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SACRAMENTO (AP) — California lawmakers have rejected a bill that would have permitted bartenders to serve drinks until 4 a.m., two hours later than the current last call for alcohol.
Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, had said the extended hours would draw tourists, create jobs and help California cities compete with New York, Las Vegas, Miami and other areas that serve alcohol all night long.
But SB635 failed to get enough votes in the Senate Governmental Organization Committee on Tuesday.
Leno spokeswoman Ali Bay said Wednesday that the deadline has passed for the senator to try again, killing the bill for the year.
His bill would have let municipalities decide whether to extend last call to 4 a.m.
Law enforcement said that could mean more public drunkenness, violence and drunken driving. They said drunken patrons would be hitting the highways just as the morning commute begins.
Leno countered that the current standard of 2 a.m. puts more pressure on law enforcement agencies, public services and transportation because bar patrons are all pushed into the street simultaneously at closing time.
At least 15 other states already leave it up to local authorities to decide whether and when to cut off drinking, according to Leno's office.
This was his second attempt to extend bar hours. He tried a bill in 2004 that would apply only to San Francisco, but it was rejected by the state Assembly


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Fall is right around the corner, and so is a veritable slew of intriguing new comics. What's in store for you? A new Spider-Man, new Buffy tales from Joss Whedon, and an absolute deluge of DC titles. Let's take a peek.
Ultimate Spider-Man (Marvel)
September 7
In the course of overhauling their alternate universe Ultimate line, Marvel's tapped a new Spider-Man (and it's one who isn't Peter Parker).
Brian Michael Bendis and Sarah Pichelli are the creative team behind this one, and Nick Spencer's similarly revamped Ultimate X-Men comes out September 7 too.
Casanova: Avaritia (Marvel/Icon)
September 7
After a three-year hiatus, Matt Fraction's dimension-hopping super-spy Casanova Quinn returns for a new miniseries that's sure to be replete with highbrow sexuality and knives-out familial espionage.
The prior volume was one of our favorite comics of the last decade.
DC Comics' Big Honking September Relaunch
If you've been off-world for the last couple months, you probably haven't heard that DC is restarting their entire superhero line with 52 first issues come September.
Some notable titles we're jazzed for include Grant Morrison's Action Comics (we had a chat with him recently), Paul Cornell's Wildstorm throwback Stormwatch, and Jeff Lemire's Animal Man. All are released September 7.
Other titles that have piqued our interest include OMAC (interview with Dan DiDio about that here), Scott Snyder's Swamp Thing, Gail Simone's Batgirl, J.H. William III's Batwoman, and Peter Milligan's Justice League Dark.
The flagship relaunch title (Jim Lee and Geoff Johns' Justice League ) hits stores August 31, and if you can wait until December 7, all 52 first issues are being released in a 1,216-page, $150 hardcover collection.
Holy Terror (Legendary)
September 14
Frank Miller's unapologetically brutal graphic novel about a superhero beating the hell out of Al-Qaeda finally comes to stores (without Batman as the lead character).
Will Miller win readers back in this post-All-Star Batman and Robin era? Or will this prompt more unrelenting memery?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9 (Dark Horse)
September 14
After going through space and time and indulging in some zero-gravity whoopie with Angel in the Earth's troposphere, Buffy's going back to basics and slaying vamps.
We had a quick chat with Joss Whedon about this upcoming title at Comic-Con — its companion comic Angel and Faith hits stands August 31.
Prison Pit Volume III (Fantagraphics)
Johnny Ryan in the maestro of fucked-up, existentially bankrupt mutant exploitation comics. Fortunately for aficionados of juvenile brutality, he's releasing another volume of his hell-planet-fight-club anthology Prison Pit. It's simple and clean, like exfoliating with oven cleaner.
Also in October, Fantagraphics will releasing a new English reprint of Jacques Tardi's second volume of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec.
Avengers 1959 (Marvel)
October 5
Howard Chaykin helms this miniseries about Nick Fury's Cold War squad of Avengers, whose ranks include Kraven the Hunter and Sabertooth. Looks like some unabashedly weird retro fun.
The Unexpected (DC/Vertigo)
October 12
Remember Strange Adventures, Vertigo's science fiction anthology. They're doing a similar thing with The Unexpected, a horror and fantasy compilation which boasts such creators as Dave Gibbons, Brian Wood, and Jill Thompson.
Speaking of Thompson, she'll be contributing to another worth-your-money anthology, Dark Horse Comics Present #4 (September 21). Why's it worth your ducats? Because Beasts of Burden — Thompson and Evan Dorkin's ridiculously good supernatural pet-detective comic — will be nestled in DHCP's pages.
Spaceman (DC/Vertigo)
October 26
After making Batman: Knight of Vengeance the high point of DC summer mega-event Flashpoint, the 100 Bullets team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso helm this science fiction series about Orson, the drug-addled, genetically altered survivor of a scuttled NASA project to breed a human who can survive a trip to Mars.
From the preview we saw in this summer's Strange Adventures anthology, it looks like some serious high-concept lowbrow.
The Incredible Hulk (Marvel)
October 26
Jason Aaron is known for his fantastically brutal tales in Scalped and Punisher MAX, so hopefully he'll be able to give Bruce Banner an appropriately monstrous treatment. Marc Silvestri's on pencils.
October 26 also sees the release of Aaron's Wolverine & the X-Men, one of two new X-Men books debuting this fall (the other being Kieron Gillen's Uncanny X-Men, which hits stores November).
The Death Ray (Drawn & Quarterly)
Daniel Clowes' disaffected teenage vigilante series gets a welcome and handsome oversized reprint (preview here).
Drawn & Quarterly is also releasing a bookshelf collection of Kate Beaton's fantastic webcomic Hark A Vagrant in October.
Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes (IDW/DC)
For this miniseries, Chris Roberson teams up the original Enterprise crew with some old-school Legionnaires. Will Karate Kid learn the Vulcan Death Grip? My mind says no but my heart wishes yes.
Our Love is Real (Image)
November 2
Sam Humphries and Steven Sanders science fiction indie comic hit — which is about a future where plantsexuals lobby for equal romantic rights — gets widespread publication over at Image Comics.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have announced the winners for this year's Nebula Awards, the Ray Bradbury Award, and the Andre Norton Award. Needless to say, Tor.com is jazzed to see Charlie Jane Anders's outstanding story "Six Months, Three Days" nominated in the Novelette category.
And we're over the moon to see Tor Books author and Tor.com columnist Jo Walton take home the Nebula Award for Best Novel for her remarkable novel Among Others!
Congratulations to all the honorees and winners!
- Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor) – WINNER
- Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan (UK); Del Rey; Subterranean Press)
- Firebird, Jack McDevitt (Ace Books)
- God's War, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)
- Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)
- The Kingdom of Gods, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
- "The Man Who Bridged the Mist," Kij Johnson (Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2011) – WINNER
- "Kiss Me Twice," Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2011)
- "Silently and Very Fast," Catherynne M. Valente (WFSA Press; Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2011)
- "The Ice Owl," Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2011)
- "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," Ken Liu (Panverse Three, Panverse Publishing)
- "With Unclean Hands," Adam-Troy Castro (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2011)
- "What We Found," Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011) – WINNER
- "Fields of Gold," Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse 4, Night Shade Books)
- "Ray of Light," Brad R. Torgersen (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2011)
- "Sauerkraut Station," Ferrett Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus, November 2011)
- "Six Months, Three Days," Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, June 2011)
- "The Migratory Pattern of Dancers," Katherine Sparrow (Giganotosaurus, July 2011)
- "The Old Equations," Jake Kerr (Lightspeed Magazine, July 2011)
Short Story
- "The Paper Menagerie," Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011) – WINNER – Audio version can be found here.
- "Her Husband's Hands," Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine, October 2011)
- "Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son," Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011)
- "Movement," Nancy Fulda (Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2011)
- "Shipbirth," Aliette de Bodard (Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2011)
- "The Axiom of Choice," David W. Goldman (New Haven Review, Winter 2011)
- "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees," E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2011)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
- Doctor Who: "The Doctor's Wife," Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales) – WINNER
- Attack the Block, Joe Cornish (writer/director) (Optimum Releasing; Screen Gems)
- Captain America: The First Avenger, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (writers), Joe Johnston (director) (Paramount)
- Hugo, John Logan (writer), Martin Scorsese (director) (Paramount)
- Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen (writer/director) (Sony)
- Source Code, Ben Ripley (writer), Duncan Jones (director) (Summit)
- The Adjustment Bureau, George Nolfi (writer/director) (Universal)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book
- The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House) – WINNER
- Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Juvenile)
- Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)
- Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)
- Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
- The Boy at the End of the World, Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury Children's Books)
- The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson (Greenwillow Books)
- Ultraviolet, R.J. Anderson (Orchard Books; Carolrhoda Books)
The Solstice Award was granted to John Clute and posthumously to Octavia Butler to acknowledge their significant positive impact on the science fiction and fantasy landscape. This year's Solstice award was crafted by Mike Libby of Insect Lab.
The Service to SFWA Award went to Bud Webster.
The winners were announced at the banquet during SFWA's 47th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend, held on Saturday, May 19 during the awards weekend at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia.
SFWA President John Scalzi about this year's winner's slate, "This is a fantastic list that shows both the width and depth of our genre. It shows that Science Fiction and Fantasy are not static but continue to grow and change. We are truly blessed with a fantastic slate of finalists this year. That these authors came out as the winners, is a credit to both the strength of the slate itself and the individual authors, and I couldn't be happier for you. Congratulations to you all."
Connie Willis was the recipient of the 2011 Damon Knight Grand Master Award for her lifetime contributions to, and achievements in, the field. Walter Jon Williams will presides as toastmaster, with astronaut Michael Fincke as keynote speaker. More information on SFWA and the Nebula Awards can be found on SFWA's site.


