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"Harper Lee is the moral conscience of the film," Bennett Miller, the director of "Capote," explains in an interview included on the movie's DVD. "We were looking for an actor who had composure and dignity and a maturity of spirit and a morality and a sober-mindedness." But though Miller acknowledges that "people who have those qualities tend not to go into acting, as a rule," he fails to note that such people do not tend to swell the ranks of creative writers, either. Any viewer of Catherine Keener's lambent performance in "Capote" is prepared to believe that she possesses all these traits, but they would not naturally recommend her for an authentic portrayal of the plain and sometimes stubborn Harper Lee, the subject of Charles J. Shields's new biography, "Mockingbird" (Holt; $25).
During the Second World War, Lee, a student at Huntingdon College, in Montgomery, shunned the standard cardigan-and-pearls attire of the all-female institution in favor of a bomber jacket she'd been given by her brother, an Army Air Corps cadet. Her language was "salty," and she sometimes smoked a pipe, and, while her face seems to have been pleasantly approachable, she described herself as "ugly as sin." After she transferred to the undergraduate law program at the University of Alabama, mostly to please her father, her lack of polish struck some as ill-suited to the judicial decorum she was being trained to observe.
Growing up, she had preferred tackle to touch football, and tended to bully her friends, including the young Truman Capote, who, during the late nineteen-twenties and the thirties, was fobbed off by his feckless mother on relatives who lived in Lee's home town, Monroeville. He put her into his fiction at least twice—as Idabel Tompkins ("I want so much to be a boy"), in "Other Voices, Other Rooms," and as Ann (Jumbo) Finchburg, in "The Thanksgiving Visitor." Lee did the same for him in "To Kill a Mockingbird," turning the boy Truman into Dill, an effeminate schemer with an enormous capacity for lying. One year, Lee's father gave her and Truman a twenty-pound Underwood typewriter, which the two children managed to shift back and forth between their houses and use in the composition of collaborative fictions about the neighbors.
In 1959, when Capote asked Lee to accompany him to Kansas while he looked into the murder of the Clutter family, he was thirty-five and already famous, a sort of self-hatched Fabergé egg—the author of high-gloss magazine journalism, some dankly suggestive Southern-gothic fiction, and the silvery "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Lee was just reaching the end of a decade-long literary struggle. After dropping out of the University of Alabama, in 1948, the year Capote published his first book, she had gone to New York to write one of her own, despite her father's apparent belief that literary success was unlikely to favor Monroeville twice. In the city, she scrounged for change in parking meters and used an old wooden door for a writing desk. She spent most of the fifties living in Yorkville, on the Upper East Side, working as an airline ticket agent and failing to impress the other artistically ambitious Southerners she ran into. "Here was this dumpy girl from Monroeville," one of them recalled years later. "We didn't think she was up to much. She said she was writing a book, and that was that."
Michael Brown, a lyricist who worked with Capote on a musical adapted from his story "House of Flowers," became, along with his wife, Joy, a crucial friend and benefactor. In 1956, as a Christmas present, they gave Lee enough money to take a year off from her job. Brown also steered her toward the husband-and-wife agents Maurice Crain and Annie Laurie Williams, who had sold the movie rights to "Gone with the Wind." The couple were cool to Lee's short stories, but were willing to take a chance on a novel called, first, "Go Set a Watchman"; then, at Maurice Crain's suggestion, "Atticus"; and, finally, "To Kill a Mockingbird." The Crains sold the book to Lippincott, and Lee was nervously awaiting the galleys when she got Capote's call about the Clutter killings.
For much of the past forty years, ever since it began to look as if Lee would not publish a second novel, a story has persisted that it was actually Capote who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird." He did suggest some cuts, but extensive editorial correspondence between Lee and her agents and publishers argues for her authorship, as does Shields's reminder of "Truman's inability to keep anybody's secrets." Since the appearance of Bennett Miller's film, however, it is Lee's role in Capote's work that has been the subject of literary discussion. Shields cites scholarly and hearsay evidence that Lee was angry at having her contribution to "In Cold Blood" slighted and at being made to share the book's dedication with Capote's lover, Jack Dunphy. Like Miller's movie, this new biography seems to be a brief for her indispensability to Capote's nonfiction novel. She becomes a kind of collaborator, not just someone who smoothed the author's way among the weathered and suspicious residents of Finney County, Kansas. Capote did give Lee credit for being "extremely helpful" in "making friends with the wives of the people I wanted to meet," but he had brought her along principally as a confirmatory pair of eyes and ears.
The hundred and fifty pages of notes she took show that she was operating in Kansas with the confidence of a soon-to-be-published writer. She was unafraid to propose to Capote a much darker view of the Clutters than the one he was beginning to set down himself. Interviews she conducted, and her inspection of the family's house, convinced her that the Clutters' emotional arrangements had been inhumanly rigid, enough to have turned the mother, Bonnie, into "one of the world's most wretched women," a nervous, medicated creature, bedridden with the sense that she had failed her go-getting husband. What Lee took to be the strange and greedy behavior of the two oldest Clutter daughters, who had moved out of the house before the murders, sealed her impression of a tight collective misery that must have rendered the existence of Nancy Clutter, the perfectionist teen-ager who was shot along with her parents and brother, an ongoing torment. How, Lee wondered in her notebook, had the girl avoided "cracking at the seams"?
Capote wasn't having it. He might allow the two killers some psychological mystery, tilting them toward humanity here and there in the narrative, but his victims had a purely literary job to do; as Shields points out, the author required "an idealized Clutter family." In the end, Lee's urgings toward complication make us wonder less about why Capote resisted them than about why Lee herself, in her own single, famous book, allowed the war between good and evil to be such a simple matter.
Mr. A. C. Lee, the father of Nelle Harper Lee and the model for Atticus Finch, was never a widower raising children by himself. His wife, Frances Finch Lee, remained alive, if impaired, throughout the childhood of Nelle and her older siblings. Musical, overweight, and sometimes loudly difficult, she suggests an inversion of the birdlike, timid Bonnie Clutter. Her behavior placed a considerable strain on Nelle, who eventually, according to Shields, "wiped the slate clean of the conflict between herself and her mother" by killing off Mrs. Atticus Finch before "To Kill a Mockingbird" even begins.
Mr. Lee was a "fond and indulgent father," who, in addition to practicing law, edited Monroeville's local paper and served in the state legislature. He believed in segregation, low taxes, and noblesse oblige, and, as an elder of the First United Methodist Church, was prepared to scold the pastor for too much sermonizing about racial prejudice and unfair labor conditions. "Get off the 'social justice' and get back on the Gospel," he ordered the Reverend Ray Whatley, in 1952. The minister was soon associated with Martin Luther King, Jr., and as the fifties wore on Mr. Lee himself became much more progressive about civil-rights issues. Ambivalent and stretchable, he seems, all in all, a more interesting figure than Atticus Finch, the plaster saint for whom he provided the mold.
In "To Kill a Mockingbird," empathy is Atticus's chief and much repeated prescription for all that ails us morally. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view," he tells his daughter, Scout. That goes for her teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher; for the head of a lynch mob; and for the man who eventually tries to kill Scout and her brother. Atticus's speech can be as stiff as his rectitude ("The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience"), and in conversation with his children he tends toward the stagey and the sententious. The novel sometimes makes up for dramatic shortcomings by squeezing yet another puff of rhetoric from its adult protagonist, who fishes for compliments ("Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent") and has a way of making forbearance itself insufferable.
The tomboyish Scout is probably a truer refraction of Harper Lee's youth than Catherine Keener is of her early adulthood. But Scout, too, is a kind of highly constructed doll, feisty and cute on every subject from algebra to grownups ("They don't get around to doin' what they say they're gonna do half the time"). In real life, children do not tell their elders "You don't understand children much"; but Scout does.
More troublesome than the dialogue, Lee's narrative voice is a wildly unstable compound, a forced mixture—sometimes in the same sentence—of Scout's very young perspective and a fully adult one. Phrases like "throughout my early life" and "when we were small" serve only to jar us out of a past that we've already been seeing, quite clearly, through the eyes of the little girl. Information that has been established gets repeated, and the book's sentences are occasionally so clumsy that a reader can't visualize the action before being asked to picture its opposite: "A flash of plain fear was going out of [Atticus's] eyes, but returned when Dill and Jem wriggled into the light."
Indisputably, much in the novel works. Ladies with "frostings of sweat and sweet talcum" and "rain-rotted gray houses" are finely evoked, as is the way Lee's Monroeville (called Maycomb in the novel) believes in the hereditary replication of all human gesture and behavior. But a reader cannot help feeling that he has been transported to a Booth Tarkington novel, a Southern version of "Penrod" or "Seventeen," where summer goes by "in routine contentment," until the author, a few chapters in, suffers a fit of high seriousness. The theme of justice descends upon the book like the opening of school. Late in 1960, in commenting on the book's success, Flannery O'Connor declared, "It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book."
The novel's courtroom drama doesn't derive, as has often been assumed, from the nineteen-thirties case of the Scottsboro Boys. Late in the nineteen-nineties, Lee revealed to a biographer of Richard Wright that she had based the trial of Tom Robinson on the experience of Walter Lett, a Negro whose arrest for raping a white woman was reported in the Monroe Journal on November 9, 1933. Whatever the source, the novel requires Tom Robinson's conviction as surely as the town itself does. Without it, the reader will not have the chance, like the Negroes in the courthouse balcony, to stand up and salute Atticus's nobly futile defense.
The book never persists in ambiguity. Mr. Underwood, a man who "despises Negroes" but protects Atticus with a shotgun, is glimpsed a couple of times and then dropped. The author prefers returning to the feel-good and the improbable, such as the Ku Klux Klan story that Atticus tells his children: "They paraded by Mr. Sam Levy's house one night, but Sam just stood on his porch and told 'em things had come to a pretty pass, he'd sold 'em the very sheets on their backs. Sam made 'em so ashamed of themselves they went away." If it were this easy, Atticus would have won Tom Robinson's acquittal. By the time the novel nears its conclusion and a classmate of Scout's gives a report on how bad Hitler is, the book has begun to cherish its own goodness.
Boo Radley, the agonized recluse living just down the street from the Finches, remains hidden and tantalizing for most of the novel, almost like the authorial imagination that never quite frees itself from fine sentiment. But in the end Boo, too, is there to do good; once he's done it, Scout takes him by the hand and leads him out of the book.
According to Shields, reviews of the novel, which came out in 1960, left Lee with feelings of "dizzying joy" and "vindication." After selling the first few hundred thousand copies of an eventual thirty million, the book went on to win the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and to become, in Shields's estimation, "like Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Portnoy's Complaint, On the Road, The Bell Jar, Soul on Ice, and The Feminine Mystique—books that seized the imagination of the post-World War II generation—a novel that figured in changing 'the system.' "
But if it's true that by 1988 the book "was taught in 74 percent of the nation's public schools"—a statistic issued by the National Council of Teachers of English, who are apparently uninclined to make an old-fashioned fuss over the book's dangling modifiers—it is less because the novel was likely to stimulate students toward protest than because it acted as a kind of moral Ritalin, an ungainsayable endorser of the obvious. "How can you be an Atticus?" asks one piece of curricular material to be found posted on the Web. Shields is able to cite a scholar, Claudia Durst Johnson, "who has published extensively" on this single book, which "readers in surveys rank as the most influential in their lives after the Bible." For all that, readers returning to the book after many years may find themselves echoing the film Capote's boozed-up muttering about "To Kill a Mockingbird": "I frankly don't see what all the fuss is about."
Actually, this remark is made in connection with the 1962 movie version of the novel, a movie that, like the film adaptation of "Gone with the Wind," is rather better than the original material. Lee's agents handled the book with care, getting it into the sensitive hands of the director Robert Mulligan and the producer Alan J. Pakula. To play Atticus, Lee wanted Spencer Tracy and Universal wanted Rock Hudson; Bing Crosby wanted himself. The part went to Gregory Peck, an actor so closely associated with "composure and dignity and a maturity of spirit and a morality and a sober-mindedness" that, years later, "Capote" 's Bennett Miller may have momentarily thought of him for Harper Lee.
Peck's performance is top-heavy with a kind of civic responsibility, and a Yankee frost often kills his carefully tended Southern accent, but his Atticus is still more subtle than the book's. Credit here must go to Horton Foote's screenplay, which, unlike most Hollywood adaptations, tends to prune rather than gild the dialogue from its published source. In the book, Scout asks Atticus if he really is a "nigger-lover," as she's heard him called, and he responds, "I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody." Foote skips this cloying exchange, and has the father explain himself with a less self-regarding line from the book: "I'm simply defending a Negro." The same principle of selection is at work when it comes to Jem's exasperation with his sister. Foote uses a close variant of a plain line from Lee ("I swear, Scout, you act more like a girl all the time"), rather than the archly implausible line ("You act so much like a girl it's mortifyin' ") that she also makes available.
The novel is full of set pieces that provide either local color or the opportunity for some Aesopian underlining of Atticus's rectitude. Mulligan filmed and then cut an episode in which Mrs. Dubose, a local termagant, is shown trying to free herself from a secret morphine habit before she dies. Good as the actress Ruth White's performance of the scene was, "it stopped the film," Pakula realized. The episode stops the novel, too, but provides Atticus with the chance to make a speech about courage ("She was the bravest person I ever knew"). Lubricated with the syrup of Elmer Bernstein's score, the movie has a propulsion that the novel never achieves. The film even solves the book's vocal problems, extracting bits of the adult narrative line to use, sparingly, as voice-over.
Flush with the success of "In Cold Blood," Capote threw the famous Black and White Ball at the Plaza Hotel. With her new wealth from "To Kill a Mockingbird," Lee purchased a statue of John Wesley for the First United Methodist Church of Monroeville. She had more or less ceased giving interviews by 1964, and stuck to a quiet pattern of spending part of the year in New York and part in Alabama, where even now her ninety-four-year-old sister Alice acts as gatekeeper. She has, of late, been a bit more conspicuously out and about—attending a ninetieth-birthday party for Horton Foote in New York—but the privacy of her past several decades allows Shields reasonably to argue that Capote's public unravelling may have acted for her as a cautionary tale.
Lee has resisted biographers, including Shields, whose requests for coöperation, he says, she "declined with vigor." A former high-school teacher who has written nonfiction books for young adults, Shields has been enterprising in the face of frustration, basing his biography "on six hundred interviews and other sorts of communication with Harper Lee's friends, associates, and former classmates." He offers the book as a kind of homemade present, whose "unorthodox methods" include some slightly imaginative reconstructions, at least one Internet anecdote, and a tendency to pad or wander from the subject when his material runs thin. If the biographer sometimes loses a sense of proportion, that's understandable enough with a life as front-loaded as Lee's.
Predictably, any number of her personal mysteries remain unsolved at the biography's end. Did Lee have a romance with an Alabama professor? Did she have what Shields calls "a chaste affair" with Maurice Crain? Capote once hinted at something unhappy between them, and Shields is tempted to see a lack of evidence on this subject as being the evidence itself: "Among [Crain's] papers at Columbia University, there is not a single piece of correspondence from Nelle. It's as if the collection was scoured clean of the relationship."
The greatest mystery, of course, is why Lee never published a second novel, and whether she even got very far in writing one. Absent some late-life efflorescence, "To Kill a Mockingbird" will be it for her, despite a once professed desire to become "the Jane Austen of south Alabama" and a claim, in the years just after the novel's publication, to be spending between six and twelve hours a day at her desk. As time went on, her editor grew impatient, and her agents became anxious. Eventually, they stopped asking. Shields attributes to Alice the report that, sometime in the nineteen-seventies, "just as Nelle was finishing the novel, a burglar broke into her apartment and stole the manuscript." What Lee may share most with Capote—who was forever promising and not delivering "Answered Prayers"—is a kind of flamboyant silence, the typewriter they once passed back and forth under the summer sun having become, for both of them, thirty years later, too hot not to cool down. ♦


