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From www.jgballard.ca
With so much of Shanghai's historical architecture disappearing day by day, you might think that most Shanghailanders, ourselves included, have become desensitized to the frequent reports of demolition and destruction. Looks like that isn't true, as we are still heartbroken over Malcolm Moore's recent story on the latest casualty of Shanghai's relentless urban development, British author J.G. Ballard's childhood home.
Ballard, who passed away last year, was born in Shanghai in 1930 and is best known for "Empire of the Sun" – a work of autobiographical fiction that draws extensively on his childhood in the city's colonial era and his experiences during World War II. His old home at 31a Amherst Avenue (now 508 Panyu Lu, now a concrete block) was a mock Tudor mansion built by English architects in 1925, and featured prominently in his memories of Shanghai. It was a "magical" place where his family enjoyed the glamorous life of club receptions and horse-racing before the 1937 Japanese invasion led to their internment at Longhua Camp in the south of the city (now Shanghai Zhongxue).
Ballard's house has been a sort-of pilgrimage site for historians and fans. In 2008, Shanghaiist accompanied Canadian Rick McGrath on his search for Ballard's home and other places related to the author's boyhood experience in the city. This wasn't some impulsive, hurried trip on McGrath's part, but an extensively planned journey that involved years of correspondence with other Ballardians, and hard work compiling maps and satellite views of Ballard's Shanghai. The story of McGrath's trip, and photos of the house, are meticulously recorded on his website.
James Fallows also took a tour of Ballard's childhood home, which he recounts here.
The house that McGrath and Fallows both visited was, at that point, an upscale restaurant called SH508. The original structure of the house had been left intact, and the property listed as a heritage building. But when the restaurant's lease on the property expired by October last year, the house fell into the hands of rabid developers. While the house has not been torn down, it is now unrecognizable – according to Moore, it has been stripped down to its beams and rebuilt in concrete, while plans are afoot to add a fake front and increase floorspace. You can watch a video tour of the current cemented-over monstrosity on The Telegraph.
Photo by Dan Butterfield, November 2009. From www.jgballard.ca
And so the battle between preservation and development continues, the former seeming on the losing side. With every small victory, tens of cemented-over former architectural glories appear.
But what would J.G. Ballard himself have thought of the gutting of his former home? Judging from his letters to Rick McGrath, he might have been a little desensitized himself, and accepted it as the inevitable. While he was excited and immensely curious about his fans' journeys to his old Shanghai haunts, he wrote that "one would expect any city in the world to have changed virtually out of recognition in 40 years, and know that the emotional pickings from the nostalgia dish to be pretty meager". In response to McGrath's news that his home had become a restaurant, his seemingly flippant reply was "if it's a restaurant, let's hope it's a McDonald's or KFC". He also revealed that these trips into nostalgia felt a little "intrusive" due to the length of time gone by; "In an odd way it's quite reassuring that everything has changed so much — the Shanghai I knew, along with 31 Amherst Avenue and Lunghua camp, only survive inside my head."
Reassuring it may have been to Ballard, but not to us. Perversely, perhaps his home should have been a McDonald's or KFC – maybe if it had been a hopping commercial fast food establishment, the house would have been spared its fate as a cement block.


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Role: Writer.
Adham better known as KHORAZATY or sometimes Goldbeard or Goldstache is an Engineer, writer, vocalist, standup comedian, geek and Advocate (Legal representative for S.A.T.W "Smurfs around the world" better known as J.C.M.P "Just call me PAPA" ) as well as the shortest tall person in this life or the next...... this message was not written by Adham El-Khorazaty since modesty is his middle name and this is just Douchey, i mean who the hell makes people write their own Bios.
Twitter Handle: @Khorazaty
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Though he remains a relatively obscure presence in New Zealand, Spanish author Javier Marías is one of the titans of contemporary literature: perhaps the most important author you'd never heard of. He's been "widely tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature". His stature in Spain and other parts of Europe is something akin to hero worship.
In a piece of trivia that I find endlessly delightful, he once wrote a book set in a fictional version of the small island of Redonda. The King of Redonda, having read this novel, was so moved by his impression that he ceded his crown to Marías: he became the royalty of an island by virtue of his fictional prowess. His latest novel, The Infatuations (Los Enamorados in Spanish, but unfortunately 'enamorations' isn't an accepted conjugation in English and so 'infatuations' had to do) has The Guardian gushing, wagering that it will "acquire an equally devoted following" to Don Quixote.
While that is perhaps hyperbolic, Marías' latest is a delight and a revelation, concurrently tugging at your heartstrings and engaging your grey matter. Those familiar with his works: rest assured that the distinct flourishes that render him such a unique force have been carried forward. The prose is masterfully stylised. His digressions, enquiries both metaphysical and psychological, and frequent ruminations upon life, death, cruelty, lust, mortality and perception remain firmly intact. His use of run-on sentences, usually a clumsy and off-putting feature, works because of Marías' knack for eloquent lyricism and almost symmetrical sentence constructions. Despite, or because of, this, the writing is taut and suspenseful.
As for the tale itself: Maria Dolz, our protagonist, is an editor for a publishing house who becomes enchanted from a distance by a married couple she always sees at her local café. When the husband is found brutally murdered, she strikes up a connection with his widow, becoming entangled in an inextricable web of coincidence, entropy, subterfuge and guilt.
And, lest I make it seem like The Infatuations is serious to the point of dour, I must mention the humour that pervades the novel. Marías' gleeful mocking of self-serious, pretentious writers (in the course of her job, Maria ends up having to tell one writer what socks he should wear, before dissuading another who wants to try cocaine because it's 'hip') is funny in its own right, but also refreshing in the context of a work of literature—which usually opts for the circlejerk, self-aggrandising "omg literature is SO IMPORTANT GUYS" route (Slaughterhouse Five I'm looking at you).
I strongly advise you to buy a copy: this is one royalty who deserves his royalties.


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Mahindra 2555 4WD HST Cab
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Oct 17, 2015 - Historical Trauma and Healing from the Boarding School Era by Eaonhawinon Patricia Allen
On Monday October 12th, Seattle's Indigenous Peoples' Day, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to pass a resolution acknowledging "acts of genocide" in the United States government's American Indian boarding school policy. The resolution urges the US government to examine its human rights record, as well as, pressure the Seattle Public School's to incorporate the teaching of Native languages and history of the boarding school era in the schools. The resolution was drafted and put forth by Seattle's Native community. Eaonhawinon Patricia Allen is a Seattle community organizer who gave testimony at the Seattle city council meeting speaks on her motivation for addressing the the boarding school era. Editors note.
I had the honor on Monday of sharing my experience of historical trauma and inter-generational trauma in support of the City of Seattle to pass a Resolution of educating and holding the United States government accountable for the genocide and human rights violations of American Indian children. This was an attempt to eradicate the indigenous identity and culture and assimilate natives into western euro-American culture.
I was raised by my grandmother because my parents were both still on their own journeys of healing. The genocidal actions of boarding school trauma effected every native in my father and grandfather's generation in Southeast Alaska. My father was in a boarding school from about 3 to 13. When he came out, he was an orphan. He struggled all of his life dealing with the abuse, violence, humiliation, trauma and lack of a childhood and still is. Although I had native family that shared their experience in boarding schools in Alaska and in the lower 48 states, my father didn't open up his experience fully to me until I was 20.
Once I got into college, self education and eventually the American Indian Studies program at UW [University of Washington] helped me understand my own history in detail. I learned about the types of abuse and violence that my father didn't have the emotional capacity to share. Being a victim and survivor of relationship violence, depression and asexual violence myself, I finally understood how these experiences are not healthy and have been normalized in my community because of the violence and trauma passed down from the experiences subjected to our communities from boarding and residential schools that we legalized and enforced by the government.
My point of my testimony: college should not be a place for me to BEGIN learning about my own history of boarding school trauma. Grade school and basic education should be where this knowledge and history should start. This is not native history, but United States history. This was one of the last actions made to complete colonization and for euro-American settlers to benefit from a western society and culture; to wash the native identity out of natives.
But I am here to tell you this, and so will my future children. We still survived and are starting the process of healing. I thank all those that taught me, counseled me, mentored me, healed me, loved me, supported me and listened to me long enough to tell you this. Because I wasn't meant to make it far enough to complete college to tell you this. Especially the women who have been role models in my life. You might not know it but your presence reminded me I can survive through everything.
Eaonhawinon Patricia Allen. Photo by Damien Conway
Eaonhawinon Patricia Allen is a Recent graduated from the University of Washington. She identifies as a mixed Indigenous woman. She's a writer, poet, community organizer, & matriarchal scholar.
*Featured photo by Damien Conway


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You may not remember the TV show Get Smart, but as ol' Maxwell Smart says: "Would you believe…?" Well today I got an email surprise. Would you believe I drove all the way from Dothan, AL to E. St. Louis, IL to discover a discount posted on the web on tickets for a soon to be appearing show in Dothan? This is the photo from the TravelZoo website showing the Beetles tribute group Rain. Now what's so surprising to me about this is that I'm here in the St. Louis area and see this.
I'm in the process of posting photos of my short trip, but just had to share this with you.