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Today's BirthdayRutherford B. Hayes1822–1893, American President
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on Oct. 4, 1822.
A graduate of Kenyon College and the Harvard Law School, he practiced law in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) and then in Cincinnati. In 1852 he married Lucy Webb. A Whig, he joined the Republican party in 1855. During the Civil War he rose to major general. He served in the House of Representatives from 1865 to 1867 and then confirmed a reputation for honesty and efficiency in two terms as Governor of Ohio (1868-72). His election to a third term in 1875 made him the logical candidate for those Republicans who wished to stop James G. Blaine in 1876, and he was nominated.
The result of the election was in doubt for some time and hinged upon disputed returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon. Samuel J. Tilden, the Democrat, had the larger popular vote but was adjudged by the strictly partisan decisions of the Electoral Commission to have one fewer electoral vote, 185 to 184. The national acceptance of this result was due in part to the general understanding that Hayes would pursue a conciliatory policy toward the South. He withdrew the troops from the South, took a conservative position on financial and labor issues, and urged civil service reform.
Hayes served only one term by his own wish and spent the rest of his life in various humanitarian endeavors. He died in Fremont on Jan. 17, 1893.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Who2. Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.
Also Born on October 04
- Jean Francois Milletpainter (1814)
- Frederic Remingtonpainter/sculptor (1861)
- Damon Runyonshort story writer (1884)
- Buster Keatonactor (1895)
- Charlton Hestonactor (1924)
- Anne Riceauthor (1941)
- Susan Sarandonactress (1946)
- Alicia Silverstoneactress, producer (1976)
- Rachael Leigh Cookactress (1979)
Who Shares Your Birthday?
The Day You Were Born
The Year You Were Born
Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.


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Holiday Apartments close to vineyards in Pyrenees-Orientales
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Long Shot
Watch Long Shot Online Free
Synopsis Long Shot:
Fred Flarsky is a gifted and free-spirited journalist who has a knack for getting into trouble. Charlotte Field is one of the most influential women in the world -- a smart, sophisticated and accomplished politician. When Fred unexpectedly runs into Charlotte, he soon realizes that she was his former baby sitter and childhood crush. When Charlotte decides to make a run for the presidency, she impulsively hires Fred as her speechwriter -- much to the dismay of her trusted advisers.


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Science Channel has picked up the new docuseries The Moaning of Life, featuring An Idiot Abroad star (and Ricky Gervais sidekick) Karl Pilkington in a new set of adventures. The Moaning of Life is part of a new slate of programs for the...
Science Channel has picked up the new docuseries The Moaning of Life, featuring An Idiot Abroad star (and Ricky Gervais sidekick) Karl Pilkington in a new set of adventures.
The Moaning of Life is part of a new slate of programs for the 2013-2014 TV season that Science Channel is set to announce on Thursday. That lineup will include the network's first-ever original scripted drama, 73 Seconds: The Challenger Investigation, starring William Hurt, Brian Dennehy and Bruce Greenwood.
73 Seconds stars Hurt as physicist Richard Feynman, who managed to finally discover what caused the first space shuttle tragedy in 1986. The drama, a co-production with the BBC, premieres on Nov. 11.
"When I took over Science Channel, I wanted to do really smart programming but bring in all the staples of entertainment," says the channel's general manager and executive vice president, Debbie Myers. "It had to be about a real event, and science has to be at the heart of it. This is someone who used science to solve that puzzle. It's an emotional roller coaster ride of a story." In success, Myers says she'd like to air one or two scripted events per year on Science Channel.
The network has also ordered the companion non-fiction special The Challenger Documentary, which is set to debut on Nov. 16. Hurt narrates the event, which details the real-life journey of Feynman.
As for The Moaning of Life, the series is the first for Pilkington without the help of Gervais and Stephen Merchant. The show, which premieres Jan. 18, 2014, follows Pilkington as he adjusts to middle age and travels across the globe to see how other cultures tackle coming-of-age issues.
"It took a while to see what he wanted to do after the success of An Idiot Abroad," Myers says. "He's turning 40, and wants to travel the world and get advice from people facing life's biggest challenges. I like that it gives him a chance to reflect on himself and explore personal issues. It's the anti-travel travel show. You get to see things through very child-like eyes, and there's something refreshing about that."
The Science Channel also plans to turn the upcoming arrival of the "super comet" ISON — which some astronomers say will be brighter than the moon as it passes around the sun — into a series of specials this fall. Says Myers: "You're going to have comet fever. We'll follow it over the course of several weeks and do a couple of live specials. We want to get people excited about looking up. We're working hard to be that home for people who love space."
And actor James Woods is behind This Changes Everything, which debuts Nov. 12. The series looks at discoveries and ideas that could have major implications for the future, such as nano technology and synthetic biology. "We're mixing science fiction with science fact," Myers says. Science Channel will use 73 Seconds to help launch This Changes Everything. "We're coming out all guns swinging for November," Myers says.
Other new series include Surviving Zombies (premiering in February), which chronicles people prepping for the looming zombie apocalypse. Tactical Jokers, from the creators of SyFy's Scare Tactics, looks at how classic pranks are executed.
Science also has new episodes of series How Do They Do It, How It's Made, Oddities, Survivormanand Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freemanon tap. The extraterrestrial event Are We Alone? returns in March 2014. Plus, Science Channel's replay of Fringe season five premieres in November.


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Story highlights
Reports: Yahoo is closing in on a deal to buy Tumblr
AdWeek says Marissa Mayer could pay $1 billion for the blogging platform
Tumblr continues to grow, is strong on mobile and would make Yahoo "cool"
In a deal that would vault Yahoo into the premiere league of social media, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is said to be closing in on a $1 billion acquisition deal with David Karp, the CEO of New York-based Tumblr.
Details of the talks leaked out earlier Thursday via AllThingsD, a site which prides itself on its Yahoo sources in particular. A later report in AdWeek, via its own sources, cited $1 billion as the figure currently under discussion. Coincidentally, that is said to be the valuation Tumblr was going to get at its next funding round.
Both sites were cautious to emphasize that the talks could come to naught. Mayer is clearly interested; she's known and admired Karp's New York-based site for years. Tumblr and its 107 million microblogs would add another 15 billion pageviews a month to Mayer's hoard. Most important of all, it could make Yahoo look cool again.
SEE ALSO: Users Stay Longer on Tumblr Than on Facebook, Karp Says
Given its aging audience, Yahoo's biggest problem with advertisers right now, the hunt for cool companies is high on Mayer's agenda. That would be why she offered $30 million to a startup run by a charismatic 17-year-old.
The question remains whether Karp is ready to sell, and whether he believes Tumblr has a better path ahead of it as a media company without Yahoo's help. (Naturally, we've reached out to both companies.)
Tumblr hasn't put a step wrong in the last few months, as far as investors and marketers are concerned, and it's growing like a weed. It's also hitting all the hot button tech and social media targets. Mobile audience overtaking web audience? Check. Ads on mobile? Check. Great shareable memes such as White Men Wearing Google Glass? Check. A platform so cool the White House is forced to join it? Check.
A $1 billion price tag would make Tumblr the biggest purchase since Facebook bought Instagram last year — although that deal ended up costing closer to $715 million, thanks to slumping Facebook share prices.
While we update this story, let us know in the comments: would these companies make a good match? Or should Karp stay independent?
This article originally appeared on Mashable.
© 2015 MASHABLE.com. All rights reserved.


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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 4, 2005
Statement on Private Donations for Hurricane Relief in Central America
Trip to Latin America
Three distinguished private-sector leaders have agreed to launch a nationwide effort to encourage private donations for relief and reconstruction in response to the three recent hurricanes that struck Central America. These leaders will work with other Americans to raise awareness and resources to help those in need as a result of these disasters.
The business leaders are: Steve Reinemund, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo, Inc.; Bob Lane, Chairman and CEO, Deere & Company; and Maria Lagomasino, Former Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Private Bank. On behalf of our country, I am grateful to these leaders for their readiness to take on this important effort.
In the coming days, they will ask Americans to donate directly to a fund set up to provide help to the disaster victims.


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Congressman Dan Kildee brings Ask, Listen, Learn to Standish Sterling Middle School
Standish, MI — Today, Congressman Dan Kildee partnered with The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility's Ask, Listen, Learn: Kids and Alcohol Don't Mix program to motivate every student at Standish Sterling Middle School to "say 'YES' to a healthy lifestyle and 'NO' to underage drinking."
"The students here today are the future of Michigan," said Congressman Kildee. "I'm proud to be here with Ask, Listen, Learn during Alcohol Awareness Month to encourage kids and parents to talk about underage drinking to keep these kids on paths to successful futures."
Congressman Kildee cheered on students as they enthusiastically competed for high scores in the running competition on Ask, Listen, Learn's interactive game. The game enables youth to learn about the negative consequences of underage drinking and the benefits of making healthy decisions while they exercise. The premise is based on research by Harvard Medical School's Dr. John Ratey, showing that for a person's brain to function at its peak, the body needs to move. The multimedia program includes the game and print materials, with the website presenting a pledge to live a healthy lifestyle, online games and pages featuring Ask, Listen, Learn Superstars.
"We love having Ask, Listen, Learn in our classrooms," raved Standish Sterling Middle School Principal Gary Roper, "Our students have so much fun getting out of their seats to learn about healthy choices on the game, and then, most importantly, take what they learn home to talk with their families."
"The availability of alcohol to underage youth has declined for more than a decade, yet 11 percent of 8th graders report they have consumed alcohol in the past month," said Ralph Blackman, President and CEO of The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility. "Our goal is to start 1 million conversations about underage drinking and drunk driving during Alcohol Awareness Month, so we're thankful for the support of the school and Congressman Kildee to allow us to share our message here today."
About Ask, Listen, Learn
Ask, Listen, Learn is the most widely distributed alcohol education program of its kind. Ask, Listen, Learn's initiatives include Asklistenlearn.com, a website that encourages kids to "say 'YES' to a healthy lifestyle and 'NO' to underage drinking" by offering kids interactive and educational games and videos. Kids can read about positive role models and take a pledge to make healthy choices. Parents and educators are also encouraged to visit the site for tips on how to facilitate these conversations and read interviews with gymnast Aly Raisman's parents on how they talked to their kids about underage drinking. Ask, Listen, Learn is also on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest constantly promoting a healthy lifestyle message.
About The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility
The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility is a national not-for-profit leader in the fight to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking and is funded by the following distillers: Bacardi U.S.A., Inc.; Beam, Inc.; Brown-Forman; Constellation Brands, Inc.; DIAGEO; Hood River Distillers, Inc.; and Pernod Ricard USA. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility promotes responsible decision making regarding beverage alcohol and develops and implements innovative programs and public awareness campaigns which ignite action through strategic partnerships. Established in 1991, their initiatives are highlighted online at www.www.responsibility.org and www.asklistenlearn.org.


