text: DigitalHow Consumer-Generated Content Drives Brand Value (Report)Consumer-generated content is everywhere. Consumers post everything from comprehensive reviews to pictures of the products they've bought or plan to buy.By Kimberlee Morrison|April 25, 2016 ShareBy Kimberlee Morrison|April 25, 2016 ShareConsumer-generated content is everywhere. Consumers post everything from comprehensive reviews to pictures of the products they've bought or plan to buy. This activity is a major driver of sales and product engagement in the e-commerce space. A report from BazaarVoice examines the impact of this sort of content.Simply interacting with CGC is enough to increase revenue and convert users; brands don't have to it themselves. Revenue increased 106 percent on retail sites when users see CGC prior to purchase, and by 75 percent on brand websites. Average order value also increases by 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively, and conversion increases by 97 percent and 78 percent, respectively.Sites should consider offering users more than a simple 500-character text box for reviews, and maybe a possible star rating. The more expressive users can be, the more enriching the experience will be for consumers on their purchase journey.According to the report:CGC can be everything from a critical rating to a comprehensive review, a picture, a video or a brief comment; it can be a rich, experiential story, or an uncontrollable emotional outburst. Far more often than not, the time and effort to create and share this content is driven by the will of people to help, inform, protect, entertain or inspire confidence in other consumers.The use of visual content has already increased among consumers and marketers, on product websites and on social media. BazaarVoice's Curations tool processed 4.7 times more photos in 2015 than 2014, and 4.5 times more video.Many brands and retailers have started to integrate CGC into more aspects of their marketing campaigns. 57 percent of retailers and 61 percent of brands are using CGC in their social media efforts, and now 27 percent and 2 percent, respectively, are using it in their print campaigns. 43 percent and 15 percent, respectively, are using it in brick and mortar locations, and 18 percent and 10 percent, respectively are going as far as using it on product packaging.Through detailed analysis, Bazaarvoice found that the CGC programs of the world's leading brands and retailers include five key traits:Focus on the fundamentals.Play the long game.Really listen to the customer.Let customers tell their story.Everyone is a stakeholder.Readers: How are you using consumer generated content on your websites? Sharehttp://adweek.it/1SVFI2B copyRecommended articles Adweek Adweek


