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Sales meetings are a critical component of a great sales culture — an opportunity to build the skills of the entire team and motivate them. In each meeting, if you provide your team with just one idea, strategy or tactic that will improve their game, and motivate with some positive reinforcement or reward, you will see a gain in productivity and sales results.
Here are six keys that guarantee your next sales meeting will help deliver the results:
1. Start with an energizer. Begin your meetings on time and start with some fun. Reward those who are punctual to help eliminate the lateness factor.
From week to week you'll find my team doing trivia games, telling funny stories, sharing sales highlights of the week, or discussing their focus for the month ahead.
2. Keep it simply simple (K.I.S.S.). Always ask, "Does this item need to be in the meeting or could it be done outside the meeting or as pre-work?"
Keep it simply simple with four steps: Make sure the pace of the meeting is fast, create the right atmosphere by ensuring it is fun, add value by helping the team better execute on a key sales skill that will help them close business and have shared ownership, meaning you have the members share content on a regular basis.
3. Have three rules for individual updates. When discussing personal updates make sure the topics are small and the answers timed, so they don't take over the meeting or sap the team's energy.
To ensure individual updates don't take up too much of the sales meeting, follow these three rules: set time limits, create different themes around successes, like key learnings and future focus and know when to take individual issues offline.
4. Motivate and reward. You must build motivation into every team meeting. The sales team has a tough challenge and needs to feel supported and recognized. This isn't about big gifts or exceptional moments — the simplest "thank you" can have great meaning.
Think about sorting the rewards into different categories. You can make them fun, competitive, team-based, recognition-based or even externally focused, such as getting input or recognizing someone outside of the sales team.
5. Capability activity. Every sales meeting must stretch and challenge team members' skills to keep them at the top of their game. Capability activities can focus on prospecting, networking, lead generation, client meetings, presenting solutions or closing. The capability activity is all about ongoing skill development and is the key to creating value at the meeting.
6. Standard agenda. If you follow our format, you'll have a standard, consistent and easy-to-follow agenda that will keep you focused and on track. With it, you can reduce your meeting preparation time dramatically. Keeping your agendas in a folder for reference will also ensure you don't repeat any of the fun and creative segments.
With these six keys, my sales managers have managed to reduce meeting preparation time to 10 minutes or less per meeting, while consistently creating high-value meetings. This focused and consistent investment of your time will guarantee gains in your sales teams' productivity and overall results.


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As Henry Ford, Richard Sears and other trailblazing entrepreneurs cemented their business empires in the early 20th century, two of their lesser-known peers — also with no advanced education — laid the foundation of a different legacy.
In Massachusetts in 1919, Theodore Vail, president of AT&T, and Horace Moses, president of Strathmore Paper, founded what might be the first extra-curricular entrepreneurial program in the country -- Junior Achievement, which taught high school students the skills of the trade after school hours.
Now, programs of Colorado-based Junior Achievementreach more than 4 million students a year; in particular, its JA Be Entrepreneurial program focuses on challenging students to start their own entrepreneurial venture while still in high school.
JA is hardly alone. In places like Philadelphia, Lincoln, Neb., Portland, Ore., and Syracuse, N.Y., cities, schools and not-for-profit organizations are teaching entrepreneurial studies to kids well before they reach college age.
"These are desperate times; we're facing great challenges in the global economy," says Ted Zoller, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation's entrepreneurship program and a professor at the University of Carolina-Chapel Hill. "People are really hungry for heroes."

subset: commoncrawl


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by David Crane defrev at gmail dot com December 31, 2007 1) Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) has a new weapons sight called the "FMWS", which stands for "Fused Multispectral Weapon Sight". It's DefenseReview's understanding at present that the FMWS combines an infrared (IR) imager and I2 (Image Intensification / Night Vision) imager (unfonfirmed/unverified). The FMWS is so new, we don't …Read More »
Tag Archives: ares defense systems
Shrike 5.56 LMG/SAW: Updated Info and Pics at Military-Arms.com
Military-Arms.com has posted updated info and hi-res pics on the Shrike 5.56 LMG/SAW by ARES Defense Systems. You can view it/them by… clicking here. Worth checking out.Read More »
SHOT Show 2004: Shrike 5.56 Light Machine Gun/Squad Automatic Weapon.
by David Crane [email protected] Some of you may remember the last story we did on the Shrike 5.56 LMG/SAW awhile back, titled "Shrike 5.56 by ARES Defense Systems Finally Makes it to Production.". Well, Full-Auto.com has just published some great pics and info on the Shrike 5.56 LMG/SAW's appearance at SHOT Show 2004 on their main web page. Geoffrey Herring, …Read More »
Shrike 5.56 by ARES Defense Systems Finally Makes it to Production.
This just in: The Shrike 5.56 LMG(Light Machine Gun) upper, by ARES Defense Systems, LLC, is in production and currently available for pre-order(both in select-fire and semi-auto-only configurations), and the ARES Defense Systems site is up and running. If you remember, DefRev reported on the Shrike 5.56 and ARES Defense Systems some time ago. If it works as advertised, the …Read More »
Want to Turn Your AR-15 into a belt-fed? It's Shrike Time.
The Shrike 5.56, by Ares Defense Systems, is one very cool modification for any AR-15. It replaces your upper and turns your magazine-fed AR-15/M16 into a belt-fed, without any modification whatsoever to your lower receiver. Thus, the Shrike 5.56 upper allows the weapon to fire with either linked-ammunition OR magazines, and it is designed to fit ALL AR-15 and M-16 …Read More »


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The Portrait Artist Michael Orhelein, a well-known and well-respected Bethany Beach photographer, is widely recognized for a unique casual style in portraiture, whether the location is at a beach like Bethany Beach, his studio or another location special to you. Michael Orhelein specializes in several types of portrait photography including child portraits, family portraits and beach portraits and also offers black and white and painterly styles.
It's our desire to create for you portraiture which will bless your life for years and be remembered always as one of the best investments you have made. You can be sure your portrait from 'The Portrait Artist' Michael Orhelein will be art of a very personal nature and a treasured family possession.
It is Your Story. Let us help you share it.
Michael, Hope and Ann Marie look forward to helping you.


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Tonight, the American people will be watching President Obama's fifth State of the Union address. How has he done on his promises over the past four years?
Take a look at some of the promises Obama made back in 2009 during his first State of the Union.
"I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office."
During his first State of the Union, newly inaugurated President Obama vowed to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Instead, Obama has averaged deficits nearly three times that of his predecessor.
For those who were concerned with President George W. Bush's $4 trillion national debt, this pledge may have seemed like the "hope and change" the American people voted for in 2008. However, the reality of America's additional debt over the past four years under the Obama Administration is staggering—almost $6 trillion in four years, on track to triple the amount Bush accumulated over his eight years as President. Now that Obama is heading into his second term, we've seen quite a change from the Barack Obama who thought $4 trillion in debt was "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic."
"Over the next two years, this [stimulus] plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."
The President promised great things from the stimulus plan, but as Heritage's J.D. Foster has said, we have to look at his record. He may have promised 3.5 million new jobs, but he's 7.7 million jobs in the hole instead.
"…we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It's a commitment that's paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue."
President Obama's promise that Obamacare would provide health insurance for every American has been proven false. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 30 million Americans are projected to remain uninsured even after Obamacare is fully implemented.
The idea that Obamacare would improve the "efficiencies" of the health care system is laughable. Obama's plan for "efficiencies" in the system was just slashing Medicare provider reimbursement rates to the tune of $716 billion to help pay for Obamacare. The mammoth law is going to take 127 million hours of paperwork per year for Americans to comply with it. And Members of Congress are already walking back their support for the law—they are grumbling about several parts of it and even repealed one part in the fiscal cliff deal.
"We will invest $15 billion a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America."
When President Obama starts talking about "investing" taxpayer money, beware. Successful companies do not need taxpayer investment. The now-infamous energy company Solyndra is the most popular example of "investing" in energy companies gone wrong. The government subsidies to the green energy company lost the American taxpayers $627 million. While Solyndra is the most famous green failure, Heritage has exposed 19 taxpayer-funded failures in the Green Graveyard series. According to Heritage research, the government "invested" $2.6 billion in companies that then went bankrupt.
We have a massive federal deficit and millions of missing jobs. Obamacare is a bureaucratic nightmare that isn't helping people get health care. The President's "investments" have flushed taxpayers' hard-earned money down the toilet.
We can only imagine…what will he promise tonight?
Read the Morning Bell en español only on Libertad.org
Watch with us! Our experts will be live blogging the State of the Union at Foundry.org tonight.
Quick Hits:
- North Korea conducted another nuclear test, in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.
- President Obama wants questions for his post-State of the Union "Fireside Hangout." Check out — and vote for — our question.
- Yesterday the Morning Bell covered the possibilities for developing domestic natural gas resources. Learn more from Nick Loris's in-depth paper.
- The Senate is expected to vote on the Violence Against Women Act today. Heritage Action cautions lawmakers to examine whether the law is effective at protecting women from violence.
- Tonight, watch the State of the Union LIVE with Heritage! Our experts will be blogging during the speech, and we'll be live-tweeting. Follow us and join the conversation on Twitter @Heritage.