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A winter sport is a sport performed in or on snow or ice, or otherwise needing freezing temperatures.
The biathlon is cross-country skiing combined with rifle shooting: the contestants ski around a circuit, stopping at certain intervals to take aim at targets; each miss of the target adds some to the skier's time. In addition to being good at skiing and shooting, this requires good enough nerves and judgement neither to hurry too much nor use too much time at the targets.
While junior and beginner contestants pick up and drop the gun at the shooting range, professional contestants carry the gun around the track.
Cross country skiing[edit]
- See also: Cross country skiing
Cross country skiing can be used as a mean to travel easily in thick snow in the wilderness or as an alternative pastime at ski resorts and near towns in the right climates. It can allow quite easy access to places which seem untouched by man. The skis are different from those normally used in downhill skiing.
Cross-country skiing involves either shuffling or skating over tracks. As with all Nordic skis the heel is not attached to the ski. This style of skiing is highly energetic as there is no downhill cruising involved, the skier is constantly pushing with their poles and moving their skis across the flat or uphill terrain. Occasionally there is a small downhill section. Cross-country is in no way similar to Alpine skiing, it is a form of transport in the Nordic countries, Russia and rural areas in parts of the Baltic states. Depending on conditions (and the skier) the speed will be from about as fast as using snowshoes to much faster than running. Due to the flat or rolling terrain in much of Scandinavia, and the large wilderness areas to explore, cross-country is a widely practised sport, the equivalent to jogging in the summer. Larger alpine skiing resorts will most likely have some marked tracks and a rental shop available to the public.
Dog sledding[edit]
Dog sledding was the fastest mode of transport through snowy lands before snowmobiles, and remains a popular pastime.
Downhill skiing and snowboarding[edit]
- See also: Downhill snowsports
Downhill skiing is a popular sport involving sliding down snow-covered terrain with skis attached to each foot. Ski resorts around the world attract millions of travellers yearly. There are two main variants, the more common Alpine skiing, where both toes and heels are attached to the ski, and Nordic downhill or Telemark skiing, with loose heels.
Snowboarding is another way of going downhill, more difficult than downhill skiing.
Ice sailing[edit]
Ice sailing can allow very fast speeds, often as a sport. Either an iceboat is used (often a light construction looking like a trimaran sled), or a skater carries a sail himself. Also a board with runners, similar to a sailboard, can be used.
Ice skating[edit]
- See also: Ice skating
There are several ways of using (different kinds of) skates, such as ice hockey, figure-skating, racing and long distance skating.
Snowkiting is "winter's newest extreme sport", requiring only the wind, a snowkite, skies or snowboard, and an attitude for fun. The sport has endless possibilities, such as backcountry skiing without a ski lift or resort – your snowkite will pull you uphill and downhill at varying speeds. Snowkites can accelerate up to 50 mph. The lifting power of the wind will allow you to jump to distances of up to 100 feet.
When snowkiting in the backcountry be aware of avalanche danger! Always snowkite in groups, wear an avalanche beacon, dress warm, and never exceed your limits.
Snowkiting is popular in Central Utah, a region of the United States of America.
Snowmobiling is about riding over snow on a motorized vehicle. As a sport it is popular throughout the western United States of America as well as in Canada and Alaska and elsewhere where snowmobiles are common.
In northern parts of the Nordic countries driving snowmobiles is a common way of getting around for locals and for tourist tours – and a tool for reindeer herding.
Telemark skiing[edit]
- See also: Telemark skiing
Telemark skiing is another method of downhill skiing, with loose heels. Practitioners often think it is more enjoyable than the alpine variant. It also allows covering rolling terrain as it is easy to walk up hills with the loose heel. The technique is more difficult than alpine skiing and beginners to snow sports should usually not start with Telemark, but progress to it.
Winter swimming[edit]
- See also: Winter swimming
Winter swimming is done in cold weather, and ice swimming at freezing temperatures, preferably followed by a sauna bath.
Stay safe[edit]
See cold weather, ice safety and snow safety.


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Buckets of 4chan
Posted January 4, 2011 at 2:01 am
I'm on my honeymoon right now (woo woo!), so here's a bunch of "hacked" Shortpacked! strips from 4chan that I found and saved to my hard drive about three years ago.
Tags: buckets of blood guy, ethan, guest strip, 4chan


