text:
NASHVILLE (BP) — The presidential election is over, and I am sure many, like the little girl who cried "no more Bronco Bamma or Mitt Romney," are breathing a sigh of relief that the season of contention and the barrage of political ads are over for now. Still, we are left to move on as we begin a second term for the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, and it is time for us to consider what that means from this point forward.
Once the election was "called," I prayed for the president again. I asked God to guide him and give him wisdom as I will continue to do for the next four years.
I don't endorse specific candidates publicly. I also gave both campaigns the opportunity to answer questions on my blog so that we could be well informed as we went into the voting booths. However, it is no secret that the candidate who was supported by 57 percent of Protestant pastors did not prevail. Furthermore, it is no secret that most evangelicals did not support President Obama. So, there is a lot of disappointment among many Christians.
It is appropriate, then, for us to ask the question, "What now?" Well, here are some observations and suggestions:
— We must face the reality that we may be on the losing side of the culture war.
For decades, the "religious right" has focused its energies on winning the day through political means. But this year, voters in more than one state appear to have clearly passed referenda supporting gay marriage. This marks the first time for any state to legalize same-sex marriage by the expressed will of the people rather than through court rulings or legislation. While this certainly does not mean we should stop legal or political efforts completely, it does mean that we should begin thinking about what it looks like to be the church in a "post-culture war" era. We need to be prepared to defend the protection of religious liberty as we move into the future.
— The fight for the unborn continues.
This year one of the major political parties, at their national convention, actually celebrated and cheered the right to abortion. This is a shift from the posture in years past, when at the very least it was seen as something that we hoped to keep to a minimum. In fact, that same party actually removed the language from their platform that referred to keeping abortions "safe, legal, and rare." Rod Snyder, of Young Democrats of America, said in our interview that President Obama does believe that we should work to reduce the number of abortions, but still, this development in the party that has secured the highest office in the land is cause for grave concern and even grief. We need to continue to fight for life through education, advocacy, ministering to women and promoting orphan care in our churches. President Obama, I am ready to partner with you on the part where we start reducing abortions.
— The "Mormon Moment" is not something to be dismissed and forgotten just because the election is over.
In recent days, much discussion has centered around how we should view Mormonism. I have made the case that while it does qualify as a cult in the theological sense, I do not think that we should use that language in general. Many people jumped to the conclusion that I was saying this for political reasons in order to elect Governor Romney. However, this has been my position for some time, and it continues to be my position after the votes have been counted. This election has brought Mormonism to the forefront of people's minds, and we should not forget our responsibility to reach out to our friends and neighbors for Christ. Just because the conversations die down doesn't mean that the mission goes away.
— We must remain respectful and law-abiding citizens, regardless of this outcome.
We exercised a tremendous right, perhaps the greatest privilege that we have as Americans. Over 200 years ago, a group of very brave men stood up against "taxation without representation" and fought to develop a nation in which its citizens could have a voice. We only need to look at pictures in recent years of brave men and women in countries like Iraq dipping their fingers into purple ink and showing their happiness and pride over the right to cast their vote. We have that privilege. We exercised it this year. We will exercise it again. Regardless of the outcome, that is a great privilege and shouldn't be taken for granted. We now need to go back to our homes, our schools and our places of work and be respectful and gracious to others who have also used their voice.
— When our King returns, He won't be riding a donkey or elephant.
For those of us who believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, nothing has changed. The Gospel is still real, and we still serve a God who has declared victory over sin and death. Anything that we do through political means is not to hold back the darkness lest it will overtake us. Rather, the charge to the church is to advance a Kingdom that has already prevailed. Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, our King is still sitting on His throne.
So let's all slow down, take a deep breath and do the same thing we did yesterday — preach the Gospel, love people and engage in God's mission.
Ed Stetzer is president of LifeWay Research. Amy Whitfield of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary contributed to this article.


