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Bid History for Office Chair
Auction Start Date: 06/01/23 8:00 AM ET
Auction End Date: 06/02/23 8:00 PM ET
Asset ID: 4647 Number of Bids: 1
Loading bid history...
|Office Chair
|Auction Closed
|High Bidder:
|Sold Amount:
|Tax (6.250000%):
|Buyer's Premium (12.50%):
|Total Price:
|View Bid History
|Terms and Conditions
Pick-up is available Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am - 3:00 pm ONLY.
|Questions and Answers
|There are currently no questions posted for this asset.
|The bidder is highly encouraged to inspect and determine the property condition and description accuracy prior to bidding. Our staff are not experts, and cannot thoroughly inspect all items. Inspections are by appointment only! Email firstname.lastname@example.com to schedule an appointment.
Payment methods for this item are Wire Transfer, PayPal, or credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover) only. PayPal and credit card purchases are limited to below $5,000.00 and Bidders residing in the United States, Canada and Mexico Only. If the winning bid plus applicable taxes, if any indicated, plus the buyer's premium equals to $5,000.00 or more, Wire Transfer must be used. Buyers on level one probation have a PayPal and Credit Card limit of $1,000. If Wire Transfer is chosen, a Wire Transfer Transaction Summary page will provide payment and account information. The Wire Transfer must be completed within 5 days unless otherwise specified below.
PAYMENT MUST BE MADE ONLINE-- To make online payment, Log into your Liquidity Services account and select "My Bids". Please follow the instructions there.
TAX CALCULATION: Sale Tax, where applicable, will be calculated and added at the end of the auction.
TAX EXEMPTION: Where taxes are applicable (see the Buyer's Certificate), Tax Exempt documents must be provided to Bidder Services at firstname.lastname@example.com within 24 hours of the auctions close and before payment is made. Bidders are encouraged to submit their Tax Exempt Documentation prior to the Auction's close to expedite this process. Please contact Bidder Services for all tax exemption questions.
Include The Lot # when calling or emailing.
Effective IMMEDIATELY: No lots will be shipped via freight shipping unless full pallet.
We can ship via UPS & FedEx, however, shipment is responsibility of the BIDDER. You must email the original shipping label from UPS or FedEx. We will ONLY ship inside the United States. A signed Release of Authorization and copy of valid state ID is required prior to releasing items for shipment.
Appointments are required to pick up items.Call Scott Elliott at 512-464-6977 to schedule an appointment. ONCE THE ITEM HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE SELLERS LOCATION, ALL SALES ARE FINAL!
Removal: All items must be removed within 10 business days from the time and date of issuance of the Buyer's Certificate. Purchases will be released only upon receipt of payment as specified. Successful bidders are responsible for loading and removal and any and all property awarded to them from the place where the property is located as indicated on the website and in the Buyer's Certificate.
Property shall be removed between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:00p.m., Monday through Thursday, excluding legal and school holidays. All items must be picked up from the back of the building where the loading docks are (you would turn off Great Oaks Drive onto Racine Drive, around the building and go through the gate.You will see the loading docks). Do not park in front of any dock doors unless instructed to do so.
Round Rock ISD is NOT responsible for shipment. If you have any questions, please contact our office.
|Special Instructions
If you are the winning bidder and default by failing to adhere to this sellers terms and conditions your account with GovDeals WILL BE LOCKED
Guaranty Waiver: All property is offered for sale "AS IS, WHERE IS." (Seller) makes no warranty, guaranty or representation of any kind, expressed or implied, as to the merchantability or fitness for any purpose of the property offered for sale. The Buyer is not entitled to any payment for loss of profit or any other money damages – special, direct, indirect, or consequential.


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Specialty Performance Vehicles
Hydrogen Hot Rod Dealership Opportunity
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group.
The Hydrogen Hot Rod Vehicle Group Dealership is a Lower Initial Investment Opportunity than other dealerships.
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group Offers Fast Hydrogen Fueled Performance Vehicles : With Over 5 Models and Configurations.
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group offers Dealers an Opportunity to Sell Sustainable High Performance Cars .
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group offers Dealers an Opportunity to open a New and Exciting Industry Category.
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group offers a New Fuel Choice.
A Fast-Clean Driving Experience & Performance Like No Other.
"We Want your business and we are prepared to pay for it"
Once your a dealer with high margin and strong demand for these
New Fueling Technologies.
About The Brand
When it comes to exciting modern products, we believe that we bring that value.
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group is offering a major paradigm shift in this regard. With incentives and discounts to assist those who want to establish a Hydrogen Performance outlet and Hydrogen Combustion Engine Vehicle Market with us..
If you have been looking for an enticing new vehicle product to compliment your super car range range. A product that is specifically designed to help the world,
whilst providing driver enjoyment to collectors and enthusiasts.
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicles is the perfect brand for you.
Customers will rave about Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group in reviews, thanks to their unique green performance concept that has extremely power drive train.
When you slide into the seat and turn the key , you can feel the vibration of the more than 500 hp with several very unique and totally custom fueling features that will make your clients smile as they will not rely on the pump...
Speed loving high performance and statement grabbing clients
will appreciate. our vehicles.
Hydrogen Hot Rod Custom Vehicle Group 's concept is based on small locations within existing dealerships with lower upfront investment and conservative operating expenses. The Green Corner of the Floor.

subset: commoncrawl


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About Sandwich Control
Welcome to Sandwich Control.
This is the place where my silly things happen. I take photos of myself. Everyday. And talk about myself. Everyday. And take photos of other stuff. Sometimes.
It is because I don't know what to do with my hands.
I am strangely obsessed with ancient technology, West Bromwich Albion FC, my cats, substituting hotdogs into recipes that don't call for hotdogs, Neil deGrasse Tyson, this website, talking like an old man, and punching "people" whilst in the guise of Larry Jenkins.
I'm also the Prime Minister of a small and sovereign nation called Lippincottonia.
Feel free to contact Sandwich Control via elecronic mail at : sandwichcontrol at gmail dot com.
Or search for Sandwich Control on that FaceBook, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter. If you can't find us there, you're probably doing it wrong. Just send us an email.


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Many of our longtime employees still refer to our Customer Appreciation Sale as its predecessor, the Private Sale.
(Background: My grandpa, Jim Warner, began at Stellian Appliance on Snelling and Larpenteur avenues in 1954 , but surprisingly, not in sales – where those who know him would expect.
"One day they said to me, Jim you're a good bookkeeper, but you're an HS salesman [HS stands for something meaning bad, we'll just say that]," my grandpa said.
After being challenged, My grandpa said that challenge started him selling and went on to become a great salesman. Those that work at Warners' Stellian on Snelling and Larpenteur still get his former customers in saying so. (I know I used to hear some pretty funny stories myself.)
The Private Sale literally closed down the store. Don't get me wrong, the once-a-year, one-day-only sale attracted 600-700 people, but because the prices were so unusually low, customers were only admitted by a letter sent by Warners' Stellian. Lockdown, letterholder-only.
My grandma and grandpa recall the days spent manually weeding out the duplicates (Steve Anderson/Steven Anderson, etc.) from the list and handstuffing several thousands letters and licking the envelopes and stamps. They assigned each salesman a box per week to try to get the work done in time.
Curious shoppers would try to sneak early peeks, so they had to cover the windows with cardboard. And NO ONE was admitted without a letter.
From about noon to 5 p.m. on a Saturday, hundreds of people would come through, eat some homemade cookies and punch, check the prize board for their number for a grand prize (a trip "up North" somewhere, Grandpa said: "Nothing major, by today's standards.") and – hopefully – buy an appliance.
We still delivered for free, even then, but from the backs of pickup trucks. And we kept a delivery guy on hand to run down to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, where we warehoused back then, to grab a Radarange. The early Amana microwave apparently was a popular gift for men to get their wives. My grandpa said we sold hundreds of them.
Those sales were considered very successful by the day's standards, my grandpa said. But because they were one-day only, and we're in Minnesota, the weather could virtually crush the sale. And some years it did.
"One year we had a private sale and it snowed like hell, so we had no one in the store," my grandpa said. "Finally, a customer walked in. I looked at him and said, 'I believe you're next.' "
And there are so many more where that came from…
Can you imagine this sort of thing these days?