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Eric Harris was taking Luvox (a Prozac-like drug) at the time of the Littleton murders
by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
On April 29 the Washington Post confirmed that Eric Harris, the leader in the Littleton tragedy, was taking the psychiatric drug Luvox at the time of the murders. On April 30 the same newspaper published a story quoting expert claims that Luvox is safe and has no association with causing violence. In fact, Luvox and closely related drugs commonly produce manic psychoses, aggression, and other behavioral abnormalities in children and young people.
Luvox is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) that is approved for children and youth (up to age 17) for use in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder. However, doctors often give it for depression, since it is in the same SSRI class as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil.
According to the manufacturer, Solvay, 4% of children and youth taking Luvox developed mania during short-term controlled clinical trials. Mania is a psychosis which can produce bizarre, grandiose, highly elaborated destructive plans, including mass murder. Interestingly, in a recent controlled clinical trial, Prozac produced mania in the same age group at a rate of 6%. These are very high rates for drug-induced mania–much higher than those produced in adults. Yet the risk will be even higher during long-term clinical use where medical supervision, as in the case of Harris, is much more lax than in controlled clinical trials. These drugs also produce irritability, aggression or hostility, alienation, agitation, and loss of empathy.
Reports suggest that Eric Harris may have had a relatively good family life. If so, it adds to the probability that he was suffering from a drug-induced manic reaction caused by Luvox. The phenomenon of drug-induced manic reactions caused by antidepressants is so widely recognized that it is discussed several times in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association and many times in The Physicians' Desk Reference.
I have lectured widely and written extensively about violence in association with taking SSRI antidepressants in Talking Back to Prozac (St. Martin's Press, 1994) and Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry (Springer Publishing Company, 1997).
I have testified as a medical expert in three teenage cases of murder in which SSRIs were implicated in playing a role. In one case, a sixteen year old committed murder and tried to set off multiple bombs and incendiary devices at the same time. I have also testified in cases of adult murderers who were under the influence of SSRIs, including one mass murder of twelve people followed by suicide. The comparisons to Littleton are obvious.
Psychiatric drugs including Ritalin and Prozac have also been taken by at least one other school murderer (Kip Kinkle). Psychiatric drug use is only one of the contributing factors to the episodes of school violence. However, it is one of the most easily prevented factors. There is strong scientific evidence to support the view that SSRIs should not be given to children and teenagers.


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Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, What Are You Reading?
Sara Kate:
New Yorker - I recently signed up again. I don't pressure myself to read the whole thing. Just a taste here and there. It's a great way to read pretty reliably good writers and as a writer, I need to keep that kind of inspiration in my reading life.
Spoon Fed by Kim Severson - I'm not done yet. It's a very entertaining and also heart-wrenching account of the life, so far, of a writer I really admire. I'm going to finish it at the beach this weekend.
Serve it Forth by MFK Fisher - I'll admit this if my first time reading this classic, Fisher's first book. It takes you to another place, one filled with perfumed Parisian morsels and Roman pies. It's next to the bed and I find I can pick it up and just have little nibbles.
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee - I keep this around and browse through it now and then, to try to give myself the sense that I can re-live my failed high school career of science in a realm for which I care more deeply, that of the kitchen.
Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman - I'm a gardener and trying to figure out how to get more food out of my garden. As a cook, my passion for feeding people isn't confined to what goes on in the kitchen or at the dining table. I like growing the stuff too.
Thank you for participating, Sara Kate! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.
Previous WAYR posts:
Jaden Hair
Michael Ruhlman
Monica Bhide
Michael Natkin
Sara Roahen
Andrea Nguyen
David Lebovitz
Rick Bayless
Tara Austen Weaver
Mollie Katzen
Deborah Madison
Soup Peddler
Posted by lisa is cooking at Wednesday, June 09, 2010
11 comments:
I'm enjoying this series very much. I'm learning about so many books I must look at. :)ReplyDelete
That book, serve it forth sounds interesting.ReplyDelete
Could you take a picture of your book shelf? I bet you have a large collection of cookbooks!ReplyDelete
I loved "Spoon Fed,'' too. But Kim can do no wrong. She's one of the best writers around.ReplyDelete
This is the second time today I've heard of Spoon Fed. It must be a sign...ReplyDelete
Hi Lisa,ReplyDelete
You had a post in the past regarding sourdough wheat bread. In that post you mentioned the book "Breads from the La Brea Bakery". I attempted to get a starter going and unfortunately on day three mold formed. Do you have any tips or tricks on how to get this starter going?
Carl: I've been playing with bread all week, and I really enjoy having my sourdough starter. I did start mine in the winter last year, and we have less mold in the air at that time of year. Mold forming is a sign that there's too much bacteria in the mix, and it's out of balance. Check your starter every day, and if you see mold, remove it right away. If it's possible to remove all the mold, you can keep the culture and continue to grow it. Then, add a cup of flour and a cup of water and mix.ReplyDelete
The culture needs air for the yeast to build, and if you have the container covered too thoroughly that could be why mold formed. I covered my culture with cheesecloth held in place by a rubberband. For feeding and storing my starter, I keep it in a glass bowl covered with a plate. You want just enough of a cover to keep out airborn dust and any insects that may become interested, but air needs to get to the starter.
Good luck!
The only author I know is McGee and I have a lot of respect for him.ReplyDelete
Interesting to find out about the others.
I am not sure how I got on her list, but I get her weekly email dispatch- gives me some stimulating ideas for things!ReplyDelete
I'm with Angie, I'd love to see a picture of your bookshelf. I'd also love to know what you're reading now,ReplyDelete
As for Sara Kate's selections, I love them. Harold McGee is a favorite, I've tried and failed to read it straight through. I've adopted her approach, pick a topic and then read up on it. I had a chance to listen to him speak and I have to say he's just as fun to follow in person.


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Press Release: Outrage! New Carnegie Mellon Book Explores Art, Controversy and Society
Contact: Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / firstname.lastname@example.com
PITTSBURGH—One of the first projects formed through Carnegie Mellon University's Center for the Arts in Society (CAS) focused on the role art controversies play in the public. The results of the multi-year work by CMU faculty and other experts have been captured in a new scholarly book, "Outrage! Art, Controversy, and Society."
Edited by Carnegie Mellon's Andreea Deciu Ritivoi and Judith Schachter, along with Richard Howells of King's College London, "Outrage!" examines art controversies and how they are shaped by, and shape, a social context. The volume includes essays by 17 contributors — most with a direct connection to CMU — in fields ranging from art and visual studies to philosophy, literature and social sciences. It also carefully analyzes and attempts to define the concepts of "controversy" and "public" across cultures.
"Until now, there has not been a contribution to the study of public art controversy in an international perspective," said Ritivoi, associate professor of English. "The volume includes case studies from different cultures, such as Germany, Spain and Ireland. And, there is an historical dimension, so it is not just focused on present day issues."
Schachter, professor of anthropology and history, noted that what makes "Outrage!" unique were the discussions that occurred before contributors submitted their essays. "The Controversy group at Carnegie Mellon met in a workshop setting for several years, debating the issues around art in society that ultimately frame the diverse pieces in the book and lend them strong interconnections," she said.
By offering both contemporary and historical case studies, "Outrage!" allowed authors to trace historical roots of contemporary phenomena that would have otherwise been taken for granted — for example, understanding the role the media play in an art controversy and the significance of censorship for the presentation and preservation of cultural objects.
Stephen Brockmann, professor of German at CMU, wrote "Tracing Controversy in East German Film," which looks at East Germany in the 1960s when the communist government banned the production of films due to concerns over embedded political messages. The essay shows that artists could not do much against a powerful and repressive state, but their works were nevertheless influential for the subsequent history of German film.
In comparison, CMU Art Professor Lowry Burgess writes about the power of art — and its consequent vulnerability to destruction during national and international conflicts — and the necessity of protecting this particular manifestation of human creativity. In another essay, Duquesne University Philosophy Professor Fred Evans suggests how decisions about art in a city park can preserve the ideal of democracy, thus underlining the power of an object to engage values in its context.
Two essays in particular illustrate how the role that the media play in art controversy is different in different cultures. In "Recruiting and Nominating Participants for the Brooklyn Museum Controversy: The Contributions of New York City Print Journalists," Peter A. Cramer, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, looked at the key participants in the debate over the "Sensation" exhibit, which showed works from the collection of British advertising magnate Charles Saatchi along with mock health warnings. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to defund the museum over the exhibit, and it received prominent attention in The New York Times and other city publications. Cramer uncovered a dynamic between what Giuliani said and how the media, specifically The New York Times, covered the public event.
Ritivoi's essay focused on "The Nation's Cathedral: Public Art and Competing Memories in Post-Communist Romania." In it, she examines three newspapers and the conversation that was created out of the combined media coverage.
"What I found was that there was a framed discussion from the very beginning," Ritivoi said. "The public had become bombarded with hand-picked messages."
In addition to Ritivoi, Schachter, Brockmann and Burgess, Carnegie Mellon contributors to "Outrage!" include: Jennifer Keating-Miller, adjunct professor of English; Jon Klancher, associate professor of English; Franco Sciannameo, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts; Melissa Ragona, associate professor of art; and Albrecht Funk, visiting instructor of history. Andrew Ellis Johnson, associate professor in the School of Art, participated in all workshop discussions and designed the cover that captures the complexities of the subject as well as brings attention to the contents.
Other authors with CMU connections include Howells, who was a Distinguished Visiting Professor in CAS, and Carrie Ruiz, a former assistant professor of Modern Languages.
To celebrate the publication of "Outrage!" there will be a book launch and signing event at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 23 in the University Center's Danforth Lounge.
CAS is a research center in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and College of Fine Arts that investigates the role of arts in societies. For more information, visit http://www.cmu.edu/cas/.
To learn more about interdisciplinary research within the humanities at Carnegie Mellon, watch this video: http://youtu.be/DFdHcQN-Chs.


