are they still trying to get sleepers in? What are their operational plans?"
In response, a senior CIA official said Bin Laden holds operational plans so closely that even some of his top aides might not know the answers. "They continue to operate with extraordinary compartmentalization," he said. "There's hardly anyone in Al Qaeda who can answer those questions."
The CIA clearly had tried. "On Sept. 10, we were devoting more resources against the terrorist target than at any other intelligence challenge we faced," said Pavitt, the CIA spy chief.
The agency began targeting Bin Laden when he moved his base of operations to Afghanistan in 1996. The counter-terrorist center set up a Bin Laden "station," assigned to track the terrorism chief.
Covert teams went into Afghanistan at least once in the late 1990s to plant surveillance devices, while other operatives mapped and prepared a desert airstrip south of the Afghan capital of Kabul in case they found a chance to grab Bin Laden, according to a former Clinton administration official.
Other CIA operatives met with anti-Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan's Northern Alliance. Pilotless Predator aircraft, then armed only with cameras, were sent aloft to aid the search. Back at headquarters, senior CIA officials met each morning "to specifically discuss, 'What's Bin Laden up to and how can we get him?'" another official said.
"We looked at the possibility of various snatch operations," the official added. "We looked at getting locals to go after Bin Laden, but it was very hard. He and his crew were very security conscious."
The CIA relied, in part, on an Afghan spy inside Bin Laden's entourage.
In interviews with The Times, the Afghan said he had volunteered his services at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, on Oct. 16, 2000, just days after Al Qaeda operatives bombed the U.S. destroyer Cole while it was docked in the port city of Aden, Yemen. "I have been working with Osama if you want my cooperation," he recalled saying.
During interrogations, ultimately backed by polygraph tests, the Afghan told the CIA he had been a low-level aide in Bin Laden's camp for several years and had joined the renegade Saudi for meals and prayers. "In all, I saw Osama more than 100 times."
Over the next two years, the CIA paid the Afghan $500 to $1,000 a month for details about Al Qaeda operations, staff and infrastructure in Afghanistan. "They wanted to know: how many people? How many camps? How many houses? They had many maps. We were always working on that."
After Sept. 11, he was issued two satellite phones to call in coordinates for U.S. airstrikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda military positions in eastern Afghanistan, including four that ultimately were bombed.
And in March this year, the Afghan said, his U.S. handlers asked him to pose as a prisoner and go in as an informant to the Al Qaeda detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. He didn't go, but agreed to help identify mug shots of those in custody.
The Times was able to verify key parts of the man's story and is withholding his identity for his safety. A CIA spokesman declined to comment, other than to say that the agency had informants inside Bin Laden's camp.
Obviously, they weren't enough. The CIA had been battered by budget and staff cuts, revolving-door leaders and plummeting morale in the 1990s. The crisis eased after the current director, George J. Tenet, was confirmed in 1997. But repeated screw-ups, including the failure to foresee India's nuclear test in 1998 and the U.S.' mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1999, suggested an agency adrift.
Then came Sept. 11. CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., was evacuated for fear it might be a target. By the time the shaken staff went back inside, the world was a different place.
"By midafternoon on Sept. 11, the mission of the CIA was permanently and radically changed," a senior intelligence official said. "We're a lead agency now. People know it. There's high energy; no time for conferences and reviews and panels. There's focus. We're hiring. We're talking to foreign governments, foreign [spy] services. We're the go-to guys.
"It impacts on every nook and cranny in the building," he added. "There's a new machismo. People say: 'We're gonna get the bastards. We're gonna kick ass.' A few years ago, if you talked like that, you'd be marginalized."
Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, agrees. The terrorist attacks "unleashed" an agency he had long called hidebound and timid. He sees a "different attitude at the CIA" since last fall.
Money has helped. Congress authorized $1 billion in emergency funding for the CIA last fall, on top of its estimated $3-billion annual budget. The agency will get more under proposed bills in Congress.
And after the attacks last fall, Bush quickly authorized the use of targeted killings and other no-holds-barred tactics that had long been restricted.
A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, the CIA's executive director, told a group of Washington investment advisors in October that the Bush administration had "showered" the CIA with cash and power. "Today, there is only one rule, and that is, there are no rules," he said.
