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Luxury rentals in French Riviera
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All about French Riviera
Luxury Retreats, a specialist in French Riviera vacations
Think of the French Riviera and you're instantly transported to daydreams of glitz and glamour on the chic beaches of the Cote d'Azur. In the 19th century, artists and writers were drawn to this southeastern corner of France by the warm climate and almost ethereal quality of the Mediterranean light. Then in the 1920s, the hedonism of the Jazz Age arrived, as the likes of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Rudolph Valentino, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein spent lazy days and crazy nights at places like the famous Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, perched atop a hillside in elegant Antibes. Brigitte Bardot sprinkled stardust over St Tropez in the 1950s and the Rolling Stones took decadent debauchery to new heights as they recorded their 1972 album Exile on Main St at the Villa Nellcote in Villefranche-sur-Mer. This glittering stretch of coast is firmly established as a favorite summer playground of the rich and famous where Euro royals, film stars and members of the international jet set go to see and be seen. So go to pose, go for the unutterably romantic scenery, for the gourmet food or for the 25 miles of beaches. But whatever you do, go.
Live the high life
The highlight of the summer season is, of course, the Cannes Film Festival. In early May, Hollywood descends on the city and red carpets are filled with stars sporting their summer finest as the cameras flash non-stop. But colorful parasols line the beaches of the famous Croisette all summer long, drawing an A-list crowd who sit and sip chilled rosé while checking out the competition on the loungers next door.
Further north along the coast is where the Riviera reaches its pinnacle of prestige. The city of Monaco is distinguished by the fact that it is its own Principality, with a royal family that has been the focus of both high romance and terrible tragedy. When Hollywood royalty Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco on April 19, 1956, she became Princess Grace of Monaco, in a fairytale wedding that was one of the most glamorous the world has seen. Sadly, it was also in Monaco that she died in a car crash at the age of 52, in 1982. Visitors can see Monaco Cathedral, where the prince and princess were married, as well as the Royal Palace with its 15th-century frescoes and ornate wood paneling.
Then there's the lavish Belle Epoque Monte-Carlo Casino – make like James Bond as you try your luck at the roulette tables, martini in hand (shaken, not stirred, of course). In May you can witness the grand spectacle of the Monaco Grand Prix, while the biggest, baddest boats on the ocean sail into Monaco's harbor for the Monaco Yacht Show in September.
Something more sedate
But perhaps you long for something slightly removed from the hustle and bustle as the beautiful people parade past? Follow in the footsteps of Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild, who upon inheriting the fortune of her father, the wealthy banker Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, built an exquisite villa in a dreamy setting on the tip of the Cap Ferrat. Today you can visit the Ephrussi de Rothschild Villa and Gardens to swoon over its pretty-in-pink façade, Louis XVI furniture, rose garden, and of course the showstopper views.
You want more views? Even deeper peace and quiet? Then follow the winding hillside roads that lead to the village perché of Eze. Perched, as you might imagine, on a steep hilltop high above the Med, the pretty medieval village has views to die for. The narrow cobbled streets are also home to art galleries, boutiques, and a pretty 12th-century church, and there's an Exotic Garden from which, on a clear day, you can see all the way to St Tropez.
The sweetest scents
A little inland from the well-worn coastal path is Grasse – a town that can lay claim to the title of perfume capital of the world. Grasse has been synonymous with scents since the 16th century and is still home to a large number of perfumeries, many of which offer guided tours. You'll also find the International Perfume Museum here, and the Bastide du Parfumeur gardens, where you can wander through swathes of jasmine, tuberose, and lavender as you learn about the growing of fragrant plants in the region.
Experience the luxury of our Mediterranean villas
From Menton in the north to St Tropez in the south we have villas in more than 20 stunning locations on the glamorous Cote d'Azur. With properties sleeping anything from 6 all the way up to 34, there are options for everyone, whatever the occasion.
Homes in St Tropez
St Tropez has much to offer, from the charm of its cobbled streets to celeb-spotting and party vibes at Nikki Beach and the famous Club 55. Our St Tropez villas allow for easy access to the town's charms, or you can choose to stay in and enjoy the considerable delights your vacation rental has to offer. An aquamarine pool is a given, and many of our properties have hot tubs too, so crack open a bottle of champagne and enjoy the bubbles.
Homes in Cannes
If Cannes' boutiques and beaches call, then one of our Cannes vacation rentals could be just the thing for you. We have a wide selection in this glamorous locale, with both traditional chateau-style architecture and sleek modern styles to tempt you. Ocean views, lush gardens, and sun-bathed loungers await, plus some of our properties offer a private chef ready to prepare the best French cuisine in your own vacation home.
Homes in Cap Ferrat
If you want to live like a Rothschild, our villas in Cap Ferrat make a pretty good starting point. Located in the same gorgeously craggy hills as the glamorous Ephrussi de Rothschild Villa you'll find spacious properties that offer rolling green lawns and seclusion and yet are only minutes from the lively restaurants and shops of the village of Saint-Jean-Cap Ferrat. Sleeping anything from 10 to 24, these glamorous vacation rentals offer the perfect opportunity to entertain in high style.


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Rio Fluoroflex 8.5LB 30YDS Leader
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- 100% fluorocarbon for the utmost in stealth
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subset: commoncrawl


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The B.C. government is proposing new restrictions on transporting crude oil – a decision that could heavily impact Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
The proposal, released Tuesday, is part of the province's second phase of its oil spill response plan.
Phase two will consider increasing restrictions on diluted bitumen transportation by pipeline or rail, the province said, at least until the "behaviour" of spilled bitumen can be better understood and a response plan can be made.
Bitumen is the main crude product flowing through Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to B.C., at the capacity of about 300,000 barrels a day. The $7.4-billion expansion is expected to nearly triple the pipeline's daily capacity.
Black Press Media requested comment from Kinder Morgan but has not heard back.
The second phase of the review will also include the creation of an independent scientific advisory panel to further look into how authorities would safely transport and clean up heavy oil in the case of a spill.
The first phase of regulations, established in October, focused on the accountability of pipeline, rail and trucking companies, while the findings from the second phase would also probe response times, compensation for groups affected by a spill, and maximizing regulations for marine spills.
READ MORE: Pipeline construction in Abbotsford not expected to begin until late 2018
READ MORE: New rules in effect to transport liquid petroleum in B.C.
The proposal, which follows a string of moves by the NDP government to halt the pipeline, prompted Alberta Premier Rachel Notley to take to social media and call it "unconstitutional."
"The action announced today by the B.C. government can only be seen for what it is: political game-playing," Notley said in a series of tweets. "But it's a game that could have serious consequences for the jobs and livelihoods of millions of Canadians who count on their governments to behave rationally and within their scope of authority."
THREAD: And here's AB Premier @RachelNotley's statement.— Ashley Wadhwani (@ashwadhwani) January 30, 2018
Sounds very similar to @bcliberals 'more jobs' argument re: NDP vs Liberals over this federally-approved pipeline https://t.co/U3xG8OF1aD
B.C.'s Environment Minister George Heyman called Notley's tactics "scare-mongering."
"We believe we have a right — and all provinces have a right — to put in laws in their jurisdictions to protect their values," Heyman said.
This latest review is based on a 2015 report by the Royal Society of Canada that found heavy forms of bitumen are less likely to break down in water than lighter types of oil, but that more research is needed.
"The potential for a diluted bitumen spill already poses significant risk to our inland and coastal environment and the thousands of existing tourism and marine harvesting jobs," Heyman said.
In 2013, then-environment minister Mary Polak led a study on response capabilities in B.C., which included one scenario of a summer-time spill of diluted bitumen in the Juan de Fuca Strait.
The report found that 31 per cent of the spilled oil could be recovered within five days, with the efforts of Canadian and U.S. ships and equipment.
"We're saying that if the Royal Society of Canada says we don't have enough knowledge, we should get enough to ensure British Columbians that if there is a spill, we can clean it up," Heyman said.
The panel will combine research with feedback from First Nations groups and the public before providing a report to the ministry in the coming months. More details on the proposal are expected to be released in February.
Between city bylaws and federal court battles, Kinder Morgan has had plenty of setbacks from its original timeline. In its most recent update in November, the company expected to begin construction in the Lower Mainland by the end of 2018. The project was initialy propsed in 2012.
The National Energey Board is currently hosting hearings, gathering feedback from the public and other stakeholders. Meanwhile, the NDP government is seeking to withdraw its consent for the project.
"It's up to Kinder Morgan what they do in the interim," Heyman said, "but we are telling them what's necessary to protect B.C.'s interests."
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The following commentary covers Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4.
us examine a little more closely these chapters, which
shew the pains the Spirit took, to set before the eyes of
the people all the motives which could induce them to
walk faithfully in the career which now lay before them.
Moses recalls the
patience and goodness of God in the wilderness journey
He begins with the
narrative of what had occurred since the sojourn of the
children of Israel at Sinai; and Moses reminds them of
the commandment to leave that place and to go to the
mount of the Amorites, [1] to go up and possess the land. They get
there, and, discouraged by the spies, they will not go
up; then, trying to do so without God, they are smitten
before their enemies. Passing by the borders of Esau and
Moab, God gives them the land of Sihon and of Og.
We learn too here that,
though sanctioned by God, the sending the spies was the
effect of unbelief among the peoplean instructive
lesson. God may allow, and so far sanction a course, wise
humanly, in His waysHis government, which yet bears
the fruit of the unbelief which is at the root of it.
In a word, Moses recalls
to them, in general, what had taken place in the journey
which led to their entrance into the land of which they
are to take possessionthe patience and the goodness
of God.
The majesty of God
and His Word, and the privilege enjoyed at Horeb
In reminding them of
Horeb, he insists on the privilege they had enjoyed in
nearness to God, who Himself had spoken to them out of
the midst of the fire, when they saw no similitude; on
the authority of the wordits majestyexcluding
thus all thought of idolatry. He shews them that all that
were of full age had perished, as a consequence of their
unbelief; that he himself could not enter into that good
land; that God is a jealous God, a consuming fire; and
that, if they made any graven image, they would utterly
perish from off the land they were about to enter, and
would be scattered amongst the nations andleft to
serve the gods they had loved; that, nevertheless, they
should find God if they sought Him with all their heart,
for He is a merciful God, who would not forsake them;
that if Sinai had been the brightness of His majesty, it
was also true that such a God of majesty had never
vouchsafed to come so near to a people, elect and chosen
for their fathers' sakes. Such is the basis of the
government of this people.
Three cities of
refuge on this side Jordan
Moses sets apart three
cities of refuge, as a token of possession, on the part
of God, of what was on this side Jordan. These four
chapters are introductory.
[1] It is interesting
to put together the second and third verses. For an
eleven days' journey Israel took forty years. Alas! how
often is it thus with us, owing to our unfaithfulness.