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23rd U.S.-CHINA JOINT COMMISSION ON COMMERCE AND TRADE
Fact Sheet
U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk and U.S. Commerce Acting Secretary Rebecca Blank, together with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, co-chaired the 23rd Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in Washington, D.C., on December 18-19, 2012. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also took part in the discussion to address agricultural concerns. Other participants included U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke, U.S. Trade and Development Agency Director Leocadia Zak and representatives from the State and Treasury Departments. Senior Chinese officials from 25 ministries and agencies also attended.
Provided below are key results from this year's JCCT. Industry facts and figures appear in italics.
According to a 2011 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission, U.S. industry losses in China from intellectual property rights infringement in 2009 totaled roughly $48 billion.
Copyright – State-Owned Enterprise Software Legalization
- China confirmed that it requires state-owned enterprises under the authority of the China Banking Regulatory Commission and central state-owned enterprises directly supervised by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council to purchase and use legitimate software, including but not limited to operating system and office suite software.
Judicial Interpretation on Intermediary Liability
- Building on an existing JCCT commitment to develop a Judicial Interpretation making clear that those who facilitate online infringement will be jointly liable for such infringement, China announced that its Supreme People's Court will publish a Judicial Interpretation on Internet Intermediary Liability before the end of 2012.
Localization of Intellectual Property and Technology
- China reaffirmed that technology transfer and technology cooperation are the autonomous decisions of enterprises. China will not make this a precondition for market access. If departmental or local documents contain language inconsistent with the above commitment, China will correct them in a timely manner.
- Multi-level Protection Scheme (MLPS)
Article 21 of China's 2007 MLPS Administrative Measures specifies an indigenous intellectual property requirement for the selection of information security products for level three and above with the objective of protecting national information security. China will conduct a process to revise this measure and seek the views of all parties, including through dialogue with the United States.
- Official Use Vehicles
China's central, provincial, and local level governments procure more than $16 billion in official use vehicles per year.
China committed to delay issuing the 2012 Party and Government Organ Official Use Vehicle Selection Catalogue and to discuss U.S. concerns with regard to the draft catalogue and applicable vehicle selection rules with the United States.
- High and New Technology Enterprises
The United States and China will maintain communication on U.S. concerns regarding whether China's High and New Technology Enterprise Certification Administration Measures and related rules apply equally to Chinese and foreign invested enterprises or contain technology transfer or intellectual property localization requirements, including through the U.S.-China Innovation Dialogue.
China reported that in 2011 government procurement was $179 billion dollars. China's government procurement has been growing at 25 percent per year over the past seven years.
- China's definition of government procurement in its Government Procurement Law is narrower than the definition in the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). Accordingly, China recognized that some Chinese government procurement projects are for public service and that some enterprises, including some state-owned enterprises, procure in the public interest. Understanding that many enterprises are for profit with diversification of ownership, including being publicly listed, China and the United States will conduct consultations, under the GPA framework and through bilateral dialogues, focused on projects for public service and on the entities that procure in the public interest.
Testing and Certification for the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) Mark
Approximately 20 percent of U.S. exports to China are delayed due to China's Compulsory Certification mark requirement.
- China confirmed that eligible foreign-invested testing and certification entities registered in China can participate in CCC mark-related work and China's review of applications from foreign-invested entities will use the same conditions as are applicable to Chinese domestic entities.
ZUC Encryption Algorithm
Removing the pressure on operators to use the ZUC encryption standard would relieve a burden on highly competitive U.S. telecommunications component exporters competing for an estimated $30 billion in market opportunities by the end of 2013.
- China agreed it will not mandate any particular encryption standard for commercial 4G Long Term Evolution telecommunications equipment.
Civil Aviation
In 2011, U.S. aerospace firms exported $6.3 billion in aircraft and aircraft parts to China, which currently operates more than 800 U.S. commercial aircraft.
- China committed to engage in discussions with the United States on measures related to fleet planning associated with the civil aviation industry.
Strategic Emerging Industries (SEIs)
China plans to invest $1.5 trillion in the strategic emerging sectors in the next five years and has set a target for SEIs to account for 8% of China's GDP by 2015 and 15 percent of China's GDP by 2020.
- The Chinese Government clarified that it will provide foreign enterprises fair and equitable participation in the development of SEIs, including the 20 major projects announced on May 30, 2012 by Premier Wen.
- China committed that policies supporting SEI development comply with the World Trade Organization's national treatment rules and that such policies are equally applicable to qualified domestic and foreign enterprises.
- Relevant Chinese Government ministries will engage in dialogue and exchange with relevant U.S. departments on the development of SEIs.
Medical Device Pricing
China is the world's third largest market for medical equipment and is expected to become the second largest market in the next few years. Based on the estimates, total market size is expected to grow from approximately $11.4 billion in 2010 to $39 billion in 2015.
- China committed that any measures affecting pricing of medical devices will treat foreign and domestic manufacturers equally, and that China will take into account comments from the United States on this issue, including how to improve transparency.
Value-Added Tax (VAT)
- China confirmed that a Ministry of Finance-led delegation would hold discussions with the United States, beginning in the first half of 2013, in order to work toward a mutual understanding of China's VAT system and the concepts on which a trade-neutral VAT system is based.
Draft Smart Terminal Regulations
U.S. industry estimates that total spending on smartphones in China will rise to $57 billion in 2012. China is also the fastest growing market for mobile applications in the world – the number of app sessions increased by 1126 percent in the first quarter of 2012 when compared to the same quarter in 2011.
- China confirmed that it will take the views of all stakeholders into full consideration in regard to the regulation of information technology and telecommunications hardware, operating systems, applications, app stores, and other related services. The United States and China will continue to discuss this issue at the working level as China works to revise and improve the current draft.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) affirmed new access for pears in the Chinese marketplace through a commitment to allow reciprocal trade between the two countries beginning in 2013. Additionally, USDA and China's Ministry of Agriculture made a commitment to a biotechnology pilot program, which could provide greater cooperation in the approval process for new products.
Regulatory Data Protection
- To promote scientific advancement and to establish effective regulatory data protection, China agreed to define new chemical entity in a manner consistent with international research and development practices in order to ensure regulatory data of pharmaceutical products are protected against unfair commercial use and unauthorized disclosure.
Environmental Industries Forum
The Environmental Industries Forum (EIF) is a bi-annual event that draws Chinese and U.S. environmental businesses and government officials together to discuss issues and opportunities in China's environmental sector. The EIF concept was developed jointly between the Ministry of Environmental Protection, U.S. Department of Commerce, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under a Memorandum of Understanding.
- The United States and China will hold the 3rd Environmental Industries Forum next year during the China International Environmental Protection Exhibition and Conference in Beijing.
U.S.-China Legal Exchange
The U.S.-China Legal Exchange is a longstanding dialogue between the United States and China, providing an annual opportunity to exchange information about recent developments in commercial law and to promote the strengthening of commercial rule of law in China.
- The U.S. Department of Commerce and China's Ministry of Commerce successfully led the 2012 U.S.-China Legal Exchange, during which representatives from the Government of the United States informed members of the Chinese business, legal, and academic communities in Harbin, Beijing, and Guiyang of recent developments in specific areas of U.S. commercial law. To promote greater U.S.-China trade, the U.S. representatives described developments in the U.S. legal regimes governing electronic commerce and intellectual property rights under the recently-enacted America Invents Act and intellectual property enforcement developments. Both sides agreed to convene the 2013 Legal Exchange in the United States, and to work together promptly to agree on the topics of the exchange and the cities in the United States where it will take place.
Administrative Licensing
The U.S. business community consistently ranks China's administrative licensing process as a primary challenge to doing business in China. U.S. companies view China's administrative licensing as one of the top areas in which they experience protectionism, as an impediment to new and expanding businesses, and as being unnecessarily costly.
- In April 2012, the United States and China launched a joint exchange on administrative licensing rules, focusing on the use of technology to facilitate licensing procedures and on methods used to educate the business community about licensing procedures. This fall, we expanded the exchange to include the U.S. and Chinese business communities, and we engaged in a robust discussion of specific concerns of businesses with administrative licensing in both countries. Both the United States and China agree to continue this work in 2013 with the goal of facilitating commercial activity impacted by administrative licensing.
Trademark - Bad Faith Trademark Registrations
- The United States and China agree to continue close communications and exchanges through the existing channels to promote the work in developing solutions to the issue of bad faith trademark registrations.
Trade Statistics
- In the Statistics Working Group meeting on November 13 in Hangzhou, China the United States and China agreed to expand the reconciliation exercise to include services. The U.S. and China agreed to exchange statistical data and information on coverage, definitions, and methodologies to support this effort. The reconciliation will begin in 2013 with an examination of travel and transportation statistics and then be expanded in 2014 to two other services categories.
Standards and Information Technology
- The United States and China agreed to hold a technical dialogue in Spring 2013 to discuss approaches to improving cybersecurity in critical infrastructure.
Spectrum Roundtable
- On September 5, 2012 officials from China and the United States convened the third annual U.S.-China Spectrum Roundtable to discuss their respective plans to make additional spectrum available for advanced wireless services. Of particular note was discussion of both sides' efforts to make more spectrum available for use by unlicensed devices on a technology neutral basis, particularly in the 5 GHz band.


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Go Here: Abandoned Hospital on North Brother Island in NY
Every time I got sick as a kid, my mother would call me 'Typhoid Mary.' That was before the internet was a thing, and so I always assumed she was having a bout of amnesia. When I was older, though, I learned that Mary was very real, typhoid was very scary, and this abandoned island hospital in the middle of NYC was where they kept people who had it.
The 20-acre island sits just offshore from bustling Manhattan, in the spot on the East River between Rikers Island and the Bronx. It was originally home to a 19th century hospital for veterans of WWII, where Mary was a resident until her death in 1938.
In the 1950s it became one of America's first drug treatment centers for teens. You can probably imagine how that went, yeah? After years of corruption and reports of patient abuse the facility was closed, and the island was abandoned.
Today, North Brother Island is a bird sanctuary; from 1980- the early 2000s it supported a huge nesting colony of Black-crowned Night Herons. These birds have since abandoned the island, for unknown reasons (probably ghosts.) Most of the original buildings are still standing, slowly being reclaimed by nature. A dense forest has grown up around the hospital, mostly concealing it from view.
Technically speaking, North Brother Island is off-limits to the public; but it's been a popular spot for urban explorers for years. Who could resist, considering it is also the site of a 1904 shipwreck of the General Slocum, which claimed the lives of over 1,000 people?


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Locke & Key Pilot May Not See The Light of Day But Here's The Trailer
I was pretty excited when I heard that Mark Romanek would be directing the pilot for Fox's adaptation of Joe Hill's Locke & Key series. Romanek is best known for his work in the music video world creating memorable work like the Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" video, Johnny Cash's "Hurt" and Jay-Z's "99 Problems." He's a pretty adept feature director too with his two films, One Hour Photo and Never Let Me Go, being equally haunting and exquisite. Then the bad news hit, the show was not picked up.
What the (insert curse word)? With all that credibility, Romanek's pedigree on top of the popularity and critical acclaim of Hill's comic-book series not to mention a pretty great cast in Nick Stahl, Miranda Otto, Sarah Bolger, Jesse McCartney, Skylar Gaertner and Ksenia Solo. They held a special screening (well, two actually) of the pilot for the people lucky enough to attend Comic-Con 2011, and even though I was at the convention I wasn't able to catch the show. Definitely one of my regrets of that long and tiring, cosplay-filled weekend. The reactions were... well, quiet, but what I did read was promising.
I'm dying to get a look at this thing myself and, lucky enough, the trailer found its way online yesterday. Josh Friedman, who wrote the pilot (and produced alongside Fringe co-creators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) tweeted a link to some guy's vimeo account...
No actually, the account is under the name 'some guy' so perhaps this wasn't meant to leak (especially now that it's been disabled... a YouTube embed is there in its place). Either way, it's nice to get to take a look. My first thoughts are, that after a slow start with some questionable music it really got me by second half. Enough so that I would be willing to give it a shot and see what's these keys open up. Unfortunately, it's still not scheduled to hit our televisions in the near future so no shots will be given. Take a look, maybe enough support could rally a network.
The Official Locke & Key synopsis from the IDW website,
Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News
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Matthews on Obama: 'The Fact That He's Black' Is Why 'They're Asking for His Papers'
During the midnight hour of MSNBC's Thursday night Democratic National Convention coverage, host Chris Matthews managed to squeeze in another charge of racism against a black President by "right wingers" as he brought up the birther movement and asserted:
But I got to tell you, the fact that he's black is the reason they're asking for his papers. It's so obvious. Doesn't anybody else get it?
As he interviewed DNC Chairwoman and Florida U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and New York U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley, Matthews raised the issue:
I think the legitimacy question hit me tonight. The President has to say, "I'm the President." The President of the United States has to show his documents because the right wingers demanded them. And yet, George Romney ran for President, having been born in Mexico, and John McCain was born in Panama -- not the canal zone, Panama. And Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona territory. And nobody ever said, "Where's your papers to prove you were born in the United States?"
After Rep. Crowley made a joke about Rep. Wasserman-Schultz being born in New York, Matthews continued:
But I got to tell you, the fact that he's black is the reason they're asking for his papers. It's so obvious. Doesn't anybody else get it?
It did not seem to occur to Matthews that, since President Obama is a Democrat while the other presidential candidates he named were Republicans, movements on the right like birtherism would be inspired primarily as a way to derail a Democratic President with whom they disagreed ideologically. It would serve no purpose to try to undermine their own party's presidential nominee like Goldwater or McCain.
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center