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Living well by staying "just the way you are."
One thing that research shows is that its very common for unintentional weight loss to precede a diagnosis of dementia. Is that because undiagnosed dementia has been working in the background? Or maybe weight loss is caused by something else and it's that contributing to reduced brain fuelling and nutrient supply and that's a part of the picture? Maybe its something we just are not aware of.
We really don't know yet, but whatever the cause, it is vitally important once you are in your late 60s and beyond to be vigilant for unintentional weight loss. I discuss this in Chapter 5 of the book further but my advice is always:
"Be active and whatever your weight now, don't go losing any."
If you, or someone close to you does lose weight without intentionally embarking on a carefully planned exercise regime and eating a good high protein diet (the only safe way to lose weight in your later years), then you must look for causes and work to reverse that before it causes you harm.
Its not the same for younger people, but for those closer to 90 than 40, weight loss is not the great thing you might think by reading popular magazines and going on the latest highly publicised diet plan.
Stay active and eat well and you'll do best for your brain and your body!


text: I Should Know WOD "Air Force" For time: 20 Thrusters 20 Sumo deadlift high pulls 20 Push jerks 20 Overhead squats 20 Front squats At the beginning of every minute you must perform 4 burpees. If the minute clock beeps during a repetition you will complete the rep and then start the four burpees. Workout of the DayEric RosenstockMarch 16, 201022 Comments Facebook0 Twitter LinkedIn0 StumbleUpon Reddit Tumblr 0 Likes


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"Central to Michael Polanyi's thinking was the belief that creative acts (especially acts of discovery) are shot–through or charged with strong personal feelings and commitments (hence the title of his most famous work Personal Knowledge). Arguing against the then dominant position that science was somehow value–free, Michael Polanyi sought to bring into creative tension a concern with reasoned and critical interrogation with other, more 'tacit', forms of knowing.
Polanyi's argument was that the informed guesses, hunches and imaginings that are part of exploratory acts are motivated by what he describes as 'passions'. They might well be aimed at discovering 'truth', but they are not necessarily in a form that can be stated in propositional or formal terms. As Michael Polanyi (1967: 4) wrote in The Tacit Dimension, we should start from the fact that 'we can know more than we can tell'. He termed this pre–logical phase of knowing as 'tacit knowledge'. Tacit knowledge comprises a range of conceptual and sensory information and images that can be brought to bear in an attempt to make sense of something (see Hodgkin 1991). Many bits of tacit knowledge can be brought together to help form a new model or theory. This inevitably led him to explore connoisseurship and the process of discovery (rather than with the validation or refutation of theories and models – in contrast with Popper, for example)."
(Mark K. Smith 2003, infed.org)
Smith, M. K. (2003) 'Michael Polanyi and tacit knowledge', the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/polanyi.htm.
Hodgkin, R. (1991) 'Michael Polanyi – Prophet of life, the universe and everything' Times Higher Educational Supplement, September 27, page 15.
Polanyi, Michael (1967) The Tacit Dimension, New York: Anchor Books. (108 + xi pages). Based on the 1962 Terry lectures (Yale) this book provides an overview of tacit knowledge. He looks at tacit knowing, emergence and the significance of a society of explorers.
"One of the most revered record collections in the world – that of music legend John Peel – is to be made into an interactive online museum for the public, as part of The Space – a new experimental digital service organised and funded by the Arts Council and the BBC. ...
'It is the first step in creating an interactive online museum with access to the entire collection, which is one of the most important archives in modern music history.' (Tom Barker, Director, John Peel Centre for Creative Arts)
'The idea is to digitally recreate John's home studio and record collection, which users will be able to interact with and contribute to, whilst viewing Peel's personal notes, archive performances and new filmed interviews with musicians.' (Frank Prendergast–Eye Film and Television's Creative Director)
Sheila Ravenscroft, John Peel's wife and Patron of the John Peel Centre for Creative Arts said: 'We're very happy that we've finally found a way to make John's amazing collection available to his fans, as he would have wanted. This project is only the beginning of something very exciting'."
(The John Peel Centre for Creative Arts, 23 February 2012)
"A problem confronting many artistic researchers is related to the need for the artist to write about his or her own work in the research report or exegesis, The outcomes of such research are not easily quantifiable and it can be difficult to articulate objectively, methods processes, and conclusions that emerge from an alternative logic of practice and the intrinsically subjective dimension of artistic production. Moreover, conventional approaches and models of writing about art generally fall within the domain of criticism, a discourse that tends to focus on connoisieurial evaluation of the finished product. How then, might the artist as researcher avoid on one hand, what has been referred to as 'auto–connoisseurship', the undertaking of a thinly veiled labour of valorising what has been achieved in the creative work, or alternatively producing a research report that is mere description (Nelson 2004)?
In this paper, I suggest that a way of overcoming such a dilemma is for creative arts researchers to shift the critical focus away from the notion of the work as product, to an understanding of both studio enquiry and its outcomes as process. I will draw on Michel Foucault's essay 'What is An Author ' (Rabinow, 1991) to explore how we might move away from art criticism to the notion of a critical discourse of practice–led enquiry that involves viewing the artist as a researcher, and the artist/critic as a scholar who examines the value of artistic process as the production of knowledge. As I will demonstrate, in adopting such an approach, practitioner researchers need not ignore or negate the specificities and particularities of practice – including its subjective and emergent methodologies which I have argued elsewhere, constitute the generative strength that distinguishes artistic research from more traditional approaches Barrett, 2005). In elaborating the relationship between a these aspects and the more distanced focus made available through Foucault's elaboration of author function, I will draw on Donna Haraway's (1991, 1992) notion of 'situated knowledge' and her critique of social constructivism which reveals how the scientific method is implicated in social constructivist accounts of knowledge. It is this alignment, suggests Haraway,that results in the effacement of particularities of experience from which situated knowledges emerge. In order to ground and illustrate the arguments and ideas presented in this paper, I will also refer to Pablo Picasso's, Demioselles d''Avignon and a selection of critical commentaries on this work by Leo Steinberg (1988), William Rubin (1994) and Lisa Florman (2003)."
(Estelle Barrett, 2006)
Barrett, E. (2006) "Foucault's 'What is an Author': towards a critical discourse of practice as research". Working Papers in Art and Design Vol 4 Retrieved
"Published in 1972 and based on a BBC television programme of the same name, this is a very influential text on art criticism. Although the book and programme make the same case, they do so in slightly different ways, and the programme is well worth watching. For the photographer, the book has the advantage of putting photography in the context of western art. For the student new to critical theory, it has the advantage of being produced for a mass audience, and has as a central aim the de–mystification of art. These two points make it relatively easy to understand. A further advantage this book has is that many students have not had the opportunity to study photography, but have studied art, and so the book presents a logical progression for them when they start to study photography.
The television programme is divided into four sections and although the book is divided into seven chapters (three being made up solely of images), the book also covers four areas."
(John Berger, 1990)
John Berger (1990). 'Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series', Penguin
"The author is a modern figure, produced no doubt by our society insofar as, at the end of the middle ages, with English empiricism, French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual, or, to put it more nobly, of the 'human person' Hence it is logical that with regard to literature it should be positivism, resume and the result of capitalist ideology, which has accorded the greatest importance to the author's 'person'."
(Roland Barthes 1993)
Barthes, Roland (1993) "Image Music Text", Fontana Press.
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I sat down this morning at 7:30 to do a few posts and it was an hour later when I realized my mind was wandering. I was distracted by everything around me: business cards and bills on my desk and the newspapers and magazines scattered on the floor.
I've mentioned several times over the past few weeks that to prepare for a new Apartment Therapy project I've been reading old Home Cures and catching-up on past videos. It was during that study that I came across a conversation about collections and clutter, which was exactly what came to mind this morning as I scanned our space:
There's a difference between collections and clutter. Clutter is uncared for, taking up space you could use for something else. It's somehow putting a weight on your life. A collection is something that's cared for and gives enjoyment not only to you but to those people who come into contact with it.
The more I think about it, this is a great way to evaluate any possession you keep. Perhaps that object was once apart of a collection, and although it still is, because you no longer value that collection in the same way, it's now become clutter.
Is that how you feel about your collection of books? Your once treasured titles are now weighing you down, holding you back from freeing up space for new books that are full of new, fresh ideas.
Who doesn't want new, fresh ideas in their life? I certainly do! Consider this just another reason to figure out if that collection has become clutter.
Happy Friday, Friends! I hope everyone has something fun on tap for the weekend!
(Image: Landis Carey)


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There are many definitions of what excellence could look like for each dancer coming to #SDCCS2018. Maybe it is achieving a goal of practicing each day in the weeks leading up to the event, dancing clean dances, or making it through a sword dance being able to push yourself right to the last step!
SDCCS2018 wants to share your vision with everyone through a slideshow at the banquet. Send your submission of pictures or quotes to firstname.lastname@example.com now!


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Stop by Decatur High School next Wednesday, January 17th from 6:30p to 8:30p to chime in on the new school zone boundaries that will need to go into effect in 2019 to accomodate the change to K-2 elementary schools.
Here's the blurb from CSD…
City Schools of Decatur and the Elementary Boundary Planning Steering Committee are hosting a community meeting regarding the school zone boundaries for all of our elementary schools. This engagement session will be an opportunity for community members to participate in a facilitated discussion to provide valuable feedback to the Board of Education. In addition, the committee will post an online survey to solicit further input after the meeting.
For more info on the whole process, dig in HERE.