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/ State: Wisconsin
/ 262
/ 262-757
Quick Links
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5 Piece Oval Basic Nyatoh Wood and Natural Sunbrella Patio Furniture Set 7.5'
Nyatoh Wood Patio Set
Item #TMBE7SN
Enjoy urban outdoor leisure living at its very best with this 5-piece wicker patio set. Condominium and townhouse dwellers can transform a long ignored patio, deck or veranda into a vibrant addition to their lifestyle
Designed to stand without attachment in front of a wall, window or sliding glass door
When not in use the umbrella and table fold neatly out of the way to conserve space
Set Includes:
42" half-oval, drop leaf, gate-leg table
Two comfortable folding side chairs
7.5' half-umbrella
40lb custom cast iron umbrella base
Furniture Features:
Table Open Dimensions: 29"H x 42"W x 36"D
Table Folded Dimensions: 29"H x 42"W x 6"D
Chair Dimensions: 35"H x 19"W x 24"D
Material(s): nyatoh hardwood
Handcrafted from select kiln-dried Nyatoh Asian hardwood.
The smooth finish can be teak oiled to preserve the rich wood grain or leave untreated to achieve a beautiful gray patina.
Umbrella Features:
Actual Umbrella Color: Natural
Actual Frame Color: Powder coat with Champagne finish
Umbrella Shape: Half-Octagon
Total diameter of open umbrella: 7.5' x 5 ribs
Height: 94"
Material(s): aluminum/olefin
Pole Diameter: 1.5" (38mm)
Sunbrella fabrics provide up to 98% UV protection from harmful effects of the sun
2-piece aluminum pole is both elegant and durable.
Please note the actual color of the fabric by referring to the swatch shown
Product Specifications


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The Builders in Guangzhou
The builders were constructing a flat,
I could hear them from where I slept,
The flat was being constructed at two in the morning,
So I ended up from Yawning to Frowning,
The digging was loud and nearby,
All I could do is but try to sleep here and sigh,
There was loud noise outside,
I wished I could find some place to hide.
I have been woken up many times in China by the loud drilling and banging of hammers, sometimes as early as 2 a.m. in the morning! The above poem is written in regards to one particular incident I fondly remember. That time the noise from the construction work continued throughout the night. Now, in all fairness, I am kind of person that prefers to sleep in absolute quietness, and even the slightest of noise can disturb my sleep (unless if I am very tired/jet-lagged!!). However in this particular incident, it got to the stage where I had to get out of my flat at something like 2 a.m., in my pajamas, and told the builders in the street to just stop doing whatever they were doing. They all seemed confused as to why I had made this (polite) request, and somewhat surprised too. This probably was because no one before me had complained. After a few surprised looks at each other, thankfully they decided to stop, however to my astonishment, only for about 10 minutes before it all started again as if nothing had happened. I guess they most probably took a cigarette break! The noise was just painfully horrible, and in the morning I had this excruciating headache which forced me not to go to work that day. This was probably the worst case scenario, and the fact that even though I spoke clear and fluent Mandarin to the builders, I failed to understand why they just carried on. In actual fact, some other foreign expats have also complained about this problem. In retrospect, I do take my hat off to these guys because they are the pillars of China's booming economy, and are driving it 24 hours a day- but for us, poor foreigners who are used to living in a lesser noisy environment, it can be somewhat of a problem.
Get in Touch:
Here I share my thoughts
and experiences during
my travels, and how some things have affected my life as an expat and world traveller. Travelling is about capturing that moment in life. Every word, view and opinion on this page is that of Navjot Singh - except where indicated. The most recent is at the top. Scroll down to read the archive. Or search using CTRL+F (COMMAND + F) and enter a keyword to search the page. Just some of the stories you never heard before.
The NAVJOT-SINGH.COM web blog is separate to this web site....Click blog, which may
not be visible in some
countries due to local
firewall restrictions,
so in those cases this
weblog may be read. The weblog also includes some of my press trip reports- most of which are not published on the official blog because of copyright issues. The weblog also contains articles that may be associated directly with a PR trip for a country, airline or a hotel. These are PR reviews done in relations with various companies.
If you are an investor or a trend watcher then you may find this website useful as investing has a lot to do with personal observations and finding the ideal trend or next big thing. The average human on the street frequently knows far more about the state of the economy than politicians, university professors, subject matter experts, and financial analysts who seldom travel, or if they do so, only from one hotel to another hotel! The pulse and vibrancy of an economy is nowhere more visible than on a country's streets.
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September 2022


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Hello, and welcome to Quotes Taken Out Of Context And Used To Make Fun Of A School's Reputation Theater. Our first contestant is Adolphus Washington, ESPNU's 10th best DE prospect, who just committed to Ohio State. Adolphus, why did you choose the Buckeyes?
"It's the education part. I know all these schools athletically can offer me the same thing. The academic support at Ohio State, there is no way you can fail. Even if you're giving minimal effort there is no way you can fail."
How running an NFL team is like running a restaurant | Chef Emeril Lagasse


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YOKOSUKA, Japan — To the world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts.
By Arctic standards, the region is already buzzing with military activity, and experts believe that will increase significantly in the years ahead.
Last month, Norway wrapped up one of the largest Arctic maneuvers ever — Exercise Cold Response — with 16,300 troops from 14 countries training on the ice for everything from high intensity warfare to terror threats. Attesting to the harsh conditions, five Norwegian troops were killed when their C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed near the summit of Kebnekaise, Sweden's highest mountain.
The United States, Canada and Denmark held major exercises two months ago, and in an unprecedented move, the military chiefs of the seven main Arctic powers — Canada, the United States, Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland — are to gather at a Canadian military base in May to specifically discuss regional security issues.
None of this means a shooting war is likely at the North Pole any time soon. But as the number of workers and ships increases in the High North to exploit oil and gas reserves, so will the need for policing, border patrols and — if push comes to shove — military muscle to enforce rival claims.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its untapped natural gas is in the Arctic. Shipping lanes could be regularly open across the Arctic by 2030 as rising temperatures continue to melt the sea ice, according to a National Research Council analysis commissioned by the U.S. Navy last year.
What countries should do about climate change remains a heated political debate. But that has not stopped north-looking militaries from moving ahead with strategies that assume current trends will continue.
Russia, Canada and the United States have the biggest stakes in the Arctic. With its military budget stretched thin by Iraq, Afghanistan and more pressing issues elsewhere, the United States has been something of a reluctant northern power, though its nuclear-powered submarine fleet, which can navigate for months underwater and below the ice cap, remains second to none.
Russia — one-third of which lies within the Arctic Circle — has been the most aggressive in establishing itself as the emerging region's superpower.
Rob Huebert, an associate political science professor at the University of Calgary in Canada, said Russia has recovered enough from its economic troubles of the 1990s to significantly rebuild its Arctic military capabilities, which were a key to the overall Cold War strategy of the Soviet Union, and has increased its bomber patrols and submarine activity.
He said that has in turn led other Arctic countries — Norway, Denmark and Canada — to resume regional military exercises that they had abandoned or cut back on after the Soviet collapse. Even non-Arctic nations such as France have expressed interest in deploying their militaries to the Arctic.
"We have an entire ocean region that had previously been closed to the world now opening up," Huebert said. "There are numerous factors now coming together that are mutually reinforcing themselves, causing a buildup of military capabilities in the region. This is only going to increase as time goes on."
Noting that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe, the U.S. Navy in 2009 announced a beefed-up Arctic Roadmap by its own task force on climate change that called for a three-stage strategy to increase readiness, build cooperative relations with Arctic nations and identify areas of potential conflict.
"We want to maintain our edge up there," said commander Ian Johnson, the captain of the USS Connecticut, which is one of the U.S. Navy's most Arctic-capable nuclear submarines and was deployed to the North Pole last year. "Our interest in the Arctic has never really waned. It remains very important."
But the U.S. remains ill-equipped for large-scale Arctic missions, according to a simulation conducted by the U.S. Naval War College. A summary released last month found the Navy is "inadequately prepared to conduct sustained maritime operations in the Arctic" because it lacks ships able to operate in or near Arctic ice, support facilities and adequate communications.
"The findings indicate the Navy is entering a new realm in the Arctic," said Walter Berbrick, a War College professor who participated in the simulation. "Instead of other nations relying on the U.S. Navy for capabilities and resources, sustained operations in the Arctic region will require the Navy to rely on other nations for capabilities and resources."
He added that although the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet is a major asset, the Navy has severe gaps elsewhere — it doesn't have any icebreakers, for example. The only one in operation belongs to the Coast Guard. The United States is currently mulling whether to add more icebreakers.
Acknowledging the need to keep apace in the Arctic, the United States is pouring funds into figuring out what climate change will bring and has been working closely with the scientific community to calibrate its response.
"The Navy seems to be very on board regarding the reality of climate change and the especially large changes we are seeing in the Arctic," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences University of Colorado. "There is already considerable collaboration between the Navy and civilian scientists, and I see this collaboration growing in the future."
The most immediate challenge may not be war — both military and commercial assets are sparse enough to give all countries elbow room for a while — but whether militaries can respond to a disaster.
Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the London-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said militaries probably will have to rescue their own citizens in the Arctic before any confrontations arise there.
"Catastrophic events, like a cruise ship suddenly sinking or an environmental accident related to the region's oil and gas exploration, would have a profound impact in the Arctic," she said. "The risk is not militarization; it is the lack of capabilities while economic development and human activity dramatically increases. That is the real risk."


