text:
I have some lovely news: Singapore's Media Development Authority and MIT CMS are joining forces to create a multi-million dollar, multi-university international game laboratory! I was fortunate enough to take part in the birth of this initiative before leaving MIT a couple months ago. This was just one of many reasons why it was very hard to leave. 🙂
The lab will be focused on innovation, both in terms of game design and technology. (How cool is that?) This is big news, both for the game industry and for academia. Here's a copy of the official press release:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Singapore Media Development Authority have announced an agreement to establish the Singapore-MIT International Game Lab (SMIGL). The pioneering collaboration aims to further digital game research globally, develop world-class academic programs in game technology, and establish Singapore as a vital node in the international game industry.
The directors of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program (CMS) — Henry Jenkins, DeFlorez Professor of Humanities, and William Uricchio, professor of comparative media studies — will co-direct SMIGL, which will have offices both in Singapore and at MIT. Jenkins and Uricchio will serve as the leading principal investigators in the collaboration.
In announcing the SMIGL collaboration, Uricchio, a specialist in trans-national media distribution and reception, said, "We are excited by this collaboration with colleagues in Singapore and the opportunity to push game research and the industry in new directions, and we very much look forward to initiating an international dialogue among leading scholars, designers, students and gamers."
Uricchio described SMIGL as a "unique chance to reflect on games and to push them in new and unexpected directions, whether in terms of emerging technologies and interfaces, diverse cultural vocabularies, or important niches that have simply been neglected in the rush to seize the largest market share."
Jenkins researches media and the way people incorporate it into their lives. "The Singapore-MIT International Game Lab collaboration will provide a strong catalyst for innovation by bringing together students, industry leaders and faculty from very different cultures and backgrounds to work together and to conduct research that could have a great impact on the international game industry," he said.
The SMIGL initiative will enable students and researchers from Singapore to collaborate with MIT researchers and game industry professionals in international research projects. Beyond technology development, SMIGL will also conduct research on the artistic, creative, business and social aspects of games. The new initiative will also provide Singapore game researchers and professionals with access to cutting-edge technologies, the latest conceptual developments and links to international game development and research communities.
Michael Yap, executive director of the Interactive & Digital Media R&D Programme Office, said, "Over the next five years, we expect some 300 of our best talents from the industry and academia to take advantage of this unique opportunity to work closely with the best research minds at MIT.
"We are delighted to collaborate with MIT, one of the world's leading technology and research institutes. The Singapore-MIT International Game Lab will initiate and produce groundbreaking research in games, which is rapidly emerging as a global research focus. At the same time, the collaboration will further equip our industry-bound students to make a significant impact on the local game industry," Yap said.
Outcomes planned for SMIGL's initial period include development of both an academic and a high-impact research program, publication of peer-reviewed research papers and production of publicly distributable digital games.
The research resulting from the SMIGL collaboration will expand the ways in which the Singapore game industry can build and develop future products, and will aim to identify unique genres and aesthetics that are relevant to the Singapore game industry. In addition, according to the Media Development Authority, it will enhance the country's competitive advantage in areas such as education and tourism.


text:
Heritage Collector "Boot Camp". No push ups or jogging will be required or permitted.
Free 2013 photo calendar template for all attendees!
Taught by Marlo Schuldt and Kathleen Bitter
Learn what's new in version 7.3 (to be released Monday). Updates are free if you have version 7.0, 7.1 or 7.2. Come learn the basics if you are just getting started with your Heritage Collector or maybe you need a little refresher. Learn some new ways to share and get more help from your children and relatives. Get others started with our new free Standard version. Come with your questions. This webinar will be presented two times making it easier for you to attend.
Monday November 19, 2012 11:00am -12:00pm and again at 7:00pm - 8:00pm. MST
11-12:00 pm - Mountain
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1-2:00 pm - Eastern
•Get the free 7.3 update for 7.0 - 72 versions.
•Easiest way to get started
•Help for new users
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•The free Standard version - quick overview
•Tip & Tricks (not in the manual)
•Questions and answers
Sign up for the class here

subset: commoncrawl


text:
are 24 hours in a day. We have no real
discretion with roughly 12 of those
hours. We need to eat, sleep, and do
a few other necessary chores in order
to maintain our existence. That hasn't
changed much through the centuries,
so far.
That leaves approximately 12 hours a
day where we, as individuals, do have
some discretion. That includes work
time, play time, and family time.
those 12 hours, about 75%, or 9 hours,
will be spent totally differently a
few years from now than they were spent
just a few years ago. Not everything
will change, but 75% of life is in the
process of changing right now.
same kind of change occurred between
1900 and 1920 as well. Frederick Allen
called it "the big change"
in his 1952 book by the same title.(1)
We call it a nine shift.
this means is that nine hours in your
day will be spent entirely differently
in 2020 than they were spent in 2000.
That is an enormous change. That is
a nine shift.


text:
O-Week Funtime Party Gig, 14 Feb 2014
This was an awesome gig, held at the end of orientation week (O-Week) for the first year students. Featuring Maycross, who I didn't photograph properly, Those Days Are Gone, The Devil Sent Me Back and The Cake Is A Lie. Those Days Are Gone's performance was especially noteworthy. With the recent departure of drummer, Grant Mears, TDAG decided to do an unplugged session, showing off the bands softer side and Collin's quality vocals.Read More
11 / 22


text:
pp. 480-482
Der Englische Gedanke in Deutschland: Zur Abwehr des Imperialismus, Ernst Mueller-Holm
Bismarck's Diplomacy at its Zenith, Joseph Vincent Fuller Reviewed by Munroe Smith
Die Deutsche Revolution, Eduard Bernstein Reviewed by Munroe Smith
Die Europaischen Kriegsverhandlungen, Max Beer Reviewed by Munroe Smith
War Books by American Diplomatists, Munroe Smith
Bismarck Reconsidered, Munroe Smithmore by this author
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With neither an ideological nor a partisan bias, PSQ looks at facts and analyzes data objectively to help readers understand what is really going on in national and world affairs.


text:
Bump Dat Street Mix
50 Cent
[Tony Yayo]
New Shit
Tony Yayo, 50 Cent c'mon
[HOOK: 50 Cent]
Bump Dat
Niggas try to stunt on my click
Then when I get on that shit
I bring it to 'em where they pump at
12 Gauge mashberg
No shell in the head
Before you put in work, you gotta pump that
You done hit a nigga with it and you runnin to polices
Come and take my advice, nigga, dump that
This is serious, these rap niggas, I'm just havin fun with it
50 Cent, nigga, Bump Dat
[50 Cent]
My son ask "Daddy why carry a gun, you ain't a cop"
Looked at him and said "Sometimes you gotta shoot or get
Wanna go to show-and-tell and show the class my glock?
Show 'em the clip
Show 'em the beam
Show 'em how Daddy lean
In the convertible Jag
22 inch mags
For a high school drop out, shit, that ain't bag
I'm not a blood or a crip, I'm doing my own thang
Shit, I done started my own gang
I don't go that funny dance
I don't throw gang signs
But I'm a gangsta to the core so I stay with a nine
Think all I do is rap, then you don't know me good
Have Smurf hangin out the sun roof to light up your hood, man
Cause Lethal ain't never seen Blaco comin'
But if he did .. you think he woulda started runnin?
And I move with the Doublemint Twins and two macs
And leave you flat your back
Take that
Más letras de canciones en letrita.com
[Tony Yayo]
I gotta half a mil deal with no diploma
Ice so blind it give your ass glaucoma
Its hard to live, but its easy to die
So I'm going through life lookin death in the eye
These rappers ain't gun slingers
They R&B singers
G-Unit, come thru with some guerilla niggas
Minimum wage ain't gonna pay the rent
Cause the seats in the coupe got the Fendi print
And this shit right here for the listeners pleasure
I'm still on the strip with the fifth and my ever
Its T-O-N-Y
Stay with a semi
Milk your crack spot - till the shit be bone dry
You think you pump hard? Nigga I pump harder
My phone ring so much, I walk around with the charger
When the D's come around, I'ma swallow my crack
Shit the work out later, and hit 'em with that
If it's a direct sale
I'ma change the bill
Tryin to push the new Range cause they changed the grille
Look nigga we icey thugs
We stay with them things so we stay with some Nike gloves
[Tony Yayo]
Just havin fun with this rap shit, man
It never stops
My man 50 done put out, what, three albums on the street?
And y'all ain't even hear the new shit
Just keep goin' and goin' and goin'
Motherfuckin' Duracell Battery
It never stops
Word up
Sha Money XL
Disfruta de las lyrics de 50 Cent Bump Dat Street Mix en letrita.com Letra Agregada por: Super Admin
Otras letras de canciones de 50 Cent:Many Men (Wish Death) 187 (Feat. Kartoon) 21 Answers 21 Questions 21 Questions (Debreca Remix) 24s 300 Shots 5 Heartbeats 5 Senses (Feat. Jeremih) 50 Bars
Otras letras de canciones de 50 Cent:Many Men (Wish Death) 187 (Feat. Kartoon) 21 Answers 21 Questions 21 Questions (Debreca Remix) 24s 300 Shots 5 Heartbeats 5 Senses (Feat. Jeremih) 50 Bars