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< Soundtrack: Just keep reading, but also Albinoni - Adagio in G Minor and Zola Jesus/JG Thirlwell/Mivos Quartet - Hikikomori >
I'm on an overnight ferry crossing the Baltic, trying to grapple with Robert Nozick's Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice. I highly suggest reading Nozick's original article, and there are plenty of available summaries of Newcomb's Problem and commentaries on its implications—a recent favorite of mine is Scott Aaronson's remarks in Quantum Computing Since Democritus, especially his remarks on the student with a 50% rating on the Aaronson Oracle—so I will not bother summarizing it again here. I will focus on only the version of the problem where the predictor is omniscient unless otherwise noted. Newcomb's problem doesn't seem paradoxical, or even particularly difficult to interpret from my vantage. Of course, Nozick makes the point that everyone seems to feel this way, and that the interesting thing would be trying to figure out how to get the differing perspectives to collide. These remarks are an attempt to reconcile some of the differing intuitions about Newcomb-type problems, as well as the introduction of a new Newcomb-like problem.
Nozick suggests that you should take both boxes, but does not believe that he has answered the question conclusively in the article. He seems to have just found himself assuming that because it would be possible to defect against your past self who intended to not take the second box, you would take the second box at least some of the time. This conflates the possibility of defection with its actualization. From what little I know of Nozick, this seems to be his political philosophy at its core—an assumption of opportunistic defection and yet still trying to construct palatial systems of life. This position is entirely honest, but confused. From a cursory reading of some of his works, Nozick seems to assume correctly that intentions don't determine outcomes, but implicitly fails to notice that intentions prune the space of possible outcomes that a given intelligent agent would seek. I feel like there's probably some more explicit statements on this in the sections of Invariances and Anarchy, State, & Utopia that I didn't get to read while I was in Seattle in December, but I'll have to check later. I also feel like I do need to give credit to Nozick's assumptions here, as he was living in a corner of the Twentieth Century Anglosphere where most people conflated defection and self-interest. Even in the vise grip of that cultural assumption he and many others were able to at least hold onto the will to reason if not always overcome immense odds and construct reasonable realities for themselves and others. To quote the poet Anderson, when love is gone, there's always justice, and when justice is gone, there's always force. Provided that force is at least informed by decent compassion and aesthetics, not all is lost. I have often been the sort of man who, like Nozick, believes I live in that most cynical reality. It is only by the loving care of my friends that I have been able to embrace the discipline required to transcend that assumption.
The two examples that Nozick chooses in his article—the Vaccine choice and choice of the Brothers—are both cases of an agent's need to choose a correct strategy while knowing the range of possible realities, yet not which one they inhabit. Both are well satisfied by the dominance principle. Yet, in the case of the Newcomb Problem, the consequential reality is socially constructed by the individual who chooses or does not choose to take the second box. Thus, it seems that if one is able to interpret the principle of expected utility, one should be able to be the kind of agent that possesses the self-control to take only the million dollar box. The Predictor is of course able to predict a lack of faith or an impossible greed in the agent. The problem does not specify as to which, but such specification is unnecessary as the problem is agnostic as to the identities and relationships of the box-taker and the Predictor. Following its abstract formulation, the Newcomb Problem is framed not as a moral judgement, but a rational judgement. Such is the case of all problems concerning the acquisition of currency or other transactable types of utility. There is no reason to believe that such defects would be present in an agent who had adequately interpreted the problem. Only a fool would choose anything other than simply taking only box B. The agent's mind is transparent, and the only thing to do in that circumstance is to rise to it, becoming the kind of agent that the situation demands. All other options are inferior. If one can submit to the limits of control, one is able to earn the greatest reward available.
The narrative that somehow one should intend to take only the thousand dollar box at the moment of prediction and then, through force of free will, take both boxes is either incoherent, or simply demands further specification from the problem. One must assume that the predictor could detect the intent to defect in the chooser, even if it is latent. The predictor knows how the chooser will respond to the environment of the problem even if the chooser does not know their own response at the time of the prediction. Depending on our beliefs about the informational structure of the world, we could imagine that an agent innocent of the potential success of defection could be introduced to the idea of taking two boxes by an outside power after the moment of prediction and successfully defeat the predictor's abilities, but this relies on the predictor somehow not being able to notice that the chooser would choose to defect and take both boxes if the idea was introduced, or that the predictor would be unable to predict that the chooser would come into contact with such an outside power. Of course, if the chooser's mind is not transparent to the predictor, then one can imagine all sorts of Mamet-esque method acted cons, but while that genre of problem brings great personal joy to me, it is hardly as interesting as the philosophical implications of the omniscient variant.
Newcomb's problem role in scholarship is mostly a shibboleth to test decision theories and decision theorists, the former because of the limited computational blindnesses of models like Causal Decision Theory, and the latter largely because of bias or confusion. For instance, it seems like frequently the two-box solution appeals to materialist types who are extremely concerned that bringing discussions of how parts of reality might be socially constructed opens the floodgates of theoretically infinite woo. The justification for the one-box solution—namely that the reality is socially constructed by the chooser's actions—feels insufficiently rigorous even to me as it cannot prove why the one-boxer chooses only one box, except that they are the type of person who can interpret the reality of the situation and choose the highest expected utility outcome. This is certainly not the same level of certainty that the two-boxer feels. If one attempts to evaluate the problem from the perspective of the chooser, rather than from some kind of simulated third-person perspective, one sits uneasily with individuality's inherent uncertainty.
My attention strays easily from potential solutions to wider implication. Newcomb's Problem is beloved by analytical philosophy for the same reasons that it is altogether unheard of and likely entirely uninterpretable by mainstream societies that coordinate either through technical or emotional protocols. The problem describes a kind of coordination that can only be accomplished if you accept that sense of self is accepted to be unstable, which is anathema to the kind of assured consistent perspective necessary for doing most technological development that doesn't involve selection effects. Taking the broadest definition of engineering—perhaps most easily specified as bounded optimization—one assumes that one's sense of self is stable. For, if it were not stable, then one would not be able to work towards the hoped optimization criteria, and instead would spend all their resource fearful that their future self will undo their labors for arbitrary reasons. It is remarkably well specified, and thus those with a well-cultivated engineering mindset are often able to interpret and speculate on its content and implications, whereas if it was written in a less explicit manner it would likely go the way of most other attempts at non-dualistic psychology, so often invoking a holistic worldview as a justification for abandoning systemization and rigor. In studying the problem, I only became more convinced that the many insights it generates are anathema to the sorts of decision theories that actually dominate the public sphere. While I believe that the investigation of rational decision theories is of critical importance to both human psychology and artificial intelligence research—both pure and applied—I am confused by the general failure of both analytical philosophy and artificial intelligence to engage with the variance of decision theories that have evolved in history. Certainly, all presently specified decision theories are flawed or at least incomplete, but clearly so is modern decision theory. It has always seemed to me that the necessary strategy for the application of decision theory to the real world was incomplete if it was simply a priori analysis, frequently committed only by those who were able to engage with it as a recreational practice. The empirical comparison of existent decision-making behaviors has always felt like the missing piece of any of the gains from the purely theoretical domain were to have any practical use. Indeed, as we have seen with the evolution of almost every branch of cognitive science, the historical constraints of theorists often lead them with a deep myopia, perhaps best demonstrated by the rise of behaviorism at the same time as the rise of control theory. We are dominated by the metaphors we live by more than I would like to admit. Rationalism as a tradition is less dominated by metaphor than virtually any other, perhaps only because it has chosen the least corruptible and most generalizable metaphor: mathematics and computation by way of Descartes and Spinoza, which is so universally applicable that it is likely incorrect to even refer to it as a metaphor even though a potentially descriptive way of thinking of the corpus of mathematics is the total of meaningfully descriptive metaphors. However, this does not mean that rationalism is not without its limits. In order to relate two objects, one must be able to specify the process by which one relates those two objects, leading one to need to specify which objects one is relating before the process of relation can take place. In short, rationalism can look at anything, but it can't look at everything at once. It can know that holism is a true principle—a totality must be by definition total—but a totality cannot be analyzed without abstracting away some of its content. This, I think, provides a pretty good way to think about the epistemic basis for trying to implement something like Functional Decision Theory or extensions or modifications thereof, as FDT serves as a method of circumventing immanent reactivity. Of course, a central problem of implementing specific policies in an FDT strategy remains how one generates policies, which must still contend with the black swan risk inherent in attention prioritization.
Rationalism as a demographic and tradition is largely in denial of the fact that the vast majority of the population considers it to be only a naive affectation. The common conception is that rationalism is fit only for those who have failed to find a place in more sponsored communication protocols, and instead eke out an uneasy existence at the margins, powered by autistic focus but somehow failing to truly understand the reindeer games of social life. At the same time, it is also the only tradition that is able to reliably describe the world, and thus some version of it must—even under ersatz attribution—be considered the source of all knowledge that is not accidental. If one were to notice a fire burning in the forest and know instinctively not to burn oneself, rational thought would be required to predict the spread of the flames, to say nothing of the type of rationality required to discover cooking, or the fact that the evolutionary process that generated those instincts was able to encode rational behavior, even only through blind selection or mimesis. It is rather pathetic that I have to write this, but knowing the reason for a phenomenon's behavior is the only method by which one could modify that phenomenon. Deal only with cause and effect. Fortune is blind to all influence: If luck is law, one could never become lucky intentionally.
Yet, there is something of an uncomfortable class war that has never truly concluded in Western Civilization. Rational materialists have a tendency to be negged into submission by pseudorational idealists as a method of extracting their labor. This stance is taken by Chapman in Geeks, MOPs, and Sociopaths, serving as a good countermodel to Rao's Gervais Principle, which fails to properly identify the Geek and the Clueless as the same type of worker. This leaves me with a responsibility to consider populist alternatives to reason even if, by negation, we have to understand that there is no logic more powerful than reason and thus supposedly "transrational" modes of thought are patently absurd and exist only to exploit the intellectual charity of rational intelligences. We must consider strategies that choose to take purposefully irrational action as a method to gain short term advantage. This can be explained as either simple ignorance, or a Hamiltonian Spite strategy where the instigator can more easily survive the chaos of confusion and benefit from a position of comparative advantage. I am of course asserting that all irrational action is costly, which might look like I'm ignoring situations such as the victory of King Carl at the Battle of Narva, but this is simply a case of accidental rationality through abject stupidity on the part of Carl, as conceivably with advanced enough meteorology he could have known he was making the correct choice, but with the sensors of 1700 there's no way in hell he did. Thus, one has to assume that Carl was simply ignorant, but there are doctrines—mostly theistic in nature—that might claim Carl possessed great wisdom. However, we have return to the proposition earlier in the paragraph, and note that those perspectives are either suicidal or only attempting at an instinctual standard of life in their willful inability to analyze the world, or are being exploited by cynical Hamiltonian Spite strategies that exploit their unscientific perspective.
Unfortunately (and for obvious reasons) both pre-and-postmodernism tend to avoid systematic decision theory problems and models. Yet, recently in Rome, M. Vassar Arc introduced me to a song from the singer-songwriter Jewel Kircher's 1995 album Pieces of You, which, with a bit of paranoid extrapolation, provides basically all the raw material necessary to formulate an alternative test to the Newcomb Problem that better depicts the supposed "transrational" reasoning popular in postmodern society. I will call this test the Sensitive Problem for reasons of clarity. For the moment, we will focus on a single clause of the song, but the rest of the lyrics simply reinforce this distillation. Let us read this according to Barthes' principle of the death of the author and be agnostic as to whether it is Kircher speaking or an imagined character who I will call The Sensitive One, as I am going to read far more into these lyrics than was likely ever intended by their author.
I was thinking, that it might do some good
If we robbed the cynics and took all their food
That way what they believe will have taken place
And we'd give it to everybody who'll have some faith
So please be careful with me, I'm sensitive
And I'd like to stay that way
Let's further specify this "Sensitive Problem" and make it as similar to the original Newcomb as possible. I know this is a case of somewhat manic apophenia, but bear with me.