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Bigger, smaller, cheaper, prettier....
Perhaps it's the neo-tech luddite in me but no matter how they try to jazz these things up I still can't see the point. Maybe in trains and planes to save space - but other than that...
It took Amazon's Kindle 2 a good while to escape from Uncle Sam's backyard but less than three months more for the international version of the Kindle DX to arrive. Before we even laid hands on the DX we knew it was both bigger and more expensive, but is it any better? The most obvious difference between the DX and Amazon's …
... you can *buy* a library of books in the open, "processed tree format" standard. And you can lend them to other people too.
E-ink is a one-trick pony: it can only do monochrome, static text and images. (They've talked about colour for so long, I'll believe it when I see it.) It needs to evolve substantially if it's going to compete with existing technologies. In the meantime, it needs to be *cheap*. If it can't even manage that, it's going to have a hard time competing.
Unless you have a day-job which requires reading books outside, in broad daylight, for hours on end, there really is no advantage to the Kindle and its ilk. It's likely to remain a very niche product. (I can see them being popular as replacements for bulky maintenance manuals and the like. Especially in fields where said maintenance tends to happen outdoors.)
A battery life measured in weeks is irrelevant: all it needed to do was last longer than a "worst-case" reading session—damned few people sit and read a book for more than 8-10 hours at a stretch. (Before you mention long flights, remember that it's a bad idea to sit still for so long unless you want to become terminally acquainted with the meaning of the term "Deep Vein Thrombosis". Even so, most airlines now have sockets for charging your devices.)
Chargers and cables are becoming less of an issue these days. Most manufacturers are standardising on the mini-USB socket. Similarly, people who've bought into the Apple "ecosystem" only need a standard iPod charger and cable to cover all their fruit-branded gadgets. This reduces the pressure on increasing battery life. For most markets, once you can get more than a full working day out of a single charge, there's little advantage in going further unless you can get it as a side-effect of other improvements.
I move about outside all day. Carrying even one book is a chore. All this device needs is a reading light attachment, and I can read books in the winter. Battery life is severely shortened at low temperatures (like now), so this nearly convinces me to buy It would be nice to have something that didn't have to be on charge at every opportunity.
Also, I lend books to 'friends', who don't read them, or give them back...
I find the whole idea of the iPad being touted as an e-reader laughable. I thought the point of an e-reader is that it is easy on the eye (which neither OLED nor TFT are for any prolonged period), has an ultra-long battery life and can be read easily in outdoor lighting conditions.
Trying to force the iPad onto us as an e-reader just seems like a desperate attempt to find an application for an otherwise pointless device. I just hope tablet computers don't inadvertently destroy the market for proper e-ink based readers.
...you claim the TFT LCD isn't easy on he eye, but neglect the fact that millions of people spend pretty much all day every day gawking at them. Care to square that one? Frankly the iPad is so far beyond the capabilities of this Kindle that I feel slightly sorry for Amazon. They had a good crack at it, but the game's up, I'm afraid.
The e-reader I really want to see reviewed is the entourage edge (I forget how they capitalise it, but you lads are clever enough to find it anyway). Same price as the Kindle DX, with a >9" e-Ink screen, but ALSO with a LCD on the other side, a WaCom touch pad built in, running Android, with decent sound support. What's not to like? But I'd like to hear what you've got to say before I lay down the cold, hard cash.
It's almost as big as this one's:
(10.2 @ 160ppi) (oh, and the whole unit's smaller)
And the Kindle has an on-screen tablet, eh? And an open development environment?
And it doesn't have a 'lowercase-i capital-someletter name'.
Indeed, I was about to comment about that prior to reading that last sentence.
I would say its a dead certainty Amazon will reduce the price, sure its got the largest e-ink screen of any (nearly all?) e-ink device but the iPad is a direct competitor what with their iBookstore. Just don't go trying to read the iPad screen outside on a very sunny day, even with its IPS screen! You can with a Kindle.
Amazon have always been good at reducing prices of what they sell over time (or even starting out very cheap) lets hope they do it with their own kit too.
Its just a shame both devices have proprietary shop tie-ins but its far worse on the Kindle - surely some kind of monopolies and exchange commission investigation is due? Oh wait, thats right, Governments don't give a flying monkeys, they just look out for the interests of business over the common man.
Look, it's a black n white e-reader+ with a non standard keyboard layout, no touch screen, no color, no application support, no bluetooth, no TV connectivity, no camera support, no file system to speak of, no document editing capabilities, and it's still smaller than the iPad.
I hear a LOT of people, who have not actually bought either an IPS screen nor an e-reader, speaking to the point that e-Ink is superior to LCD in terms of eye strain. Let me tell you, as someone who works under florescents for 9-10 hours a day staring at a cheap ass Dell LCD, then goes home to a dark room and stares at a far superior Acer LCD panel for several more hours on my PC, and when I'm feeling like something other than gaming, i sit on the bed in complete darkness reading ebooks of my wife's MacBook pro, often in 3-4 hour sessions.
I borrowed a kindle from a friend, and a Nook from another, for a week each, to see if I felt investing in a formal ebook reader was worth the $300-400 in cash plus the cost of non-portable proprietary DRM books. I spent just shy of 16 reading the kindle, and although i found the e-Ink to be quite nice in normal light, it was somewhat tough to read in bright sunlight, and the backlight quality with e-ink in a dark room made my eyes hurt after only an hour or so trying to read it. The Nook was superior in almost every way to the Kindle, and did better in daylight, but equally poor in a dark room. On one night, I managed to read the kindle in the dark for just about 4 hours, i don't think I could do that again...
Apparently, the majority of people complaining about LCD in dimply lit rooms complain about not being able to dim the screen far enough, and complain about the harsh light. First off, who told you to read black text off a white screen as an e-reader!?!? Change the background color to a deep set near-black, and the text to a soft contrast color. With a computer, or software based e-reader on an iPhone or iPad, that is completely under your control! There are also a number of very cheap screen protectors that filter excess backlight that leaks through parts of the screens and that greatly reduces "wash" in the display if your LCD is particularly susceptible to that (most LED IPS panels are not), but cheap LCDs can be.
I'm glad I had the chance to try both competing e-readers for extended periods. It absolutely confirmed I will never own an e-Ink device, at least not until there's one that fully supports open, unenctypted books, or provides a book sharing mechanism for DRM books from multiple outlets, and at the same time, costs less than $150. Also, it really needs a screen larger than 6". That's fine for text-only content if you have good vision, but for anything including graphics of any kind, or layouts of text (periodicals), anything less than 9" is too small.
I'm not jumping on an iPad immediately. I have 6 other things in front of it in my budget plan, including a new iMac 27" to replace an aging gaming PC, a new washing machine, furniture for my 2 year olds room, shelving in my garrage, and new couches in the living room... However, by Christmas at the latest, I'm sure I'll get around to getting an iPad.
The problem with this sort of thing is that - like an 8512 word processor, or an E-m@iler, it just does one thing very well (for the technology available to it, at least). But - as with the word processor or the Email tool - I suspect that these will fast be supplanted by fully-fledged slate computers sold at commodity prices: not because slates are a particularly sensible form-factor for a computer (any more than someone who wants to send an email needs an entire computer to do so) but because in the near future having something in this form factor - in ANY form factor - that isn't a computer, will probably seem equally daft.
The fact that Amazon appears to have used the Microsoft approach, of "nailing-as-many-words-together-as-possible (TM)", when coming up with a product name, won't help... Marketing must have run out of space on the Powerpoint slide - otherwise I'm sure the words 'Platinum' or 'Professional' would have found their way in there!
My guess is that Kindles will come to reside in that same dusty old drawer, as the Cassio LED calculator, the spare lens for the film SLR, the inexplicable collection of microcassettes, and that digital watch you bought, shortly after seeing Star Wars, for the first time - and which you simply cannot bring yourself to chuck out.
That's the phrase that best describes the $489 Kindle DX. A nice piece of kit it was, until last Wednesday's announcement of the $499 iPad. Let's see... on the one hand we have a device with a glacially slow b&w display and no applications--the original one-trick pony--while on the other hand we have a device with brilliant color display, eminently suitable for games and video, with a blazing-fast processor that runs 140,000 useful and entertaining applications, including a fairly robust business suite (iWork Mobile)... at the same price. The result is a foregone conclusion: even with price cuts (and you can bet they're coming), it's hard to see the DX surviving for long.
The standard small-screen Kindle has a better chance, if Amazon can get the price down quickly enough. At $99, even a one-trick pony would be marketable; Apple is unlikely to enter that market segment anytime soon. And I'm betting that we'll see low-end ebook readers at the $99 price point by next Christmas--if not from Amazon, then from the dozens of others now jumping on the bandwagon.
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... would you really want to walk around carrying something the size of a pollsters clipboard? As someone who's eyesight is not what it used to be, the larger screen is a plus, but part of the success story of the paperback novel was that it was of a size you could stuff into a jacket pocket. I find that most of the difficulty in reading the small print on an e-reader is the deplorable lack of contrast due to the grey background. Lighten up the background and small print size ceases to be so much of a problem.
Until the cost of an e-book is less than the cost of a paper-back (instead of more), I won't be wasting my money on one of these.
Given the other advantage of paper books (for example, I can lend them to a friend or family and they can lend them to be) I would want compensating for what I have lost.
This would be the same meaning as the previous kindle, ie American, but using the same phone technology as the rest of the world so it can be used outside the country, if you buy a non-american charger etc.
Until you can actually buy the things in the UK, and be covered by UK consumer protection laws, rather than having to have one imported. I'm not even going to consider one.
Nope, the reviewer does mean 360 degrees. Keep turning the DX by 90 degrees to the left or right and the screen keeps re-orientating itself. OK, when you have it upside down it has only turned though 180 degrees but the point is you can keep on turning it through 270 and 360 until you are back where you started.
When these things are down to $99 ask me again. And I think ebooks also won't really take off as long as they cost as much as paper books.
I currently use an iPod touch for reading and while I think the screen could be a bit larger I have no problems with the screen being no e-ink. And the thing is (relatively) dirt-cheap AND it can do so much more. I have no doubt that the iPad will hit the ebook-market like nothing before.
Amazon seem to use the word "International" to refer to US owners who happen to travel internationally, rather than those of us who actually live outside the USA (gasp!).
I just wished Amazon would sell a truly International Kindle, e.g. one I can buy from amazon.co.uk that comes with a UK plug and a data plan unlike the current "free" one where either everything that uses it is disabled, or paid for with a premium on the download price.
The Kindle web browser does work globally from any book being read to Wikipedia, and it's not bad for text-focused sites or mobile-unit optimized ones for free, 24/7.
TXT files never have to go to Amazon for conversion. I just move them over to the Kindle.
It's directly supported.
WORD doc files, yes, would need the mailed conversion.