text:
French graphic designers Julien Sens and Nicolas Damiens have transformed the handwriting of musicians David Bowie, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg into free-to-use typefaces.
Not surprisingly (but unfortunately!), they had to shut it down:
We've launched the SongwritersFonts project, a series of typefaces created from famous songwriters' handwritings, as a design project. The unique purpose of this was to inspire musicians and the next generation of songwriters to put their imagination at work. But, the unexpected success of this project went a bit too far… We have been contacted by intellectual property rights owners, and are sad to announce that we have to shut down this website because of legal issues. We're sorry to have to say goodbye.
TECHNOLOGY – Makes possibilities
DESIGN – Makes solutions
ART – Makes questions
LEADERSHIP – Makes actions
Above is grabbed from John Maeda TEDGlobal 2012 talk, titled How art, technology and design inform creative leaders.
An amazing interview with David Bowie from 1999 where he (among other things) talks about the impact of the digital transformation. I honestly think that his thoughts and perspective are still very progressive today — 18 years later.
View clip here: youtu.be/LaHcOs7mhfU
There are these kinds of guys that wanted to go home 5 o'clock and their interest in what you were doing doesn't exceed the normal demands of the day for them. And those guys never last. Because when you're trying to push the boundaries on things and when you're moving into different types of frontiers, you need to be surrounded by people who really believe in what you're doing.
Above quote is by Bruce Springsteen. It's his way of rationalising why they spend three weeks to get the drum sound he wanted for the song Born To Run.
I'm sure a lot of people find spending three weeks working on a drum sound for just one song a tad excessive — and maybe even deems Bruce as self-indulgent or obsessive.
I personally wish our work cultures cherished "slow work" higher and spend more time on nailing details than celebrating mediocre outcome that often comes with the illusion of speedy progress. Which, has nothing to do with working more hours/day, rather excepting that great things are difficult and requires time, resilience, patient and stamina.
Below is an extract from an interview with David Fincher.
I found it striking. In my profession — as a maker and shaper of digital experiences — I constantly need to balance and navigate ambiguity. Would have been all right if it was only my own relationship to it; but more often than not the challenge is to counter balance others discomfort that arise from it.
Designing an experience — especially those without obvious physical rewards such as a motion picture, music or digital services — is in many ways the art of: projecting oneself into the future; imagining an emotional response; go through the process of shaping this fantasy into a transmittable form; in the act of doing so learn, adjust and revise; and finally let it go for others to experience. As a friend of mine once said, "It's a long and arduous journey of contradiction and vagueness".
You can have all the best intentions but there are things you can't plan for or make technology do. You should really embrace this and design the experience in a way that people can fill in the blanks and make it their own.
There is a fallacy in how one design a motion picture experience. I think the fallacy is that it's a wind-tunnel tested, extremely technical, scientific experiment. That really isn't the case. There is a lot of technical knowledge and a lot of technical expertise that goes into making a film, but remember the ultimate takeaway of a film is emotional.
You just saw a dream and either it affected you or didn't. Louis B. Mayer once said: "the beauty of the movie business is that the only think that the buyer gets for their cost of emission is a memory." A memory is evocative, because they work on an emotional plane.
You can have all the best intentions. You can work backwards from an impeccable blue print to hopefully bring in an audience into this place where they go, "oh! I never imagine that was going to happen", or, "oh my god that's so funny" , or, "that's the saddest thing I've ever seen". You are working towards that; but they are going to have to meet you half way. That's the thing you can never plan on.
So when you're interfacing with a sound designer like Ren Klyce, an editor like Kirk Baxter or cinematographer like Jeff Cronenweth, you are not talking about people who are measuring things in terms of decibel, foot-candles or feet and frames — you are talking about people who are projecting themselves into an experience and imagining an emotional response.
If that's the intention, then the idea of saying, "OK, by 18 feet and 6 frames we need to have X" doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense to talk to Trent Reznor that way. You kind of have to say to him, "I hoping that this is where the other shoe drops", "I'm hoping that this is where people begin to go; ohhhh he's not such a good guy, he might actually be a murderer".
That's the discussion you're having with the people I'm lucky enough to work with; what do you want to feel; how do we bring people that we have never meet to the same place all at the same time; people from different places in their lives and different places in the world. […]
We are talking about taking people to a place where they get emotionally hit by the same technical presentation, and they feel the same thing in unison.
Hear the entire interview here:
"Cornell's Soundgarden were the first to achieve real fame, playing their first London gig in 1989, one year before Nirvana released their first album and Pearl Jam were even formed. Cornell captured the attention of the mainstream media, and the mainstream crowd, and was the first grunger to make workers' clothes look cool. Soon, big boots and flannel shirts, used to protect poor Seattle natives from the harsh climate, would become the trademark of a generation looking inward, not outward."
I'm a big fan of the Seattle music scene. It began in the 90′ with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden; who inspired me to learn how to play guitar and find a new depth to music. Living in Seattle and finding out that Chris Cornell passed away connected me with both gratefulness and sadness. Thank you Chris for being a pivot.
Above photo is of the Black Sun sculpture in Volunteer Park, Seattle, said to be the inspiration of the Soundgarden song Black Hole Sun.
An extremely interesting, relevant and dense presentation by Yaneer Bar-Yam on complex system: www.necsi.edu/events/vidlib/...
I personally believe what we (as in makers of digital systems and services) have a lot to learn from complex systems, chaos theory and dynamical systems (e.g solving problems for large living dynamic organisms); rather than traditional design practices and factory mentality (constructing objects).
Below quote from the presentation (the last 50 second of the video) for sure taps into how to conduct a quality driven and healthy design process to solve a problem:
"The question is: when we are working on any particular problem, we eventually will adopt a particular formalism for describing a particular set of equations; which will be diffraction equations, statistics, networks or something. How do we avoid that?
The answer is: because we have circumstances where the assumptions need not apply, we constantly have to challenge our assumption to understand what is the right representation for the problem and that ultimately is the key to getting the right answer. In the traditional view we simply always wrote down the same assumptions and we took them for granted. Now we have to make sure the assumptions hold and that will enable us to do the right thing."
If you've read Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman or Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (and if you haven't you should; great books), then you've been given countless of examples on how our brain function and that a repeating theme is that our brain is really eager to fill in the blanks.
This tendency can work for us and it can work against us. What I've also found is, by being presence and tuned into this phenomenon, it can also entertain. Mesmerise oneself over how… well stupid and irrational we truly are.
A simple way to test this is to watch the movie Arrival, featuring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker.
With our learned understanding of conventional story structure we create the assumption that the death of the main characters daughter came before the arrival and that the recollections of her daughter's birth, growth and death are from the past and not from the future.
The director Denis Villeneuve basically tricks us (by, among other things, showing warm tone memories leading us to assume they've flashbacks) and have us fill in the blanks.
What you don't understand you can make mean anything.
Nothing remotely ethereal or spiritual ever finds its way into his work. There's a reason, though: Nolan is a die-hard materialist. Underlying nearly every film he's ever made, no matter how fanciful, is his conviction that the universe can be explained entirely by physical processes. Any suggestion that our lives are shaped by forces we can't understand makes him break out in hives. […] Batman is likely the only superhero of any interest for him, precisely because Batman has no superpowers.
An excellent article: thedissolve.com/features/exp...
I've personally enjoyed most of the Nolan movies I've seen, such as: Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, The Prestige, Memento. Great movies.
And I even though the similarities between Interstellar and Inception [1] [2] [3] might imply a repetition of formula and lack innovation, I thought it's genius. Yes. I like Nolan.
Cities feel a lot less welcoming when you highlight the places pedestrians aren't supposed to go like this.
Via @mikefarrell
Although it looks like a traditional typeface, Dyslexie by Christian Boer is designed specifically for people with dyslexia – a neurological disorder that causes a disconnect between language and visual processing making it difficult for the brain to process text. […]
"When they're reading, people with dyslexia often unconsciously switch, rotate and mirror letters in their minds," said Boer, who is dyslexic himself. "Traditional typefaces make this worse, because they base some letter designs on others, inadvertently creating 'twin letters' for people with dyslexia." […]
For example in Swiss typeface Helvetica, the letter "n" is used upside down as a "u", "d" is a back to front "b", and "q" is a mirrored "p". […]
"By changing the shape of the characters so that each is distinctly unique, the letters will no longer match one another when rotated, flipped or mirrored," Boer said. "Bolder capitals and punctuation will ensure that users don't accidentally read into the beginning of the next sentence."
The examination to become a London cabby is possibly the most difficult test in the world — demanding years of study to memorize the labyrinthine city's 25,000 streets and any business or landmark on them. As GPS and Uber imperil this tradition, is there an argument for learning as an end in itself?
When asked in a 1972 interview what he'd like people to think about him when he's gone, Muhammad Ali gave his "recipe for life" as an answer:
I would like for them to say, he took a few cups of love. He took one tablespoon of patience, one tablespoon of generosity, one pint of kindness; he took one quart of laughter, one piece of concern, and then he mixed willingness with happiness. He added lots of faith, and he stirred it up well. Then he spread it and expanded it over a lifetime. And he served each and every deserving person he met.
Below is another quote, answering "How I would like to be remembered":
I would like to be remembered as a man who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked above him, and who helped as many people as he could. As a man who stood up for his beliefs no matter what. As a man who tried to unite all humankind through faith and love. If all that's too much, then I guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxer who became a leader and a champion of his people. I wouldn't mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.
The schools in this country are one of the biggest reasons we're all so screwed up. Our educational experience consists of three great lies. Lie number one is, It's better to say, 'I know' than to say, 'I don't know.' Lie number two: It's better to answer a question than ask a question. Lie three: It's better to worship at the foot of success than understand the nature of failure. Those three lies have screwed our society, and it's by overcoming one at a time–or two at a time or all three –that you can make some breakthroughs in your creative activities.
Richard Saul Wurman is an American architect and graphic designer. Wurman has written and designed at least 83 books, and created the TED conference, as well as the EG conference, TEDMED and the WWW suite of gatherings.
I've met many interface designers who assume that you should use icons in an interface. I ask, "Is this the best interface that can be designed, or is it spawned out of habit and convention?" Most designers just stumble along in the present paradigm, ignoring the decay underfoot.
Above is pulled from this article ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm... titled A Conversation With Jef Raskin.
Jef Raskin (March 9, 1943 – February 26, 2005) was an American human–computer interface expert best known for conceiving and starting the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s.
Above photo was found in a 1995 book of "useless" japanese inventions: the selfie stick. Via @_tessr
Don't ever compare your living, breathing beautifully imperfect, real-life human self to someone else's controlled online content.
via @NovenaCarmel
Sometimes as a designer you find yourself talking about snackbars and toasts in Lollipop and Marshmallow and you wonder where you went wrong.
via @dmierau
Via @magicsilicon
design has stayed stubbornly isolated – it hasn't undergone the same collaboration revolutions that software development and office productivity have gone through – it's remained, basically, single player
I haven't tried the real-time collaborating tool Figma yet, so I can't pass praise. However; it looks fabulous and they are tackling an area close to heart — collaboration.
It's 2016 and it amazes me how we (makers of digital services and experiences) are still stuck using methods and processes that circle around creating visual static artefacts — statically filming a theatre stage instead of making a cinema film.
I believe this isn't just down to designers and their choice of tools, it's also about business and organisational setup. As Nick Bostrom states in his brilliant book Superintelligence: "Bureaucratic deformations that warp organisational life—wasteful status games, mission creep, concealment or falsification of information, and other agency problems."
Playing on the same instrument at the same time might indeed be a good way to move towards a multiplayer setup, but along with that I reckon we should explore how we can inspire everyone to become a maker. Inject oxygen in basic moments of collaboration prior to implementation.
Empower the multidisciplinary team with tools of communication that has a low entry point and are more powerful, sophisticated and forgiving than a bullet of requirements, whiteboards, post-its and deck of slides.
