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Do You Think Like a FAT Person?
|If so, there's a good chance you will DIE FAT. But… if you're willing to learn how to think like a FIT PERSON, you still have a chance. Just remember, the clock is ticking.
Die Fat or Get Tough
101 Differences in Thinking Between Fat People and Fit People
This book pulls no punches. If you're emotionally sensitive or easily offended, this book is NOT for you!
If you're FAT, this book is going to rattle your cage and make your blood boil!
|And it should. Get ready for a 2,000 volt cattle prod to your consciousness. If the feel good, easy way to weight loss was working, you wouldn't be FAT!
|That's not a criticism, its objective reality.
|Get even with the industries that lie by telling us being fat isn't our fault. They say it's our thyroid. Or cortisol. The food manufacturers. Restaurants. Its portion sizes. The list goes on and on.
|And it's crap!
|There's only one person responsible for your expanding waistline, and you know EXACTLY WHO IT IS.
|Grow Up. You're Fat and it's YOUR FAULT!
|But don't waste time berating yourself. Most of us have gotten FAT at some point in our lives. You're in the majority. Instead, make an adult decision to take control of your diet and exercise program and get fit. You're only one decision away from a life of abundant energy, vitality and success. But only you can do it. This book will help you develop and adopt the thought processes, beliefs and philosophies of FIT people, which will make the process much easier.
|But in the end, only YOU can make it happen. So the only question you have to answer is,
|Will You Die Fat…or Get Tough?
|I had to make the same decision 6 years ago, so I get it. I decided to get fit, and it wasn't easy. But truthfully, it was far easier than feeling bad about being FAT every day. So you either pay the price of success, or the price of failure. (Which you're already paying) The choice is yours.
|They say everyone has a story about HOW they GOT FAT…here's the short version of mine.
|In the 1970's, 80's, and early 90's, I was a physical specimen. Competing as an athlete at an international level, working out, and running 5 minute miles. But by 2002 I was a FAT-TUB-of-LARD, 40 pounds overweight and getting fatter with every cheeseburger, pizza and doughnut I stuffed into my fat face. I looked in the mirror every morning and felt disgusted and out of control. I felt like a has-been athlete that allowed years of discipline and training to slip away. And I was a mental toughness coach for some of the biggest sales forces in the world!
|Not good.
|So here's what happened.
|I attended a wedding and old friends I hadn't seen in years didn't recognize me because I was so fat. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and upset.
|Then I got angry.
|You see, I knew better. Since I was 6 years old, I had been trained to think like a champion. I was mentored by some of the finest minds in professional sports, and I had studied the mental toughness secrets of champions for 20 years. I knew how to use my mind to get what I wanted, and I STILL let myself get FAT!
|It was ridiculous. Something had to be done immediately.
|So I wrote a mental toughness training program for weight loss and called it; The Fat Losers Program. 12 weeks later I shed 40 pounds and my whole life changed. The confidence I gained during those 12 weeks is impossible to overstate. I felt like a million bucks!
|I felt like I could conquer the world.
|Every aspect of my life was affected. I doubled my income, my relationships improved, my sex life got hotter, and most importantly, I felt better about myself. The disgusted feeling I used to get when I looked into the mirror turned into pride. I traded my fat clothes in for tailored suits and tight fitting shirts. My waist shrunk from a 36 to a 32.
|I felt like a winner in a game most people lose.
|I walked around feeling pretty good about myself, until I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and thought: I have to share this with people who are still FAT. They're 12 weeks away from a life they can't even imagine, and they don't even know it!
|So I created the Fat Losers Program, which is a small group coaching program conducted over weekly conference calls for 90 days. (www.thefatlosers.com) The program was an instant success, and continues to this day. The problem is at $497.00, it's too expensive for some people who really need it, especially since the economy has soured. Besides that, I've been so busy in the last 5 years writing books, giving speeches, and consulting Fortune 500 sales teams I put it on the back burner.
|Then my wife Dawn, who coaches the Fat Loser Program, approached me in the summer of 2008 and said:
|"Steve, you have to write the book on the differences in thinking between fat people and fit people. No one is telling the truth about what causes people to get fat, and the obesity epidemic is escalating. You need to do this now."
|I was NOT happy with the direction this conversation was headed. I had built a seven figure income teaching multi-national corporations how to increase sales through mental toughness training. I had written a book that sold over 100,000 copies and was getting more popular every day. My second book was about to be published and my speaking career was on fire.
|I was laser focused and rising like a rocket. Now she wants me to change gears?
I thought she was crazy.
|Then she hit me where it hurt.
|She said, "Look, Steve, you're the only author/speaker that has this point of view and philosophy, and you know it. Sure, it's too direct and hard hitting for most people, but for others, it may be their only chance. It's probably the one and only opportunity they'll have in their life to hear the truth minus the hype, B.S. and delusion. You could save a lot of people from an early grave."
|Her words grabbed me by the throat.
|I wrestled with this for weeks, and I started to feel a little guilty. Here I was, this corporate speaker, author and consultant, living large by coaching the richest companies in the world, while people who needed my help most were getting fatter and sicker every day. I knew this project may end up costing me a lot of time and money, with only a small number of people tough enough to benefit from my efforts.
|Still, I felt an obligation to put pen to paper and write this book.
|If you read this book and fail to move from fat to fit, your fate as a fat person may be sealed. This book is so direct and to the point there's no room for misinterpretation.
|You either think like a fat person and stay fat, or you learn to think like a fit person and get fit. No tricks. No gimmicks. Only objective reality. You either get it or you don't.
|It's that simple.
|If you study this book, you will never see eating and exercise the same way again, and you'll understand the thinking that made you fat. All you have to do is make a commitment and have the mental toughness to stick to it.
|If you'll do it, you will live a healthier, happier life.
|Are you ready to make a decision and move forward? If not today, then when?
|Do it now while you STILL HAVE A CHOICE!
|You can do it! You're TOUGHER than you think!
|I congratulate you on your success in advance.
|To your abundant health!
|Steve Siebold, CSP, CPCS
|P.S. This book is NOT for people with eating disorders or any other physical or psychological disorder. If you think you may fall into this category, DO NOT buy this book. Instead, contact your physician and get help.
2500 Quantum Lakes Drive Suite 203 • Boynton Beach • Florida 33426 USA.
Phone: 561-733-9078 • Fax: 561-853-2199
Copyright © 2008 Gove Siebold Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Website Maintained & Designed by sldesign.net and Gove-Siebold Group