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Court: FCC Can't Enforce Net Neutrality
Over the years, Americans have grown used to getting anything they want when they want it on the Internet. But yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission cannot require Internet providers to offer unfettered access. It was Verizon that brought the case against the FCC. The ruling could have far-reaching implications for what's known as net neutrality. Here's NPR's Laura Sydell to help us out with what all this means. Welcome.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: Hello. Good morning.
MONTAGNE: First, do give us some background on the case, how it came about.
SYDELL: Back in 2010, the FCC passed rules to support so-called net neutrality. And this means that broadband providers must treat all traffic on the Internet exactly the same. So you can't discriminate between a Democratic website and a Republican website. And the rules got set up after the FCC tried to punish Comcast for secretly slowing some traffic on its networks.
Comcast got caught doing this when a guy who was sharing barber shop quartet songs noticed his network slowed down when he used the file sharing software Bit Torrent. The Associated Press confirmed his experience when it tried to upload the Bible with Bit Torrent, and the FCC took Comcast to court but lost. The court told the FCC that it didn't have rules in place to use against Comcast.
So the FCC came up with the open Internet rules. And that is where we got to this moment.
MONTAGNE: What was the basis on which Verizon challenged the rule?
SYDELL: Verizon argued that the FCC had no right to make those rules in the first place because the FCC didn't give itself the right. A few years back the commission decided that the Internet would not be regulated like a telephone line. Phone lines are heavily regulated. They're considered common carriers and therefore they're necessary for public communications.
The FCC decided it was going to be much lighter when it came to regulation on the Internet. It classified it differently. So Verizon essentially argued that since the FCC had classified it differently, it had no right to regulate the Internet so heavily and to tell them what to do. The FCC did try to reclassify Internet connections and what happened was the Republicans in Congress said we don't want you to reclassify it.
They got upset because they didn't want more regulation on the Internet.
MONTAGNE: OK then. So what does this new ruling by this federal appeals court mean for us consumers?
SYDELL: It means that theoretically your broadband provider can decide to slow or block particular websites. One of the arguments that the Internet service providers make is that Netflix and Google don't have to pay for fast access to your house, so that they might simply start charging companies if they want a faster line to the consumer, and that may bring up your prices.
And it could make it a lot more expensive for the next startup that might challenge Netflix or YouTube. They'd have to pay extra for a fast connection to you or strike a deal with Verizon. And I should add that Google and Netflix do pay to connect to the Internet. This is really about the last mile into your house, and the Internet service providers want to charge extra for that.
Netflix in particular is in the crosshairs here because more than 30 percent of Internet traffic at peak times comes from Netflix, according to studies. So Verizon might say, Netflix, you need to pay us more. Or maybe Verizon strikes a deal with Amazon and says your prime video service can get speedier delivery to the home and we're going to slow down Netflix.
MONTAGNE: And so what does this mean, Laura? Is the battle over?
SYDELL: Well, the FCC does have a few options here. It could appeal the decision. It could try and go back to the drawing board and come up with some new rules that fit with the decision, or it can try to reclassify broadband once again.
MONTAGNE: NPR's Laura Sydell. Thanks very much.
SYDELL: You're welcome.
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


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Many thanks to HOMEGROWN member Stacey, and to everyone who contributed their 2 cents to this 101, for your thoughtful advice on garden planning. Please keep the good ideas coming!
The most important step in starting your garden is deciding to do it. Already there? Awesome. Now that you're committed, you can make things a lot easier on yourself by doing some simple planning ahead of time. Written with the first-time gardener in mind, this 101 walks you through the key factors you'll want to consider and includes links to related HOMEGROWN resources and useful external sites.
1. SPACE: Determine your space availability and the best location for your garden. Finding space close to your house and near a water source is certainly convenient, but most important is finding a location that gets at least six hours of full sun per day. Spend a week or so observing your yard (or balcony or community garden plot or wherever you'll be growing) at various times throughout the day—and take notes. If you don't have a spot that gets several hours of direct sun, choose the sunniest spot available and consider plants that benefit from partial shade. Other things to note include drainage (you want it) and shade from surrounding buildings (some is OK, but a lot probably isn't great).
2. METHOD: You'll need to decide whether to plant in containers, raised beds, using vertical gardens, or in larger plots. One thing to remember is to start small. Doing so keeps your garden manageable while you learn! More useful resources:
3. GROW WHAT YOU LIKE: Think about what you like to eat. There's no sense planting broccoli if you'll never eat it! Once you've assembled a list, do some research and determine whether your top picks are things you can grow given your skill level, in your location, and using your method of planting. One tip: Growing delicious food is an especially crafty way to get kids interested in gardening. For a pint-sized top 5, check out Lola's Edible Gardens for Kids 101.
4. SOIL TEST: It's important to know if your soil is clay-heavy, sandy, loamy, or something in between. You'll also want to know the pH level. For more on soil testing, check out HOMEGROWN Life blogger Rachel's awesome 101. Ohio State also offers helpful information on soil testing and improving soil health.
5. HELP: When it comes to gathering free information on planting dates in your region, as well as how to care for your vegetables, your local cooperative extension is your best friend. Some extension offices will even assist with soil testing. HOMEGROWN member Christa has a great blog post on extension services that includes a link to the USDA's interactive map that will help you locate your agency. More help:
6. GET STARTED: Once you've decided what to plant and which method you'll use, it's time to finalize your plan. Careful planning will serve you well during your first years of gardening, as will tracking what you plant, where and when you plant it, supply costs, and what thrives and what doesn't.
» Check out the Selecting Seeds 101 for everything you want to know about finding and buying seeds.
» What should you do with those seeds, once you have them? Find out in the Seed Starting 101.
» Matt shares a solid intro to four-season gardening in his Fall Planting and Winter Planting 101s.
» And don't forget the 101s above: Container Gardening, Raised Bed Gardening, Edible Gardens for Kids, and Soil Testing.
» HOMEGROWN Life blogger Rachel, of Bay Area Dog Island Farm, shares a permaculture-approach to site design, as well as parts 1, 2, and 3 on garden layout, and posts on fall and winter gardens, planting by the moon, and recommendations for how much to plant according to what the average family can eat.
» Eat Close to Home shares a free drag-and-drop tool for the square-
foot garden that calculates plantings, while the included month-by-month guide details growing stages, from seedlings to harvest.
» Gardener's Supply Company features the Kitchen Garden Planner, a free drag-and-drop planning grid that's customizable to fit the proportions of your beds or rows.
» Grow Veg's detailed Garden Planner lets you and create your ideal garden layout. The tool includes growing information on 130 varieties, calculates the number of plants you can fit in your garden, recommends how crops should be rotated, and provides weather station information for your area as well as and a personalized planting and harvesting chart. Sign up for a free 30-day trial.
» And HOMEGROWN member Tom recommends Cornell University's Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners, especially for its plant variety and seed company recommendations.
Got a question on garden planning? A tip or a tool to add? Post it below and keep the conversation rolling. You might also be interested in the Garden Bloggers or the Urban Gardeners group, and you can always find more things to plant, grow, make, craft, cook, preserve, and plot in the HOMEGROWN 101 library.
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I will be starting my first little garden this year. Thank you for this great information!
Excellent information!!! Thank you.
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Little Elephant Coin Purse
$12.00Papaya Little Elephant coin purse perfect for holding every girls lunch money ❤ Made from durable, oil-cloth like material. Each purse features PAPAYA! artwork, contrast lining, zipper closure, and lotus charm ❤
Details: 5.5" W x 3.5"H Made from durable oil cloth like material accented with lotus charm
This product is sold out