IKEA makes it possible to affordably furnish an entire apt in one day. Some 'bad' experiences, eg. picking boxes, are key enablers.
Via @rjs
George Saunders in 2007 Via @tavitulle
Large co-operative structures are a haven for people with thought addiction.
A friend of mine was attending a leadership course. Above images is a slide from one of the presentations.
Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel prize in literature, the first songwriter to have ever done so. Some people believes this as a mistake and some think it's great.
The Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard is divided:
I'm very divided. I love that the novel committee opens up for other kinds of literature – lyrics and so on. I think that's brilliant. But knowing that Dylan is the same generation as Pynchon, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, makes it very difficult for me to accept it. I think one of those three should have had it, really. But if they get it next year, it will be fine.
While Dylan's songwriting peer and friend Leonard Cohen thinks its pointless:
To me is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.
If you look up the definition of literature, it states:
written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit
My personal opinion on this matter is: a) I think it's unfair to deem songwriting as "less worthy" due to the fact that it's primarily delivered in a shorter format, with music and melody, and, b) I like that the Nobel Committee for Literature isn't a stale entity and that it allow itself to evolve.
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York in the 1940s. I'm a big fan. Along with Cubism; my favourite movement.
Jackson Pollock is probably the most well known. My favourite is Mark Rothko (above). Absolutely love his work. If you ever get the chance to see it in person, do. It's in person his work should be experienced.
Given my appreciation for Abstract Expressionism, I was really pleased to find out about the current exhibition (titled Abstract Expressionism) organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London with the collaboration of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
In their words:
Exploring an unparalleled period in American art, this long-awaited exhibition reveals the full breadth of a movement that will forever be associated with the boundless creative energy of 1950s New York.
Besides Pollock and Rothko, I'm now also a fan of Arshile Gorky, Glyfford Still, William de Kooning and Ad Reinhardt.
The Black Paintings by Reinhardt (below) definitely struck a chord and caused both reflection and change of pace.
I had already seen Ragnars Kjartansson's exhibition at the Barbican once, but I went again to investigate both what and why I got so emotionally touched by it the first time. I also wanted to experience The Visitors — a 1h immersive and moving multichannel video installation — from start to finish.
As I read the exhibition text on the wall on my second visit; it struck me.
"With each work, he takes us on a journey, eliciting responses that range from excitement, sadness, and bemusement to boredom — a panoply of emotions that mirror the human condition."
I had a notion that our connection could be related to the fact that we both were born in the late 70s and raised in the 80s on the longitude of 64°. He Reykjavik (Iceland), me Skellefteå (Sweden).
Some would say a rather obvious connection. I mean — very obvious. Like: written-in-a-neon-sign-above-the-entrance-obvious. Below is a photograph of the entrance to the Barbican Center during the exhibition, a neon sign spelling 'Scandinavian Pain'…
But I wasn't satisfied with such a rational explanation as geography for my strong emotional experience.
Boredom. Rather than Scandinavia.
Boredom. Rather than pain.
See, I don't really related boredom to pain. Boredom, I cherish. It's something I enjoy. I actually schedule time in my calendar to be bored. I mean — I went a second time to experience a 60 minute video art peice; most people would find that boring; I find it energising.
Most of Ragnar's work tap into repetition, which many people associate with boredom.
– The Visitors (2012), a 1h long immersive and moving multi-channel video installation.
– Second Movement (2016), featuring two women in quintessential Edwardian costume rowing a boat and embracing in a never-ending kiss (took place on the Barbican Lakeside every Saturday and Sunday, between 1–4pm, weather permitted).
– Take Me Here by the Dishwasher: Memorial for a Marriage (2011), a live performance featuring ten troubadours singing for up to eight hours a day, every day for the duration of the exhibition.
– A Lot of Sorrow (2011), the band The National spending six hours repeatedly performing the same song Sorrow (www.alotofsorrow.com).
to give a few example.
I think my natural calmness and aptitude to autodidactism (self-learning), as well as my discomfort to immerse in external stimuli (such as social media or TV) is partly due to my romantic relationship to boredom.
My guess is that both Ragnar and I were trained in borerdom when we were young. We were taught the gentle art to appreciate boredom. Small cities, far north, pre-internet.
I'm very grateful that he (unlike myself) has not only developed a skill to share the beauty of boredom to a larger audience, but also dedicated his life to do so.
Thank you.
"We begin in admiration and end by organizing our disappointment."
— Gaston Bachelard
advertising has become the tax that poor and technologically illiterate people have to pay
— overheard
Whenever I make a new friend I force them to do the wordless chant at the end of "Dreams" by The Cranberries and then just go from there.
Too much of the design toolset is focused on creating isolated artifacts instead of supporting connected workflows. Design work needs to be better connected, and designers need more support for the half of their job that isn't drawing shapes, choosing typefaces, or prototyping interactions. The majority of a design job is orchestrating the team, ensuring visual consistency, updating stakeholders, documenting decisions, interpreting feedback, and delivering the work for implementation. When you look at it this way, it becomes clear. We don't need more visual tools. We need help managing our work and how design relates to the rest of the organisation.
We think there's a huge opportunity in creating a new kind of design tool, one that designs the other half of design.
If video games have taught me anything it's that this guy is selling rare items that I'll need later in my quest.
via @thepierrebear
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.
— Pablo Picasso
youtu.be/CvLQJReDhic is a superb video where Lewis Bond talks us through the gentle art of composition.
What amazed me is the parallels it made me draw to my own profession as a maker and shaper of digital experiences and services. I can even see the narrative work for business strategy — challenge fix mindset with growth.
For decades we have relied on the values and principles deriving from graphic design and brochures; or advertising and PR; and almost denying the true unique qualities that the digital medium provides us with, such as: dynamic content, interaction, continuous revising (to mention a few). In similar ways of how many organisational models and practices are still built and operating on a factory mentality.
Anyway. Food for thoughts.
Outtake from the video below.
Thanks Lewis.
Found via kottke.org/16/01/the-importa...
To compose an image, is to create an everlasting metaphor. Cinema in it's purest form is visual story telling, and the best cinema can tell a story through something as simple as the arrangement of an image: staging, framing, depth, balance; how do you present space?
Out of all the discipline that coincide under the umbrella of cinematography, I won't have much hesitation in saying that composition is the fields most fundamental principle.
Why do I think this? Because deciding the placement of subjects through the view-finder of a camera isn't merely a technical decision; it's an expressive one.
In a nutshell, composition is simply how the element inside the frame is position and exhibited to the viewer, it's the skill of knowing what to show and what not to show, as well as how to show it or how not to show it.
By intentionally directing the structure within a frame, you enhance the meaning of whatever is you want to say with whatever canvas you want to work with.
Most of the application of the composition revolves mainly around visual necessity—those checkboxes that needs to be ticket when arranging the visual elements of an image; is there enough lighting, does the staging block any important visual information. Case in point as to why composition is a necessary technical skill when constructing any image. Without it films would be a sensory of overload of information without stucture, but with it you gain focus.
However as an art, it shouldn't be approached exclusively with pragmatism, because it's just not where we place our subjects of interest; but why.
What can we say with composition.
They [excessful visual templates such as 'rule of third' and 'golden ratio'] are tried and tested formulas that makes an image pleasent to the eye, yet when the rules that define an area of study is practically ingrained in our minds; it can be very difficult to demonstrate versatility. Be that as it may, composition verity isn't the focus here; but what do these compositions say and what can you say when you go against this formula.
In the grand scheme of things: cinema is still a relatively new artform, and cinema took influence during it's infancy from the existing medium in order to undertand it's role in the artistic landscape.
Many early directors and filmmakers either directly hailed from theatre, or in the very least influence by the form. Yet the impact this had on composition could't be ignored. Because how different film was, composition didn't even occur to many filmmakers, instead; technic were imported directly from theatre.
Once filmmakers realised that cameras didn't need to be be locked down in one spot and once the technology that was propelling the artform improved; the imagination of filmmakers started to flourish. Where composition were once a last minute invitation of the convention setup of other mediums, now it was being championed by artist such as Fritz Lang and the german expressionist who became pioners of using composition for tonal leverage.
Every single shot in cinema uses composition, but those images that haunts us, astound us; they awoke such emotions, just not because they are beautiful, but because they carry meaning.
Composition can still be used to effect us on a psychological level; and thats how you should think when composing an image: what emotion can i display.
Create a sufficient structure to your image; make sure it's visually pleasing; find your focal element and use interesting visuals to highlight them; and everything you do from their should be an artistic venture to convey your message.
Every subtle change you make in positioning of your framing creates a new emotion — it creates a new piece of art — and all of this is achieve through composition is a skill that can images last for ever.
The objective is the simple thing of getting the best to the greatest number of people for the least.
— Charles and Ray Eames, 1950
That's right, your Uber request will be running straight to your doorstep on Saturday, along with some Nike gear to make sure you can suit up for your next run.
Enter code RUNNYC for your on-demand personal running session on Saturday, October, 31.
Whether you have 2 or 26.2 miles in your sights, as long as you have a goal, we'll bring you a guide. After all, everyone's a runner. So don't second guess yourself—just do it. And if your legs are tired afterwards, well, then you can just Uber it.
Lot's of lovely winners and finalists. Above photograph is captured by Sagi Kortler; winner in the Single Image category.
"Anyone can pop up and say they're a mindfulness teacher, so there is a lot of anxiety within the mindfulness community," said Madeleine Bunting, an adviser to the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness and a former Guardian journalist.
gu.com/p/4dyjn/stw is an interesting article, but the paradox of the quote above made me laugh.
In 1960, during the Rome Olympics, marathon runner Abebe Bikila broke the world and olympic record. He ran barefoot on 2:15:16.
After the race, when Bikila was asked why he had run barefoot, he replied;
I wanted the whole world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism.
I just stumble over this video https://youtu.be/EqJf-JoJUtk. It was actually retweeted by Foo Fighter.
The clip awaked some really really lovely memories. Memories of me, being in my teens, sitting alone in my room for hours and playing guitar alongside my heroes: Nirvana, Metallica, Guns & Roses, Rage Against the Machine, Perl Jam, Faith no More, Megadeth etc and so on — all those absolutely amazing guitar driven albums released during the first half of 90′ that I learned by heart.
In reality they were "with me" on the stereo, but in my mind I was always the extra band member alongside of them on stages around the world.
Imagination is a beautiful thing.
In 2012 I set out (and succeeded) to run 2012km in a year. Due to this endeavour I have a personal emotion connection to the feat to complete 2000km in a year.
I did it again last year.
Two days ago — 210 days into the current year — I ran my 165 run of the year and once again past the 2000km mark.
Perceptions is a moving target.
"Font," just as it always had, would refer to the physical tool used to reproduce a typeface, which in the new, digital environment, was a digital file consisting of a set of scalable, vector-drawn glyphs encoded so as to correspond with particular user input in the form of keystrokes. The definition of typeface was (and is) unchanged: it is the design itself, in abstract, which can still be reproduced in any number of ways. The font is the tool used to reproduce the typeface, and while the particulars of the terminology are a bit different with digital and analog methods, the essential distinction between the two terms remains the same. When you pick a font from MS Word's pulldown menu, you are selecting the file your computer will use to interpret and display your keystrokes. You are selecting the tool. The typeface exists outside of your computer as an intangible concept.
Brilliant answer by John Rushing on Quora. Read the entire answer here: qr.ae/7kGuPW
There needs to be a place where music can be treated less like digital bits and more like the art it is.
If I had to choose one ambassador; one person who would lead the way to realign our collective notion of what music can be, and doing so by putting more emphasis on the art form — it would be Trent Reznor.
Learning that Trent is a central part in shaping Apple Music gives me hope. I'm really excited to see if he gets the support, and has the stamina, to build a platform where everyone can experience his vision of the distribution between — and roles of — artist, business and fans.
Best of luck Trent.
Rich Hickey emphasizes simplicity's virtues over easiness', showing that while many choose easiness they may end up with complexity, and the better way is to choose easiness along the simplicity path.
I found Nicholas Felton's presented at Reaktor Design Day 2014 interesting on many different levels: his learnings, data, surveillance, privacy, design etc and so on. vimeo.com/109119931