The Predictor analyzes an agent and tries to see if the agent would be willing to attempt to win a fight to the death tomorrow night, against a random opponent. If the agent is willing to try to defend its own life, it is invariably killed by the Predictor. If it would go entirely limp and not fight for itself, it survives.
The Newcomb problem tests rational self-interest in a scenario where local rational self interest isn't enough, and one has to collaborate with one's past and future selves to gain an optimal outcome. The Sensitive Problem is the opposite. One must intentionally avoid collaborating with one's past and future selves to remain alive—note that The Sensitive Problem states that it might do some good to take all of their food, not some. One must assume an intense negative valuation on future coordination, negative to a degree that it is not worth preserving any agency at all. Specifically, The Sensitive Problem claims that one should not attempt to rationally appreciate the situation, as rationally appreciating risk produces a cynical loss of innocence, equating innocence with sensitivity. This is to say, a finite circumstance with at least local zero-sum characteristics—which is to say any circumstance with meaningful choice or consequence—is a possibility-limiting environment because it fundamentally demands a response. Finite circumstances respond to one's will and action. The only alternative possible environment is a hypothetical infinite space where, probabilistically, everything happens at least once and there is no way to pressure that environment into a limited set of behaviors. I'm Sensitive asserts that any will and action fundamentally limits the potential for one's immanent awareness of life to make the correct choice without considering the possibility of failure.
The Sensitive One asserts, in another part of the song, that she has this theory that if we're told we're bad it's the only idea we'd ever have. It's a far more extreme version of Nozick's position, a concept called alternately Theucides' Trap, the Hobbesian Trap, Schelling's Dilemma, or Liu's Dark Forrest where the recognition of the potential of defection by one party leads to the assumption of its necessity by the other. The Sensitive One implicitly asserts that the recognition of the possibility of defection is the source of defection (or abstract evil) itself, which makes the problem a test of morality, rather than a test of rationality. Intriguingly, by being a test of morality, it implicitly takes a specific perspective, with specific values, and tests whether or not the test-taker fits in with those values. Opposed to Nozick, The Sensitive One implicitly takes the stance that its not worth grappling with the problem of coordination with past and future selves, and indeed suggests that the entire problem comes from the sort of thinking that invariably arises when one attempts to act strategically across time. Quoting further from I'm Sensitive: Anyone can start a conflict, its harder yet to disregard it. In reality, there is of course room for the strategy of at least temporarily circumventing conflicts, but this is not synonymous with resolving them. If one's will is in conflict with another's, the only ways to resolve this are either to disregard one of the two wills by prosecuting the conflict, merging the two wills in compromise, or by capitulating and retreating out of the bounds of the conflict. The Sensitive One's theory is that somehow by retreating from the bounds of that conflict, a benevolent outcome will happen somehow by default. In practice, this translates to a moral obligation to eat the seed corn by conflating environmental constraint and social constraint, as well as entirely ignoring the possibility of low-communication environments demanding strong border defenses. There are all sorts of environments where correct action can only be informed by a clear theory of tradeoffs. Sometimes those tradeoffs effect agents other than oneself, though any sensible utilitarian would recognize the validity of other persons as moral patients and attempt to avoid externalizing harm.
The perspective of the Sensitive Problem is the sort of thinking that I see in the type of liberal or leftist who somehow wants to infantilize men like King and Gandhi as unable or unwilling to sympathize or empathize with the logic of their adversaries. Amakusa Shirō, the leader of the Shimabara Rebellion, seems to me a much better example of the misinterpretation of King and Gandhi, for they—and especially King—were dispassionate strategists, possessed by indomitable wills that demanded the analysis of their opposition. There is certainly much to be said about their careers, but one cannot count for their ability to respond to threat an opportunity by good intentions alone. It is equivalent to assuming that the whole Christ as a strategist is included in the notion that one should turn the other cheek, ignoring all of his less passive sayings and deeds and assuming that such an aphorism held eternally outside of context. So, what does it mean to see the world from another angle and be an everyday angel, if not to embrace a sense of hope at the expense of rigorous tactics? Amacusa certainly seemed to be possessed by this hope, leading to a needless civil war committed by faithful men and women who must have been genuinely confused about the suicidal nature of their cause.
Even as I condemn The Sensitive One for doubting the promise of rationality, I must remind myself to sympathize with its fear. Reason implies that one could isolate clear cause and effect. One promises to one's self or others that action may follow observation, either by the senses or the intellect, and that one may observe one's own actions to confront and perfect them. The trouble is that this covenant is so often broken when individuals fail to summon the courage to confront the ever-multiplying province of implication. Convenient myths often justify action far more interpretably than causes that are either obscure or incommunicable. Perhaps if one was alone and engaged in an abstract activity, composing music say, and keeping it secret or releasing it with the cold comfort of total anonymity, one could justify every deed. Yet, in the social context, gaslighting sets in. The reconciliation of multiple perspectives is imperfect at best, and it is far easier to abandon the often disappointing sanity of probabilistic knowledge in favor of the mutability of definite mysticism. One must grapple with one's uncertainty in order to know anything at all, and seldom is anyone up to the task every time it is demanded. I see no other alternative to this simple humility in light of the fundamentally finite character of our understanding. Yet, while I find it absurd and frankly perverse, I can understand the desire for a logic more powerful than reason. Philosophy is indeed incoherent when it fails to confront the fact that it is always limited by its own perspective, something that everyone from Kant, to al-Ghazali and Chomsky reliably remind us of.
The Sensitive Problem focuses on the political, so we will remain focused on that scale of relationship for the moment. Even when a society is meaningfully divided, the divisions are rarely appreciated as constraints and are instead assumed to be immutable realities, demanding factional war. Such factions are rarely so mutually incompatible as to demand a violent response, and yet as history tells us such violence has arisen time and again. Though somewhat incomplete with a number of geopolitical considerations, The Nazis' manufacture of both internal and external threats is the canonical example of pseudorationalist crimes in the modern consciousness, but there are countless other examples that need not be listed again here. The fear of such pointless brutality that animates blind hope in the everyday angels is also the emotional drive that forces me to try and confront the reasoning of the brutalizers. The trouble is that the everyday angel perspective assumes that distinctions between persons itself animates the will to violence, rather than asserting that the will to violence is independent of differences between persons.
Yet, from history to date, it is rather unclear if a state of war is the rule or the exception in human society at large, though one could of course make far better claims regarding individual regions. However, in the case of the Sensitive Problem, a historical analysis is hardly persuasive to the perspectives that themselves find the Sensitive Problem persuasive. The sensitive problem asserts that it would do some good to eliminate the entire discipline of precedential analysis, as the cynics have to have made a judgement that it is correct to be cynical, and precedential analysis would be entirely meaningless if only positive judgements were considered admissible. We are left with an ahistorical mode of analysis. Whether out of weak thought or potent thoughtlessness, humanity often does decide that cruelty is a solution to conflict. Such depravity is not eliminated by ignoring it, but only by correcting the errors in reasoning that justified it. Such cruelty only emerges when we lack the imagination or bravery to introspect and develop better plans. In the case of the Nazis or any other criminals who were able to organize mob violence, a justification that is good enough to produce a sense of group-unity against a scapegoating target is enough to mobilize coordinated aggressive action simply by making it difficult to consider another option. Visibly questioning the party line simply makes you easy prey. It doesn't matter if the justification makes sense, it matters only if it makes enough sense to make it difficult to question yourself.
Troublingly, this type of offensive violent action is powered far more often by moral judgements similar to the Sensitive Problem than the Cynics judged by that problem. The Sensitive Problem's Predictor creates an in-group by testing for a similar violent intent while pretending its intent is pacifistic. While the pretense of enforcing a prohibition on cynical accumulation of resources makes the lyrics a modicum more tolerable, the violence is still there. Again, note that it says all not a surplus of the cynics' food. This is not to say that the paranoid stockpiling of resources at the expense of collective economic or ecological utility is always justified, but the position of the Sensitive Problem is unjustifiably extreme. The Sensitive One asserts that somehow lacking faith that one's needs would simply be provided for without intentional preparation is defection against the human spirit, and that concern for one's future autonomy is the origin of conflict rather than simply an attempt to endure it. The mind, in the account of the song, is not the sort of instrument that is supposed to be used to make tradeoffs. Indeed, the capacity to do evil is confused with the capacity to accomplish anything at all besides the construction of a unifying state of hope. There is much to be said for unifying states of hope, but the murder of all populations that harshed the vibe by tracking the potential for disaster is irrefutably insane. Passing the sensitive problem is equivalent to culling the entire demographic that keeps records, knows history, and is willing to act with strategic independence.
In short, I have been analyzing the lyrics of a pop song that demands a pogrom. What is a pogrom if not a scapegoating raid on an outgroup that has kept records of the world when the dominant culture has not? In famine, a hungry crowd invariably emerges, and the potential solutions are either charity, a jubilee, a pogrom, or a bacchanal that takes the whole of the society back to a state of nature. It matters not what causes the famine—it could just as easily be a famine of validation as a famine of calories—it matters only that the crowd has failed to care for itself, and looks towards easy prey. Often, the easiest prey is those persons that spent their time tracking the behavior of world instead of aspiring to high rank in the ugly meritocracy of violence. It is far easier for a ruling class to direct the rage of the hungry crowd at a scapegoat than to attempt to remedy the situation. The ruling class blames the hunger of the crowd on the act of keeping account of the process that led to the hunger in the first place. This act of bad faith ignores the possibility of learning from the past and avoiding further devastation in the future. Instead, it attempts to obliterate history, and see the world from another angle: that of spite and of hope, of good and evil, but never the inviolate knowledge of cause and effect. Those who have focused on the object-level mechanisms that determine the behavior of the world are so often blind to the metagame of threat and opportunity that distributes power and leverage.
It seems like the central question for political philosophy in the twenty-first century is simply how to make the conflict between game and metagame, between text and subtext, visible to those nerds and materialists who have thus far successfully avoided being scapegoated through strategies of either trade or invisibility. I'm not sure how to accomplish that, but it seems highly unlikely that it involves amputating the ability to successfully complete the million dollar solution to Newcomb's Problem in order to avoid death in the Sensitive Problem. It strikes me that the attachment to try and look for a logic more powerful than reason comes from a misinterpretation of the structure of risk and reward in the world. As we near the close of the second decade of the twenty first century, we exist in a period of normalized Lovecraftianism, with various specters of doom available for any given political persuasion. Many of those who have seen the promise of rationality broken see present progress as debt financed, with repossession just around the corner, or as accidental where no individual has anything approximating better than random agency over the physical world. The potential for total extinction leads the mind into a confusion that all progress might be inherently risky unless, somehow, it could make disaster entirely impossible. One undervalues the future, assuming that the potential of black swan events implies that we live in a world of finite reward and infinite risk, and that in that environment the correct thing to do is to stop playing.
The question is, why? This is madness, certainly, but it must come out of something. I believe that it comes out of invalidating one's own perspective and assuming that another perspective is somehow able to validate behavior by its fiat, rather than one's own experience. The anxiety of individuals who interpret the world through a social lens of praise and blame rather than cause and effect is understandable, if not itself worth experiencing. If words crush things that are unseen, this implies that the Sensitive One and others like it are affected by other individuals perceptions far more than would be adaptive as an individual. If one does not identify with one's own perspective, and instead with private or public opinion of another individual or collective, then indeed the correct thing to do is to avoid all potential blame and ignore the promise of rational action. It is always in the interests of the validator to praise and blame according to their own interests if the individual who they affect, for that individual is no longer an individual and is instead an extension of their will—a Pavlovian thrall.
I will terminate this essay at the moment, but will leave off with one final question that I do not currently have an answer to: What is the legal status of Pavlovian thralls? At what place does agency start and end? When one is animated by the will of another, who is responsible for the action? I am inclined to think that the question is incoherent. Agents, as individual processes, are almost as absurd to think about as inviolate taxonomies of the world as fully discrete species as described often by pop ecologists. Yet, if one is to attempt to think of correct action in the world, isolating the local cause of incorrect action and shifting it seems the only potential method for restorative justice. All justice systems are limited by their ontology, and it seems highly unlikely that the West will be able to reform its laws in the coming centuries if it still takes as immutable a concept of individuality derived not from the ability to reason, but from Roman property rights.