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- Watch the video
- Listen to the audio
- Download the slides
The world exploded into a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else.
— Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
A is for Apophenia
Apophenia is the name for that tendency in humans to see patterns where none exist, to draw connections, to make links.
Every conspiracy theory is an example of apophenia. But you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to experience it. We do it all the time. We see shapes in the constellations in the night sky. We see faces in just about everything.
Today, I would like to engage the apopheniac in you.
A is for Anchor
An anchor is an odd device to represent a link. I can even remember seeing anchor symbols used in the interfaces of rich text editors. If it wasn't an anchor, it was a chain. I suppose that was meant to represent a link …because chains have links.
Anyway, why A? Why Anchor?
It goes back to how the A element was originally used. When I say originally, I mean originally. Let's look at the first A element in the first web page at the first URL.
<A NAME=0 HREF="WhatIs.html">
This looks pretty familiar to us today. There's an A Element with opening and closing tags, some text in between, and an HREF attribute for the destination. But there's also a NAME attribute. This has since been deprecated — now we can just use an ID attribute on any element. The idea was that A elements could be used to create destinations for inbound links. They were, if you like, anchors within a page that other pages could tether themselves to. Each anchor is given a unique identifier (unique within the page, that is). Here, the identifier is simply the number zero, because this page was created by a programmer and in the mind of a programmer, counting begins with zero.
This use of the A element — using NAME attributes to create in-page anchors — never really took off. But the other attribute, the HREF attribute, that spread like wildfire. It's short for hypertext reference, and in this particular instance, the reference is to another page in the same directory on the same server. It's a page about hypertext.
Hypertext is text which is not constrained to be linear.
The term was first coined by Ted Nelson. He didn't just talk about text either. He also coined the term hypermedia. He coined lots of interesting words. He talked about things being deeply intertwingled. He also coined the term teledildonics, but that is not directly relevant to hypertext or hypermedia.
If hypertext is text which is not constrained to be linear, how did we ever manage with good old-fashioned non-hyper text and non-hyper media? We used archives.
A is for Archive
In 1965, JCR Licklider was commissioned to write a report on Libraries Of The Future. He — and his company Bolt, Beranek and Newman — would prove to be instrumental in creating our modern interconnected hypermedia world. More on that later. For now, let's look at this report. It has two parts:
- Concepts and Problems of Man's Interaction with the Body of Recorded Knowledge
- Explorations in the Use of Computers in Information Storage, Organization, and Retrieval.
I love the scope of that first part, looking at the body of recorded knowledge.
It's interesting that he talks about knowledge, not information, not data, but knowledge. How does data become information? How does information become knowledge?
The Library Of Babel is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, who I think of as the poet laureate of hypertext . He imagines a vast library that is filled with data, but frustratingly short on knowledge …because this library contains not only all the books ever written, but all the books that could ever possibly be written, with every possible permutation.
Here's how it works:
The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries… The arrangement of the galleries is always the same: Twenty bookshelves, five to each side, line four of the hexagon's six sides… each bookshelf holds thirty-two books identical in format; each book contains four hundred ten pages; each page, forty lines; each line, approximately eighty black letters.
Let's figure out how many books are in the Library of Babel. First, we need to know how much data each book holds.
- There are eighty symbols (or letters) per line, and
- 40 lines per page.
- There are 410 pages in each book.
Multiplying 80 by 40 gives us 3200, the number of symbols on each page. Multiply that by 410 and we get a total number of 1,312,000 symbols in each book.
We have two other pieces of information to work with. Borges tells us:
The orthographic symbols are twenty-five in number.
That's 22 letters, the comma, the period, and the space.
Here's the crucial bit of information that ensures that the library has boundaries:
In the vast library there are no two identical books.
Knowing that, we can calculate the number of books in the library. It's the number of symbols (25) raised to the power of the number of symbols in each book (1,312,000).
25 to the power of 1,312,000 expressed in base ten is 10 to the power of 1,834,097. Remember that's just the number of books: a figure that's over 1,834,097 digits long. That number wouldn't fit inside one book in the library (which, if you remember only holds 1,312,000 symbols).
So the number of books in the Library of Babel is not infinite …but it is really, really, really big. To give you some idea of just how big 10 to the power of 1,834,097 is, it has been calculated that the observable universe contains approximately 10 to the power of 80 atoms. There are more books in the Library of Babel than there are atoms in the universe.
And yet, thanks to the World Wide Web, you can theoretically peruse every single one of them.
Jonathan Basile has created libraryofbabel.info — an online representation of Borges's creation. It contains all possible text. You can browse by hexagon, then shelf, then row, then book, then page. Or you can search for a specific piece of text, because — of course — that text must be in there somewhere.
The very words I am speaking now must be somewhere in the library.
There's also a plug-in for Chrome so you can highlight any piece of text on the web, and then find its corresponding page in the Library of Babel.
This library has every possible piece of data …but it's sorely lacking in information (although the online version helps).
A is for All
Having all the data isn't enough. It needs to be organised — turned into information — for us to make use of it (and hopefully further transform that information into knowledge).
There have been many attempts to organise information. When those attempts are limited to a subset of data — instead of trying to create a Library of Babel — then they can be quite successful.
Carl Linnaeus organised the natural world using a naming convention for describing species — binomial nomenclature.
Charles Messier catalogued astronomical objects.
Melvil Dewey created the Dewey Decimal System to help librarians organise their collections. But this was a proprietary system, not an open standard. So the Belgian librarian Paul Otlet devised a Universal Decimal Classification system. I think it's fair to think of him as the father of information architecture.
The crazy old uncle of information architecture would be bishop John Wilkins, who in 1668 wrote An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. Centuries later, this would pique the interest of Borges who described Wilkins's madcap idea in an essay called The Analytical Language of John Wilkins. The idea was that the world could be classified into sounds.
He divided the universe in forty categories or classes, these being further subdivided into differences, which was then subdivided into species. He assigned to each class a monosyllable of two letters; to each difference, a consonant; to each species, a vowel. For example: de, which means an element; deb, the first of the elements, fire; deba, a part of the element fire, a flame.
It didn't scale well.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — inventor of calculus and nemesis to Newton — had a similar idea to Wilkins, but whereas Wilkins was trying to classify information using sounds, Leibniz wanted to use symbols: characteristica universalis. His leap of genius was to realise that if you could do this — represent the world with symbols — then you could perform calculations on those symbols. He described the conceptual framework for performing such operations as a Calculus ratiocinator. Centuries later, Norbert Wiener, the creator of cybernetics would say:
The general idea of a computing machine is nothing but a mechanization of Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator.
A is for Ada
Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator was an idea, rather than a real machine. Charles Babbage was a Victorian inventor and entrepreneur who was given seed funding by the British government to create his Difference Engine: a machine for computing logarithmic tables …a computer, if you will.
The Wozniak to Babbage's Jobs was Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the notorious Lord Byron. Ada's mother did everything in her power to steer her daughter away from following in her father's footsteps of becoming a poet. Instead Ada immersed herself in the world of mathematics. It was through mathematics that Ada hit upon the same insight as Leibniz — if we can perform calculations upon symbols, and those symbols don't have to just represent numbers, then we can perform calculations on anything …maybe even poetry.
In enabling mechanism to combine together general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link is established between the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most abstract branch of mathematical science.
The Difference Engine was abandoned in favour of an even more ambitious project: The Analytical Engine. Finally, the world would get a mechanical machine capable of performing calculations on symbols that could represent concepts or thoughts — a thinking machine!
As with so many start-ups, Lovelace and Babbage never quite managed to make it to market. But at least they did genuinely have an incredible journey before going broke.
A is for Alan
The Analytical Engine, like the calculus ratiocinator, remained an idea. It would be another century before we'd get a real nuts'n'bolts computing machine, thanks to the brilliant Alan Turing.
But as well as having a hand in creating the world's first physical computer, he also presented us with an imaginary machine. This theoretical machine was described as having:
…an infinite tape marked out into squares, on each of which a symbol could be printed.
Like Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator, a Turing machine would operate on symbols. How many symbols are we talking about here? Remember the Library Of Babel had twenty five symbols to work with.
Two. Two symbols. One and zero. On and off. True and false. With an infinitely long piece of tape and infinite amount of time, two symbols are enough to calculate literally anything.
This reduction of the world into its smallest pieces was the brainchild of Claude Shannon. He coined the term "bit" to describe this indivisible unit of information.
By the way, Turing himself referred to his theoretical machine as an automatic machine, or a-machine. A is for A-machine.
A is for Atlantic
There's another imaginary machine that serves as a wonderful conceptual prototype for working with hypertext and hypermedia. In 1945 Vannevar Bush published an article in the Atlantic Monthly called As We May Think. In this article, Bush describes a machine called the Memex, a contraction of Memory Index.
The Memex is built into a desk. Screens and switches on the surface of the desk allow the user to interact with huge amounts of information stored within the desk on microfilm. This would provide an "enlarged intimate supplement to one's memory."
Because everyone's mind is different, no two people would use the Memex in quite the same way. Bush described these individualistic approaches to linking concepts together as associative trails:
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.
The information stored in the Memex is the same for everyone, but the associative trails created by the user in navigating this information are unique. Bush also proposed that these associative trails could be shared. Users of the Memex could follow the breadcrumbs left by others.
This is hypertext.
A is for Augmentation
So many ideas about hypertext confined to the imagination! When do we get a working demo?
Ladies and gentlemen, on December 9th, 1968, we get the mother of all demos, courtesy of Douglas Engelbart. Six years previously, he had set out his goals for human-computer interaction in a work entitled Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. To achieve this aim of augmenting humanity, he created a working demo of his oNLine System, abbreviated to NLS.
Oh, and for this demo he just happened to invent video conferencing, the graphical user interface, and the mouse. He also implemented hypertext.
With Bush's Memex and Engelbart's NLS, concepts could be linked together, turning them from text storage devices to hypertext storage devices. But for hypertext to reveal its true power, we need a network greater than anything seen up to this point. Towards the end of the mother of all demos, we hear the first rumblings of just such a network.
A is for ARPA
ARPA stands for the Advanced Research Projects Agency.
This government agency turned to our old friend JCR Licklider, author of Libraries Of The Future. His company — Bolt, Beranek and Newman — set about designing a communications system that used this new-fangled packet switching that Leonard Kleinrock was so excited about. With packet switching, information was broken down into discrete chunks, routed around a network independent of each other, and then re-assembled at the destination.
At the same time, this idea of packet switching was independently discovered by Paul Baran at the Rand Corporation, who was trying to find a resilient network architecture capable of surviving nuclear attack.
The packet-switching idea was put to the test with the creation of a new network called the ARPANET. The very first message sent over the ARPANET was at 10:30pm on October, 29th, 1969. It was the command: LOG IN.
The message was sent and… the system crashed after the first two characters. Fittingly, then, the real first message sent over this proto-internet was "LO".
But they fixed the bugs and they kept working on making the system better as it grew bigger. It morphed from being a single network, the ARPANET, into being a network of networks, or an Inter-network, soon shortened to simply Internet.
For this internet to work, it was essential that all the individual networks connecting to it were using the same protocols to communicate. That's what really makes the internet the internet — regardless of what kind of hardware is being used, there's an agreement on how to switch those packets around. That's really all a protocol is: an agreement. They're more like treaties than code.
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf were the statesmen crafting the internet's protocols, and Jon Postel was the diplomat ensuring adoption went smoothly. They wanted a robust network, resilient not to nuclear attack, but to any kind of top-down control. They set out to create a protocol that would work for a network with no centre.
Together they crafted TCP/IP: the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is a deliberately dumb set of protocols. The protocols care not a whit for the contents of the packets being switched around the network. It's a simple low-level agreement. They used to joke that you should be able to implement TCP/IP using two tin cans and a piece of string.
You can then create more complex protocols on top of this simple, low-level, dumb foundation. You can create protocols for sending and receiving email, protocols for telnet, gopher, file transfer protocols that sit atop TCP/IP. Best of all, you don't need to ask anyone for permission. If you want to create a new protocol today, you can just go ahead and do it. All you need is rough consensus and running code. It turns out that running code isn't the hard part. The hard part is convincing people to use your protocol. Otherwise you don't benefit from Metcalfe's Law:
The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.