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Pharmaceutical Quality Dextran 25 is available from Pharmacosmos as active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) as excipient for final formulation, drug product, for medical devices, for production of solutions for injection and infusion and much more.
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Pharmacosmos supplies Dextran 25 complying with The European Pharmacopoeia, except from molecular weight (only Dextran 1, 40, 60 and 70 are described in EP).
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*Dextran 25 complies with the European Pharmacopoeia, except from molecular weight. We also offer Dextran 5 based on USP or other specification. Please contact us for additional information on customization.
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Pharmacosmos sells and ships directly to clients everywhere in the World. We deliver Pharmaceutical Quality Dextran of the highest standards, including those of the European Pharmacopoeia (EP), the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), and the Japanese Pharmacopoeia (JP).


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Believe It Or Not
Paul Frehm was an American newspaper cartoonist who was mainly associated with King Features Syndicate. He was born in Brooklyn and attended the Pratt Institute. He began as an lay-out man and illustrator on The New York American and then transferred to The Mirror. With King Features Syndicate, he made illustrations for feature stories and trials, among others for the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby in 1932.
He was then art supervisor of commercial advertisements for King Features. He was probably the artist of the 'Life of Napoleon Bonaparte' newspaper strip written by Ida M. Tarbell, that ran from 30 May till 6 August 1927. Frehm briefly drew the 'Ted Towers Animal Master' strip in May 1936, but is best known as one of the lead artists on 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not' from 1949 to 1977. He had done fill-ins for Robert Ripley prior to this. He was succeeded by his brother Walter Frehm in 1977. Frehm also drew the final Sunday pages of the comic about sports hero 'Chip Collins' Adventures' until June 1935 for Central Press Association.
Chip Collins Adventures (15 June 1935)


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|A Pink is a South Korean girl group under A Cube Entertainment formed in 2011. The group consists of Park Cho-rong, Yoon Bomi, Jung Eun-ji, Son Na-eun, Kim Nam-joo and Oh Ha-young. Hong Yoo-kyung left the group in April 2013. The group has released three Korean EPs and one studio album. They debuted on April 21, 2011, with "Mollayo" from their debut EP Seven Springs of A Pink on Mnet's M! Countdown. The group has also won numerous rookies awards at shows such as the 26th Golden Disk Awards, 21st Seoul Music Awards, and 13th Mnet Asian Music Awards. Their first music program win was on M! Countdown on January 5, 2012, for "My My" from their second EP Snow Pink.
Awards by A Pink
|Check all the awards nominated and won by A Pink.


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Molly WAGSTER
Dr. Wagster oversees administration and development of research in cognitive and emotional change with age and in sensory and motor disorders of aging. She directly manages a portfolio of research in mechanisms of cognitive (memory, learning, attention, language) and affective (emotion) change with age that spans research from molecules to behavior. She serves as the NIH Project Officer for the development of the NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function (contract supported by the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research) and directs the trans-NIH Cognitive and Emotional Health Project.
Dr. Wagster came to the NIA from the Department of Pathology, Division of Neuropathology, at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. For more than a decade, Dr. Wagster investigated neural mechanisms of learning and memory changes with age in animal models and studied changes in neuroreceptor mechanisms in relation to cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. Her research interests centered on individual differences with age in cognitive domains. Dr. Wagster held a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology at The Johns Hopkins University, where she taught both Psychopharmacology and the Biological Basis of Learning and Memory and was a lecturer in the team-taught course Psychology of Aging.
Dr. Wagster received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Experimental Psychology (Behavioral Neuroscience) from Tulane University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuropathology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Research Interests/Portfolio
- cognitive and emotional change with age
- sensory and motor disorders of aging