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David Reviews
OB Management are pleased to now represent director, writer, artist, and photographer Justin Tyler Close in the UK.
Come along to CraftWorks @ Focus today in Islington and hear how Honda Grrr! was made.
The latest straight 8 shootout takes place at The Location Guide's Focus show in Islington on Tuesday, 3rd December.
tenthree have signed veteran editor Alaster Jordan for UK representation.
that would never happen IRL

subset: commoncrawl


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Can Print Be The Next Vinyl?
from the it-would-take-work dept
One of the more interesting trends in the music world is the "return" of the vinyl LP. While sales of CD's continue to fall in the face of digital downloads, vinyl LP sales continue to rise:
Consumers purchased 1.88 million new vinyl LPs in 2008, an 89 percent increase over 2007 and the highest sales volume recorded in the 17-year history of Nielsen SoundScan. Further, in good news for some physical retailers, two out of three vinyls LPs were purchased at independent record stores.
There are a number of reasons for this, but the most obvious is that the LP is a tangible object that can't be easily reproduced and can only be shared through a physical, real-world exchange. For true fans, the LP is a sort of badge of fandom, proof of just how much you love the band. Compared to a digital download or a CD, the LP is a crafted thing, complete with large-scale artwork and often other inserts.
While it isn't likely that LP sales will eclipse digital downloads anytime soon, it is also highly unlikely that the LP market will be undercut by piracy.
Could these same factors be a forecaster for the future of printed books and newspapers? It is hard to imagine that these items, so easily digitized, will be able to maintain their current position on top of the mountain and we are already seeing the rapid decline of the newspaper business.
In the cases of both newspapers and books, it might be that their only hope in surviving over the long-term is to invest in elements that can truly not be pirated. As Dave Eggers points out in a recent Salon interview:
I think newspapers shouldn't try to compete directly with the Web, and should do what they can do better, which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art, and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper. You know, including a full-color comic section, for example, which of course was standard in newspapers years ago, when you'd have a full broadsheet Winsor McCay comic. So we'll have a big, full-color comic section, and we're also trying to emphasize what younger readers are looking for, what directly appeals to them.
Now, I am not saying that comics section will save newspapers, but the point is to make the object something desirable to possess in physical form.
For the moment, we are going to see traditional publishers fight futilely to maintain the status quo but the ground is quickly falling away beneath them and it is going to take some innovative thinking about the value of printed matter to keep them in the game.
Crossposted from My Media Musings