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Louet Madeline PDF
Madeline is a lacey scarf and hat set worked in Louet Euroflax Sport. Worn traditionally as a beret, or pushed back as a "floppy hat", this linen hat and scarf set is sure to make a style statement. This pattern contains charts.
This pattern is available as a PDF download.
Finished Measurements: Beret - 22" circumference; Scarf - 5" x 60"
Yarn Requirements: One skein of Louet Euroflax Sport for each piece
Needle(s): 2.5 mm (US 1.5) needle (16")
3.0 mm (US 2.5) needle (24 & 32") and DPNs
3.25 mm (US 3) needles (scarf only)
Gauge: 7 sts & 9 rnds = 1 inch in St st


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Fear is a hard thing for me to write about. Not because of of a fear of talking about fear but because I have so many fears! I am secretly full of anxiety everyday but I try my best to mask it. Fake it til you make it right? My worst fears center around the meaning of my life and the impact of my death. Two sides of the same coin really. I have written about this before. I think about death a lot, just about everyday. I worry I will die soon and I worry my life means nothing.
I'm afraid that if I died my girlfriend would be left alone and depressed. I'm afraid she would never recover from the loss of me. She keeps to herself a lot and doesn't reveal her feelings often. I'm afraid if she lost me she wouldn't have anyone to talk to. I'm afraid for her emotionally on so many levels. She needs me just as much as I need her. We take care of each other and I have tasked myself with being the keeper of her secrets. I know her better than anyone and I fear that if I died I would be taking a part of her with me.
I'm afraid that if I died my family would fall apart too. I worry about all of them so much and I worry that if I wasn't here there would be no one left to worry. I also do my best to help them out whenever I can. I'm there for them emotionally and financially, although they haven't needed me as much recently. I'm still here though and I worry about what would happen to them if they needed me and I wasn't here. I also try hard to be the peace keeper. In the past this has often backfired on me but in the end we almost always work it out. I try to act as a go between and talk to all parties involved and help them understand that we are family and we need each other.
I guess also afraid if I died I'd miss out on their lives. I'm also afraid to mourn anyone. I don't want to miss out on my niece and nephew growing up. I don't want to miss my little sisters wedding. I don't even want to miss my parents funerals. I am afraid of them dying too but I want to be there for my siblings when it happens. I want to be there to see my soon-to-be wife grow old. I want to be there to experience all the joys of life in my old age.
I also fear of finding out there was no point in me being on this earth at all. I'm afraid the I am the epitome of insignificance. What if I do die and no one really cares? What if I die and it's like I was never even here. I want to have some impact on the world. I want my family to remember me but I also hope that I have some affect of the world outside of my small circle of friends and family. Guess that is why I'm here and why one day I'd like to write a book. I want shout something to the world before I'm gone. My hope is someone will hear me, and maybe that person will even begin to think about the way they live and make a change. Maybe they will pass on my message and maybe a few people will change. That's my hope, but my fear is I am talking to a void and my life will have meant nothing.
And finally, I am afraid that my life actually does mean something. This clearly contradicts my fear of being insignificant but we all know the human mind often makes no sense at all. The saying "be careful what you wish for" comes to mind a lot. What if what I think I want isn't what I want at all? The drive to be something in this world is incredibly pressuring. If I mean something then I have to always be aware of what I say and do. My actions will live on after I am gone and I would hate to be remembered as anything less than good. If I mean something than I have to try hard everyday. If I mean something then I have to be something.
I deal with these fears everyday. I do my best to accept and overcome them. Worrying about things I cannot change doesn't help me at all. I have to just do my best to be good and make the best of the time I have with my loved ones. I have to try to be true to myself and make an impact wherever and whenever I can. Maybe I will get to live the life I want. A life of happiness and meaning. Or maybe I won't but I do think I have done enough good and seen enough joy that I could die happy.
Prompt via the Daily Post's Writing 101 course.


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With a beautiful Westfields Marriott outdoor wedding ceremony planned, strong winds moved their wedding inside where Bergerons Flowers did an incredible job transforming the ballroom space into a gorgeous ballroom ceremony. With dark blue and wine wedding colors and whimsical wedding details, this Virginia wedding was one for the books.
Photography: Kelcie Alane Photography | Ceremony Venue: Westfields Marriott | Reception Venue: Westfields Marriott | Event Planning: Designed Perfectly Events | Floral: Bergerons Flowers | Videography: Toy Box Studios | Wedding Cake: Amphora Bakery | Rentals: DC Rental | Linens: DC Rental | Hair: Best Face Forward | Makeup: Best Face Forward | Doughnuts: Duck Donuts | Other Services: Capitol Chocolate Fountains | Wedding Dress: Elegance by Roya | Groom's Attire: Jos. A. Bank | Bridesmaid Dresses: Bella Bridesmaids | Headpiece: Borrowed From Her Mother | Submitted via: Matchology


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I wonder how long we will use "Einstein" as a way to denote someone who's genius-level smart, or who thinks he is?
"Well, you're a real Einstein, aren't you."
It's mostly used sarcastically, or sardonically, or maybe ironically, could be facetiously (see also mordant, acerbic, trenchant…). I get those words mixed up all the time. Me not Einstein.
I wonder what name Einstein himself used when mocking some other smart aleck. "Well, you're a real ME, aren't you."
The days of using "Einstein" are numbered, I think. I don't know a single teenager who recalls the name. The closest they get is some remnant memory of an old guy sticking his tongue out. I'm convinced that's the way Einstein wanted to be remembered.
"Hawking". That seems to be the next logical replacement. "Well, you're a real Hawking, aren't you." I know. It rolls off the tongue like a spit ball. Not ready for primetime.
Maybe it's time for a woman to have this illustrious spot in popular conversation. My favourite female physicist (yes, I have a list of favourite physicists) is Lisa Randall. She can string me along for hours talking string theory.
"Well, you're a real Randall, aren't you." That's it. That's what I'm using at cocktail parties. I'll just have to deal with all the blank stares I get.
Next, we'll update "No shit, Sherlock". Perhaps "No shit, Angela Lansbury"?


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Free to Explore
Peru TourBack
Peru Tour
Enable Holidays can offer a scintillating tour whenever you want, through some of this hypnotizing country's most jaw-dropping sights and experiences.
Below is a day-by-day breakdown of the tour.
Key for meals included:
B: Breakfast / L: Lunch / D: Dinner
Day 1: Arrive in Lima, Peru
Once you touch down in Peru, you and the rest of your group will be picked up from the airport in an adapted vehicle and taken to your hotel. You can then take the afternoon to rest and recover from your journey. Before dinner, guests will be introduced to the tour and have their appetites whetted with details about the upcoming adventure.
Day 2: Lima
First stop: Peru's capital, a rich kaleidoscope of colonial architectural jewels, revered pre-Colombian sites, charming residential areas and vibrant shopping districts perched above the blue Pacific. Visit the Rafael Larco Herrera Museum and see the largest private collection of pre-Colombian Peruvian art in the world, after which you and your group will visit Lima's neighbourhoods that dot the Pacific coastline.
Day 3: Lima – Cusco – Sacred Valley
This morning, guests will have the opportunity to fly to Cusco (not included as part of tour) before visiting the Sacred Valley of the Incas. You and your group will then spend the afternoon relaxing after the day's travel, before being introduced to what you will do and see while visiting Sacred Valley.
Day 4: Sacred Valley
Begin your exploration of this extraordinary area of Peru, spending your first day visiting the Maras Salt Mines, where you will witness hundreds of glorious salt ponds from an accessible vantage point. You will also enjoy a panoramic view of Moray, which is an Incan agricultural experimental centre famous for its uniquely shaped irrigation terraces, and the fortress of Ollantaytambo, an Incan construction where six giant monoliths form the Temple of the Sun.
Day 5: Sacred Valley
Decode the mysteries of Andean Iconography while visiting the Amaru community. Amaru locals will prepare a lunch for your group before visiting the mostly-accessible Pisac Market and an exhilarating panoramic view of the Pisac ruins.
Day 6: Sacred Valley – Aguas Calientes – Sacred Valley
The time has come to experience what is perhaps the most renowned part of the tour: Machu Picchu! Take a train through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to see the legendary mountaintop ruins, lost for centuries in the jungle before being discovered in 1911. A private bus will transfer you and your group to the top of the ruins, where a guided tour will uncover the mysteries of the ruins.
Day 7: Sacred Valley
A day of relaxation and leisure, to recover from yesterday's adventure.
Day 8: Sacred Valley – Cusco
Today your group will visit the labyrinthine ruins of Qenqo (meaning "zigzag") and Puca Pucara ("red fortress"). Enjoy a guided visit and picnic lunch at nearby Sacsayhuaman ("speckled falcon"), which is the fortress above Cusco whose precise zigzags of massive stone remain unmoved after centuries.
Day 9: Cusco
Enjoy a private city tour around Cusco, visiting the cathedral, which is considered to have the best collection of colonial art from the Cusco school. Your group will also explore the Qoricancha (court of gold), also known as the "Temple of the Sun", the religious and political centre of Cusco during the Inca era.
Day 10: Cusco
Enjoy Cusco at your own pace with a day of leisure.
Day 11: Cusco-Lima
Transfer to the airport to board your flight to Lima (flight not included). We can provide assistance to connect with your international flight.
Tailor-made holidays – especially designed for disabled people
All properties personally audited and graded for wheelchair-users, slow walkers and people with limited mobility.


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Oh, I forgot to mention the final, definitive title of our little film: "Machinations."
And by the way, thanks to some technical glitches, I did not make the 6:30 dropoff at the nearby FedEx place. Still (after an interminable stream of profanity far more explicit than anything in "Quite Contrary"), I was able to work those out, and had plenty of time to dump a couple of copies out to tape and get them to the central FedEx facility by its 8:00 closing time. Or so I thought. I'll spare you all the details, but after seemingly innumerable delays, I ended up in the door just before 8:00 (and, in fact, someone coming up a couple of minutes later was denied entry).
As a little capper, the attendant's receipt printer wasn't working, so she said she'd just have to give me the handwritten receipt. Hey, I'm sympathetic, but as this is a competition entry, I'm going to need an officially printed and dated receipt. They had to run the thing three times before it'd work (and change paper rolls twice), but work it did.
Time-stamped 8:02 p.m., but the time's not the critical thing it's the date: October 23, 2006.
Our work is officially done.
Thanks again, everyone. Now I'm going to grab something to eat, have a drink and go to bed.
And despite all that, I can't wait to do it again. But next time I'll try not to cut it so close.
Good night, all.