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Blogger Buzz
Blogger Buzz is a user-friendly, feature-rich simple and clean, modern, stylish and beautiful fully customizable responsive free WordPress blog theme, Blogger Buzz theme can be fully utilized to develop awesome and modern websites for bloggers or related other business like fashion bloggers, lifestyle blogging, travel bloggers, personal blogging, music band & singers, photographers, writers, fashion designer, interior designers, wedding, eCommerce and many more bloggers people. Blogger Buzz free WordPress Blog theme is one of the most accessible themes which can easily accommodate all type of users with no coding skills normal to advanced WordPress developers. Blogger Buzz is completely built on Customizer options panel which allows you to customize theme settings easily with live previews interface. Blogger Buzz free WordPress Blog theme includes excellent features like ( Banner Post Slider, Display Features Posts, with 6 different posts display layout for ( index, category ) page also include one-click sample demo data import options with page and posts layout settings(Left, Right, Full Width), etc. which help to develop a simple, clean and modern website. Blogger Buzz free WordPress Blog theme is fully responsive, cross-browser compatible, translation ready, SEO friendly theme, also compatible with different external plugins like (WooCommerce, Jetpack, Contact Form 7, elementor page builder) and many more. If you face any problem related to our theme, you can refer to our theme documentation or contact our friendly support team. Check demo at http://demo.sparklewpthemes.com/bloggerbuzz/ and theme details at https://sparklewpthemes.com/wordpress-themes/bloggerbuzz and get free support forum at https://sparklewpthemes.com/support/
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Erskine Ramsay Hawkins (July 26, 1914 – November 11, 1993) was an American trumpet player and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is most remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" (1939) with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson. The song became a popular hit during World War II, rising to #7 nationally (version by the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra) and to #1 nationally (version by the Glenn Miller Orchestra). Vocalists who were featured with Erskine's orchestra include Ida James, Delores Brown and Della Reese. Hawkins was named after Alabama industrialist Erskine Ramsay.
Erskine Hawkins was named by his parents after Alabama industrialist Erskine Ramsay who was rewarding parents with savings accounts for them for doing so. Hawkins attended Councill Elementary School and Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School) in Birmingham, Alabama. At Industrial High School, he played in the band directed by Fess Whatley, a teacher who trained numerous African-American musicians, many of whom populated the bands of famed band leaders such as Duke Ellington, Lucky Millinder, Louis Armstrong and Skitch Henderson (of the NBC Orchestra.)
Hawkins was trumpeter and band leader in the lobby bar and show nightclub at The Concord Resort Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, New York. from 1967 to 1989. Hawkins died in Willingboro, New Jersey in November 1993, at the age of 79.


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Ramy Fischler
Ramy Fischler is a Belgian contemporary designer living and working in Paris.
He graduated from the École nationale supérieure de création industrielle in 2004. Between 2001 and 2010, he collaborated with Patrick Jouin. « Lauréat de l'Académie de France à Rome » in 2010-2011, he is a « pensionnaire de la Villa Médicis », where he considered, in situ, the welcome accorded to visitors and artists within the site, and developed a particular interest in the history of furniture and its association with power.
Ramy Fischler then founded RF Studio in Paris, where he designs furniture and objects and creates spaces for work, culture, commerce or living. He has been joined by around ten colleagues over the years. From 2013, his agency has collaborated with personalities as varied as the chef Thierry Marx, the restaurateur Oliver Peyton, the director Cyril Teste or even the composer Jesper Nordin. Since February 2017, he has also had responsibility for the architectural design of the Chanel fashion house's fragrance & beauty, watches & fine jewellery strands. He was named « créateur 2018 » by the Maison & Objet fair.


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THE next important historical epoch which demands our attention is that connected with what, in sacred history, is known as the dispersion at Babel. The brightness of truth, as it had been communicated by Noah, became covered, as it were, with a cloud. The dogmas of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul were lost sight of, and the first deviation from the true worship occurred in the establishment of Sabianism, or the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, among some peoples, and the deification of men among others. Of these two deviations, Sabianism, or sun-worship, was both the earlier and the more generally diffused. *) "It seems," says the learned Owen, "to have
*) A recent writer thus eloquently refers to the universality, in ancient times, of sun-worship: "Sabaism, the worship of light, prevailed amongst all the leading nations of the early world. By the rivers of India, on the mountains of Persia, in the plains of Assyria, early mankind thus adored, the higher spirits in each country rising in spiritual thought from the solar orb up to Him whose vicegerent it seems - to the Sun of all being, whose divine light irradiates and purifies the world of soul, as the solar radiance does the world of sense. Egypt, too, though its faith be but dimly
had its rise from some broken traditions conveyed by the patriarchs touching the dominion of the sun by day and of the moon by night." The mode in which this old system has been modified and spiritually symbolized by Freemasonry will be the subject of future consideration.
But Sabianismn, while it was the most ancient of the religious corruptions, was, I have said, also the most generally diffused; and hence, even among nations which afterwards adopted the polytheistic creed of deified men and factitious gods, this ancient sun-worship is seen to be continually exerting its influences. Thus, among the Greeks, the most refined people that cultivated heroworship, Hercules was the sun, and the mythologic fable of his destroying with his arrows the many-headed hydra of the Lernaean marshes was but an allegory to denote the dissipation of paludal malaria by the purifying rays of the orb of day. Among the Egyptians, too, the chief deity, Osiris, was but another name for the sun,
known to us, joined in this worship; Syria raised her grand temples to the sun; the joyous Greeks sported with the thought while feeling it, almost hiding it under the mythic individuality which their lively fancy superimposed upon it. Even prosaic China makes offerings to the yellow orb of day; the wandering Celts and Teutons held feasts to it, amidst the primeval forests of Northern Europe; and, with a savagery characteristic of the American aborigines, the sun temples of Mexico streamed with human blood in honor of the beneficent orb." - The Castes and Creeds of India, Blackw. Mag., vol. lxxxi. p. 317. - "There is no people whose religion is known to us," says the Abbé Banier, "neither in our own continent nor in that of America, that has not paid the sun a religious worship, if we except some inhabitants of the torrid zone, who are continually cursing the sun for scorching them with his beams." - Mythology, lib. iii. ch. iii.- Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, undertakes to prove that all the gods of Paganism may be reduced to the sun.
while his arch-enemiy and destroyer, Typhon, was the typification of night, or darkness. And lastly, among the Hindus, the three manifestations of their supreme deity, Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu, were symbols of the rising, meridian, and setting sun.
This early and very general prevalence of the sentiment of sun-worship is worthy of especial attention on account of the influence that it exercised over the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, of which I am soon to speak, and which is still felt, although modified and Christianized in our modern system. Many, indeed nearly all, of the masonic symbols of the present day can only be thoroughly comprehended and properly appreciated by this reference to sun-worship.
This divine truth, then, of the existence of one Supreme God, the Grand Architect of the Universe, symbolized in Freemasonry as the TRUE WORD, was lost to the Sabians and to the polytheists who arose after the dispersion at Babel, and with it also disappeared the doctrine of a future life; and hence, in one portion of the masonic ritual, in allusion to this historic fact, we speak of "the lofty tower of Babel, where language was confounded and Masonry lost."
There were, however, some of the builders on the plain of Shinar who preserved these great religious and masonic doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul in their pristine purity. These were the patriarchs, in whose venerable line they continued to be taught. Hence, years after the dispersion of the nations at Babel, the world presented two great religious sects, passing onward down the stream of time, side by side,
yet as diverse from each other as light from darkness, and truth from falsehood.
One of these lines of religious thought and sentiment was the idolatrous and pagan world. With it all masonic doctrine, at least in its purity, was extinct, although there mingled with it, and at times to some extent influenced it, an offshoot from the other line, to which attention will be soon directed.
The second of these lines consisted, as has already been said, of the patriarchs and priests, who preserved in all their purity the two great masonic doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul.
This line embraced, then, what, in the language of recent masonic writers, has been designated as the Primitive Freemasonry of Antiquity.
Now, it is by no means intended to advance any such gratuitous and untenable theory as that proposed by some imaginative writers, that the Freemasonry of the patriarchs was in its organization, its ritual, or its symbolism, like the system which now exists. We know not, indeed, that it had a ritual, or even a symbolism. I am inclined to think that it was made up of abstract propositions, derived from antediluvian traditions. Dr. Oliver thinks it probable that there were a few symbols among these Primitive and Pure Freemasous, and he enumerates among them the serpent, the triangle, and the point within a circle; but I can find no authority for the supposition, nor do I think it fair to claim for the order more than it is fairly entitled to, nor more than it can be fairly proved to possess. When Anderson calls Moses a Grand Master, Joshua his Deputy, and Aholiab and Bezaleel
Grand Wardens, the expression is to be looked upon simply as a façon de parler, a mode of speech entirely figurative in its character, and by no means intended to convey the idea which is entertained in respect to officers of that character in the present system. It would, undoubtedly, however, have been better that such language shlould not have been used.
All that can be claimned for the system of Primitive Freemasonry, as practised by the patriarchs, is, that it embraced and taught the two great dogmas of Freemasonry, namely, the unity of God, and the immortality of the soul. It may be, and indeed it is highly probable, that there was a secret doctrine, and that this doctrine was not indiscriminately communicated. We know that Moses, who was necessarily the recipient of the knowledge of his predecessors, did not publicly teach the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But there was among the Jews an oral or secret law which was never committed to writing until after the captivity; and this law, I suppose, may have contained the recognition of those dogmas of the Primitive Freemasonry.
Briefly, then, this system of Primitive Freemasonry, - without ritual or symbolism, that has come down to us, at least, - consisting solely of traditionary legends, teaching only the two great truths already alluded to, and being wholly speculative in its character, without the slightest infusion of an operative element, was regularly transmitted through the Jewish line of patriarchs, priests, and kings, without alteration, increase, or diminution, to the time of Solomon, and the building of the temple at Jerusalem.
Leaving it, then, to pursue this even course of descent,
let us refer once more to that other line of religious history, the one passing through the idolatrous and polytheistic nations of antiquity, and trace from it the regular rise and progress of another division of the masonic institution, which, by way of distinction, has been called the Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity.


