text:
Understanding Google's Algorithms: M.G.L's Cheat Sheet
Almost every day, Google introduces changes to its ranking algorithm. Some are tiny tweaks; others seriously shake up the SERPs. This cheat sheet will help you make sense of the most important algo changes and penalties rolled out in the recent years, with a brief overview and SEO advice on each. But before we start, let's do something fun. What if you could see which of the updates impacted your organic traffic, and in what way? Surprise surprise, you can, with a tool called Rank Tracker.
All you need to do is launch Rank Tracker and create a project for your site. Then, click the Update Traffic button in Rank Tracker's top menu, and enter your Google Analytics credentials to sync your account with the tool. In the lower part of your
Rank Tracker dashboard, switch to Organic Traffic:
1. Panda
Launch date: Feb 24, 2011
Hazards: Duplicate, plagiarized or thin content; user-generated spam; keyword stuffing
How it works:
Panda assigns a so-called "quality score" to webpages; this score is then used as a
ranking factor. Initially, Panda was a filter rather than part of Google's ranking algorithm,but in January 2016, it was officially incorporated into the core algorithm. Panda rollouts have become more frequent, so both penalties and recoveries now happen faster.
How to adjust:
Run regular site checks for content duplication, thin content, and keyword stuffing. To do that, you'll need a site crawler, like SEO PowerSuite's Website Auditor. To check for instances of external content duplication, use a plagiarism checker. If you have an e-commerce site and cannot afford to have 100% unique content, try to use original images where you can, and utilize user reviews to make product descriptions stand out from the crowd. For more tips on content auditing, jump to this 6-step guide.
2. Penguin
Launch date: April 24, 2012
Hazards: Spammy or irrelevant links; links with over-optimized anchor text
How it works: Google Penguin's objective is to down-rank sites whose links it deems manipulative. Since late 2016, Penguin has been part of Google's core algorithm; unlike Panda, it works in real time. How to adjust: Monitor your link profile's growth and run regular audits with a backlink checker like SEO SpyGlass. In the tool's Summary dashboard, you'll find a progress graph for your link profile's growth. Look out for any unusual spikes: those are reason enough to look into the backlinks you've unexpectedly gained. The stats that we know Penguin takes into account are incorporated into SEO SpyGlass's Penalty Risk formula. To check for penalty risks, go to the Linking Domains dashboard, navigate to the Link Penalty Risks tab, select your links, and click Update Penalty Risk. When the check is complete, check with the Penalty Risk column, and make sure to look into every link with a score over 50%. For a more detailed guide on link auditing, jump here.
3. Hummingbird
Launch date: August 22, 2013
Hazards: Keyword stuffing; low quality content
How it works:
Hummingbird helps Google better interpret search queries and provide results that match searcher intent (as opposed to the individual terms within the query). While keywords continue to be important, Hummingbird makes it possible for a page to rank for a query even if it doesn't contain the exact words the searcher entered. This is achieved with the help of natural language processing that relies on latent semantic indexing, co-occurring terms, and synonyms.
How to adjust:
Expand your keyword research and focus on concepts, not keywords. Carefully research related searches, synonyms, and co-occurring terms. Great sources of such ideas are Google Related Searches and Google Autocomplete. You'll find all of them incorporated into Rank Tracker 's Keyword Research module. Use these insights to understand your audience's language better and diversify your content. By creating comprehensive content that satisfies searcher intent, you'll win both in terms of engagement and SEO. We'll look at comprehensiveness in more detail later in this post when we discuss RankBrain.
4. Pigeon
Launch date: July 24, 2014 (US); December 22, 2014 (UK, Canada, Australia)
Hazards: Poor on- and of-page SEO
How it works:
Pigeon affects those searches in which the user's location plays an important part. The update created closer ties between the local algorithm and the core algorithm: traditional SEO factors are now used to rank local results.
How to adjust:
Invest effort into on- and of-page SEO. A good starting point is running an on-page analysis with WebSite Auditor. The tool's Content Analysis dashboard will give you a good idea about the aspects of on-page optimization you need to focus on. A good way to start with of-page SEO is getting listed in relevant business directories. Not only do those act like backlinks, helping your site rank; they rank well in Google themselves. You can easily find quality directories and reach out to webmasters asking to get listed with LinkAssistant. Just click Look for Prospect , select Directories, and enter your keywords. It's a good idea to specify category keywords plus your location (e.g. "dentist Denver"). In a moment, the tools will return a list of relevant directories in your niche, along with the site owner's email addresses. For more tips on local SEO, jump to this guide.
5. Mobile
Launch date: April 21, 2015
Hazards: Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor mobile usability
How it works:
Google's Mobile Update (aka Mobilegeddon) ensures that mobile-friendly pages rank at the top of mobile search, while pages not optimized for mobile are filtered out from the SERPs or seriously down-ranked.
How to adjust:
Go mobile and focus on speed and usability. Google's mobile friendly test will help you see which aspects of your page's mobile version need to be improved. The test in integrated into WebSite Auditor so you can check your pages' mobile friendliness quickly. You'll find it in Content Analysis > Page Audit, under the Technical factors tab.
6. RankBrain
Launch date: October 26, 2015
Hazards: Lack of query-specifc relevance features; shallow content; poor UX
How it works:
RankBrain is part of Google's Hummingbird algorithm. It is a machine learning system that helps Google understand the meaning behind queries, and serve best-matching search results in response to those queries. Google calls RankBrain the third most important ranking factor. While we don't know the ins and outs of RankBrain, the general opinion is that it identifies relevance features for webpages ranking for a given query, which are basically query-specific ranking factors.
How to adjust:
Optimize content for relevance and comprehensiveness with the help of competitive analysis. With the help of WebSite Auditor 's TF-IDF tool, you can discover relevant terms and concepts used by a large number of your top-ranking competitors: those are a brilliant way to diversify your content.
7. Possum
Launch date: September 1, 2016
Hazards: Tense competition in your target location
How it works:
The Possum update ensured that local results vary more depending on the searcher's location: the closer you are to a business's address, the more likely you are to see it among local results. Possum also resulted in greater variety among results ranking for very similar queries, like 'dentist denver' and 'dentist Denver co'. Interestingly, Possum also gave a boost to businesses located outside the physical city area.
How to adjust:
Expand your keyword list and do location-specific rank tracking. Local businesses now need to be targeting more keywords than they used to, due to the volatility Possum brought into the local SERPs. As you check your rankings, make sure you're doing this from your target location (or, better yet, a bunch of them). You can do this in Rank Tracker under Preferences > Preferred Search Engines. Click Add Custom next to Google. Next, specify your preferred location — you can make it as specific as a street address.
8. Fred
Launch date: March 8, 2017
Hazards: Thin, affiliate-heavy or ad-centered content
How it works:
The latest of Google's confirmed updates, Fred targets websites that violate Google's webmaster guidelines. The majority of affected sites are blogs with low-quality posts that appear to be created mostly for the purpose of generating ad revenue.
How to adjust:
Review Google Search Quality Guidelines and watch out for thin content. If you show ads, make sure the pages they are found on are high quality and offer relevant, ample information. This is basically it: don't try to trick Google into thinking your page is about something when it really is a gateway page full of affiliate links. Most publishers make money of ads, and that's totally legit as long as you are not cheating.
#googlealgorithm #google #digitalmarketing #Contentmarketing #marketinginfographic