text: Merrilee grew up in a splendid home filled with delightful artistic chaos and ample creativity. She spent most of her youth making things like lions out of oatmeal boxes and drawing little humans or animals and telling the tales that went along with them. She is known for her love of kids design, toys and DIY crafts. When not drawing or creating things for her three children, Merrilee loves to travel, wander museums, sew, thrift, read and nap.


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Any thoughts on getting OpenGL ES working alongside OpenVG on Beagle/i.MX51 etc.?
I am looking for following use cases:
1- OpenGL ES and OpenVG have separate contexts and sharing the same surface
2- OpenGL ES and OpenVG share the contents: one API renders to a back buffer and the other uses its results - via EGL
I have no success so far on this front. Any help is greatly appreciated.


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Chapter 28
After the ball, early next morning, Anna Arkadyevna sent her husband a telegram that she was leaving Moscow the same day.
"No, I must go, I must go"; she explained to her sister-in-law the change in her plans in a tone that suggested that she had to remember so many things that there was no enumerating them: "no, it had really better be today!"
Stepan Arkadyevitch was not dining at home, but he promised to come and see his sister off at seven o'clock.
Kitty, too, did not come, sending a note that she had a headache. Dolly and Anna dined alone with the children and the English governess. Whether it was that the children were fickle, or that they had acute senses, and felt that Anna was quite different that day from what she had been when they had taken such a fancy to her, that she was not now interested in them,--but they had abruptly dropped their play with their aunt, and their love for her, and were quite indifferent that she was going away. Anna was absorbed the whole morning in preparations for her departure. She wrote notes to her Moscow acquaintances, put down her accounts, and packed. Altogether Dolly fancied she was not in a placid state of mind, but in that worried mood, which Dolly knew well with herself, and which does not come without cause, and for the most part covers dissatisfaction with self. After dinner, Anna went up to her room to dress, and Dolly followed her.
"How queer you are today!" Dolly said to her.
"I? Do you think so? I'm not queer, but I'm nasty. I am like that sometimes. I keep feeling as if I could cry. It's very stupid, but it'll pass off," said Anna quickly, and she bent her flushed face over a tiny bag in which she was packing a nightcap and some cambric handkerchiefs. Her eyes were particulary bright, and were continually swimming with tears. "In the same way I didn't want to leave Petersburg, and now I don't want to go away from here."
"You came here and did a good deed," said Dolly, looking intently at her.
Anna looked at her with eyes wet with tears.
"Don't say that, Dolly. I've done nothing, and could do nothing. I often wonder why people are all in league to spoil me. What have I done, and what could I do? In your heart there was found love enough to forgive..."
"If it had not been for you, God knows what would have happened! How happy you are, Anna!" said Dolly. "Everything is clear and good in your heart."
"Every heart has its own skeletons, as the English say."
"You have no sort of skeleton, have you? Everything is so clear in you."
"I have!" said Anna suddenly, and, unexpectedly after her tears, a sly, ironical smile curved her lips.
"Come, he's amusing, anyway, your skeleton, and not depressing," said Dolly, smiling.
"No, he's depressing. Do you know why I'm going today instead of tomorrow? It's a confession that weighs on me; I want to make it to you," said Anna, letting herself drop definitely into an armchair, and looking straight into Dolly's face.
And to her surprise Dolly saw that Anna was blushing up to her ears, up to the curly black ringlets on her neck.
"Yes," Anna went on. "Do you know why Kitty didn't come to dinner? she's jealous of me. I have spoiled...I've been the cause of that ball being a torture to her instead of a pleasure. But truly, truly, it's not my fault, or only my fault a little bit," she said, daintily drawling the words "a little bit."
"Oh, how like Stiva you said that!" said Dolly, laughing.
Anna was hurt.
"Oh no, oh no! I'm not Stiva," she said, knitting her brows. "That's why I'm telling you, just because I could never let myself doubt myself for an instant," said Anna.
But at the very moment she was uttering the words, she felt that they were not true. She was not merely doubting herself, she felt emotion at the thought of Vronsky, and was going away sooner than she had meant, simply to avoid meeting him.
"Yes, Stiva told me you danced the mazurka with him, and that he..."
"You can't imagine how absurdly it all came about. I only meant to be matchmaking, and all at once it turned out quite differently. Possibly against my own will..."
She crimsoned and stopped.
"Oh, they feel it directly?" said Dolly.
"But I should be in despair if there were anything serious in it on his side," Anna interrupted her. "And I am certain it will all be forgotten, and Kitty will leave off hating me."
"All the same, Anna, to tell you the truth, I'm not very anxious for this marriage for Kitty. And it's better it should come to nothing, if he, Vronsky, is capable of falling in love with you in a single day."
"Oh, heavens, that would be too silly!" said Anna, and again a deep flush of pleasure came out on her face, when she heard the idea, that absorbed her, put into words. "And so here I am going away, having made an enemy of Kitty, whom I liked so much! Ah, how sweet she is! But you'll make it right, Dolly? Eh?"
Dolly could scarcely suppress a smile. She loved Anna, but she enjoyed seeing that she too had her weaknesses.
"An enemy? That can't be."
"I did so want you all to care for me, as I do for you, and now I care for you more than ever," said Anna, with tears in her eyes. "Ah, how silly I am today!"
She passed her handkerchief over her face and began dressing.
At the very moment of starting Stepan Arkadyevitch arrived, late, rosy and good-humored, smelling of wine and cigars.
Anna's emotionalism infected Dolly, and when she embraced her sister-in-law for the last time, she whispered: "Remember, Anna, what you've done for me--I shall never forget. And remember that I love you, and shall always love you as my dearest friend!"
"I don't know why," said Anna, kissing her and hiding her tears.
"You understood me, and you understand. Good-bye, my darling!"
We care about eBooks because we care about the environment.
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The recent cyberattack that infected Israeli police computers with malware was likely part of a year-long cyberespionage operation with targets in Israel and the Palestinian territories, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Norman.
At the end of October, the Israeli police shut down its computer network after a piece of malware was found on some of its systems. At the time, that malware was a remote access Trojan (RAT) program called Xtreme RAT and was delivered in an archive attached to a spoofed email claiming to be from Benny Gantz, the chief of general staff of the Israel Defense Forces, according to a report from antivirus vendor Trend Micro.
The RAR archive contained a file called "IDF strikes militants in Gaza Strip following rocket barrage.doc" followed by a long series of hyphens and .scr, Snorre Fagerland, principal security researcher at Norwegian antivirus vendor Norman said Monday in a report.
The .scr file, whose name was crafted to hide its real extension, dropped other files on the system's hard drive when executed: a legitimate Word document that was used as bait, an icon file and an .exe file that was actually the Xtreme RAT installer. The Norman researchers noticed that the .exe file was digitally signed with an untrusted, self-generated Microsoft certificate.
This certificate would not be validated by Windows, but the attackers probably hoped that it would trick people who manually inspected the file or would allow the malware to bypass the detection of some security products, Fagerland said.
This is not a new technique. However, what the attackers didn't realize is that the file's digital signature can be used to track down their previous attacks, since they didn't bother to change the certificate when generating new malicious files, Fagerland said.
Norman researchers searched the company's malware database for executable files signed with the same certificate and found other samples that had been used in similar email-based attacks since May. The contents of the bait documents used in those attacks suggested that the targets were from Israel.
A further analysis of the malware samples revealed that they were predominantly Xtreme RAT variants and connected back to a number of hostnames registered with free dynamic DNS providers. Many of those hostnames pointed to the same IP addresses.
Most of the IP addresses used recently are owned by U.S.-based hosting providers, which suggests that the attackers are hosting their command and control (C&C) servers in the U.S. However, that wasn't always the case.
Until the summer of this year, the hostnames pointed to IP addresses belonging to an ISP from the city of Ramallah in the West Bank, Fagerland said.
By searching for malware that historically connected to the same hosts, the Norman researchers managed to find even more Xtreme RAT samples, the oldest of which dated back to October 2011. Some of those samples were used in email attacks that, based on their bait documents, most likely targeted Palestinians, not Israelis, Fagerland said.
The moving of C&C servers from the West Bank to the U.S. might have been triggered by the later switch in targets, Fagerland said. Seeing network traffic directed at an IP address in Palestine might raise suspicion for an Israeli individual or organization, but seeing connections with U.S. IP addresses would be common, he said.
The Norman researchers did not have access to the C&C servers or the opportunity to analyze a machine infected with one of the samples in order to determine what kind of data the attackers were after. However, the evidence gathered by analyzing the malicious files alone point to a year-long cyberespionage operation carried out by the same group of attackers, Fagerland said.
"We have the impression that a cybersurveillance operation is underway (and is probably still ongoing -- most recent sample created Oct. 31) which was first mainly focused on Palestinian targets, then shifted towards Israel," Fagerland said in the report. "The reason for the shift is unknown. Maybe it was planned all along; or caused by changes in the political climate; or maybe the first half of the operation found data that caused the target change."
It's difficult to say who is behind the attacks, Fagerland said. It might be a government organization, a political group or a group of independent hackers, he said.
The attacks are not sophisticated in nature and did not require a lot of resources to pull off. The attackers used free hostnames instead of buying domain names, used cheap hosting solutions for their C&C infrastructure and used Xtreme RAT instead of building their own malware. Xtreme RAT is one the cheapest remote access Trojan programs available; a standard set-up costs around $40, Fagerland said.
The attackers forgot to scrub the metadata from their bait documents, which revealed the names or aliases of the people who created the files: Hitham, anar, Ayman, Tohan, ahmed, aert or HinT.
Some configuration strings found in the RAR archive that was used in the attack against the Israeli police suggest that the file's author was using the Arabic language on his computer when creating it, Jaime Blasco, head of the research lab at security firm AlienVault, said Monday via email.
"During this year we have been tracking several ongoing espionage campaigns that use XtremeRAT as the tool for accessing the victims," Blasco said. "At the beginning of the year the usage of XtremeRAT was spotted as part of a cyber espionage campaign against Syrian dissidents."