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|Photos by Ken Marshall
Collage by Jim Swilley
"If love were a color, it'd be orange. Not because that's a romantic color, but because it's the sweetest. If you want to know how I feel about you, I just made some juice out of it. Grab a glass— a tall one."
― Jarod Kintz


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Arabesque Mirror Tiles - Houston Calligraphy
This morning, I calligraphed these arabesque, antiqued mirror tiles for an event in Dallas. I enjoy working with mirrors and glass as a medium for calligraphy as it is something a little bit different from the norm....like me. I have fallen in love with ribbons and fabrics from Silk & Willow (shown in the picture) so now I am looking at ways to incorporate their beautiful work with mine at every opportunity. Cheers!
Peace & Love while Slinging Ink®


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Operations Administrator
- Company
- Search Consultancy
- Location
- Watford, Hertfordshire
- Salary
- Up to £25000.00 per annum + great benefits package
- Posted
- 04 Jan 2019
- Closes
- 01 Feb 2019
- Ref
- Req/508878
- Contact
- Richard Hodges
- Function
- Administration
- Contract Type
- Contract
- Hours
- Full Time
Operations Administrator - Watford - £25,000 9 month contracts (great chance to go perm)
A fantastic opportunity working for one of the worlds leading professional service company
The role involves using various system functionality such as SAP, ePayables, general ledger, HSBC banking and excel. You will be responsible for inputting data in to the appropriate system and manual administration, with the minimum of errors and within the required deadlines. The team are also responsible for making payment, dealing with the Charities Aid Foundation in connection with payments and reconciling the account on behalf of the business.
Ultimately you will be considered a member of the Operations team and as such may be asked to support any of the teams therein (accounts payable, accounts receivable, Expenses & Billing)
Duties & Responsibilities:
* Process various types of data in relation to various SAP functionality. All tasks must be carried out in accordance with the agreed SLA's
* There will be general administration tasks such as dealing with telephone and e-mail queries via the departmental mailbox.
* Responsible for working with the Accounts Receivable team in regards to listing, posting and banking all cheques received by the business..
* Adhoc work as and when the business or line manager requires.
* Liaise with the line manager at all times to ensure that workload is time managed, alerting manager to time constraints and conflicts.
The Skills Required:
* Excellent team skills and enjoys working closely with other people.
* Would need to have good communication skills, both written and verbal. The person would also need to be numerate, and possess good keyboard skills and have an excellent eye for detail.
* Organised and have excellent time management skills.
* Self motivated with a willingness to learn and also to have a flexible approach to work.
* Excellent key board skills and an understanding of Bookkeeping is essential
How to apply:
If you have the required skills for the role as detailed above then please apply via the link on this page. If you have any questions please contact Richard Hodges at Search Consultancy.
Search is an equal opportunities recruiter and we welcome applications from all suitably skilled or qualified applicants, regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/beliefs, sexual orientation or age


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Important: The POPLINE website will retire on September 1, 2019. Click here to read about the transition.
Your search found 1 Results
Implications of changing age structure for current and future development planning.
Bangkok, Thailand, United Nations, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific [ESCAP], 1987. 10 p. (Population Research Leads No. 25)The Asian and Pacific region's decline in fertility and mortality over the past 2 decades has resulted in large shifts in the age composition of national populations, which affects planning in nearly every social and economic sector. For the region as a whole, the crude birthrate is estimated to have remained at 40/1000 population until about 1970, declining to 27/1000 in the 1980-85 period. This rapid decline in fertility has complicated population policy formulation and the integration of population factors into development planning. The demonstration that government programs could alter demographic trends meant that population no longer could be treated simply as an exogenous variable in development planning. The combination of previously high fertility and declining mortality, which particularly affected the survival rates of infants and children, resulted in a small increase in the proportion of the population of the region below age 15, from 37% in 1950 to 41% in 1970. By 1985, the latter proportion dropped to 35% because of declining fertility. Due to the previously high fertility and more recent declines, the proportion of the population in working-age groups increased from 56% in 1975 to 61% in 1985 and is projected to reach 65% by 2000. Providing employment for this rapidly increasing population of labor-force age is a major challenge for countries of the region over the next several decades. For those few countries in the Asian and Pacific regions who had low birth and death rates by 1960, the current issue is demographic aging. As the rate of population growth per se decreases in importance as a planning goal, other aspects of population, such as spatial distribution, take on more significance. The rising marriage age and organized family planning programs were the primary causes of fertility decline in the region, although the decline was limited in South Asia where large pockets of high fertility (a total fertility rate in the range of 5-7) remain. The contribution of rising marriage age to further fertility decline is approaching the limit, except in the countries of South Asia where the marriage age continues to be below 20 years. In most of the countries of the region, the potential also exists for a 2nd generation "baby boom" resulting from a changing age structure. This would in turn slow down the pace of fertility decline unless compensated by a rapid fall in fertility of younger married women caused by successful implementation of family planning programs and other associated socioeconomic changes. Aside from the straightforward implications of demographic change, changes in age structure also imply changes in consumption patterns. Thus, planning for production, consumption, investment, and distribution always should incorporate changes in age structure.


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El Paso Ex-Trader Pleads Guilty in Trading Probe
HOUSTON -- A former El Paso Corp. executive pleaded guilty Thursday to reporting false trading data in order to manipulate natural-gas prices.
Todd Geiger, 39 years old, who traded natural gas for Houston-based El Paso, pleaded guilty in federal district court here to one count of reporting false trading data. He could face a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.


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Gold Standard Financial Wellness Company provides financial wellness programs in the workplace. Financial stress is impacting people's lives and that stress is coming to work with them. Workers admit to spending up to 4 hours/week dealing with financial issues. Business owners can increase employee productivity, morale, and loyalty be implementing a financial wellness program for their staff. Gold Standard will work to design programming centered around the needs of the organization and their people.
There are no current reviews for your Resources


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The health benefits of this fruit can never be overstated. Why? Because this powerful commodity acts extremely effective in improving your life, your appearance and your health. Let's start from the smell of lemon. There`s a reason why lemon smell associated with "clean, and "fresh. Lemon is a natural antiseptic and lemon juice is powerful cleaning agent.
The Beautiful Lemon
Lemon Juice is a natural cleanser of the scalp and many people use it to treat some skin diseases. It also dries acne helps in whitening dark spots.
Cut the lemon in half. Rub elbows, knees and calluses, Lemon will soften all thickened skin areas. Lemon juice can be used for whitening of nails, freshen your breath and calm your aching feet.
Lemon for health
Lemon juice is a good treatment for many conditions including arthritis, indigestion and rheumatism. Drinking lemonade daily will rid the body of toxins and prevent kidney stones from forming. Lemons are used to treat diseases like cholera and malaria because their juice helps purify the blood.
We all know lemons are rich in vitamin C but did you know about the many other vitamins and minerals they contain? These include vitamin A, vitamin E, copper, chromium, potassium, iron and magnesium. Like most other fruits, lemons are high in antioxidants, which are proven to fight the signs of aging.
- Your room will smell wonderful. Lemons work better than an aerosol spray or room freshener that will just unload chemicals into your environment. Get a freshly scented room by slicing open lemons and leaving them in a bowl overnight. You'll never want to use those toxic sprays again.
- You'll breathe better. If you suffer from asthma, or you have a cold or allergies, breathing in the lemon-filled air all night will improve your breathing. You'll awake with a clear head and a clear throat.
- You'll awake refreshed. If you're someone who hates to wake up and often feels sluggish in the morning, that will end once you inhale the lemony perfume. Lift the bowl of lemons to your face and breathe in. You'll feel an instant hit of energy and well-being that's far better, and far better for you, then a jolt of caffeine or a sugar-filled energy drink.
It's been shown that seeing something bright and cheerful first thing in the morning instantly improves your mood. A bowl of sunny lemons is just the ticket to lift your gray morning spirits and make you take on the day with a smile.
It's time to stop treating the lowly lemon as just a garnish or a cooking ingredient. This citrusy ball of goodness deserves pride of place in your home. Go grab a bag of lemons today and put them to use making your life healthier, happier and more beautiful.


text: Laser Quest (map) 9950 Macleod Trail Southeast Calgary, AB, T2J 3K9 Canada ✚ gCal ✚ iCal Are you ready for a night full of LASER TAG grade 5&6?!? We will be meeting at Laser Quest at 6:45. Make sure to bring $20 so you can join in on the fun and enjoy some delicous pizza! Pick-up will be at Laser Quest at 9pm. RSVP Grade 5&6 Offsite | Laser Tag Parents Name * Parents Name First Name Last Name Kids Names * Phone * Phone (###) ### #### Email Address * Thank you!! See you at Laser Quest at 6:45. If you have any questions please contact email@example.com


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Awaken to the call of the African Fish Eagle for another glorious day at the charming Norman Carr Cottage situated along the sandy beaches on the southern shores of Lake Malawi. This idyllic romantic retreat is right on the beach tucked away under a conopy of large indigenous trees, a perfect hideaway of sun drenched beaches and turquoise waters.
Our renowned cuisine offers full catered home cooked meals that are enjoyed in the open beach dining area overlooking the sparkling waters of Lake Malawi
The rooms are spacious and airy with our signature open air showers, king-size beds and coffee/tea making facilities.
Inclusive day's activities offer canoeing and our morning snorkeling trip and the feeding of the fish eagles from our steel launch ' Bonnie Alfie'
An evening cruise with a chilled glass of wine to watch the magical sunset over the lake marks the end of another enchanted 'Warm Heart of Africa' day
The Norman Carr Cottage consists of 4 executive suites and two courtyard rooms. The rate for the front rooms is $135 per person sharing, and $165 for a single.
The courtyard rooms are set back a bit but one can still see the lake. The rate in these rooms is $120 per person sharing and $145 for a single.
All rates above include full board and boating as mentioned.