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Bernard Hopkins wins split decision, unifies titles
WASHINGTON -- Bernard Hopkins thumbed his nose at Father Time one more time Saturday night, using his vast experience and guile, and ageless quickness to defeat Beibut Shumenov at the DC Armory.
With a split decision victory in a brilliant performance, Hopkins, 49, became the oldest boxer to unify major titles. He retained his IBF light-heavyweight title and added Shumenov's IBA and WBA titles. Shumenov is 19 years younger than Hopkins.
Hopkins also broke his own record as the oldest boxer to win a major title.
Hopkins made it look easy as he started slow but went to work in the third round, jabbing and throwing right hands and landing at will as he dominated most of the rest of the fight. Or so it seemed, to most everyone except judge Gustavo Padilla, who scored it 114-113 for Shumenov.
Judges Dave Moretti and Jerry Roth scored it 116-111 for Hopkins.
"That is complete (B.S.)," Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, who promoted the card, said of Padilla's scoring after the fight. "That's another judge that should be retired."
Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) used a hard right hand -- "my hardest punch in years" -- to drop Shumenov in the 11th round as the crowd chanted "B-Hop, B-Hop, B-Hop." He said he tried hard for his first knockout since stopping Oscar De La Hoya in 2004, but Shumenov stood his ground and last the rest of the way.
Looking as relaxed as could be in his 63rd professional fight, the only time Hopkins showed his age all night was when he referenced a '70s TV character in talking about his calm demeanor in the ring. "I was so in my living room watching Archie Bunker," he cracked.
Hopkins, playing to the Washington crowd by wearing the colors of the Redskins, burgundy and gold, started slowly, throwing little in the first two rounds. But he came alive in the third round and connected with several rights against Shumenov, who fell to 14-2 with 9 KOs.
Hopkins connected on several hard rights again in the fourth round, mixing it up with hard jabs and using the type of counterpunching that the wily veteran has perfected in 26 years in the ring.
After that, it was all Hopkins as the Philadelphian, now known as "The Alien," schooled Shumenov throughout the fight, getting the partisan crowd of 6,823 worked up into a frenzy.
Shumenov landed just 20% of his punches while Hopkins landed an amazing 49% of his 383 punches thrown.
"I didn't do that when I was 30," he said. "He was really surprised the way I could stand there and let him miss.
"Boxing is a science. If you don't have to get hit, don't. You don't want someone else counting your money."
Hopkins said he will let the historians decide where he belongs in the history of the sport, but said, just nine months before he turns 50, that he should be among the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
"The pound-for-pound best fighter in the world right now is Floyd Mayweather," Hopkins said. "I'll tell you, behind Andre Ward, who I believe is second and should be, I'm not that far from the top three. My age and the way I'm doing it.
"I'm just telling you, I'm not done yet."
PHOTOS: Hopkins defeats Shumenov
Hopkins said he wants to further unify the light heavyweight titles against Canadian Adonis Stevenson, the WBC and lineal champion.
"And I want to be the undisputed light heavyweight champion this year," he said with a big smile.
Shumenov, 30, a former Olympic boxer from Kazakhstan, was asked if he thought he won the fight.
"To be honest I wasn't thinking about the scorecard," he said. "I tried hard. Bernard, he was the better man tonight. I chose the wrong strategy and used the wrong style.
"I cannot talk about this. I need to watch the tape and think about it.
"I am angry that I couldn't get the victory. I am a true warrior and I want to fight only the best. Tonight obviously it wasn't my fight."
On the preliminary undercard, Former U.S. Olympians Marcus Browne and Sadam Ali both won their preliminary fights to remain undefeated. Browne (10-0, 7 KOs) defeated Otis Griffin by unanimous decision in an eight-round light heavyweight bout, while Ali (19-0, 12 KOs) knocked out Michael Clark, a late replacement for Jeremy Bryan, in the first round.


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Beckham feels he's more than a quality glove
CHICAGO -- Although the statistic was not listed on the final boxscore, Gordon Beckham deserved a defensive save in the White Sox 1-0 victory over the Royals on Opening Day. If not for his diving catch on Lorenzo Cain's line drive in the seventh inning, Chris Sale might have been looking at a first-and-third, none out situation.
Beckham added another leaping catch of a Cain line drive in the ninth inning of Wednesday's 5-2 victory. While Beckham takes great pride in his Gold Glove-caliber defense, he wants to be known for more than his stellar glove work.
"It goes both ways. I want to obviously contribute offensively, too," Beckham said. "I'm not the kind of guy that enjoys just playing a good defense and not getting hits I need to get."
Proving to be a man of his word, Beckham matched a career high with four singles in Thursday's 3-1 loss to the Royals. Beckham is coming off a season where he set career highs with 151 games played, 123 hits, 16 homers and 62 runs scored.
"I wish they would have come in a win, for sure," said Beckham of his four hits, of which three went to right field.


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3000 Hwy 49 South, Clarksdale, Mississippi 38614
Total inspections: 1
Last inspection: March 5, 2008
Classification: Residential Care
Last enforcement: Unknown
Formal enforcement: 0
Informal enforcement: 0
This facility has not been out of compliance in the past 12 quarters.
View detailed information from the Environmental Protection Agency. Note: There are no mandated limits for power plant discharges into waterways for many common chemicals such as arsenic, lead and mercury. However some facilities are monitored for these pollutants by state regulators and report the findings to the E.P.A.


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Pond undergoing renovation; fish may be taken by any means
EMPORIA — Jones Park West Pond in Emporia is undergoing renovation, and Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) Secretary Robin Jennison has issued a fish salvage order for the lake. The order will take effect when the lake is posted and remain in effect until the notices are removed.
During this time, it will be legal to take fish from this lake by any legal means, as well as snagging, seine, bow and arrow, gig, and hand.
"This is a 1.4-acre pond, and about 40 percent of the upper end is filled with silt," area fisheries biologist Carson Cox said, explaining the reason for the renovation. "It has a history of fish kills due to filamentous algae, and it is overgrown with trees around the upper end, limiting shoreline angling. During renovation, we will construct a nutrient trap wetland like the one at Emporia Jones Park East Pond."
Those 16 and older taking fish during this salvage order must have a fishing license. For more information, phone the KDWPT Emporia Research and Survey Office at 620-342-0658.


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Pet of the Week: Finchy
Hello! My name is Finchy! Don't you just love all of the colors on my soft, silky coat? It's almost like I'm all dressed up in a costume and celebrating Halloween! But don't worry, I am just this cute year-round! What's more important is that I am a fun and very loving girl! I LOVE to be held. And love to play and explore just as much as I love to snuggle! My cage-mate, Daisy, and I play with one another as much as we can, and when we're too tired, you bet we are curled up together in a cute little ball! So, yes, I get along with other cats! (Daisy is a great choice for a sibling for me in case you are thinking about adopting two cats — just saying!) I was in a home before coming to the shelter, but my owner passed away and I had to be brought in. I am looking forward to being a part of a family again and having a place to call my own. Please come in soon and meet me and I think that you won't be able to leave without me!
Adopting a cat can be a 15-year or more commitment. Please adopt responsibly! Adoption fee is $90, or $150 for pure breed or pedigree cats and kittens. This includes the first round of vaccinations, bordetella vaccination, worming, flea treatment and spaying or neutering. All animals will be spayed or neutered before going to their new home. For information, call the Humane Society at (409) 833-0504 or visit 2050 Spindletop Ave., Beaumont.


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Stocks: Sectors
- Energy
- Materials
- Industrials
- Consumer Discretionary
- Consumer Staples
- Health Care
- Financial
- Technology
- Utilities
Seasonal Start
Economic Data
Semiconductor Manufacturing Intl Corp. (NYSE:SMI) Seasonal Chart
Seasonal Chart Analysis
Analysis of the Semiconductor Manufacturing Intl Corp. (NYSE:SMI) seasonal charts above shows that a Buy Date of September 26 and a Sell Date of February 2 has resulted in a geometric average return of 11.84% above the benchmark rate of the S&P 500 Total Return Index over the past 14 years. This seasonal timeframe has shown positive results compared to the benchmark in 10 of those periods. This is a good rate of success and the return strongly outperforms the relative buy-and-hold performance of the stock over the past 14 years by an average of 24.62% per year.
The seasonal timeframe correlates Strongly with the period of seasonal strength for the Technology sector, which runs from October 9 to February 15. The seasonal chart for the broad sector is available via the following link: Technology Sector Seasonal Chart.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp is engaged in the computer-aided design, manufacturing, testing, packaging, and trading of integrated circuits and other semiconductor services. It also designs and manufactures semiconductor masks.
Stocks mentioned in this post: SMI
Symbols by Letter: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
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Published at Tuesday, July 30th, 2019 - 08:55:42 AM. Wedding Dresses. By Adelita Klein.
It is common to find more weddings happening in summer when compared to the other seasons. Summer beach weddings are very popular among the couple-to-be as it can make the wedding a memorable and relaxing event. Being wed on the beach is considered very romantic and the couple would want to look their best for this special day. Choosing a summer beach wedding dress is not an easy task, as you need to consider more factors than a wedding dress to be worn indoors. Shopping for a beach wedding dress is a little bit different to shopping for traditional wedding attire. Find below a few tips that will help you to choose the right wedding dress for that special occasion on the beach.
Don't be afraid of a black wedding dress! Black is a sophisticated and classic colour for a dress, especially if you are having a clean-cut, contemporary wedding, or a black tie affair. Black is a strong, authoritative colour, and of course pairs excellently with white for a twist on the traditional.
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text: This is a Northcott "Vintage Iris - Purple" panel that I purchased last year sometime. My MIL's favorite colors are purple and green so it was perfect for her. I did a lot of stitching following the lines around the border and outlined the iris' and the vase and then stuffed them with poly fill. I then attached the panel to some stretcher bars and covered the staples with a backing. It really looks 3D. She was pleased with it too (which isn't always the easiest thing to do!!!)


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Water issues was the topic of conversation at the Tiger Bay Club business luncheon on June 27 in downtown Fort Myers. Given the insufficient storage proposed under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program to alleviate the massive releases of excessive polluted water from Lake Okeechobee that is causing adverse impacts to the coastal estuaries on the west and east coast of south Florida, there was discussion on the restoration of a flow way south to the Everglades.
Plan 6, which has long been proposed as the solution to establish a portion of the historic flow way from Lake Okeechobee south to Everglades National Park, would provide the needed water storage, treatment and conveyance of water to the south, thereby avoiding harm to the west and east coast estuaries.
Unfortunately, a high-ranking official from the South Florida Water Management District made an irresponsible and unsubstantiated statement that Plan 6 would cost $20 billion dollars and therefore, not be financially feasible.
The sugar industry has staunchly opposed any restoration of a semblance of a flow way in the approximately 700,000 acre Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) south of Lake Okeechobee and the SFWMD and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have yet to conduct a peer reviewed study evaluating the merits of a flow way through the EAA. In 2008, George Cavros prepared an analysis of a storage flow-way plan to restore and protect the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries, Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades in a comprehensive and detailed report for The Rivers Coalition that demonstrated a flow-way south of the lake to be the most practical and cost effective solution to alleviating the massive releases of water from Lake Okeechobee that is causing adverse harm to coastal estuaries.
The proposed flow-way in the EAA south of Lake Okeechobee requires state acquisition of approximately 20,000 acres of U.S. Sugar lands and approximately 30,000 acres of Florida Crystals lands to provide sufficient storage, treatment and conveyance of water from Lake Okeechobee south to the Everglades. The combined acreage of 50,000 acres is only 7 percent of agricultural lands in the EAA and 15 percent of sugar cane fields thereby assuring a sustainable agricultural industry and restoration of Lake Okeechobee and Everglades and protection of coastal estuaries.
Based on land value of $7,400 per acre when the State was pursuing purchase of U.S. Sugar land holdings a few years ago, an inflated adjustment to $8,000 per acre would place the current purchase of the needed 50,000 acres at approximately $400 to 500 million. Even land conversion cost for a meandering flow way including a combination of shallow water reservoirs and wetlands with other infrastructure such as pumps and containment berms along with land coast would be comparable to the approximately $1 billion for the C-43 reservoir, $2.6 billion for the Central Everglades Planning Project and $3 billion for Aquifer Storage Recovery Wells.
Plan 6 is the fix and a flow way in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of a Lake Okeechobee is the only meaningful solution to "get the water right" and restore and protect our coastal estuaries.
Ray Judah is with the Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition.