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From NewSchools Venture Fund comes this interactive K-12 education technology market map. Targeted at the entrepreneurial, philanthropic, and education communities, this tool provides a visual representation of ventures currently operating in the education technology market. Funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, NewSchools collaborated with leading experts Michael Horn (Innosight Institute) and Anthony Kim (Education Elements) to develop it. NewSchools plans to find an organization that will take on the maintenance and updating of the market map. In the meantime, let them know if there are other organizations that should be added to the map or if you know of updates. Send information to edtechmap [at] newschools [dot] org. With the edtech market currently red-hot and expanding like never before, no doubt there will be a few (hundred) omissions—so speak right up and get your voice heard (and your company included, if that applies to you). Also, have fun with the map! It's interactive, you'll need Adobe Flash, and an idea of what you're looking for as you explore it.
1 Comments
Tim Holt
This organization looks like they are more than just a simple "We are here to help the po kids." This is a pro-charter school, anti public school group, as is evident by the number of {public" schools they are working with,
To me, what would be a much more interesting map would be a map of the US and where these organizations are located. How many are east coast based? How many are working in states where there are high ESOL populations? How many special education students do these organizations and sub organizations serve?


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Heat-Mapping Company Finds Thermal Gaps In Homes
It's 10 p.m.—do you know where your insulation gaps are? As the winter months descend and much of the country braces for icy weather, a startup company in the Boston area called Sagewell is taking it to the streets to let homeowners know exactly where their heating dollars are escaping, and provides suggestions about how to make their homes more energy efficient.
Using special SUV-mounted infrared cameras, Sagewell crews have been cruising the streets of several northern cities at night to take pictures of people's homes—up to 20,000 on a good night, the company says. The photos captured give a quick assessment of each structure's thermal envelope and highlight areas where heat is escaping into the outside air. In blobs of color ranging from black (coldest) to purple, orange and yellow (hottest), the images can be used as a thermal map to prioritize areas that need extra insulation, usually around windows, eaves and crawl spaces between floors. (See related quiz: "What You Don't Know About Home Heating")
Sagewell, based in Woburn, Mass., takes a page from the Google StreetView playbook by driving around as many streets as possible in its camera-equipped hybrid SUV, heat-mapping whatever homes are visible on both sides of the street. The images are then processed on the company's software and stored on a secure server. Homeowners can then type in their addresses to see if their homes have been covered and get a free assessment. Sagewell can then recommend local insulation companies, window installers and community organizations that can provide retrofits to help plug the gaps.
This service brings up obvious and sensitive privacy concerns, but Sagewell insists that its cameras cannot see through walls, trees or even windows. According to Brad Harkavy, chief operating officer of Sagewell, the only wavelength the cameras see is infrared that is emitted directly from the surface of the structures, so it is impossible to see people or objects inside the buildings. Also, the images are stored on a secure server and can only be accessed by the homeowners, if they choose to do so. Homeowners can also opt out of the program and have the photos deleted at their request. (See related story: "Who's Watching? Privacy Concerns Persist as Smart Meters Roll Out")
Citing U.S. Department of Energy figures, Sagewell says that 36 to 51 percent of household energy waste results from breaches in a home's heat envelope. The company estimates that 20 percent of residential buildings can save $750 to $1,500 per year and eliminate 14,000 to 28,000 pounds of CO2 annually with a simple building envelope retrofit.
The company also reminds customers that many states and utilities offer significant discounts and rebates for adding extra insulation and storm windows on homes. In Massachusetts, for example, utilities will pick up 75 percent of the cost of home insulation upgrades and retrofits.
So far, Sagewell has managed to cover nearly 500,000 homes in a 10-state swath from New England through parts of the Midwest. By the end of the winter, Harkavy told Co.Design, he hopes to double that figure, focusing mostly in the colder northern states and coastal cities that tend to have progressive homeowner incentives for beefing up home insulation.
—Randy Woods
This post originally appeared at EarthTechling and has been republished with permission.


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Holland Homes has taken pride in quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail since its inception back in 2006.
The company works hard to maintain their reputation of skilled, efficient home builder professionals, who strive to provide a process that is easy, on-time and under budget. Holland Homes understands that customers have high standards for quality, especially when building a dream home, therefore Holland Homes applies the same high expectations and excellence to ensure this is showcased in the final product. Every individual is treated with integrity, honesty and open communication, to cultivate a positive experience for the team and for the customer. This philosophy sets the Holland Homes team apart from other home builders and allows them to truly stand behind every project with pride.
Holland Homes is based in Auburn, Alabama, however, services many regions within the state.
Daniel Holland is the founder and owner of Holland Homes. Daniel grew up in Springville, Alabama and has been in the building industry since 2006. His passion for building began at a young age after growing up around residential construction. He believes in being a company that is small enough to care for each individual project, yet remain big enough to handle all clients needs with excellence.
Learn more by visiting hollandhomesllc.com.