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WordPress Global Translator Plugin
Global Translator is a free and open source WordPress Plugin which is able to automatically translate your blog in 48 different languages:
Italian, Korean, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Portuguese, English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Greek, Dutch, Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Norwegian, Catalan, Filipino, Hebrew, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Albanian, Estonian, Galician, Maltese, Thai, Turkish, Hungarian, Belarus,Irish, Icelandic, Macedonian, Malay, Persian.
The number of available translations will depend on your blog language and the translation engine you will chose to use.
The most powerful features which Global Translator provides are:
- Four different Translation Engines: it has the ability to provide the translations by using Google Translation Engine, Babel Fish, Promt, FreeTranslations.com
- Search Engine Optimized: it uses the permalinks by adding the language code at the beginning of all your URI. For example the english version on www.domain.com/mycategory/mypost will be automatically transformed in www.domain.com/en/mycategory/mypost
- Fast Caching System: new fast, smart, optimized, self-cleaning and built-in caching system. Drastically reduction of the risk of temporarily ban from translation engines.
- Fully configurable layout: you can easily customize the appearance of the translation bar by choosing between a TABLE, DIV or IMAGE MAP based layout for the flags bar and by selecting the number of translations to make available to your visitors
- No database modifications: Global Translator is not intrusive. It doesn't create or alter any table on your database: this feature permits to obtain better performances.
If to want to have the latest news and updates delivered directly to you, to stay up to date you could decide to subscribe to my latest post or to my comments. You could also evaluate to receive the updates by email: see at the "SUBSCRIPTION" section on the sidebar.
IMPORTANT: I daily receive about 30/40 comments and messages containing suggestions or support requests about Global Translator. Unfortunately I can't offer free support anymore because it requires a lot of time and costs a lot. If you need help or need more advanced features, I suggest you to buy Global Translator PRO.
Latest version (20th of Mar, 2010): global-translator.1.3.1.zip
Need support or advanced features? Take a look at Global Translator PRO!
If you derive some benefit from this code, please consider showing your gratitude in a more tangible way. Thanks!
Previous versions
20th of Aug, 2009: global-translator.1.2.6.zip
21th of April, 2009: global-translator.1.2.3.zip
4th of April, 2009: global-translator.126.96.36.199.zip
3rd of March, 2009: global-translator.1.2.1.zip
29th of January, 2009: global-translator.1.2.zip
27th of December, 2008: global-translator.1.1.2.zip
6th of December, 2008: global-translator.220.127.116.11.zip
15th of November, 2008global-translator.220.127.116.11.zip
4th of November, 2008:global-translator-184.108.40.206.zip
21th of October, 2008:global-translator-18.104.22.168.zip
4th of September, 2008:global-translator-1.0.6.zip
27th of August, 2008:global-translator-1.0.5.zip
22th of August, 2008: global-translator-1.0.4.zip
20th of August, 2008: global-translator-1.0.3.zip
17th of August, 2008: global-translator-1.0.2.zip
21th of July, 2008: global-translator-0.9.1.zip
10th of May, 2008: global-translator-0.9.zip
13th of Apr, 2008: global-translator-0.8.zip
2nd of Feb, 2008: global-translator-0.7.1.zip
28th of Jan, 2007: global-translator-0.7.zip
31th of Aug, 2007: global-translator-0.6.2.zip
17th of Apr, 2007: global-translator-0.6.zip
23th of Dec, 2006: global-translator-0.5.zip
09th of Dec, 2006:global-translator-0.4.1.zip
27th of Nov, 2006:global-translator-0.2.zip
20th of Aug, 2006:global-translator-0.1.zip
Global Translator has been tested on WordPress 2.3.*, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.9.
- Upload the folder "global-translator" into your "wp-content/plugins"
- Log in to WordPress Administration area, choose "Plugins" from the main menu, find "Global Translator", and click the "Activate" button
- Choose "Options->Global Translator" from the main menu and select
your blog language and your preferred configuration options then select "Update Options".
- Uninstall and remove the previous version and follow the Installation instructions, but if you're upgrading from 0.9 or higher version I suggest you to preserve the "cache" directory.
- If your theme is widged-enabled, just choose "Presentation->Widgets" from the administration main menu
and drag the "Global translator" widget on the preferred position on your sidebar.
If your theme is not widgetized, just add the following php code (usually to the sidebar.php file):
<?php if(function_exists("gltr_build_flags_bar")) { gltr_build_flags_bar(); } ?>
After this simple operation, a bar containing the flags which represents all the available translations for your language will appear on your blog. Check my blog for an example (on the sidebar) or take a look to my Youtube Video Downloaders blog.
- Log in to WordPress Administration area, choose "Plugins" from the main menu, find the name of the plugin "Global Translator", and click the "Deactivate" button
Bug submission
- Bug submission is an important aspect of many Open Source projects, and submitting bugs correctly increases the chances of the developer finding and fixing any problems that may arise.
If you want to submit bug issues, please use the Contact form and remember to specify the following informations:
– the version of the plugin you're using
– a full description of the problem (and the error message if available)
Please don't submit bugs or support requests as comments otherwise the discussion threads risk to become confusing.
Alternatively you can also start a new topic here.
- Removed N2H backlink
- Fixed some issues on the regexp
- Added 6 new languages
- Improvements on link cleaning
- default cache expire time switched to 15 days
- replaced 503 HTTP code ("Network Temporarily Unreachable") with a 302 redirect on not yet translated pages in order to remove the warning messages on GooGle WebMaster Tool
- some fixes on the new cleaning system
- updated page cleaning system in order to prevent new Google updates on the HTML sources
- Fixed trailing slash issue
- Replaced 404 errors with 302 redicection for better SEO
- Other fixes and optimizations
- Fixed sitemap integration for blogs not installed on the root path
- Fixed encoding problems related to the introduction of the new Google APIs
- Hacked new Google URL structure
- Added seven new languages: Albanian,Estonian,Galician,Maltese,Thai,Turkish,Hungarian
- Improved caching performances
- Added Show/Hide button for statistics on options page
- Optimized connections to google translation engine
- Fixed Chinese Traditional Translation
- New configuration feature: flags bar in a single image (based on contribution by Amir – http://www.gibni.com)
- Translated Portuguese languages array (Thanks to Henrique Cintra)
- Added Chinese (traditional) translation
- Fixed "division by zero" error
- Fixed image map configuration error
- Better IIS url rewriting support
- Fixed Norwegian configuration
- Moved shared function to header.php
- Changed HTTP error for not yet translated pages from 404 to 503 (Service Temporarily Unavailable)
- Added 404 error code for not yet translated pages
- Added support for IIS rewrite rules (based on the usage of "/index.php" at the beginning of the permalink)
- Other performances improvements
- general performances improvement
- added check for blocking recursive and bad translation requests (i.e. www.mysite/en/fr/…)
- fixed A tags rendering
- moved cache dir outside the plugin dir
- fixed options page access problem
- fixed trailing slash issue
- Added cache compression
- fixed layout bugs
- fixed link building problem (internal anchors not working)
- Added 11 new languages to Google Translation Engine!
- Added new optional cache invalidation time based parameter
- Hacked new Google block introduced on (27th of August 2008)
- Random User Agent selection for translation requests
- Performances improvement in cache cleaning algorithm
- Fixed the sitemap plugin detection function
- Fixed javascript errors on translated pages
- Added Debug option on the admin area
- Added Connection Interval option on the admin area
- Added more detailed messages and info on the admin page
- Updated new Promt translation url
- Fixed some issues about cache cleaning for blogs not using the permalinks
- Added experimental sitemap integration
- Fixed cache issue with blogs not using the pemalinks
- Fixed compatibility issue with older version of WordPress
- Improved cleaning system for translated pages
- New fast, smart, optimized, self-cleaning and built-in caching system. Drastically reduction of temporarily ban risk
- Added Widget Title
- Added 404 error page for deactivated translations
- Added file extension exclusion for images and resources (they don't need to be translated)
- Activated new Prompt configuration
- Fixed little issue with Portuguese translation
- Fixed Swedish, Arabic and Czech flags icons (thanks to Mijk Bee and Nigel Howarth)
- Added new (and better) event-based cache invalidation system
- Added support for 10 new languages for Google Translations engine: Bulgarian, Czech, Croat, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Polish, Rumanian, Swedish, Greek, Norwegian
- Updated flags icons (provided by famfamfam.com)
- Updated Prompt engine
- Added experimental translation engines ban prevention system
- Improved caching management
- Improved setup process
- Fixed a bug on building links for "Default Permalink Structure"
- Fixed bug "Call to a member function on a non-object in /[….]/query.php".
It happens only on certain servers with a custom PHP configuration
- Fixed bug on building links for "Default Permalink Structure"
- Added two new translation engines: FreeTranslation and Promt Online Translation
- Added USER-AGENT filter in order to prevent unuseless connections to the translation services
- Added support for Default Permalink Structure (i.e.: "www.site.com/?p=111")
- Added widgetization: Global Translator is now widgetized!
- Fixed some bugs and file permission issues
- Excluded RSS feeds and trackback urls translation
- Fixed some problems on translated pages
- Updated in order to handle the new Babelfish translation URL.(Thanks to Roel!)
- Fixed some layout issues
- Fixed url parsing bugs
- Fixed compatibility problem with Firestats
- Added the "gltr_" prefix for all the functions names in order to reduce naming conflicts with other plugins
- Added new configuration feature: now you can choose to enable a custom number of translations
- Removed PHP short tags
- Fixed some issues for Babelfish translation
- Added alt attribute for flags IMG
- Added support to BabelFish Engine: this should help to solve the "403 Error" by Google
- Added my signature to the translation bar. It can be removed, but you should add a link to my blog on your blogroll.
- Replaced all the flags images
- Added help messages for cache support
- Added automatic permalink update system: you don't need to re-save your permalinks settings
- Fixed many link replacement issues
- Added hreflang attribute to the flags bar links
- Added id attribute to <A> tag for each flag link
- Added <DIV> tag for the translation bar
- Added support for the following new languages: Russian, Greek, Dutch
- Added BLOG_URL variable in order to correctly handle a "Blog address" different from the "WordPress address"
- Improved url replacement
- Added caching support (experimental): the cached object will be stored inside the following directory:
- Fixed Japanese support (just another bug)
- Better HTTP request will be sent to Google Translation Services
- Bug fix: sometimes the translated page contains also the original page (appended)
- The plugin has been completely rewritten
- Added permalinks support for all the supported languages
- Added automatic blog links substitution in order to preserve the selected language.
- Added Arabic support
- Fixed Japanese support
- Removed "setTimeout(180);" call: it is not supported by certain servers
- Added new option which permits to split the flags in more than one row
- Added localized tooltips on the flags
- Added language configuration section on the administration area.
- Initial release
Iscriviti alla newsletter per ricevere in tempo reale tutte le notizie e gli aggiornamenti!


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Stranded, a single-issue magazine produced by people who were stranded by the volcanic ash cloud back in April, is now available for sale.
What we've made of it all is an 88-page souvenir of a moment in time when a non-life-threatening crisis hit the world, one for which nobody was to blame, and nobody knew how long it would last. People scrambled to find alternative routes home, any way, any how, or tried to make the best of wherever fate had placed them. It was a moment of unplanned disruption, never to be repeated in quite the same way. The perfect subject for a magazine, in fact.
Over 50 people contributed...it looks really nice.