text:
- Home
- Government
- Departments
- Conservation
- Land Stewardship
Land Stewardship
Conservation Land Management Staff work to balance natural-resource preservation with passive recreation on approximately 1600-acres of municipal conservation land. Together, with Land Trust Staff, they manage approximately 80 miles of trails. In addition, they work on the following programs.
Baseline Inventory and Monitoring ProgramConservation and Land Trust Staff work together to complete baseline inventory and annual monitoring reports for each conservation property. The reports include a conservation abstract, ecological and land-use inventory, survey plans and GIS maps, deeds and restrictions and photos.
Land Management PlansConservation and Land Trust Staff work together to develop general land-management plans, such as forest, wetland and field-management plans. These plans guide specific management practices based on the type of habitat, use on the land and long-term goals for each conservation property.
Land ManagementConservation Staff follow best-management practices including:
- enhancement of flora and fauna diversity in age, distribution and species,
- protection of critical habitat areas including their physical and biological conditions,
- control of non-native, invasive species with special attention to (a) new infestations that might be controlled through prompt action and (b) occurrences where wildlife, agriculture or human activities may be adversely affected by such vegetation,
- research and best control when problems arise with certain species or wildlife populations which may be a public safety concern, and
- decisions that balance the interests of wildlife, people and land.
View the Conservation Department page.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Perimeter shooting lifts Eagles past Northern Colorado
It was best and worst 3-point shooting of the season on display Saturday afternoon in Cheney, Wash.
The Eastern Washington University women's basketball team hit 9-of-16 long range shots for a season-high 56 percent, while the Bears of Northern Colorado went 0-for-22 from three to suffer a demoralizing 63-38 loss at Reese Court.Perimeter shooting lifts Eagles past Northern Colorado
With the home sweep, EWU (9-8, 5-3 Big Sky) moves into third place in the Big Sky standings, just a 1/2 game behind Montana (5-2) and two games behind conference-leading Montana State (7-1). The Eagles defeated Big Sky newcomer North Dakota, 75-72, on Thursday (Jan. 17).
The Bears, now 7-9 on the year and 4-3 in Big Sky play, fall into a three-way tie for fourth place with Idaho State and Sac State.
Eastern set the tone early on Saturday, converting five of its first seven shots in the game, which included a perfect 3-of-3 from downtown. Within the first 10 minutes, EWU had doubled up UNC with a 21-10 advantage. And it only got worse for the Bears from there.
Eastern closed out the first period on a 13-0 run, as the home team went into the locker room shooting 65 percent from the field and 78 percent from beyond the arc. After knocking down seven 3-pointers in the first half, the Eagles enjoyed a 25-point advantage at the break – the biggest halftime margin of the season for the red and white.
Eastern did cool off in the second half, converting just 2-of-7 3-point attempts, but Northern Colorado was far worse. The Bears were 0-of-13 from three, and made just 7-of-23 shots inside the arc for a second-half shooting percentage of 19.4. After a layup by senior forward Lauren Oosdyke at the 14:46 mark, UNC went more than seven minutes without another field goal.
"We tried to contest shots as much as we could, and we did a good job of covering for each other in the zone, but Northern Colorado went 0-of-22 from three – that's not us, that is just them having a rough night," said EWU head coach Wendy Schuller. "UNC is a good basketball team, and this does not change my opinion of them. I know when we go play there [Greeley, Colo.] in a month, they are going to be a tough team to beat."
EWU was led by a flawless performance from redshirt-freshman Hayley Hodgins, who was making her first-career start for the Eagles. The Pasco, Wash., native certainly responded well to that starting nod, as she went 7-of-7 from the floor and 3-of-3 from downtown for a career-high 17 points.
In the last four games, Hodgins has scored 59 points – 21 more than her total from the previous 12 games.
"Hayley is feeling good right now, and she knocked down some tough shots today," said Schuller. "I think she made the most of her opportunities. We tell all of our players to take what comes to them, to understand their strengths and play to them. Hayley did a great job of that."
Junior Laura Hughes and sophomore Lexie Nelson contributed 11 points apiece, while senior Carrie Ojeda chipped in eight.
The Eagles finished the game shooting 53.5 percent from the field, with 15 assists. Redshirt-freshman Kayleigh Ryan had a career-high seven rebounds to lead EWU on the glass, while sophomore Kylie Huerta tied her career-high in assists with seven.
"I thought we got the ball inside today, and that forced them [UNC] to collapse," said Schuller. "Then we kicked it out and knocked down shots. When you are missing shots, it is contagious and becomes a bad epidemic. When you are making them, it's the same thing. We were fortunate to be on the good end of it today."
The Bears made just 14-of-23 shots in the game, including the dismal 0-of-22 effort from long range. The 38 points put up by UNC were the fewest points by an EWU opponent in more than two years.
EWU will have a quick turnaround for its next Big Sky contest, as it plays at Portland State on Monday (Jan. 21). The Vikings, who are 9-8 on the year and 3-4 in conference play, are coming off a 73-66 victory over North Dakota. Tipoff from the Peter W. Stott Center in Portland, Ore., is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.


text:
As reported by the Sacramento Bee, February 21, 2011.
Is It Safe to Clean with Bleach?
By Steve Graham
Poison control experts say they field more calls about bleach exposure than any other chemical. The dangers are compounded when combined with some other chemicals. However, bleach alone is generally safe at standard household concentrations, even if it causes some worrisome symptoms.
Alternative anti-bacterial cleaners are available, though they may be less effective than bleach, and the alternatives also pose problems.
Amy Hanoian-Fontana is the community education specialist at the Connecticut Poison Control Center, part of the University of Connecticut Health Center. She said her office fields many calls about bleach exposure leading to irritation and burning in the eyes, mouth, lungs and skin.
"Most poison center calls involve exposures to household bleach," she said. "The symptoms are mild to moderate, resolve after thorough flushing with water, and leave no long-term effects."
She said most home bleach products are dilute, with less than five percent hypochlorite, the active (and potentially dangerous) ingredient in bleach. Moreover, most people dilute their bottled bleach in water for home cleaning.
Industrial-strength cleaners, swimming pool chemicals and other products often have higher concentrations of hypochlorite. Still, she said they are not dangerous if users follow all directions and heed all warnings.
"These are stronger and merit more caution, but can still be used safely," she said.
More serious concerns
Even at low household concentrations, people with asthma, and other breathing problems may experience more serious symptoms after bleach exposure, according to Hanoian-Fontana.
Also, bleach should never be mixed with ammonia or other acids because the compound could produce toxic chlorine gas. This even applies to seemingly harmless and natural acidic cleaners, such as vinegar.
"Symptoms may include feeling an immediate burning sensation in the nose, eyes, or mouth, and coughing, dizziness, or shortness of breath," said Hanoian-Fontana.
Again, there is typically a simple and effective solution.
"Get to fresh air right away. This will relieve symptoms," Hanoian-Fontana said.
She added that the problem is not just mixing toxic concoctions. It may also be the use of bleach on top of acid cleaners, or vice versa. People may wipe down a counter with vinegar, then follow with a bleach wipe if the counter's not clean enough.
"If you need to use two products to clean be sure to rinse the area with water and let dry before attempting to layer on an additional cleaning product," Hanoian-Fontana said. "This will help to avoid toxic combinations."
Likewise, commercial "bleach wipes" may actually contain ammonia instead of bleach, and it can be dangerous to add bleach to these containers.
Some also worry about the environmental impacts of bleach. Industrial bleach manufacturing and usage generates dioxin, a toxic byproduct that has been linked to cancer and birth defects. Dioxin and other bleach byproducts are also toxic to birds and fish. Again, household bleach is not strong enough to cause much concern. Bleaching paper and other industrial processes are the main concern.
Antibacterial alternatives
Alternatives are available for those want to avoid the health and environmental threats associated with bleach, but they may also pose dangers while proving less effective as disinfectants.
- The Centers for Disease Control warns against relying on ammonia, baking soda, vinegar or Borax. None of these products are registered as disinfectants with the Environmental Protection Agency, and they are all ineffective against Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that is the most common cause of staph infections. Borax, baking soda and standard detergents also won't kill salmonella or E.coli. On the other hand, vinegar and undiluted ammonia kill both salmonella and E.coli.
- Hydrogen peroxide can cause severe burns at high enough concentrations to be effective disinfectants.
- Quaternary ammonium compounds, or quats, are a less widely available option. Though quats are generally safe, some products may contain toxic ingredients. The Labour Environmental Alliance Society in Canada recommends Enviro Care disinfectants, which contain quats, are very effective and have no known toxic ingredients.
Bleach may be the most effective cleaner in many homes, even though bleach poses health threats and environmental concerns. If you fear poisoning from bleach or any other cause, call 1-800-222-1222 for poison control help 24 hours a day.


text:
Difference between revisions of "CMake"
Baoilleach (Talk | contribs)
(→Building OpenBabel)
Baoilleach (Talk | contribs)
(→Building OpenBabel)
|Line 17:
|Line 17:
And to compile the code
And to compile the code:
mkdir ~/build
mkdir ~/build
|Line 24:
|Line 24:
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/openbabel ~/src/openbabel
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/openbabel ~/src/openbabel
sudo make install
sudo make install
Revision as of 08:48, 3 March 2010
Open Babel trunk (destined to become openbabel-2.3) will use CMake as its primary build system. Cmake is available in many Linux distributions or from www.cmake.org.
Building OpenBabel
CMake version 2.6.3 or newer is required to build OpenBabel.
The preferred method of building Open Babel with CMake is to use "out of source" builds. This means that no generated files are placed in the source directory. This ensures good separation between source and build files. You can use whatever directory structure you prefer, one possible directory layout is:
~/src/openbabel ~/build/openbabel
So, if you want to build the source code directly from our subversion repository, you would first check out the code as follows:
mkdir ~/src cd ~/src svn co https://openbabel.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/openbabel/openbabel/trunk openbabel
And to compile the code:
mkdir ~/build mkdir ~/build/openbabel cd ~/build/openbabel cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/openbabel ~/src/openbabel make sudo make install
This would configure OpenBabel in the build directory, make all files and install them to the specified prefix. The CMakeCache.txt file contains most stored settings, erasing that will allow you to configure again.
To run the tests, first set BABEL_DATADIR=~/src/openbabel/data and BABEL_LIBDIR=~/build/openbabel/lib. Then run "make test".
Building the Python bindings
If you have swig installed and on the PATH, then the Python bindings will be built automatically. The install directory can be set using "-DPYTHON_PREFIX=/my/path".
Notes for developers
Make Individual Targets
CMake has good dependency tracking, but it uses timestamps (as most build systems do) to indicate a file has changed. As such anytime that the openbabel library is rebuilt all of the plugins/executables that link to it are relinked. This can lead to excessive amounts of time spent waiting for everything to relink, when the ABI has in fact not changed. By making individual parts of the project these relinks can be avoided.
make openbabel # Rebuild the openbabel libary make help # List available build targets
The dependency tracking can also take time when building plugins. CMake adds an additional target that has no dependency tracking, and can be used if working on the CML format for example,
make cmlformat/fast
This can be used for all targets by appending '/fast' to the target name.
Target Naming Conventions
Formats are named after their source files, e.g. cmlformat.[h|cpp] -> cmlformat. The openbabel library target is named openbabel (currently openbabel-2 on Windows). The executable targets are named after the corresponding executable, e.g. babel. Any of these target names can be used as shown above to rebuild specific parts, this can save a lot of time when working on one specific aspect of Open Babel.
Useful Cmake Options
- To see the actual commands used to compile the code (on Linux), run 'make VERBOSE=1'
- You can build in debug mode with "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug".
- On occasion, developers may find it useful to use the option -DMINIMAL_BUILD=ON. This option just compiles the Smiles and SDF formats, and of the tools just babel.
OpenBabel GUI
The OpenBabel GUI is built by default if the wxWidgets development libraries are available (on Ubuntu 9.04, libwxgtk2.8-dev; Fedora, wxGTK-devel). On Windows, the WXWIN environment variable should be defined.
The GUI build can be explicitly disabled using -DBUILD_GUI=OFF.
Building on Windows
There is a batch file, default_build.bat, in the windows-vc2008 folder that runs cmake. Other .bat files called default_build with additional options, e.g. to enable the tests.