Think about it. The first person to own a telephone had a completely useless object. As soon as one other person had a telephone, it suddenly become exponentially more useful. That was the challenge facing the creator of a new protocol at the start of the 90s: that protocol was HTTP — the HyperText Transfer Protocol.
HTTP is one part of a three-part stack: HTTP is the protocol, URLs are the identifiers, and HTML is the format. Together they form the World Wide Web project.
The project was the brainchild of a young computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee. This wasn't his first attempt at creating a hypertext system.
In the 1980s, he created a system called ENQUIRE. It was named after a Victorian book of manners called Enquire Within Upon Everything, which I always thought would be a great name for the web.
Enquire didn't work out in the end, but it would influence the design of the World Wide Web project.
Another influence on the design of the system was the place where Tim Berners-Lee was working. CERN — the European Centre for Nuclear Research. It's an amazing place. The greatest experiment in the history of our species is being conducted beneath the border between Switzerland and France. In the 16-mile wide ring of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, human beings are recreating the conditions from the start of our universe. Protons are smashed together at velocities approaching the speed of light. It's a truly awe-inspiring endeavour.
When I visited CERN, I expected to be blown away by the science, and I was. I also expected to be blown away by simply being at the birthplace of the web, and I was. But what I wasn't expecting was to be blown away by how things get done at CERN. There is very little hierarchy. People from all kinds of backgrounds — from Nobel prize winning physicists to students on a Summer internship — collaborate on experiments for pure scientific research.
Trying to manage the flow of information in this collaborative but chaotic place was the challenge that Tim Berners-Lee was trying to solve. You can't just mandate a particular operating system or piece of software — people at CERN can and will use whatever they want. In the same way that the internet is a network of networks, what CERN needed was some way of allowing all these different computers with different operating systems to share information with each other.
Tim Berners-Lee submitted a paper to his supervisor, Mike Sendall. It had the uninspiring title Information Management: A Proposal. Well, Mike Sendall must have seen some potential, because he scrawled across the top:
Vague, but exciting.
The proposal described:
…a solution based on a distributed hypertext system.
Tim Berners-Lee was very familiar with previous hypertext systems. All of these fed into his project:
- Vannevar Bush's Memex,
- Douglas Engelbart's oNline System,
- Ted Nelson's Xanadu, although it was still vapourware at this point,
- Apple's Hypercard system for the Mac,
- and his own Enquire project.
But just creating the code wasn't enough. He — and his colleague and collaborator, Robert Cailliau — needed to convince the scientists at CERN to use this technology. To start with, they needed a catchy name.
For a while, they floated the idea of calling it the Mesh.
Then they kick around the idea of calling it The Information Mine. But Tim Berners-Lee wasn't keen on this one. He knew that, whatever name they chose, it would end up getting abbreviated, and he was worried it would look a bit egotistical.
And so they settled on World Wide Web. You have to admire the chutzpah of calling it World Wide Web when, at that point, it only existed on one person's computer.
Sure enough, it did end up getting abbreviated. Except in this case, there are actually more syllables in the so-called abbreviation — WWW — than there are in the full name.
They even made a logo. Graphic designers they are not. But there is a reason for the green colour of the Ws. Robert Cailliau is a synesthesiac — he "hears" the W sound as the colour green.
And so the web was born. Good job!
Learning from the lessons of TCP/IP, Tim Berners-Lee made sure to keep the individual parts of the system as simple as possible (but no simpler). The World Wide Web didn't succeed because the technology was the best; far from it. It succeeded because the technology was just simple enough — but also powerful enough — for people to get started with straight away.
Take HTML, for example. There was no official Version 1 specification for this hypertext markup language.
Instead there was a document called simply HTML Tags, presumably written by Tim Berners-Lee. This document listed the entirety of HTML, which was a grand total of 21 elements.
Most of those elements weren't even invented by Tim Berners-Lee. Instead, he borrowed the vocabulary already being used by scientists at CERN. They were used to writing documents in GML, which is supposed to stand for Generalised Markup Language, but was coincidentally created by three people whose last names were Goldfarb, Mosher, and Lorie: G, M, and L.
There was one element that was completely new to HTML:
This one single element is what enables the HT part of HTML. With this element, and its href attribute, anyone could link to anything on the web. It is brilliant in its simplicity.
Pleased with the way their project was progressing, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau submitted a proposal to present their World Wide Web at a hypertext conference.
They were rejected. Hypertext experts thought the World Wide Web was stupid.
As Ted Nelson put it:
Today's one-way hypertext — the World Wide Web — is far too shallow. The Xanadu project foresaw world-wide hypertext decades ago, and endeavored to create a much deeper system. The Web, however, took over with a very shallow structure.
He's not wrong. Hypertext on the web is shallow. It is stupid. Like TCP/IP, it is not smart.
The thing is, if you're hoping to get mass adoption, being smart is a bug. Being stupid is a feature.
Just about every other hypertext system embodied the idea of two-way linking. There was an awareness at both ends of the link. If the resource being linked to were to move or change, the link could be updated. It's robust, but it's complicated.
On the World Wide Web, by contrast, links only work in one direction. If the resource being linked to ends up moving or changing, well, tough luck. The result is link rot. That's the price we pay for a very simple hypertext system.
But, now that the web has been around a couple of decades, there is a sort-of, kind-of implementation of two-way linking.
It uses the humble rel attribute.
Rel is short for relationship. The value inside the rel attribute describes the relationship of the linked resource to the current document.
<a href="..." rel="...">
Some rel values were officially canonised in HTML.
rel="prev" means that the linked resource has the relationship of being the previous document to the current document.
<a href="..." rel="prev">
rel="next" means that the linked resource has the relationship of being the next document after the current document.
<a href="..." rel="next">
rel="author" means that the linked resource has the relationship of representing the author of the current document.
<a href="..." rel="author">
You get the idea.
Incidentally, there was once a corresponding rev attribute that described the reverse relationship. In other words, the relationship of the current document to the linked resource.
<a href="..." rev="...">
So you could simultaneously say the current document has a relationship of being the previous document to the linked resource and that the linked resource has a relationship of being the next document to the current document.
<a href="..." rev="prev" rel="next">
Confused? Well, that's why the rev attribute was eventually dropped from HTML. It was just too complicated.
There was an attempt to use the rev attribute in an early microformat called vote-links. This was proposed way back in 2004. Blogs were hot. Political blogs were very hot indeed: Bush Jr. — no relation to Vannevar — was running for re-election in the States, and John Kerry was the challenger. There was much blogging and gnashing of teeth.
The problem was the rise of PageRank, the algorithm that drove Google's search engine. The fundamental premise of PageRank was that linking to something counts as an endorsement. But there were many bloggers linking to articles that they disagreed with very strongly.
By using a rev value of "vote-for", authors could explicitly say that this document is a vote for the resource being linked to.
Or by using a rev value of "vote-against" they could make it clear that this document is a vote against the linked resource.
It never really took off because, as I said, the rev attribute was just too hard to grok.
And that's okay. The whole point of microformats is that they are the very embodiment of the motto of the Internet Engineering Task Force: rough consensus and running code. There just wasn't enough take-up of vote-links for it to thrive.
Another early idea — that actually preceded the official creation of microformats — was XFN, which stood for XHTML Friends Network: the most Web 1.0 format name ever.
XFN built on existing behaviour. Bloggers would often have a list of links in their sidebar pointing to other bloggers they had some kind of relationship with. If you assume that a URL can represent a person, then the rel attribute is perfect for encoding that relationship information.
I can link to a friend's website and say that the person represented by the linked resource has a relationship of being a friend to the person represented by the current document: me!
<a href="..." rel="friend">
Or I can link to a colleague's website and say that they have a relationship of being a colleague to me.
<a href="..." rel="colleague">
And because rel values — like class values — can be space-separated, I can combine rel values into one attribute. I can link to someone and say that they are both a friend and a colleague.
<a href="..." rel="friend colleague">
I still have XFN values in the sidebar of my blog, but again, it never really took off.
Except for one value, that seems at first glance to be completely pointless:
A rel value of "me": the linked resource has a relationship of being …me?
<a href="..." rel="me">
A is for Adactio
My website is adactio.com. I love my website. Even though it isn't a physical thing, I think it might be my most prized possession.
It's a place for me to think and a place for me to link.
But my web presence isn't limited to adactio.com — I have profiles on lots of different sites: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, Dribbble, Flickr, Tumblr, CodePen …the list goes on.
None of those places are as important to me as my own website, but they are representations of me.
I link out to these profiles from my own website using that rel value of "me". That's me on Twitter. That's me on Github. That's me on Flickr.
<a rel="me" href="https://twitter.com/adactio">
<a rel="me" href="https://github.com/adactio">
<a rel="me" href="https://flickr.com/adactio">
Nothing unusual there. These are regular one-way hyperlinks.
What's interesting is that many of those profiles on other websites provide a URL field where I can enter my own website. These third-party profiles then link back to my website also using a rel value of "me".
<a rel="me nofollow" href="https://adactio.com">
(They also use a rel value of "nofollow" to discourage spammers. The phrase "nofollow" makes absolutely no sense as a rel value — you can't have a relationship of "nofollow" to anything — but it was invented by Google. We don't get to argue with the 900 pound Google gorilla.)
Anyway, the result of having these reciprocal links, both using rel="me" means that we've kinda, sorta got two-way linking on the World Wide Web.
But …so what?
A is for Authentication
Some of those third-party profiles I'm linking to — Twitter, Github, Flickr — have something in common. They allow third-party authentication using OAuth.
If I can log into my Twitter, or Github, or Flickr profile using OAuth, and those profiles have two-way links with my website, then I can "borrow" that authentication flow for my own site.
That's the idea behind IndieAuth. I enter the URL of my own website. It finds the links from there to my other profiles using rel="me". Then I can choose which one of those profiles I want to authenticate against. Once I've authenticated with that service, I've also authenticated my own website.
Just by adding a short rel value to some links, I can use my website as a log-in.
My website also has a small write API. The API is called micropub. By combining IndieAuth and micropub, I can log into somebody else's posting interface using my website, and then use that interface to post to my own website.
These building blocks — microformats, IndieAuth, micropub — have emerged from a small but dedicated group of people.
We gather together at fun little events called Indie Web Camps.
An Indie Web Camp takes place over two days. The first day is split into discussions of technology and design. The second is all about implementing what we've discussed on the first day. I'm always amazed by how much gets done when you're in the same space as like-minded people.
Still, the technologies being discussed and implemented aren't the real focus of Indie Web Camp. The core tenet of Indie Web Camp is an idea. It's a very simple idea, that at one point would have been uncontroversial. That idea is that you should have your own website.
But who's got time for that? Especially when it's so much easier to write and share and link using platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Medium. That's a good point. A lot of the time at an Indie Web Camp is spent reverse-engineering what those services are doing so well, and applying them to personal websites.
Also, we don't necessarily want to stop using those services. After all, that's where the people are (for now). Instead we want to figure out ways of making use of these services, while still keeping the canonical versions of what we create under our own control.
There's a fantastic little Indie Web service called Brid.gy that allows you to not only post from your own site out to third party networks, but also receive replies, and likes, and retweets back at your own site, using another Indie Web building block called webmention.
In a way, webmentions allow a kind of two-way linking. I can cross-post something from adactio.com to Twitter, or Instagram, or Facebook. Then when someone replies on Twitter, or Instagram, or Facebook, I get notified with a ping back to my own site.
All of this is possible because I've verified the identity of those third-party profiles using nothing more than a simple rel attribute on a hyperlink.
The Indie Web uses a grab-bag of deliberately simple technologies that combine to create something so much more powerful than the sum of its parts …just like the web itself.
We often talk about places like Facebook, or Instagram, or Medium as walled gardens. Walled gardens are as old as the web itself. AOL was a well-cultivated walled garden back in the day.
There's nothing wrong with walled gardens. They're safe spaces. They take care of your enjoyment and entertainment, so you don't have to.
But there also a bit boring. I certainly don't relish the idea of spending my days within the boundaries of someone else's vision.
There's a different kind of garden. It takes its name from another short story by Borges.
The Garden of Forking Paths. It is uncontrolled. It is full of possibilities. It's a bit scary. It takes more dedication to explore. You might get lost. But is that so bad? When was the last time you were truly lost on the World Wide Web, when you clicked through link after link — no cheating by opening new tabs, now — until you ended up somewhere, blinking and asking yourself "what I was looking for?"
I would like us all to spend more time in the garden of forking paths. I would like us all to continue to grow this garden of forking paths. Add your own website to this garden of forking paths. Use it to make more links.
On your website, you can link to this thing over here and that thing over there, and in doing so create an entirely new forking path.
Remember, the web, like the internet, has no centre. In theory I could start from any single A element, and by following all the forking paths, traverse the entire World Wide Web.
That opening hyperlink could be on your own website. One single A element can be the portal to an entire universe of knowledge.
This was originally posted on my own site.