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Sincere thanks & congrats to the Manhattan Assoc. of Cabarets for a fantastic job on this year's MAC Awards - always fun to be a presenter & Sony Hall is beautiful. Other news: a brand new show with Those Girls opens 5/4/19 at The Beechman, Carnegie Hall in Spring, a solo spot at 54 Below in Summer & Pangea and back to the Beach hopefully in Fall,
so please stay tuned for fun and frolics!
Please weigh in on what you think, what you'd like to see more of, etc. This site's gonna feature info about my solo & producing mack-inations, as well as some shout outs on coming events with talented pals you should know about. For all the scoop on what's up with my vocal group Those Girls, visit http://www.thosegirlssing.com
"There are no bad ideas - just good ideas that went horribly wrong." - A. Lincoln (or maybe Ghandi or Brendan Fraser)
Karen is an eight-time MAC Award winner for vocal performance and songwriting, as well as for her current vocal harmony work in NYC pop vocal group Those Girls (thosegirlssing.com), and for 12+ years prior with talented singer/songwriter Michael Holland as half of the pro vocal duo that brought the acclaimed & ridiculous retropop series "Gashole!" to the world. LGNY says "in addition to her sense of humor, she has the kind of voice one longs to hear…her flawless placement, appealing style and dead on performance are electrifying!" and The Village Voice echoed "Mack can sock anything with a rock beat out of the ballpark." Karen was part of the 25th Anniversary Gala for the NY Pops at Carnegie Hall, Handel's "Messiah Rocks - A Joyful Noise" at NJPAC.and was featured in the UK premier of "Brenda Bly, Teen Detective", and "Build Me A Bridge - The Music of Miller and Hammonds" at the Bridewell Theater in London's West End. Club appearances include Town Hall, Symphony Space, B.B. Kings, The Bottom Line, Caroline's, The Fez, The Bitter End, and numerous college keggers. As a songwriter, she was acknowledged for her debut CD "Take That" (Miss Prim Records) in a cover story by Show Business Weekly on promising writers on the rise, in prestigious, well-established company that included Julie Gold (From A Distance), Amanda McBroom (The Rose), and John Bucchino (Grateful).
Always drawn to rich and complex vocal harmony, Karen was a performing member and co-managing partner of DOO-WA-ZOO, a five-part contemporary a cappella group with a pop/rock repertoire of original compositions and creative covers back before Pentatonix ruled the aca-earth. Featured on the nationally broadcast VH1 special "Takin' It to the Streets", the vocal band headlined at major venues on the east coast such as The Bottom Line, The Bitter End, The Ironhorse, New England Conservatory, Princeton University, Penn State University, and the 92nd St. Y, NYC. All members of the group were contributing writers and arrangers. Their independently produced EP "Onomatopoeia" is considered among the best in contemporary a cappella by TAXI Independent A&R (LA), as well as the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA), and continues to enjoy national and international airplay.
And if you don't care so much about music, but are into quality baked goods, be sure to friend her on FB before October when her daily baking and posting for National Cookie Month begins (yes, that's a real thing.)
My first CD produced by the ever awesome Michael Holland back when I fancied myself an eclectic acoustic rock star (also avail. digitally at iTunes & CDbaby.com, but from me you get old school "hold it in your hand" and maybe a surprise or 2...)
Weill Recital Hall - 154 West 57th St, New York, NY 10019
+ Event Details
THOSE GIRLS join a prestigious line-up of NYC's finest singers in a special evening of Jerome Kern to benefit the Mabel Mercer Foundation (yes, it's officially our Carnegie Hall debut!) Click here to get tickets.
Weill Recital Hall - 154 West 57th St, New York, NY 10019
19 Carter Street, Berlin, Massachusetts 01503
+ Event Details
Part of the 19 Carter Music Series - Hope any folks near Berlin MA (just west of Boston) will save the date. For tickets, please email the venue at firstname.lastname@example.com
19 Carter Street, Berlin, Massachusetts 01503
Oakside Bloomfield Cultural Center 240 Belleville Ave. Bloomfield, NJ
+ Event Details
A lovely afternoon of acoustic music at the beautiful Oakside Bloomfield Cultural Center - part of their concert series curated by Corinna Sowers-Adler & we're joined at the piano by Steven Ray Watkins.
Oakside Bloomfield Cultural Center 240 Belleville Ave. Bloomfield, NJ
54 Below - downstairs at 254 W. 54th St. NYC
+ Event Details
I've got a solo guest spot & it's Pride weekend! A celebrated New York event since 2010, the BroadwayWorld and Bistro Award-winning series Sondheim Unplugged features some of Broadway and cabaret's most dynamic voices, accompanied by piano only, delving into the musical world of Broadway's master composer. Past special guests have included original Sondheim cast members such as Len Cariou, Jim Walton, Donna McKechnie, Chip Zien & more – so you never know who might drop in. Sondheim Unplugged is hosted by series creator Phil Geoffrey Bond, who will fill the audience in on Sondheimien facts, history & assorted tidbits of theatrical lore! For tickets: https://54below.com/events/sondheim-unplugged-2/
54 Below - downstairs at 254 W. 54th St. NYC
Don't Tell Mama, 343 West 46th St. NYC
+ Event Details
Join us as we ride shotgun with Tanya Moberly & Mark Janas at one of NYC's most popular & multi-award winning open mics, now at Don't Tell Mama. Sign up at 7pm. https://markjanasthesalon.com
Don't Tell Mama, 343 West 46th St. NYC
"It's a sound you want to hear fronting a first-rate band, and that's just what she's got behind her... Mack can knock anything with a rock beat out of the ballpark... Besides being naturally funny, she's so generous she passes out song sheets that supply songwriters' names and their Web sites."
D. Finkle - The Village Voice
"In addition to her sense of humor, she has the kind of voice one longs to hear... her flawless placement, appealing style and dead on performance are electrifying... she'll give you chills she's that good!"
C. Byrne, LGNY
"Like bolt lightning, she electrified the stage from opening to encore... she sounds like a combination of Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks - the perfect vocal instrument for rock, country, and all points in between. Can this gal sing!"
J. Hoglund - Backstage
"I'll say it up front: Do not miss this show! Mack's voice has a precision and purity of tone that's nothing short of stunning... It's a satisfying breath of fresh musical air."
John Michael Koroly - Whitney Radio/WVOX
"A sterling instrument! She has unerring good taste in her musical choices and wisely lets the lyric speak for her in simple and understated interpretations."
David Hurst, Show Business
"Mack's voice is a thing of beauty with a rich, lush, inviting tone that somehow works equally well belting rock standards or performing the most frivolous of the era's love ballads." Mona Finston - Cabaret Hotline
Do you have questions, want to book a show, or collaborate on a new piece? Reach out and let's make it happen!


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A comprehensive course aimed at everyone. First Aid is the initial assistance or treatment given to someone who is injured or suddenly taken ill, this course describes the sequence of priorities for giving first aid, providing essential information on how to deal with emergencies, and how to look after yourself, it also covers the steps involved in assessing and treating a casualty:
Chapters: General Injuries; Burns, Bone, Joint and Muscle Problems; Medical Conditions, and how to Attend Casualties, plus assessment paper based on various scenarios.
This is a self-paced module which also acts as a reference guide to general first aid practices.
On successful completion of this course you will be able to print your own CPD accredited certificate via your courses home page.


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Loss and damage (L&D)/
The term refers to the losses and damages that will occure despite efforts to reduce emissions of GHGs and to adapt to climatic changes. A work programme was established at COP16 in Cancun in order to consider different ways to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Loss and damage was a critical issue that dominated the negotiations at COP19 in Warsaw, with talks on compensation to countries experiencing climate impacts they cannot adapt to. This lead to the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with climate change impacts (see WIM).
Read more about loss and damage on:
www.climatechangenews.com (only mentioned)


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Read the 350 contributions to the Green Paper "Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries"
The 350 contributions are classified by type of author in the following four categories: Public authorities; Organisations active at European or national level; Other organisations; Individuals.The Commission will publish a detailed analysis of this consultation in the autumn. The reactions by European institutions will be put online as soon as they are available. The contributions
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ιντερνετ, δίκτυα & τηλεπικοινωνίες


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I was very happy to be invited as a speaker to the 2016 DGLR Software Safety Workshop. In this workshop, avionics experts discuss experiences and advances in software safety. I presented STAMP/STPA as a general approach and our extension to it for connecting it to verification activities such as test case generation and model checking.
My slides are below:


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4 Health Lessons from Asian Diets
South Korean women are going to outlive everyone. This is based on a recent study, which predicted that women from South Korea will have a life expectancy of 90.8 years old by 2030. One of the reasons of their longevity has something to do with their lower body-mass index and blood pressure compared to most Westerners. Meanwhile, some residents of Okinawa in Japan also tend to live up to 100 years old and longer.
As opposed to most western countries, diets from these Asian nations rely heavily on vegetables and the use of simple cooking methods such as steaming and boiling. Here's a peek of their diets and the lessons about healthy eating which Americans can learn from them.
More Vegetables, Less Meat
A South Korean meal is usually full of vegetable side dishes such as seasoned soybean sprouts, spinach, cucumber, and eggplants. The kimchi, fermented cabbage, is a real staple in the country. For locals in Okinawa, their diets involve plenty of vegetables, whole grains, tofu, and seaweed.
Hot, Hot, Hot
Soup is a filling, nutrient- dense food. Most Asian soups are a combination of vegetables and bone broth that make them rich in vitamins and minerals. For hard-working Americans who do not have much time boiling bones for broth, a beef soup base is an alternative.
Drinking tea is a practice in some Asian countries. Drinking a hot beverage 30 minutes before a meal improves a person's digestive abilities.
Less Fat in Cooking
South Koreans use a minimal amount of fat when cooking. Instead, they roast or broil their meats and steam or boil their vegetables. If they have to stir-fry, they usually use sesame oil instead of animal-base cooking oil.
A Fishy Diet
According to The Washington Post, eating fish among Americans is still an underdeveloped culture. In fact, between 2009 and 2013, almost half of all edible seafood in America went to waste.
Okinawan residents love their squid, and a lot of other Asian countries have fish firmly integrated into their diets. Seafood such as squid and octopus are rich in taurine that helps lower cholesterol and blood pressure while fish contains oils that are good for the body.
Asians have cracked the secret of longevity with their vegetable-heavy diets and taking the time to prepare a filling meal using the right ingredients.