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Gosling-Tatum Hybrid?
Someone asked the other day during the liveblog about Zac Efron. Where is he? Why hasn't he been seen/photographed?
He worships Leo D, remember? And Leo D told him to keep his profile lower. And he has.
Zac has also, however, been shooting a new movie in New Orleans. It's called The Lucky One about a soldier in Iraq who finds a photograph of a girl and no one claims it so he keeps it and it keeps him lucky so he endeavours to find the girl and when he goes home he meets a woman who has a kid, and ...
I'm sorry.
I want to kill myself.
It's Nicholas Sparks. He's exhausting. And so the same. And they're trying to make LipGloss a hybrid of Ryan Gosling/Noah Calhoun from The Notebook and Channing Tatum/John Whatever in Dear John. Lippy and his big boy tat!
I suppose it's an attempt to man him up, put him in army fatigues, front like he can kill a man with his bare hands or something like that. Is that working for you?
Photos from Gettyimages.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Thomas Fish
Thomas Fish is a Junior Anthropology and Philosophy double major from Pittsburgh, PA. He has worked for GIS since his freshman year and has been involved in projects in a wide variety of areas. In 2011 and 2012, he managed the impervious surfaces portion of the comprehensive mapping of the Tanyard Branch Watershed, created a risk terrain analysis of pivot irrigation systems throughout the state of Maryland and developed methods of analyzing data with both geospatial and temporal information using GeoTime. In addition, he helped fill time sensitive requests from the Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention and law enforcement agencies. In 2013, he assisted with the mapping of all of the places of worship in Maryland, headed up a tree canopy and storm water runoff analysis of Cambridge, MD, and worked to create web apps to display the data gathered through past projects. Away from the GIS, he is involved in Habitat for Humanity, plays for the Washington College Rugby Football Club, and edits Wikipedia.


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Jacob_dk needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 69 designs submitted by 23 freelance designers.
IT consultant needs a logo that represents professionalism.
Application Delivery Consulting
Accepted File Formats:
Standard Web Formats (.jpg, .gif or .png); Vector Formats (.eps, .pdf or .ai); Layered Formats (.psd or .tiff)
I am starting my own business as an IT Consultant. I need a logo to promote my IT consulting business. The business name is Application Delivery Consulting. I am specialized in Citrix technologies (see citrix.com if you like, but it does not need to reflect in the logo ) as a consultant, trainer and project manager.
I will be using the logo on white papers, estimates, invoices, website and business cards.
I think the challenge is to incorporate my rather long company name.
I am hoping for a logo that will look good on both white and black.
I don't have any specific design idears.
I will try to provide feedback everyday.
I look forward to see your designs.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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He was seen on video beating the mastiff to death with a tire iron.
The Sarasota man caught on surveillance video beating a friend's dog to death with a tire iron for 10 minutes was adjudicated guilty by the judge in court today.
Kevin Koscielniak, 52, pleaded no contest to the six charges against him and will now spend 14 years in prison and five years on probation. He will also be prohibited from any contact with the family of the dog he killed.
"This was a senseless act of violence indicative of a depraved mind," said Art Jackman, the lead assistant state attorney in the case, after court concluded.
John Olaya, 43, had known Koscielniak for three years, letting him pick up and sell scrap from his shop, John's Automotive on Snug Harbor Place in Sarasota. The first sign of trouble happened on April 27, when Olaya noticed Koscielniak intoxicated, stumbling back and forth in the auto shop's yard.
Olaya told him to quit drinking and leave the shop or he would call police. Koscielniak left.
The next day, Olaya noticed Ashton, his mastiff that usually stayed at the shop, was missing. He had Ashton for four years, ever since the tiny, flea-infested puppy was picked up off the side of U.S. 41 and dropped in his lap at work.
Olaya checked surveillance video, discovering images of Koscielniak climbing a barbed-wire fence and breaking into the shop.
Then he noticed the blood, smeared on one of the cars and dotting the walls and a ceiling fan. Then he realized the video contained about 10 minutes of Koscielniak beating Ashton to death.
"He grew up with us, we miss him," Olaya's wife, Gloria, said in court, choking back tears. "He was a good dog."
The couple's 9-year-old daughter still cries over the loss of the family pet, afraid of the man who killed him, the mother told Judge Donna Berlin. Koscielniak had shuffled into the court, shackled, in an orange jail-issued suit and slippers.
The Olayas had previously showed up in court in May, asking a judge not to reduce Koscielniak's $46,000 bail to allow his release. Olaya has said he feared for his family's safety if Koscielniak was allowed out of jail; the judge determined that he should be held without bail.
"This case had an overwhelming amount of evidence," said Mark LeFebvre, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office detective who led the investigation. LeFebvre said they were able to find the dog's body buried on an adjacent property, recovered a bloody blanket from Koscielniak's truck and found the dog's dried blood on his clothes when he was arrested.
"The dog had tremendous injuries," said LeFebvre, who watched the graphic video.
Prosecutors had increased the charges against Koscielniak to include armed burglary of a building, which is a crime punishable by up to life in prison. Other charges against him were cruelty to an animal causing pain and death, unlawful disposal of a deceased animal, damaging fences and tampering with evidence.
Koscielniak has previous arrests in Sarasota County on several charges including burglary, battery and drinking alcohol in public.


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West Road Surgery1st FloorNorth Road Primary Care Centre183-195 North RoadWestcliff-on-SeaEssex, SS0 7AFTel: 01702 339865
Local NHS changes to how we prescribe over the counter medications for short term illness and minor ailments: please ask your local pharmacist before making an appointment; buy over-the-counter medicines for minor problems and don't forget you can call NHS 111 for health advice 24 hours a day.
We have a new Patient Participation Group area in the waiting room. Please have a look at the information and fill in the form if you would like to join the group or you can submit the website form or speak to reception to show your interest the PPG. You will recieve details about meetings, talks and other news from your PPG.
Blood Tests
Copyright 2006 - 2020 My Surgery Website | Privacy & Usage | Edit | Staff Home | Site Map | Accessibility | Site T&C's | Service T&C's


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While you were flouting your civic duties by letting your census packet languish on your coffee table, Antarctica's dutiful emperor penguins waddled around the ice in a more or less organized group so that a satellite could take their picture and scientists could count them. The results of this new penguin census are pretty encouraging if you like penguins and probably horrifying if for some inexplicable reason you've developed an irrational fear after seeing Happy Feet that dancing penguins would humiliate you at a nightclub: there are more penguins than anyone, even noted penguin acolyte Morgan Freeman, could have ever imagined.
Scientists have taken candid, voyeuristic pictures of penguins from space before, but until recently they haven't had the benefit of a technique called pansharpening, which allows them to tell the difference between a real penguin and a pile of penguin poop that only looks like a penguin. The penguin-counting team examined images taken in 2009 by privately owned satellites and discovered that there were about 595,000 emperor penguins tottering around in the snow, almost double the previous 1992 estimates of 270,000 to 350,000.
While scientists are understandably delighted, they still worry about the effects global warming will have on future penguin generations. The emperor penguin is currently classified as "a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature," which is not too shabby for a flightless bird that only lays one egg at a time.
Emperor Penguins Counted From Space [National Geographic]