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Chips Rafferty meets Laurence Olivier
From a column I wrote for The Melbourne Times, 12 July 1989:
I've just read a description of a dinner held at Emu Plains, New South Wales in 1948. (The Gourmet's Week-End Book, edited by André Simon, Seeley Service, London 1952).
The setting was "Leonay", the home of hosts Mr. and Mrs. Leo Buring. Their guests included Sir Laurence Olivier and Lady (Vivien Leigh) Olivier, and Chips and Mrs. Rafferty.
Among the wines served were an 1893 Great Western Hermitage, a 1920 White Hermitage from Dame Nellie Melba's Coldstream vineyard, a 1932 Coonawarra Hermitage, a 1934 Hunter River Hermitage, a 1944 Drayton's Hunter River Semillon and a 1940 Leonay Liqueur Brandy. Continue reading


text:
Israel says it has sent ground troops to Gaza
Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip Thursday, escalating a 10-day military operation to try to destroy Hamas' weapons arsenal, rocket firing abilities and tunnels under the Palestinian territory's border with Israel.
It was the first major Israeli ground offensive in Gaza in just over five years. It came hours after Hamas militants tried to infiltrate Israel through a tunnel under the Gaza-Israel border, but were stopped by Israel.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said that the operation is open-ended.
"We will be striking the infrastructure," he said. "We will be striking the operatives in order to safeguard the civilians of the state of Israel especially issues to do with tunneling, that was exemplified earlier today."
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Thousands of Israeli soldiers had massed on the border with Gaza in recent days, waiting for the order to go in.
The operation also followed a brief truce earlier Thursday in which Israel held fire to allow Gazans to stock up on food and other necessities after being largely holed up at home since the conflict began last month.
Israeli strikes have hit more than 2,000 targets in Gaza and Hamas launched nearly 1,500 rockets at Israel, the Israeli military has said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he instructed the army to go ahead after Hamas rejected an Egyptian cease-fire plan earlier in the week and after Hamas militants tried to infiltrate into Israel through a tunnel from Gaza.
"In light of the despicable and relentless aggression by Hamas and the dangerous infiltration into Israel, Israel is obliged to protect its citizens," the statement said.
Israeli media reported of the loud rumblings of Israeli tanks and D9 bulldozers revving up their engines to cross the border.
Israel last carried out a major ground offensive in Gaza in January 2009.
Hamas officials had no immediate comment. However, security officials reported heavy Israeli shelling in eastern Gaza, near the border with Israel.