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Lifetime has announced that season two of The Client List will premiere on Sunday, March 10th, at 10pm. The cable channel ordered 15 episodes for season two
The first season wrapped last June and Lifetime will offer mini-marathons of those episodes on March 3rd and March 10th.
Here's the press release:
LOS ANGELES, CA (January 17, 2013) – "Riley Parks" is back!! Lifetime's hit drama series The Client List, starring and executive produced by Golden Globe(R) Award nominee Jennifer Love Hewitt, will return for its long-awaited second season on Sunday, March 10, at 10:00pm ET/PT. Leading up to The Client List's return, Lifetime will air mini-marathons of the series' first season on Sunday, March 3, and Sunday, the 10th. Last year The Client List propelled Lifetime to number one in the Sunday 10:00pm time period among Women 18+.
After last season's cliffhanger finale, season two of The Client List promises to be no easier for Riley Parks (Hewitt) at home or at work. The Texas single mother of two who, after being deserted by her husband and left in financial straits, took a job at a seemingly traditional day spa only to learn that sexual favors are being offered there on the side. After her estranged husband "Kyle" (Brian Hallisay) returns, for better or for worse, Riley must walk the fine line between her anger and love for him and the romantic feelings she has for her brother-in-law "Evan" (Colin Egglesfield). Riley also takes a larger role at the spa, resulting in added power, responsibility and burden, further complicating her life. New threats abound this season and trust becomes an overwhelming issue for Riley as everyone, even those she believes she can count on the most, seems to be hiding their own secret. Also starring in The Client List are Golden Globe winner Cybill Shepherd as Riley's mother "Linette" and Emmy(R) Award-winning actress Loretta Devine as The Rub of Sugarland's owner "Georgia."
Based on the network's hit 2010 original movie, The Client List is executive produced by Hewitt, Dannielle Thomas (The Client List), Howard Braunstein (The Client List, The Informant!), Ed Decter (In Plain Sight, There's Something About Mary), John J. Strauss (In Plain Sight, There's Something About Mary), Michael Reisz (In Plain Sight, Boston Legal) and Allan Arkush (Heroes, Crossing Jordan), who also serves as director, with Fedora Films and Jaffe/Braunstein producing, in association with Sony Pictures Television. It was developed by Jordan Budde. Lifetime has ordered 15 episodes of The Client List, up from last season's ten episode order.
Season one of The Client List delivered Lifetime's strongest freshman season for an original series since 2009 among Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Women 25-54. Among Adults 18-49 and Women 18-49, it was Lifetime's best freshman season since Army Wives in 2007.
Sony Pictures Television (http://www.sonypicturestelevision.com), a Sony Pictures Entertainment company, is one of the television industry's leading content providers. It produces and distributes programming in every genre, around the world and for a multitude of platforms. In addition to one of the industry's largest libraries of award-winning feature films, television shows and formats, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) boasts a current program slate that includes top-rated daytime dramas and game shows, landmark off-network series, original animated series and critically acclaimed primetime dramas, comedies and telefilms. SPT has 18 wholly-owned or joint venture production companies in 15 countries outside the U.S. and also maintains offices in 33 countries. SPT's worldwide television networks portfolio includes 124 channel feeds available in 159 countries, reaching more than 800 million households worldwide. SPT also creates original content for and manages SPE's premium video website, Crackle. Additionally, SPT owns production company Embassy Row and is a part owner of cable channel Game Show Network (GSN), 3D channel 3net, premier horror/thriller website and VOD service FEARnet and national U.S media sales company ITN Networks, Inc. SPT advertiser sales is one of the premiernational advertising sales companies and handles the commercial inventory in SPT's syndicated series as well as in U.S. digital businesses including FEARnet, DrOz.com and PlayStation.
Lifetime is committed to offering the highest quality entertainment and information programming, and advocating a wide range of issues affecting women and their families. In 2012, as a result of its aggressive triple threat programming strategy doubling its amount of original programming spanning scripted dramas, reality series and movies, Lifetime posted its strongest year-on-year growth among the key demographics in 10+ years, while also reaching its youngest median age in 16 years. Lifetime Television(R), LMN(R), Lifetime Real Women(R) and Lifetime Digital(TM) are part of Lifetime Entertainment Services, LLC, a subsidiary of A+E Networks. A+E Networks is a joint venture of the Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst Corporation.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to watching The Client List's second season?


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Learn About the Law
Get help with your legal needs
FindLaw's Learn About the Law features thousands of informational articles to help you understand your options. And if you're ready to hire an attorney, find one in your area who can help.
On petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
Justice MARSHALL, with whom Justice BRENNAN joins, dissenting:
Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 231 , 2973, 49 L. Ed.2d 859 (1976) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting), I would grant the petition for certiorari and vacate the death sentence in this case. Even if I did not take this view, [ Mann v. Oklahoma 488 U.S. 877 (1988) ][877-Continued.]
I would grant the petition in order to resolve the question whether inflammatory and prejudicial photographs of the victim's body introduced during the guilt phase of a capital trial, and subsequently reincorporated during the sentencing phase, violate the accused's constitutional right to a reliable sentencing determination. The Court granted certiorari on a very similar question last Term in Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988), but did not decide it because the Court found that the petitioner in that case, who was 15 years old at the time of the offense, could not be subjected to the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See id., at 838, n. 48, 108 S.Ct. at 2700, n. 48 (plurality opinion).
The petitioner here, an adult, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for his role in the same murder which gave rise to Thompson, supra. During the guilt phase of the petitioner's trial, the prosecution introduced two color photographs of the victim's body that were taken after the body had been retrieved from a river one month after the murder. These photographs were reincorporated by the prosecution during the sentencing phase of the trial. On direct appeal, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals found that the trial court erred in admitting the photographs due to their "gruesome" and "inordinately grisley [sic]" nature. 749 P.2d 1151, 1156 (1988). The court concluded, however, that the error was harmless because "the case against appellant was sufficient" without the photographs and thus the court could "not find this evidence affected the jury's verdict." Ibid.
Significantly, the court never considered whether the introduction of the photographic evidence violated the petitioner's "constitutional rights by virtue of its being considered at the penalty phase" of his trial. Thompson, supra, 487 U.S., at 838 , n. 48, 108 S.Ct. at 2700, n. 48. The state court's analysis is therefore fatally flawed in that it did not accord [488 U.S. 877 , 878] any weight whatsoever to "the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments." California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 998 , 3452 (1983). As to the specific claim, moreover, the petitioner argues convincingly that the photographic evidence created an impermissible risk that his death sentence was based on considerations that are "totally irrelevant to the sentencing process," Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 885 , 2747 (1983), because it focused the jury's attention on the postmortem decomposition of the victim's body rather than on "the character of the [defendant] and the circumstances of the crime." Id., at 879, 103 S.Ct. at 2743. Indeed, photographic evidence of this sort seems no less inflammatory or prejudicial than the victim impact statements deemed inadmissible in Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496 (1987).
The introduction in capital trials of ghastly photographs of the victim presents substantial and recurring issues of constitutional dimension, see, e.g., Tucker v. Kemp, 480 U.S. 911 , 94 L. Ed.2d 529 (1987) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari), that warrant plenary review by the Court. I dissent.
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Expert's Rating
- Pleasant user interface
- Wide variety of features in one program
- Continues to strive for innovation
- Slower than Opera 11 in some areas
- New features didn't always work as advertised
- Packed with superfluous abilities
Our Verdict
While Opera 11.5 calls itself a browser, it feels like it really wants to be more than that. But in trying to do so, this perpetual innovator's latest version falls short.
Version 11 () narrowed Opera's performance gap with rival browsers, but it's begun to fall behind again—and its underwhelming new abilities can't quite compensate.
Behind the widget curve
Opera's site trumpets 11.5's new twists to Speed Dial, a feature similar to Safari's Top Sites launch page. It's still easy to add new sites to Speed Dial's grid of big, clickable buttons, or set your own background image. Now you can also add extensions that Opera says will dynamically display quick, useful Web information: weather reports, clocks, RSS feeds, and more.
These new extensions resemble widgets from the Mac OS Dashboard—but sadly, they're not nearly as useful or elegant. Many of the widgets available had to be configured on their own separate Web pages. Others offered only a tiny snapshot of a site's front page.
Music blog aggregator The Hype Machine's extension has a play button next to the name of its current top song, but clicking it just takes you to the site. The weather report, powered by a Norwegian site, consistently underreported my local temperature by five degrees or more. One of the five feeds built into the RSS reader extension produced nothing but blank space. And whenever I removed an extension from Speed Dial, I had to download it all over again to restore it.
I appreciate the Opera designers' desire to add a little extra convenience and personalization to a commonly viewed screen. It's too bad the feature ends up feeling half-baked at best.
Tenuous link
Opera also touts its Opera Link cloud connectivity, promising to automatically sync bookmarks, passwords, and other settings between computers. ( Safari [Chrome have a similar sync feature, too.)], Firefox [ ], and
My attempts to sync Opera on my MacBook and Mac mini quickly became frustrating. Even after I'd reset my Opera account password, I initially couldn't get the laptop bookmarks to appear in the mini's browser. They eventually showed up after a half-hour or so, but Opera never warned me that it might take that much time to sync them.
The sync also didn't seem to include Speed Dial extensions, and the Speed Dial buttons that did match up appeared in scrambled-up order on the synced computer. On several occasions, Opera wouldn't let me close the browser until it finished syncing my settings, which took up to 30 seconds.
In addition, Opera talks up 11.5's new "featherweight" user interface. It certainly pleases the eye, but I had to switch between 11.5 and 11 several times before I actually noticed a difference. (The interface buttons have lost their borders. That's about it.)
Every feature except the really cool ones
Opera still includes a nifty mail client, an ambitious but inelegant file-, message-, and music-sharing service, and the ability to run downloadable Widgets, including—for some reason—aquarium simulators and scientific calculators.
But despite its decent benchmarks, Opera 11.5 can't run many of the cutting-edge HTML5 applications that Firefox and Chrome handle easily. It worked with some demos in a Mozilla gallery, but doesn't support WebGL 3-D graphics or CSS transforms. And yet again, Netflix won't stream video to Opera, although Hulu works fine.
Two steps forward, two steps back
I tested Opera 11.5 on a 2GHz aluminum MacBook with 2GB of RAM. Its competition: Safari 5.1, Firefox 5, and Chrome 12, along with a freshly downloaded copy of Opera 11.01 for reference. The results? Decidedly mixed.
Opera 11.5 posted perfect scores on the Acid3 Web standards test and a check for CSS3 support. In an HTML5 compatibility test, it beat its previous edition's score by more than 30 points; its score trailed Safari and Chrome, and tied Firefox.
Opera 11.5 also slightly improved on version 11's performance in the SunSpider Javascript benchmark, although that difference could owe to the test's margin of error. Its time beat Safari's, and just barely lagged Chrome's, but placed well behind Firefox's winning score.
However, Opera 11.5 finished dead last in XHTML rendering speed, a half-second slower than its previous version, and nearly 1.5 seconds slower than Safari's winning time. Opera also placed last in CSS rendering speed, just barely behind Firefox, but well behind Chrome and Safari—and again, nearly half again as slow as its previous version.
Benchmarks: Opera 11.5
|SunSpider JavaScript
|CSS3 Selectors
|HTML5 Compliance
|Opera 11.5
|286/7 bonus
|Opera 11
|253/7 bonus
|Chrome 12.0.742.100
|327/13 bonus
|Firefox 5
|286/9 bonus
|Safari 5.1
|307/11 bonus*
*With WebGL enabled; without it, Safari 5.1 scored 293/11 bonus.
Macworld's buying advice
I admire the Opera programmers' ambition, but I wish they hadn't fallen so short. A Swiss Army Knife's worth of odd features, and a relative lack of horsepower, make version 11.5 feel more like a toy than a cutting-edge browser.
[Nathan Alderman is a writer and copy editor in Alexandria, Va., and solemnly promises that he's not being paid off by the folks who make whichever browser you don't like.]