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FL CDL Double/Triple Trailers Practice Test 2023
What to expect on the actual FL CDL exam
- 20questions
- 16correct answers to pass
- 80%passing score
Taking your FL CDL Double/Triple Trailers endorsement can be unpleasant. Take some of the stress out of the equation by taking the Florida CDL D/T Trailers practice test. This 20-question practice test closely resembles the official test so you are able to build up your confidence before the day of the real thing. Then, when you finally walk into the DMV, you'll be ready to take your endorsement test with ease, knowing that you're ready to get all of the answers correct.
Getting to Know the Practice Test
If you've never taken a CDL practice test before, you might not be sure what to expect. First, it's critical to understand that the questions from the test are taken directly from the 2023 Florida state CDL manual. That means that each question is specific to your state, just like the ones you'll find on the official exam. When you take the actual test at the DMV, you'll realize that the questions are very similar to the ones that were here on the practice test. They might be worded slightly differently, but they will contain the same information. That is why this practice test is such a useful tool.
Make Sure You're Ready
When test day comes, some people head straight to the DMV. It's a good idea to take your practice test once more to make sure you're prepared. Those questions will refresh your memory. As you go through the questions, you might realize that you aren't quite as knowledgeable on a particular subject. Then, you need to take out your CDL manual and study that subject before you head out to take your test. Then, when you finally walk through those doors, you will be ready to tackle anything that comes your way. No one will stop you from walking back out the doors with your CDL Double/Triple Trailers endorsement!
If you want to be successful the very first time you take your FL CDL Double/Triple Trailers exam, a practice test is the key. With the help of a practice test, you won't have any trouble making it through the questions in the authorized test. Good luck with your endorsement!
More FL CDL Double/Triple Trailers Exam ResourcesComplete all 101 questions
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FL CDL Handbook
View the most recent (2023) official FL CDL Handbook.Explore