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For Immediate Release:
Chicago to Trinidad – Dj Sultan and Jonny Blaze Release BANG RIDDIM
For Immediate Release: Chicago to Trinidad – Dj Sultan and Jonny Blaze Release BANG RIDDIM International Billboard charting Producers DJ Sultan and Jonny Blaze release their first of many contributions for 2018: BANG RIDDIM 💥 with Tommy Lee Sparta, Elephant Man, Ptnerksy, Preedy, Screws, and Krystal Khayne. Jonny Blaze & DJ Sultan are both heavily […]
2017 – Looking Back , Looking Forward – DJ SULTAN
With 2017 Coming to an end – there is so much to reflect on and so much to look forward to. My Single "HIPS SING" spend 6 weeks on the dance charts, and the video blew past 100,000 views. I had been hustling hard on creating new opportunities to perform – in various cities around […]
5 Weeks on the Billboard Dance Charts –
With the Fantastic remixes by Marc Stout from Chicago's B96 Best known for his Monster Collaboration Calle 8 ( I know you want me) with Pitbull – Nicola Fasano gives the International hit HIPS SING the banger treatment – Straight for the clubs, jumping and fist pumping. And a Killer Tribal remix from Mike […]
All Rights Reserved. © DJ Sultan. Support Local Music.


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Trance Alex MAVR
Alex MAVR - Trance Territory #63558:4315 1Like Repost SocialAddDownloadto Set to Group to Playlist···Suggest Genre58:43
Dj Alex MAVR has a vivid progressive trance direction in creativity. The reasons for the success of any good artist Dj - it is a skill to the feelings of his audience, and the ability to leave unforgettable moments in the memory. His fans - the people of any age, race and religion. DJ Alex MAVR - this is a man who literally unites continents.
Full name Alexey Milgunov. Born and raised 06 April 1976, in the city of Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region. Since 2009 lives and works in Sochi, is a regular guest on radio stations "Europa Plus" and "Radio Energy" Sochi.
DJ Alex MAVR is a resident of Internet radio stations "Trance-Energy Radio" t-er.org
Enjoy a performance artist in Your city, club or school you can call:
Booking: tel. +7(988) 23-545-23, mail: email@example.com
This track was tagged with the following keywords: Trance.
These are the meta information of this upload:
- 137 bpm
- Key: Bm
3 played it.
Listen to all music and sounds of Alex MAVR and follow this user by signing in for free.
- 137 bpm
- Key: Bm


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Kerrville suit on power line route rejected
A judge in Travis County rejected a lawsuit Tuesday by Kerrville and its electric utility aimed at overturning the Public Utility Commission decision to build a new transmission line beside Interstate 10 from Comfort to west of Junction.
The plaintiffs, who were backed by Kerr County, say putting power towers along the north side of I-10 would devalue prime commercial property, deface the city's "gateway" at Texas 16, and infringe on nearby residences and businesses.
The suit, filed in March, accused PUC members of abusing their discretion, of considering improper evidence and of ignoring their own agency regulations in picking the route in January.
Those claims were denied in court pleadings filed by the attorney general's office, which represented the PUC in the case.
After listening to two hours of arguments in Austin, state District Judge Lora Livingston upheld the PUC's decision.
"It didn't go our way," said Kerr County Commissioner Bruce Oehler, who was more surprised at the speed with which the ruling was rendered than its content.
"It was so quick," Oehler said, "We figured it would be at least two weeks."
Backers of the selected route outnumbered critics in the courtroom, he said.
"There were a lot of counties that sent legal counsel with letters of support for the PUC," Oehler said as he drove home.
The city of Junction was a plaintiff in the case until reaching a settlement Monday with the Lower Colorado River Authority's Transmission Services Corp., which has a state contract to build the line by December 2013.
Junction Mayor Larry Maddux called the settlement, whose terms weren't released Tuesday, "the best way out" since the selected route seemed "pretty well set in concrete."
After spending nearly two years on the process of selecting a route, the LCRA TSC — which intervened in the suit on the side of the PUC — is eager to get to work on the project, which is part of the state's Competitive Renewable Energy Zone initiative.
"We thought the PUC decision was well-supported in the facts," said LCRA spokeswoman Clara Tuma, "and we're gratified that the judge agreed with us today in affirming the decision."
The project to connect substations in Kendall and Schleicher counties is among more than 2,400 miles of new power lines that the state wants built to improve the reliability of its electric grid and to carry power from rural wind farms to high-demand urban areas.
Kerr County Attorney Rob Henneke told Livingston the PUC disregarded its own "prudent avoidance" policy, which calls for power lines to be kept away from populated areas, by running it near a mobile home park in Kerrville.
"No scintilla of evidence exists to support a reasonable basis to condemn peoples' homes when 60 other routes or 20,000 other configurations would accomplish the state's purpose without this harm," he said, according to a copy of his remarks provided afterward.
PUC spokesman Terry Hadley welcomed the court ruling.
"They have been fair in allowing all parties to participate and help the PUC decide these challenging CREZ cases," he said.
Tuesday began with last-minute talks between the LCRA TSC and both the Kerr County Commission and the Kerrville City Council, but neither board agreed to a settlement at separate emergency meetings.