text:
In a project I'm participating in we are in a crucial crossroad. We're discussing whether it's better to fill an intranet with information, even if it's not directly targeted at this particular user, or stand at the risk of having an empty site with no information since the targeted information is very sparse.
The pro of having more information than necessary, is that the intranet will always be alive, change information and news feed every other day. Users will go there to find news, even if it isn't directly in field of interest its still company news. The con is that the information given isn't all that relevant to the user, and the user might get bored since its only Company news and not news targeted for the user.
The pro of having less information, which updates twice a month is that given news and information is always relevant to me as a user. However, if the content seldom changes the user might forget that the intranet exist and news feed reaches no one.
What should we do? Less frequent but relevant information more seldom or More frequent but less relevant information more often?


text:
Posts Tagged 'training closer'
Training Course Closers
Warning: A non-numeric value encountered in /home/customer/www/ice-breaker-ideas.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/paper-template/papertemplate.php(15) : eval()'d code(3) : eval()'d code on line 341
My small business course at Swansea University finally came to an end just recently....great shame because I was really enjoying it! Fantastic to share ideas and working practises with other small businesses. Well at least my parents finally get to have a graduation photo of me on their wall after all this time. I didn't attend my graduation ceremony first time round - instead I worked as a camp counsellor in America and for many years there has been a hole on the wall with 3 sisters in cap and gown and me on a horse!
Getting back to the course, it ended with a really nice training course closer. We were asked to think back over our time on the course and plot it as a journey on paper with colourful crayons and markers. Quite a few people were immediately horrified at the prospect of creating a peice of artwork for public humiliation, especially as quite a few masterpieces from previous groups were shown, supposedly to give us an idea but only served to highlight our inadequacies. So large sheets of paper and pens were handed out and we were given about 20 minutes to get creative. A few people looked dumbfounded but most got on with it.
"Think about your goals; your highs and lows; any significant achievements or milestones and record your journey pictorially" they said.
After time was up each person in turn took it upon themselves to deliver their journeys to the rest of us. It might sound corny but it was a really neat way to share how the program had impacted upon us all and to say goodbye.
This training course closer is an excellent way of ending the program and can be used by many groups and teams whose time together has come to an end. Sharon Naylor is passionate about learning and
development and she has developed a repertoire of ice breaker games and team building activities that can be used for many groups. Check out her ice breaker ideas website for tons of excellent ideas to make your training programs and social gatherings sizzle!


text:
Why make a series of Casablanca? Attempts to make TV shows out of classic films—M*A*S*H excepted—have always ended in disaster, with audiences ignoring those series and critics clucking their tongues about how what works on the big screen rarely works on the small. The idea of making a weird mash-up of an anthology drama and a workplace sitcom and calling it Casablanca seems doomed to fall apart. Why not just make a show that's vaguely similar and call it something else?
And yet if not for the existence of one of the greatest films of all time for unflattering comparison, it might be possible to make a good TV show out of Casablanca. It certainly boasts a setting rife with potential for a TV show: Rick's bar, a place where French, German, British, and American citizens can mix it up and nearly come to blows as World War II rages in the background. It's not hard to imagine a version of this series that follows Rick and his employees as the war threatens to bury all of them alive, the Nazis breathing down their necks on one side and the Allies on the other.
That, however, would require the kinds of breakthroughs modern television takes for granted. A series like that could not have been made in 1983, and sadly, that's when NBC took a stab at turning that compelling setting into a TV show. They won a cinematography Emmy for their troubles, but the show lasted only five episodes and hasn't become a beloved classic. Its arrival on DVD has nothing to do with anyone wanting to see it again and everything to do with the film that inspired it celebrating its 70th anniversary.
There are virtues to the TV series. Hector Elizondo makes a surprisingly enjoyable Captain Renault, and if Starsky & Hutch's David Soul isn't Humphrey Bogart (who would be?), he at least doesn't embarrass himself as Rick, though the series' interpretation of the character is miles away from the portrayal of Rick at the start of the film. (The series is, indeed, a prequel, in which Rick will occasionally speak fondly of a woman named Ilsa that he once loved). This Rick is something of a sap who constantly gets involved in the troubles of the various patrons of his bar—and also gets involved with every moderately attractive woman who falls into his orbit)—not the emotionally closed-off man who only gradually allows cracks to appear in his façade. Yet the series' interpretation of the character works for Soul's performance, and having a protagonist who gets involved in his patrons' lives is probably necessary for a series version of this story. The rest of the cast is fine as well, particularly Scatman Crothers as Sam, whose "As Time Goes By" makes a fine theme song.
At the same time, though, there's no good reason to watch this outside of curiosity. The series' depiction of the time period is only skin deep, and when it attempts to venture out of the politics of the war and into, say, the lives of the local Muslim population, it bites off more than it can chew. The series suggests how one could make a good show out of Casablanca, but without serialization, it reduces too many of its characters, particularly the Germans, to buffoonish villains who never suggest the real menace required for Rick to feel threatened by them. Somebody walks into a bar. Rick gets involved in their lives. And then they leave. Again and again and again, to the point where the formula feels tired after just five episodes. Casablanca suggests so readily how a good TV series of the film could be made that it's all the more disappointing that it didn't succeed.
Key features: None.


text:
GNU Zile
GNU Zile is a text editor development kit, so that you can (relatively) quickly develop your own ideal text editor without reinventing the wheel for many of the common algorithms and data-structures needed to do so.
It comes with an example implementation of a lightweight Emacs clone, called Zemacs. Every Emacs user should feel at home with Zemacs. Zemacs is aimed at small footprint systems and quick editing sessions (it starts up and shuts down instantly).
More editors implemented over the Zile frameworks are forthcoming as the data-structures and interfaces improve: Zz an emacs inspired editor using Lua as an extension language; Zee a minimalist non-modal editor; Zi a lightweight vi clone; and more...
Zile is a collection of algorithms and data-structures that currently support all basic Emacs-like editing features: it is 8-bit clean (though Unicode support is not ready yet), and the number of editing buffers and windows is only limited by available memoryand screen space respectively. Registers, minibuffer completion and auto fill are available.
Zemacs implements a subset of Emacs with identical function and variable names, continuing the spirit of the earlier Zile editor implemented in C.
Stable source releases of Zile can be found on the main GNU download server (HTTPS, HTTP, FTP) and its mirrors; please use a mirror if possible.
Like Emacs, Zemacs is self-documenting: it has built-in help in its
features. It also comes with a brief man page, obtained by
running man zemacs, and a FAQ, which can be found by
zemacs and typing the key-sequence
C-h C-F.
Zemacs' splash screen
Zemacs is a lightweight Emacs clone; even its splash screen is very Emacs-like:
Selecting a region in Zemacs
Zemacs highlights the selected region, shown here editing some of the
zlisp source code that implements
Zz Syntax Highlighting Proof-of-Concept
Zz is another editor built using Zile, here using experimental Lua syntax-highlighting:
Mailing lists
Zile has two mailing lists:
- <firstname.lastname@example.com> for discussing most aspects of Zile, including development and enhancement requests, as well as bug reports.
- <email@example.com> for general user help and discussion.
Announcements about Zile and most other GNU software are made on <email@example.com>.
To subscribe to these or any GNU mailing lists, please send an empty mail with a Subject: header of just "subscribe" to the relevant -request list. For example, to subscribe yourself to the GNU announcement list, you would send mail to <firstname.lastname@example.com>. Or you can use the mailing list web interface.
Getting involved
Development of Zile, and GNU in general, is a volunteer effort, and you can contribute. For information, please read How to help GNU. If you'd like to get involved, it's a good idea to join the discussion mailing list (see above).
For development sources, bug and patch trackers, and other information, please see the Zile project page at savannah.gnu.org.
Zile is currently being maintained by Reuben Thomas. Please use the mailing lists for contact.
Zile is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.


text:
User reviews
User reviews for Crescendo Music Notation Editor
Add your review
Sign in here to write a review.
Popular downloads in MP3 Audio Video
- Realtek High Definition Audio Driver for 2000/XP/2003 32/64-bit R2.74
High definition audio driver from Realtek.
- 3GP Player 2013 1.4
Free 3GP Player for Pc
- iTunes 188.8.131.52
Manage and play your music collection.
- Windows Media Player 11
One of the best media player
- Total Video Converter 3.71
Total Video Converter
- TVexe TV HD 6.0
Watch free live TV on your PC now+ Radio
- K-Lite Codec Pack Full 17.8.0
A collection of codecs and related tools.
- Windows Media Player 9 Codecs Pack
The latest Windows Media codecs
- VLC media player 3.0.18
A portable app of VLC media player.
- KMPlayer 220.127.116.11 x86 / 2023.9.26.17 x64
A movie and audio player.