subset: commoncrawl


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Twelve people were killed, including a Ventura County sheriff's deputy, Wednesday night at the Borderline Bar & Grill after gunman made his way into bar filled with hundreds of students on "College Country Night" and opened fire.
Ventura County sheriff's deputies responded to multiple reports of shots fired around 11:30 p.m. at the Borderline Bar and Grill, located at 99 Rolling Oaks Drive in Thousand Oaks, which is about 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
Ventura County Sheriff's Deputy Ron Helus, a 29 year veteran looking to retire next year, was one of those killed during the incident. Helus was one of the first units to arrive on scene. Sergeant Helus died in the hospital, Sheriff Geoff Dean said. Helus is survived by his wife and child.
"…he died a hero; he went in to save lives, to save other people," Dean said with lots of emotion in his voice.
The suspect, yet to be identified, was described as wearing a trench coat with a beard or a scarf covering his face had reportedly entered the bar and opened fire into the crowd.
Dean said the suspect was found dead inside the bar when deputies arrived.
"It's well too early to know if he took his own life," Dean said.
Up to a dozen people had also been injured, Dean added.
It was also reported that smoke grenades were used during the shooting. Dean said the bomb team is investigating but haven't found anything to confirm an explosive device was used.
Borderline Bar & Grills is a western-themed establishment that regularly hosts "College Country Nights" from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Wednesday nights. College students from California Lutheran University and Pepperdine University are believed to have been in attendance at the time of the mass shooting incident.
An emergency information hotline has been set up to help locate people involved in the shooting at 805-465-6650. A reunification area has been established at Thousand Oaks Teen Center, located at 1375 E. Janss Rd.


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I LOVE Halloween! It's my favorite holiday of the year (the only holiday I acknowledge, actually). Witches, black cats, candy corn, creepy music, costumes - what's not to love? I've been Rima the Jungle Girl for Halloween since I discovered the character because - how could I not be? People usually don't get it, though, and think I'm just trying to be a version of myself. Sigh. Here's the story of Rima the Jungle Girl, if you're interested (scroll down past the biographical crap about me). Anyway, let's get to the squash!
Another one of my favorite things about this time of year is getting to experiment with all different kinds of squash! In my Farm Fresh to You box, I got two sweet dumpling squash. I searched around for a delish vegan recipe for inspiration and found there was a general lack of attention paid to this delectable autumn character in the way of vegan masterpieces. So I set out to create one.
Creating the Recipe
I wanted to create something with a bit of sweetness as sweet dumpling squash (as the name suggests) is sweet and is typically roasted with maple sugar and can be eaten as a dessert. We were having this as the main course so I took a spin on that.
First, I roasted the squash normally with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. Meanwhile, I created a Thanksgiving-stuffing inspired quinoa that includes apples and celery. It's gluten-free! (You can use the recipe by itself for a vegan thanksgiving side dish!). Then I stuffed the squash with the quinoa and roasted it up some more. So simple and so satisfying!
This meal is sure to please the pickiest of eaters and can be modified in countless ways. Get creative and share your variations & suggestions in the comments section! I love to hear your feedback. And please share with friends and family.
Your family or guests will be impressed by your festive and seemingly challenging preparations and you will feel smug, knowing how simple and quick it was to prepare!
Everyone we will feel:
Happy, Warm, Fulfilled, Joyful & Grateful!
You can really switch any squash in for this dish, or mix and match them for fun variations. It's perfect for a fall dinner party as a side dish. Buy a bunch of small pumpkins and double or triple the stuffing recipe. Let me know if you do and don't forget to post on Instagram and tag me - @rima_danielle!
Happy Witching, friends!
Sweet Dumpling Squash filled with Quinoa Apple Stuffing
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes
A festive and easy recipe to wow guests and experiment with Fall's bounty of squash varieties. This recipe is simple enough for the newbie chef but unique enough for the seasoned culinary expert who's crowd has come to expect a lot.
Author: Rima the Jungle Girl
Recipe type: Main Dish, Appetizer
Cuisine: Vegan, Gluten Free
Serves: 2 - 6 people (about 1 - 2 people per squash based on desired serving size, quinoa recipe can fill about 6. If you have less, serve the quinoa on the side or under like I did.)
#Vegan #Recipe on #Blog Sweet Dumpling Squash filled w/ #Quinoa Apple Stuffing #glutenfree! http://t.co/OXiPlvu9KA pic.twitter.com/LBPFlIuxZg— Rima Danielle Jomaa (@rima_danielle) October 18, 2015
- 1 - 3 sweet dumpling squash (or other stuffing squash)
- Olive oil
- Sea salt
- Pepper
- 1 cup quinoa, rinsed well
- 2 cups organic vegetable broth (I use homemade!), split in 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/2 cup
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 cup of diced celery
- 1 apple (red or green), cored, diced
- 1 medium white onion, diced
- 2 gloves garlic
- Small handful of fresh sage, chopped (or 1 tsp dry)
- 1 sprig of fresh rosemary (about 1 tsp to 1 tbs), (or 1 tsp dry)
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- First, clean the squash by washing the outside well. Chop the tops off (like you're carving a pumpkin, you can even use a pumpkin carving tool) & reserve the tops. Clean the seeds out. Rinse everything with water and pat dry with a paper towel.
- Rub inside and outside of squash and the tops with olive oil, sea salt & pepper.
- Place tops & squash upside on a baking side lined with parchment paper & place in the oven.
- Roast for 30 minutes while you make the quinoa. (Note: Quinoa will be ready by the time squash is done, and you stuff & roast for 10 more minutes, so don't freak out!)
- In a medium sauce pan, bring 1 cup of the veggie broth to a boil.
- Add quinoa, return to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn the heat off but DON'T REMOVE THE LID. Let the quinoa steam for 10 minutes while you make the vegetable mix.
- While quinoa is cooking, heat olive oil in a medium sauté pan. Sauté onions and celery for 5 - 10 minutes on low heat.
- Turn heat up to medium and add garlic, apples, herbs & 1/2 cup of broth. Sauté for 5 more minutes pr so until quinoa is done steaming.
- Add quinoa and remaining 1/2 cup broth and let quinoa infuse with the veggies as it soaks up the broth.
- Squash should be almost done. Check them - they should be browning and soft.
- Turn the squash over & stuff the squash with the quinoa mixture (I used a miso spoon), being careful not to break the squash.
- Return to oven & roast for 10 more minutes or so.
- Add remaining quinoa to a glass pan and bake alongside the squash.
- Serve immediately atop of remaining quinoa, if any, and enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
- On top of a bed of the quinoa with a yummy, festive salad on the side.
- As an appetizer for a large group.
- With a pumpkin ale!