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Londonderry Supervisor of the Checklist Geraldine "Gerry" Van Grevenhof wants people to come out and vote March 11.
"The elections affect everybody within the town," Van Grevenhof said. "The money that's being spent is their tax money and they should have a say in it."
Next door in Derry, Town Moderator Margaret Ives gives her annual plea for voter turnout. "We have the right to vote and we need to exercise it," Ives said. "This is our town. And town elections matter."
Derry Supervisor of the Checklist Lorraine Routhier, who has been working at the polls since 1952, added, "We are fortunate to be able to vote the way we do. It is an honor."
Well, it's not an honor or a right or a chance to have a say if you stay home and don't exercise it. And while staying home is easy, taking the time to cast an informed vote is what a democratic country expects of its citizens.
We let ourselves and everyone else down when we ignore the election, then we find ourselves taxed out of our homes and represented by people who embarrass or upset us – think the Derry Town Council – all because we didn't make the effort to vote.
People take to the streets and literally risk death to demand free elections and the right to govern in countries in Europe, Asia and South America. They look to the United States as an example of how government by the people should be.
And what do we do? In a state that offers just about the best opportunity for people to participate in self-government, we see turnouts of 10 percent at town and school elections.
Do you like that $3,000 tax bill twice a year? If not, why didn't you try to amend the budget, or offer your views on long-term bond articles, or throw your hat in the ring when filing time rolled around? The mirror is a great place to look for why your taxes are so high.
So what's your excuse? Hopefully you won't need one, and will get to the polling place or fill out an absentee ballot and vote on warrant articles and on candidates or write-ins for public office, both school and town sides.
In Sandown, when enough interest was generated in the Timberlane school budget, a crowd finally came out to deliberative session. Wouldn't it be great if that kind of attendance became the norm, and government "by the people" became more than a slogan.


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OECD Factbook 2014
Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics
OECD Factbook 2014 is a comprehensive annual statistical publication. More than 100 indicators cover a wide range of topics including new indicators on trade in value added and climate change.
Data are provided for all OECD member countries (including area totals), and for Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation and South Africa. For each indicator, there is a two-page spread: a text page includes a short introduction followed by a detailed definition of the indicator, comments on comparability of the data, an assessment of long-term trends related to the indicator and a list of references for further information on the indicator; the second page contains a table and a graph providing, at a glance, the key message conveyed by the data. Each indicator includes "StatLinks" which allow readers to download the corresponding data.
OECD Countries covered include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile,Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Non-OECD countries covered include Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa.
Topics covered include population and migration; production and productivity; household income, wealth and debt; globalisation, trade and foreign direct investment (FDI); prices, interest rates and exchange rates; energy and transportation; labour, employment and unemployment; science and technology including research and development (R&D) and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector; environment including natural resoures, water,and air and climate; education resources and outcomes; government expenditures, debt, revenues, taxes, agricultural support and foreign aid; and health status, risk and resources.
The OECD Factbook is also available as a free app for your mobile device! Visit your app store.
- Click to access:
Click to download PDF - 9.60MBPDF
Click to Read online and shareREAD
Exports of ICT goods: Million US dollars, 2012
English Also available in: French
- Click to access:
Click to download XLSXLS


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On Birthdays
No celebration displays more overblown enthusiasm for what is, in fact, the slimmest of accomplishments. In general, birthdays are simply an excuse to eat cake.
Only a handful of birthdays have real significance; the 13th for Jews, the 15th for Hispanic girls, the 16th for girls of a certain class, and the 18th for Americans who believe that their political vote actually matters. Appropriate gifts are cash (Bar and Bat Mitzvahs), a crucifix (Quinceañera), jewelry or a car (Sweet Sixteen), and one's restraint from destroying their naive foolish hopes (Enfranchisement.)
The two most important birthdays, of course, are when one reaches Legal Drinking Age, and Age of Consent, the gifts for which are self-evident.
While A Vile Old Queen discourages gifts for anyone else whose only achievement is that they survived yet another year, there are times when one must provide a gift, if only to enjoy the cake.
Here then is AVOQ's recommended list of age appropriate gifts. Remember that the gift wrap should match the ribbon, and the transparency of the tape should reflect the opacity of your genuine regard.
Birthday Gift
1 – 8 Candy (for child)
Sedatives (for parents)
9 – 12 Amusing Wig (for boys)
Attractive Wig (for girls)
Strong Drink (for parents)
13 – 17 Boarding School (for own child)
Prophylactics (for other's child)
18 – 20 Bail (for own child)
Request of dealer's phone # (other's)
21 Invitation to leave home (own child)
Invitation to come home (other's)
22 – 29 Good Fellatio (boys)
Fancy Dinner (girls)
30 – 49 Nice Wine and Good Drugs (friends)
Cheap Wine and Bad Drugs (foes)
50 – 59 Plastic Surgeon Referral
60 – 69 Pharmaceutical Tips
70 – 79 Candy (for senior)
Sedatives (for adult child caregiver)
80+ Stripper (for senior)
Iron Clad Will (for adult child)
Cash with Big Tip (for stripper)
Purchase on AMAZON


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Evander Kane thought a 7-0 rout of the Florida Panthers was a statement game for the Winnipeg Jets.
Kane scored twice and added two assists Thursday night as the Jets pounded the Panthers to move two points behind Florida for the Southeast Division lead, and one point ahead of Washington in the East for the final playoff spot.
"It was great to be able to prove to everybody that we're here to play and we have that playoff mindset going into the next 16 games here," Kane said.
"(Florida is) a team that we're behind and this could very well be the difference in us being in the playoffs or not being in the playoffs so it was a big game for us."
Ondrej Pavelec made 33 saves to earn his fourth shutout this season for Winnipeg, while Kyle Wellwood and Blake Wheeler each had a goal and an assist. Jim Slater, Bryan Little and Nik Antropov also scored.
"Everybody knows that it was a huge game for us, especially against Florida,'' said Pavelec, who got his 10th career shutout. ``They play really well against us so (it was) a big game for us. Like I said, we learned from the last game (a 5-3 loss to Edmonton), especially in the third period.
"We didn't make mistakes like we did before and it was a great win for us."
Jose Theodore made 20 saves on 24 shots in the start for Florida (30-21-12), which had a three-game winning streak snapped. He was pulled after Little's goal made it 4-0 at 4:35 of the third period. Scott Clemmensen made five stops on eight shots in relief.
Florida, third in the Eastern Conference, has three games in hand on the Jets, as does Washington, which next plays Friday at home against New Jersey.
Little's goal came on a rare 5-on-1 break, with Florida defenseman Erik Gudbranson the lone man back.
Wheeler made a nice defensive play to get the puck and bring it up the ice. He then passed to defenseman Randy Jones, who sent it back to him. Wheeler then passed across the net to Little and he popped it in over Theodore.
The fans gave the players a standing ovation for the rare attack.
"I've never seen that before ever,'' Wheeler said of the 5-on-1. "I was really nervous, actually, because I looked up and I heard the crowd going crazy so I figured, oh, a 2-on-1, 3-on-1, whatever.
"But it was all five guys and I didn't know where to go with the puck. Jonesy seemed like a good option so I gave it to him, hopefully, he was going to give it right back to me."
Kane opening the scoring after he intercepted a clearing attempt by Keaton Ellerby from deep in his zone and quickly fired the puck past Theodore 4:01 into the match.
Slater soon made it 2-0 when he took advantage of a rebound off Mark Stuart's point shot. Theodore was down as the puck bounced to the side and Slater sent a wrist shot into an empty net.
Panthers left wing Tomas Fleischmann had two breakaways in the first period. His first shot went off the crossbar and the second was turned aside by Pavelec.
"We just didn't have the push back at them today," Florida defenseman Ed Jovanovski said.
Florida has won three of five meetings with the Jets this season. They play once more in Florida.
Wellwood's goal began the barrage at 1:49 of the third. After Little's goal, Antropov scored on the power play at 8:06 and then Kane added his second of the game and 26th of the season just 12 seconds later.
Kane is on a career-best eight-game points streak with seven goals and seven assists.
The crowd started chanting ``We want perfect'' as they cheered for a shutout.
Wheeler netted the game's final goal at 17:58 as Winnipeg tied a franchise record for single-period goals with five in the third.
Jets Rout Panthers
Winnipeg beats Cat 7-0
Evander Kane thought a 7-0 rout of the Florida Panthers was a statement game for the Winnipeg Jets.