text:
Hedge Fund Managers Are the Biggest Gangsters of All
Last year, hedge fund founder George Soros made $4 billion. Five other hedge fund men made more than $1 billion. This, while hedge funds on the whole did much, much worse than a simple stock fund. Which brings us to the topic of socialism.
Hedge fundies earn much more money than anyone in any other sector of the finance. They make the pay of their fellow masters of the universe look positively paltry. No corporate CEO cracked $80 million last year. Even the titans of private equity, the swashbuckling robber kings of Wall Street, don't tend to pull in more than several hundred million.
The combined pay of the top ten highest-earning CEOs last year would not even rank in the top dozen highest earnings of individual hedge fund managers.
And this, of course, is the promise of hedge fund: the frontier of finance, where men with big dicks and bigger piles of money live or die on their own success. It is, as the myth goes, capitalism at its most pure: hedge fund managers are given huge amounts of money to invest, and if they make money, they get wildly rich; if they don't make money, they're out of business in two years. By this reckoning, hedge funders eat what they kill. If they reap huge fortunes, well, they earned.
But in what sense are these billion dollar paydays "earned?" Here is what George Soros' fund did last year to earn him $4 billion: it underperformed the S&P 500 index by 8%. In other words, Soros charged his investors fees that are well over 1000% higher than what they could have paid for a simple index fund that would have earned them more money. (Update: Soros' fund manages his own money. Typical hedge fund fees are around 2%, versus less than 0.2% for an index fund.) Likewise, Carl Icahn earned $1.7 billion just for matching the returns of the broader stock market last year, and Ray Dalio earned $900 million after his main fund severely underperformed "both the average hedge fund and the U.S. stock market for two straight years." When you pull out and look at the hedge fund industry as a whole, you find that it pulled in returns of less than 10% last year—the fifth straight year that these Highly Sophisticated Vehicles For Highly Sophisticated Investors have done worse than the cheapest and simplest stock market index fund that you could buy online in a few minutes.
Even the shittiest hedge fund managers earn tons of money, because they charge their investors not just a hefty percentage of profits, but a fee of around 2% on the total amount of money invested—meaning, for example, that a chimpanzee running the world's least successful $1 billion hedge fund is guaranteed a salary of at least $20 million, even if he loses all of his investors' money in the process. (This is not a far-fetched example.)
Okay, so hedge funds are a scam to soak rich people who are not sophisticated enough to understand that they are not sophisticated. Big deal, right? Even Businessweek magazine came to that unavoidable conclusion. I don't particularly care about wealthy people throwing their money away on poor investments; I care about the fact that all of that money is being deposited directly into the pockets of even richer people, who pay less tax on it than a mechanic pays on his paycheck. Most hedge fund earnings fall under the "carried interest" tax loophole, meaning they're taxed at about half the rate of regular income. Ongoing efforts to close that loophole attract the most vociferous form of opposition lobbying from Wall Street, which can be explained by greed, and nothing else.
Last year, the 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers collectively earned $24.3 billion. Assuming that most of that was taxed as carried interest rather than as income, that means that this tiny group of people by themselves cost the government billions of dollars in tax revenue that would have been paid under a fairer system of taxation. As a matter of fact, you could fund the entire budget of the UN Refugee Agency with just the amount of tax money that stayed in the pockets of these hedge funders because of that tax loophole.
This is where private financial swashbuckling meets the public good. One side will win, and one side will lose. To defer to the bank accounts of a tiny group of insanely rich hedge funders over the needs of the public at large is insane. This week, economists at the IMF issued a new report that finds that redistribution of income has a "statistically insignificant" effect on economic growth—in other words, that policies designed to combat economic inequality, like high taxes on the very rich, do not hurt a nation's overall economy. "Rather than a trade-off [between economic growth and economic inequality]" they write, "the average result across the sample is a win-win situation, in which redistribution has an overall pro-growth effect, counting both potential negative direct effects and positive effects of the resulting lower inequality."
If wealth can be redistributed within a society without harming that society's overall economy, a key pillar of right wing economic argument is destroyed. It is a given that our society is not fair. It does not offer equality of opportunity, nor equality of outcome. Knowing that, what we can do is pursue equality on the back end, by taking some from those who have way too much, and giving it to those in desperate need. An extremely mild way to do this is to tax hedge funders at normal tax rates. By keeping that money in their own pockets, they are making themselves into enemies of the public. Our current system, in which teachers can barely lead middle class lifestyles, but a man whose firm is knee-deep in insider trading practices can earn $2.3 billion per year while paying lower tax rates than those teachers, is unconscionable.
The biggest thugs of all operate fully within the law.


text:
Historic Homes For Sale, Rent or Auction
Advanced Search
- With between 20 and 30 acres
- with at least 10 bedrooms
- located in Wisconsin
No Listings Found.
At the moment, we have no active listings in this state. But check with these agents who specialize in old houses:
Mary Leonard
restaino bunbury & associates
madison, Wisconsin
Unique Wisconsin Homes
Patrick McGinnis
shorewest realtors
mukwonago, Wisconsin
Linda Platner
davemansur.com real estate
janesville, Wisconsin
Turning Your Dreams into an Address
Susan Aronson
hearthstone realty, inc
waupun, Wisconsin
I Guarantee My Personal Best!
Robin Hall
hall realty group, llc
eau claire, Wisconsin
James Burns, CRS, ABR, GRI, SFR
coldwell banker burnet - burns real estate group
woodbury, Minnesota
Let's get you home.
Tina Ferlindes
realty executives integrity
hartland, Wisconsin
Sharon Ellis
re/max united
west bend, Wisconsin
Amy Badendick
micoley realty
green bay, Wisconsin
Real Estate Reinvented


text:
The Independent Business Owners Association International, Inc.® (IBOAI) puts the Independent Business Owners' (IBOs') interests first. It was designed that way in 1959 and continues to operate that way today. Every IBOAI Board Member takes an oath to represent all IBOs.
Amway Co-founders Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel made it clear that the IBO was their first priority when they, along with founding Field Leaders, formed the American Way Association (AWA), which many years later became what is now commonly known as the IBOAI.
Through the years, the IBOAI has been extremely effective at representing the interests of all IBOs. You can learn more about the role the IBOAI has played by reading Our Founders or take a look at the IBOAI's accomplishments through the eyes of one of its longstanding members, Jody Victor, in Together, We Represent the Best.
More Than 60 Years Representing IBOs
Vision, Values, Mission Statement, Guiding Principles
IBOAI Founders - A Vision for the Future
A detailed look at why the IBOA International was formed and what it has accomplished so far.
IBOAI Milestones
A timeline of our growth.
Together, We Represent the Best
Jody Victor gives you an intimate glimpse of the early years and explains how the IBOAI continues to fulfill its objectives today. Jody is a Crown IBO, a longstanding member of the IBOAI, and the son of one of the founding members.


text:
As a mom, I feel it's my job to do my best to keep my family safe and healthy. Carefully reading food labels in order to eliminate harmful toxins from our diets, like trans-fats and artificial dyes, is something I've been doing for years, but I never considered reading the labels on our household cleaning products before.
So when I learned about the new Get Clean products from Shaklee, I was more than ready to take the green cleaning challenge to see what's really going on underneath my kitchen sink. Needless to say, I was shocked at what I discovered. Keep reading to learn more!
The first thing that startled me when I dug out my most trusted household cleaners, was that it was next to impossible to discover what ingredients they actually contain! After reading the myriad of bold cautionary warnings instructing me to keep this product away from children, pets, my skin, my eyes, my clothing and my food, it seems quite ridiculous that they are then able to not explain exactly what's inside.
As you can see from the pictures below of a VERY POPULAR all-purpose cleaner that I have used my entire life, only one ingredient, which makes up only 0.3% of this substance, is listed. The other 99.7% of ingredients are a complete and utter mystery and I'm guessing if they were proud of them, they would be proudly displayed, instead of hidden as they are.
Even when I went to the Household Products Database from the National Institutes of Health, I still couldn't find out what was in this popular cleanser. Very suspicious indeed and judging from the active ingredient of alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride and the multitude of serious warning labels displayed on the bottle, I'm afraid that this product is not something I want to use to clean my home anymore.
I checked one other VERY POPULAR bathroom cleanser, that once again I have used my entire life, and was shocked by what I found in the Household Products Database:
"IARC found sufficient evidence to classify silica as a carcinogen in animals. However, the evidence in humans is limited. It is anticipated to be a carcinogen by NTP."
A carcinogen? Oh boy, that's great! I'm thrilled to know that I've been scrubbing my toilets, bathtubs, sinks, etc. with this particular cleaning product. My family's skin comes into direct contact with these surfaces multiple times per day, so now I know I must do something different to protect my family from these harmful substances. Enter in the Shaklee Get Clean Starter Kit!
Get Clean products are superconcentrated, saving you money, ounce for ounce. You would have to spend more than $3,400 on conventional, ready-to-use products from major name brands to get the same amount of clean you'll find in the Get Clean Starter Kit. When you use Get Clean products, you're not just cleaning, you're also making your family healthier because Get Clean is formulated without volatile organic cleaning compounds. You're even saving plenty of money too without dirtying the earth.
Get Clean products also outperform or matches 15 national brands, including such products as Pledge® Multi Surface Clean & Dust™ Wipes, OxiClean®, and Downy® April Fresh Ultra Concentrated Fabric Softener Liquid. I put the Get Clean Basic H2 to the test against my traditional multi-purpose cleaner and just look at the results! The Basic H2 solution got my countertop sparkling clean again in no time.
The one and only Get Clean Basic H2 is a versatile, superconcentrated cleaner with a thousand uses. Ninety-nine percent natural and 100% powerful, Basic H2 replaces all the cleaners you're probably buying now—window cleaners, all-purpose cleaners, degreasers, floor cleaners, tub and tile cleaners, and more—saving you money and space. Get Clean Basic H2 is the ultimate superconcentrated cleaner! Look how much you would have to spend to get the equivalent cleaning uses:
- Nearly $482 for the equivalent amount of all-purpose cleaner
- $12,250 for the equivalent amount of window cleaner
- $144 for the equivalent amount of degreaser
Get Clean uses natural and naturally derived ingredients from sustainable sources to offer nontoxic and natural cleaning choices that are Safe for You, Your Home, and Your Planet®. They also contain no phosphates, borates, nitrates, or many other chemicals the planet doesn't appreciate. When you buy the Get Clean Starter Kit versus conventional, ready-to-use cleaners, 108 pounds of packaging waste stays out of landfills and 248 pounds of greenhouse gas is eliminated.
And if that's not enough, through the sale of Shaklee Get Clean Basic H2 in the last year alone, Shaklee has eliminated the need for 2.7 billion 26-ounce bottles of conventional window cleaner—if placed end to end, these bottles would wrap around the earth more than 18 times!
After trying the Shaklee Get Clean products in my home, there's no doubt that I will continue to use these year after year. Now, I feel like my home is a much safer environment for my family and who can argue with the economical and environmental benefits you're receiving too!
Every cleaning item I've used so far in the Shaklee Get Clean Starter Kit works just as well, if not better, than my traditional products and I feel so much better knowing that I've eliminated a ton of deadly toxins from my home. I highly recommend that you also try the Shaklee Get Clean products for yourself. Since all Shaklee products come with a 100% money-back guarantee, the only thing you have to lose is dirt, toxins and excess waste! :thumbs up:
Disclosure: This review and giveaway were made possible by the Shaklee Corporation & Mom Spark Media. Incentives, product and support were provided. Thoughts are my own.
I'm a former 7th grade Science teacher turned stay-at-home mom that lives in Houston, Texas. I am married to my college sweetheart and have a beautiful daughter named Riley, who definitely keeps me on my toes! I am also involved in starting a small business which would both manufacture and sell an invention that I've patented, called Toothpaste 2 Go. I love interacting with my readers and hope to learn as much about you as you learn about me!
Melissa @ Mommy Living the Life of Riley!
Add Melissa Cleaver to your LinkedIn Network
Add Mommy Living the Life of Riley to your Google+ circle