Now, the frantic all-nighters have largely faded at headquarters. But behind the barbed wire and black-uniformed guards with M-4 rifles, cars still jam the parking lots and pack the roadsides.
The counter-terrorism center, which includes experts from the FBI, Secret Service, Pentagon and other agencies, has spilled out of its ground floor facility. A veteran undercover officer will take over this summer from the longtime director, Cofer Black, who is taking a new job.
Nearly all those at the center were pulled in from other CIA units, so the agency has rehired several hundred retirees and other former employees to fill the gaps. Those fluent in Dasi, Pasto, Farsi and Arabic got special attention.
And more expansion is planned.
Next month's graduating class of more than 100 CIA officers from "The Farm," the agency's boot camp near Williamsburg, Va., will be the largest since the Vietnam War, officials said. Far more want to join: The agency has logged a staggering 80,000 job applications since last fall.
Some seek to join the CIA's Special Activities Division, the part of Pavitt's clandestine service. It has deployed about 150 former Navy SEALs and other Special Forces soldiers to Afghanistan since the fall.
Thus, the first American into Afghanistan in September was a 30-year CIA veteran operative, fluent in Arabic and Farsi, who was at a desk job at headquarters awaiting retirement.
The first American killed in Afghanistan in the campaign, Johnny "Mike" Spann, also was a CIA covert commando. To mark his sacrifice, the agency will chisel a 79th black star into the headquarters lobby wall this month. The white marble "wall of honor" commemorates members who died in the line of duty.
The CIA teams did little fighting themselves; they helped hire, arm and pay Afghan proxy forces. The operatives also searched and mapped at least two empty foreign embassies in Kabul in November after the Taliban abandoned the city. CIA officials decline to comment, but the agency elsewhere has reaped valuable intelligence by bugging foreign missions.
The CIA also remote-controls the small fleet of pilotless Predator aircraft. In late 2000, a CIA drone filmed a tall, bearded man in flowing robes, flanked by deferential guards. Bin Laden, it appeared, was crossing the street.
"You can't look at that and not say, 'Damn, I wish I had a missile on this thing,'" said an official who had viewed the tape. The Clinton White House agreed, and authorized arming Predators with Hellfire antitank missiles. The first were deployed just as the war began.
Despite their fame, the Predator missiles have missed several high-profile targets in Afghanistan. They scored their most notable success when a drone helped laser-target an Al Qaeda compound for Air Force bombers. CIA operators, alarmed that video monitors showed several men running away, launched the Hellfire. Among those who were killed was Mohammed Atef, Bin Laden's military commander.
Times staff writers Greg Miller in Washington and Rone Tempest in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.


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Gun-toting man attracts criticism from both sides
PORTLAND, Maine — A man who strolled through Maine's largest city with an assault weapon similar to one used in the Connecticut elementary school shootings is drawing criticism from both gun control and gun rights advocates.
Portland police received more than 65 calls Monday reporting that a young man was walking through Parkside neighborhood and the Back Cove area with an AR-15-style assault weapon. Justin Dean, 24, insisted he was not making any sort of statement but rather had the loaded rifle for protection while exercising his Second Amendment rights.
Dean broke no laws, but advocates on both sides of the gun-control debate said he could have picked a better way to exert his rights than by carrying a weapon in a densely populated neighborhood and on a popular walking path.
''From what I've seen, it seems like he has benign intentions, but a tone-deaf ear on an effective way to promote Second Amendment rights,'' said Robert Henricksen of the Maine Open-Carry Association, a gun-rights group. ''I think there are ways to achieve self-defense and Second Amendment rights, even though he says that isn't one of his goals, without [carrying around] an AR-15, especially in light of what happened in Connecticut recently.''
Dean said he never intended to frighten anyone and is surprised by the outcry. He said he is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, but until Monday had never carried his Daniel Defense M-4 rifle with its 30-round clip in public.
''I think the Second Amendment is an important right, but I'm not an activist; I'm not a member of the NRA or any group,'' he said, referring to the National Rifle Association. ''In no way was I trying to make a statement.''