text:
Salem's interior design team was honored at the annual Habitat for Humanity of Forsyth County ReStore Spaces event on Nov. 4. The team—which created a cozy-yet-chic living room for the design competition—picked up the Liberty Hardware award for best use of an item from the store.
Students led by interior design professor Dr. Rosa Otero created a room for the competition, which challenges local design teams to use items from the Habitat ReStore and Liberty Hardware to create a functional and stylish 12x12 space. During the competition, teams also vied for community votes, which raised money to benefit Habitat's efforts in our area.
Salem is the only team to have competed in all six years of the event. During this year's competition, the group also appeared on Fox 8, giving viewers tips on redecorating on a budget.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
In the cultural field, the Department has been operatively cooperating with the majority of Czech diplomatic missions abroad in the preparation of various cultural events. It draws annual plans offering individual diplomatic missions cultural events like touring exhibitions and film shows. The missions make their own choice of events and the Department then ensures the organization, scenario, production and supply on the spot. The Department also helps the diplomatic missions with the organization of events they sponsor themselves or in cooperation with local organizers. Besides the Department commands and sends to the diplomatic missions Czech films to be shown within film festivals and other events organized abroad. Falling within the responsibilities of the Department is the agenda of cultural agreements, i.e. bilateral agreements on cooperation in the field of culture, education and science. A number of cultural events are now organized also in the exhibition and concert halls of Tuscany Palace in Prague belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Czech Centres, an organisation part-funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, operate 24 centres located in the world's major capitals across 21 countries and 3 continents. The Czech Centres' mission is to promote the Czech Republic's culture, education, tourism and trade.
The export-oriented activities of the network of 24 Czech Centres abroad (hereinafter also "CC") and the Czech Centres Headquarters (hereinafter also "CCH") involve:
- free-of-charge information provision to Czech companies - business and export opportunities
- promotion of Czech companies abroad – support of presentations, professional seminars
Extensive support is offered to Czech companies in Russia. The Czech House Moscow, a part of the Czech Centres network, offers a vast range of services such as provision of premises (rooms, apartments, offices, parking), catering services and information support through its Business Centre. During 2008 more than one hundred accredited Czech companies made use of the services offered by the Czech House Moscow.
Czech Centres operate in close partnership with CzechTrade, the main promoter of international trade and cooperation between Czech and foreign companies, as well as CzechInvest and CzechTourism. The MFA initiated cooperation between the above-mentioned institutions with the aim to eliminate duplicity and make better use office and exhibition space abroad. The Agreement on the Cooperation of CzechTrade with the CCH, signed at the end of 2000, effectively complements the 1999 agreement between the MFA and MIT on the coordination of the activities of contributory organisations.
More information www.czechcentres.cz.


text: The Village of Hope was one of two nonprofit organizations serving the Lower Shore that received the Community Foundation's 2008 Henson Award of Excellence. The Village of Hope provides homeless women and children with transitional living facilities. Pictured, from left, are T.J. Maloney, board president; Rita Korman, administrative assistant; and Jessica Smith Harper, executive director. Presenting the award was Marty Neat, past board member and foundation chair.


text:
Tweezle into Everything Book Trailer
Posted on March 28th, 2014 by pajamapress
Tweezle is the baby of his family, but he has some pretty big ideas. What is he up to? The monster family of Stephanie McLellan and Dean Griffith's Hoogie in the Middle returns in Tweezle into Everything.
Having trouble with the video? Try watching the trailer on YouTube.