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For those of you that don't know or realize, I submitted a tutorial on a Stargazer lily that was sitting in my folder for two days. You may not have noticed, but it is the first lesson of the day. The second tutorial is on another flower called the Easter lily. Many of you may recognize this flower because one of the only times that it is displayed in an upfront manner is when Easter rolls around. They are a bloom that is enjoyed mainly in the fall, but since Easter is in Spring, these beautiful blooms come to our stores and florists a week or two before Easter is actually here. Obviously this tutorial is going to be on "how to draw an Easter lily", step by step. With this lesson you will learn how to recreated these trumpet shaped flowers. Like I said before, there are about one hundred ten different types of lilies, and this is one of them. What I like about the Easter lily is how the stem part of the flower seems to mesh with the bloom itself making it look whole. This white flower symbolizes a variety of things, but there is one that stands out and that is purity, followed by hope and life. These flowers go hand in hand with the Easter holiday, and they are traditionally included in homes, churches, and other places that hold celebrations in honor of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anyways, I do think that those of you that choose to tackle this tutorial will have fun. You can draw the Easter lily out, and then color it in with paint, markers or even crayons if you like. I have to fly out of here because there is still a few tutorials coming your way still. Stay seated to see what they will be. Peace out folks and enjoy!
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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EUSIPCO 3MT 2016 in Budapest
- Details
- Category: Non categorizzato
- Published: Friday, 20 January 2017 10:23
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 9836
Provision's Fellow, Karam Naser, was selected as the winner for a 3 Minutes Thesis (3MT) contest. The competition among the 4 finalists took place on 31st of August 2016 at the EUSIPCO 2016 conference in Budapest.
PhD in 3 minutes is a feature of the European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO). The Technical Program Committee of EUSIPCO 2016 has offered a 3 Minutes Thesis (3MT) contest, where PhD students have three minutes to present a compelling oration on their thesis and its significance. After the short presentations the audience were asked to vote for the best, and their votes are averaged with the jury's opinion. After collecting the votes, Karam Naser was identified as the winner of this contest.
You can watch his 3MT video here.
- Details
- Category: Non categorizzato
- Published: Monday, 09 February 2015 15:55
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 116218
President's Message
This is the first EURASIP Newsletter of 2015. In the last issue of 2014, I welcomed all EUSIPCO-2014 participants and attendees of our 2014 EURASIP Seasonal Schools as 2015 members of the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP). In the past, we were collecting new membership almost only through EUSIPCO attendance. Today, you can also become a member by attending one of the EURASIP Seasonal Schools. We launched a program of Seasonal Schools in Signal Processing last year with the goal of providing graduate students, Ph.D. students, and early stage researchers with a background in signal processing and its applications. We hope in this way to bring our association's activities and initiatives to a bigger audience and so to increase our visibility, especially amongst young researchers and Ph.D. students. In 2014, we had two successful Schools, one in Pisa (Italy) on "Radar Signal Processing", and one in Aalborg (Denmark), on "Advanced Psychoacoustics: Theory, Practice and Modelling". The next one will be held at CTTC in Barcelona (Spain) in June 2015 and it is devoted to "Foundations and Advances in Stochastic Filtering" (contact the organizer, Dr. Pau Closas, for more information). If you are interested in organizing a EURASIP Seasonal School, please submit your proposal white paper, following the guidelines reported in the Seasonal Schools webpage (www.eurasip.org).
This year, we are starting a new two-year term of the elected EURASIP Board of Directors (BoD). After two years of presidency, I have been re-elected EURASIP President. I thanks the BoD members for giving me the opportunity to continue my work as President, counting on the help of the Past-President, Marc Moonen, and of the new EURASIP Board of Directors. Following the voting for the renewal of the BoD (announced in the Sept—Oct. 2014 issue of the Newsletter), we decided for a rotation on the charges, together with the creation of the new position of External Relations chair. I would like to express here my heartfelt thanks to the BoD members currently retiring from the Board, Maria Paula Queluz and Aggelos Pikrakis. They will continue to support and advise the Association as newly elected "Working Members". In the new Board of Directors, the newly elected members, Fernando Pereira (Portugal) and Alle-Jan van der Veen (The Netherlands), will be in charge of the External Relations and Publications, respectively. Ana Perez-Neira will be our new Awards chair, Jean-Luc Dugelay the Membership Development chair, Patrick Naylor the Workshops/Conferences chair, and Abdelhak Zoubir our Secretary/Treasurer. In addition to that, Aggelos generously accepted the role of EURASIP officer with the task of Web Services Coordinator.
In concluding, let me remind to put an eye on the deadlines for the next EUSIPCO that will be held in Nice (France), the capital of the Côte d'Azur. EUSIPCO 2015 is organized under the General Chairmanship of Prof. Jean-Luc Dugelay and Prof. Dirk Slock (EURECOM) and it promises to be a memorable event. The Call for Papers and more detailed information are available at www.eusipco2015.org.
Looking forward to seeing all of you at EUSIPCO 2015!
contributed by Fulvio Gini, EURASIP President
Acoustic, Speech and Music Signal Processing
- Details
- Category: Non categorizzato
- Published: Monday, 09 February 2015 15:55
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 17707
- TAC Name:
Acoustic, Speech and Music Signal Processing
- TAC Acronym:
- TAC Technical Area:
The ASMSP TAC focuses on a wide range of audio and acoustic signal processing topic, including microphone and loudspeaker array processing; spatial audio capturing, processing and rendering; audio and speech enhancement and restoration; system identification and dereverberation; adaptive audio processing; speech perception, analysis, and synthesis; sound and music modeling, processing and coding; music signal analysis, processing and synthesis; music information extraction and retrieval; auditory modeling and hearing aids; quality and intelligibility measures; parallel processing and algorithm development for audio and acoustic applications; audio and acoustic signal descriptors and informatics.
- TAC Chair and Co-Chair:
Emanuël Habets
International Audio Laboratories Erlangen
Fraunhofer IIS, Audio & Multimedia Erlangen
Am Wolfsmantel 33, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
Phone: +49 9131 85 20503
Fax: +49 9131 85 20524
emanuel.habets at audiolabs-erlangen.de
Mads Græsbøll Christensen
Professor, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology
Aalborg University
Rendsburggade 14, 6-335
9000 Aalborg, Denmark
mgc at create.aau.dk
- TAC membership:
Name Affiliation Term Jens Ahrens Chalmers University of Technology, Sweeden jens.ahrens at chalmers.se 2018 - 2020 Fabio Antonacci Politecnico di Milano, Italy fabio.antonacci at polimi.it 2016 - 2021 Tom Bäckström Aalto University, Finland tom.backstrom at aalto.fi 2019 - 2021 Carmine Emanuele Cella Ecole Normale Superieure, France carmine.emanuele.cella at gmail.com 2019 - 2021 Mads Christensen Aalborg University, Danmark mgc at create.aau.dk 2016 - 2021 Simon Doclo University of Oldenburg, Germany simon.doclo at uni-oldenburg.de 2016 - 2021 Sharon Gannot Bar-Ilan University , Israel gannotsh at gmail.com 2016 - 2021 Daniele Giacobello Sonos, Inc. USA giacobello at ieee.org 2019 - 2021 Emanuel Habets Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany emanuel.habets at audiolabs-erlangen.de 2016 - 2018 (Vice-Chair)
2019 - 2021 (Chair)
Walter Kellermann Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany walter.kellermann at fau.de 2016 - 2021 Jesper Kjær Nielsen Aalborg University, Denmark jkn at create.aau.dk 2019 - 2021 Ina Kodrasi Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland
ina.kodrasi at idiap.ch
2018 - 2020 Heinrich Loellmann FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany Heinrich.Loellmann at FAU.de 2018 - 2020 Shoji Makino University of Tsukuba, Japan maki at tara.tsukuba.ac.jp 2019 - 2021 Shmulik Markovich-Golan Ruhr University Bochum, Germany Shmulik.markovich at gmail.com 2018 - 2020 Rainer Martin Ruhr University Bochum, Germany Rainer.Martin at rub.de 2016 - 2021 Alastair H. Moore Imperial College, UK alastair.h.moore at imperial.ac.uk 2018 - 2020 Hélène-Camille Crayencour University Paris-Sud, France helene.camille.crayencour at gmail.com 2018 - 2021 Julian Parker Native Instruments, DE julian.parker at native-instruments.de 2018 - 2020 Mark Plumbley University Paris-Sud, France m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk 2016 - 2021 Gael Richard TELECOM ParisTech, France Gael.Richard at telecom-paristech.fr 2016 - 2021 Augusto Sarti Politecnico di Milano, Italy augusto.sarti at polimi.it 2016 - 2018 (Chair)
2019 - 2021
Sascha Spors University of Rostock, Germany sascha.spors at uni-rostock.de 2016 - 2021 Toon van Waterschoot KU Leuven, Belgium toonvanwaterschoot at kuleuven.be 2019 - 2021
- Former Members
Name Affiliation Term Stefan Bilbao University of Edinburgh, UK s.bilbao at ed.ac.uk 2016 - 2017 Filippo Fazi Univ. of Southampton, UK Gael.Richard at telecom-paristech.fr 2016 - 2018 Alberto Gonzalez Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain agonzal at dcom.upv.es 2016 - 2018 Peter Jax RWTH Aachen University, Germany jax at ind.rwth-aachen.de 2016 - 2018 Jean-Marc Jot Magic Leap, CA, USA jmmjot at gmail.com 2016 John Mourjopoulos University of Patras, Greece mourjop at upatras.gr 2016 - 2017 Patrick Naylor Imperial College, UK p.naylor at imperial.ac.uk 2016 - 2018 Rudolf Rabenstein Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany rudolf.rabenstein at fau.de 2016 - 2017 Xavier Serra Pompeu Fabra University, Spain xavier.serra at upf.edu 2016 - 2017 Mark Sandler Queen Mary Univ. of London, UK mark.sandler at qmul.ac.uk 2016 - 2018 Lauri Savioja AALTO, Finland lauri.savioja at aalto.fi 2016 Gerald Schuller Ilmenau University, Germany shl at idmt.fraunhofer.de 2016 - 2018 Vesa Valimaki AALTO University, Finland vesa.valimaki at aalto.fi 2016 - 2018
SAT Definition
- Details
- Category: Non categorizzato
- Published: Monday, 09 February 2015 15:55
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 15242
EURASIP Technical Area Committees (TACs) Framework
SATs elevated to Technical Area Committees (TACs)
- Objectives
The main objective of the Special Area Teams (SATs) is to facilitate the interaction and communication of EURASIP members in a specific scientific area, notably by:
- Sharing knowledge and visions
- Discussing trends
- Spreading information about innovations
- Creating ties
- Facilitating collaboration beyond EURASIP
- Organizing meetings and events
- Establishment
SATs are established by the EURASIP Board of Directors following a proposal to the EURASIP President by at least 15 EURASIP members. The proposal should define/include
- The special area to be addressed
- The motivation and an indication of why it is of benefit to establish a SAT in that specific scientific area
- A specific plan of activities
- A list of SAT founding members
- Proposed Chair and Vice-Chair
- Size
To be efficient and relevant, SATs must have a maximum size of 25 members and a minimum size of 15 members. Renewal of the SAT membership should be planned in a way that these size limits are not violated.
- Review
To assure that SATs remain relevant and useful, they will be reviewed at least every 3 years. Additional reviews may be defined at the discretion of the EURASIP Board of Directors. The review will be conducted by a review committee created under the auspices of the EURASIP Board of Directors with at least three EURASIP members; non-EURASIP members may be invited to serve on this committee if considered appropriate. Following a negative review, the EURASIP Board of Directors may take actions to improve the situation.
- Closing
Following a negative review, SATs may be closed by the EURASIP Board of Directors. Otherwise, a recovery plan should be established, eventually including SAT leadership elections.
- Governance
SATs shall have a Chair and a Vice-Chair, who is a substitute for the Chair when needed. The terms of the Chair and Vice-Chair are 3 years and can only the renewed once. The Chair and Vice-Chair (who should be already SAT members at the time of election) are elected by the SAT members by a secret ballot. To improve the SAT 'memory', the past Chair and Vice-Chair should automatically become SAT members after the end of their terms for a 3 year term.
- Membership
SAT members are elected by the current SAT members after proposal by a current SAT member. It is suggested that an appropriate percentage of the SAT membership is renewed every year in a sliding way. The term of the SAT members is 3 years and can only be renewed once; retiring SAT members cannot be candidates again before resting for a minimum of 1 year. The SAT founding membership, as well as the founding Chair and Vice-Chair, are defined by the EURASIP Board of Directors when establishing the SAT, following the proposal received.
- Meetings
The SAT Chair will organize meetings, which can be online or face to face. SATs are expected to meet at EUSIPCO under the logistic constraints allowed by the conference organizers.
SAT members are expected to participate in person at the yearly EUSIPCO SAT meeting at least every other year.
- Reporting
Every year before end of March, the SAT should submit to the EURASIP Board of Directors a report of the previous year's activities, events and achievements.
- SAT Coordination and Communication
To assure the coordination and communication between the SATs, a SAT Coordination and Communication (SAT-CC) group is created, the members of which are the SAT Chairs. The SAT-CC group is chaired by the EURASIP External Relations Director.
- Advertizing
The SATs will be advertized at the EURASIP Web Page, notably the SAT areas, activities and membership.
Biometrics, Data Forensics, and Security
- Details
- Category: Non categorizzato
- Published: Monday, 09 February 2015 15:55
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 19333
- TAC Name:
Biometrics, Data Forensics, and Security
- TAC Acronym:
- TAC Technical Area:
The BForSec TAC focuses on multimedia security, data forensics, hashing, watermarking, covert communications (steganography and steganalysis), applied cryptography, biometric recognition, biometric forensics, video surveillance, physical layer security, network security, hardware security, data privacy with its different declinations in the field of biometrics, social networks, cloud, and big data, de-identification methodologies.
- TAC Chair and Co-Chair:
Paulo Lobato Correia
Instituto de Telecomunicações
Instituto Superior Técnico
Torre Norte, 10-15
049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
email: paulo.correia at lx.it.pt
URL: https://www.it.pt/Members/Index/390
Andreas Uhl
Department of Computer Sciences
Universität Salzburg
Jakob-Haringerstr. 2
A-5020 Salzburg, Austria
Tel: +43 (0)662 8044 6303
uhl at cosy.sbg.ac.at
- TAC membership:
Name Affiliation Term Irene Amerini Sapienza University of Rome, Italy amerini at diag.uniroma1.it 2019 - 2021 Giulia Boato University of Trento, Italy giulia.boato at unitn.it 2018 - 2020 Felix Balado University College Dublin, Ireland felix at ucd.ie 2019 - 2021 Patrizio Campisi Universita' degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy patrizio.campisi at uniroma3.it 2018 - 2020 Luca Caviglione National Research Council of Italy luca.caviglione at ge.issia.cnr.it 2018 - 2020 Paulo Lobato Correia Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal paulo.correia at lx.it.pt 2018 - 2020 (Chair) Tanya Ignatenko GN Hearing A/S t.ignatenko at IEEE.ORG 2016 - 2021 Jörg Keller FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany joerg.keller at fernuni-hagen.de 2018 - 2020 Emanuele Maiorana Universita' degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy emanuele.maiorana at uniroma3.it 2016 - 2021 Wojciech Mazurczyk Warsaw University of Technology, Poland wmazurcz at elka.pw.edu.pl 2016 - 2021 Aleksandra Mileva Goce Delcev University of Štip, Macedonia aleksandra.mileva at ugd.edu.mk 2019 - 2021 Kamal Nasrollahi Aalborg University, Denmark kn at create.aau.dk 2018 - 2020 Cecilia Pasquini University of Innsbruck, Austria cecilia.pasquini at uibk.ac.at 2019 - 2021 Fernando Pérez-González Universidade de Vigo, Spain fperez at gts.uvigo.es 2016 - 2021 Vitomir Štruc Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia vitomir.struc at fe.uni-lj.si 2018 - 2020 Husrev Taha Sencar TOBB University, Turkey htsencar at etu.edu.tr 2016 - 2021 Andreas Uhl Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Austria Andreas.Uhl at sbg.ac.at 2018 - 2020 (Vice-Chair) Sviatoslav (Slava) Voloshynovskiy University of Geneva, Switzerland svolos at unige.ch 2016 - 2021 Steffen Wendzel Worms University of Applied Sciences & Fraunhofer FKIE, Bonn, Germany wendzel at hs-worms.de 2018 - 2020
- Former Members
Name Affiliation Term Patrick Bas Ecole Centrale de Lille, France patrick.bas at ec-lille.fr 2016 - 2017 Zekeriya Erkin TU Delf, Netherlands z.erkin at tudelft.nl 2016 - 2018 Thomas Gross University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK thomas.gross at ncl.ac.uk 2016 - 2017 Anthony Ho University of Surrey, UK a.ho at surrey.ac.uk 2016 - 2018 Alessandro Piva University of Florence, Italy alessandro.piva at unifi.it 2016 - 2018