text:
Guests who bought this also bought
CH51e Tulips & Rosebuds Baby Blanket - PDF
- Item can not be returned. All sales final
Fiber Trends Pattern CH51e Tulips & Rosebuds - PDF
Design by Eugen K. Beugler
A tiny rosebud repeat is surrounded by tulip lace in this sweet baby blanket.
Made in fine yarn it is the perfect wrap from any special occasion.
Size: Approximately 32" by 36" (81 by 91cm)
Yarn Requirements:
1100 yards (1005 meters) of fingering wt (4ply) yarn.
Shown in Haven 4ply (100% merino machine washable wool).
Needles: US size 4 (3.5mm) or size needed to obtain gauge.
A 24" or 29" (60 or 80 cm) circular is recommended to handle the number of stitches with ease.
Gauge: 24 sts to 4" (10cm) in stockinette stitch.
Please note that you are buying a digital format pattern that will be available for download from your Shopatron account immediately after your payment has processed. If you are interested in purchasing a hard copy of this pattern to be shipped to you please go to CH51 Tulips & Rosebuds


text:
Articles of Confederation…Well they were trying!
Lesson at a Glance
This lesson (which will take place over several class periods) is the 2nd in a series of three extensive lessons in the unit. It is designed for the students to understand that while individual choice is good, there are times when conformity is necessary and citizens working together can bring about a state of sovereignty. Through this lesson, the students will discover the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation and the importance of compromise. This lesson transcends back in time to 1777, to learn how and why it was important to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.
- Students will list and describe the shortcoming of the Articles of Confederation.
- Students will have a deepened understanding why the Constitution was written and why it is referred to as a "living document." (Constitution and components addressed in Lesson 1)
Social Studies and History Standards:
5.7.1. List the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation as set forth by their critics.
English/Language Arts Standards:
2.2 Write a persuasive letter or compositions:
2. a. State a clear position in support of a proposal
2. b. Support a position with relevant evidence
Common Core State Standards for ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS & Literacy in History/SocialStudies, Science, and Technical Subjects – Writing
Text Types and Purposes
Fifth Grade
1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which ideas are logically grouped to support the writer's purpose.
Big Idea(s):
- E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. (From a variety of sources and experiences, we have developed a successful government and legal system)
- Through actions come change, and change in the political process involves participation. (The political process involves participation; understanding requires student engagement. Integration and application of new learning in multiple learning modalities helps students deepen understanding)
Essential Questions/Issues:
- Does social capital strengthen a republic?
- Is citizenship a right or responsibility?
Students will be evaluated through: Informal checks for understanding, teacher observation, writing prompts, class participation, formal assessment task.
Formal Assessment: Performance Task (GRASP) with scoring rubric.
Formal Assessment ~ Students will write a persuasive letter stating their position to ratify the Constitution. (Formal writing rubric)
This lesson could be divided into 2-3 class periods depending on student need.
Download the PowerPoint presentation
|Hook Engage Learners
5 minutes
Personal story…
|Listening on the edge of their seat….
Did she really do this?
15-20 minutes
PowerPoint presentation:
Group Shares out problems…
PowerPoint continued…
(See below for detailed directions on materials and resources needed for Buying Spree and Traveling Game)
In table groups:
*Individuals view items to buy (pictures)
30 minutes
Activity: Delegate Traveling to Philadelphia
Teams will respond to a "Great Day ~ NO CONFLICT " card when there is no apparent conflict.
Teams will respond to a "Articles of Confederation…Tough Day!" CONFLICT card when conflicts arise
Teams will keep of running account of money issues using the "$Currency$" card.
(PPT Slide 16) - Rubric for cards
Game time over….things to think about
(PowerPoint continued…Slide 17)
Team brainstorms to come up with one or two cards for each scenario.
Students ask questions if necessary from the sample cards shown in the PowerPoint
Students understand the criteria of each card
Self reflection.
| Beyond
10 minutes
PowerPoint continued…
Post lists around the room (slide 19).
Students view other teams lists
Discussion amongst individual groups "Does Social Capital strengthen a republic?"
Class reflective on overall findings.
This actual activity should be completed in one class session.
Prior to this lesson, students will have studied the three branches of government, the preamble, various components of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to so that they have an understanding that our government is a democracy and is intended to make things fair, safe, and equal for all citizens.
Lesson Activity Steps:
Hook: Life of Crime begins at 4….
Personal Story: Confessions of a 4 year old….
Before Activity: Have six sets of 15-20 pictures of desirable items that a 5th grader would want to own. Each set of pictures is mounted on one of the six colors of which that you will be running off fake money. Label these items/pictures with a reasonable price on the backside. Run off "play money" (1's, 5,s, 10's, 20's) in the same six colors you mounted your pictures. Cut and divide up the colored money into an envelope for each student. Some envelopes will have the same colored currency while others will be an assortment of colors. Give each student the same mount of money in the envelope (i.e. $300) regardless of color. Give each student a clipboard and activity worksheet.
1. Make six large table groupings. Spread out desirable priced items (pictures) on the tables….make items enticing such as portable DVD player, Ipod, DVD's, CD's, Vacations to Hawaii, sports items, etc. Students are not to turn pictures over…yet.
2. Silently, students are to view all items at each table grouping and write down the top five items they would like to buy. The items they wish to buy can be from any table.
3. Hand out sealed envelopes with the colored currency to each student. They will discover that they may have enough money to buy one, two, or three of their items (you decide the price of each item) depending on the color of their currency.
4. Students open their envelopes and write down the color and amount of money that they have in their envelope (use clipboard)
5. Tell them they are to go back to the tables of their five choices, turn over the item and write down the price of each item. They can't spend over their allotted amount of money in their envelope, and they can only purchase items of the same color of currency.
6. What happens? Can some buy everything because they have the correct color and amount of money that goes with the item? Are some frustrated because they can't use their money on any of the items they wrote down?
7. Have a class discussion…..make a list of student comments.
Special Needs of students are considered in this lesson: Heterogeneous groups at tables will allow for stronger process and products. Grouping gifted learners with grade level students and learning challenged students with grade level peers is suggested for best results. Hands on learning through images, words, discussions, and collaborating efforts will help multiple modalities in understanding and help to elevate to higher order thinking scenarios.
Materials and Resources Needed For BUYING SPREE game:
Six tables or six table groupings, each table/group needs 15-20 different, large, laminated pictures of desirable items for 5th graders, six types of currency in denominations of 1's, 5's, 10's and 20's (money run off in 6 different colors), envelopes, price labels, clipboard, paper, pencils, maps, activity state cards, handouts.
California State Standards: www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/
Maps of the 13 Colonies: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/graphics/13mapnew.htm
Ben's Guide to US Government: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/indes.html
Reflections, United States History: Making a New Nation, Harcourt School Publishers, 2007


text:
PORTLAND, Maine — Police searched a Portland apartment Monday as they continue to piece together the days and weeks leading up to the death of a Westbrook woman whose body was found Thursday in a truck outside a Motel 6 in the city.
Lt. Scott Pelletier of the Portland Police Department told reporters Tuesday it is believed Margarita "Rita" Fisenko Scott, 29, frequented or stayed at the apartment during the month of December.
"At this point no one has been ruled out of the investigation," said Pelletier. "We continue to establish a timeline of the victim's movements, where she may have been employed, locations where she may have been staying, as well as identifying other people who may have been spending time with her."
Police are not yet releasing how she died, but after an autopsy Friday the state medical examiner ruled Scott's death a homicide.
The apartment at 266 West Concord St. came to police attention after an anonymous tip. Pelletier said the tenants at the time that Scott may have been staying at the apartment no longer live there but have been found and are cooperating with police.
"We are establishing whether they were just mutual friends or what their relationship is, we're not exactly sure right now," Pelletier said. "I believe they knew each other, but the extent of that, I'm not really sure."
Scott's body was found at 3:37 p.m. Thursday in the back seat of a red 2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer registered to her husband. It reportedly was her husband and a friend who found the body Thursday and immediately called police.
Pelletier said Tuesday that Scott's husband and family have been working with police.
"Our investigation has not revealed any history of domestic violence between the two," he said. "Mr Scott has been extremely cooperative as has the family."
Little is publicly known about Scott's whereabouts before her body was found. Pelletier said she had not been living with her husband and her family had not had contact with her since before Christmas. He said the husband and her family had been in contact with police in an attempt to locate Scott.
The truck may have been parked by the Riverside Street motel for some time before Scott's body was found.
"We don't believe the vehicle was parked there on the 17th, when it was discovered," Pelletier said. "We're not sure."
Pelletier said Tuesday that police were not aware if Scott had any criminal record or history of drug use.
"That's something that we would continue to look at, obviously the victimology would be extremely important to see what type of people she would be hanging around with," he said.