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What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, a president and a party who had just won an election with progressive rhetoric were quickly pivoting toward a "Grand Bargain" which would cut Social Security and Medicare. Leaders in both parties were obsessed with deficits, and there was "bipartisan" consensus that these "entitlements" needed to be cut. The only questions left to debate were when they would be cut, and by how much. To resist these moves was to be dismissed as "unserious" and "extreme" — in Washington, in newsprint, and on the airwaves.
Today the forces of corporate consensus are on the defensive. It's considered politically reckless to get too far out front on the subject of benefit cuts. Some of the think tanks who advocated Austerity Lite one year ago are focused now on inequality. And, as the leaders of Third Way learned recently, the same rhetoric which earned nods of approval all across Washington this time last year can get you slapped down today.
Social Security is a vital program, but the implications of this shifting debate run even deeper, to the future of the social contract itself.
Why Social Security?
For decades there has been a concerted, well-funded effort to cut Social Security benefits. It has successfully co-opted prominent leaders from both political parties, while recruiting lesser political figures like Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles to serve as its pitchmen.
Social Security cutters have held virtually unchallenged dominance in recent years, both in the corridors of power and on the pages and airways of corporate-funded media. President Obama and a number of key Democrats on the Hill allied themselves with this effort. They distanced themselves only at election time, when they obscured their positions with vague rhetoric. The Republicans' support for these efforts was virtually unanimous and often took the form of a more generalized anti-government extremism.
As news stories later confirmed, only concerted action by labor and other groups prevented the president from pre-emptively offering Social Security cuts in his 2010 State of the Union address. He finally offered them in his budget earlier this year in the form of the "chained CPI."
Why is Social Security such a target? A number of government programs embody our social contract. Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, food assistance – each reflects the vision of a society which recognizes that its shared interests are reflected in the safety and well-being of each of its members. But perhaps no program in this country reflects the social contract more clearly than Social Security.
The name itself — "Social Security" — has a timeless ring to it. It might have appeared in one of John Locke's notebooks. And it reflects a universality in its design: Most living Americans have contributed to the program, directly or indirectly. Most will collect benefits from it someday, either when they reach retirement age or, in the case of disability, even earlier.
The program was reduced once before, at a time of genuine crisis. There is no such crisis today, and its long-term imbalances are easily fixed in ways that would also allow for increased benefits. But it has symbolic value. If this program — funded by its participants, financially self-supporting, and forbidden by law from contributing to the national debt — can be cut, it means that no aspect of the social contract is sacrosanct.
The Struggle
Social Security, like the social contract ideal which spawned it, enjoyed a long period of growth and evolution. The number of people it covered kept increasing — Republicans boasted about that in their 1956 party platform! — and its benefits were designed to keep pace with the cost of living for its recipients. Nobody in mainstream political thought would have dared to challenge it.
True, the social contract always had its opponents. But for decades they were marginalized by norms of political and social decency. Right-wing radicals like billionaire H. L. Hunt might rave about tearing up social programs, and democracy along with them, but they had no standing — not in politics, and not in legitimate debate.
Then something happened — or, rather, some things happened. Future Supreme Court Judge Lewis Powell wrote a paper for some wealthy corporate interests in 1970 which outlined a long-term strategy for bringing these radical ideologies of greed back into the mainstream. Ronald Reagan put a smiling face — perhaps even a smiley face — on these mean-spirited ideologies.
A new breed of Democrat began to offer, not a defense of the social contract, but a "kinder, gentler" plan for dismantlement. That approach was first epitomized by the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) faction which helped elect Bill Clinton, and then by the Wall Street-funded (and self-described "progressive") ideas of groups like Third Way.
The anti-Social Security crowd claims the mantle of objectivity and rationality, but resorts instead to deception and highly emotional arguments. Alan Simpson routinely erupts in rage at anyone who disagrees with him, especially if they use actuarial data to make their case. Social Security advocates are smeared as "irrational," "extreme," and marginal, even as they marshal logic, information, and public opinion to make their case.
And never underestimate what a billion dollars can do. Billionaire hedge-funder Pete Peterson, a hard-core right-winger from Richard Nixon's cabinet, began a multi-decade assault on the social contract in general, and Social Security in particular. He backed politicians, including Clinton. He formed "bipartisan" foundations and gave sinecures to functionaries from both political parties.
How much has Peterson spent trying to tear up the social contract? He's not saying. But we know that in one five-year period alone he spent nearly half a billion dollars, and he's been pursuing this goal since the 1980s.
"Money doesn't talk," as the young Bob Dylan so aptly put it, "it swears."
The Fruits of Their Labors
But activists and experts had been working diligently behind the scenes. At first the efforts were defensive, and focused on preventing those cuts. But these individuals and groups eventually shifted the terms of the debate from cuts to expansion. Policy experts like Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson began proposing benefit increases, both to offset increasing wealth inequality and to shore up the nation's rapidly decaying retirement system. Economist and blogger Duncan Black took up the cause in op-eds. And a number of groups went to work privately educating political leaders on the need to strengthen, not weaken, Social Security.
The effort paid off. The idea of increasing Social Security benefits had been marginalized as "extreme" in the media and in DC power circles, despite being supported by most voters (including most Republicans). No longer. As proof of that, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa introduced a bill this year which would increase benefits. A number of other Democrats have signed on to the bill, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Hawaii's two Senators, and Mark Begich from conservative-leaning Alaska.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's recent endorsement of the idea added considerable momentum to the effort, and sparked that ill-advised tirade from the leaders of Third Way.
The momentum and the power remains with the anti-Social Security crowd. But it's a sign of change to see the idea of increasing Social Security move into the mainstream debate. That's striking progress, in the course of only a single year. But it reflects an ancient struggle over the existence and nature of the social contract.
Proxy War
Today the anti-"entitlement" crowd is on the defensive. Its arguments are increasingly embedded in wider ad hominem arguments against "leftism" or "economic populism." The Third Way attack on Elizabeth Warren was a case in point. So was a recent column by former New York Times editor Bill Keller, which praised his fellow "centrists" — a faction whose views are actually far to the right of the general public's – for, among other things, wishing to "slow the growth of entitlements."
Keller, like most self-described "centrists," argue that it is reasonable and even "liberal" to argue that public investments can only be funded at the cost of the nation's seniors and disabled. At the same time, they argue that historically reasonable levels of taxation on the wealthy and on corporations are politically "impractical."
Theirs is a "kinder, gentler" assault on the social contract, one which argues that it can only be maintained at a reduced level — and that it can only be financed by further damaging the economic security of the vast majority. Call it a "lateral Robin Hood" approach — take from the unfortunate, and give to the even less-fortunate, but leave the wealthy alone. That's not liberalism, in any sense of the term.
Dean Baker dispatched Keller's arguments rather neatly here. We, among others, responded to Third Way's. But on a broader time scale, the debate isn't just a short-term argument about Social Security or economic policy. The assault on Social Security is a proxy war on the social contract itself. Combatants like Keller probably don't realize that's what they're doing. They're just repeating what they've heard. But they're waging a proxy war just the same.
Honoring the Contract
The social contract is an ancient concept, which arguably began with Plato. Worrying about its well-being can seem absurd, like worrying about the fate of entropy or the planetary crust. It seems unassailable, indestructible. But either we're a society or we're not. An attack on any aspect of the social contract, especially programs like Social Security, are an attack on the entire fabric of an indivisible whole.
It's been more than three hundred years since John Locke published his Two Treatises on Government. The social contract has continued to evolve since then. It was essential to the formation of this country, and to our best modern moments of prosperity. But today it's threatened by the forces of globalized wealth.
That's why the good news of the past year is more than just a glimmer of hope. It's been asymmetrical warfare between the highly-financed advocates for the 1 Percent and the outgunned, underfunded fighters for the majority. The shifting debate about Social Security is one sign that the balance of power may be shifting. There were others this year, including the Moral Mondays protests in North Carolina and the growing minimum-wage movement.
Social Security, like the social contract itself, is still in danger. Both need to be enlarged, not reduced. But these setbacks for corporate "centrism" show that change is possible, even against overwhelming resources and odds. If the "economic populists" redouble their efforts, we may someday look back on 2013 as the year the social contract began its big comeback.
We need to update you on where Truthout stands.
To be brutally honest, Truthout is behind on our fundraising goals for the year. There are a lot of reasons why. We're dealing with broad trends in our industry, trends that have led publications like Vice, BuzzFeed, and National Geographic to make painful cuts. Everyone is feeling the squeeze of inflation. And despite its lasting importance, news readership is declining.
To ensure we stay out of the red by the end of the year, we have a long way to go. Our future is threatened.
We've stayed online over two decades thanks to the support of our readers. Because you believe in the power of our work, share our transformative stories, and give to keep us going strong, we know we can make it through this tough moment.
If you value what we do and what we stand for, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work.