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Stock Overview
Ever wondered if there was more money to be made from the great images you have already taken? On this page you will be given an overview of what you need to know in order to start doing exactly that through selling photos as stock.
What is stock photography?
Types of markets
Stock photo licensing
What kind of images sell?
What is a stock photo agency?
What is stock photography?
Stock photography refers to images you have already taken that you make available for licensing. This can become an ongoing income source because the same image can sell again and again. And it is not just images that you have already taken. Many photographers who focus on stock anticipate demand and take pictures specifically for stock markets. Building a sizable, quality archive of unique stock images can be a supplementary revenue stream for you for years to come. For many photographers, it is their pension.
Stock photography refers to collections of existing images that are used by publications and designers to fulfil their picture needs instead of commissioning a photographer to do a shoot for them.
Types of markets
The buyers of stock photography have traditionally been divided into 2 groups: editorial and commercial. Editorial includes magazines, newspapers and books, and commercial covers usage such as for advertising and promotion.
Stock photo licensing
In order to license images you must be sure that the image is yours to license. Read our section on copyright of images to be sure.
In stock photography rights are sold to use the image. Selling rights is known as licensing. There are 2 main types of licenses used in stock photography: Rights Managed and Royalty Free. A Rights Managed license gives the user permission to use an image for a specific purpose, and the price charged relates to this usage. A Royalty Free license gives the user the right to use an image for any purpose and the price relates to file size.
What kind of images sell?
The images that people rate highly on Flickr are not always the same images that make good sales as stock photography. There are lists of best sellers and required images put out by some photographic agencies that can provide some good direction. There are also some general guidelines to follow when shooting for stock. There are plenty of opportunities to be maximised by being a photographer based in the Majority World which are highlighted in this lesson. A global perspective is provided in an interview with Alex from Alamy photo agency.
What is a stock photo agency?
A stock photography agency is an organization that markets collections of photographs from numerous photographers and from other stock photography agencies. In the digital era, stock photography agencies provide online databases that picture users can search to find the image that they require. The stock photography agency charges the picture buyer a rate to license an image for a particular use.


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Get certified! Freelancer.com has a range of technical exams which allow you to certify your skills to potential employers. On passing each exam, a special badge will be added to your profile. This will highlight your abilities and will be displayed next to your bids, helping you stand out from the pack!
Freelancers can take exams based on their skills. For example, if you are a programmer specializing in AJAX and C#, you are encouraged to take AJAX Programming and C# Programming exams. All exams are multiple-choice and users can skip questions to come back to at the end of the exam. The passing score varies depending on the exam, and Freelancers can take exams as many times as they want. Exams cost US$5 each, except for the practice exam, the Employer and Freelancer Orientation exam, and the Code of Conduct exam, which are free.
Freelancers who have taken an English exam are more likely to be awarded projects, making them a valuable asset to have on your profile page.
Badges are awarded on successful completion of exams. Your badge will include your percentile ranking, which may change over time as more people take the exam.


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You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older, unless you're one of the lucky mice participating in a recent study that's partially reversed age-related degeneration, resulting in stronger, sharper brains and larger, more virile testicles.
It's a fact of life: Human's grow old. As we grow old our bodies begin to deteriorate. We lose the ability to procreate, our bodies get weaker, and our minds just aren't as sharp as they once were. It's inevitable.
Or is it?
Researchers led by Harvard Medical School professor of genetics Ronald A. DePinho at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are on the verge of publishing the results of a study that has partially turned back the hands of time in lab mice by engineering them with a controllable telomerase gene.
The telomerase enzyme is responsible for creating telomeres, which are caps that protect the ends of chromosomes from deteriorating. As human beings age, the level of telomerase enzyme in our bodies decreases. Without telomerase enzyme the protective caps deteriorate, which may be responsible for the tissue degradation and functional decline in the elderly.
What the Harvard researches did was create mice with a controllable telomerase gene, which resulted in a batch of prematurely aged rodents. Their short, dysfunctional telomeres resulted in the sort of muscle and brain deterioration often seen in the elderly, as well as humans with premature aging disorders.
Rather than supply the rodents with supplemental telomerase, the scientists devised a way to switch on the animals' own dormant telomerase gene, known as TERT. They engineered the endogenous TERT gene to encode a fusion protein of TERT and the estrogen receptor. This fusion protein would only become activated with a special form of estrogen. With this setup, scientists could give the mice an estrogen-like drug at any time to stimulate the TERT-estrogen receptor fusion protein and make it active to maintain telomeres.
One group of mice had a time-release estrogen pill implanted under their skin. The other did not.
After four weeks, the estrogen-treated mice showed amazing rejuvenation. The telomerase gene was working anew, creating healthy-sized telomeres. Tissue that was degenerating weeks before was now growing once more. The spleen and brain showed increased size. The animals regained their sense of smell, lost due to premature aging. Their brains began to produce new neurons. And yes, the testes were more powerful than ever.
"One of the most amazing changes was in the animals' testes, which were essentially barren as aging caused the death and elimination of sperm cells," recounted DePinho. "When we restored telomerase, the testes produced new sperm cells, and the animals' fecundity was improved - their mates gave birth to larger litters."
The animals did not live longer than their untreated counterparts, but it certainly sounds like they lived better.
So what does this all mean to humans? The possibility of effectively reversing age-related diseases could change the way the world ages. The rest home industry could suffer and Wal-Mart might run out of greeters, but that's a small price to pay for a more graceful aging process, and who doesn't want more powerful testes?
Partial reversal of aging achieved in mice [Physorg.com]


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is the safari for adventure and romance. Experience safari!
Masai Mara is most famous for wildebeest migration and all season
park. Amboseli is the second most popular because of the backdrop
of Kilimanjaro mountain. Let us share with you our pride in the best
Experience a variation of scenery, wildlife and culture as you visit
the best national parks in Kenya and northern Tanzania on this
breathtaking safari. Starts and ends in Nairobi
Travel through the wild safari lands of Masai Mara, Samburu,
Amboseli and Tsavo with a visit to the Flamingo paradise and
beautiful Mt. Kenya. Finish by relaxing on the white beaches off the
Kenyan coast.
Lakes Baringo, Bogoria, Nakuru lie in the volcano strewn Rift Valley
stretching the length of Kenya from Tanzania and Ethiopia. It is a
scenic drive from Nairobi passing through farmlands.
Experience the best.... a safari in Kenya's best parks, and then air transfer to Lamu Island for relaxation, unspoilt and vehicle free, famous for its exquisite carved doors and pristine beaches. A beach holiday old style.
Game drives in Masai Mara, Serengeti, Kruger NP & Ngorongoro
Crater. Seafood and sunshine on the Spice Island of Zanzibar.
Adventure and activities at Victoria Falls & African sunsets over
the mighty Zambezi.
A chance to see the pink coloured flamingoes on Lake Nakuru
with its array of birdlife and catch the 'Big 5' in the Masai Mara,
enjoying a scenic adventure with the Masaai before ending up
on the white beaches of the Coast.
Take an adventurous walk in the Rift Valleys floor with a backdrop
of mountains and savanah beauty. Experience Kenya's tranquility
while walking amidst nature and meet the Maasai people who live
Game viewing in the beautiful Masai Mara National Reserve, Big
Five encounters in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Relax on
the beaches of Zanzibar.
Big Five safaris in Masai Mara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater,
Chobe & Etosha NP. The warm waters & coral reefs of Zanzibar,
Lake Malawi & one of Africas greatest spectacles - Victoria Falls &
Masai Mara, Serengeti NP, Ngorongoro Crater. Seafood
and sunshine on 'Spice Island' Zanzibar. Adventure &
activities at Victoria Falls, African sunsets & seeking out
the 'Big Five'.
Kenya to South Africa overland. Adventurous participation
overland camping safari, wildlife viewing, beach relaxation,
stunning scenery, magnificent Victoria Falls. Starts Nairobi ends
Cape Town.
Safaris in the Serengeti, Masai Mara and Ngorongoro Crater,
meeting the Maasai tribe. Trek in search of the rare mountain
Gorillas and lay back on the white sands of exotic Zanzibar.
Safari in the Masai Mara, Serengeti & Ngorongoro Crater. Cultural
encounters with Masai & Kalahari bushmen. Trek in search of the
rare Mountain Gorilla, kicking back on Zanzibar & Victoria Falls.
An epic overland journey from Nairobi to Pretoria covering
scenic game parks, tropical Zanzibar and lush beaches of
Mozambique, the third largest lake in Africa and the 'Smoke That
Thunders' over the dramatic Victoria Falls.
We carry out extensive company checks on all our providers, over 20 years we have built strong personal relationships with each of them, which assures you of an unparalleled service, great value and the trip of a lifetime.
We have participated in many of the trips found here (we have a nice job) and make our own independent assessments of the services provided, ensuring they meet with our own high standards.
All the trips are supplied by the end provider of that trip.
You may find the same or similar trips elsewhere, usually these are offered by an agent.
We prefer to give you direct access to the trip provider for reasons outlined below:
We limit the number of providers we work with in order to strike a balance between a good choice of trips and to be sure we can honestly recommend the service and validity of each provider.
Because the majority of trips can be customised by the providers, the choice of trip configurations is in the tens of thousands.
We have 3,000+ reviews for our trips and providers.
All our reviews are fully qualified, we do not take unqualified reviews.
We show all reviews, the good and the critical (very few). Our providers have the ability to respond to reviews and those responses are shown alongside the review.
Acquiring genuine reviews is actually very hard, for our genuine travellers we make this an easy process but many people although satisfied with the service they received do not leave a review.
Many reviews on the internet can be left by an open process with little or no checks.
At best unqualified reviews are worthless, at worst they are misleading. We never take unqualified reviews.
We hope you find a trip to your liking and we are here to assist.
Wishing you happy travels...
Travel Team
Africa Guide