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Leiden, The Netherlands
The first Pilgrims of the first American Thanksgiving in 1621 were unusually devout – even by Puritan standards. They crossed the ocean on a conviction that "the Lord has more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word," as pastor John Robinson said before they sailed from the Netherlands.
Yet the Pilgrim band that braved the Mayflower and shared deer and turkey with native Americans were also some of the most cosmopolitan and tolerant among the Puritan groups willing to brave the wilds of a new world.
Before going to Plymouth, the Mayflower group lived 11 years in the Dutch city of Leiden. Those years of exile in Leiden, where the Pilgrims worked, worshipped, and debated – amid hefty clashes of civilizations and belief in Europe – profoundly influenced their sensibilities in ways that have not been widely recognized.
The Pilgrims – unlike British Puritans who wanted to turn Massachusetts into a theocracy – sharply advocated church-state separation. They heretically believed that women should be allowed to speak in church. They were far more tolerant of other faiths and open to the idea that their theology, like all human dogma, might contain errors.
Pilgrim experiences "in the cosmopolitan Netherlands are a reason they are less rigid or dogmatic in their views about what people must and must not do," argues Jeremy Bangs, curator of the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden and author of "Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation," a 900-page reappraisal published this year on the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims' arrival in Leiden.
"The pilgrims didn't have witchcraft hysteria, they didn't kill Quakers. These are big differences!" notes Mr. Bangs, a former curator of Plimoth Plantation whose work draws heavily from untapped Dutch and New England archives. "Pilgrim leaders were less prone to persecute…. The possibility that others may be right and they may be wrong is something influenced by their time living in an extraordinary community of other exiles in Holland."
Living Among Other Castouts
In Leiden, the Pilgrims lived packed in a warren of houses near the university, amid Gypsies and Jews, refugee French and Poles, exiled Swiss, and other castouts from the turmoil of the Reformation. They were given sanctuary as one of some 19 groups. Eager to explain why they left England, the Pilgrims ran a free press around the corner from where the painter Rembrandt was living.
The first Pilgrim Thanksgiving likely derives from scripture in Leviticus and Deuteronomy 16 in the Geneva Bible used by Puritans. (The text requests that all within the borders of the community be invited – which Bangs says explains the presence of the native American Indians.)
But the Pilgrim Thanksgiving is also nearly identical to an Oct. 3 Dutch Protestant "thanksgiving." The day, the start of three days of sermons, games, militia exercises, and feasting, celebrated the end of the 1574 Spanish Catholic siege of Leiden, when half the city starved. (It is still commemorated.)
Few Religious Groups More Historically Maligned
Thanksgiving may offer an annual moment to reflect on Pilgrims and Puritans, who migrated to America on the grounds that the Church of England was beyond reform. On the eve of their departure from Leiden, Mr. Robinson, the pastor, says in a sermon remembered by pilgrim Edward Winslow that it is time to move past the Reformation. Lutherans will only go so far as Luther, and the Calvinists only so far as Calvin. In the present hour, Robinson says, it is possible to "embrace further light."
This was part of what noted Puritan scholar Perry Miller called the Puritan "errand in the wilderness."
But church historians have complained for decades that few religious groups are more historically maligned and misunderstood than Puritans.
They are ignored as unimportant precursors to the American Revolution: So stripped of their religious nature had US history books made the Pilgrims that one standard text in the 1980s had only one line on them, infamously calling them "people who take long trips."
The Pilgrim-Puritans are also slandered as zealots, the taproot of all America's psychic repressions, phobias, guilt, and drive. Historian Edmund Morgan complained that Puritans were depicted as severe figures whose "only contribution to American culture is their furniture."
The religious essayist and novelist Marilynne Robinson calls the popular hostility "A great example of our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged…"
Politically Correct Pilgrims
Ironically, one place where the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving have become a model of secular political correctness and revisionism is Plimoth Plantation. The instructional materials for schoolchildren, and for teachers, strip the Puritans of most of their own deeply expressed religious motivations, found in all their written and oral expressions. The plantation's website encourages use of primary materials – then offers few to cull from.
Among the materials on the website, which Bangs's raising of primary texts hopes to reverse: That the Pilgrims were English colonists not migrating on primarily religious grounds. That Thanksgiving is a secular "English harvest festival," not a religious event, giving it the patina of an agricultural or pagan ritual. That Pilgrims did not call themselves Pilgrims. That there is no evidence that Thanksgiving included turkey.
As Bangs and many other Puritan scholars note, it is impossible to conceive the mind and the soul of the Puritan as something other than biblical and religious. The Puritan model was to constantly examine the world and oneself in immediate terms of righteousness and sin. The Puritan mind was a blend of intense reason and piety; church was a place where God's word dwelt among the gathered, who were equal in His eyes.
"The Pilgrims call themselves Pilgrims, and they see life on earth as a temporary stop on the way to heaven," Bangs notes in an interview. "You can't talk about Thanksgiving as something secular. They don't think in those terms. So the Pilgrims are experimenting. They will not draw from Anglican or Roman Catholic tradition. They aren't doing the English harvest festival, but a religiously formed appropriate day, using Deuteronomy and the 3rd of October in Leiden."
On a less profound note, William Bradford writes about "a great store of wild Turkeys" captured in the weeks around Thanksgiving, and Edward Winslow writes about "wild fowl" that was used on Thanksgiving Day.
Bangs's reappraisal is part of his effort to reverse an older take, by scholar George Willison, that the Mayflower group was divided between "saints" and "strangers" – the Puritans and the secular voyagers – which Mr. Willison says creates an epic and profound division. Bangs argues the division is illusory and exists mostly in Willison's analysis, done in the 1940s, and without enough primary research.
Bangs, who once published the entire colonial archives of the city of Scituate, Mass., notes that Willison has Miles Standish, the militia leader of the Pilgrims, as a primary "stranger" or secular individual – but that he is later shown to be a member of the Leiden church. Of the 102 Mayflower voyagers, in any event, 80 were from Leiden, and the others were mostly faithful, Bangs says.
"For years scholarship assumed rigid disagreements on the Mayflower … that is solved by the Mayflower Compact. But in fact, the debates among the Pilgrims change and mutate not along church hierarchical lines of authority, but are issue specific," Bangs says. "The debates value a tradition that emphasizes the individual need to bring biblically inspired critique to bear on the issues of the day. Church elders, lay people, ministers, and others have different opinions about different issues – not only on doctrine, but also on the practice of the Scripture."
Briefly, we wanted to update you on where Truthout stands this month.
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Introduction: This is the second part of my series on the 30 foot height limit. This would have been published earlier except for a medical issue, so I offer my apology.
At the risk of encouraging the critics of the height limit by continuing the discussion of the effects and value of the 1972 citizens' initiative, this is meant then to demonstrate to those same critics the tunnels that have already been dug in and around and under the 30 foot standard, as well as informing the fairly new generations of citizenry and those uninitiated observers of San Diego development.
In Part One, I discussed how some of these tunnels have been dug underneath the height limit on San Diego's coastal areas over the decades, outlining several serious breaches of the seemingly sacrosanct restrictions on building heights. Feeling that the ongoing online discussion on the issue with Voice of San Diego (see part 1) wasn't complete without some kind of acknowledgement of how tunnels have already been dug under the 30 foot limit.
Here is what I wrote in Part One regarding the exceptions made over the decades:
The very first exception made was downtown San Diego – which included parts of Little Italy – this was implicit in the ballot proposition itself. Today, of course, this is a very, very BEEG deal. In 1972 the San Diego skyline was very different. All one has to do is check out the harbor downtown to see how this exception worked out.
There have been other exceptions since the early Seventies vote. These include exemptions for SeaWorld, the Mission Brewery, the San Ysidro Gateway to the Americas – all specific pieces of property -, and the judicially-caused exemption for Liberty Station (aka NTC). Other places must have been grand-parented – such as UCSD – which has been building towering edifices for decades.
These exemptions were examined to remind critics of the 30 foot height limit – who blame high rents and property values at the beach and congestion inland on the restriction that applies just to the coastal areas – that indeed the limit has been undermined numerous times over the years, and that it is not treated with the respect it is due.
The SeaWorld and Liberty Station exemptions stand out as particularly egregious slaps in the face of the voters who overwhelmingly approved the people's measure 41 years ago, called Prop D, which was upheld by the California Supreme Court.
Let us move on.
Grades and Measurements
No discussion of the 30 foot height limit is near complete without discussing ways that individual developers and builders and the City of San Diego itself have gotten around the height restrictions.
Once the 30 foot height limit was accepted and exercised for the coastal zone of San Diego by the mid-Seventies, it didn't take long for developers and bureaucrats to find ways to circumvent its strict requirements.
Two of the primary ways to get away with actually constructing a building higher than 30 feet was or is to jiggle with how and where you do the measurement, and importantly, which grade do you measure from, the "original" grade or the "finished" grade. For some, the measurement was an "average" height, for others you took the measurement from the low point on the property.
These factors have been repeatedly pointed out by some of those involved in the recent online debates over the 30 foot limit, and who have been involved in the issue historically. We'll look at some of these comments.
Dave Little, in a Letter in the Peninsula Beacon back in 2010, a trustee of the La Jolla Community Planning Association, and a strong and consistent defender of the 30 foot height limit has offered these insights:
Have you ever stood in front of a building in the Coastal Zone where the 30-foot height restriction is supposed to apply and thought the building you were looking at had to be higher than 30 feet? Chances are it was.
Developers began interpreting the word "grade" in the original language of Proposition D, the 30-foot high building limit for the coast, as the finished grade, not the existing grade. That meant the developer could pile up dirt and raise the height of the building to pretty much any level he or she desired — that is, 32, 34, 37, feet.
And this is true – to a great extent. For years, the City used the measurement to the "finished" grade, and not the "original" or pre-existing grade. And where that measurement is taken has changed over the years as well. City staff, developers, and planning committee members have all had different interpretations of Prop D. So, there's been confusion as these different interpretations have battled one another over the years. The City finally stepped in and took control of how building height measurements are taken in the coastal areas under the rule of the 30 foot height limit.
Prop D itself – its language – has not helped the confusion. When it passed overwhelmingly in 1972, voters decided to enact all of it, and it defined how the 30 foot measurement would be taken:
"The base of measurement of the height shall be in accordance with the Uniform Building Code of 1970."
In 1970, the Uniform Building Code spoke of building heights in terms of measuring the height from the highest point of the structure to the base which is the "finished grade". This slip of the Prop D organizers was probably not a mistake, just an oversight of the development years down the road of what they worked for …. and in the end, the ordinance itself allowed developers to pile on dirt on the l0t before taking the measurement.
This manner of measurement – to the "finished grade" or surface – is affirmed by a City of San Diego Planning and Development Review Newsletter published in July 1999, specifically on "Determination of Building Height", which states:
"… the base of measurement shall be in accordance with the 1970 Uniform Building Code …."
Using the finished grade for measuring the 30 feet is also affirmed by this 2006 Memo from Michael Aguirre, then City Attorney. The memo states:
The proper method of measurement, per Proposition D, is in accordance with the Uniform Building Code of 1970. This office has previously opined that for the purposes of complying with Proposition D, measurements should be from the finished grade of a site, rather than the pre-existing grade.
To the City's credit, it recognized problems in taking the height measurements using the finished grade, particularly for buildings on slopes, and certainly the coastal zone and all its canyons, cliffs, hills, and bluffs – provides many slopes and views to build on and for. The city realized that this was not the intention of the voters when they overwhelming passed Prop D, the 30-foot high building limit for the coast.
So, it changed the method of measurement and changed it to using the existing grade or proposed grade which ever is lower. The City did this by supplementing the language of the original Prop D so as to force developers to meet the voters' intent. The current supplemented code forces the developer to measure 30 feet from the finished grade or the existing grade — whichever is lower.
In order to flesh out the discussion, I emailed a number of past and current members and chairs of a few planning committees in the area, including the OB Planning Board and the Peninsula Planning Committee, asking if anyone had experienced or seen projects where they believed the developer was jiggling the grade and or the measurement. These are folks who by sitting on the planning bodies have dealt with the realities of the efforts to circumvent the height limit, and are not only aware of the issue on a theoretical basis in front of their keyboards, but in the day-to-day world of construction and remodels. A number responded and responded in the affirmative, that 'yes' they had experienced examples of where developers got around the 30 foot height limit.
When I asked different planners here in the Peninsula, if they had seen projects where the City allowed the developer / owner to build using the "finished" grade, and measuring the 30 feet from there, one former chair of the Peninsula committee responded:
Yes. absolutely. completely changing their 'original' definition.
Since 1999 increasing the grade has been a repeatedly debated issue in all parts of our Peninsula community. The use of "ways of measuring the grade" which was once 'clearly defined,' also seems to have changed, several times since I've been involved on the planning committees.
In addition, a former planning committee chair told me, that a project on the corner of Plum and Lowell in Point Loma had "shenanigans of this nature", in that the grade was built up and the measurement wasn't taken from the original grade. The planner recalls the builder getting caught because a nearby neighbor got involved and made it an issue, and it was changed.
Another planner recalls a project on Lucinda Street where the architect was caught changing the elevations on a series of plans, all violations of the 30 foot height limit.
Ocean Beach planners have been grappling with developers throwing up new construction or remodels on bluffs or on the western slopes of Point Loma, especially where the bluffs are much higher than the streets, like on Pescadero and Coronado Avenues. One long-time OB planner told me that the Board wanted to use the street elevation as the base measurement point. But the developers wanted to measure the 30 feet from the "natural" elevation, even if on a bluff. The result is striking – huge mansions soaring over the streets, sometimes 40 feet or more below. She said:
People have definitely taken advantage of bluff elevation.
A Point Loma planner wrote me and said:
The problem with measuring the height on a slope has to do with the necessary surveys that are supposed to take place. … What the City requires regarding a survey from an owner is not enforced and without a proper survey, before the design is done, the grade can be adjusted higher. Unless a knowledgeable neighbor notices what is going on, they get away with it.
This raises another wrinkle in the enforcement of the 30 foot height limit: inadequate City staff. As one former planning chair said:
We have heard from City Staff, that the City's "pre-building inspectors do not check anything more than the drawings" as they have in the past for compliance before permits are issued! Most times, they haven't even 'looked at on site, the slopes in contention! This is the problem.
Another former chair agrees about the City not checking actual conditions on a property. He'd been involved with helping a property owner who had a neighbor who applied to the City "to rebuild a termite infested garage" on a zero lot line. The City approved the neighbor's project of rebuilding the garage. Problem was – there hadn't been a garage there for 20 years; the city just didn't check it out. His story continues:
When we contacted the City, they said … they do not have the staff to check existing conditions on a property and have to take the owners word that the information on the plan application is correct.
The only way they will know anything different is if someone from the community alerts them. The problem in this case was that we did alert them and it fell on deaf ears, which is not at all unusual.
This community planning leader also stated:
The problem with measuring the height on a slope has to do with the necessary surveys that are supposed to take place. This was what I discovered on Lucinda. What the City requires regarding a survey from an owner is not enforced and without a proper survey, before the design is done, the grade can be adjusted higher. Unless a knowledgeable neighbor notices what is going on, they get away with it.
Two former chairs also complained to me about how some local architects and developers "who can't seem to ever 'stay within the rules', always pushing for more …."
One planner said:
One wonders why so many other architects are fine and work 'within the rules', yet so many 'consider themselves special' asking for far more than a 'minor variance' and keep 'coming back' for variances with additional projects, requiring similar 'grade level variations'. It's not as if they 'don't know' the rules, then, is it?
Another admitted:
There are a number of architects who work in the Pt. Loma area who are expert at helping developers circumvent the laws.
One time-honored path for getting around community building requirements is for developers and owners to request "variances" for their projects and remodels. In Ocean Beach, for example, the City staff have been granting variances to some property owners that allow them to get around OB's blueprint for community development, the OB Precise Plan. It's gotten so bad in OB that the Planning Board has called for a "Moratorium" on variances in one area of northwest OB particularly stressed with pressures of gentrification. The Board has been inundated with requests for variances.
Although construction applicants have not often used this method to tunnel under the 30 foot height limit, it does happen. Dave Little from La Jolla has examined this issue in a December 2010 post at VOSD entitled No Variances on the Thirty-Foot Height Limit:
… The Bishop's School in La Jolla wants an exemption from Proposition D and its supplementary code to build a 32-foot building. They want to revert to measuring from the finished grade.
If this exemption to the current code is allowed by way of the "variance" process, it will set a precedent for the Coastal Zone, and developers will happily revert back to measuring from the finished grade and again build 32, 35, 39-foot buildings.
If this variance is granted, similar variances cannot be denied to other developers. As time progresses, your peek-a-boo view will disappear, the winter shadow of the adjacent building will come further over your property and the wall of condos along the beach will grow a few feet higher as more variances are granted.
The La Jolla Community Planning Association (LJCPA) recommended the denial of this project, and the San Diego Hearing Officer approved it.
This demonstrates how local planning committees, made up of volunteers, whose members change with the seasons, have been buffeted with demands and pressures from developers, who can afford to hire professional staff to do their planning, PR, and presentations.
There is no question that planning boards and committees are at times manipulated by developers with financial interests at stake in whether certain projects are approved and built. Developers have placed friends and relatives on some of these boards. This can happen when community members ignore their own planning bodies or are ignorant of the planning issues of their particular neighborhood.
Another complaint from Peninsula planning leaders is about city staff themselves. One chair wrote me:
After many experiences with the City, I can say that they will do anything within their power to allow a development despite any information they receive. If you ever watched the process before the Planning Commission or City Council, City Staff always sounds like they are working for the developer instead of providing an objective report. The language they use is completely unprofessional as they praise projects.
Today, the original Prop D is codified in the San Diego Municipal Code at section 132.0505 and the section has been amended numerous times. Its pertinent language goes:
(a) Notwithstanding any section to the contrary, no building or addition to a building shall be constructed with a height in excess of thirty feet within the Coastal Zone of the City of San Diego.
And even though the statute says that "the base of measurement of the height shall be in accordance with the Uniform Building Code of 1970," which as stated earlier, takes the measurement from the "finished grade", another statute corrects this. Section 113.0270 of the Municipal Code states "grade" is either the existing or proposed grade, which ever is lower.
Assaults on the Height Limit
Newly-elected Congressman Scott Peters warned us five years ago, back when he was on the Port Commission:
Every few years, community activists warn of an assault on the 30-foot height limit. Proposition D remains as strong as when it was approved by voters, regardless of disputes over how the 30 feet is calculated; community plan updates which critics contend will weaken the height limit; amendments to planned district ordinances; or the new state-mandated affordable density bonus.
A former chair of the OB Planning Board said:
I want to take all the criticism of the 30 foot height limit, drive a stake right through its heart and bury it deep.
Despite all the troubles caused by confusion, frustration and down-right hatred of the 30 foot height limit, it has survived all these years. Recently, the OB Rag ran a poll about attitudes on the 30 foot limit and found that 3 out of 4 respondents supported it:
In a recent OB Rag poll, nearly three out of 4 respondents indicated their support for the thirty foot height limit – with a good portion wanting to see the limit extend throughout the City of San Diego.
58% supported it and agreed that it was "passed in the public interest by the public"; another 15% want to see it "expanded throughout much of the rest of" San Diego, and obviously support it, for a supportive total of nearly 73%.
How the City Takes Building Height Measurements
So as to dispel all confusion, the City a year and half ago, outlined the procedures for taking building heights in the coastal zones. Staff prepared a slide presentation for the Land Use & Housing Committee in September 14, 2011. Here is the outline:
From City of San Diego Presentation on Height Limits
City of San Diego Height Regulations
Height Regulations
* Zoning: Structure height must comply with base zone height limit (citywide requirement)
– Base zone height limit varies (24 ft to unlimited)
* Prop D: A voter approved height limit (30 ft) that applies to coastal development in geographic are generally west of Interstate 5.
– Coastal Height Limit Overlay Zone
* Most restrictive height limit applies
Prop D Coastal Height Limit
* Local initiative passed by the voters of the City of San Diego (effective December 7, 1972)
* Limits development to 30 foot maximum height (in accordance with Prop D measurement)
* Development over 30 feet (per Prop D measurement) requires approval of City of San Diego voters.
Limitations of Prop D
• 1970 UBC is method to demonstrate compliance
– Measured from finished grade
– Therefore, allows grade to be raised with measurement beginning at that higher point (10 ft max differential)
• Prop D alone would not be adequate to implement the City's certified Local Coastal Program
• In low density residential zones, base zone height limits are typically more restrictive than Prop D to
implement adopted land use policy
Citywide Method for Calculating Zoning Height
• Two part measurement required:
– Plumb Line
– Overall Height (5 feet from furthest projection)
• Height is measured to highest appurtenance (plus up to 10 ft for grade differential)
• Measurement is taken from existing grade or proposed grade, whichever is lower
• Can't manipulate grade to achieve greater height
• Development in the Coastal Height Limit Overlay Zone must comply with the base zone height limit AND the Prop D coastal height limit
• The two height limits are measured differently
• Development that exceeds the base zone height limit requires a City variance /deviation approval
• Development that proposes to exceed the Prop D height limit requires a public vote for approval
Prop D has survived, despite the tunnels dug to undermine it. But as money drives development in the coastal areas, there will continue to be pressures on the people's ordinance, and developers will continue to find ways to circumvent its standards. Yet, the more who are educated and aware of the issues and its history, the more who will appreciate the effects that preventing a wall of buildings at the beach or on the cliffs is in all of our interests.