text:
Start off with a nice steam - you can use chamomile or something else herbal you have hanging around the house or make it really easy on yourself with: LUSH Moon and Sun Steamer Tab - $2.95 - a blend of oils for the mind and skin that will steam clean your face while you inhale the mood adjusting essential oils. Neroli oil brings you a blast of its mood lifting power, while lavender oil balances and soothes the skin.
Just drop a tab into a bowl of hot water put your face over it and drape a towel around your head to make your own mini sauna! Word of warning - do NOT do this over a pot on the stove (especially with the element still on) - I know someone who set their hair on fire this way!
Available at The Bay and online at The Shopping Channel - www.theshoppingchannel.com.
Available online at www.elizabethgrant.com
Available in-store or online at www.thebodyshop.ca
Available across Canada and the US in specialty food stores.
I hope you have a great night tonight and a relaxing day of pampering tomorrow - Happy New Year!
- Lisamarie -


text:
We can only book discount tours for guests that have booked lodging through us.
If you booked lodging with us through airbnb, please call us to make your tour reservation. 907-224-2424
If you wish us to use a different credit card number then the one you gave us, please call with that information. 907-224-2323
Our convenient one stop reservation service handles everything from accommodations to
wildlife & glacier cruises in Seward.
Plus discounts on tours for people that book lodging through us. Knowledgeable staff makes your
trip planning fun, fast and easy!
Site Map ·
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Seward Alaska Lodging ·
Seward Alaska ·
Seward Alaska Fishing
Resources ·
Lodging & Accomodations


text:
This article is more than 1 year old
Phase Change Memory enters new, um, phase
Numonyx early access programme
Phase Change Memory has promised much and delivered very little. That might be about to, well, change as a secretive supplier starts to open up on what the technology can do.
PCM cells use a Chalcogenide glass substance which can be changed between crystallised and amorphous, non-crystallised states by the application of heat. These two states or phases have different and detectable resistance levels which can be used to indicate binary ones or zeros. The technology produces memory cells with read and write speeds closer to DRAM than NAND flash memory while still being non-volatile.
As such, suppliers endorsing PCM, such as Numonyx, are positioning it as a successor to flash technology, which is anticipated to run into insoluble technical difficulties as it progresses to dies based on process technology smaller than 32nm. The number of electrons in a flash cell will be so small, less than 100 it's said, that error rates will prevent reliable working.
Step forward PCM which doesn't rely on electrons like NAND. It also has bit-level and not block-level addressability and erasability, getting rid of one NAND flash issue. The problem is that PCM hasn't been really available commercially and there are no publicly-available data sheets specifying its read and write IOPS performance, nor its sustained read and write data transfer bandwidth. That might be because it's really quite poor and the DRAM speed equivalency claims are hogwash. Alternatively, it might be through commercial sensitivity.
Back in December last year, Numonyx, a joint-venture creature formed by Intel and STMicroelectronics, introduced its first PCM chip, Alverstone by name, built on a 90nm process and with 128MBit capacity. It was shipping, Numonyx said, to un-named suppliers, and it was a single level cell (SLC meaning 1 bit per cell) device. No Alverstone data sheets have ever been seen publicly and no end-user products are known that use Alverstone dies.
It seems reasonable to view Alverstone as a a trial product. In February this year, ElectronicsWeekly.com posted more information based on a briefing from Numonyx' chief technology officer Ed Doller. He said Numonyx had taped out a 1Gbit PCM die using 45nm process technology. This is well below, he agreed, NAND flash and its floating gate technology which is producing 16Gbit dies. Still, it's a huge advance on 128Mbits.
Reading between the lines here we can guess that Numonyx has found it very difficult to build large capacity PCM chips on small dies. It has, and no doubt still is, trying to build multi-level cell (MLC) PCM, adding bits to a PCM cell, to increase capacity but has found that access speeds are unacceptable. It showed a 2-bit PCM die at the 2008 ISSCC event and access slowness was apparent then.
Doller told ElectronicsWeekly that a 45nm version of Alverstone would begin sampling later this year and that a version more advanced than 90nm was currently sampling. Numonyx has a 32nm process apparently planned for next year. Doller also said that IBM researchers had demonstrated workable PCM dies with a 5nm process which, it was thought, meant that PCM has a roadmap through several generations of process shrinkage, giving it quite a long life 'if' the dratted technology can be made to produce sufficiently high capacity chips with the claimed DRAM-like performance. So far it obviously hasn't.
Samsung Electronics and Numonyx announced late in June that they are jointly developing market specifications for Phase Change Memory (PCM) products. This, they say, should help makers of handsets and mobile applications, embedded systems and high-end computing devices by simplifying designs and shortening development time, enabling them to more readily use PCM products from both companies.
They are developing common specifications – or "pin for pin" hardware and software compatibility – for mobile, embedded, and other potential computing applications supporting the JEDEC LPDDR2 Low Power Memory Device Standard. These will be completed this year, with both companies expecting to have compliant devices available next year.
Now Numonyx is starting up an early access programme so prospective customers can kick PCM's tires and see if its use would be a good idea. If you sign up for the programme then you get: "an opportunity to review preliminary data sheets from Numonyx on existing and future PCM products from the company. Participants will also have an opportunity to order engineering samples of PCM products through the Numonyx sales team. In addition, the company will provide regular updates on essential news and data to ensure customers have all the latest available information about PCM."
The data sheets will, we guess, be delivered in a non-disclosure basis and we general public members won't be any better informed than before.
This is an organised PCM sample chip ship programme in effect. Again, indulging in some reading between the lines, Numonyx' PCM chips may not yet be ready for prime time and don't yet have the DRAM-like access speeds and high-enough capacities needed to enable them to cross over from sampling shipments to live production runs.
Numonyx' willingness to deliver data sheets to signed-up customers who may sample chips if they wish and its common specification exercise with Samsung both indicate that PCM technology could be getting closer to usable and deliverable product. There is so much cynicism abroad about PCM though that the two will have to do a lot of work before cynicism turns to acceptance. ®


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Sponsored by
The 15th International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC 2012) will take place in Beijing, in April 17-19, 2012.
HSCC 2012 is part of the 5th Cyber Physical Systems Week (CPSWeek) which is the collocated cluster of five conferences and workshops: HSCC, RTAS (Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium), IPSN (International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks), and ICCPS (International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems). Through CPSWeek, the five major events will have a shared registration process, joint invited speakers and poster sessions, and joint social events.
HSCC 2012 is the 15th in a series of successful annual meetings dedicated to research in embedded reactive systems involving the interplay between symbolic/discrete and continuous dynamical behaviors. Such interplay often arises in embedded, reactive and cyber-physical systems, but also appears in other types of systems as well. Academic and industrial researchers are invited to submit manuscripts detailing the latest developments in practice and theory pertaining to the analysis, design, control, optimization, verification, implementation and applications of such hybrid systems.
The previous editions of HSCC were held in Berkeley, USA (1998), Nijmegen, The Netherlands (1999), Pittsburgh, USA (2000), Rome, Italy (2001), Palo Alto, USA (2002), Prague, Czech Republic (2003), Philadelphia, USA (2004), Zurich, Switzerland (2005), Santa Barbara, USA (2006), Pisa, Italy (2007), St. Louis, USA (2008), San Francisco, USA (2009), Stockholm, Sweden (2010), Chicago, USA (2011).
Conference Topics
Submissions are invited in all areas pertaining to the analysis, design, control, optimization,
implementation, and applications of hybrid dynamical systems. Topics of interest include, but are not
limited to:
Thao Dang and Ian Mitchell
HSCC 2012 Program Chairs
email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Publications advanced search
IAEA scientific and technical publications can be searched by multiple parameters: year of publication, topic and type. Use the facets to input your search criteria or the text field to search by title, keyword, ISBN, ISSN or series number.
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IAEA Technical Cooperation Programme: Sixty Years and Beyond — Contributing to Development
Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Vienna, 30 May–1 June 2017
Proceedings Series
100 pages ¦ 33 figures ¦ ¦ € 36.00 ¦ Date published: 2018


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spill it
about all of the unnecessary drama
surrounding the offer we made on the house.
Drama which, by the way,
has NOTHING to do with us or the offer we made.
The Pioneer Woman,
but I also have more than just a handful of readers;
the last thing I want to do is rant and rage
against someone and have them read it.
Worse yet, have their lawyers read it.
Which has me thinking....is it really a dream home
if it's giving you nothing but grief this early in the game?
It's structurally and electrically sound,
and would sail through an inspection easily.
( Update: It is our new home!!! )
into someone else's juvenile melodrama.
I do sort of love this charming little house.
It doesn't have the same initial "wow" factor as the other,
but it's definitely growing on me.
And you?
What do you think?
Oh, and I did a little Photoshop painting,
here's what this charming little cottage will look like once we re-paint...
Did somebody say "wow factor"?
Uh huh.