Police said they began receiving calls at 11 a.m. Monday about a man with an AR-15-style weapon walking down the street.
When police found Dean on a street near his apartment, they determined he was not breaking any laws and let him go his way. Dean said he then spent the next few hours walking to a post office to mail a letter in an outside mailbox and walking around the 3.5-mile Back Cove walking trail.
Along the way, a couple of people stopped him to talk about the weapon, with one person asking if it was real and if it was legal to carry open firearms, he said. But others stared at him or went out of their way to keep their distance.
Tom Franklin, president of Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence, called Dean an ''embarrassment'' to gun owners and to Maine.
''We aren't gun kooks,'' Franklin said. ''By and large, we're very responsible gun owners. But this sort of publicity is bad for gun owners. It's bad for the state of Maine.''
Dean's stroll underscores the need for municipalities to have the authority to pass their own local gun control laws, said Ed Suslovic, a Portland city councilor who hopes to introduce a proposal to the Legislature in the upcoming session that would allow just that. State law forbids towns and cities from passing local gun control ordinances.
State and federal laws prohibit guns in places such as state buildings, federal buildings, and bars, and municipalities should have the same authority to enact ordinances that prohibit weapons in public buildings and at public gatherings, Suslovic said. Gun rights supporters have been known to show up at City Hall with guns for committeee meetings when gun control is discussed.


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March 31, 2014–
The planetarium at COSI Columbus — dark for a decade — will reopen in the fall, officials at the science center plan to announce today.
The attraction closed in 2004 as COSI dealt with financial problems after moving to a much-larger facility on the Scioto Riverfront in 1999 from its original location on E. Broad Street.
"We've been looking for ways to reopen it since it closed," COSI spokeswoman Jaclyn Reynolds said.
COSI officials are seeking to raise $1 million to revamp the planetarium and install new digital equipment.
"The planetarium, when we opened in 1999, did not have state-of-the-art equipment," COSI President and CEO David Chesebrough said. "Just think about how much the world has changed in those 15 years."
Contributions from private and corporate donors have met about a third of the center's fundraising goal, and COSI is looking for more donations, Reynolds said.
"With the support that we've got already and the support that we anticipate getting, we're pretty confident that we'll meet that goal," she said.
The center hasn't set an official reopening date for the attraction, which seats 221 people under its 60-foot dome.
Planetarium programming won't be restricted to astronomy. Other content possibilities: underwater volcanoes and a virtual tour of the human heart.
The science center is expected to formally announce the plans for the planetarium today during its 50th-anniversary celebration.
"The planetarium has always been a key part of our history," Chesebrough said.
The science center had a planetarium when it opened on E. Broad Street in 1964. And it made sure to keep a planetarium when it moved to its current location in 1999.
When the center ran into financial problems, COSI administrators appealed to Franklin County with a proposed tax-levy that would have raised $12.4 million a year to help fund the center. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the levy in 2004.
"When we did not have success with the levy, we ended up having to kind of shut things down and start working from a smaller base of expenses," Chesebrough said.
The center closed part of the building, including the planetarium.
Over the past 10 years, COSI's financial outlook has improved.
COSI reported a balanced budget of $17 million for fiscal year 2012-13.
General admission to COSI costs $17.95 for an adult. Whether or not COSI will charge a separate admission for the planetarium (as it has in the past) has not been determined.
"One of the things that we will be doing is working on the business model," Chesebrough said. " COSI's very different today than it was in 2004."
By Deborah Fitts


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Here is some news for you: Fed Chief Cites Trade Imbalances' Role in Crisis,
Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said on Monday that global trade imbalances played a central role in the global economic crisis and warned that both the United States and fast-growing Asian nations needed to do more to prevent them from recurring.
[. . .] Asian countries needed to rely less on exports and more on their consumption at home for their economic growth. One way to increase Asian household consumption, he said, would be for countries like China to increase social insurance programs and reduce the uncertainty that currently hangs over many consumers.
In July I wrote a post asking, Did Free Trade Cause The Recession?,
For many years the world has suffered under a "free trade" regime that eliminates good paying jobs in every country, sending the work to countries that keep wages low and restrict workers' ability to organize for a better life. The profits went to an already-wealthy few and the inequities increased, wealth concentrating massively at the very top.