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The installation process of Camtasia Studio 9.1.1 is very simple and will be completed quickly. Once the installation process is completed you will be greeted with a user friendly interface which will be loaded with lots of tools. While working with this application whwenever you will start recording user will be presented with the choice to select if they opt for the desktop or PowerPoint. The recording process will be very smooth and will be completed without any hiccups. Once the source video has been captured users have the choice to add the audio effects, transitions, cursor effects. You can also add voice narration and picture in picture functions. It has got a timline tool which will serve as an overview of the items which are added so far to the project. All in all Camtasia Studio 9.1.1 is a handy application for recording desktop activity. You can also download Applian Replay Video Capture.
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The Song of the Cross
Verse: Psalms 22
Even the best people sometimes suffer
Psalm 22:18 They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.
Superficially, the Old Testament can sometimes read like the plot of an old movie. The good guys are the Israelites, and they fight with the bad guys from nations around them. The Israelites have moments when they get off track, worshiping idols and acting like their "bad guy" neighbors. But when they turn back to God, they invariably win, and win big. The ending, in story after story, is happy. God is on their side.
Yet, in Psalm 22 and a few other places, the "good guy" story doesn't fit at all. This poem, credited to David, the great king and man after God's "own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14), tells of tremendous suffering with no relief from God. It sounds like a mob scene, a lynching. The "good guy's" enemies have him. They surround him, jeering, like a pack of dogs. He is helpless and exhausted. All he can do is cry to God.
The psalmist wavers back and forth, first crying out in misery, then taking stock of God's wonderful character, then describing his misery again. The whole poem is a prayer to God. Although this cry has gone up day and night (see Psalms 22:2), God remains silent.
Whose Humiliations?
Then, in Psalm 22:22, the poem takes a dramatic turn, switching from grief to jubilation. Somehow, God has saved the sufferer, who, in great excitement, tells others about it. He sees more than his own good fortune: He foresees this deliverance spilling over into the whole world. He predicts the story of God's help told to future generations forever. God will be worshiped by the entire world.
A person might read Psalm 22 as an extravagantly poetic description of David's troubles. But Jesus and the writers of the New Testament saw something more in it. When Jesus was dying on the cross, he had this psalm on his lips (see Matthew 27:46). Afterward when his disciples wanted to explain Jesus' life and sufferings, they turned to this psalm and others like it.
In them the disciples saw a pattern and a foreshadowing. The pattern is redemptive suffering. If good guys do not always win, if God seems actually to desert them—if David himself, the great leader and true man of God, knew these pains—then surely no one is exempt. And this suffering has a point. After it (and because of it) come victory and power, and the salvation of the world. This pattern helped Jesus' followers appreciate why Jesus, along with his followers, had to suffer.
A Fulfillment of Prophecy
Psalm 22 also helped the New Testament writers to see Jesus' life as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Jews had expected a Warrior-Messiah, a son of David who, like David, would lead his people to victory through battle. In Psalm 22 they saw that David had left another legacy: victory through suffering. The Messiah would lead his followers in suffering. Only Isaiah had put it more clearly, in his famous "servant" passages (see Isaiah 42:1-9; Isaiah 49:1-7; Isaiah 50:4-9; 52:13—53:12). Psalm 22 stretches beyond the time of David; Jesus fits it perfectly.
Life Questions
Have you ever seen good come out of suffering for your friends or family?
This devotion is from the NIV Student Bible by Zondervan. Used with permission.


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Editor's Note: upwave is Turner Broadcasting's new lifestyle brand designed to entertain the health into you! Visit upwave.com for more information and follow upwave on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram @upwave.
Story highlights
Tree nuts are a superb source of protein and provide necessary nutrients
People who eat legumes daily have a 22% lower risk of heart disease
Diets high in saturated fat boost blood cholesterol levels
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States – a respectable reason to show your heart some love and attention. To keep your ticker in tip-top shape, add these best foods to your daily health routine – and kick the worst to the curb.
Best: Nuts
Tree nuts are a superb source of protein and provide nutrients necessary for your heart's health. The nourishing unsaturated fats help to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and boost HDL (good) cholesterol.
Furthermore, nuts are rich in arginine, an amino acid that makes nitric oxide. This gas relaxes blood vessels and supports blood flow. Still not convinced? Crunch on this sweet statistic: Devoted nut eaters are 25% less likely to die from heart disease than those who don't eat nuts.
How to enjoy: To satisfy a need for crunch, sprinkle nuts atop a salad. When snacking, try fruit slices dipped in a creamy nut butter or a shot glass-size serving of whole nuts.
upwave: 6 ways to snack healthier
Best: Beans
Recent studies have shown that those who consume legumes on a daily basis have a 22% lower risk of developing heart disease than those who rarely do. And here's why: Beans are packed with cholesterol- and blood pressure-lowering soluble fiber, and contain heart-smart nutrients such as folate, a vitamin that helps reduce blood homocysteine (a biomarker for heart disease). And let's not forget how easily beans stand in for animal protein, which is often loaded with saturated fat.
How to enjoy: Use hummus as a condiment in potato salads, or get creative by adding garbanzo-bean flour to cake, cookie and muffin batters.
Best: Chocolate
Not that we need another reason to indulge in dark chocolate, but: Cacao contains flavonoids (metabolites that promote healthy blood circulation and supple arteries) and polyphenols (antioxidants that reduce inflammation and risk of atherosclerosis). It's also a good source of magnesium, a mineral essential for normal heart function.
Take note, however: All chocolate is not created equal when it comes to nutrition. Be sure to select products that are at least 70% cacao.
How to enjoy: For breakfast, add cacao powder to a green smoothie, or end dinner with a one-ounce square of dark chocolate.
upwave: Health benefits of chocolate
Worst: Added sugars
Because sugar increases blood pressure and triglyceride levels and leads to weight gain, a sugar-laden diet increases one's risk of heart disease. "Also, diets high in sugar usually aren't rich in important nutrients – like fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains – that help prevent heart disease and keep your heart healthy," notes upwave reviewer Tammy Lakatos Shames, a registered dietitian.
Sugar-sweetened beverages, cookies, cakes and pastries are obvious no-nos; sneaky sources of sugar can also include yogurt, ready-to-eat cereals and pasta sauces.
How to avoid: Satisfy your sweet tooth the natural way by savoring a fruit-based dessert. Break a soda habit by drinking sparkling water with a shot glass-size splash of fruit juice.
upwave: Take the challenge! Cut back on added sugar
Worst: Saturated fat
Diets high in saturated fat boost blood cholesterol levels, which in turn can lead to atherosclerosis. This artery-clogging fat is present in dairy-based butter, sour cream, mayo, fatty cuts of meat, cocoa butter, palm oil, coconut oil and coconut milk.
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting saturated fat so it comprises less than 7% of your total daily caloric intake. The key here is moderation: A juicy steak or a dollop of sour cream on a baked potato is fine on occasion.
How to avoid: Instead of butter, spread creamy avocado on whole-grain toast. When making burgers, replace half the ground beef with mushrooms, which provide the same texture and an umami flavor. Meat eaters, why not shift the focus of meals to plant-based proteins or fatty fish, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids?
Note: Yes, trans fat is even worse for you than saturated fat. Luckily, the FDA is working with manufacturers to phase it out of foods.
upwave: Can eating certain fats shrink your waistline?
Worst: Salt
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, and one in three Americans currently suffers from hypertension. High-sodium diets may be to blame, since excess sodium holds fluid in the body, thereby placing added burden on the heart. How much sodium is too much? The AHA recommends consuming no more than 1,500 mg per day.
How to avoid: Instead of reaching for the salt shaker, enhance the flavor of your food with spices. Skip processed and fast foods and consume potassium-rich (aka blood-pressure-lowering) foods such as potatoes, beans and greens instead.
This article was originally published on upwave.com.
Jessica Dogert is a registered dietitian/nutritionist who lives in the Chicago area.
© 2015 upwave, All Rights Reserved.