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This Camshaft must be installed with new rocker arms. LC Engineering will not warranty any camshaft that was not purchased together with Aluminum rocker arms. LC Engineering highly recommends using our Pro Camshaft Kit (Part# 1020000) or Double Spring & Retainer Kit (Part# 1023210) when running any cam with over .460" lift or in any application that requires a sustained RPM of 6,000 or higher.
The following figures taken @ .050 lift at valve with .000 valve lash.
Installation Notes:
- Always check valve to piston clearance and Valve to valve clearance with this Camshaft! Failure to install this cam with matched valve train components can cause engine damage.
- After installing a new camshaft, lash #1 intake valve to zero then screw intake valve in .080" (Valves not closing completely) with spark plugs removed turn engine over CAREFULLY BY HAND. Do intakes first, if OK then do exhaust. If engine cycles without binding, you are sure that you have minimum clearance (If binding occurs, piston clearance is required).
Camshaft Break-In Instructions
The first few minutes on camshaft and rockers are the most important wear period. In this period the cam and rockers become burnished together. When installing the camshaft, thoroughly coat the lobes with the special assembly lube provided. Cam should be installed per factory service manual procedures. Set valves at proper lash dimensions, and then readjust valves after break in period is completed. CHECK valve train for interference. CHECK valve to piston clearance, you must have .100" min. CHECK valve spring retainer to valve guide and seal for clearance. CHECK valve springs for coil binding, you must have .090" min. Of free travel before the springs become solid after the valve in fully open. 98% of all cam failure is excessive valve spring pressure.
Start engine quickly, excessive cranking of engine is not good for the camshaft. Bring rpm to 1500-1800 for 20-30 minutes (ABSOLUTELY NO IDLING & NO REVVING OVER 2000 RPM) during the break in period. Camshaft should now be burnished to the rockers. It is absolutely vital that once a cam lobe and rocker have been burnished together, they remain together. So if the camshaft and rockers are removed from the engine, be sure the rockers are numbered and reinstalled on the same lobe. Failure to do this is asking for disaster.
NOTE: Standard degreeing procedures should be followed for maximum performance. All cam specifications are checked at .050" lift.


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Welcome to My Poser Images 364
These are all images of Kids 4 figure with a new character by Little Designs.The outfit is called Cuddles.
Just LEFT click on the thumbnail image and another page will open with the image. You might notice that as you run your cursor over the image it might have a little + sign in the middle of the cursor and the image at first glance has lots of jaggies. If it does, then left click on the image to make it its full size. As I was preparing this page, I noticed on some the little glass didn't appear but you still needed to click to enlarge it anyway. So give clicking to enlarge a try even though it might not look like it is needed.
Then right click on it and you can save the image from there. Just make sure you check that it is being saved as a "png" image to keep its transparency. Then go up to your browser button and click the back button to return you to this page. This way will save you from downloading a zip, then unzipping it later. Now you have the image as is, you can see the whole thing and then save it right to the folder of your choice on your hard drive.
The images below have been reduced to 20% of their full size .They have been rendered at 300 dpi. and are based on approximately 1500 pixels in height. They are all full figures even though the thumbnail may appear cut off.
If you need to add copyright info because of the groups you belong to, then add ©P.Ann


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Linux felon forced to install Windows
A Linux user who was jailed for uploading a film onto a peer-to-peer service has been told he will have to switch to Windows if he wants to use a computer again.
Scott McCausland, who used to be an administrator of the EliteTorrents BitTorrent server before it was shut down by the FBI, pleaded guilty in 2006 to two copyright-related charges over the uploading of Star Wars: Episode III to the internet. As a result, he was sentenced to five months in jail and five months' home confinement.
McCausland — who also goes by the name "sk0t" — has since been released from jail, but on Tuesday he reported on his blog that the terms of his sentence meant he would have to install Windows if he wanted to use a computer during his probation. "I had a meeting with my probation officer today, and he told me that he has to install monitoring software onto my PC," wrote McCausland. "No big deal to me… that is part of my sentence."
"However, their software doesn't support GNU/Linux (which is what I use)," continued McCausland. "So, he told me that if I want to use a computer, I would have to use an OS that the software can be installed on. Which basically means: Microsoft and monitoring software or no computer. I use Ubuntu 7.04 now, and they are trying to force me to switch. First they give me two felonies, then they throw me in prison, and now this."
According to the website TorrentFreak, McCausland and his attorney will fight the situation. "It isn't the fact that I have to be monitored that bothers me, it is the fact that I have restructure my life (different OS, different software on that OS) and that they would require (force) me to purchase software while I am currently unemployed and relatively unemployable with the two felonies that they gave me," McCausland said. "It is just a ridiculous situation."
The US often takes a harder line on file-sharing than many other countries, although the Conservative Party leader David Cameron has called on ISPs to take a more active role in fighting illegal filesharing in the UK.


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For Immediate Release, October 27, 2009
Contact: Justin Augustine, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 436-9682 x 302
Lethal New Poison Could Exterminate Black-tailed Prairie Dogs — Plus Kill
Whooping Cranes and Golden Eagles
SAN FRANCISCO— The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering whether to approve a poison, appropriately named Kaput-D, that would be used to exterminate black-tailed prairie dogs. Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted comments explaining the numerous problems with Kaput-D, including how it could also kill non-target species like the extremely endangered black-footed ferret, whooping crane, and American burying beetle, as well as foxes, golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, mountain plovers, burrowing owls, and bald eagles.
"This is like kicking someone when they're already down," said Justin Augustine of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Less than a year ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the black-tailed prairie dog may need to be protected under the Endangered Species Act because of already approved poisons that are killing the species. EPA should be withdrawing prairie dog poisons from the market in order to protect this imperiled species, and instead they're considering allowing more."
Kaput-D is an anticoagulant poison. It causes animals to lose blood through various orifices, including eventually the skin membranes, over a period of weeks. During this time, poisoned prairie dogs may wander around as they become weaker and weaker and vulnerable to predation. As that point, animals that prey on prairie dogs or use prairie dog habitat can themselves be poisoned.
The EPA is in charge of regulating rodenticides like Kaput-D and has the power to reject applications, as well as alter or cancel existing permits (known as registrations). The agency is also required to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service anytime a rodenticide may impact an endangered species such as the black-footed ferret. Thus far, however, EPA has refused to do so in regard to not only Kaput-D but also for already existing prairie dog poisons such as Rozol, another anticoagulant.
"While Kaput-D should not be registered due to its severe negative impacts to all wildlife, it is particularly troublesome that EPA is blatantly violating its obligations to species listed under the Endangered Species Act," said Justin Augustine. "It's time for the Obama administration to step up and start protecting America's wildlife instead of continuing the ridiculous antics of the Bush administration. Approving a poison like Kaput-D makes about as much sense as feeding strychnine to your child. No one in their right mind would do it."
Go back


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Personalised Hippo Soft Toy Keepsake Gift
Your plush hippo soft toy can be personalised for any occasion and makes a fantastic gift for a keepsake.
A perfect keepsake for any new parent and new arrival to cherish.
Your super soft hippo is approximately 12 inches from head to toe. The stuffing is removable for easy washing, making it the perfect gift for all ages. Your hippo can be used as a pj case too!
Personalisation and choices
Please include the following information in the message to seller box.
1 - Name to be embroidered
2 - Thread color choice(s)
For Birth Stat Block:
1 - Name(s) and birth stats to be embroidered
2 - Thread color choice(s)
3 - Any design elements you would like included - layout, stars or hearts etc
Custom Message:
1 - Information to embroidered
2 - Thread color choice(s)
Processing and Shipping
Our personalised soft toy gifts take 3-5 days to prepare ready for shipping. Shipping is via Royal Mail and will take approx 1-2 working days. Please get in touch if needed sooner and we will do our best to meet your requirements.
*****If ordering a personalised soft toy with any other item they will arrive in separate packages as we have partnered with a fellow small business to bring you these wonderful keepsake gifts. If you are shipping to recipient we will be in touch to clarify gift messages.*********
We Also Recommend


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Alabama prisoners who say they are unfairly penalized for being HIV-positive are taking their accusations of discrimination to federal court today.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union will begin arguments today in a court in Birmingham on behalf of approximately 250 HIV-positive Alabama inmates whose rights, they say, are being violated under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The lawsuit was the subject of an impassioned letter in the Washington Post this weekend by pop star Elton John, founder of the Elton John AIDS foundation.
"If you want to know what it was like to live with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, state prisons in Alabama or South Carolina in 2012 offer some tragic examples," John wrote. "But HIV is no longer a death sentence; simply having the virus merits neither cruel and unusual punishment nor the denial of opportunities to earn one's way back into society."
The prisoners can also get in trouble for mixing with the general population. Albert Knox, a prisoner named as a plaintiff in the suit, spent 45 days in a disciplinary segregation cell after he ate lunch with non-HIV prisoners he met through a substance abuse program offered at the prison.
The lawsuit alleges that the segregation is "stigmatizing and humiliating."
The state asked the U.S. federal court in Birmingham last week to dismiss the suit on the grounds that the ACLU had not proved that there would be no risk of infection to other prisoners if the HIV patients were fully integrated. The court denied the state's request, setting the stage for arguments beginning today about whether the policy violates the rights of the inmates.
Alabama and South Carolina are the only states that continue to separate HIV-positive inmates from the general population in state prisons.
According to the lawsuit, many states adopted similar policies in the 1980s at the height of the "public fear over the HIV/AIDS epidemic." But by 1994, only six states maintained separate populations, and by 2003, only three states continued to keep HIV-positive inmates apart from the general population, according to the suit.
In 2010, the Mississippi Department of Corrections ended its separation policy, leaving Alabama and South Carolina as the only states to continue with inmate separation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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Amy's Marathon of Books is in Halifax with Namesake
Posted on January 17th, 2014 by pajamapress
"…Where reading non-fiction books can at times be dry and daunting, fiction opens up the same topics in a new way, providing characters a reader can personally connect with interspersed with historical facts.
Sue MacLeod's Namesake is a spectacular example of this. I loved the way she took some liberties with Lady Jane's story, while still staying true to the historical aspects. MacLeod also manages to make Jane and Lady Jane's characters equally fleshed out and relatable.
…I would recommend this book more for early teen readers, but it's a must read for lovers of historical fiction."
Click here to read the full review.