text:
Rocket Board is a super awesome portfolio WordPress Theme with METRO style. You can set each thumbnail size as 1×1, 1×2, 2×1 or 2×2 easily. This theme also allow user to set specific colour on each metro box or just use the default colour from admin panel. You can also set the first state of metro box to show as colour box or show as feature image. This theme has 9 predefined background colours and 8 overlay patterns….or if you need to upload your own background image, it's just fine
Not only portfolio that be able to used in the Rocket Board but blog posts can be applied as well. Now you can feed your latest articles in super classy board easily
Localization Supported (We already prepare .pot file, you just need to translate it to .mo files)
SEOWe reconstructed about how to use title. We use heading tag(H1,H2,H3,…) for title which is good practice for search engine site. Main contents are moved above sidebars(including both sidebar layout), now search engine will easily fine your main contents first. Also, 'alt' tag for images is supported. This is also help search engine to analyst your site easily.
Setting Up as Demo Site
Click Here to See Video
Theme Features
- .pot file for localization available
- SEO Optimized
- Live Color Changer
- Portfolio and Blog as Rocket Board
- Responsive
- Unlimited Color
- Unlimited Sidebar
- 9 Predefined Background Colours
- 8 Overlay Patterns
- 6 Footer Layouts
- 3 Blog styles(With Left, Right, Both and None sidebar for each)
- 450+ Fonts Available
- Drag Drop Page Builder
- Drag Drop Slider Manager
- Built-in Translator
- Built-in Shortcodes
- Font Uploader
- Logo Uploader
- Background Uploader
- Slider
- Flex Slider
- Nivo Slider
- Anything Slider
- Thumbnail Options
- Static Image
- Slider
- Video
- 5 Custom Post Types
- Gallery
- Portfolio
- Testimonial
- Price
- Personnel
- Price Table
- Social Share for Posts
- Social Link on Header
- Video Tutorial for Setting Up as Demo Site
Assets Used
Many thanks to Michael Flarup http://dribbble.com/flarup Turbomilk http://dribbble.com/turbomilk Stanislav Yudin http://dribbble.com/Synopsis Justin Mezzell http://justinmezzell.com Mescon http://www.flickr.com/photos/mescon/ Other than these are purchased at Fotolia.com
Need Support?
First of all, Thanks so much for purchased our items We're really appreciated it and hope you enjoy it! If you need support, all support will be conducted through this website > http://support.goodlayers.com . We usually get back to you within 14hours. (except holiday seasons which might take longer).
View Changelog


text:
German developer Sowitec has said that it is planning what would be the largest wind farm in Russia, the 150-200MW Arkhangelsk project in the north of the country.
Sowitec has partnered with Russian utility Mezhregionsoyuzenergo to build the project on Russia's White Sea coast after completing meteorological measurements at the site in October last year.
The project will now go before the Russian authorities under June's renewable energy auction.
Some progress is being made in Russia as a result of a new law brought in last year by prime minister Dmitry Medvedev paving the way for renewable energy auctions and subsidies.
The new regulations, enacted in May last year, offer a very different approach to most countries' systems. Competitive auctions will see developers handed contracts under which they are paid according to the capacity of projects, rather than the more typical agreement to pay for electricity supplied.
This new regime will allow renewable energy investors to benefit from regulated capacity prices for a period of 15 years.
According to the World Bank-financed International Finance Corporation, this is a unique set-up that brings with it an equally unique set of issues. Key among these is the fact that the Russian capacity market rewards power plants for their ability to produce electricity on demand, an ability that can be lacking in renewable energy facilities.
Another block to progress is the stringent 55% local content rules stipulation, which is set to rise over the coming years. Siemens, which formed a joint venture to move into the market in 2010 but put it on hold in 2012, said it will not consider putting any steel in the ground until the local content requirements are brought down.
Unsurpringly, a number of Russian companies have recently made noises about moving into turbine manufacturing. Atomenergomash Holding, which has previously worked with Alstom on gas turbines, has said it is "in negotiations about technology transfer with potential partners" for the manufacture of turbines.
However, while only 110MW of wind capacity was awarded in the first auction in October, this presents quite a sea change in a country that has been reluctant, if not downright hostile, to wind development.
The slow progress is to be expected considering the stance of president Vladimir Putin, who has made it clear that wind can only play a peripheral role in the energy mix. As recently as 2010 he decried wind energy as "claptrap" and has referred to nuclear energy as the only alternative to oil and gas.
In May, Russia lowered its 2020 renewable energy ambitions from 4.5% of power generated to 2.5%. However, hitting this more realistic target, which does not include large hydro, would be a notable achievement considering the previous state of the market.
Significantly, the government had offered up 1.1GW of wind capacity in the auction, but only accepted seven bids, worth just a tenth of what was available. If the local-content stipulation remains, it seems unlikely that the second tender, set for June, will fulfil its 1.6GW potential.
While there are several impediments in the way of growth, meaning Russia's wind industry is unlikely to burst into an untrammelled boom period any time soon, the country should be able to improve of its current installed capacity of 14MW.


text:
Filters: Author is Knut Arild Lisæter [Clear All Filters]
Quality assessment of the TOPAZ4 reanalysis in the Arctic over the period 1991-2013. Ocean Science 13, (2017).
TOPAZ4: an ocean-sea ice data assimilation system for the North Atlantic and Arctic. Ocean Science 8, (2012). Abstract
A multi-category sea-ice model. 40 (2009). Download: rep302.pdf (3.5 MB)
A coupled ice - ocean data assimilation system for Arctic monitoring and prediction. Doctoral Thesis No. 72 (2007).
Assimilation of ice concentration in a coupled ice ocean model, using the Ensemble Kalman filter. Ocean Dynamics 53, 368-388 (2003). Download: lis03a.pdf (1.48 MB)
Assimilating synthetic CryoSat sea ice thickness in a coupled ice-ocean model. Journal of Geophysical Research (Oceans) 112, (2007). Download: lis07a.pdf (3.37 MB)
Parameterization of an iceberg drift model in the Barents Sea. Journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology 26, 12 (2009).
Two decades of microwave satellite observation of Arctic Sea ice variability and trends. In Proceedings from the PORSEC confernce, Goa, India 5-8 December 2000 (2000).
Monitoring, Evaluating and Modelling Sea Ice and Climate Changes in the Arctic. NERSC Technical report no. 223 (2002).
Sea Ice Modelling of the Marginal Ice Zone July 2007 - June 2010. NERSC technical report no. 311 (2010). Download: rep311.pdf (8.02 MB)
The TOPAZ Arctic monitoring and prediction system. Proceedings of the DAMOCLES workshop: Current Problems for operational short range weather, ocean and sea ice forecasting in the Arctic - a user perspective. The Polar Environmental Centre, Tromsø, Norway (2006).
The TOPAZ monitoring and prediction system for the Atlantic. European Operational Oceanography: Present and Future, 4th EuroGOOS Conference, June 2005, Brest, France 456-459 (2005).
KARIBIAC JIP Phase 2 Hindcast of the Barents Sea, April 1987 - May 1988. NERSC Technical report no. 283 (2007).
MERSEA TOP2 assessment report Arctic thematic portal. NERSC Technical Report No. 300 (2009). Download: rep300.doc (6.62 MB)
The TOPAZ monitoring and prediction system for the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Journal of operational oceanography 1, 15-18 (2008).