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For the love of trees
Last summer, after 15 years in western Colorado, my family moved back to the Pacific Northwest. The move was a shock in many ways, taking us from dry to wet, rural to town, red politics to blue. The topography here is different, the wildlife is different, and the trees are very, very different.
But our neighbors' attachment to the forests is familiar. Whether surrounded by graceful aspen or scrubby juniper or majestic Douglas fir and western hemlocks, people care about trees in a way that goes beyond politics and logic. For most of us, forests are part of the personality of our places, and when they change, we change, too.
In recent years, Western forests have undergone profound changes. Deep drought in the Southwest, beetle attacks throughout the Rockies, and warming average temperatures worldwide have led to record-breaking forest die-offs. Many familiar species – lodgepole pine, whitebark pine, even the hardy juniper – are dying in huge numbers.
For most of us, the carnage is unsettling. For scientists, it's also a mystery worth solving.
Death is a complicated matter, and it turns out that tree death is no exception. As HCN assistant editor Cally Carswell writes in this issue's cover story, Western forest researchers are finding that what look like simple cases of beetle kill or drought-induced starvation are not really simple at all. Heat, changes in rainfall patterns, fire, insects and disease can all contribute to a single tree's demise, and the same factors can affect different species in different ways.
By understanding how trees die, scientists hope to improve the accuracy of our climate forecasts: If they can include forest decline – and its implications for the world's carbon budget – in computer simulations of future climate, they'll be better able to predict the speed and strength of climate change worldwide.
Scientists also hope their studies will benefit living forests, and those of us who live among them. Plants have a remarkable variety of strategies for dealing with stress, and as the climate changes, some strategies will be more successful than others. Knowing which species survive in which conditions will help managers decide if, how, and where to try to make forests more resilient.
These are grim questions, and they're yielding grim forecasts. But ecologist Craig Allen points out that the researchers' motivations are anything but. "What underlies this is the love of life," he says. "Trees are one of the most glorious expressions of that on this planet."


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This isn't one of those mildly boring "look at an object I recreated in Minecraft" posts. This is hot-blooded machinima, Minecraft's blocks used to recreate whole sequences from the end of Star Wars.
11 Minutes Of Cozy Railway Planning In Station To Station
It's the work of reader Grahame, aka Paradise Decay, who is not just a games musician, he's a dude who has found that "somehow minecraft is taking over my life".
That happens. At least he turned the addiction into something we can all enjoy.
If you like what Grahame's cooking here, know that next year he's releasing a full-blown Star Wars/Minecraft adventure called Rise of the Rebellion.


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The road Ken Salazar should take
Last month, when Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced his intent to resign, President Obama released a statement praising his record with Native Americans, saying he has helped "resolve longstanding disputes and make tribal communities safer and stronger."
Now, as one of his last acts in office, Secretary Salazar is presented with an opportunity to cement this legacy.
On February 5, 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement choosing to prohibit a congressionally authorized land exchange that would lead to the construction of a one-lane, gravel, emergency road through a small portion of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
For years, the community of King Cove has attempted to gain approval for the construction of an emergency access road to Cold Bay to access their all-weather airport for medical emergencies. King Cove is a predominantly Alaska Native community located at the far end of the Alaska Peninsula. With limited medical infrastructure, for these Alaskans, lifesaving emergency care is a plane ride away.
( PHOTOS: The Cowboy in the Cabinet)
Due to inclement weather, typical of this remote area, King Cove's airport is regularly unreachable due to high winds and low visibility. However, Cold Bay, located just a few miles away, is home to a 10,000-foot cross-wind runway that is safely accessible during foul weather. These two communities are not connected by road and have the misfortune of being separated by federal land.
Over the past 30 years, multiple deaths have come as a result of attempts to reach the Cold Bay airport by aircraft, as well as countless injuries suffered trying to make the treacherous journey to the airport by boat. As a result, these Alaskans are simply asking the federal government to allow limited road access to an all-weather airport, something that nearly all Americans in the Lower 48 take for granted.
( Also on POLITICO: Obama's second-term Cabinet)
The proposed nine-mile road would connect existing roads, and affect only 1 percent of the Refuge. In exchange for 1,806 acres of federal land, the State of Alaska and local Natives would convey 56,393 acres to the Refuge. Nevertheless, the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to side with the radical environmental community and block reliable access to lifesaving medical care because the construction of a road may damage seaweed and inconvenience a few ducks.
In 40 years as Alaska's lone representative in the House, I have never seen the federal government turn its back on the health and safety of its residents in such a shameful manner.
However, Secretary Salazar still has an opportunity to reverse a glaring wrong committed by one of the agencies he oversees. The secretary can live up to the president's vow of"mak[ing] tribal communities safer and stronger," for Alaska Native villages like King Cove, or he can choose to tarnish his legacy and double-down on a decision that puts waterfowl over the health and well-being of Alaskans. For the sake of those Alaskans living in King Cove, I hope he makes the right choice.
Rep. Don Young is a Republican from Alaska.


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Are Engagement Rings Marital Property and Subject to Equitable Distribution?
The age old question, which invariably comes up time and time again. The answer to this question is determined by examining the reason why an engagement ring is given by one party to the other.
An engagement ring is a gift made upon the implied condition that a marriage is to occur. If a marriage does in fact occur, the courts will most likely follow the general rule that engagement rings are not marital assets subject to equitable distribution. Rather, they are the separate property of the recipient.
In the event a marriage does not occur, the chances are much better for recovery of the ring, since it was conditioned upon the subsequent marriage.
An interesting twist to the engagement ring story occurred in the case of Randall v. Randall, 56 So3d 817 (Fla. 2nd DCA 2011). In the Randall case, the judge treated the engagement ring as a family heirloom, and provided that the husband could hold the ring, as long as he delivered the ring to his children as he saw fit.
The wife promptly filed an appeal of this ruling, and she easily prevailed on her appeal. The appellate court followed the general rule that an engagement ring is a gift, in contemplation of marriage, and once that marriage occurs, the ring belongs to the wife.
An engagement ring is simply not subject to equitable distribution, and the trial judge has no jurisdiction over the ring.
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Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2007-04-26 21:30 UTC
Quick list of scheduled contacts and events:
Christian Life Elementary School, Rockford, Illinois, direct via N9SH Successful Wed 2007-04-25 19:21 UTC 58 deg
Samuel-von-Pufendorf Gymnasium, D-09557 Floeha, Germany, direct via DL0GYM Sat 2007-04-28 14:19 UTC 74 deg
Liceo Scientifico Statale "Lorenzo Respighi", Piacenza Italy, direct via IK4MED Sat 2007-05-05 10:24 UTC 37 deg
Erweiterte Realschule, Weiskirchen D-66709, Germany, direct via DN1ERW Sat 2007-05-05 13:34 UTC 78 deg
Sunset Mesa Schools, Albuquerque, New Mexico, direct via W5SCA Contact is a go for: Wed 2007-05-09 14:39 UTC 49 deg (***)
Escola Secundaria de Estarreja, Estarreja, Portugal, direct via CT6ESE Contact is a go for: Wed 2007-05-09 14:58 UTC 58 deg (***)
Total number of ARISS school contacts is 289.
QSL information may be found at: http://www.arrl.org/ARISS/arissfaq.html http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm#QSL%27s
ISS callsigns: DP0ISS, NA1SS, RS0ISS
The schedule page has been updated as of 2007-04-26 21:30 UTC. Here you will find a listing of all scheduled school contacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echolink websites, and instructions for any contact that may be streamed live. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt
The successful school list has been updated as of 2007-04-26 17:00 UTC http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf
Frequency chart for packet, voice, and crossband repeater modes showing Doppler correction as of 2005-07-29 04:00 UTC http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ISS_frequencies_and_Doppler_correction... tf
Listing of ARISS related magazine articles as of 2006-07-10 03:30 UTC: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/ARISS_magazine_articles.rtf
There has been a rumor that the ISS was having direct contacts on the 40 meter band. There is no HF radio equipment on board and available yet. The HF antenna is mounted. Sometimes WA3NAN will retransmit shuttle audio.
Expedition 14 on orbit: Michael Lopez-Alegria KE5GTK Mikhail Tyurin, RZ3FT
Expedition 14/15 on orbit: Sunita Williams, KD5PLB
Expedition 15 on orbit: Fyodor Yurchikhin RN3FI Dr. Oleg Kotov
Expedition 15 future: Clayton Anderson KD5PLA Daniel Tani KD5DXE
Soyuz 14S/13S on orbit: Charles Simonyi KE7KDP/HA5SIK
73, Charlie Sufana AJ9N One of the ARISS operation team mentors
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