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Finding Log Cabin Kits
Things You Won't Like About Log Cabin Kits and Things You Will
All the kits include a wide selection of unique floor plans and roofing styles. You may pick the basic kinds that are less expensive than the complete kits. Nearly all such cabin kits are simple to assemble and are incredibly functional. Log they are available in different types. Otherwise, the very best method is to find a log cabin kit, which may also be expensive. Once you opt to get a log cabin kit, you will come across umpteen choices. You can find a lot of log cabin kits online so do some investigating to choose the one which is suitable for your needs.
Log cabin kits now are widely more preferable to the people all around the world for their advantages. In fact, they were introduced to cut down the cost and efforts of customers. What's more, log cabin kits and other building materials can be readily found on the web.
Log cabin homes are getting more and more popular and desired. If you would like a home that will endure for many generations, search for reputable custom made log home builders who can make confident you that your new log cabin home will be durably built. Another good thing about log cabin homes is that there are many different log home packages which you can pick from.
Finding Log Cabin Kits
Log cabins are usually smallish houses that are made from logs. Log cabin may also be an aesthetic feature, which increases the attractiveness of the garden but appropriate care needs to be taken to maintain that look and feel. Therefore as an investor, you must look at making cabins that are simple to assemble at home. The first reason behind preferring the easy to develop little cottages is they also serve well as cabin kits Home Depot. A small size cabin won't ever cost you a fortune but don't compromise quality because of costs.
But What About Log Cabin Kits?
Usually, 2-3 people will be necessary to assemble the cabin, and it can be erected and prepared to go in about a day. To summarise, log cabins got much popularity for its attractive design, access to materials and affordable coast. Some log cabins have verandas, eaves, and finals so that you will need to learn your requirements and wants. Initially, very modest log cabins were constructed employing the fundamental tools to check their utility.
As you are putting the beds into your cabin, you are going to want to buy ones that will present your cottage a terrific rustic appearance, and ones that will fit in with the general subject of your cabin. Make sure the land on which you're going to construct the log cabin, can hold the weight of the structure. It is going to also be quite helpful on your part if you are going to be able to see the way the log cabins are built really. Acquiring a comfortable and small log cabin won't cost much as having the huge ones.
Even in the event, the cabin is provided with a base coat you always ought to apply your own to strengthen it. Keep in mind a log cabin is a very long-term investment. Because log cabins are regarded as stable, dependable and environmentally friendly, log cabins are frequently used in the branding for different businesses and organisations. Even the materials, because it will only be used for a little log cabin is not going to be many, and would therefore not be that costly. A small log cabin is ideal as a second house in the rural places, somewhere to get a breather, to escape from all of the hustle and bustle of healthy life, a relaxing place to rest for some time.
There are some log cabins available on the market with distinct functionalities. Apart from being unique and beautiful, they are suitable for investment purposes, because they are always in demand and you can earn a right amount upon selling them. In the current fast-moving world, having a log cabin stipulates an opportunity to develop into a designer and to beautify your bedroom, walls, and living room on your own. The sort of log cabin you would like to build may also affect your cost; you will need to check whether you require a custom made hand created log cabin or randomly sized logs from the local mill. Appropriate plot selection is vital for constructing a log cabin. Of course, when you need to build your log cabin, you ought to be very sure in regards to the requirements for the log cabin.