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Adam Yauch, a member of the Beastie Boys who performed under the stage name MCA, is dead. The group confirmed the sad news on its website, issuing the following statement:
It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam "MCA" Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.
Yauch's mother Frances told the New York Times that her son died at 9 a.m. Friday, surrounded by family, at Manhattan's New York-Presbyterian Hospital, to which he had been admitted on April 14.
In July 2009, Yauch announced that he would be receiving treatment for a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland, and that, as a result, the Beastie Boys would cancel some future shows and push back the release of a new album.
In 2011 it was erroneously reported that Yauch had beaten the disease. He responded to the rumor on the band's website, writing:
"Hello My Friends While I'm grateful for all the positive energy people are sending my way, reports of my being totally cancer free are exaggerated. I'm continuing treatment, staying optimistic and hoping to be cancer free in the near future."
Most recently, it appeared Yauch's health had taken a turn for the worse when he proved unable to attend the Beastie Boys' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on April 14.
Yauch and Michael "Mike D" Diamond first performed as the Beastie Boys with John Berry and Kate Schellenbach in 1981. Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz replaced Berry in 1982.
The permanent lineup of Yauch, Diamond and Horovitz released eight albums. On Saturday, May 5, HBO will air the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony honoring the Beastie Boys, who became just the third rap group to enter the Hall, after Run-D.M.C. (2009) and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (2007). The band's albums have sold over 40 million copies worldwide.
Yauch was a practicing Buddhist who worked extensively on behalf of Tibet's oppressed Buddhist population. He was instrumental in organizing a series of Tibetan Freedom Concerts between 1996 and 2001, featuring acts including U2, Radiohead, and Run-D.M.C.
In 2008, Yauch told The Huffington Post that his first real exposure to the Free Tibet movement came after a chance encounter with a group of Tibetans who had been driven from their homeland. "I was in Nepal, and I met a group of Tibetans that had just come over the Himalayas that were heading to Dharamsala to hopefully meet the Dalai Lama and fleeing from the oppression they were facing and from that firsthand exposure, I started getting interested in it," he said.
Yauch was the only child of architect Noel Yauch and public school administrator Frances Yauch. He grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from the progressive Edward R. Murrow High School in 1982 and attended Bard College for two years before dropping out.
Yauch married Dechen Wangdu in 1998, three years after they met at a Harvard event for the Dalai Lama. Wangdu, who has been an active member of Students for a Free Tibet, the U.S. Tibet Committee, and the Tibetan Women's Association, also appeared in the 1998 documentary "Free Tibet," which was produced by Yauch. The couple has a daughter, Tenzin Losel Yauch, who was born in September 1998. Tenzin, known as Losel to friends, can be heard briefly on the Beastie Boy's track "Shazam!"
In recent years, Yauch also branched out into film, forming Oscilloscope Laboratories, a production and distribution company whose credits include "We Need to Talk About Kevin, "Wendy and Lucy" and the Banksy documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop." In 2008, Oscilloscope distributed Yauch's directorial debut, "Gunnin' For That #1 Spot," a 90-minute documentary about high school basketball players in New York.
In 2011, Yauch received the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College. The award is given in recognition of a "significant contribution to the American artistic or literary heritage."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 14. They were honored on April 14. This article also incorrectly located Yauch's high school in Manhattan. Edward R. Murrow High School is located in Brooklyn.


text: We found 3 words starting with i and ending in es. On this page, we have provided all the 5 letter words that you can make, starting with i and ending in es to help you solve any word puzzle. The best way to solve a word puzzle is to use a rule of elimination: remove words from the list above that you think can't be the answer to the word puzzle. This list will help you solve many popular word puzzles such as wordle, jumble solver, etc.


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I'll take 3…
Ya may have to double or triple your order…!
If ya could send me a PM with the total I owe and your PP addy when I need to pay.
I'll take 3…
Ya may have to double or triple your order…!
If ya could send me a PM with the total I owe and your PP addy when I need to pay.
Always have a Plan B C D and E! - Arson
I 100% believe Normal is Boring!"
Does Shug ever put out a bad video?
"Man up and get back up to the top of the food chain Mr. Omnivore. That McDonalds didn't grow out of a Avacodo bush. - MrClean417
"The trick to living and learning is actually living." - Cannibal
"He who would travel happily must travel light."
- Antonine Marie Roger de Saint-Exupery
"Backpacking is the art of knowing what not to take."
- Sheridan Anderson
I would like two, please.
I would like to see some pics before I know if I want one or not. how is everyone looking to use these, as a top quilt?
Please put me down for 2 and I'll send you a PM for your spreadsheet.
(I'm thinking of making an undercover with it as my SPE with CCF and 20 degree sleeping bag/top quilt has taken me comfortably down to the low 30's and an undercover to reflect the heat back in and help shield me against wind should take me even further down in temp. I'm slowly approaching the point at which I need to get an underquilt.)
Thanks for doing this!
Put me down for 3 please.
I'm planning to make a sort of summer blanket in the fashion of the JRB No Sniveller.
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." -Plato
Please put me down for 3
I E-mailed Thermoflect with the following questions :
Can you provide me with the following on Thermoflect ..
Weight per square yard ??
Recommended thread for sewing ??
Any type of "R" rating ??
There response :
Thank you for your interest in Thermoflect. Please provide some background information on yoshukaiusa and let me know how the product would be used by your company.
I replied what my interest was/is :
I will be using this product for personal use. I'll be using your product to prototype a UQ ( Under Quilt ) that is used for insulating the underside of a hammock. I use a hammock in place of a tent for long distance hiking.
The info inquiry I asked for will be for me to calculate not only my pack weight and possible additional insulating factors. I'll be using as a additional layer to a down filled UQ that I currently use. I'll also share this information with the Hammock Forum community.
If you need any other info from me, Please feel free to ask. Also, if you like to see how I'll use your product after I make it and apply it use in the field, I'd be more then happy to do so.
Still waiting for the reply back .. I kinda think I have them scratching their heads now !!
"The wise man questions others wisdom because he questions his own, the foolish man because it is different from his own." Leo Stein


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Laura Mercier Oil Free Supreme Foundation
Known for her creation of the Flawless Face, Laura Mercier has created the newest addition to the line: Oil Free Suprême Foundation, available on counter in April. This oil-free lightweight formula gives skin ultimate coverage while gliding evenly on when using a makeup brush. Laura Mercier's newest permanent collection is available in 12 shades and this vitamin-rich foundation is composed of soothing and anti-aging ingredients including aloe and green leaf tea extract. Laura has developed an innovative new oil-free foundation that gives skin the ultimate coverage, comfort and wear for a flawless complexion.
- Oil-free, non-drying, lightweight formula glides on evenly on to skin and does not settle into fine lines.
- Visibly minimizes the appearance of pores for smoother skin.
- Buildable coverage, from moderate to full, evens skin tone.
- Provides a soft matte finish.
- Longwearing formula (lasts up to 8 hours) feels lightweight and comfortable on skin.
- Silicone-free, fragrance-free, non-greasy.
- Aloe Bardadens – soothes and refresh skin.
- Green Tea Leaf Extract – provides antioxidant and astringent properties.
- Vitamin E – provides moisturizing properties.
- Vitamin A – provides antioxidant and moisturizing capabilities and helps to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines.
- Panthenol – a hydrating agent that improves skin's natural moisture balance.
- Silica – porous mineral absorbs oils, visibly smoothes skin.
Again it comes in these 12 shades: Porcelain Ivory, Blush Ivory, Warm Ivory, Sunny Beige, Vanilla Beige, Golden Beige, Shell Beige, Tawny Beige, Honey Beige, Suntan Beige, Toffee Bronze, and Rich Sienna
Priced at $42 each, the Laura Mercier Oil Free Supreme Foundation will be available April 2012 at Macy's locations and Bloomingdale's locations.