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Devastating Anomie of Modern Life Cured by Velveeta Cheesy Skillets
Velveeta™ brand products are much like America itself: chemical-laden, unnaturally orange, and composed primarily of Cheez. So it's unsurprising that Velveeta convenient meals division brand manager Adam Grablick's comment on the process of chemically concocting, packaging, rolling out, and promoting the new Velveeta Cheesy Skillets would serve to crystallize the fundamental hopelessness that has overtaken us as a people more clearly than anything else.
"Our consumer doesn't want to be slaving away in the kitchen, but she may not feel great about just pulling something out of the freezer and putting it in the microwave," Mr. Grablick said. "She wants the meal to be hands-on, and for the meal to come from her hands and her heart."
It will be much more painless if you just accept it.


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This really works and will only take you about ten seconds!!! Amazing it really works and it showed my all-time favorite movie. I am very good at math, so I did it in my head, then on paper, and finally on a calculator just to confirm my numerical capabilities. Each time I got the same answer, and sure enough it IS my very favorite movie EVER! DO NOT cheat . DO YOUR math, THEN compare the results to the list of movies at the bottom You will be AMAZED at how scary true and accurate this test is:
1.. Pick a number from 1- 9
2.. Multiply that number by 3.
3.. Add 3.
4.. Multiply by 3 again.
5.. Your total will be a two digit number. Add the first and second digits together to find your favorite movie (of all time) in the list of 17 movies below:
Movie List:
1.. Gone With the Wind
3.. Blazing Saddles
4.. Star Wars
5.. Forrest Gump
6.. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
7.. Jaws
8.. Grease
9.. The Obama Farewell Speech
10. Casablanca
11. Jurassic Park
12. Shrek
13. Pirates of the Caribbean
14. Titanic
15. Raiders of the Lost Ark
16. Home Alone
17. Animal House
Now, isn't that something?


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Fiber fill
Needle and thread
Green pipe cleaner
Cut approximately 33 circles, with a 2 inch diameter.
To create your grape, do a running stitch along the edge of the circle.
Continue around the entire circle.
Stuff with fiberfill.
Pull your thread tightly, closing the circle.
With your needle and thread, continue to closed any opening that may still remain.
One grape done...
32 more to go.
When the grapes are ready, you can start your bunch. There may be easier ways to do this but I stitched them together. I started with one at the bottom and begin to layer up.
Stitch them together as tightly as you can.
Stitch each new grape to the one beneath it and then the one next to it.
Offset the placement of each new layer, I had 6 total with 2 extra grape at the very top. By offsetting the layers, it should start to take on a cone shape.
The center will be hallow.
Continue layering, securely attaching your grapes as you go.
Don't worry about any holes between grapes.
This can be corrected by stuffing felt into the body of the grape.
Then you can fill with a little fiberfill to help maintain the shape.
Before you finish the top row, twist 2 green pipe cleaners together. This will act as the stem, so give it some character, twist or curl it to give it some dimension.
Insert it into the top of the grape. Make sure to stuff the bottom of the stem deep enough to secure it when you finish the top of the grape.
Cover the top of the fiberfill with some scrap felt.
Pull your top layer closed, pulling this layer inward towards the stem. I had to add 2 final grapes right next to the stem to full close off the top of the bunch.
Here's hoping you like these grapes a bunch.
Make sure to check out my other felt food tutorials as well.
Linked up and a big thanks to:


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December 18, 2012
Josh Abbott sings "Victory Bells" for event at Texas Tech
Newly Renovated Home Bolsters Exercise and Sport Sciences
Engineering Job Fair Attracts Top-Notch Students, Companies
Raider Power: New Student Convocation Celebrates School Spirit, Tradition
Gameday 2012: Goin' Band from Raiderland
Order Up! President, Staff Host Welcome Picnic
Welcome to Texas Tech, Make Yourselves at Home!
Home Sweet Home: Students Arrive on Campus for New School Year
A Look Back: Summer Commencement Ceremonies
Ask the Expert - Grilling Advice
Brazilian Students Live Life as Red Raiders


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The Libertarian AngleThursday, October 05, 2023
Every Tuesday, FFF president Jacob G. Hornberger and Richard M. Ebeling address current events.
Unlike the mainstream media, "The Libertarian Angle" will bring you analysis on the topics of the day from the viewpoint of an uncompromising defense of the free market and individual liberty. You can watch past episodes in the archive.


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