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Legal Aid
If you have a civil legal problem but cannot afford to hire a private lawyer, you still may have access to the legal system through your local legal services-legal aid organization which provides free or low cost legal services to persons with low incomes. Information about many of these local services can be found online through the websites listed below.
National and State-Wide Websites
- LawHelp.org is the gateway to legal aid providers in every state.
- FloridaLawHelp.org is the gateway to Florida legal resouces.
Local Legal Aid Websites
- Florida Rural Legal Services (serving the Tampa Bay area: Dade City, New Port Richey, St. Petersburg, and Tampa)
- Bay Area Legal Services (serving the Tampa Bay area)
- Brevard County Legal Aid, Inc.
- Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, Inc. (serving 12 counties in Central Florida: Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, Sumter, Orange, Osceola, Putnam, Volusia, and Seminole counties)
- MyFloridaCounty.com (Child Support)
- Florida Legal Services, Inc. (locations in Lake Worth, Miami, Newberry, and Tallahassee)
- Florida Justice Institute - Miami
- Florida Rural Legal Services (serving Bellglade, Fort Myers, Fort Pierce, Lakeland, Punta Gorda, and West Palm Beach)
- Heart of Florida Legal Aid Society, Inc. (serving Hardee, Highlands, and Polk Counties)
- Gulfcoast Legal Services (serving Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas and Sarasota counties)
- Jacksonville Area Legal Aid
- JALA Low Bono Project (serving Duval, Clay, St. Johns, and Nassau counties)
- Lee County Legal Aid Society, Inc.
- Legal Aid of Manasota (Sarasota, Bradenton and Venice)
- Legal Aid Society of Collier County, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, Inc.
- Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County
- Legal Services of North Florida (locations in Fort Walton, Panama City, Pensacola, Quincy, and Tallahassee)
- Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. (serving Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties)
- Seminole County Bar Association Legal Aid Society
- Southern Legal Counsel
- Three Rivers Legal Services (serving 17 counties within Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Lake City)
- Legal Aid Service of Broward County
- Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida


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Ernest Valdez, Jr. asked how he could wirelessly send a video signal from his computer to his HDTV.
There are number of ways to do this, although they may not provide what you want.
First of all, a great many televisions today have WiFi built in, which allows you to wirelessly connect them to your home network, and thus to your computer. So do many new Blu-ray players--and they're a great deal cheaper than HDTVs. But is WiFi really your best option?
Depending on your home's geography, WiFi may not be reliable enough for quality streaming video. If it isn't, consider using Ethernet. All of the TVs and Blu-ray players that support WiFi, and many that don't, have Ethernet. If stringing an Ethernet cable from your router to your TV isn't practical, HomePlug devices--which use your home's electric grid to transmit data--can easily give you an Ethernet connection to any room in your home.
You probably already know that,--however they're connected--networked HDTVs and Blu-ray players can play Internet streaming video. Virtually all of them offer Netflix. Many have YouTube, Pandora, and at least one pay-per-view service. Newer ones are including Hulu Plus.
Most of them can also play videos and music, and display photos, off of any computer on the network. The computer has to be running DLNA server software, but that's not difficult. Windows Media Player--which comes bundled with Windows--is such a server.
But these features don't make the HDTV or Blu-ray player as versatile as a computer. They can't play all of the streaming video services that your browser can handle, nor do they support every media file format that you might find on your PC. That's why many people like to plug their computer into their HDTV.
Of course, that's not a wireless solution.
Or is it? I tested two wireless PC-to-TV devices for this article. Atlona's AT-AiR3 and Cables Unlimited's Wireless USB to HDMI & VGA Adapter with Audio appeared to be the same product in different packaging, although only the Atlona's supported 1080p. In both cases, you plug one USB device into your PC, and plug another one into your HDTV via not-included HDMI or VGA cables.
Both had the same problem: a software installation that makes major changes to Windows' Registry and adds an autoloader. Also, their ranges were limited; you basically had to be in the same room as the TV. But each allowed me to watch PC content on the television while my laptop was at my fingertips. Their image quality was equivalent to using the PC's HDMI port.
Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at email@example.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum. Follow Lincoln on Twitter.
This story, "Can I Wirelessly Connect My PC to My HDTV?" was originally published by PCWorld.


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Sunday, April 1, 2012
Life was incredibly challenging as were the times and yet in an old photo like this it seems like it was not only so much simpler (true enough in technical ways) but almost halcyon days. But digging deeper into the historical archives proves not necessarily. As I think Borges put it, more or less, everyone is born into tough times. And as experience teaches, all times are both "good" and "bad" (since each term depends upon the other or is meaningless) just like today.
Anyway, here 'tis:
7 comments:
Darling photo. By the way, is that the apartment I took over?
- April 1, 2012 at 11:01:00 PM EDT
- Lally said...
I don't think so. What tipped me off is the bare wall in the hall. Miles was born in late November 1969 and we had just moved into this apartment and didn't have the usual on the walls except for that framed temple rubbing. If it was the apartment you took over there should be a Procul Harem poster hanging on that wall plus other stuff.
- April 2, 2012 at 8:31:00 AM EDT
- -K- said...
I don't think I ever lived in an apartment that didn't have brick bookcases.
- April 2, 2012 at 12:30:00 PM EDT
- Lally said...
My oldest son Miles said "great child proofing" and yet he and his sister never pulled the books or boards or bricks down.
- April 2, 2012 at 1:55:00 PM EDT
Hi, Michael.....Miles and Caitlin were the cutest kids I knew in those days.....hope you and they are doing well...your new son Finn must be getting up there in age now....take care, my friend.....Michael Ferri
- April 2, 2012 at 11:33:00 PM EDT
- Lally said...
Same to you Michael and yes Cait and Miles are great and Flynn (a lot of folks make that mistake) is now fourteen!
- April 3, 2012 at 12:12:00 AM EDT
- jim said...
Yeah, funny how those old days are always "the good old days". Everything softens up in memory and retrospect. I've had an ongoing fascination with NYC history at the turn of the century. And that certainly wasn't a easier life. I think there is some idyllic romanticism that most of us fall prey to when looking back. There may be some truths buried in there: stress levels may have been down as modes of communication were slower and more local, and at some point our entire existences were more local, which could have been a good thing, all depending on how well you got along with your neighbors. In any case, even if it was a fleeting moment at that time, you do look content in the picture.
- April 4, 2012 at 2:24:00 PM EDT


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The following are designated Quiet Study areas in Woodruff Library.
Candler Library Lobby and Room 304 - New Quiet Study Areas
Matheson Reading Room, Level 3, across the bridge (Candler Library)
This space offers large wooden tables in a large open area and comfortable chairs/sofas in two alcoves on either end of the room. The room is not carpeted and has high ceilings, so even the lowest tones echo and travel easily throughout the space. We ask for the utmost quiet in this area.
Level 3 ECDS Specialized Workstations
This space across from the Emory Center for Digital Scolarship offers individual carrels with computer workstations and large tables. Loud conversation is discouraged.
Floors 4,5, & 8 (Stacks Tower)
Adjacent to the elevator lobbies on floors 4 & 5 are small study lounge areas with comfortable seating for quiet study. Group study that requires conversation is discouraged. The elevator bells and the coming/going of people in these high traffic areas cause some background noise.
On floors 4, 5, & 8 there are several individual carrels along the walls in the bookstacks area. Please note that you may not use individual carrels that have an "assigned" sign on them. These carrels are assigned to specific students and can ONLY be used by them.
Please limit group study that requires conversation to designated group study rooms on other floors. (See the Group Study tab.)