text:
Seventy percent of American car owners overpay for insurance because they don't drive much. Luckily, today MetroMile comes out of stealth to launch its per mile car insurance. The $14 million-funded MetroMile gives away a plug-in device for your car that connects to a free app that teaches you how to spend less on gas and shorten commutes. If you drive under 10,000 miles a year, you can buy its insurance to save an average of $400 a year.
"The existing instance companies want to see us fail", MetroMile co-founder and CEO Steve Pretre tells me. I'm inside the startup's hip gallery-style office space behind The Creamery in San Francisco, where little brown boxes covered most of the services. MetroMile was frantically preparing to ship 10,000 of its free car analytics devices today, — devices that could disrupt the whole car insurance business.
You see, until now, insurance companies couldn't measure how much people actually drive. They couldn't tell who drove tens or hundreds of thousands a mile a year and who drove just a few. So instead they the 70% of car owners who drive less than the mean subsidize those who drive much more. Pretre exclaims "that's not fair."
If you live in a city, you probably don't drive much. You park it and use a bike, public transportation, or car service like Uber during the week; but drive for recreation or errands on weekends. "For these people, insurance can be over half the annual cost of the vehicle. They're paying a lot for insurance but not using the car much" Pretre explains.
Dave Friedberg had a revelation two years ago while running The Climate Corporation, a startup that used weather prediction machine learning to sell real-time priced crop insurance to farmers. Friedberg sold The Climate Corporation to Monsanto for roughly $1.1 billion. But by 2011, he'd already realized that transparent pricing for insurance could be revolutionary for urban car owners, not just rural farmers. MetroMile was born.
Soon Friedberg had raised $4 million from First Round Ventures and SV Angel as well as Climate Corp investors NEA and Index Ventures. Friedberg became chairman of the board to concentrate his day to day on Climate Corp, but assembled a team of including Pretre, who'd worked at insurance-related companies like Asurion and Risk Management Solutions, and CTO Dan Preston, the former CTO of AisleBuyer which was acquired by Intuit. In April 2013 the squad raised another $10 million from existing investors as well as AmTrust Ventures, Allen and Company, and Felicis Ventures, and set off to change the way we drive.
A FitBit For Your Car
It starts today, as MetroMile distributes 10,000 of its free Metronome devices that plug into the diagnostic system under the dashboard of any car made since 1996. The GPS and cellular-activated box reads various metrics and diagnostic codes from your car, and relays the info to the MetroMile iOS app on your smartphone. "The devices are pretty much off the shelf. We focus on the software layer" Pretre tells me.
The iOS app (Android in development) shows you miles per gallon, how much that gas costs you, the minutes you spend driving, and a slew of weekly summary statistics. Over time it tracks your common commutes, and can tell you which routes get you there the fastest and cheapest. It's like Waze but that factors in gas costs. The MetroMile insights go as deep as to tell you that if you started your commute 10 minutes earlier each day, you'd save 15 minutes in traffic and $30 a month on gas.
MetroMile's app even helps you call roadside assistance, report a broken window, or a keep a copy of your proof of insurance card.
The Metronome's GPS also allows it to function as a great "find my car" app, and even track down your vehicle if its towed or stolen (though the device can be ripped out so it's not sold as a Lojack competitor). "One customer had a Ferris Bueller moment and said she found her mechanic was using her car to drive to the mall" Pretre laughs.
The device will compete with other car analytics systems like Y Combinator's Automatic, whose device provides real-time driving feedback by beeping when you stop or start too fast. There's also the Kickstarted Dash dongle, crash detection plug-in Splitsecnd, car health checker apps/devices Carvoyant, CarMD, AutoMD, and RepairPal. The problem is most of these devices cost an upfront fee, charge a subscription, or run off Bluetooth tethered to your car. MetroMile's free device and cellular service could help it grow faster than competitors.
Fair-Priced Insurance
MetroMile can give away its app and device for free because it plans to earn money selling insurance. Today, its pay by the mile insurance service launches in private beta in the state of Washington after a successful alpha test in Oregon. The startup is pushing hard to get the insurance plans approved in more states by the beginning of 2014, and every state eventually.
MetroMile insurance works just like any other plan. It assesses your demographic and driving history, and you get an array of deductible and liability options. What's new is that your final price includes a base price but is mostly made up of a per mile rate that averages around two to four cents.
If you drive under 10,000 miles a year you'll save money, and tests find the average customer who does saves $400 a year, or about 40% off their insurance bill. And if you go on a road trip, you won't pay past 150 miles a day in Oregon or 250 miles a day in Washington, so it still works if the open highway calls to you on occasion.
"The best customers are being discriminated against, because traditional models are priced off of averages. If you're a good customer, the models aren't aligned with you" Pretre notes.
Though MetroMile is a startup, it essentially white-labels the insurance from a major carrier that carries the risk and pays out if there's an accident. MetroMile gets a cut of the insurance fees.
Typically the car insurance business has 65% of fees paid out as claims, and a 5% margin after factoring in marketing costs, which are big since so many insurance plans are essentially the same. MetroMile hopes the other services it offers will bring in customers, so it can make a bigger cut because it handles sales but doesn't have to buy television ads.
The model could uproot the insurance business, which Pretre tells me "still runs on mainframes. We threaten the model they've put in place. They're reluctant to see this model succeed because they would have to restructure their model and cannibalize their existing business" Pretre says. "We're a significant challenge to them…and insurance is a $180 billion a year market in the US."
These old, giant companies aren't to be underestimated, but I think MetroMile has a really appealing value proposition
"You Own The Car, We Take Care Of Everything Else"
"It's about fairness, simplicity, and transparency. The data in the car should be an asset to the consumer. Insurance is the first proof point that we can take a complex service, reinvent it, and deliver it" Pretre says, looking to the future.
Eventually, MetroMile wants to put these values to work on car maintenance and gas pricing. It could tell you where the best place to fill up your car along your route is. And in what could be a huge wallet-saver, the app could give you a read-out of all the issues with your car so when you go to the mechanic, they can't scam you. Pretre says "When the 'check engine' light comes on it shouldn't be a moment off fear for the customer. We'll take care of it for you."
With Metronome boxes piled high around the office and just a few days to launch, CTO Dan Preston concludes "Driving used to be fun. Taking kids to the lake. Now it's a commenting hassle, you have all these stresses around it. We want to give people a chance to enjoy driving again."
You can sign up now for MetroMile insurance in Oregon and Washington, and people there and in San Francisco can get a free Metronome.


text:
This question is related to data analysis introduced here
Why do some flag images from the
CountryData dataset render at very low resolution both in Front End and when exported in PDF? (Here Philippines and UnitedKingdom as examples: flag images were not searched exhaustively).
To reproduce the flag images, use the following code:
# -> Image[CountryData[#, "Flag"], ImageSize -> 20] & /@ CountryData[]
I observe this in MMA 8.0.4 on OSX 10.7.3


text:
GG005 - Unbe-Leaf-Able
GG005 - Unbe-Leaf-Able
Sale Sold out
Regular price $14.00
Regular priceUnit price per
Sale price
Our 2Guys Glitter is premixed with clear acrylic for easy application. Always encapsulate with 2Guys Crystal Clear Acrylic Powder.
For best results, only use with EMA liquid monomer.
Size: 1 Ounce
For professional use only. Store at room temperature. Keep out of reach of children. Stop using and seek medical help if irritation occurs. Actual product color might be different from how it appears on the website.


text:
Well, I returned from Texas last night anxious to get back into the swing of things here at Logismoi, but it's been a frustrating day in this regard. For some reason the 'Windows Wireless Service' on my computer is not working and I'm not picking up wi-fi signals no matter where I go. Being a computer idiot I am almost entirely helpless in the face of such problems, but perhaps my wife can figure something out. So once again, my apologies, but I can't say when I'll be able to post again.
I will just take the opportunity (I'm on my parents' computer!) to mention two books I managed to acquire at Holy Archangels: St Athanasius the Great, The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans. Robert C. Gregg (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1980), and Palladius, The Lausiac History, trans. and annot. Robert T. Meyer, Ancient Christian Writers No. 34 (NY: Paulist, 1964), which Meyer, in his Introduction to the latter, calls 'The two most important source documents for the history of early monasticism in Egypt' (p. 3). I have long intended to add copies of these books to my growing collection of such 'source documents' in translation. As St Athanasius writes at the end of the Vita Antonii (94):
Therefore, read these things now to the other brothers so that they may learn what the life of the monks ought to be, and so they may believe that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ glorifies those who glorify him, and not only leads those who serve him to the end into the Kingdom of heaven, but even here, though they conceal themselves and seek to retire, he makes them known and celebrated everywhere, both because of their own virtue and because of their assistance to others. (p. 99)


text:
This week's pitching match-ups. . .
The third full week of the season brings with it a bit of a reprieve from the top-shelf starting pitching the Phillies faced over the first couple of weeks. The Diamondbacks and Cubs enter today ranked 13th and 15th in the National League in ERA and 13th and 14th in starter ERA. And it looks the Phillies are going to miss Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson and Ryan Dempster.
Now would appear to be as promising a situation as any for the Phillies offense, which enteres today ranked second-to-last in the NL in runs-per-game (2.69) and OBP (.283) to finally gain some traction.
A look at the week ahead. . .
Tonight at Arizona, 9:40 p.m.: RHP Kyle Kendrick at LHP Wade Miley
Tuesday at Arizona, 9:40 p.m.: RHP Vance Worley at RHP Josh Collmenter
Wednesday at Arizona, 3:40 p.m.: LHP Cole Hamels at RHP Trevor Cahill
Thursday - OFF DAY
Friday vs. Cubs, 7:05 p.m.: RHP Roy Halladay vs. LHP Paul Maholm
Saturday vs. Cubs, 7:05 p.m.: RHP Joe Blanton vs. RHP Randy Wells
Sunday vs. Cubs, 1:35 p.m.: RHP Kyle Kendrick vs. RHP Matt Garza


text:
by Dave Sheek
Kendal and Alexis Ryan, while two years apart in age, are a dominating force in the Elite Women's category of their local Southern California cyclocross series. Both race in the kit of the local Team SoCalCross/CICLE and their main competition locally is Coryn Rivera (Proman Hit Squad) and their team organizer Dorothy Wong. If you know anything about Rivera and Wong, one can understand how they have learned to excel from the sisters' challenges each week. And don't expect to look for just one Ryan member at Nationals this year as they come from a family of racers. In catching up with the girls they gave me the family category run down, "Alexis: 15/16 Women, Kendall: 17-18 and Elite Women, Morgan: U23, Kevin (Dad): 55-59 Old Men."
These girls have a lot of racing experience as they have both been competing on the bike since they were in the 10-12 year old category. But they do not limit their racing to just 'cross. Kendal explained they both "use the track for interval training and leg speed, not really racing." And both really enjoy road and mountain bike racing too, which shows as Kendal was invited to road Worlds this year.
While the Ryan's have big goals for the future, like racing Worlds and looking towards the 2012 Olympics, they have their current sights focused on Bend. Kendal expects to finish in the top three as her main competition will be the same as last year with Coryn Rivera and Kaitlin Antonneau, who are both riding well right now. And, Alexis expects the same and looks for some strong competition from defending champ Sarah Huang and Catherine Maier. But, the biggest factor for these two at Nationals will be the weather. It is hard to race in the cold temperatures when you are used to racing in the 70-degree Southern California cross weather.
I asked if the weather in Bend scared them and while Alexis exclaimed, "I'm not afraid of anything!… Besides spiders." Kendal was a little more apprehension and admitted she did not know how well she is going to handle the weather.
Regardless of the nasty conditions in Bend we expect to see some Ryan family members on podiums at nationals. The girls had a few last words as Kendal thanked, "Dorothy Wong for supporting our family throughout the years," and Alexis simply just spoke the truth about her interview, "Cyclocross Magazine is AWESOME!"
Photo Gallery:


text:
Educational qualification
Every Census since 1911 has included a question in which respondents reported their highest level of educational achievement. In the 1966 Census, respondents were asked to provide details of the qualification title and the institution at which it was obtained. In all Censuses since 1966, people aged 15 years and over have been asked whether they had obtained a qualification and, if so, the qualification name and field of study. The 1971 Census also asked whether the person was currently studying for a qualification and, if so, its name. Prior to 2001, this information was restricted to post-school educational qualifications. From 2001, the information includes all qualifications (both school and post-school) and the level and field of the highest qualification.
Qualifications data are used to assess the skill level of the labour force, and potential labour force, and are valuable for the planning and implementation of labour force training programs.
See also Level of Highest Educational Attainment (HEAP), Non-School Qualification: Field of Study (QALFP), Non-School Qualification: Level of Education (QALLP).