And now consumers around the world have run out of money. This is not a surprise. Did these trade policies cause the recession?
Bernanke's job is to see the issue in terms of money flows. Regular people see it as jobs. They can turn out to be the same thing, if the money flows are shared and reach the regular people. But when they don't and are concentrated among a few, be it a wealthy few corporate insiders or a country that is trying to take over all of the world's manufacturing for itself, regular people lose.
Bernanke is urging China to start consuming. This can mean jobs here – IF China adjusts its currency and starts to let their people buy things we make. Of course, that could also mean sucking up what is left of the planet's resources if it isn't managed in a thoughtful way.
He is also urging America to reduce our budget deficit. Of course, the huge budget deficit comes straight from the Reagan/Bush tax-cuts-for-the-rich. Is he endorsing a return to the 90% top tax rate that led to a stable economy in the past? If so this solves a lot of problems, reducing the incentive for executives to think short term, rebuilding the reliance of companies on local infrastructure. as well as funding that infrastructure again.
But if it is just more short-term thinking for short-term profits at the long-term expense of the rest of us, it will just be more of the same. And if the Wall Streeters remain in charge of the decision-making, this is what will happen. Sigh.


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A Leicester landlord was placed on probation today after pleading guilty to charges of falsely representing that his property was in compliance with lead paint laws.
Jaroslaw Pianka, 42, of 5 Dolge Court, Charlton, pleaded guilty Thursday in Worcester Superior Court to two counts each of uttering a false document and single counts of larceny and reckless endangerment of a child. The charges related to properties Mr. Pianka owns on Dale Court in Leicester and allegations that he submitted fraudulent certificates of compliance and falsely represented to tenants that his properties were fully de-leaded.
Prosecutors from the office of state Attorney General Martha Coakley charged that Michael and Heather Bennett and their three children, two of them under age 6, rented one of the properties in February 2007, after being told by Mr. Pianka that it had been de-leaded. The family later conducted a home lead test, which revealed the presence of lead.
An inspection prompted by a complaint to the local Board of Health revealed several areas of the property that contained lead and Mr. Pianka was ordered to take remedial action.
In April 2009, Mr. Pianka gave the family and the health board a copy of a letter of full de-leading compliance, according to prosecutors. He also gave the family a copy of the Massachusetts Tenant Lead Law Notification and Certification Form, which the law requires landlords to provide to tenants before renting them properties built before 1978, prosecutors said.
Officials from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Child Lead Poisoning Prevention program later determined the documentation to be fraudulent, according to the attorney general's office.
Prosecutors also alleged that a letter of full de-leading compliance for a second property Mr. Pianka owned on Dale Court in Leicester contained the name and license number of an inspector who did not exist.
Assistant Attorney General Andrew A. Rainer recommended to Judge Richard T. Tucker yesterday that Mr. Pianka be sentenced to 18 months in the House of Correction with 59 days to be served and the balance of the sentence suspended for three years with probation.
The prosecutor further recommended that Mr. Pianka be ordered to pay $9,825 in restitution to the Bennetts, to perform 50 hours of community service entailing "actual physical work" to clean up the environment, and to have all of his properties inspected for lead paint and, if necessary, de-leaded.
Mr. Pianka's lawyer, Michael G. Cashman, urged the judge to spare his client from a jail sentence and place him on probation.
Judge Tucker placed Mr. Pianka on probation for three years. As conditions of probation, Mr. Pianka was ordered to provide a list of real properties he owns and their usages to the Department of Public Health and the Probation Department, to report any changes in ownership or usage to both agencies and to follow the health department's instructions concerning inspections and any de-leading.
The judge also ordered Mr. Pianka to perform a total of 300 hours of community service in the area of environmental concerns.


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Obama promises Jordan $200M in aid
AMMAN, Jordan — President Barack Obama said he and King Abdullah II haven't reached an answer about what to do on Syria, but he promised $200 million in new humanitarian aid Friday to help the government here manage the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Bashar Assad's regime who've entered the country.