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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenage girls looking for birth control should be encouraged to consider the long-lasting "set and forget" methods, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
In new guidelines, ACOG says IUDs and contraceptive implants should be considered "first-line" birth control options for teenagers. The group issued similar advice for adult women last year (see Reuters Health story of June 21, 2011).
IUDs, or intrauterine devices, are implanted in the uterus, where they release small amounts of either copper or the hormone progestin to prevent pregnancy. The contraceptive implant, about the size of a matchstick, is inserted under the skin of the arm, where it releases controlled amounts of progestin.
In the U.S., IUDs and implants are much less popular than birth control pills and condoms for contraception. Many experts would like to see that change, since IUDs and implants - known collectively as long-acting reversible contraceptives - are far more reliable.
"Nearly all women who are sexually active are good candidates for long-acting reversible contraception," said Dr. David L. Eisenberg, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.
"It's exciting that ACOG is being so declarative that we should be treating adolescents the same as adults" when it comes to birth control options, said Eisenberg, who was not involved in writing the new statement.
IUDs and implants are so effective because they are "set and forget" contraceptives, and are not dependent on couples using them correctly.
That could make them especially good choices for teenagers, Eisenberg noted, since teens often use birth control inconsistently or not at all.
The hormonal IUD, sold under the brand name Mirena, can prevent pregnancy for five years, while the copper version, sold as ParaGard, is effective for about 10 years. The contraceptive implant (Implanon) works for three years.
Research shows that 0.8 percent of U.S. women using a copper IUD have an unplanned pregnancy within a year. The rate for those on the hormonal IUD was 0.2 percent.
Contraceptive implants, meanwhile, are even more effective - with a one-year pregnancy rate of just 0.05 percent.
In contrast, about nine out of every 100 women on birth control pills can expect to have an unintentional pregnancy in a year - owing largely to imperfect use. With condoms, about two percent of women will become pregnant, but that's only if a couple uses them correctly, every time they have sex.
Both IUDs and implants can have side effects, ACOG points out. With the implant, irregular menstrual bleeding is most common; some women stop having their periods altogether.
The Mirena IUD may also cause menstrual irregularities. But it generally makes periods lighter, which is why it is also approved as a treatment for heavy bleeding. The ParaGard IUD has the opposite effect: menstrual bleeding and cramping can increase, though that may go away over time.
In about one in 1,000 cases, ACOG says, the IUD can push through the wall of the uterus. It then needs to be removed, which sometimes requires surgery.
When they first came out, IUDs were considered an option mainly for women who'd already had children, as Reuters Health reported last year.
That was based on worries that IUDs raised the risk of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which can cause infertility. So doctors were reluctant to place IUDs in younger women who had not yet had a baby.
That "myth" might be one reason that health providers are even less likely to talk about IUDs and implants to teenagers than to adult women, according to Eisenberg.
But he said another barrier for teenagers is the type of health provider they typically see. Teens may see a family doctor or pediatrician - who may be less likely than an ob/gyn to be knowledgeable about IUDs and implants, or less comfortable placing them.
Cost could be another problem.
The upfront cost of the Mirena device itself is nearly $800. The ParaGard price tag is about $500. Then there are the doctor's charges for inserting them.
The Implanon implant costs between $400 and $800, with all charges considered.
Even if a teenager is covered by her parents' insurance, she might not want her parents finding out about her birth control payment. So, Eisenberg said, it may well seem easier to pay for condoms or birth control pills (generic pills run for about $10 a month.)
Healthcare providers, ACOG says, should do their best to make IUDs and implants available to young women who want them. The devices, the group writes in Obstetrics & Gynecology, "are the best reversible methods for preventing unintended pregnancy, rapid repeat pregnancy, and abortion in young women."
Eisenberg told Reuters Health that when providers don't know much about the contraceptives, they should refer their teen patients to someone who does.
"All adolescents should be educated on all their birth control options," he said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/QrtS1u Obstetrics & Gynecology, October 2012.


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If you're looking for sneakers and shoes that go over and above your expectations of quality; that mix premium, high-fashion textiles and standards with streetwear style and trainer technology, look no further than the Article No collection at Offspring.
The luxury trainer brand for men, Article No produce a variety of sneakers that will transform your look; from clean, crisp runners, to bold, duo-colour statements and futuristic hi and mid tops. You'll find that every pair is made from luxe materials too, including premium embossed python and Nappa leather, while inject phylon midsoles are lightweight, flexible and unbelievably comfortable.
Browse the latest drops from Article No at Offspring and order yours before they get snapped up! You'll find only the rarest collectible styles right here. Shop today!


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Edna Christine Briggs was born on Jan. 5, 1923, in Salyersville, Ky., to Virgil and Lissie Adams Higgins and died on Oct. 12, 2012, in Crossville, Tenn.
Edna Christine Briggs was born on Jan. 5, 1923, in Salyersville, Ky., to Virgil and Lissie Adams Higgins and died on Oct. 12, 2012, in Crossville, Tenn.
Edna married Robert Beecher Briggs on Dec. 26, 1942. They came to Oak Ridge in 1943, where they lived and raised their three children. Edna was preceded in death by her husband of 62 years in 2005, and in 2008, she moved to the Elizabeth Fletcher House assisted living facility in Pleasant Hill, Tenn.
Edna volunteered as a Gray Lady during the early years of the Oak Ridge Hospital of the Methodist Church. She was also active with Women for Outreach at First United Methodist Church in Oak Ridge, seeking to improve the lives and opportunities for women and children in back areas of Morgan County. On workdays at First Church, she enjoyed being a part of the kitchen crew that provided a good hot meal for the senior citizens who came to volunteer their time and talents.
Surviving Edna are her three children, Robert David Briggs (wife Diane) of Hixson, Tenn., Christine Briggs Stinson (husband John) of Crossville, Tenn., and Carolyn Mitchell Johnson (husband Steven) of Pearl, Miss.; grandchildren, Laura Briggs Hibbs (husband Mark) and Robert Scott Briggs (wife Julie) of Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., Douglas Scott Stinson (wife Anissa Jones) of Denver, Colo., Gregory Paul Stinson (wife Angela) of Apollo, Pa., and Jeremy Lee Mitchell and Peter William Johnson of Pearl, Miss.; and great-granddaughter, Gracie Hibbs who brought a smile to her face and sparkle to her eyes.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that any remembrances be in the form of donations to Hospice of Cumberland County, 30 E. Adams St., Crossville, TN 38555.
Crossville Memorial Funeral Home and Crematory Inc. is in charge of arrangements.


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Is it too soon?
With the economy still in the doldrums, HBO is hedging its bets that America is ready to watch the Wall Street machinations that wiped out trillions of dollars in market capitalization and led the country to a current 9.7% unemployment rate, according to ABC news.
The studio plans to make a television movie about the 2008 financial meltdown based on the book "Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System -- and Themselves." The tome, written by New York Times journalist Andrew Sorkin, focuses on figures like Richard Fuld (former chief executive of the now-bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers), John Mack (former CEO of Morgan Stanley), U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his predecessor, Henry Paulson.
The film does not have an air date and no actors have yet been attached to play the central figures. HBO, which has a history of dramatizing recent events (think 2008's "Recount" about the 2000 U.S. Presidential elections), has long been on the hunt for the right narrative about the economic downfall.
As long as they can pump some life into this drama off the spreadsheet, we're ready to applaud the ambition shown. If every unemployed American watches, we have a monster hit.
Clearly, there is some thirst for catharsis, at least in Hollywood. "Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," the sequel to his 1987 critique of New York's money men, will hit theaters this spring.