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Official Releases
Hi Guest,
As you can see, your first name is shown in this article(only when you are logged in). The plugin Getcbfield can show a field from community builder. Download the file and install it as a Joomla! plugin. Under parameters the field to be shown can be selected. The firstname is shown by default. Can only be used when Community Builder is installed.
MD Ad is a Joomla! 3.x module to show a Google Adsense on your website.
This is a new name/module for the former MDAdsense module
The module has a few settings like:
- Choose if the add should be shown on phone, tab or desktop
- Paste the code from google adsense in the settings
- Alignment of the add inside the module position can be choosen
- Automatic update
MD Agreement is a free Joomla! 1.5 component that can be used to register accepting Terms and Conditions or other agreements to enter the site.
By changing the paramaters in the backend the component can be adjusted to your needs. An article needs to be selected as the agreement, this will be shown in a popup.
MD Contact is a joomla! component that can be used as a contactpage. The visitor can enter his information and ask a question.The form will be stored in a database and an email is sent to the owner of the website and a cc to the visitor. Information about you company and a logo can be added to the contact page.
MdDonate is a simple donate module for Joomla! 2.5. The module has a lot of settings:
- Possibility for testing with the sandbox from Paypal
- Set the amount yourself or let the user fill it in
- Option to set currencies
- Set the thank you and cancel page
- etc.
Hi Guest,
As you can see, your first name is shown in this article(only when you are logged in). The plugin MDGetuserfield can show a field from the user database. Download the file and install it as a Joomla! plugin. Under parameters the field to be shown can be selected. The name is shown by default.
MD Linkedinprofile is a simple module for Joomla!, that shows a button to your linkedinprofile. The module has a few settings:
- Set the link for your linkedinprofile
- Different styles of buttons, see the pictures
The module has the English and Dutch language.
MD Social is a Joomla 3.x module showing profiles of various social networks.
The following social networks are supported:
- Github
- JED (Joomla! Extension Directory)
- Google+
- Youtube
PHP Scripts
The following script is used to show data from a Purchase order from SAP Business one inside the content. The articletitle should be the PO number.
The script below is used to show all PO's from a supplier in the content. The suppliercode must be set as a field in the Community Builder.
Don't forget to fill in your database information


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The worst drought in most of our lifetimes has focused attention on how all Californians use, conserve and recycle water. Three years of historically dry winters – and no assurance that the next one will be any better – require each of us to examine how we can preserve this precious resource.
The governor already has asked everyone in the state to voluntarily reduce water usage by 20 percent. Many farmers will fallow hundreds of thousands of acres for lack of water. Parched cities are sure to tighten restrictions. Groundwater pumping is under increased scrutiny. There are environmental concerns about the health of many rivers and the Delta.
One thing is certain: We're all in this together. Saving water is a team sport.
For some of us in the car wash industry, the drought provides an opportunity to share a story that is just the opposite of what many people might assume.
Considering the importance of water in our business, Prime Shine was built around water-saving principles. We have been proactively saving water from the time we opened our first car wash in 1991. Saving water is part of our DNA.
We are one of hundreds of car wash operators across the country – and the only one in the Northern San Joaquin Valley – who participate in the WaterSavers program of the International Carwash Association.
WaterSavers requires members to use less than 40 gallons of fresh water per wash and filter all runoff before discharge into the sewer system. At Prime Shine, we voluntarily hold ourselves to even tougher standards.
We use about 30 gallons of fresh water per wash. By comparison, washing your vehicle in your driveway can use more than four times that amount, with the oil, grime and other harmful residue potentially polluting the public storm drain system which releases to our community's rivers.
We recycle, filter and reuse almost all the water applied to each vehicle.
We ensure the minimum amount of fresh water necessary for a high-quality wash is applied to each vehicle by using state-of-the art computer technology and precisely calibrated nozzles.
We use only non-acidic, non-caustic, non-corrosive and biodegradable chemicals.
We educate our employees on the importance of conservation and have implemented procedures to ensure maximum water savings in our everyday operations.
We established a website www.savemoneysavetimesavewater.com to educate the public of our proactive water-saving measures.
From our beginning, Prime Shine was engineered to save water. We continue to research processes, invest in the technology, and then design and build our facilities to use the least amount of water possible – in dry years or wet ones.
We appreciate that many people driving past a car wash are sensitive to perceived waste. We want each person to understand that Prime Shine, as a WaterSaver facility, uses only a fraction of the fresh water it takes to wash a car at home.
Earth Day was observed on Saturday, April 19, and was a timely reminder that we all have an important part to play during the drought – at home, at work and anywhere else water is used. Until there is plenty of water behind our dams and critical flows restored to our farms, cities and rivers, conservation is vital.
As California's largest privately owned car wash operator, Prime Shine is committed to being a leader in water conservation and savings within our industry and in our local business community. We truly believe that being a responsible corporate citizen is every bit as important as providing a high-quality service at a fair price.
We urge other businesses and individuals to evaluate their own water use and identify ways to save. We pledge to support efforts to educate the community about water conservation. We encourage everyone to share their own water-saving tips and suggestions – on social media, through this newspaper, with your friends and relatives.
Being a good steward of this precious resource is the right thing to do. Together, we can make a difference.
Evan Porges is president and general manager of Prime Shine Car Wash, based in Modesto. He can be reached at email@example.com.


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Oooh yeah, let's get ready to rumble! The iPhone 4 is the world's favorite smartphone. John's Phone is the world's simplest cellphone! Which one will win as they battle to the death?
John's Phone was created to be a simple, cheap phone that you wouldn't mind taking on hikes because you don't really care if you break it or lose it. The iPhone 4 is... well, it's the iPhone 4. Let's see how they stack up!
The iPhone 4 will generally get you through a whole day without needing to be charged. That's actually fairly good as far as modern smartphones go. If you turn off the radios you can probably get 2+ days. John's Phone? It lasts up to THREE WEEKS between charges. Take that, iPhone! Winner: John's Phone
Address Book
The iPhone 4 has a whole application that is dedicated to contacts. You can store a gajillion of them with pictures and all their various info, and then you can use that info across the operating system. The address book on John's Phone is literally an address book. It's a small paper booklet attached to the back of the phone. It also has a small pen attached in the way that styluses are on smartphones, so you can jot down your friends' contact info. While I like the retro element, Winner: iPhone 4. You can just do a lot more with it.
Making Calls
John's Phone makes phone calls! The iPhone 4... Winner: John's Phone
The iPhone 4 made waves with its Retina Display that stomped everyone else in pixel density. It's very, very purty. John's Phone's tiny, two-color screen only displays incoming phone numbers, but I mean you can't see the pixels within those numbers even if you pressed your eyeball up to it! And what's the DPI of pen on paper? Oh, okay, fine. Winner: iPhone 4
The iPhone 4's touchscreen is extremely responsive, and that makes dialing fairly easy. John's Phone, however, has big, raised bumps for number keys. You can quickly and easily dial blind-folded! 'nuff said. Winner: John's Phone
The iPhone 4 may be mostly metal, but its beautiful screen has been known to crack when dropped. John's Phone? It may be plastic, but it's so light that dropping it isn't going to do much, and there's just nothing really to break. Winner: John's Phone
With a two-year contract you can get an iPhone 4 for about 200 bucks. If you go sans contract the full retail price is about $650. Ouch! John's Phone costs just
$£60 without a contract! Just pop in a SIM card and you're good to go. Winner: John's Phone (big time) [Correction: John's Phone is 60 POUNDS, not dollars. It's the equivalent of about $97. Yes, you caught my Yankifying it.]
The Ultimate Winner
Well, we've totaled everything up, weighted the points, dug deep, and our surprise winner is...
It's the iPhone 4. Come on. Don't be stupid.
John's Phone, however, is an awesome backup if you want something in case of emergencies or if you're going to be engaging in activities where phone-breakage is likely. You can grab it here for 60 bones [that's British bones].


text: NavGeneral InfoEmail Print Provider University of Southampton (United Kingdom)Tabulations only Geography Algeria (DZA) Central Sub-Saharan Africa Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa Egypt (EGY) Morocco (MAR) Southern Sub-Saharan Africa Tunisia (TUN) Western Sub-Saharan Africa View all Time period covered 01/2010 - 12/2010 Series or system AfriPop Data type Estimate Summary AfriPop has produced detailed population distribution maps for Africa, freely available for download here in the GHDx and on the AfriPop Web site. The project, headed by Dr. Andrew Tatem and Dr. Catherine Linard, uses settlement maps derived from satellite imagery combined with land cover maps to reallocate spatial population count data. The population data primarily comes from censuses from 1993-2010, and are projected to 2010 using UN urban and rural growth rates. More details as to the methods and sources are available on the AfriPop Web site. These data represent under-five year old population distribution in Africa for the year 2010. Keywords Population, Population density Citation Contributors Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton Funders Philippe Wiener - Maurice Anspach Foundation Publisher University of Southampton (United Kingdom) Suggested citation Dr. Andrew J. Tatem. AfriPop Africa Under-Five Year Old Population Distribution Data 2010. Southampton, United Kingdom: University of Southampton (United Kingdom). Files (1) Public files FileSize AFRIPOP_2010_U5.ZIP54.84 MB Need help downloading files? GHDx Entry last modified on: Nov 6, 2018


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Feb 25 2018
Mornington Peninsula Food & Wine Festival 2018
This was a great way to finish the day, I however would hope the organisers learn from this event and come back next year with more local producers, more food and perhaps a lot more samples. The idea of buying tokens was really not a winner as quite a few of the food vendors did not accept them. I know the organisers made 30% off the tokens (as I asked) and that most accepted EFTPOS for payments.
This has the potential to become something wonderful for the Mornington Peninsula, a few more shade options, really live music was not necessary the times the CD was playing was just as good (so save yourself some costs and spend more on the amenities. All I all this could have been a food-truck event, many of the producers with wines mentioned they did not bring their premier product as they did not know how this would go. We have spent many trips to the Mornington Peninsula vineyards and restaurants over the years, many of the stalwarts are not being represented here, nor are some of the favourites.