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KC treatment should be handled by an experienced Optometrist. Keratoconus is a rare condition where the cornea of the eye becomes cone-shaped over time. The cornea is the hardened clear covering over the lens in the center of the eye, and normally it is visible as a slightly rounded bulge over the iris and pupil.
How is Keratoconus Different Than Other Eye Conditions?
You may be familiar with the idea that in eyes that are nearsighted, farsighted, or have astigmatism, a mis-shapen cornea causes or contributes to the problem. In those cases, the cornea is still rounded — it is just slightly "too round" or "not round enough."
In Keratoconus, the cornea actually becomes cone-shaped. This creates a different kind of effect on your vision. When it first starts it may seem like simple nearsightedness and can be corrected with normal lenses. However, as the condition advances, your vision becomes more distorted. This distortion will exceed the abilities of normal corrective lenses. In addition, you can start to get ghosting or glaring. Regular corrective lenses cannot correct these advanced symptoms. (Want more info? Visit "What is Keratoconus?")
Keratoconus Treatment Using Corrective Lenses
What can someone with Keratoconus do? How do you treat Keratoconus? Where do you find a qualified Keratoconus Doctor? Here are a few simple solutions:
- There are rigid gas permeable contact lenses that provide a greater degree of correction and can address the change in shape caused by Keratoconus.
- Another option are hybrid lenses. These have a hard center area to address the unusual shape of the cornea, but are surrounded by a soft contact lens "skirt" that reduces the discomfort and can provide for a longer term wear.
- There are also options for custom contact lenses or special lenses called "scleral contact lenses" that actually extend out to the sclera, or white, of the eye. Dr. Leonard can discuss these options with you. Dr Leonard is familiar with these PROSE type scleral lenses including Acculens Maxim, Alden Zenlens, Rose K2XL, EZ Fit, One Fit and many others.
- Another solution may be a new product known as Ultra Health and Ultra Health FC contacts. These are a special contact lens designed for patients with Keratoconus. They are worn like standard contact lenses, resolve vision and ghosting problems, and avoid risky surgeries. An experienced Keratoconus doctor can help you understand your options and if ClearKone contacts are the right answer for you.
If those Keratoconus contact lens treatments do not help, then you might choose Keratoconus surgery.
Surgical Keratoconus Treatment
Surgical solutions include standard laser surgery if the Keratoconus is not very advanced. In more advanced cases, surgical correction through reshaping runs a risk of scarring. A better option in that case is either a donut-shaped corneal insert or a cornea transplant. Both of these are fairly high-risk surgeries.
Another newer option is a procedure called "collagen cross-linking" which is a treatment that "firms up" the substance the cornea is made of, to reduce the ongoing deformation caused by Keratoconus.
What Should You Do About Your Keratoconus?
There are several treatments for Keratoconus. The one that is right for you depends greatly on how severe your condition is. The most important part of your decision, though, may not be what Keratoconus treatment to choose, but which Keratoconus doctor you want to trust with the decisions about your eyes.
Dr. Barry Leonard has been treating Keratoconus since the 1980's, soon after he discovered he had Keratoconus himself. That's right…He's a patient, too. Not many eye doctors are properly trained to treat Keratoconus, but patients from both inside and outside of California have traveled hundreds of miles just to be seen by Dr. Leonard. Make your own Keratoconus Appointment with Dr. Barry Leonard here. Or you can call him at 818-891-6711.


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Samsung's next-generation flagship Galaxy S10 may be one of the most anticipated smartphones for the whole of 2019. According to current news, the internal code for the Galaxy S10 series is
In fact, it is not difficult to see from Samsung's internal code for Galaxy S10 that the company has devoted a lot of effort to it, hoping that Galaxy S10 can surpass its previous performance.
It is expected that Samsung will configure a lot of new features and the latest design ideas for Galaxy S10, such as the use of screen fingerprinting and Samsung signboards
In addition to the three rear cameras, the Bell says the number of front cameras will increase to two. The Galaxy S10's rear-facing dual-camera system is similar to the Galaxy S9 and will add a wide-angle camera with 12 million pixels. In other words, the rear camera configuration of the future Galaxy S10 will be
In front of the camera, we expect Samsung to adopt a Galaxy A8-like design that includes a standard camera and a secondary telex sensor for the Galaxy S10. This scheme allows users to take selfies with a false background
In fact, Samsung has been cautious about the use of the new technology since it ran into Waterloo over the Galaxy Note 7 battery accident. The Samsung Galaxy S10's three-photo design, in addition to what we previously learned about using off-screen fingerprint recognition, also shows Samsung back on track in the use of new technology.
Of course, we also believe that the final price of this model will not be very high.
Recommended use China IT News APP
Download flyfish app to read news


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Unlike any other filament on the market, Markforged's Onyx will provide the user with stiff, stable engineering grade parts with a high-quality surface finish and high heat tolerance. With twice the strength of 3D printed plastics, Onyx allows users to combine the strength and reliability of Markforged prints with the beauty and stiffness of chopped carbon. Onyx parts can hold up to the rigorous demands of industrial applications. Onyx's unique micro-carbon reinforcement prints with superior dimensional stability and reliability, combined with the hassle-free printing you expect from Markforged!
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Recent Posts
So… it's been a while since I've participated in a Blog Banter, but this one caught my eye. They're hosted by Drackarn of Sand, Cider and Spaceships; you should check it out if you write a blog and consider participating. Blog … Continue reading
This will be a bit of a long post. I hope you'll read it anyway. I suppose every veteran EVE player has a story of how they were flipped from curious newbie to hooked pilot by how much fun they … Continue reading
Please note: This post is about things on the Singularity "Sisi" test server May 7-9, 2015 and as pre-release items might be considered spoilers. If you are sensitive about reading such things before they hit Tranquility, then you might want … Continue reading
For the last few months, my former corpmate Uxeric Straevaras (@straevaras on Twitter) and I have been cataloguing every shattered wormhole we have come across. We've also added in a number of reports from others, particularly Gora Int, another SSC … Continue reading
Nova. Hollywood. Mittanigrad. System names with history. With meaning. Systems in EVE that you will never find on any map. I've been sitting on this post for over two years, since February 2013. It was originally inspired by a tweet … Continue reading
So of course you are already aware of CCP Fozzie's magnum opus, which describes the upcoming revamp of sov in nullsec space. Honestly, I was expecting to care very little, just chomp some popcorn and yell "Where is your Hyperion … Continue reading
If you're not already familiar with The Seven Events of the Apocalypse (also known as The Prophecy of Macaper) – you're in luck. I wrote an overview of this key piece of New Eden lore for Crossing Zebras. You should go read … Continue reading


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Tips For Using Table Lamps
Table lamps are as much a part of our homes as telephones, washing machines, and pictures on the wall; they are both functional and decorative; they can set the mood in your living room or provide bright, well directed light at a work station. Table lamps are usually fitted on short stands and covered with designer lampshades. These stands are made up of various materials such as wood, wrought iron, glass, cane, bamboo and steel. The lampshades may also vary from glass and cloth to silk and paper. The stands and shades are decorated with various decorative additions like glass pieces, paintings, beads, shells, fabrications and embroidery. Basically such a lamp is used for the purpose of providing the basic necessity of lighting and this can sometimes be for the purpose of ambience like a generic decorative lamp. Also usually these are used for helping you do and complete your basic activities without going through many hindrances.
The only challenge that one goes through here is to carefully design the reflector and also ensure that the light is getting diffused accurately for that particular purpose. There are also tall table lamps that are designs for the purpose of ambient lighting. Thus their form is very important. This is because these can have open shades and reflectors to help and diffuse the less focused light. Also this light is diffused at a much faster speed.table lamps lighting, table lamps pictures, table lamps light, table lamps styles, table lamps images, .