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Here's my take on it.
Agnosticism is illogical and refutes itself. Agnosticism and agnostics characterize God as unknowable, ineffable, incomprehensible to all attempts to understand him. This doctrine is self-refuting. The agnostic is making a knowledge claim about what he/she claims is unknowable. How do agnostics know that God is unknowable if he is unknowable ? How do they even know that God's existence cannot be disproved if God is unknowable, or that God even exists if he is unknowable ? To claim any attribute for God is knowledge and claims to know this unknowable God possesses certain attributes. That's a logical contradiction, and any being containing two incompatible attributes cannot possibly exist. So one need not resort to agnosticism. He/she would be justified in not believing in that God if the concept of it contradicts itself in any way. One is justified in accepting and adopting the atheist position.
Views: 3322
Anthony, I myself like you am a strong atheist. Richard Dawkins in his book describes seven steps to atheism and says that there must be very few people who are atheists belonging to the seventh step. I however have observed that although agnostics do appear to outnumber atheists, atheists by no means are small in numbers.
Not all agnostics say that god is unknowable. Most however say that there is neither enough proof to show that god exists nor there is enough proof to prove that he does not exist. Some believe that science will bring the necessary proof while others say that science alone is not enough to prove or disprove god and logic is also required to decide this. I have studied the opinions of Thomas Huxley, R.G.Ingersoll, Clarence Darrow and Richard Dawkins and it is my opinion that they all have gone right up to the last step of atheism but have taken one step back mainly because a doubt about creation. Dawkins feels that science will eventually disprove the existence of god. However, scientists have already said that no god was needed through the entire process of evolution of species lasting 3.5 billion years or during the entire progress of the universe lasting 13.7 billion years since the big bang. This, in my opinion is more than what we can expect science to do. God does not exist, he never existed.
I agree with booklover. Well said.
Me, too, Steph! I went through an agnostic period, reading Thomas Huxley, &c., and then I read Harris and realized he was closer to what my own beliefs were (you should pardon the expression). Give the agnostic time, and they will come 'round.
It's not unwillingness to take a final step. It is just as arrogant to be certain there is no god as to be certain there is. That is the whole point...nobody knows.
I think agnosticism is a failure to understand probabilities. The existence of god or non-existence of god are not equally probable outcomes. The likelihood of god existing is the same likelihood as any random absurdity imagined by the human mind (invisible marshmallow people). The odds of god's non-existence are, likewise, equal to the odds of invisible marshmallow people's non-existence.
If there are scientific principles and methods behind every other process and phenomenon resulting from creation, Why Shouldn't There Be Scientific Principles And Methods Which Also Describe The Moment Of Creation?
To suggest that everything EXCEPT ONE had a logical explanation behind it is to suggest a massive discontinuity to the overall. I submit that such a suggestion is both illogical and unnecessary. Diligent investigation by those who want to learn and know how this reality works will eventually unearth those principles and processes.
Laplace said it, Hawking said it, and many others, and I agree with them: god is not necessary.
You're just being parsimonious, Loren. Better watch it, or I will get Mr. Ockham to take his razor to you.
Too late. I been shaving with Occam's Razor since Bob Heinlein introduced me to it with Stranger in a Strange Land, some 40+ years ago!
Honestly, I could K.I.S.S. the guy! (get it? wink-wink!)
the words Agnostic and Atheist address two fundamentally different questions. What do you KNOW? and What do you BELEIVE?
The words Gnostic and Agnostic pertain to being in a state of having "knowledge" or being "without knowledge" of any given thing. One can be Agnostic about anything, one doesn't know enough about to feel that they can form an opinion on.
If the question is "Is there a God?" then...
To say "I am an Agnostic" is to say "I do not know".
To say "I am an Atheist" is to say "I do not believe".
So, logically, to say "I don't know if there is or isn't a God, but I don't believe that there is" is to say "I am an "Agnostic Atheist".
It is only with, empirical, objective proof that anyone could claim to be a "Gnostic Atheist" or a "Gnostic Theist" for that matter as it would require and belief or disbelief based in actual "Knowledge" of a God.
It's a colloquial misuse to use the two words to try to answer the same question. I think if we paid more attention to how we misuse words, we'd all get along much better.
Thank you, Vash. I have used exactly this definition/argument and been looked at as though I was crazy when I told people there could be agnostic believers. Nice to see it spelled out so concisely.
That is the label I find myself with as well. When I consider the limits of my knowledge, it is the best fit. I do not shy from using the term atheist when necessary but only to describe my lack of belief. I find positive atheism as arrogant as theism.
While I don't doubt the existence of agnostic theists, I'm confused as to how that could work. How does a person profess a lack of knowledge of a thing, yet choose to believe in that thing anyway? Maybe this is expressed most often in social religion but at it's core, it is still not a belief.
I find positive atheism as arrogant as theism.
This is the language of theists. Please understand that an atheists has many rational reasons for his non-belief and it is not arrogance to state them firmly. An atheist does not shy away from taking a firm decision after he has gathered enough knowledge and and has used as much rational logic as is needed.
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Views: 2432
I worship Humpty-Dumpty, so when I use a word, it means precisely what I intend it to mean, and nothing else.
I do wish we wouldn't use words normally associated with worship because so many theists--and Republicans, go figure--are fond enough of equivocation to offer it as "proof" that we are just as crazy as they, as in "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" (wtf!) or when they tell us we have faith, too, because we have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow. "Theory" is also frequently used in its vernacular sense to denigrate scientific theories. My approach is to correct people when I can and to use the words distinctively, not saying "theory" when I mean "best guess" and not saying "faith" when I mean "reason." Languages change over time, as do the meanings of words, depending on how people use those words; that's one of the reasons dictionaries are constantly changing. The OED gives not only the current meanings of words, but quotations illustrating what the words meant centuries ago and showing approximately when changes in meaning occurred. In Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence, the author frequently points out how words have changed, going so far as to say that "man" originally meant "humans," so the modern convention of using "him or her" rather than the male pronoun as all inclusive, is an awkward absurdity. Good luck straightening that one out, Jacques. If we want to communicate with the other side, we should keep in mind what certain words mean to them and be careful how we use them.
As far as stereotyping Christians goes, I find that no two Christians seem to have the same set of beliefs. You can quote from their church's website, and they will say, "Well, I don't believe that. I believe . . . . " And there is a vast difference between, say, Episcopalians in New Hampshire and snake handlers in North Georgia. I think it's fair to say that if one is a member of Focus on the Family, one shares the beliefs--at least most of them--of James Dobson. Fundamentalists/evangelicals have been quite successful in stealing the word "Christian" out from under the more mainstream, more liberal established church organizations.
@Daniel "You think all atheists believe in Evolution which isn't true."
Daniel, can you please tell me what other theories of life atheists believe in? As far as I'm aware there are only two; evolution and intelligent design (creationism) and ID requires a belief in god, which as we know, doesn't apply to atheists.....
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- Mobile Air Quality Studies (MAQS) - an international project (2010)
- Due to an increasing awareness of the potential hazardousness of air pollutants, new laws, rules and guidelines have recently been implemented globally. In this respect, numerous studies have addressed traffic-related exposure to particulate matter using stationary technology so far. By contrast, only few studies used the advanced technology of mobile exposure analysis. The Mobile Air Quality Study (MAQS) addresses the issue of air pollutant exposure by combining advanced high-granularity spatial-temporal analysis with vehicle-mounted, person-mounted and roadside sensors. The MAQS-platform will be used by international collaborators in order 1) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to road structure, 2) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to traffic density, 3) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to weather conditions, 4) to compare exposure within vehicles between front and back seat (children) positions, and 5) to evaluate "traffic zone"- exposure in relation to non-"traffic zone"-exposure. Primarily, the MAQS-platform will focus on particulate matter. With the establishment of advanced mobile analysis tools, it is planed to extend the analysis to other pollutants including including NO2, SO2, nanoparticles, and ozone.
- The impact of shift work induced chronic circadian disruption on IL-6 and TNF-α immune responses (2010)
- Aim: Sleep disturbances induce proinflammatory immune responses, which might increase cardiovascular disease risk. So far the effects of acute sleep deprivation and chronic sleep illnesses on the immune system have been investigated. The particular impact of shift work induced chronic circadian disruption on specific immune responses has not been addressed so far. Methods: Pittsburgh-Sleep-Quality-Index (PSQI) questionnaire and blood sampling was performed by 225 shift workers and 137 daytime workers. As possible markers the proinflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-alpha and lymphocyte cell count were investigated. A medical examination was performed and biometrical data including age, gender, height, weight, waist and hip circumference and smoking habits were collected by a structured interview. Results: Shift workers had a significantly higher mean PSQI score than day workers (6.73 vs. 4.66; p < 0.001). Day workers and shift workers had similar serum levels of IL-6 (2.30 vs. 2.67 resp.; p = 0.276), TNF-alpha (5.58 vs. 5.68, resp.; p = 0.841) or lymphocytes count (33.68 vs. 32.99, resp.; p = 0.404). Furthermore there were no differences in cytokine levels (IL-6 p = 0.761; TNF-alpha p = 0.759) or lymphocyte count (p = 0.593) comparing the sleep quality within the cohorts. When this calculation of sleep quality was stratified by shift and day workers irrespective of their sleep quality day workers and shift workers had similar serum levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha or lymphocytes count. Multiple linear regression analysis showed a significant correlation of lymphocytes count and smoking habits. Conclusion: Shift work induces chronic sleep debt. Our data reveals that chronic sleep debt might not always lead to an activation of the immune system, as we did not observe differences in lymphocyte count or level of IL-6 or TNF-alpha serum concentration between shift workers and day workers. Therefore chronic sleep restriction might be eased by a long-term compensating immune regulation which (in healthy) protects against an overstimulation of proinflammatory immune mechanisms and moderates metabolic changes, as they are known from short-term sleep deprivation or sleep related breathing disorders.