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COTEK SP3000-112 3000 Watt 12 Volt Pure Sine Wave Inverter
In stock
COTEK SP3000-112 Pure Sine Wave Inverter
COTEK is committed to providing proactive service, innovative technology and total quality assurance since COTEK was established in 1986. With Corporate Offices in Tao-yuan, Taiwan, COTEK is a technology-oriented company focusing on developing, designing and manufacturing product.
- Total power output: 3000 Watts
- Pure sine wave output
- Power ON / OFF remote control (Green Terminal)
- Remote controller CR-8 / CR-16 (optional)
- Input & Output fully isolation
- Temperature & Load controlled cooling fan
- Built in advance microprocessor to provide friendly interface
- Output frequency 50 / 60 Hz selectable by DIP switch
- Output voltage DIP switch selectable
- Adjustable power saving mode by variable resister
- 3-color LED status indicators
- Input protection: Reverse Polarity (Fuse) / Under Voltage / Over Voltage
- Output protection: Short Circuit / Overload / Over Temperature
- E-13 / UL / CE / FCC approve
SP3000-112 Specifications:
|Output Voltage
|120 Volts AC, +/- 5%
|Output Frequency
|60 Hz
|Output Waveform
|Pure Sine Wave
|Continuous Power
|3000 Watts
|Surge Power
|Input Voltage
|12 Volts DC
|Input Voltage Range
|10.5 to 16.5 Volts DC
|Peak Efficiency at Full Load
|Normal Operating Temp. Range
|-20°C to 60°C (-4°F to 140°)
|Full Load Operating Temp. Range
|-20°C to 40°C (-4°F to 104°)
|10.04" x 3.27" x 17.4"
|18.07 lbs.
Warranty: 2 years
Cotek SP-Series Quick Start Guide
Write Your Own Review


text:
Browse, browse, browse. "Hmmm. Looks interesting." Open a product page, customize order, click the back button. "I'm just not sure." Browse more, revisit product page, leave. "What else is there? Ah, a new email!"
Sound familiar?
That's what many visitors do on your ecommerce website.
You've probably done a great job at bringing potential customers to your online store. But if you find that they aren't making important decisions - like clicking the Add to Cart button which Ott will cover in a few weeks — or filling a subscription form for instance — there could be a disconnect between their expectations and your user experience.
Or, maybe your visitors need some encouragement with a personal touch to pull the trigger.
Whatever the reason for dismal conversions, you can strengthen them by working on those seemingly invisible tidbits of text scattered throughout your website.
Introduced by Herbert Lui last week, microcopy refers to the small pieces of copy - no more than a few words - used on a website to guide and instruct visitors in high consideration zones.
When executed on correctly, microcopy has the ability to increase sales and leads. Tweaking your microcopy slightly could dramatically increase your conversion rate. When Veeam - a data protection and management software - experimented with tweaking their microcopy to clarify a call to action, their conversion rates increased by almost 161.66%).
Microcopy in Action
Microcopy is dispersed around a website, near high consideration zones, and in several instances invisibly influences a visitor's decision making.Just consider how removing the line "No credit card required" on Kissmetrics might make you feel about signing up for the free trial it offers.
"Will my credit card be charged?" Whoever wrote the microcopy did a great job at anticipating their visitor's concerns. In a global survey of 15,000 participants analyzing online shopping behaviors, PayPal found that 46% of US residents fear their payment information will be stolen on the web.
People don't stop to read microcopy. The visitor might not consciously spend more than 3 seconds on "No credit card required."or might even just glance at it, but the effect is significant.
So, if someone is hesitant about providing their credit card details before they buy from a company they've never bought from before, the microcopy will calm their inner doubt. They're likelier to give it a try.
This is why you'll frequently see so many little assurances near the add to cart button.
Well-crafted microcopy also tells visitors that they will be taken care of. Weak or missing microcopy confuses them and erodes the visitor's trust.
For instance, take a look at this call-to-action (CTA) button:
The word "Submit" won't get people excited. Most visitors don't like submitting anything, and it doesn't clearly state what will happen next. In fact, it may end up increasing friction by making the visitor more anxious ("What will they do with the information I'm submitting?").
During their checkout usability research study of the 100 largest ecommerce websites, Bayman Institute found that most people have learned to anticipate the undesired (usually automated phone calls and spam emails) when providing personal information online.
Therefore, your microcopy should be actionable and purposeful. A phrase like "Get Verified" could be a better alternative to compel visitors to follow through.
When you think over it, most CTAs on the internet have impersonal microcopy. Sure, some of them are useful – but how many of them actually assuage lingering hesitation? Not many.
Then there's the opposite situation — missing microcopy that would have alleviated the visitors' worries. Have you ever abandoned buying an item because you didn't know if shipping would be included in the displayed price or not?
Visitors seeing this category page won't have a clue about a shipping fee. The site relies on the expectation that the visitor would explore whether the price tag includes shipping fee or not when it should be self-explanatory.
In contrast, have a look at Amazon (which deserves applause here):
Free shipping is mentioned directly below the price. The retail giant does a great job at guiding visitors with compelling microcopy throughout its website.
A visitor's perspective, which is influenced by the good and bad things they've experienced or heard, will determine how they interpret microcopy on your website.
Consequently, if your potential customer has had their credit card charged in the past without proper disclosure, they would be skeptical if you don't provide them with additional context. Use microcopy to be transparent and increase conversion rates.
Lululemon's microcopy on its checkout page calm the visitor's fear of registration and sharing their personal information, and eases the user into their decision to buy with or without registering a new account.
Just a few lines have enhanced the entire experience on this checkout page. Herbert Lui will give a detailed overview of reducing fears and adding clarity to the checkout page next week.
Tapping Into the Power of Microcopy to Influence Customers
Most ecommerce businesses are under the impression that only headers and landing page copy matter for branding.
And obviously they do, but consider the use of microcopy in both expected and unexpected places shows site visitors you've imagined stepping into their shoes to help them along their journey.
If you've never focused on microcopy, you're probably not alone. Below I've listed some actions you can take to make your site visitors feel secure and informed with those small parcels of text.
1. Anticipate People's Thoughts
Great microcopy takes negative thoughts out of people's heads by addressing their needs when they're about to take action. Because they have their own beliefs while navigating your website, you need to think about how to influence them.
Ask yourself:
- What feeling does the visitor want to feel, and how might they feel right now?
- What action is the visitor trying to take?
- What will make the visitor feel more comfortable buying?
This information is typically uncovered in usability tests and through feedback loops which we've covered extensively these past few weeks. Microcopy is a direct response to some of the minor details and hesitations visitors have in your research.
Here's an example of anticipating their visitors' thoughts:
The Russian Store's product page includes some subtle microcopy next to stock availability. Then there's some around the price. It could be that their visitors shared bad experiences of delayed shipping or hidden fees with them. Microcopy has been used throughout the page to eliminate fears.
Conduct feedback experiments to gain specific insights on your visitors, and then use that learned context to write great microcopy.
2. Clarify Your Direction
It's important to explain the actions you want visitors to take as clearly as possible. For instance, many ecommerce sites place a Search bar on the top of their homepage, but rarely tell visitors what they should use it for.
RoseGal's Search bar doesn't offer much insight. What should the visitors search for?
Use microcopy to clarify things, like ShopStyle does on their homepage.
ShopStyle wants users to search for brand names and stores through the Search bar on their homepage. By being specific, they let people know what the search really entails.
Keep explanations short and simple. That minimizes misinterpretation or confusion. Use as few words as you can in your microcopy, but enough of them to clarify what you mean.
3. Generate Good Feelings
At times putting a smile on people's faces can defuse panic when they get stuck or see errors on your website after performing a particular action. Send good vibes through your microcopy to deliver a friendlier experience.
While this won't work in every case, something that lightens up a visitor's mood is a novelty most folks enjoy.
Gmail's error message is a brilliant example.
They address what went wrong in a light-hearted tone.
Final Thoughts
Although the process of polishing a website's microcopy is straightforward, many ecommerce merchants' focus waver from it.
If you want to genuinely help your visitors, use microcopy to deliver precise direction where drop-offs occur. The simple tips mentioned above will help you produce huge improvements for your store and your visitors' experiences.
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text:
At the start of his weekly press conference today—and just about an hour before announcing that former starting QB Stephen Garcia had been dismissed from the team—South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier made an announcement to the gathered reporters. He would not, he explained, go through with the usual dog and pony show unless a single reporter was segregated for the questioning.
The video's above, but first, some background: Ron Morris, the reporter in question, is a sports columnist for the State who is often critical of Spurrier and his Gamecocks—which is, technically speaking, his job. He downplayed No. 18 USC's 54-3 win over Kentucky on Saturday, for example, by pointing out that the offensive burst came against a "hopeless" team. A week earlier, following a 16-13 loss to Auburn, Morris wrote a column with the title "In the end, Spurrier coached poorly." Still, though, it was nothing out of bounds. As Spurrier says in today's pre-conference speech—after calling him "a negative guy...that tries to hurt our football program"—Morris has "got a right to do that."
But it wasn't the recent writing that set off Spurrier. Back in March, Morris wrote a story that floated the idea that Spurrier had "poached" Bruce Ellington—then the leading scorer and starting point guard for the Gamecocks' basketball team—for the university's football team. Spurrier denied the claim at the time, calling it "false, wrong and totally incorrect." He also threw in the word "fabrication," for good measure.
Today, six months after it was published, he brought it up again, calling it a "fabricated story." Spurrier announced that it was his "right" to refrain from speaking while Morris was in the room, and declared that he would hold individual interviews with the TV reporters, and then come back for the writers—presumably, Morris was then asked to leave the room. (A quick word: punitive segregation is really never a good tactic.)
As Spurrier admitted during his tirade, this is the second reporter that's been excommunicated by the longtime coach. When he was at Florida in the nineties, Mike Bianchi told The Big Lead a few years ago, he had a similar confrontation with Larry Guest from the Orlando Sentinel:
Guest would write nasty columns about Spurrier, and Spurrier would respond by calling Guest a "sad little fat man." I loved the fact that Guest, even though he knew Spurrier wouldn't answer his questions, would raise his hand during a press conference and ask a question anyway just so he could watch Spurrier bristle. I'm telling you when Guest walked into a Spurrier news conference, a hush literally fell over the room. It was terrific.
Spurrier had one more bomb for the press he kept around. Senior quarterback Stephen Garcia, who'd previously been suspended five times in his collegiate career, has been permanently dismissed from the team.
"Being a student-athlete at the University of South Carolina is a privilege, not a right," athletic director Eric Hyman explained in a statement.
Just like reporting on it.