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Since the end of September, fellow countryman Michel Arrion is the new head of the International Cacao Organization (ICCO) located in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Belgium is a world leader when it comes to chocolate, with more than 400 companies and a yearly production of 650.000 tons. At the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo, a meeting took place with the chocolate sector, the retail sector and civil society to discuss the role of ICCO and Belgium in tackling the complex challenges in the cocoa sector. They also expanded on ways the private sector and civil society can contribute to this. The main goal of ICCO is to promote the production and trade in cocoa. It also aims at drawing the attention of international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the challenges of the cocoa sector. The international demand for cocoa has risen dramatically over the past years – especially driven by the soaring consumption in China and the upcoming economies – which brought the existing challenges (child labour, low pay for small producers, deforestation) even more to the forefront. Globally Belgium is the fourth importer of cocoa. As world leader in the field, Belgium is well aware that quality chocolates requires a fair and sustainable production and distribution.
Source: brussels-express.eu


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This Page Intentionally Left Blank
While gathering research for my "How To Display an Atomic Bomb" series, I reviewed thousands of pages of formerly secret government documents. These heavily-redacted papers contained a different story I needed to tell. However, I couldn't do so unless I changed my way of working as a photographer. So I did.
These documents produced by dozens of agencies, across vast geographic distances, by tens of thousands of people, across nearly a century, all have a particular look. In making these documents secret, and then not, they'd accidentally created a beautiful visual language. It was while watching Steve McQueen's film "End Credits" that I first imagined these pages as gigantic pieces of art. With careful curation and judicious cropping these documents with their images, perforations, stamps, and handwriting — all decayed from countless reproduction could become art objects. Some had the simple existential urgency of On Kawara's painting, others the perfect minimalism of a Franz Kline, others were shocking just for the simple phrases they contained.
These pages, often in subtle ways, suggest the bravery, hubris, dedication, nationalism, ingenuity, fear, and sheer determination of our culture and species. Some of them sound alarming, like a brief 22 pages dedicated to answering whether the detonation of an atomic bomb might unintentionally consume all the air on our planet. Most are much more mundane, like page after page with nothing but the phrase "This Page Intentionally Left Blank" on it. A phrase that falsifies itself while conveying its peculiar brand of bureaucratic logic.
I'm also drawn to the humanity they contain. In the midst of this massive machine, we have inarguable evidence that this machine is comprised entirely of humans like us, each with their own particular hand-writing, name, and job. Each incapable of drawing a perfectly straight line, and each laboring to keep themselves, their coworkers, families, and country alive.
Note: Unfortunately it is difficult to convey the visual impact of these pieces online and especially on a phone. As you look at them try and imagine them wall size. (They are all at least 64x36" or larger, with one exception.)
I'd like to thank the following people and institutions that were instrumental in creating this work:
Robyn Farrell: Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at The Art Institute of Chicago for exposing me to Steve McQueen's work through her own curatorial work.
Alex Wellerstein, professor and nuclear weapons historian, who has assembled a great collection of primary sources on his blog Nuclear Secrecy.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University for their collection and publication of declassified FOIA documents.
The CIA, NSA, DOE, and many other "three-letter agencies" for their commitment to transparency and openness in posting many of these documents on their websites. As well as to the countless individuals who had the thankless task of searching for and redacting millions of pages at the whims of private citizens.
Muckrock, John Greenwald Jr (who operates Black Vault), and the thousands of citizens of have made FOIA requests and shared them online, sometimes at great personal expense
The 89th United States Congress and President Johnson for enacting the Freedom of Information Act, which I believe is one of the most amazing laws ever passed.


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Rivers Casino Has Another Incident Of Leaving Children In Car
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has stressed to casinos in the state that underage gambling would not be permitted inside the casinos. Perhaps that is why parents continue to leave their children in cars while the parents are inside gambling. The latest incident of this heinous crime came on Saturday when two adults were arrested and charged in conjunction with leaving two children in the car while they gambled at the Rivers Casino. Rivers is one of the newest casinos in the state, and it has amped up security in the parking lot to avoid these situations.
This crime has become common in Pennsylvania in recent months. The Gaming Board has warned several casinos about protecting against this occurrence. The casinos have been advised to add security, and to also train security to look for this type of behavior.
Potato Peeler Robber Who Held Up Bookies Gets 5 Years Prison
In one of the more bizarre robberies ever reported, a man was sentenced to 5 years behind bars for robbing a bookmaker. The weapon: A potato peeler! Gary McGain, 29, hid the peeler in a sockso it looked like a gun and pointed it at a cashier's head. McGain appears to have been a serial robber, having hit the same bookmakers on at least one previous occasion. The perpetrator is said to have had a gambling problem, owing significant amounts of money to a local loan shark.
Ex-pharmacy aide gets 1 year, must pay $366,054 for selling diabetic supplies stolen from Everett hospital
Worley is alleged to have stolen $366,054 worth of insulin with an estimated retail value of more than than $1.2 million. Pepin resold the the supplies through his business, First Medical Resources, Inc. According to authorities, the insulin was not refrigerated during shipping or storing, which made it potentially unsafe for use. The insulin and test strips were being sold to small pharmacies or other distributors who may not have been aware that First Medical Resources was not a licensed drug wholesaler in Florida. Worley told investigators he has a gambling addiction and spent most of the money at casinos and on lottery tickets. Since his arrest, he has participated in Gamblers Anonymous. He told the court he suffered "great shame and could not walk to the mail box or grocery store" in the weeks following his indictment.
Feds raid company alleged to be paying local online poker players
Federal prosecutors in Seattle have moved to seize $553,000 from a Canadian company they say is facilitating payments to online poker players. In a civil complaint filed earlier this month, prosecutors asked a U.S. District Court judge to order the balance of six bank accounts associated with the service be forfeited to the government. Prosecutors claim the service, identified in court documents as Secure Money, Inc., sent payments to Washington poker players using online gambling sites in violation of state law. In essence, prosecutors contend Secure Money, Inc., paid out poker players after they won money playing online. The checks labeled as "payroll" payments, according to the complaint, were mailed to players.
Network manager admits defrauding company to feed gambling habit
After he had burned through his family's assets to feed his gambling addiction, Phillip Adrian Webb found, quite by accident, a way to get his employer to pay for it. As the head of a credit union's computer network system, Webb knew that when he needed a replacement part from Cisco Systems Inc., they'd send him one and ask him to return the defective part. But he discovered the company seldom checked to see if the faulty part he sent back was actually what he told them it was.
So in the spring of 2007, he hatched the scheme: Tell Cisco he needed a new piece of computer hardware, then when it arrived, he'd sell it online and pocket the proceeds. He then sent some cheap second-hand part back to the company, telling them it was his original broken part. Over a two-year period, the scheme cost Cisco more than $388,000.
Police officer's wife sentenced for stealing
A Tauranga police detective's wife has been sentenced to home detention and community work after she stole more than $25,000 from an 84-year-old widow and a bank to bankroll her secret gambling addiction. Forty-four-year-old Vicki Lee McCaskie – the wife of police officer Rob McCaskie – stole $17,591.51 from the widow and $8000 from her employer, Westpac, to cover gambling losses her family knew nothing about, the Bay of Plenty Times reported.
She was sentenced in Tauranga District Court yesterday to five months' home detention and 250 hours' community work after earlier pleading guilty to five charges of obtaining by deception and one charge of theft by a person in a special relationship. McCaskie developed a personal relationship with the victim after her husband died and would help her with transactions. Between July and October last year, McCaskie made numerous withdrawals from her two bank accounts.
Stanius pleads guilty to all charges in school thefts
A former Shakopee High School administrative assistant pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing more than $168,000 from a student activity account. Deanna Stanius, 50, of Burnsville pleaded guilty in Scott County District Court to all six counts of theft by swindle. All counts are felonies. The guilty pleas were offered without any plea agreement. Tamburino said while his client doesn't want to make excuses, Stanius has a severe gambling addiction and suffers from depression. Stanius has received some inpatient treatment for her addiction, he said. "It's today's world, gambling is pretty prevalent and is easy to get to … and it took her in," he said. "It just took over everything."
Embezzler ordered to serve suspended prison term
A Baltimore judge on Monday ordered a Reisterstown man to serve a five-year prison term that was suspended nearly 20 years ago, the Maryland Attorney General's Office announced. Roy H. Adler, 52, was convicted in 1991 of embezzling more than $4 million from his employer and Blue Cross/Blue Shield while working as an accountant. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with half of it suspended, and ordered to pay $3.2 million restitution. But Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lynn K. Stewart on Monday ordered him to complete the remainder after finding that he'd stopped paying the money he owed more than two years ago. Adler, who has admitted a gambling problem, is scheduled to stand trial in February on another case alleging he wrote several bad checks.
For more information on the dangers of gambling, please visit CASINO WATCH, & CASINO WATCH FOUNDATION


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Server Colocation in Panama
Since 2002 CCIHosting.com offers reliable colocation service based in Panama to customers around the globe in different time zones. Our facility is located in the financial district of Panama city with multiple fibers connect us with the Internet backbone. Colocate your severs in a secure rack in our Data Center in Panama. We will take care of its uptime and stability.
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Contact us via email to get shipping information and related import instructions.
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For content related questions refer to our Accpetable Use Policy.
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House Doctor Block Rug - Large
$399.00 $499.00
This product is currently sold out.
The Block rug by House Doctor is a woven rug which is soft to the feet and will add an instant element of Scandinavian feel to any room of your home.
Price includes free shipping in Australia.
Product Details
Material: 100% Cotton
Size: 230 cm x 160 cm (Large)
Colour: Grey / Black on a beige background
Cleaning: Spot clean and shake loose dirt off regularly. Can be machine washed occasionally on the gentle cycle.
This rug is lightweight so is not suitable for high use areas such as hallways. I recommend using an anti slip underlay such as the STOPP underlay from Ikea for $7.99 AUD.
For more inspiration on how to style your House Doctor rug, check out our Pinterest board below.