text:
BORDEAUX - The sale of the Château de Gevrey-Chambertin at the end of August has revived the specter of France's vineyards being transferred en masse into the hands of Chinese billionaires. However, in the Bordeaux region itself, these new investors seem to be rather well received by professionals in the field.
Until August 22 of this year, no one in France had heard of Louis Ng Chi Sing. But when Ng, an extremely wealthy resident of Macao who runs casinos there, bought himself the Château de Gevrey-Chambertin in Burgundy, there was a hue and a cry. The Front National, a far-right party, even gave the news a political turn, saying the sale was "emblematic of the danger threatening French heritage."
The feverish opposition was predictable. By acquiring one of the most renowned vineyards in Burgundy, Louis Ng roused the fears of vineyard owners worried that they will not be able to keep their land in the family. The sale also revived the specter of French vineyards being turned over en masse to Chinese billionaires.
A journey through the Bordeaux region sheds a different light on this "threat." There, the arrival of Chinese money is no novelty. In the past three years, Chinese investors as different as financier Peter Kwok of Taiwan, actress Zhao Wei, and agro-industry businesses like the state-owned conglomerate Cofco have bought up vineyards in the region, the only part of France up until
now to attract so many foreign buyers - without provoking any backlash.
"We are happy to welcome these buyers who pay for their purchases in cash, invest, and create jobs," says Stéphane Defraine, president of an organization to protect and manage the Entre-Deux-Mers wine appellation. It is true that the cosmopolitan city of Bordeaux has long been accustomed to English, German, Belgian and American investors, among others, and to selling its wines abroad.
In recent years, China has become one of Bordeaux's major markets. For the Chinese, who are just discovering wine, Bordeaux is the wine of reference and bears all the prestige of
France's classic grands crus. Mainland China has become the number one importer of Bordeaux wines, far ahead of Germany or the UK. The Chinese bought 70 million bottles of Bordeaux-- 82.5 million including Hong Kong-- between June 2001 and the end of May 2012, according to the CIVB, the Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wines. Hong Kong is currently the best
market in the world for the most expensive wines. In total, these sales brought in 650 million euros.
What "invasion?"
These Chinese commercial partners were even more welcome because their investments in the region rescued properties that were in serious difficulties or which were having inheritance problems, meaning they were not necessarily easy to sell. "There are a lot of vineyards for sale around here," explains Daniel Carmagnat, a real estate agent from Sainte-Foy-la-Longue.
Up until now, Chinese billionaires have mainly bought lands producing generic appellations or labels. The idea of an "invasion" of French vineyards by the Chinese makes local people smile, at least for now. They note that the Chinese
represent a tiny minority of the 8,000 listed vineyards.
Still, the Chinese are certainly making headway. According to the Aquitaine Atlantique Safer, a French government overseer of rural development, 11 domaines were sold in 2011, and 15 since the beginning of this year.
The Chinese who invest in French vineyards usually have similar goals. Patrice Klug, founding associate of MK Finance, which has sold four properties to Chinese investors, says, "They believe that investing in French real estate is a good diversification of their money. They are buying a little piece of French history and culture by becoming the owner of a vineyard, while at the same time it is a solid financial decision. To attract them, you have to show them a handsome building that they can show off in their country as an image of their social success." He remembers spending eight days traveling around the Bordeaux region with the daughter of the owner of the Longhai group, Daisy Cheng, as she is called in France. "She was thrilled by the turrets, the lake, and the legend that King Henri IV was arrested at the Château Latour-Laguens," he says.
Symbols of French luxury
The name is important too. It needs to sound French and, if possible, remind the listener of the grands crus, like the Château Latour-Laguens, which, since its sale, has been turned into a brand of stores, books, etc.
Once the vineyard has been bought, the idea is for the production to target the Chinese market. The Chinese know that they will attract consumers more with the symbols of French luxury.
The Château Grand Mouëys d'Au, in Capian in the Entre-Deux-Mers region, is surrounded by a lovely park and a vineyard of 60 hectares of Côtes de Bordeaux. Its new proprietor, the Ningxia Group, known in China for its wine flavored with Goji berries, would like to export to China half of the 350,000 bottles it produces every year.
Before its sale, the domaine, then held by the Bömers family, had been in trouble due to the loss of some of its larger clients in Germany. "The Chinese market will help us return to financial health," says Guy Durand Saint Omer, the general director hired by Jinshan Zhang, the head of the Ningxia Group.
It will be even more profitable because the conglomerate, like other Chinese companies, is able to rely on its own distribution network to sell its wine in the Chinese market. By bypassing middlemen and importers, it increases its profit
margin. And that can be considerable. In Beijing, a bottle of a minor Bordeaux that costs between 2.5 and 3 euros at the vineyard can be sold for between 15 to 40 euros.
Ambitious projects
The ambitions of Chinese investors go further. They arrive in Bordeaux with ambitious projects and the desire to improve their wine. Chinese movie star Zhao Wei, an actress who has sold 80 million box office tickets in her country, bought the Château Monlot from Bernard Rivals. The actress plans to spend five million euros more in improvements to the seven-hectare vineyard, which produces a Saint-Emilion grand cru. "To improve the quality of her wine, she has asked for help from Lydia and Claude Bourguignon, who are specialists in wine cellars, and from Jean-Claude Berrouet, the wine historian of Pétrus," says the former owner.
Moreover, "they often add eco-tourism projects to their investment," says Guy Chateau, general director of the Aquitaine region for the Crédit Agricole bank. Jinshan Zhang, for example, plans to fill the bedrooms of the Château du Grand Mouëys with paying Chinese guests. He also dreams of creating a golf course. Some wealthy Chinese are buying several vineyards in order to organize wine tours.
These investors are shrewd businessmen, often from Hong Kong or Singapore, which makes currency transfers easier. "They do not over-pay," Guy Chateau observes. Taking advantage of the low price of land in the Bordeaux region, which is at its 1990 level of around 15,000 euros per hectare, they have usually spent "only" a few million euros.
Wary and thorough, the Chinese surround themselves with people they trust, who speak excellent French, and they go through all the documents carefully. "They want to understand our social regulations and our tax system," explains Guillaume Rougier-Brierre, associate at Gide Loyrette, which negotiated the sale of the Château de Viaud to Cofco. "They go as far as to have the wine tasted by a third party to make sure they are not being cheated," adds Bernard Boireau, a Libourne notary who managed the sale of the Château Monlot.
Where next?
The Chinese buying fever could just be getting started. According to Safer, 15 dossiers are currently being considered by Chinese buyers. As an indicator of what is at stake for business, Diva Bordeaux, a wholesaler specializing in the best grand crus, was acquired this summer by Bright Food, an agribusiness heavyweight owned by the municipality of Shanghai. According to Jean-Pierre Rousseau, general director of Diva who sold his shares to the group, the sale gave Bright Food "history, an image, and also authenticity" in a Chinese market undermined by fraud, but which is also booming.
The developing Chinese middle class promises steady future growth for wine consumption. Bright Food owns 230 stores and 20 or so department stores in which salespeople receive training in the art of wine. Like Cofco, it hopes to ensure its supplies.
In the future, will the Chinese covet the prestigious grands crus that their billionaires are already snatching up? It is possible. But the prices will then be in the range of hundreds of millions of euros, and they will find rival buyers in
their path. Their appetite for vineyards could also go beyond the borders of the Bordeaux region. After Cognac, where a Chinese has just bought the insolvent Menuet brand, they could be interested next in the châteaux of Languedoc-Roussillon, which are still reasonably priced and whose wines are prized in China. The wines of Burgundy are still little known in China. They will not be a target except for certain numbers of aesthetes, ready to pay a high price. "The only way to succeed on the Chinese market is to sell large quantities," remarks David Balzan, general director of Cordier-Mestrezat, a major Bordeaux wholesaler. The Burgundy wine region is composed of wine appellations scattered across multiple properties, which are much smaller than the vineyards of the Bordeaux châteaux. Largely pre-empted by European buyers, it is too small to provision the huge Chinese market. In any case, the political turn of events since the acquisition of the Château de Gevrey-Chambertin has shown the Chinese how sensitive the subject can be. In 1988, Henri Nallet, François Mitterrand's agriculture minister, refused to allow the Japanese to invest in the domaine of Romanée Conti.