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Gartner: Mainframers don't care about zEnterprise blades
LAS VEGAS – zEnterprise (z196) may be doing well with its core audience according to Gartner Research VP Mike Chuba, but reaction to the platform at Gartner was shaky, and the BladeCenter Extension flat-out negative.
Chuba mentioned that IBM projects a strong Q4 on z196 sales, but an instant poll taken at a Gartner Data Center Conference session showed that almost half of the audience, 47%, doesn't plan to install a z196 by the end of 2011. Only 19% said they would install by mid-year 2011. The results even seemed to catch Chuba off-guard, who mentioned that IBM would certainly be disheartened by the news.
The tepid response to z196 may partly have to do with the high costs associated with mainframe software. Another live poll showed that 26% of respondents felt that single largest inhibitor to the growth in usage of the mainframe in organizations was IBM's high software costs. Chuba mentioned that for the first time in a while third-party software was not the main inhibitor. Quipped Chuba, "You've realized you're already paying a lot to IBM for their software."
Reaction to zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX) as an optional add-on to the mainframe was even more worrisome, despite the z196 blades' ability to participate in cabinet power management when placed in the mainframe cabinet, among other benefits. Practically the entire audience polled at the mainframe session, a whopping 98%, said that they're not likely to install a zBX before end of 2011. For one, the reasoning may be that Windows support for zBX isn't currently in the cards, and more importantly, IBM may need a reevaluation of its marketing strategy with respect to zBX — throwing a bunch of features against the wall and hoping that something sticks may be throwing end users off.
"They need to re-announce the zBX," said Chuba bluntly.
Phil Robert, Director of Service Management at Canadian-based Scotiabank, is a living, breathing case study of the zBX's "miscommunication" factor – in fact, he really didn't know much about it and mentioned that he would have to take a look at the announcement to re-familiarize himself with blade technology on zEnterprise.
In regard to z196 itself, Robert said that his company just recently upgraded to IBM's z10 system. "We have no plans to even look at it," said Robert of the z196.
The mainframe: The "red-haired stepchild" of IT
In a roundtable discussion on the future of the mainframe, a group of IT pros found that a little more mainframe lovin' will go a long way in ushering in the next generation of IT.
Last week, CA Technologies hosted the virtual seminar "From Here to Eternity: The Mainframe as a Mainstay of the Enterprise." Moderator and former IBM mainframe programmer Michael Krieger went on to call the mainframe the "red-haired stepchild of IT" – a totally unwarranted public notion according to one expert – the platform is a dime a dozen among Fortune 500 companies.
"This is, in fact, the platform that's powering the global economy," said Dayton Semerjian, general manager, Mainframe, CA Technologies. The two most important IT developments as of late have "been the mainframe and Apple Computer. Everyone knows about Apple and no one knows about the mainframe. It's important to remind everyone just how important the mainframe is."
If the global economy is on to something, then why is the general public out of the loop on the efficiencies of the mainframe? For one, the platform isn't tabloid fodder.
"It doesn't run into trouble," said Semerjian in a follow-up call. "So that doesn't make it interesting to write about. No one can hack into it. There's no bad news about a mainframe."
In addition, and most importantly, notes Semerjian, the mainframe is not widely communicated because it manages just a small piece of the data center puzzle – albeit an important one.
To top it off, a CA Technologies survey of 200 senior-level mainframe execs showed that while 76% of respondents will maintain or increase their investment in mainframe software during the next 12-18 months, 61% percent of respondents don't believe the IT industry does enough to promote mainframe career opportunities to recent graduates. In other words, this mainframe momentum will be a moot point if there aren't any from the next IT generation that know about the platform and develop it.
"Folks are beginning to move into retirement. You've got to attract people who want to build a career on this," said Semerjian.
One industry exec also agreed that it's time to promote, promote, promote, and change the perception of, or lack thereof, the mainframe to recent grads.
"We have to define what the mainframe is to the potential workforce," said Trevor Eddolls, CEO, iTech-Ed Ltd. "There aren't many green screens left…the mainframe's role is changing – it can now scale across different types of hardware."
Survey finds mainframe is still key in the data center
So much for the pundits that predicted the demise of the mainframe decades ago – it's slowly turning into "the mainframe that wouldn't die."
In survey results announced recently by BMC Software, 84% of participants expected steady-to-growing MIPS (millions of instructions per second) usage on the mainframe. The reasons for this growth? Availability, security, a centralized data management system and transaction speed, according to participants. Elsewhere in survey results, 60% indicated that the mainframe will take on new workloads over the next year. No surprise, though, on the top concerns of IT managers in weighing mainframe benefits – 65% see reducing costs as a top priority for their data centers.
The results clearly show that the mainframe is the go-to platform for heavy transaction processing in the business space. The launch of zEnterprise, with its cross-platform management in embracing both Unix and Linux, may have also helped the popularity of the mainframe heading into 2011. Survey results were comprised of data from over 1,700 mainframe users, with about half of the companies surveyed having big revenues of over $1 billion. You can also take a look at a full report of the findings.
Is mainframe management getting simpler?
According to data from The Aberdeen Group, IT organizations running newer mainframe hardware are less intimidated by complexity than shops running older versions of big iron.
Russ Klein, VP and technology research director at Aberdeen said calling the mainframe simple might be an overstatement, but mainframe management is starting to look more like management processes in distributed computing systems.
"If you're maintaining a farm of Dell servers, you're encountering a lot of the same challenges with issues like virtualization and redundancy," Klein said. "And managing a mainframe may even be simpler because you're not looking at the network running across multiple networked PC servers."
Aberdeen asked mainframe users whether or not they considered the platform complex, and shops running newer hardware were more likely to rate the mainframe as "not complex." Around a quarter of respondents said the IBM zSeries and IBM z9 (launched Feb 2006) were not complex, versus 45% of z10 owners (launched Feb 2008). No word from zEnterprise shops (launched in July 2010). Check out the report here.
"It's not like the WOPR from War Games or the Xerox whole-building computer anymore," Klein said. "I don't think thirty years of mainframe experience helps at all with the maintenance and upkeep of current mainframe technology. It's not the same set of skills it was ten years ago."
Mainframe programmer and SearchDataCenter.com expert Robert Crawford disagrees.
"Actually, 30 years of experience with mainframes is a great asset. The complicated things mainframes do now started off as relatively primitive features years ago," Crawford wrote in an email. "To know how things evolve leads to greater understanding for how the systems fit together. IBM is developing mainframe wizards and GUI's. They have made it possible to keep an application programmer from every seeing a green screen again. But, full adoption is years away and, push come to shove, we may see a problem some day that will require someone to log onto TSO and edit a parameter file."
The study was funded by financially struggling Novell. The company has a significant mainframe Linux business, but has been hovering on the brink of acquisition for the last year. "I'm not going to comment on whether Novell is a stable organization," Klein said. "But in terms of Novell's role going forward, they see themselves as the company that is going to bring the enterprise applications to the mainframe."
z/OS network management now on the iPhone
Don't text while driving. Oh, and now you should probably avoid the temptation to monitor your mainframe while driving.
We previously looked at William Data Systems' neat Zen z/OS network management suite that allowed for mainframe monitoring from the iPad, and asked a company rep whether there would be future support for other platforms. That wish has been granted with the Zen z/OS network management suite being ported to the iPhone, amid growing use of the smartphone in the enterprise.
According to Williams Data Systems, the product is being demoed in Boston this week at the IBM System z Technical University, and should be available soon. The mainframe monitoring process on the iPhone will be similar to the iPad unit, and the even smaller size than the iPad and ease-of-monitoring was key in the rollout of the software.
"Its portability means that a z/OS support person can receive system network alerts on an iPhone in their pocket, receive simplified diagnostic graphics and run a reduced range of diagnostic routines until they have access to an iPad or PC," mentioned Graham Storey, Vice President Marketing, William Data Systems.
Below is an image of the monitoring suite in action on the iPhone:
Mainframes run into performance problems with online insurance comparison shopping
In the United Kingdom, auto insurance companies have seen a rise in the popularity of consumers comparing auto insurance quotes online, and insurance companies' mainframes haven't always been up to the task, according to application performance vendor Macro 4.