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- Average
- Main course: 12€
- Food spend: 20€
Sevillano offers seasonal Andalusian cooking that is both modern and traditional. The extensive menu is comprehensive and well balanced. It also offers a dessert menu and wine list. It is a small restaurant decorated in a typically Andalusian style. The interior is arranged over two floors and diners can eat al fresco on one of two terraces either at street level or on the roof with views over Nerja. The atmosphere is cosy, friendly and charming. The restaurant is located in the old part of town.
Sevillano Restaurant
Calle Gloria 14, 29780, Nerja
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Unfortunately, you can't book Sevillano Restaurant online on this site
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This blog is a part of a series #31DaysofBlogging … we are going through the year (2015) chronologically.
Nashville really is a magical place. Sometimes it's hard to remember that when you live here. It's easy to get caught up in everyday life...running errands, paying bills, the grind…and you forget that it's a city of dreamers, creators, and a place where anything can happen...
Like where anything can happen at the drop of a hat. Where a friend can call you and say, "Can you play a few songs at the Bluebird on Saturday?"
See, we have never played at The Bluebird. We've been there to see plenty of shows. And of course we've seen it a million times on the TV show, Nashville. But in our 8 years of living in Nashville, we had yet to play our own songs at The Bluebird...until this year.
But here's what's so awesome about this town. People are friends. They call each other and say, "Hey, let's do a show" or "Hey, will you come play a few songs at my show?" and it happens. This is what happened when our friend David Bradley asked us to play a few tunes at his round at the Bluebird in October. We had met his fiance a few weeks before and she is AWESOME. She showed our music to David and he asked us to come play a few songs.
David is an UNBELIEVABLE songwriter. Like, yes, we know that incredible songwriters are all over this town, but David is extra special. (We cried our way through his set. His songs will hit a nerve inside of you and they won't let go. Go listen to Hard Time Moving On right now and tell us you are not a complete mess...)
He is from the UK (hello, one of our favorite places) and we all hit it off right away!
So we got to play two songs (What Do You Say and Nick + Jess) at the Bluebird thanks to David and his fiance, Basak, and it was a highlight of this year! It is truly an honor to play at this venue!
Nashville is a place where dreams become a reality, heartbreak becomes songs which become anthems that people sing worldwide. What a magical place. Playing at the Bluebird was one of the coolest parts of 2015 for us! We hope to play there again in the coming years. Thanks David and Basak for giving us the opportunity to play at this historic venue!
Merry Christmas to everyone on this lovely Christmas day! See you tomorrow! :)


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What a great three days we had on the Teens Program.
Day 1: The group collectively went shopping for our pizza ingredients before making homemade pizzas for lunch. They were delicious. In the afternoon we had a boxing class run by the Eaglehawk YMCA. This was fun and had most of the teens up and about.
Day 2: Indoor and outdoor games at the school were the activities in the morning before heading to the Ten Pin Bowling Alley in the afternoon. This proved to be a lot of fun for all who participated.
Day 3: Our Echuca excursion was amazing. For some it was their first time cruising along the Murray River. It was very relaxing and to have lunch on board the cruise a great way to chill, take in the sights whilst having lunch. The afternoon at Twisted Science allowed all participants to engage in the displays at their own pace. Some even had a go at the climbing wall.


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We require a professional in the creation and management of technical documentation based on information gathered from various internal and external sources as well as existing documentation. You are able to convert the information you gather into various forms, such as user manuals, knowledgebase, FAQs, functional specifications, and so on.
You will also design and implement test cases to verify that the application is in line with the documentation and vice versa. For test cases that uncover a potential bug in the application, you will be able to compile a detailed bug report for our support and development teams.
You will also perform the role of 1st level application support to help us fill any additional gaps in this area, which might eventually also include help with 24/7 standby. Appropriate training will be provided.
- Acquire information and documentation from various sources.
- Create and manage a multipurpose / multiformat documentation store.
- Ensure all documentation formats are aligned, and aligned with the application.
- Design and implement test cases to cover the entire application.
- Prepare detailed bug reports.
- Help with 1st level support when needed.
Required Skills
Technical skills:
- Diploma or Degree in Information Systems or similar.
- Perfect level of English, especially written, other languages welcome.
- Strong experience with technical documentation and management thereof.
- Strong experience with test frameworks, . Selenium.
- Conceptual experience with web application user interfaces, workflows, application flows, and how these can be improved.
- At least three years' experience in a similar role.
Soft skills:
- Ability to see the big picture without losing a meticulous eye for detail.
- Ability to describe technical matters in clear and simple language.
- Structured thinking and the ability to convert this into documentation.
- Flexible and ready to jump in and help out when needed.


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The US Supreme Court has ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to consider cost of compliance when determining whether to regulate power plant emissions was unreasonable.
A win for the American coal industryThe US Supreme Court has ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agencys refusal to consider cost of compliance when determining whether to regulate power plant emissions was unreasonable.
In its ruling, the court said: The Agency refused to consider cost when making its decision [...] the agency action is unlawful, if it does not rest of the relevant factors.
This has been met with praise by the coal industry and American consumers. The West Virginia Coal Association (WVCA) stated in a press release that this ruling aligns with its view that the EPAs actions under the rule was made without consideration to economic consequences and were specifically designed to remove coal from the nations energy mix.
"The West Virginia coal industry, its employees and the entire state of West Virginia have been particularly hard-hit by the impacts of EPAs regulations, which have spurred a massive closure of coal-fired power plants across the country," said Bill Raney, President of the WVCA. "Todays decision is an important first step in reigning in a clearly out of control bureaucratic agency that intends to implement its vision for Americas future regardless of Congressional intent, cost to the consumer, risk to electricity reliability and impacts to the nations coal mining regions. We are still reviewing the decision and its implications, but I think its fair to say that the Supreme Court handed down a decision for common sense and affordable energy today."
The National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO, Hal Quinn, commented: Todays decision by the Supreme Court is a vindication of common sense that is missing in much of the administrations regulatory actions. The decision effectively puts EPA on notice: reckless rulemaking that ignores the cost to consumers is unreasonable and wont be tolerated. It recognises what the administration has ignored: that every regulatory benefit comes with a cost and the value of that benefit cannot be known unless its costs are considered. Finally, the decision is a welcome reprieve for valuable electricity generating capacity at risk of closing from EPAs rule. These plants may again be used to strengthen grid reliability and lower energy costs for families and industries.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) also applauded the decision. Todays Supreme Court decision is a win for American consumers and a rebuke of EPAs callous approach to regulations. We applaud the courts commonsense decision, which serves as a needed reminder that regulatory bodies must actually consider cost impacts of its regulations. Failure to do so risks the livelihoods and well-being of American families and businesses, said Mike Duncan, President and CEO of ACCCE. Thanks to todays ruling, the EPA will finally have to listen to the nations concerns with this poorly constructed, costly rule. Elitist ideas usually carry lofty price tags. When EPA rewrites this regulation, we can only hope it uses real costs and benefit figures rather than those pulled out of its magic bag of tricks.
Duncan concluded: We hope that with todays ruling, the EPA finally recognises there are limits on its authority and takes the opportunity to withdraw its harmful carbon rules. If they dont, Im sure well be seeing them in court again very soon.
Source: World CoalPublished on 30/06/2015Edited from Press Releases by Harleigh Hobbs
All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws. © 2014 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.