text:
e. Typescripts and originals of letters concerning knowledge of the Benders. 1923-1924.
f. "Light on Benders," from the Topeka State Journal, August 5, 1911.
g. "Department of Investigation, the True Story of the Benders," by J. E. McDowell from the Black Mask, March 1925.
10. Correspondence:
a. Letters from Connelley to O. S. Clark, April and May, 1930, re: the agreement of Connelley to re-write Clark's book on Clay Allison.
11. Correspondence with Dr. Daniel Brinton; and Mrs. Jane K. Jones:
a. Letters of Brinton to Connelley, April - December 1898.
b. Questionnaire filled in by Mrs. Jones re: her duty as a missionary, 1843.
12. Indian Legends:
a. Indian stories of the directions (east, west, etc.)
b. Character and terms of Algonquian.
c. Legend of the daughter of the moon.
d. Legend of the granddaughter of the moon.
e. Legend of the wampum necklace.
13. Manuscript on the Creek Indians:
a. Clans of the Creek (Muskogee) Indians.
b. The Clan System of the Creeks.
c. The Word Carrier - the Story of the Creek Envoy to the Cherokee.
d. The Creek Philosophy.
e. Creek Migration Legend.
14. Creek Indian Material: Charles Gibson
The University of Oklahoma Libraries | 401 West Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 | (405)325-4142


text:
FREE STANDARD SHIPPING ON QUALIFYING ORDERS OVER $85.00 - Offer valid at kitterytradingpost.com. Tax and shipping not include in qualifying amount. Offer is for standard ground shipping only to United States excluding Alaska and Hawaii. Offer valid on Alpine Skis, all other additional/oversized freight charges still apply. Offer not valid on ammunition or firearm purchases. Offer not valid on retail store purchases, previous purchases or special orders. Offer limited to stock on hand, and is not redeemable for cash. KTP reserves the right to exclude certain products from this promotion. Offer subject to change without notice.
Rivers Edge Moose Trailer Ball Cover
Product Info Item# 17140
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text:
- Men
- Knitwear & Sweatshirts
- Crew Necks
- Black Merino Crew Neck
Black Merino Crew Neck
Art. no: 4200901355600
Designer's notes
A classic merino wool sweater is a key piece in any man's wardrobe. Spun from high quality Italian yarn, this sweater is an easy way to update your look regardless of season. Pair with a dress shirt and tailored pants for an everyday style.