Each time a consumer applies for a quote from a comparison website, the site will send out a mass of automated requests in the form of XML data streams to dozens of insurance company websites.
Any insurance site that is unable to send back a quote within a relatively short period of time – sometimes as little as a few minutes – is presented as "unable to quote" by the comparison sites, according to Philip Mann, Principal Consultant at Macro 4.
Mann said the insurers' quotation engines are often part of older mainframe computers, embedded in processes that were designed to be used by real people — such as sales and customer service staff. The insurers' IT teams are often forced to separate out the quotation processing element of their systems as separate standalone functions, and repackage them so they can respond to automated requests from comparison sites – or invest in more mainframe capacity.
We spoke to Mann about the problem.
If large UK insurers are running into these problems with their mainframes at the online sales portal, has this crippled their business or customer base?
Mann: In the UK, the general insurance market has become very competitive and price-sensitive, with ever-decreasing brand and company loyalty. Price is often the key factor in people's buying decisions, and the comparison websites are having a major business impact on many providers — from the bigger insurers to smaller 'niche' players.
It is the bigger, older and more established companies that are most likely to be heavily dependent on mainframe-based systems. And it is these insurers who are at risk of having problems with processing automated requests from the comparison sites.
Why is it that the companies are experiencing such a headache with the insurance quote requests? Big companies such as banks rely on mainframes because of the reason that they are effective in crunching huge numbers effectively.
Mann: Mainframe hardware and operating systems are indeed a powerful, reliable platform for high volume number crunching. The problem is not the mainframe platform, but the fact that many insurance companies are making use of legacy mainframe application code which was originally designed to provide quotations to real people — such as sales and customer service staff – to pass on to customers.
These older applications have had to be adapted to respond to the automated requests coming in from comparison sites, but are struggling to handle the greater workloads which they were never originally intended to accommodate.
Part of the challenge is that this new approach to 'selling' insurance means the insurance companies have to perform far more quotations for every policy sold. For example, in the past a company might have performed 3-5 quotations for every new auto insurance customer sold. Now, through the comparison website, this has risen to 30-50 automated requests — around a tenfold increase. This puts pressure on the overall system's ability to handle transaction loads and rapidly exposes any performance problems in the legacy quotation application code itself.
How are insurance companies rectifying the situation? Are they looking at options such as the new zEnterprise from IBM or now steering away from mainframes for the future?
Mann: Most companies are not planning to move away from mainframes to rectify the situation. There is just not the time or inclination to consider and implement this type of drastic solution to the problem. While the mainframe programs could be old, most companies are in general using the latest versions of IBM's mainframe hardware technology (zEnterprise), which is as up-to-date and technologically advanced as any other hardware in the marketplace.
The normal response to a problem like this would be to, reluctantly, buy more processing power in the form of new mainframes or mainframe upgrades, or 'throw hardware at the problem.' While this might help in the short term, it is not always guaranteed, because it does not really get to the heart of the problem. And of course hardware upgrades are highly expensive.
What's Macro4's take on how to handle the performance management issue?
Mann: Most people when talking about the performance of computer systems are thinking of the computer hardware and operating systems and how they perform when running application processes. But it's also very important to look at performance from the point of view of the applications themselves, and where and how they are utilizing computer resources. Companies like ours specialize in looking at things from this application point of view, using application performance measurement tools and methodologies.
With this approach, the resources required to run a transaction, such as generating insurance quotes, can be profiled, and any areas of poor performance or high resource utilization (within the application down to line of code level) can be highlighted for further investigation and tuning. This process has proven very productive in reducing overall processing requirements, delivering better response times and allowing much higher transaction levels to be handled without the need for expensive hardware upgrades. It is the sensible alternative to the more general approach of throwing more hardware at the problem.
Are you seeing this problem crop up in the U.S. market? Weigh in on this conversation in the comments or on Twitter @DataCenterTT.
Swiss Re first to receive zEnterprise; same-day support also available for z196
Huge reinsurer Swiss Re is the first company to get their hands on the zEnterprise (or z196) mainframe from IBM — in fact, they ordered two.
Yesterday, Big Blue announced that they shipped the first two available mainframes to the reinsurer founded in Switzerland and now operating in 20+ countries. Swiss Re CIO Markus Schmid cited that the "ability to integrate and manage workloads running on multiple servers as a single system" to be the key benefit of zEnterprise and one of the reasons they decided to go with z196. The z196 was originally announced in July and became available on Sept. 10. The mainframe's processor is dubbed "the world's most powerful computer chip," by IBM, and features Linux support, 96 processors running at 5.2 Ghz, and a capacity of 60% more than System z10 while using the same amount of electricity.
In addition, CA Technologies announced same-day support for IBM's new z/OS v.1.12 operating system and the zEnterprise. CA's Mainframe Software Manager and Mainframe Chorus are designed to ease support for z/OS and its hardware platforms.
Is your company considering the zEnterprise as well? Have you already ordered one? Is the hefty price tag a deterrent, or is the ability to marry Unix and Linux workloads on z196 appealing? Let us know @datacenterTT on Twitter.
zEnterprise mainframe can be water-cooled
IBM's new, huge mainframe that becomes available tomorrow is cooling data center hotspots with water – something that an IBM mainframe hasn't seen in 15 years.
The zEnterprise or z196 can be shipped with the water cooling heat exchanger as an optional add-on, and IBM says that the system can reduce overall energy consumption by up to 12% and won't change the data center's footprint. In addition, according to IBM, the water cooling connects directly to existing chilled water systems and does not require an external water conditioning system. The mainframe is the first since the ES/9000 family to utilize water cooling. Big Blue launched its Rear Door heat exchangers for distributed servers back in June 2005.
Take a virtual tour of the water-cooled z196, and learn more about the z196 mainframe.
Below is the rear of the z196 (image courtesy of IBM) showing the water cooling unit:
IBM z196 to ship next week
The brawny mainframe that you've been waiting for is ready for launch.
IBM announced today that initial shipments of the zEnterprise mainframe with the z196 processor, dubbed by Big Blue as "the world's most powerful computer chip," will commence on Sept. 10. As previously reported, the mainframe boasts 96 cores running at speeds of up to 5.2 GHz. The mainframe offers 60% more capacity than the z10, while still using the same amount of electricity, and the processor chip contains 1.4 billion transistors. According to IBM, the mainframe can handle 17,000 times more instructions than the company's first system. Clearly, this is not your father's mainframe. Only time will tell, though, if customers find the new z196's capabilities to manage across multiple distributed server platforms relevant.
Old people, the door is over there
Interesting article from Vivek Wadhwa posted over at TechCrunch. It details the paradox of the droves of unemployed engineers ready to pounce at a job and the companies who say they're having a difficult time finding the right talent. Wadhwa notes that the reason for this conundrum is the one that companies don't want you to hear: if you're old, you're not getting the job over young, cheap labor.
Wadhwa says that the young can learn new technology faster, can get paid less and don't carry any baggage – both of the personal kind, with families that take away from long hours, and technology-wise – young people are a "clean slate" that can be molded and changed.
Holding to the fact that IT is an "up or out" profession, Wadhwa ends with some advice for IT professionals – either move up the ladder into management positions, switch to sales or take your skills elsewhere and run a start-up. And if you're going to stay in programming, says Wadhwa, make damn sure to keep skills as current as possible and realize that the odds are against you to make a boatload of cash down the line; companies can always find an entry-level worker to train on the cheap.
The article certainly makes a ton of sense from a corporate standpoint – companies are always looking for ways to cut costs, especially in a down economy, and there are plenty of young programmers who would jump at a chance to get their foot in the door. But it also shortchanges and cheapens the skills and leadership that seasoned IT engineers bring to the table.
What do you think? Is IT like modeling, with time and age working against you? Is there a method to the IT job market structure – a "game" you have to play to stay relevant? Leave a comment or reply on Twitter at @datacenterTT.