Reiterating that he sees the question of Assad's toppling as a matter of when, not if, he also warned about the possibility of anti-American, terrorist forces taking power in the aftermath.
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"I am very concerned about Syria becoming an enclave for extremism. Because extremists thrive in chaos, they thrive in failed states, they thrive in power vacuums," Obama said during his joint press conference with the Jordanian leader. "They don't have much to offer when it comes to actually building things."
The violence in Syria has been "heartbreaking," Obama said, adding that the continued loss of civilian life, "should compel all of us to say, 'what more can we do?'" He also called on "the American people to recognize that we have at stake here."
Noting that he was waiting to see the results of a United Nations investigation into whether Assad's military had used chemical weapons, Obama reiterated that if so, this would constitute the crossing of a red line, which would require a change in American involvement.
Pressed by a Jordanian reporter on why the United States hasn't led a military intervention in Syria, Obama said he believes he would be criticized for using military force if he chose that route.
"I think it's fair to say that the United States often finds itself, if it goes in militarily, criticized for going in militarily and, if it doesn't go in militarily, people say, 'Why aren't you doing something militarily?'" the president said.
"My response at this stage is to make sure that what we do contributes to bringing an end to the bloodshed as quickly as possible" and that means working with a multilateral team including Jordan and Turkey, Obama added.
Abdullah appeared to scale back the offer of asylum he'd extended to Assad at the outset of the conflict, instead deferring to such an international consortium. The 51-year-old king even suggested the matter was out of his hands.
"I think the question is something he has to answer. First — would he be interested in asylum and he would be interested in coming to Jordan?" Abdullah asked. "It is a question slightly beyond my pay grade … something that I'm sure if it ever came up, would be something that we discussed at the level of an international meeting."


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Video message from Grundfos CEO
Mads Nipper, Grundfos CEO, wants customers to know that Grundfos is embarking upon a journey to become more customer-centric.
In a direct video message (see below), he says, "We realise that in 2014 we have not always managed to be the very best at doing everything we promised to you."
So the company is shifting gears to move closer to the market, he says. "What does customer-centric mean? In all simplicity, we want to be the best in the industry in understanding how we create the most value for you. And we want to be the best at delivering exactly that value to you. Only then do we deserve your business and your loyalty going forward."


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Minecraft USB Desktop Nether Portal
Declutter and relax!
- Be instantly calm!1!!1!one!
- File unwanted documents where they belong
- Encourage efficient use of resources
Declutter and relax!
Your desk is overflowing with stacks of paper. Reports are exploding out of filing cabinets. What to do? Send it all straight to... the Nether!
Sure, we were supposed to have paperless offices ten years ago. Yet even with all the tablets and laptops coming out our ears, we still can't seem to get away from the senseless abuse of paper. You could just toss those handouts in the recycle bin, but that same dolt who just read the slides word-for-word during that insufferable meeting will just print them again so that "you'll have them for reference." Gah! Inefficient use of resources!!!
The Minecraft USB Desktop Nether Portal is just what you need to clean up your office and destress at the same time!
When you plug in the portal, the mesmerizing glow instills instant calm in your office. Combined with a deep, mystical hum, the Minecraft USB Desktop Nether Portal will soothe even the most shattered nerves. At the same time, you know where the portal leads... and there's something extra satisfying about tossing "important" reports straight into the fires of the Nether.
The 8" x 10" portal is large enough to handle the thickest sheaf of spreadsheets. Just roll them up and push them through. The coos and shrieks of ghasts in the next dimension confirm the transfer, and ZombiePigmen will haul them off to be filed. It's like having a Peaceful Mode setting for your busy work-a-day world!
Oh, and if that dolt comes to check up on his beloved printouts you can suggest he reach in and see for himself. The helpful attendants on the other side know what to do.
Product Specifications
- 8" x 10" Desktop Minecraft Nether Portal
- Serene, yet eerie purple glow
- Hums calmly till something passes through the plane
- Corners are removable if you're the efficient type
- Doubles as a photo frame for people you'd like to put in the Nether
- ** Requires 10w, high-power USB port to transfer matter
- Official, licensed Minecraft collectible