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written and directed by Joe Begos
by Bill Chambers The picture's opening titles are in John Carpenter's familiar white-on-black Albertus font, and intercut with fragments of exposition like the intro to Prince of Darkness while some neo-Alan Howarth works the minor keys on a synthesizer. But as the makers of Almost Human have already given the game away in an endless, stilted prologue, what may sound like loving homage feels in context like a desperate play for credibility, a dog whistle meant to reassure the horror geeks they're in good hands. They're not. Set in the late-'80s, because nothing good's happened since then, the film is about an archetypal fat-guy/hot-girl couple (Josh Ethier and Vanessa Leigh) and third wheel Seth (Graham Skipper) getting torn asunder when the husband, Mark, is rudely abducted by aliens. Two years later, Seth remains shattered but Jen has settled down again with the poster boy for modern douchiness, one of those guys who shaves his beard into a thin strip along the jawline. So much for period detail; so much for Jen's taste in men improving. Anyway, Mark is returned to Earth, but not in the same placid condition--maybe the aliens broke him and this is nothing more than their version of tossing a toy out the window on a highway. As Mark begins a psychotic rampage that inches him ever closer to Jen, Seth's spidey sense starts tingling and he goes to warn her in one of many scenes that peg this for next-gen Ed Wood, because writer-director Joe Begos couldn't conceive of a more efficient, less torturous way to put Jen and Seth in a room together than to have him show up at her diner, politely ask the lady at the counter to retrieve her, then twiddle his thumbs (and ours) waiting for her to materialize. Some decent splatter--Mark uses a greatest-hits of horror implements against his victims--makes up the shortfall before going a bridge too far into tentacle rape and a recreation of the Irreversible head-bash but with a woman. I don't think the filmmakers are world-class misogynists or anything, I just think they're kind of stupid. Be sure to stay through the closing credits for a tag--not that it's worth it, but I was the only one at my screening who did, and misery loves company.


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I'm really proud of the virtual goods system we built at my startup– IMVU, and a whole day of presentations left me feeling very confident in IMVU's durable competitive advantage. Most of the breakthroughs we had at IMVU were made possible because we had really good people grappling with really difficult problems. Those problems were the necessary consequences of some decisions we made early on. I'd love to take credit for the good work that came later, but that's not really fair. The credit is due to much smarter people than me, and to the incredible power of necessity, that mother of invention.
Here's what I mean. I believe there are only a few key decisions to make about virtual goods. These decisions cause problems that will challenge you for years, if you are lucky enough to be successful with your product. If you know what you're getting into, you really don't need to solve those problems in advance. As the size of your community and economy grows, you'll be able to solve them as they arise, as long as you know what to look for.
What makes a particular decision key? Those that require extreme focus and which are hard to reverse later. Of course, no choices in the real world are completely binary. At IMVU, where we are known for our incredible user-generated content, we also have some first-party content, that was important in seeding our catalog. But the work we've done to enable UGC dwarfs the effort we've put into first-party content, so much so that I think it has rightfully consumed almost all of our focus. Hence, this caveat. I recommend that you focus on one answer to each of these questions, even if you dabble in the other possibility.
User-generated content (UGC) or first-party content?
Some products, like Habbo Hotel or World of Warcraft, employ professional artists and designers to create compelling virtual goods that players want to buy. Others, like IMVU or Second Life, rely almost exclusively on third-party developers to create goods.
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If you go the UGC route, be prepared to learn an awful lot about copyright and trademark law. Be prepared to deal with excruciating judgements about what kind of content is appropriate for your audience. Your challenge will be incentivizing your developers to create, and managing the volume of their output. How do you help customers find the best of the best? And what do you do with the rest? You may have to staff up a large customer service department to review and approve all of the items. And you may find yourself at the whim of some pretty unstable people. Yes, I have had to deal with developers on strike. Are you ready for that?
If you go the first-party route, you can try a different set of problems. You do get the beneift of total control of your content, so you can guarantee your customers a quality experience. However, virtual goods is a hits-driven business, which means you must constantly figure out what kind of content your customers want. Sales depend on being right (whereas in UGC we can pretty much try anything, and promote the winners). Your platform may require you to staff up a large production department to crank out enough content to satisfy your customers. You may have to take template-based shortcuts ("500 colors of the same basic shirt"). You may also struggle to keep up with changes in your audience. If your early adopters are interested in one kind of thing, but your mainstream audience has a different set of tastes, you may find yourself with a lot of rework on your hands. Can your platform really accomodate emo and anime? Princess and goth?
One last note on UGC vs first-party content, especially for you who are thinking of going the first-party route. Be careful not to get yourself accidentally into the UGC business. Humans are incredibly resourceful, and they really like to express themselves. Beware the trap that Google Lively fell into. They thought they had UGC under control, because they prohibited any user-generated 3D content or animations. They did allow people to create chat rooms and set the topic to whatever they wanted. Guess what they wanted to talk about. Lively's launch was marred by zillions of sex chat rooms, with people spending hours and hours trying to figure out how to use Lively's stock animations to make their avatars do things that looked kinky.
Subscription or a la carte payments?
I notice that people sometimes forget that one of the most profitable virtual goods businesses in the world is Blizzard's World of Warcraft, even though they don't allow customers to trade their hard-earned cash for virtual goods directly. Instead, they charge a flat-rate subscription, and then manage goods using a combination of gameplay, an internal currency and various trading systems. Most systems that come out of the video game world use subscriptions, as do products targeted primarily at kids. Why? Subscriptions help keep gameplay balanced between those with lots of money and those with less, which is key for products focused on fun. Subscriptions also constrain payment-method choices. In the US, it generally means getting parents involved, which is great for kid-focused products (that need parents anyway) but not necessarily great for products targeted at teenagers. On the other hand, they have a huge advantage when it comes to chargebacks, because regular subscribers provide a huge base of "safe" transactions that form a stable denominator for chargeback ratios.
Other sites, like IMVU, Mob Wars and many others allow customers to buy items a la carte, one at a time (or in bundles) as an upsell to the standard experience. This is especially important for teenagers, because it allows them to participate in products without having to go through the complex negotiation with their parents that a subscription usually requires. If you support mobile or prepaid cards for billing, they can even do it on their own, without approval, just using their discretionary income. If you go this route, be prepared to make money a dollar at a time, and to work with lots and lots of payment vendors. You're also going to have to deal with a lot more fraud and chargeback issues, because you'll have to work harder to forge the kind of long-term billing relationship subscription businesses enjoy. On the other hand, you can service customers that are hard to reach: the unbanked, international customers without credit cards, and teenagers everywhere.
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Merchandising or gameplay?
In a game like World of Warcraft, Kart Racer, or Mob Wars, customers don't struggle to discover new items. It's obvious what they want to buy, because the objects confer direct benefits that are rooted in the gameplay mechanics. The challenge is to balance the benefits that paying customers get with the benefits that customers get by investing three other attributes: passion, time and skill. An unbalanced game can lose all of its customers (paying or otherwise) rapidly.
For other products, customers are generally shopping for virtual goods in some kind of catalog. If you go this route, be prepared to make a long-term investment in the skill of merchandising. If you have a non-trivial amount of goods for people to buy, they are going to have to find ways to sort through them to find the ones they want. You'll need bundles, promotions, category and segment managers, and algorithms for upsell, cross-sell, and conversion optimization. In other words, a marketing department.
You can use these three questions to analyze existing businesses. For example, IMVU is a user-generated, a la carte, merchandising product. Habbo is first-party, a la carte, merchandising. Mob Wars is first-party, a la carte, gameplay. WoW is first-party, subscription, gameplay. I hope it also proves useful to people thinking about creating a new virtual goods product. My belief is that many of the decisions you make later will flow from these early ones.
Here's how we thought about it in the early days of IMVU. We first tackled the issue of UGC vs first-party content. This one was easy for us, because our values committed us to try to make freedom of expression core to our product. It was part of our mission statement. Of course, it didn't hurt that we only had a small team and not a lot of money, and third-parties gave us a lot of leverage. As for subscriptions, we wanted to have them from the beginning, but decided against them. Here was our reasoning. Fundamentally, we wanted our third-party developers to make money from their time invested in IMVU. So we did this thought experiment: we imagined a customer who was willing to buy a virtual shirt from one of our developers, but couldn't afford to pay us the subscription fee. Would we really turn them away? We decided the answer was no – our developers interests had to come first. So we chose a la carte. Last, we tackled the gameplay question. We knew IMVU would be a socializing platform, and so we decided that we would let our customers interact using their own rules for assigning status, like we do in the physical world. The government doesn't assign each clothing brand its own level of benefit. The companies that own those brands work hard to differentiate their offering so that people who wear their clothes will be perceived in a certain way. We wanted to let our developers do the same thing, so we opted not to go the gameplay route.
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That's how we formed our initial IMVU hypothesis. Very few of the decisions we made in those early days wound up, years later, affecting the outcome of the product. But these three did. I hope sharing them will help others who are thinking of working with virtual goods. If that's you, share your experience in a comment. Did you find these questions helpful? And for those of you already experienced with virtual goods, what do you think is missing?
A version of this article originally appeared on Eric Ries's website.


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The Oscar's were this weekend so I had to bust out some yummy treats to share with my friends!
I found this amazing pizza on How Sweat Eats and tweaked it a bit. I did use my own flat bread recipe but for the life of me can't find what recipe I used so I added in the recipe she gave.
Next on our list is Bacon Wrapped Lil Smokies Jalapeño Peppers the original recipe didn't have lil smokies and I added them in :). These were so yummy and not burn your mouth hot.
And we end with the recipe that was given 5 stars (she said if there was 6 stars she would have given it that). Talk about yummy, so good I left it at her house :) so I wouldn't eat them all. I found this recipe on Lick the Bowl Good (yup you got to love that name).
Happy Tuesday, hope you find one you love.