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Deck Repair
Give your pool deck a makeoever with our deck repair supplies that include pool deck paint, primer, paint conversion coatings, sealants, paint surface prep kits, paint application kits, rubber seals, and pool surface cleaners.
Pool decks are constantly exposed to changing weather, freezing temperatures, pool chemicals, rain, and sun. All of these factors can cause cracks or pitting in the surface of your pool deck, and make it look discolored and worn out. Whether your pool deck needs a little fixing or a whole new resurfacing will depend on the extent of the damage but using simple tools and supplies from Pool Center, you will be able to give your deck a whole new look.
Pool deck makeover starts by repairing cracks and joints that may have appeared overtime and can cause damage to your pool structure and equipment. Our Poxy Patch and Cement are ideal for filing both large and small cracks and for preparing your deck for a paint application if needed. We also carry Pool Primer that will help prepare your deck for a paint application and will ensure a smooth finish. We also offer Advance Plus Pool Paint Conversion that will help change the surface of old rubber-base pool paint so an epoxy-base swimming pool paint can stick better to the pool surface. Our Aqua Coat Water-Base Pool Paint can be applied to both indoor and outdoor unpainted damp surfaces and pools that have been previously coated with water-based swimming pool paint. Check out our Deck-O-Shield Pool Deck Sealers that extends the life of your concrete by limiting the penetration of water into the surfaces and protects against salt, staining, rust and discoloration. Also don't forget to pick paint prep and application kits, solvents and sealers for an ultimate deck repair and resurfacing job.