text:
I see that Bookseller to the Stars is on a quest to spend the next twelve months reading celebrity biographies. I teasingly suggested that he was it doing to get some media attention, but he assures me that it's 'just a bit of fun'. Either way, he has an excellent blog and I only hope that he won't sustain any long-term damage from exposure to the vacuosity of celebrity memoirs.
I'm on a slightly different quest. I'm attempting to read all 20 books in Zola's Rougon-Macquart sequence of novels. It's not as easy as it sounds. Fewer than half of the books exist in decent modern translations and the well-known novels only account for a third of the total. Why have the majority of the Rougon-Macquart novels languished in obscurity for so long?
Amazingly, the only translation of the first novel The Fortune of the Rougons is the original Victorian one by Ernest Vizetelly. This may not be the best novel in the series, but has a pivotal role and I can't understand why no publisher has commissioned a modern translation. Vizetelly's translation is adequate, but to the modern reader it seems very stilted and I've recently discovered that he took huge liberties with the text.
The second book was also ignored until recently then, like
I am now on the third novel The Fat and the Thin and I'm struggling. The translation is okay but Zola is taking social realism to the point where nothing happens. I am on page 232 and the main protagonist is still ambling around the local fish market. There are some splendid descriptions of carp - if you like fish in literature, Zola's your man - but when is the story going to begin?
I'm determined to not give up, as I know that the best is yet to come. But I am beginning to see why some of the Rougon-Macquart novels have taken a back seat.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
I see that Bookseller to the Stars is on a quest to spend the next twelve months reading celebrity biographies. I teasingly suggested that he was it doing to get some media attention, but he assures me that it's 'just a bit of fun'. Either way, he has an excellent blog and I only hope that he won't sustain any long-term damage from exposure to the vacuosity of celebrity memoirs.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Dreams of a giant dog
Within seconds I was transported from a dark, wet, wintry night to an exotic, faraway place. Click on the link for blue skies and dancing fishermen (and scroll down when you get there).
Friday, February 23, 2007
I turned round and saw two fat women with long, greasy pony tails, wearing Primark leisure wear. At first glance they looked as if they were in their 30s but looking again, they were clearly in their 20s. I went to replace the headphones and whack up the volume, but once I started listening to them I couldn't stop. They were talking about food, working each other up into a frenzy. Here is a word for word transcript of their conversation:
'Name three types of sponge pudding'
'OH THAT'S EASY!' came the scornful reply, 'SPOTTED DICK, JAM SPONGE AND TREACLE PUDDING.'
'And three types of sauce?'
Thursday, February 22, 2007
If you look at the middle shelf of the newsagent, i.e. all of those magazines that are almost soft porn but not quite - Nuts, Zoo, Loaded etc - all you can see is strange-looking girls with surgically-enhanced features. I think they look awful - at best chavvy, at worst more like transexuals - but we are told that this is what men want. Is this really true?
Last year I had a Jordan signing. She looked quite odd - almost as small as a child, but with huge breasts and a strange tan. I liked her. She had no pretensions and seemed very bright, with a good sense of humour. What disturbed me was her fans, several of whom refered to her as a role model. It was particularly disturbing to see that some of Jordan's fans had dressed their seven-year-old daughters in sexy, Jordanesque gear. The underlying message is: don't worry about education and achievement, use your body to get what you want.
That leads on to an item on the BBC News website today that children are being sexualised too early. Girls feel under pressure to be sexually attractive whilst boys apparently feel compelled to be interested, otherwise their peers call them 'gay'.
I agree. During the last decade it feels as if the clock has been turned back and gender stereotyping is back in fashion. At first I embraced it, after the priggish thought-police of the 1980s who condemned Carry-On films. However, when popular culture encourages a perception of women as 'bitches' and 'whores', it's clear that the pendulum has swung too far.
I often wonder if the sexualisation of the young is why the Burkha has become popular amongst young Muslims. It's easy to assume that they've all been radicalised by 9/11, but perhaps it's more a rejection of Western popular culture. I read an article yesterday that said that it was impossible to maintain a mulicultural 'inclusive' school because Muslims would want their children to opt out of activities like 'sexy dancing'. This begs the question, why would schoolchildren being doing sexy dancing in the first place?
Our society commodifies sexual stereotypes like Jodie Marsh, but is that really what men want? I always take great comfort from the fact that in a poll of men in several countries, they said that the sexiest woman in the world was Diana Rigg when she played Emma Peel - an intelligent, independent, silicone-free woman.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Forgotten treasures
However, all of this pales into insignificance compared to the weeks I've spent trying to empty my loft of years of free books, abandoned toys and boxes of total crap. How I used to sneer at all of those people on the Life Laundry and be appalled by their futile acquisitions, but I am as bad as the worst of them. In most of the de-clutter programmes I watch, they have a car boot sale and managed to make a bit of money. Sadly, I have yet to find anything of value.
I tried selling few books on Ebay, offering to donate 20% of the sale to charity. I didn't read the small print, which said that the minimum threshold was £5 to charity and to date I am one of the few people to have made a loss on Ebay.
In the end I donated ten boxes of books to charity shops. I can live without most of them, although I am still kicking myself for accidentally giving away a beautiful first edition of an illustrated Susan Hill children's book. I hope it raises a few quid for some worthy cause; preferably not a cats' home. The rest of my stuff is either in storage or being pecked at by disappointed seagulls at the local rubbish dump.
However, there have been a few gems. Some of them I had forgotten about whilst a few were completely new to me, including this photograph (dated 1893) which I found in a box belonging to my wife's grandmother Lilian.
As soon as I saw this picture I had to post it. I have no idea who these people are and as I was driving home in my car yesterday, I thought 'I must try and ask Lilian who they are.' Lilian is now 99 and has lost most of her marbles to the point where she genuinely believes that she plays tennis every morning, but she has lucid moments and old people are generally good at remembering the distant past. She is the only person who might know. I resolved to ask her as soon as possible, otherwise the mystery will remain unsolved.
A few minutes later I arrived home. As I shut the door behind me, my wife looked up at me and said 'Nan's died.'
Saturday, February 17, 2007
150 years on, the heirs of the Rochdale Pioneers are in power. I remember the night of the 1997 election, almost ten years ago, when 18 years of Conservative rule finally came to an end. The following morning most people were on a high. We believed that we had ushered in a new era that, like the Labour government of 1945-51, would transform society and bring morality back into politics. How wrong we were.
Tony Blair's Labour government has failed in so many ways - the most conspicuous example being Iraq - but for me the most symbolic act has been the decision to make Manchester the site of Britain's first 'supercasino'. The men and women who fought so hard to improve the conditions of the working class must be turning in their graves to discover that the party that they founded, is trying to regenerate inner city Manchester by encouraging the building of casinos.
There has been a lot of coverage in the news about this, but the angle has mainly been about whether it should have been Liverpool or Manchester. Very few people have actually questioned the whole notion of encouraging gambling, which generally makes the poor even poorer.
Perhaps I'm being prejudiced. My family have always been very anti-gambling because three generations ago my great-grandfathers were compulsive gamblers and ensured that their children grew up in poverty. When they had a bad night they returned home drunk, beat their wives up and took the housekeeping money. Unsurprisingly, my grandparents didn't want to emulate the older generation.
However, prejudice aside, it surely can't be right that a government whose origins lie in the Socialist movement is now seeking to improve social conditions in Manchester by encouraging gambling.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The night sky without light pollution
As far as I can tell, this image hasn't been enhaced in any way. I don't know where this place is, but I want to go there.
William Powell Frith
However I did get today off and I decided - perhaps foolishly - that we should all go to London and see the William Powell Frith exhibition at the Guildhall. I should explain at this point that I wouldn't normally regard an art exhibition as a good day out for two small boys, but my wife is related to W.P. Frith and as this is the first time his paintings have been displayed together for 50 years, we had to go. I had no illusions about the day. I knew that my one-year-old would probably spend the entire journey screaming and that my seven-year-old would compare the paintings unfavourably to Pokemon, but not many people have a relative who was a best friend of Charles Dickens.
I planned the journey like a military operation and even found myself using the 24-hour clock. It all started very well. There was no screaming, the trains ran on time and we managed to find a station near the Guildhall. In London I had plotted a route that would give us time to visit St Paul's Cathedral as I thought it would be good for my oldest son to see a really big building. Sadly, St Paul's was a huge disappointment, as it now costs £9.50 per person! We didn't go in.
The exhibition was very good. W.P.Frith had no illusions about his status in the great scheme of things, writing that 'I am not a great artist, but I am a very successful one' and his paintings belong to the 'So good, it's almost like a photograph' school of art. In other words, art for Daily Mail readers.
Frith's success was phenomenal - when his painting of Ramsgate Sands was originally displayed, the galley's curators had to erect barriers to keep the crowds at bay - and his celebrity status during the Victorian age is probably one of the reasons why he has been neglected ever since. The famous paintings like Derby Day are displayed at the Tate, but many normlly lie in dark, unvisited vaults. This is a pity because although Frith's artistic merit may not be on a par with some of his contemporaries, anyone who wants to understand Victorian England must look at his paintings.
In its own way, Derby Day is a masterpiece because it encapsulates the different social stratas of Victorian society. It may not be great art, but it is good documentary. In the extreme left hand of the picture we can see a con artist trying to entice people to gamble. A local farmer in a rough smock starts to move forward whilst his wife pleads with him not to go. Next to the con artist, a folorn young man empties out his pockets after losing his money at the races. In the centre of the picture a man sits in a carriage serving champagne to three young women, who might be prostitues, whilst further right a bored-looking man leans against a carrige with his back to the unhappy woman who is probably his mistress. Rothko it ain't, but there should be room for W.P.Frith's work in our galleries.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Author tours
- Drop them
- Invest more money (rejacket the backlist and advertise)
- Make them go on a tour
I have had several phone calls recently from slightly desperate-sounding publishers who want to bring their author to my shop: 'No, it's not a proper signing session...he'll just turn up and sign a few books for you off the shop floor. Do you have enough stock?' Of course I never do, so I end up having to order at least three copies of each backlist title.
A few weeks later the author arrives. They are always very pleasant and I like to think that there is an unspoken acknowledgement that I have probably never read their books. The author is usually accompanied by a terrifying publicity woman who makes me feel as if I'm a naughty little boy, but not in a nice way.
I hate meeting authors. If I love their books I feel like some dumbstruck teenage fan and just stand grinning at them in a slightly moronic manner. If I haven't read their books I feel guilty. In fact the only authors I like meeting are the ones whose books I can't stand and sometimes I sense that they like meeting someone who is completely indifferent to their work and won't ask them why Throngard seized the Sword of P'toth in Book Seven.
When I'm nervous I make jokes that seem mildly amusing at the time, but usually go down like a lead balloon. For example, when Peter James asked me why we had such a good turnout for his signing session I said 'Oh that's because they thought it was P.D.James.' I thought it was funny, he didn't.
However when an author event goes well I feel on a high. I love standing at the door at the end of the evening and talking to the customers as they leave. I can only listen to so many people thanking me for a lovely evening before my resistance crumbles and I feel like James Stewart at the end of It's a Wonderful Life.
I've just visited Debi Alper's blog and she has a link to this thought-provoking posting. I responded by adding a link of my own to this this article in the Independent by Claudia Winkleman, who writes a weekly humorous, zeitgeisty, girl-about-town column. I've read plenty of articles about global poverty, but somehow this one got under my skin. It's short. Read it and you'll see what I mean.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Someone from PanMacmillan told me that their Manga list now generates more money than their fiction and crime lists put together. I'm not surprised. Last year we held a Manga evening and the shop was packed with people that my 19-year-old children's bookseller rather harshly described as 'fat losers.' They weren't all fat. Indeed, many were extremely skinny and some of the boys looked slightly comical in their Keanu Reaves-style Matrix coats.
Personally I find Manga rather strange and creepy, but as a bookseller I can't get enough of it. As a genre it seems fairly internet-proof, as part of the pleasure of buying it seems to be meeting up in the shop with other Manga readers and hanging out together. Also, with such a large range of titles, there isn't much danger of Tesco or Asda muscling-in on the act. Best of all, Manga novels don't take long to read so people often buy several at a time.
I just wish I understood more about Manga (without having to go through the actual tedium of reading about it) as I don't know how spot-on my range is. I suppose I could talk to a Manga fan next time they buy a book. 'Hello young man. I used to be a big fan of comics - loved the Beezer and Topper, but I need to gem-up on this new Manga thing...'
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Out of the mouths of babes...
When this news item was announced on Radio Four's Today programme, one listener emailed an anecdote about their son, who at the age of three asked the following question:
If I was a sprout, who would be me?
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Spaced Out
This has got to be the weirdest story of the year - a Space Shuttle astronaut called Captain Lisa Nowak has been arrested for the attempted murder of a woman she perceived as a love rival.
Nowak fell in love with fellow Shuttle astronaut, Commander William Oefelein, during their training. Sadly they never experienced love in zero gravity together. Novak's mission was last July whilst Oefelein's was a few weeks ago. However, according to Nowak they developed an association that was 'more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship'.
Unfortunately for mother of three Nowak, she had a rival called Coleen. When Novak discovered that Coleen was flying to Florida to visit Oefelein, she jumped in her car and drove the 1000 miles from Houston to Florida so that she could intercept Coleen at the airport. When I say jumped, it wasn't actually that spontaneous. In fact Nowak found time to equip herself with a wig, dark glasses, trench coat and pepper spray. But most bizarrely of all, she wore a nappy.
Nowak was so determined to reach Florida in time to confront her nemesis that she wore a nappy to avoid loo breaks. Yuk!
At the airport Nowak found Coleen, attempted to get in her car and used a pepper spray when he requests were refused. Coleen very sensibly called the police and now someone who was a hero six months ago now finds themselves in the very real danger of being sent to prison. All very odd.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Emergency on Planet Earth
At last, there seems to be a consensus on global warming. The debate is no longer between the believers and sceptics, but between those who believe that there is still time to act and those who are convinced that we're buggered. In all of this not one person has mentioned Jamiroquai, who warned us fourteen years ago that there was an Emergency on Planet Earth.
On a serious note, does anyone remember the 1988 elections for the European Parliament when the environment was such a hot topic that the Greens beat the Liberals into 4th place? I remember lots of people wearing t-shirts with pseudo-ethnic drawings and insipid mottos like Save the Rainforest and when I started in bookselling, we had a separate section for environmental books. What happened?
As far as I can remember a few politicians paid lip-service to green issues whilst the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid convinced a lot of people that the bad days were over. I can't prove this, but I remember how the t-shirts became rarer and we ended up scrapping our Ecology sections due to a lack in demand.
I'm worried that this is going to happen again.
(Warning: soapbox alert!)
If we're going to survive the challenges that lie ahead we need to take radical action now. First and foremost we need to address the issue of overpopulation before nature decides to do it for us. Second, we need to create a new infrastructure for transport, power generation and public utilities that will be carbon neutral and able to withstand extreme weather conditions. Third, we need to develop a sense of shared responsibility both on a local and global level. It is not enough to expect Brazil to unilaterally halt deforestation without our help in providing the economic support for those people who will be deprived of an income as a result
There is no reason why we all have to don hair shirts and lead utterly miserble lives to achieve this. Technology has already come up with many solutions: business trips can be replaced by video-conferencing, hydrogen fuel cells can replace petrol and solar panels will soon be efficient enough to give most homes the ability to generate some of their own power. Even the thorny issue of population can be tackled painlessly, in this country at least, if we give tax incentives for small families and rely on the increasing number of childless households to encourage negative population growth.
The answers are all there. I'm just worried that our politicians will make a few token gestures that will appease the public to the point where the big issues disappear from the agenda. It happened nearly twenty years ago and there's no reason why it couldn't again. However, perhaps the environment will remain in the forefront of people's minds for one good reason: the weather has changed.
Today I went for a walk in the countryside and saw wild flowers, two bumblebees and some daffodils almost in flower. It was lovely, but very strange. Meanwhile my fireplace remains full of unburned logs, as it has never been cold enough to have to light a fire. As I wheeled my 15-months-old son in his pushchair this afternoon, I couldn't help wondering what sort of a future he is going to have.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Full moon
Dear Mrs Broad,
Your son returned from an obviously enjoyable trip in a slightly over exhuberant mood and unfortunately chose to expose his buttocks in front of one of the school buses.
I have to point out that such actions constitute a public order offence and will be arranging for the School Liaison Officer to have a word with your son in school so he understands the gravity and consequences of such action.
I trust that I can rely on your support in this matter.
Yours sincerely,