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The 100 best free online games on PC
Thanks to its shareware past, the entirety of the first (and best) episode of the first Doom is playable in your browser. I shouldn't need to give you a rundown of what to expect here: it's Doom. There are demons, doors, switches and keycards, all placed around a sprawling Mars base full of corridors and secrets. The only downside to this browser-based resurrection is that it doesn't support mouse-look, so, on top of a quality FPS, you're also getting a history lesson in how cumbersome shooter controls could be.
The Seven Day FPS competition was created to keep first person shooting interesting. Entrants were given a week to create eccentric, experimental, and high-concept ideas, without a theme to restrict them. It was the perfect breeding ground for a game like SuperHot, which took the tired FPS cliche of Bullet Time and, through a simple twist on the formula, created something completely new. To quote the game's opening, "it's about time".
The elevator pitch is equally pithy: time moves when you do. Stand still and the scene freezes. Walk, strafe or aim, and it starts back up. Instantly it transforms the focus of the men-shooting genre. Playing SuperHot isn't about reflex and reaction, it's about precision and choreography. It's these same principles that underpin every action film, but that games frequently miss in the panicked throes of real-time firefights. It's short but, thanks to Kickstarter, a full, commercial release is also being worked on.
Dojo of Death
A dojo seems like an eminently sensible place for fighting to break out, although it must be hell getting all that blood out of those nice wooden floors. Dojo of Death, then. It's a one-button, entirely mouse-driven little timewaster about a guy fond of chopping people to bits. Not a butcher, no, but a hyper-quick ninja beset from all sides by enemies. Click in the direction you happen to be pointing at to dart forward with your sword drawn and slash any baddie ninjas into ninja ham. Occasionally baddie bow-wielding ninjas emerge from the adjoining room, who can turn you into fine paste from far away. Dojo of Death is endless, and tough, and like many of the best endless-tough games, your first instinct on death will be to retry. And retry. And retry again. It's unlikely you'll remember it a week from now, but at least it kept you from finishing that super-important spreadsheet—and that's really all you could ever want from a browser game.
The Last Tango
The winner of the New Mexico Game Jam, The Last Tango is a game about rhythm espionage survival. I'd have called it Dance Dance Execution, but the principle remains the same. You play as two spies, dancing through a variety of deadly locations. They'll pirouette past traps, dodge under attacks, and take down enemies with an elegant twirl. And a gun.
Each move is performed to the beat, so as the levels get more complicated, you'll queue up actions and watch as they're gracefully executed. Step right, shoot left, step left, spin, shoot up and to the right, get decapitated by a ninja. As the dance becomes increasingly hazardous, timing and order become essential for success.
Rhythm Doctor
Part of this year's IGF Student Showcase, Rhythm Doctor takes the style and irreverence of rhythm games, but features a much stricter margin of error. Your job—as a trainee doctor for the NHS—is to hit a button on every seventh beat of a patient's heart rate monitor. That button press will only register if it's within 0.02 seconds of the target, so precision is key.
Each patient introduces a different quirk to the rhythmic counting. Certain beats may be silent, forcing you to keep your own time. Other times, multiple blips will appear. To further complicate matters, some patients contain boss viruses. An early one distorts your connection to the monitor, forcing you to keep perfect time as the music warps, skips and rewinds.
In rhythm games, the music is both your adversary and your reward. That principle is taken to the extreme in Soundodger, where the notes fire a wave of spikes towards your cursor. Get hit and the music distorts—skipping forward a few seconds like a speeding record. You lose points for this, which is a shame, but the greater punishment is destroying the excellent soundtrack, featuring songs from composers like Disasterpeace and Lifeformed. If you like the free game, an expanded version is available on Steam .
Brawlin' Sailor
Major Bueno are back! Brawlin' Sailor is another beautiful/hilarious short story of a game, this time traversing into sidescrolling beat-'em-up territory. There's no challenge to the combat; you're playing for the story, which takes about five glorious minutes to see through.
Like a number of free horror games, Silhouette doesn't rely on high-tech visuals to generate its scares. It's a two-player killer vs. victim game set in a dark house. Control shifts between the knife-wielding killer and their unarmed victim, allowing for turns of real-time movement that shorten as the killer and the victim draw closer together. The increasingly fraught pacing does a great job of inspiring mounting panic in both players, toying with the same manipulative patterns seen across horror cinema, from the Jaws soundtrack to the murder famous murder scenes of Psycho. An effective horror experiment that's worth a go if you can get a couple of horror fans around your keyboard.
My Friend Pedro
My Friend Pedro provides a compelling case for why you shouldn't follow the advice of a talking banana. It's a 2D action platformer with a heavy debt to Max Payne—although mercifully, this hallucinating protagonist is less prone to questioning his worth as a human being. Instead, he leaps, flip and rolls about each level, using his slow-mo ability to avoid bullets and unload an unnervingly accurate volley of return fire. It's a short game, but one packed full of opportunities to show off your balletic bullet time skills.
Ratz Instagib
Ratz Instagib is a browser-based mulitplayer shooter that distills the pinpoint aiming and unlikely acrobatics of Quake and Unreal Tournament into their purest, simplest form. There is one weapon in the game: a railgun of unlimited range that kills anything in one hit. Also you're all rats for some reason.
The setup means that everyone meets on an even playing field. The only guarantee of success is to be better at hitting a small and speedy target than that target is at hitting you. In a map full of FPS experts, lives can last for seconds as you desperately cull as many players as possible before a laser pierces your tiny frame.
Pale Machine
A "playable music video" from Ben Esposito, one of the Arcane Kids, and musician bo en. Interaction in these happy few minutes is limited to tilting objects with the arrow keys or stretching your fingers—well, stretching somebody's fingers—with the keyboard, but it's just enough to make you feel part of this bouncy, brightly coloured world.
Critical Annihilation
Critical Annihilation is a simple twin-stick shooter-style game about killing an endless wave of voxel aliens with guns, rockets and, for some reason, an AC-138 gunship. With all those resources, you think you'd be able to escape your perilous surroundings. Alas, no. You're in this through to the bitter end.
Pandemic 2
We're always being asked to save the world, so it's nice when we're given the chance to destroy instead. In Pandemic 2 you design and unleash an virus, parasite or bacterium, and watch as it spreads through the world. The trick is to create a disease that can infect as many people as possible without being detected. As soon as there's even the hint of a problem, hospitals will spring into action, borders will close, and Madagasca will become an impenetrable haven for the last remnants of humanity.
GeoGuessr builds a compelling game of investigative orienteering by using Google Maps' Street View to drop you randomly into the world, then asking you to locate yourself. Sometimes it's obvious—a sign or street name allowing you to hone in on your temporary home. Other times you'll be stranded in a barren landscape. Sightseeing has never been so competitive.
Ichabot Crane
You're a robot. With a detachable head. And in the ga...well, you get the idea. What distinguishes this wonderful puzzle game from the dozens of similar first-person puzzlers doing the rounds is how you use that head to advance. Left-clicking chucks it out in front of you, at which point the perspective switches to that of the robo-bonce now sitting on the floor. In a stroke of genius, you can head-hop forward with repeated left clicks, while simultaneously moving your headless robo-body with WASD. It's beautiful. It's also the closest I've ever come to being Bender from Futurama—until work on my robot exoskeleton is finished at least.
Play it online here
It's minigolf, only taken to a charming extreme. In Wonderputt, you're skipping over lily pads, avoiding UFOs, and putting across asteroid craters. The presentation is delightful. You can see the entire course at the start, but with each successful hole it shifts and alters, revealing new sections and transforming in unexpected ways. It takes the simple fact that mini-golf is fun, and enhances it through a lavish series of cutesy animations.
I Am Level
Oh wow, this is wonderful. I Am Level is a Spectrum-style game with some canny enhancements—there's a Metroidvania-like world structure, alternate costumes and even a leveling system—but at its core this is a ruggedly old-fashioned platformer with one hell of a chiptune soundtrack. The twist here is that it's also a pinball game; you're tilting the levels, and activating paddles, rather than moving the game's spherical hero directly.
You move a single icon in on an grid, solving tile-based combat challenges to progress to the next stage. What makes Ending stand out from innumerable other puzzle games is its randomly-generated roguelike mode, where you explore a dungeon that works on the same principle.
Holy wow. Kingdom is a tower defence game, sorta - but before you take to your keyboard to moan about that, you should know that it's one of the loveliest I've played in a long time. You're a king on a kingly horse trying to survive for ten nights in a small village/camp in the wilderness. To help you in your quest to continue existing, you can employ wandering vagabonds by dropping money at their feet - then give them a weapon/tool by supplying the appropriate stall. This is all a lot of fun, but I love Kingdom for the astonishing pixel art, sound design and atmosphere, and I have a feeling you'll love it for those very same reasons too.
They Love You
It's adorable top-down puzzle game time. They Love You is another "play as a cube navigating through a maze past some obstacles" game, of which about 300 seem to be released every day. So, what makes this one special? Partly it's the simple but deceptively clever concept. Partly it's the character and charm that exist in the basic shapes. Mostly it's because it's absolutely infuriating.
Desktop Tower Defence
A moreish maze-building game that turns a tiny patch of desk into a warzone. Increasingly powerful creeps swarm in from the left. Slow them with ice rays, blast them with missiles and craft a long intestinal catacomb of death out of gun turrets to ensnare and destroy them.
With its clean, evocative art style and strangely ICO-esque ambient sound design, Ditto is a bit of a departure from Nitrome's usual day-glo arcade games. Your catty, triangular little hero has a shadowy doppelganger, who emerges when you're parallel to a big orange mirror thing in the middle of most screens. Said doppelganger mimics every action you take—only in reverse.
Puzzles, as you might imagine, involve keeping track of the goings-on in (at least) two parallel worlds; to succeed you'll need to frequently switch your attention from one to the other, taking advantage of the occasional inconsistency to clamber your way into the next stage. Smart, challenging, atmospheric, bally adorable stuff.
Untrusted is an ascii game about reaching the exit—though there is a little more to it than that. These exits are blocked off initially, the only way to remove or reposition them being to delve into the source code and reprogram the game. If you don't know anything about programming (like, er, me), this bit may prove rather difficult, but even despite my code-hating brain I managed to fumble my way through some of the game. This is not only a seriously clever project, it may also be a great way to get started with Javascript, should you be looking to wade into those codey waters.
Where is my Beard
I generally keep my beard just under, and on, my chin, which makes it easy to find when a puzzle game asks me to locate it for reasons that are best left unscrutinised. In Where is My Beard you have to make a bunch of unbearded shapes more hirsute, by engineering it so that they touch bearded ones—face fungus being contagious, as you know. You do this by dropping them into the scene and pressing the play button; if you've aligned said shapes correctly, they'll bash into each other with PHYSICS and set off a wonderfully beardy chain reaction. Not one for pogonophobes, obviously, but for everyone else this is a lavishly illustrated slice of hairy silliness.
A Dark Room creators Doublespeak games are masters at making engaging, low-octane games you can play in your browser while doing other stuff, and Gridland cements that. It's a match-3, but it's really a game of building and survival: by day you match bricks or wood or stones or paper, to gather materials needed to construct a little village at the top of the screen. Neat little elements of this phase include the need to match corn to feed your heroic worker, and the way he or she will lug blocks and hammer nails when milestones are met. It's a lightly animated game, but these cute actions act as a lovely reward for matching three or more things together.
When night comes, the colours invert and rats, zombies, skeletons and the like emerge as you connect their relevant icons on the game board. In this phase you're merely trying to survive, by matching swords (to attack), shields (for defence), and using the occasional found potion to supply yourself with an item or to clear the screen of baddies. Either these bits are too easy, or the difficulty gradient is too shallow, but my main concern here was getting back to the building phase in order to finish construction of my outstanding hamlet. Gridland doesn't appear to have quite as many surprises as A Dark Room—and, crucially, it's not a game that will play itself while you check Twitter—but it's an unassumingly lovely and charming hybrid that will eat a good chunk of your weekend regardless. Soz!
The theme of the most recent Ludum Dare was "connected worlds". Superdimensional won the competition with its clever dimension-switching structure. Your task is to indirectly guide a ball by using your mouse to expand pocket dimensions. Each has different properties that must be quickly transitioned between to avoid danger.
Cursors is a multiplayer browser game about cooperation – and frequently, the lack of it. You play as a mouse cursor trapped in a maze filled with other mouse cursors. These are the game's other players, and your progress is reliant on their actions.