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Relisha Rudd called it the "trap house."
For nearly two years, the missing 8-year-old had been living in the shelter for homeless families at the former D.C. General Hospital, a grim place with bedbugs and no playground. Relatives said the second-grader, who slept with a teddy bear she named "Baby," wanted out so desperately that she would fake asthma attacks to stay at their homes. Adults who were close to her at her old school described her arriving with filthy clothes, dirty hair and an empty stomach, and they said she often didn't want to leave.


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The Internet may have reacted to the new Sonic, but the Kotaku 'Shop Contest has yet to have its say.
Faces weren't the only feature lifted in the makeover Sonic and pals got for Sonic Boom. Sonic's waistband shot up to his tits, somehow. If he wore pants he'd look like a 70-year-old in line in the Golden Corral at 4:30 p.m. Knuckles looks like Jose Canseco in a wrestling singlet. Tails has goggles nowhere near his eyes and headphones nowhere near his ears.
So here we go. My colleague Steve Marinconz set a high bar with that Watch_Dogs/Sonic mashup, but according to official 'Shop Contest rules, neither employees of Kotaku 'Shop Contest nor their families are eligible for any prizes. So that's where all of you smart 'Shoppers come in. Take the new Sonic, or his new friends, and come back to me with the funny.
Source Images: Meet the New Sonic and His Next Game [numerous samples here]
Look, it's Sonic, wearing handwraps and a scarf. With taped feet. Knuckles is similarly mummified. You guys got plenty to work with here.
While most of you are smart enough to figure out how to upload images, here are some simple steps to take for those less familiar with the practice.
1. Create your 'Shop and save it to your desktop.
2. Go to the bottom of this post and click "Discuss."
3. This brings up a comment window. Click the icon that looks like a picture.
4. This brings up another window called "Insert Image." Click "Choose file" if you're uploading your 'shop from your desktop
5. Alternatively, you can upload the 'Shop to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. Then paste the image's URL into the field that says "Image URL." Note: this must be the URL of the image itself, not the page where it is displayed. That means the URL ends in .jpg, .gif, .png, whatever.
6. Add editorial commentary and hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, upload the image to imgur and paste the image URL as a comment. I promise I will look at it.
7. Large-size images may not upload properly, though we have seen some big-ass animated .gifs upwards of 5 MB. If you're still having trouble uploading the image, try to keep its longest dimension (horizontal or vertical) under 1000 pixels, or the whole thing under 2 MB.
Alright! Have at it. Thanks very much for your participation.
To contact the author of this post, write to firstname.lastname@example.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.


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And this door..... I have been eyeballing this sucker for weeks in my friend Amy's booth at The Sleepy Poet. Finally it is mine to keep! The old blue color is great, the detail is not like any I have ever seen!!!
Just look at the old Gentlemen tag.... Fabulous!!


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ALHF Healthcare Careers Scholarship applications now available
Send a link to a friend
13, 2014]
Applications are now available
for the 2014 Abraham Lincoln Healthcare Foundation Healthcare
Careers Scholarship.
Graduating high school seniors, as well as students further along
in their studies are eligible to apply. Preferred career fields this
year are nursing (ADN or BSN), nurse anesthesiology (CRNA), physical
therapy and physical therapy assistant.
Applicants must have strong ties to the Logan County community
with the intent to work in Lincoln upon degree completion.
Applicants must be currently attending or accepted into a fully
accredited school for their chosen field of study and demonstrate a
cumulative grade-point average of at least 2.5 on a 4.0 scale while
maintaining a B average in core classes.
[to top of second column]
Detailed scholarship
guidelines and
application forms (PDF) are available for download at
www.almh.org. Completed applications are due April 4.
For more information about the scholarship program, contact Micah
Tanner at 217-757-2125 or
[Text from
Lincoln Healthcare Foundation news release]
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After you've seen all there is to see here, you may find one of these links useful.


text: It's something original and unique: 26 illustrated stories and six text stories set in a drive-in theater over a 50 year period. Make that a 53 year period, including the epilogue. Each story had to accomplish three things. I think we succeeded on all counts. I enlisted some serious talent (23 different artists), assigned them stories attuned to their styles, and ended up with a great package. ... READ MORE


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U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
EEOC Settles Discrimination Suit Against Alaska's Largest Hospital
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Providence Alaska Medical Center has agreed to pay $220,000 and other relief to settle an age discrimination lawsuit on behalf of five workers laid off and denied rehire because of their age, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today.
The EEOC charged that in February 2005, Providence laid off and refused to rehire longtime employees Gola Anderson, Lawrence Harris, Milagros Lopez, Rebecca Petrie and Canijie Sadiku, following a restructuring of the hospital's operating room. The five employees had devoted between 11 and 24 years of their careers as surgery aides and anesthesia technicians to Providence and all had hoped to retire from Providence one day. The EEOC said that the five employees, ages between 46 and 56, lost their jobs due to their age, and were replaced by new hires in their twenties and thirties.
Such alleged conduct violates the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.
Under the three-year consent decree resolving the case (EEOC v. Providence Alaska Medical Center, Civ. No. 3:06-cv-00146 RBB), approved by U.S. District Court Ralph B. Beistline, Providence Alaska Medical Center denied liability, but agreed to pay $220,000 to compensate the employees for wages lost as a result of losing their jobs. The medical center will also revise its policies, provide training on discrimination and retaliation for operating room employees, and file regular reports with the EEOC for monitoring in addition to other injunctive relief.
"Employers have a duty to ensure that they do not run afoul of the law when they restructure their workforce," said EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo. "We commend Providence for working cooperatively to resolve this lawsuit and believe that the relief provided in the consent decree will prevent something like this from happening in the future."
The EEOC brought the lawsuit against Providence after a neutral investigation conducted by EEOC investigator Mercedes Casasola, and after the agency first attempting to a reach voluntary settlement out of court.
EEOC San Francisco District Director Michael Baldonado noted, "Unfortunately, age bias continues to be a persistent problem in the 21st century workplace – four decades after passage of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The EEOC will continue to fight for the rights of older workers."
During Fiscal Year 2008, the EEOC received a record 24,582 age discrimination charge filings, a 29 percent increase from the prior year and a 65 percent jump from the number of filings in FY 2005 (14,893).According to its web site, www.providence.org/alaska, the Providence Health Care System is Alaska's largest private employer, with over 4,000 employees serving the Alaska communities of Anchorage, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Kodiak Island, Seward and Valdez. Providence Alaska Medical Center is located in Anchorage and is Alaska's largest hospital.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.