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Herb Pope Shot
From the media accounts, Alquippa HS star Herb Pope was shot three times Saturday night at a party. His injuries do not appear to be life threatening, although this is just the latest incident in what has been a troubled career for Pope. He has changed high schools five different times in four years, and now was out at a party three hours before he was scheduled to fly to the Roundball game. He was driven to the hospital by an unidentified person, and told police that he did not know who shot him, nor why they shot him. DraftExpress wishes Pope the best in recovery, and hopes that this young man is able to get his head on his shoulders and stop putting himself in such compromising situations.
Practice Recap
Practices for the Roundball Classic were different from those for the McDonalds game in that both teams were on the same court, with each team having their own half. This allowed evaluators to get a look at both teams, as opposed to having to run back and forth from court to court at the McDonalds practices. Pick and roll drills were highly emphasized in the Roundball practices, with trainers stressing the fundamentals of running the pick and roll properly. There was also a short scrimmage between the two teams, and below are the top performers that day one had to offer:
O.J. Mayo, 65, PG/SG, Signed with USC
Mayo started off the Roundball practices just as he was in the McDonalds practices: Hands down the best player on the court. He simply did whatever he wanted out there, both in terms of running a team and scoring for himself. While there were a few instances of questionable shot selection on the day, he did an outstanding job of getting everyone else involved in the mean time. The Huntington star showed the ability to defend anyone on the court when he chose to exert forth the necessary effort, and put on a downright incredible shooting display after practice. As he hit countless three pointer after three pointer, a former college coach sitting next near by mentioned that he had counted Mayo hit at least 12 consecutive three pointers, all from well beyond the collegiate three point line. Things are surely starting off on the right foot for O.J., and hopefully he is able to continue his dominance all the way through the Roundball game itself, so we dont have another repeat of the McDonalds game.
Anthony Randolph, 610, SF/PF, Signed with LSU
While Randolph was not necessarily one of the best performers statistically on the day, it is always quite intriguing when you see a 610 player with legitimate small forward skills. He was outstanding putting the ball on the floor and hitting the midrange jumper, while creating problems on the offensive glass with his length and athleticism. The LSU recruit struggled a bit shooting the ball from beyond the arc and defending smaller players, despite the fact that he has shown the ability to do both on prior occasions. As Anthony will tell you himself, consistency is his biggest problem. Either way, he is one of the more intriguing prospects in terms of NBA potential that the 2007 Roundball game has to offer.
DeAndre Jordan, 70, C, Signed with Texas A&M
After going through a scare of possibly losing head coach Billy Gillespie to another school, the seven footer can sleep a little better at night knowing that Gillespie will be in College Station when he steps foot on campus this fall. Jordan showed off his remarkable athleticism throughout the practice session, blocking numerous shots and dunking absolutely everything he touched inside of the paint. The big man still needs a ton of refinement in terms of both his low post moves and face the basket game, but his upside is absolutely off of the charts. With DeAndres combination of size, athleticism, and an NBA ready body, it would have been very hard to imagine that he would have not at least tested the waters for the 2007 NBA Draft, had the age limit not been put in place.
Evan Turner, 66, PG/SG/SF, Signed with Ohio State
Chicago native Evan Turner was quietly one of the more consistent performers on the first day of practice. He handled the ball well in the open floor, got all of his teammates involved, and shot the ball much better from the perimeter then he has in the past. While comparisons to Brandon Roy might be a bit far fetched at the moment, the similarities in their game are certainly present. Turner has shown the ability to play all three perimeter positions, and might be forced into playing all three at times next year at Ohio State, if Mike Conley Jr. decides to throw his name into the NBA Draft. In order for him to effectively reach his potential however, he must work diligently upon his consistency shooting the ball from the perimeter as well as his level of strength (weighs only 185 lbs at the moment).
Gani Lawal, 69, PF, Signed with Georgia Tech
The freak athlete from Georgia carried over his gritty play from the McDonalds game into the practice sessions at Roundball, doing every little thing youd like to see out of a big man. He ran the floor well, did a good job catching the ball, and made his presence felt on the defensive end. The guards he teamed with had no problem getting him the rock inside, as he caught everything and normally finished with an emphatic slam dunk. Lawal still offers very little in terms of actual low post moves, but the potential is surely there for him and he is clearly one of the players with the most to offer in terms of NBA potential here at the Roundball.
Kevin Love, 69, PF/C, Signed with UCLA
Oregon big man UCLA has continued to quietly be one of the top performers throughout all of the high school all-star games, despite his lack of high flying dunks or blocked shots that so many of the other big men prospects offer. He did an excellent job rebounding the ball and throwing his storied outlet passes, starting a fast break before the guard has even received the ball. He was great shooting the ball from 17 feet and in, showing the potential to play as more of a face the basket player for the Bruins if need be. Of course he was a bit outmatched athletically by the freak athlete big men in the game, but this is a challenge that Love has constantly faced (and conquered) throughout his career, so it shouldnt be a problem by the time he hits the hardwood at UCLA.
Jonny Flynn, 511, PG, Signed with Syracuse
Aside from Mayo, there has not been a player who has been more impressive then Niagara Falls standout Jonny Flynn. He has done a remarkable job controlling the tempo of the game and making everyone around him better, despite the fact that he has the reputation for being a shoot first point guard. The Syracuse recruit displayed the ability to get into the lane on anybody, while also playing outstanding defense on O.J. Mayo. He has carried over his production from the McDonalds game into the Roundball Classic practices, and if he is able to keep it up, should surely contend for the starting point guard position next year at Syracuse.
J.J. Hickson, 69, PF, Signed with North Carolina State
Hicksons developing skill set was put on display yet again, with the stage now being the Roundball Classic. His face the basket game has improved leaps and bounds over the last year. His improving perimeter game in addition to his solid low post skills, great body, and good athleticism should allow him to contribute immediately next year at North Carolina State, despite their already loaded frontcourt. Along with Jonny Flynn and Gani Lawal, J.J. is the only other player to have played well in every single McDonalds practice, the game itself, and now the first Roundball practice session.
Anthony Randolph Interview
DraftExpress: Tell me a little bit about what happened with the McDonalds game? Did you get any explanation as to why you were snubbed, given that virtually everyone has you as a top 15 guy in the country?
Randolph: I dont think I was snubbed. They put the best players in the game. Im just grateful that I was chosen for the Roundball Classic and the Derby Classic, and thats what Im supposed to play in. Everything happens for a reason. I wasnt supposed to be in that game.
DraftExpress: Tell me a little bit about how your high school season went.
Randolph: We did kind of bad. We didnt make the playoffs. I dont think it was issue of talent, but it was an issue of us gelling and stuff.
DraftExpress: With Glen Davis entering the NBA Draft, have the coaches at LSU spoken with you about how your role might have to change a little?
Randolph: Not really. Its the same thing that they talked to me about. They just want me to come in as a basketball player and want me to get better as both a basketball player and a person.
DraftExpress: Now have they told you what position youre going to play next year?
Randolph: No, not really. They just said that Im going to come in and play basketball and theyre going to make me a basketball player. Thats all I can ask for.
DraftExpress: What areas of your game do you feel you need to improve upon the most?
Randolph: My consistency. Sometimes I can hit shots when Im hot, and others its just a little off. Other then that, its just my size and understanding of the game.
DraftExpress: With the AAU camp scene changing and there only being the Nike camp until Reebok recently announced that they were holding their own camp, do you prefer it with only two camps, or with all three major camps?
Randolph: I like it with all three camps because I feel its more competitive. When you have only two camps, youre focusing on a much smaller amount of people and theres not going to be as much focus of helping as many players get better.
DraftExpress: What is the pressure like from the three different shoe companies to play in their respective camps and all-star games?
Randolph: Really there is no pressure. I just play basketball to have fun. Thats what Im going to do.
DraftExpress: So how did you decide which camps and all-star games to play in personally?
Randolph: Well I knew I was going to play in the Adidas game because thats who I was with. I knew if I was selected for the Roundball Classic, I was going to play in this game because there is such a historic atmosphere. So many great players have played in it and it would have been a great honor just to be selected, so I knew I would come play here if I was selected.
DraftExpress: What are your thoughts on the NBAs age limit?
Randolph: Honestly, at first I didnt like it because I was one of the kids who thought I had a chance to go (to the NBA). Now I realize that I have a lot of work to do and its going to get me better by going to college. I will have that college experience. College will allow me to put on weight and it will make me better as a person.
DraftExpress: If there is no age limit, what are you doing? College or the NBA?
Randolph: Now, I would go to college. Before if all of this wouldnt have happened, I would have tried to go (to the NBA).
DraftExpress: Who is your pick for the Ohio State/Florida game?
Randolph: Florida. Theyve got everybody coming back. Thats just experience. Ohio State is pretty good, but I think it would be an upset if Ohio State won.
DraftExpress: When selecting a college, were you looking for a school that would give you the opportunity to be one and done after your freshman year?
Randolph: Not so much be one and done, but if I was ready and everything went right and I was able to go one and done, yes. Mostly just where Id be comfortable and where I could see myself for four years. I looked at each college and told myself can I see myself for four years and get my education, while still having fun?
DeAndre Jordan Interview
DraftExpress: What was going through your mind when all of the rumors of Coach Gillespie were leaving were circulating?
Jordan: I wasnt really too worried about it. I just tried to focus on school and stuff like that. I cant go to school if I dont graduate high school. I wasnt too worried about that, because if youre going to be successful, youre going to be successful anywhere you go. It doesnt matter what school or what coach you played for. I just kept calm while everyone else was panicking a bit. I just kept calm and waited to see what he was going to do. I just kept calm, thats it.
DraftExpress: If Coach Gillespie would have taken the job at Kentucky, or somewhere else, what would you have done?
Jordan: I cant really tell you right now. That didnt happen, so theres nothing to talk about. If he did leave, I probably would have left and went with him. I would have just looked at all my options.
DraftExpress: When selecting a college, were you looking to go to a school where you would have the opportunity to be one and done?
Jordan: I wanted to go to a school that had a good coach. I didnt care about the location, but I had to like the style of play. I wanted a lot of up and down play, a team that got the ball into the post a lot. A school who focused a lot on defense. I wanted to go to a school where I could not make a name for the school, not one necessarily already has a name for itself and I would be in the line of top recruits. I wanted to go somewhere where I could make a name for myself, and the school.
DraftExpress: What are your thoughts on the NBAs age rule
Jordan: They made the rule, so I guess they think its the right thing. I just feel that if a player is physically ready to go to the league, they should have the opportunity to do so.
DraftExpress: What areas of your game do you think you need to work on the most before you hit Texas A&M, and then possibly the NBA?
Jordan: My perimeter shot. My 15-17 footer. Then just my perimeter defense. If a team comes out with a guy whose 66 and I have to guard a guy who is 66...a wing .then I have to work on my perimeter defense.
DraftExpress: What is the pressure like from the three major shoe companies to play in their respective camps and their respective all-star games?
Jordan: Theres no pressure. Im just loyal to the people who have been loyal to me. Whether its Reebok, Adidas, or Nike, I was just going to be loyal to the people who were loyal to me.
DraftExpress: Did they give you any explanation as to why you didnt make the McDonalds game?
Jordan: No, there was no explanation. I just wasnt selected. Everything happens for a reason. I just have to come here and go hard. I cant come here and think about how I didnt make the McDonalds game. I mean, this isnt the rookie game. Half of these guys played in the McDonalds game, so I have to play this game as if it were any other all star game.
DraftExpress: I mean, youre a top 10 player in the country on every recruiting service. How does a top 10 player not get picked for the McDonalds game?
Jordan: (laughs) I dont know. I have no idea. Im pretty sure there was a reason, but I dont know what it was off of the top of my head. I cant dwell on that though. I just have to focus on Roundball.
DraftExpress: Ohio State or Florida?
Jordan: Florida
DraftExpress: Why?
Jordan: Florida is mature. Theyve been in this situation last year. I think maturity is going to get the best. Ohio State is a good team, but I think maturity is going to get the best of them.