A standard level might contain a number of coloured squares; for example, a blue, red and green one. The blue and red squares have numbers on them, the green square is blocked off by blue and red barriers, and each square is separated by a maze. To complete the level, cursors need to make their way to the green square.
The solution is to send one cursor each to the red and blue squares, where they can click the required number of times to lift the barriers – opening the path to the green square for those players waiting in the middle. The problem is that, once opened, the barrier will reappear before the two other cursors can return to the centre.
So what do you do? Stay bullishly in the centre, waiting for another player to take action? Take the selfless path in the hope that someone will later arrive and open the way for you? This is the central question of the Cursors experiment.
Puzzle Script
Puzzle Script isn't a game so much as an "open-source HTML5 puzzle game engine", but it's already been used to make a bunch of interesting games , including a Closure demake, a couple of Sokoban titles, a more cerebral version of Pac-Man and loads more. My favourite so far is Dungeon Janitor , which sees you desperately trying (and most likely desperately failing) to mop up a particularly troublesome puddle of slime.
You're a square floating in a black void, and there are three types of objects in the environment: stars, which stick to you; cuboid objects which do nothing, and jellyfish-like creatures which move towards you and electrocute you on contact. Then, very quickly, you meet another square like you, only smaller. It's sleeping. You poke at it, and it wakes up—and hoots at you. Hello! He then follows you around, tooting curiously at the objects you find, and experimentally butting at them. Companion is a five-minute experiment—and a successful demonstration—of how to build a relationship between a player and an NPC.
Neptune's Pride
More of a strategy game than a puzzle game, really, but the excellent Neptune's Pride doesn't quite slot into the other sections but still definitely deserves a mention. Essentially, it's How To End A Friendship In One Easy Strategy Game. The action is simple: move ships to conquer planets, then build an economy on those planets. The glacial pace ensures that as you set nefarious plans in motion against your best friend, they have hours to marvel at your cruelty.
Reprisal is an RTS god-game. You hover around a square island, indirectly controlling your subjects by placing waypoints and using totems to control the elements with earth-changing powers. If your immediate reaction is "so, it's Populous then..." well, yes. It's called Reprisal for a reason. It's a stylish pixel art tribute, with a great chiptune soundtrack underneath.
No-one Has To Die
You play as a courier, making an innocent delivery to an almost certainly evil corporation when a fire breaks out. As automated systems lock you alone in the reception, the building's IM chat fills with staff members stuck on the floors above.
Being the only person with direct access to the building's safety controls, it's your job to seal off doors, activate sprinklers, and direct the members of staff away from their certain death.
Here's the thing: despite the title, in every level someone has to die. The crux of the game revolves around that choice—and the narrative-heavy chat logs that precede each mission help you to decide what you want to do.
Ir/Rational Redux
Ir/rational was originally released by Tom Jubert, writer for the Penumbra series and the upcoming FTL, back in 2009. It's now back in reduxed form, which seems to mean it's been given a coat of graphics and sound, and has found its way onto Newgrounds.
What haven't changed are the puzzles. You're presented with a series of statements and must pick logical arguments to fill in the blanks. The trick isn't whether the answer is true (in one early puzzle you prove the existence of god), but to work out why that answer is true, through the twisted circular logic you're given.
You Must Escape
You Must Escape's graphics are representations of sound. When you're not moving, the screen is black. Take a step and lines emanate from your position, bouncing off the otherwise invisible walls. Early on, the puzzle is simple: make noise to map out the level and find the exit—recognisable by its thicker white lines. Hold and release space and you'll send out a louder wave, necessary for tracing a route through more complex levels.
Before long, You Must Escape pulls its most effective trick. Red lines denote danger, either in the form of a static trap to avoid, or a creature that will hunt you. Your problem is that, if you can 'see' a creature, it's because you've sent out lines of noise that let it hear your location.
Naya's Quest
Naya's Quest was made by VVVVVV and Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh. In case you were wondering: yes, it is bastard hard, just less stressful on your reflexes. It's an isometric puzzle-platformer about a girl and her pilgrimage to the edge of the world. As you're walking through the harmless opening screens, you pick up a scanning device. When activated the world vanishes, leaving only a cross section of the tiles directly horizontal and vertical to your position. At first the purpose of the scanner isn't clear. That is, until you reach the dungeon leading to the edge and start walking across an apparently solid bridge. Halfway across, and Naya falls into the void. Damn you Cavanagh!
Lamp and Vamp
Lamp and Vamp was created for the Procedural Death Jam - a competition designed to promote the "Procedural Death Labyrinth", a slightly less hideous term for "roguelike-likes". True to form, it's both randomly generated and contains death, or at least, undeath. You play a vampire trying to reach the safety of his coffin by moving one hex-tile at a time. In your way are patrolling villagers, and holy-water-hurling priests. You'll need to carefully use your abilities to safely make it home.
Nothing To Hide
If you're tired of scurrying into dark corners, away from human contact, Nothing To Hide might be for you. It's an anti-stealth game in which your job is to be seen at all times. Currently a demo, the developers plan to expand it into a full and open source game. You play as Poppy Gardner, daughter to the sinister head of a dystopian surveillance state. Trapped in a state of constant paranoid nervousness, you decide to help your father's social media popularity by running away to Canada. The only problem is that you must stay in state of the autonomous security eyes, or risk being taken down by anti-criminal sleeping darts.
The Very Organized Thief
The Very Organized Thief spawns you in a house that's not your own, carrying nothing but a torch and a list of items. If you hadn't guessed from the title, your job is to rob things. Both the larcenous list and the location of its items are randomly generated each time you play, meaning you'll need to carefully explore the house to find what you're after.
In most cases, it's easy to intuit where the items will be. A blender, for instance, will reliably live in the kitchen. Others are more cryptic, like the gold bar that you're always asked to find. To aid you in your search, you can pick up items, open draws and lift lids. You may be organised, but nothing says you have to be tidy.
MapsTD isn't the best tower defence game you can play, but it's the only one that lets you defend your home. It uses Google Maps as the basis for its levels. Enter an address, and you'll be given a custom battleground drawn from the surrounding streets and roads.
Once you've chosen an address, the game will pick up to four routes leading to it. These are where the enemies will travel—although initially they'll focus on a single path. Coloured pins represent towers, and must be placed and upgraded in strategic locations using money gained from surviving each wave. It's a pretty standard tower defence setup, but the pleasure comes from doing it across real-world streets and locations—whether that's the labyrinthine sprawl of a Somerset city, or the grids and angles of Washington D.C.
Mirror Isles
Made in Increpare's PuzzleScript engine, Mirror Isles is a simple but taxing puzzle game by Sokobond's Alan Hazelden. It's a sokoban-style block-pushing game with a teleportation twist. Through the exact placement of mirrors, you can switch places with your reflection – a technique that lets you jump between islands.
It's all about the replays. After hundreds of attempts in which your walljumping ninja is sliced by lasers, burst by missiles and crushed by thwomps, you get a replay of your successful run to the level exit, in which you seem to dodge each threat with psychic reflexes. There are hundreds of levels, and thus hundreds of opportunities to feel so satisfied.
Meat Boy
It lacks its paid-for older brother's flashier features, but the original Meat Boy is a chunk of PC platforming history. The series' fantastic controls—at once crisp and squishy, ping-ponging Meat Boy bloodily off the environment with each leap and slide—got their start here, and the first set of vertically-scrolling levels offer a stiff challenge. Very much worth upgrading to Super Meat Boy once you're done.
Pause Ahead
Here's a novel idea: a 2D puzzle platformer with a time-bending twist. Okay, so Pause Ahead might not be original in concept, but it's proficient in execution. You must make your way through the difficult trap filled levels, completing them within the time limit despite a control scheme that seems unsuited to twitch acrobatics. Why it works is that with a tap of the Shift key you freeze time, rendering you unable to course-correct, but keeping your momentum. At the most basic level, that means running towards an approaching buzzsaw, freezing time and skidding past. As long as time's not moving, you'll pass through the danger unharmed. Hit a wall, however, and you'll lose your speed. If you're hovering over an obstacle when you resume, you'll instantly be killed.
Escape Goat
Ian Stocker's excellent Escape Goat is now available in browser form, should you want to play the goat-based puzzle platformer without having to download or pay anything for the privilege. (Of course, you should consider buying the game's recently released Steam version if you like what you see.) Either way, you'll be playing a smart, witty puzzler with one hell of a soundtrack, and the cutest mouse companion you'll ever met.
Sometimes I'm in the mood for a silly-physics-based kissing game, an experimental first-person wanderer, an exquisite text adventure—or an unassuming robot-based platformer featuring a Game Boy colour palette and an infectious chiptune soundtrack. I suspect most of the words I've supplied to descriptions of other sidescrolling platformers would apply equally well here, but at the risk of repeating myself, Shybot is a mechanically exact jumping game with an adorable main character, set in a fairly sizeable, open-ended world. There will always be a place in my heart for one of those.
In Atum, you play as a person sitting at their desk playing a side-scrolling 2D platformer. That desk is littered with detritus; everything from magnets and batteries to cigarettes and the lighter that lit them. Meanwhile, the white silhouette in the screen inside your screen keeps running into a variety of seemingly impassable objects on his way through this extremely meta puzzler.
There have plenty of games riffing off Terry Cavanagh's VVVVVV, but OWWW is probably the oddest, and definitely the only one to be set in Terry's mouth. I like to think of it as retribution for VVVVVV's bastard hard Veni, Vidi, Vici section.
You must explore the teeth and atriums (yes, really) of the oral dungeons, flipping gravity to avoid spikes as you navigate to each screen's key and unlock the exit. Each level has critters that move across the screen, but instead of hurting you, you can flip onto them to be carried past hazards. Delightfully weird and expectedly difficult.
Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective
Don't worry, Bubsy—the '90s gaming C-lister—isn't about to make a comeback. Instead, Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective is a weird art-platformer by Zenith creators Arcane Kids. It's a punk edutainment game, in which the titular cat-thing takes a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Using a deliberately awkward control scheme, you jump and glide your way across floating platforms, moving towards the museum and receiving hints from the talking frogs.
Spin Spin, Episode 1
It's happened again! Someone's let the indie platformers out of their cage and they've started breeding. Spin Spin plays like the lovechild of And Yet It Moves and VVVVVV, taking the former's world-rotating mechanic and latter's clean, spike-filled presentation.
You play as Spin, trying to get back to his girlfriend after he fell down a hole, the klutz. He can't jump, but can turn the world clockwise or anti-clockwise to navigate through the deadly maze. Crucially, this can only be done once per fall, with the direction locked until Spin lands on solid ground.
The winner of the "Beneath The Surface" themed Ludum Dare 29, ScubaBear is a game about exploration, treasure hunting and being a scuba-diving bear. Its a compact 'Metroidvania' – a game about finding collectibles to unlock powers that help you to progress further across its map.
The treasures you'll find are many, and the powers you unlock varied. Less than halfway through my list of required items, I could hold my breath longer, strike enemy crabs harder, and double-jump to clear formerly impassable gaps. For every new ability, new routes open up, which in turn leads to more abilities and, with those, more routes.
There's so much to collect, that I wasn't entirely sure what all of it did. Some items are obvious, but others – like the pokeball – remained a mystery across my time with the game. Confusion aside, ScubaBear remains a clever, paired-down interpretation of the concept. Its compact structure means that backtracking isn't a chore, and its sprawling map ensures there's always something new to uncover.


text:
The volatile modifier tells the JVM that a thread accessing the variable must alwasy reconcile its own private copy of the variable with the master copy in memory. i.e it guarantees that any thread that reads the field will see the most recently written value.
Keep in mind : In java if multiple threads using the same variable, each thread will have its own copy of the local cache for that variable.
In multi-treaded programming, if the variable value updated by one thread, it will update in the local cache of the thread not in the main variable memory. The other thread which is using the same variable doen't know anything about the values changed by the another thread. To overcome this problem, if a variable decalre as volatile, then it will not be stored in the local cache. whenever thread are updating the values, it is updated to the main memory. So other threads can access the updated value.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 1 : Thread 1 and Thread 2 will use same memory of volatile variable, the value will update on same memory.
Figure 2 : For non volatile variable - each thread will maintain copy of the local cache and other thread won't know the updated value.