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Black Star (Yasiin Bey & Talib Kweli) - "You Already Knew" - Black Star Aretha (Mixtape)
So The Artist Formerly Known As Mos Def and his BK cohort Talib Kweli have finally taken steps toward making their follow up to their highly acclaimed 1998 album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star more then fodder for blog speculation and comment section discussion. After years of sporadic activity as a group I can understand how diehard fans could be hyped about their first release in over 13 years but unlike the other Black Star song that's floating around the internets, this one is as good as the hype would lead you to believe. Produced by Cali beatmaker Oh No, "You Already Knew" expertly flip's "The Queen Of Soul" Ms. Aretha Franklin's "One Step Ahead" and turns it into the perfect groove for the duo to work that vintage Black Star magic on the listener. Mos is still spitting esoteric gems ("Trans-Atlantic maverick/true and living Asiatic/the organic masters/the cream of the planet"), sprinkling the track with his trademark melodic flow which is balanced by Talib's precise wordplay ("We do it for the glory, the ghetto, the war stories/Soldiers on shore leave who Occupy Wall Street") and wit. The chemistry between the two on "Fix Up" is almost forced when compared to how the two co-exist on this joint. I'm all for any new Black Star music but one can only hope this Aretha Franklin inspired mixtape actually materializes at some point.


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Hi again, friends! Mynn here and I'm super excited to be introducing one last tutorial for making your own enamel dots. This time Emily is sharing with us how to make them using Glossy Accents and nail polish. We have loved all the entries, and we hope you've found our money saving tutorials helpful! Now, all I have left to say is TAKE IT AWAY EMILY!
We've got one more technique to show you this month for making your own enamel dots. This one takes only about a minute of hands-on time!
Squeeze out some dots of Glossy accents onto either waxed paper or a nonstick craft mat.
You can make them whatever size you like, I tend to prefer them smaller. Let dry completely.
Now, go dig through your nail polish stash and start trying out some different colors. I think the bright, bold colors tend to look better, but just try everything you've got and see what appeals to you. That's what I did! If you color "outside the lines" a bit it's no big deal. You can trim off any excess once you peel them off the mat.
These were my best color options. You may want to go over them with a second coat if the first coat didn't cover well. Once they are dry, just peel them off the mat or waxed paper and they're ready! I use a dot of Glossy Accents on the back side to glue them onto my cards. These dots are a bit flatter than store bought enamel dots which I appreciate for their mail-friendliness!
If you'd like to see the card I made using this technique, come visit me on my blog!
~ Emily ~
~ Emily ~


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Hi juliana0403,
I believe that C is the only correct sentence from your list.
The other sentences (in my oppinion) should be as follows:
A) The woman is so unpleasant that none of us can suffer her.
B) This unpleasant man with his endless complaints is destroying my journey.
D) She couldn't put up with (or:stand) his rudeness any longer and walked out of the room.
(Erm... I am not sure about B though... --> Another solution for B could be: This unpleasant man with his endless complaints has destroyed my journey. Or perhaps... B could be correct too??)
Student or Learner


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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—The Harvard heavyweight varsity and freshman eights defeated Northeastern Saturday morning on the Charles River Basin, securing the Smith Cup for the 14th straight season and sending all the Crimson eights to Eastern Sprints with unblemished records.
The Crimson varsity (6-0) topped the Huskies (0-5) by 14.7 seconds, while the freshmen held off their Boston neighbors by 1.2 seconds. The NU freshman four won the first heavyweight race of the morning, topping the Crimson by 2.9 seconds, while Harvard beat MIT by 6.3 seconds.
"It was a good morning overall," said Harry Parker, the Thomas Bolles Head Coach for Harvard Men's Crew. "It thought it was a good row by the varsity, and the freshmen had a great win in a race between two very good crews."
Harvard took control of the varsity eight race early on, gaining an open-water advantage within the first 500 meters. The Crimson had more than a boat length of open water after another 500 and went on to finish in 5:56.7. Northeastern completed the two-kilometer course in 6:11.4. The win was Harvard's 20th in 23 years of Smith Cup competition.
The Crimson freshman eight was deadlocked with Northeastern through the first 1,000 meters but pulled slightly ahead after crossing under the Massachusetts Avenue bridge. Harvard steadily increased that advantage to three seats in the next 500 meters. Northeastern's sprint was not enough to catch Harvard, as the Crimson won in 6:03.1.
With no NU second varsity competing, the Crimson second and third varsities raced one another, with the second varsity prevailing. The Harvard fourth varsity eight rowed along with the freshmen, placing third.
In the freshman four event, Harvard trimmed Northeastern's open-water lead to a boat length, but the Huskies got the win in 7:01.9, while MIT placed third.
In addition to the varsity eight's 6-0 record, the Crimson second and third varsities head into the championship portion of the season with a 5-0 mark, while the freshman eight is 7-0.
Varsity Eight
Harvard 5:56.7
Northeastern 6:11.4
Freshman Eight
Harvard 6:03.1
Northeastern 6:04.3
Freshman Four
Northeastern 7:01.9
Harvard 7:04.8


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Maverick in Black Gold
Bracelets comes in 3 different sizes:
- Small (17cm)
- Medium (19cm)
- Large (21cm)
Size small 17cm is recommended for standard women size.
Size medium 19cm is recommended for standard men size.
For the best fit please measure the size of your wrist using measurement tape and add additional 1 centimeter for the sizes of the bracelet.
Our products are made up of the finest quality of genuine leather, each of them have been checked to ensure that we deliver the best to our customers.
Each metal hardware in our products are made from stainless steel, simple lock mechanism as part of the design and corrosion-resistant.
For the best care of the bracelets, avoid having contact with water such as swimming and bringing it to shower.
*The colours of the bracelet may change over time depending on usage and environment, it is to bring the personalised vintage effect.
The colors shown maybe different with the original products because of the settings of your display screen. We can not guarantee it can be accurate.