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Richard Peasgood
Managing Consultant
Richard Peasgood is an experienced supply chain manager across the resources and other sectors. Richard has worked predominantly in the Oil & Gas industry in senior contracts & procurement roles at Santos, Beach Energy and Leigh Creek Energy. Richard's initial role in Australia in 2007 was with a mining services company. Prior to moving to Australia, Richard held a number of contracting and procurement roles in the UK in both public and private sectors. His last role in the UK was as Head of Major Procurement at London Fire Brigade. Before that Richard held a number of contract management roles in the building and civil engineering industry. Richard obtained a Masters of Business Administration in 2002 and became MCIPS qualified in 2004. He is currently Chair of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply SA/NT Committee and tutors in Business Operations at UniSA for the School of Management.


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The mission of the Philip Johnson Glass House is for the 47-acre campus to become a center-point and catalyst for the preservation of modern architecture, landscape, and art, and a canvas for inspiration, experimentation and cultivation honoring the legacy of Philip Johnson (1906–2005) and David Whitney (1939–2005). Read about the current issues related to the Philip Johnson Glass House. view
Helping people protect, enhance, and enjoy the places that matter to them. The National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to save America's diverse historic places and revitalize our communities. view
Weekly newsletter of the national grassroots lobby for historic preservation. Keep up to date on what's going on in Washington and find out what you can do. view


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On July 3, 2010 Planned Perfection had the pleasure of working for Erin and Andrew at their beautiful wedding ceremony and reception at Lime Springs Farm. We enjoyed working with the following vendors:
Sandra Porterfield (boquets and bouts)
Marah, Kelly and I took care of Erin's entire set up. We loved her escort cards that were displayed on shutters. The purple candles were so beautiful when the sun was setting as well. Please take a look at some of the pictures we were able to get during the event. As always can't wait to see KM Photography's sneak peak!
Congratulations to you both! It was so much fun working for you and an honor to be a part of your special day. We hope you have a fabulous time in Costa Rica!
Congratulations again!


text: The Amarillo Police Department is cautioning residents regarding illegal Xanax pills.According to APD, officers are aware that people who are illegally manufacturing and selling these drugs are selling what appears to be commercially manufactured pills that may be contaminated with Fentanyl. Fentanyl is a powerful and highly addictive pain medication.APD says that manufacturers are either intentionally or accidentally allowing contamination of pill pressing equipment that leads to Fentanyl content.Locally, APD is investigating instances of use of pill illegally sold as Xanax but actually containing Xanax and Fentanyl or other drugs. APD says that parents should be aware that Xanax purchased off the street is a popular recreational drug and parents should make their children aware of the risk.Although no deaths have been reported locally due to these dangerous drugs, APD says that that potential still exists.For more information, please visit police.amarillo.gov. Leave a comment


text: Car's booked in at Cotswold Cheltenham tomorrow for all the above. Always try to do evertyhing at once to minimise visits. Can't believe it will be 4 in March! Out of respect for the Tech' I've given the under bonnet a spring clean. If you look closely you will see I've followed Zarnds example and wired in a CTEK connector. (by the washer bottle cap) As far as I know all is well, fingers crossed for the EGR as I don't fancy having it impounded for a few weeks. Isn't it typical I have to be in Ludlow at midday and there's a chance of snow, bet the courtesy car doesn't have winters. Kindest Regards Carl.


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Kim Kardashian to file for divorce from Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage
4:35 PM on 31st October 2011
It"s over: Kim Kardashian is reported to be filing for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage
"It"s true": Ryan Seacrest, the producer of her E! reality show, just tweeted: "Yes @KimKardashian is filing for divorce this morning. I touched base with her, getting a statement in just a few mins."
Trouble in paradise: Kim pictured with Humphries on October 19 in New York. MailOnline reported around the time this picture was taken how the couple"s marriage was in crisis
Going solo: Kim went to the Midori Green Halloween Party at Lavo in New York City on Friday without Kris


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Teeth Whitening
Teeth whitening procedures have become increasingly popular in recent years. As the daily consumption of coffee, wine and other stain-causing products has risen, so has the need for treatments that help create beautifully white smiles. At My Dentist in Grandview, Missouri, we offer a variety of highly effective teeth whitening treatments.
Laser Teeth Whitening
Laser teeth whitening is administered in a dental office exclusively, and is the most expensive method for whitening. All forms of teeth whitening work by releasing oxygen ions from a tooth whitening gel, which gently lift stains from the teeth. The laser simply lifts the stains faster. Another advantage of the laser is that (depending on the type of laser used) it can more easily be used to bleach one tooth at a time. This is helpful when one tooth is more discolored than the surrounding teeth.Read more about Laser Teeth Whitening
Opalescence Boost
Opalescence Boost is a chemically activated power whitening gel that provides brighter, whiter teeth after just 40 minutes in the dental chair. The powerful 40% hydrogen peroxide gel is chemically activated, so it doesn't require a hot, uncomfortable light to work.
Opalescence Boost consists of two syringes: The first contains 38 percent hydrogen peroxide, the active tooth whitening ingredient. The second syringe contains fluoride and potassium nitrate (PF), which helps strengthen tooth enamel, reduce sensitivity and protect against cavities. When mixed, the gel produces a distinct red color to help ensure correct placement and full removal of the product.
Safe and effective, Opalescence Boost usually takes only one dental visit to complete. While one visit is all you need to achieve a brighter smile, difficult stains or extreme discoloration may require additional treatments.
At My Dentist, Opalescence Boost is just one of many teeth whitening options. Call us at 816-966-9450 to schedule a consultation.
Take-Home Trays
With our take-home trays, you get the ease to whiten your teeth in the comfort of your home. You can achieve the whitening of your teeth through our take-home tray teeth whitening kit. You just need to follow the instructions we provide along with the kit to get your sparkling teeth.
Phone 816-966-9450 to obtain more information about our teeth whitening treatments. Our dentist and team are here to explain your options and address any questions you may have.


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My neighbor brought me over a zuchinni about twice the size of my head – so I took a stab at making some zuchinni brownies. I still have half the zuchinni left!
3 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup or so of chocolate chips
For the Frosting:
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray or line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix together the coconut oil, applesauce, honey, and vanilla.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture in batches to the wet mixture, stirring after each addition. Fold in the zucchini and chocolate chips
The batter will be dry and crumbly, but don't worry! Spread the mixture evenly into your prepared pan.
Place in the oven and bake for 25 – 30 minutes, or until the brownies spring back when gently touched. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
To make frosting:
In a medium bowl, add the cocoa powder to the melted coconut oil. Add in icing sugar, almond milk, and vanilla extract. Stir until combined. Spread over cooled brownies and cut into squares.


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Each Santa is responsible for one Santa – SantaSelf. You are responsible for your own behavior, your own words, your own night of Rampage.
* If any catch comes on the low down, your piece is yours and other Santas will dis your ass and claim the "doe-no's" to the law. (In other words, you fuck up…you are on your own. And we have no idea who the clown in the Santa costume is….)
Because nobody likes "that" Santa….


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HBO calls Trump's Game of Thrones-tinged tweet a "misappropriation" of trademark
vendredi 2 novembre 2018, 19:45 , par Ars Technica
Enlarge / HBO is none too pleased about President Trump's Friday tweet. (credit: HBO)
Friday morning, President Trump used Twitter to issue a rare kind of foreign-policy announcement: a slogan lifted from a pop-culture meme, repurposed to vaguely suggest future political action. And it drew criticism from one significant party: HBO, who cited its 'trademark' in disapproving of the president's choice of message delivery.
That response came as a result of Trump using both a Game of Thrones-styled typeface (including its crossed-O design) and a co-opting of that series' popular 'Winter is coming' motto. Trump's version twists the phrase to announce, 'sanctions are coming,' which is an apparent call to reinstate economic sanctions against Iran that had been lifted in a landmark 2015 deal made by an international coalition.
When we asked HBO for comment, the company offered a one-sentence statement: 'We were not aware of this messaging and would prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes.'
Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
56 sources (32 en français)
Date Actuelle
mer. 21 août - 16:56 CEST


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Made from premium wood beads by hand in house. Unlike many stack bracelets we use high quality "Stretch String", which adds extreme durability to this bracelet. This item can be purchased as a single bracelet or as a set.
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