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UnNews:Manson to cut hair on Death Row
This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-microsecond misinformation.
17 May 2009
SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON, California -- Within the walls of one of the largest prisons in the world, there was today a smile which wasn't brought about by a God complex, the successful murder of a fellow inmate or even a letter from home; it was simply one man living his dream. Pop sensation Charles Manson, whose debut album Lie: The Love and Terror Cult is on the shelf of nearly all homes of Hollywood Stars, has been granted the opportunity to follow up one of his earliest childhood dreams. Judge Atkins Tate today passed an order to allow Manson the opportunity to cut the hair of inmates who are awaiting execution. Inmates such as the Night Stalker - Richard Ramirez are especially pleased at the news, "Well it's about time, that's all I can say." Ramirez, who has never actually met Manson but has communicated with him through a series of notes passed via guards spoke highly of his fellow inmate, "The thing is Charlie knows what kind of people we are, how we like to be spoken too and how we like to be touched. Although we can have fun with the guys that the prison employs to cut our hair, with Charlie it'll be more like a family member or friend. It'll spark good memories in me, for sure."
Hairdressing will now make its way onto Manson's already impressive CV which he was been working on since the beginning of his incarceration, it is thought that he is already making several thousands of dollars each month by embedding Swastikas into the foreheads of fellow inmates - a scar which Manson inflicted on himself some time ago.
Many people have called for the decision to be revoked, feeling that due to the nature of Manson's crime, this sort of responsibility would not be catered for correctly in his hands. Members of the Supreme Court spoke out to defend Judge Tate. "With this ruling we do not wish to suggest that the crime which was originally committed by Charles Manson was at all a minor offense. Running with scissors is something which the state of California looks down on, not with a tissue, but with a fluorescent orange jumpsuit and chains." After Manson's initial arrest, which took place thirty years ago, many parents spoke out against his actions calling them "irresponsible and childish". Although he is more than enthusiastic to talk, little of what Charles Manson says makes sense, largely due to a speech impediment he has suffered from since birth, and so as a result his lawyers have been reluctant to release any comment from him or on behalf of him. "Although we have spoken to Charles and are aware that he is very pleased at the news of his triumph and looks forward to his work, we have only been able to determine these responses through his actions as he is yet to form sentences with any recognisable structure."
It is widely thought by several professional psychiatrists that Manson has reverted to a childlike state and that with his difficulties when speaking he has created his own language, mostly phonetic and has been compared to Grammelot an onomatopoeic language created by Theatre Practitioner, Dario Fo, an open supporter of Manson's music.
It is clear that the government are keen on allowing Manson to take up this extra curricular activity and are expecting a statement of thanks, which they will release, within a couple of weeks.
- Jamie Doward "Murderer wins fight to get state to pay for his haircuts". Guardian Online, May 17, 2009


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Highlights of Atul and Xin Jin's wedding day.
Pre-wed: SGD1,000 / Actual: SGD2,600
Location: The St. Regis Singapore
10 ReviewsMessage Professional
We chose Michelle and Alvin as they were able to capture the true emotions of all the previous weddings that they took pictures of. We were so excited to see the pictures and I must say that they were absolutely amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better pair of photographers to capture our special day and we would highly recommend them to all couples getting married.
We first stumbled upon Awesome Memories Photography Instagram last year as we began wedding planning. Being interested in photography himself, my fiancé was impressed by their work and their style of photography. We expressed our interest to find out more, and Alvin and Michelle invited us over to their home-office. They spent the evening talking with us about our relationship story, and explained that they wanted to capture our story, not just photographs, and that was exactly what we were looking for. This sincerity is what set them apart from many others. As my fiancé and I are not good at doing posed-shots, we needed a photographer who could capture candid moments. We were hence glad that on the day of our pre-wedding photoshoot, we were given ample of space to complete "tasks" which we have selected while Alvin and Michelle took their shots. Since they were a husband-wife team, their chemistry (mo qi) was really good! We were really pleased with the photos! The journey through to our pre-wedding photograph session was full of personal touches and "extra miles". We also recently received our pre-wedding photographs, and they even assisted to create a video of all their selection of photos, which we can readily play on our wedding day. They also blessed us with beautifully prints which we will be using on our actual day. They have helped us to save so much hassle and time! We are now looking forward to our wedding, and we have full confidence that Alvin and Michelle will do an amazing job capturing this important memory for us. Thanks Awesome Memories!
Amongst the few Photographers that My fiancée and I met when we were sourcing for our wedding Photographers, Alvin and Michelle were the only ones who asked about our love story and tried to understand what kind of pictures/style we like, and was jotting down the things we said and giving us the personal touch. They were easy to talk to and we felt comfortable sharing with them. once we confirmed them as our wedding Photographers, they set up a WhatsApp group chat so that we can all be in touch and also arranged for flowers to be delivered to my fiancée office which bought her over. We met up again before our wedding day to run through our schedule and to look at possible photoshoot venues around the bride house. On the actual wedding day, they thought of activities for the bridesmaid and groomsmen to share with us - the bride and groom adding the personal touch to our wedding and making it memorable while capturing our most natural expressions While price wise it might hurt the wallet a little but it's definitely worth the service and final pictures that you would be receiving. Most importantly you would be getting 2 Photographers for the price which makes it value for money actually !
Alvin and Michelle from awesome memories was really patient and attentive to details. Before we engaged them for their service, they made the effort to understand us as a couple so as to piece our wedding into a personalized love story. Even with our hectic schedule and enormous number of guests they managed to remain composed and professional thoughout the whole wedding photography session. Not to mention we have more than 700 guest which is not easy manage. We are really happy and grateful that our actual day wedding photos turned out to be really beautiful.
Alvin and Michelle are very professional, and always took the extra mile in ensuring we were at ease. They were really sweet too. For instance, for our pre-wedding softcopy photos, the bridal shop gave us a DVD. But for our photoshoot with Awesome Memories, they gave us a beautiful thumbdrive, thoughtfully loaded with high and low res, and even printed some photos for our momento. Alvin and Michelle are responsive and also gave us much guidance, especially during our planning stages. This gave us much assurance on our wedding day, and we were thoroughly able to just trust them and enjoy the moment. Their photos are very natural, and captured our happy moments beautifully!!
Hello, Firstly, our apologies for the much delayed review! We decided to engage Awesome Memories, who is a husband and wife team (Alvin and Michelle), after reviewing the photos from their previous coverage. We were most impressed by the style and creative vibes that come out of their captures. Most impressionable experience we had from the start was to visit their beautiful house cum studio where literally the awesome memories begin. We were given good advice on the actual day details to look out for and how presentation in front of the camera could be made better. A thorough discussion about our relatives and friends gave them a good idea of who and what was important to us during the actual day coverage. Btw, they threw in a small surprise gift to my wife...hehe For our actual day, the team diligently and amply provided coverage and even waived the costs for some extra coverage provided. Our actual day photos were tastefully captured, done up and presented to us. Every piece of photo evokes a pleasant memory and I couldnt thank the team more for this. I would recommend Awesome Memories for the great experience and the gentle creativeness in their high quality photos and congratulations on their newborn!
Both thumbs up for Alvin and Michelle! We really enjoyed working with the both of them, from our first email contact to our first meet up to the collection of our Actual Day photos. They have been very prompt with their replies, and are very friendly and helpful! They are ever so willing to provide advice and suggestions with ANY Wedding or Non-wedding matters, as long as you ask them. The photos which they took are simply awesome, we couldn't help but clap so loudly after they showed us the photo montage! They have captured all the details of the Wedding - decor, food, guests emotions so well that our Wedding replayed itself once again when we looked through the photos. Thank you so much Awesome Memories, for making the moments last forever!
Mr. Alvin and Ms. Michelle are the photographers who served us. Their circumspection and preciseness impressed us mostly. They invited us to their studio and checked every detail about our love story. These tiny things inspired their creative photo shooting, that result in such an awesome product. Highly recommended to those who wanna to keep a unforgettable memory like us
Both Michelle and Alvin from Awesome Memories Photogtaphy are just so Awesome!! You will not regret once you have engaged them for your big day!! They made me and my Husband very comfortable from the start when we contacted them till our wedding day and we like their photo taking styles. All of us, including our entourage, had so much fun with Awesome Memories Photography on our wedding day especially during the outdoor shoot. When we received our photos from them, we were so happy with them that we looked through the photos quite a few times when we brought it home.. Awesome Memories Photography does create awesome memories with the photos so I would highly recommend their services!!!
My husband and I believe that photos from "the big day" will be the most important one as this will be our only takeaway from our wedding. Michelle from Awesome Memories Photography was very prompt and thoughtful when she first replied to my inquiry. The reply was personal and it was very different from the general replies that I received. When we met Alvin and Michelle, we know that we were in good hands as they were not just asking about what kind of service do we want, but they were genuinely concerned about our wedding preparations. They made "the big day" such an easy and fun one - especially since we're pretty awkward and uncomfortable when it comes to being THE subjects! They were so incredibly easy during the whole wedding. The photos they delivered to us are breathtaking! The quality of the shots are incredible. The composition, lighting, and variety of perspectives in their photos shows their skills in this profession. We couldn't have been happier with the results. They are so worth it! Thank you Awesome Memories.


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Senate GOP Leader Calls On Dems To Spell Out Cuts
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Republican leader is calling on President Barack Obama and Democrats to spell out where they would cut government spending as part of any deal to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff."
Sen. Mitch McConnell complained on Tuesday that Obama has spent his time talking about raising tax rates but has failed to specify where he would reduce out-of-control government spending.
The Kentucky Republican cited recent studies on wasteful government spending, including $325,000 on a Robotic squirrel name RoboSquirrel.
McConnell's comments came just three weeks before automatic tax hikes and spending cuts kick in, a double hit that economists warn could plunge the nation into another recession.


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I've heard many people saying that it makes games more successfull if you can just play them on your browser without downloading a file at all.
Has there been any research about this? Because i find it hard to believe that the people are so lazy they cant click one download button and just unzip the game.
I find it hard to believe because: i have never played a (good) browser game from a browser; i've always launched the Java or Flash directly in its own window, because the webpages are always full of adverts with flashing stuff that distract me too much. I hope others feel the same and i can just forget this "problem" and focus on making games on normal Windows/Linux/Mac executables instead. But i would like to see some evidence on it before i decide to do so.
Edit: I dont care about the target audience or etc, just in general, are browser games more popular than downloadable games? and is it really because the users dont want to download any files? more specifically: is there correlation between success and capability to play on a browser?


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I have been doing development for Poieo Design for a bit now and we have a number of modules that we are looking forward to clean up and contribute. Here is a sneak peak of what we are currently working on:
I am still amazed at the number of people that come to my website to read my articles on how to integrate Drupal with Adobe Flex. I think that is a sign I should be doing more work in that area. I decided to quite using Flex full time in my client for about a year ago when Drupal 6 was release. The only reason I used Flex in the first place was for the pretty IDE and the pretty UIs I could make, but with D6 and Jquery, I can do it all there!
Anyway, I think this is a sign. I guess I will start looking into more ideas of Drupal and Flex integration. Any ideas on what you want to see?
What is Drupal?
Drupal - a completely free, open source content management system that many organizations are using today to provide for their needs. Drupal's many features and add-ons allow it to be used for a variety of website needs. Drupal is a good choice for today's organizations of any size because it is free, easy, and incredibly flexible.