text: Addis Ababa, December 2, 2015 – A comfortable commuting distance of 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, the 600-hectare (1,500-acre) estate has tapped into a growing taste for high-end luxury among wealthy Ethiopians, who are looking for a home which reflects their success in business.Over the past decade, this Horn of Africa nation has seen an annual growth rate of nearly 10 percent, World Bank figures show, due to a boom in construction, manufacturing, trade and agriculture. For those in Africa's second most populous country who are enjoying that growth, the estate symbolises much more than a home. "We are selling a lifestyle more than just housing," says Haile Mesele, a civil engineer who heads Country Club Developers, the property firm behind the development. "We don't do any advertising. We prefer that the residents themselves spread the news, and in a way, chose their own neighbours," he said. According to a study by New World Wealth (NWW), a South Africa-based market research consultancy, the number of dollar millionaires in the east African nation rose from 1,300 in 2007 to 2,700 in 2013, reflecting an increase of 108 percent between 2007 and 2013 — the fastest growth rate in Africa. "There is a demand for luxury real estate," said Wunmi Osholake, who runs the Ethiopian branch of online real estate platform Lamudi, which focuses on emerging markets, with customers eyeing property costing over $330,000. The price, she adds, has no upper limit. And the luxury boom is not just in the suburbs. In the centre of Addis Ababa, the bustling Kazanchis business district is also undergoing major renovations. Eighteen months ago, May Real Estate Development began a new residential development called the Addis Gojo project, which incorporates 113 apartments in three 10-storey towers located near several embassies. "For those working for the UN or diplomats, it is very central. The district is a new sort of Manhattan," says project manager Bitania Epherem. "The lifts work, which is not the case elsewhere," says Bitania, adding they are planning rooftop swimming pools, a gym and a restaurant "so that residents don't need to leave the premises." A standard apartment between 140-170 square metres (1,500-1,800 square feet) rents for about $1800 per month (1700 euros). Such luxury housing has been designed to meet the needs of Ethiopia's emerging new middle class. At the estate in Yerrer View, hundreds of the homes from stand-alone villas to modern apartments are already occupied with plans for a total of 5,400 houses for some 20,000 people. When completed, the estate will also include a golf course, a five-star spa hotel, a shopping centre, school and clinic and an organic farm covering about 200 hectares. "When we began, economic growth wasn't very strong," recalls Haile. "Half of our clients came from the diaspora. But since then, the economy has become a lot stronger and nearly 85 percent of our residents are local." The customers have high expectations. Pushing open the door, Mesele shows off a 500 square metre (5380 square foot) property built on a plot measuring 1,000 square metros. A large open plan kitchen and a curved imitation-marble staircase leads up to the first floor where there are three bedrooms, all en-suite. The master bedroom has a fireplace and a dressing room, while the bathroom has "an open space in case the owners want to install a sauna," he explains. All that remains is to install surveillance cameras able to read a licence plate before opening the gate, smoke detectors and a security system. And the price tag? $400,000 (377,000 euros) — a fortune in a country where the gross domestic product per capita is $565. "No matter what we build, it will always be too little to meet demand," he says. But others have spotted the growing demand, with several other sites popping up nearby. Since the overthrow of a Marxist junta in 1991, Ethiopia's political and economic situation has stabilized. The economy is still heavily dependent on agriculture, especially coffee, with the vast majority of the country's workers involved in that sector. Meeting the demand for new housing has called for bringing in foreign workers as Ethiopia lacks a skilled work force. Haile said his firm recruited around a thousand specialist workers from China. Yoseph Mebratu, the major shareholder in May Real Estate Development, also complains that he had to import 70 percent of raw materials. "Windows, doors, wood panelling… everything comes from China," he told AFP, adding that taxes are "very heavy." "We had to slow down our business and missed deadlines… but since last year, we have become profitable again," Mesele added. Source: AFPTrendingThe Horn of Africa States Regional Reconciliation Beyond Political Leadership


text:
With the license to make a Jurassic Park game in hand, Telltale Games had to find the perfect starting point for a story that would fit into the film's canon without upsetting or reimagining the events of the first film.
They found it in a can of shaving cream, lost for nearly 20 years.
The Barbasol can, remember? In the 1993 summer blockbuster, the hapless Nedry's backfired plan to smuggle out dinosaur embryos in a false-bottom shaving cream can is what frees the dinosaurs and sets off the survivors' frantic attempt to escape the island.
Nedry never made it to the handoff, of course. During a torrential downpour his jeep bogged down and he was devoured by dilophosaurs, whose iconic (if scientifically unsupported) neck fans and poison spit made them about as memorable as the nasty velociraptors. But after Nedry croaks, that's it. We don't know what happened to the canister, nor do we know what his handlers did when Nedry didn't show. For something worth $1.5 million, surely they would have gone looking for it, right?
That loose end provided Telltale the perfect entry to a story contained entirely within the time of the first film—much more memorable and enjoyable than its two underwhelming sequels—without repeating or adapting its events for a game, much less retconning anything.
At E3 2011 last week, Telltale showed off what creative director Dave Grossman called the studio's "most cinematic game to date." It'll arrive later this year on PC/Mac and on the PlayStation Network, in an episodic form similar to the rollout of Back to the Future. The Xbox 360 will see a retail release containing all of the game's chapters on a single disc.
It's a Telltale Game, so this isn't a third-person action game or, heaven forbid, a shooter. It's very story-driven, focused more on puzzle solving, paying attention and advancing the story than it is action. It does have some faster-paced sequences, navigated entirely by timed button presses within Quicktime events.
In conversations, a Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel allows some role-playing choice, but the discussions don't truly branch and all arrive at the same conclusion.
Spoiler Alert: As it's a narrative game, to discuss what Jurassic Park does, we've got to talk about the story it's telling. Fans of the first film looking forward to this new chapter of its story should consider whether they want to read further.
Alright? We're cool now? Good. Back to what I saw.
In the sequence I was shown, you'll be playing as one of the two people assigned to meet Nedry. You control Nima, who is a profit-motivated mercenary but certainly not a stooge, nor particularly evil. Miles, her companion, is a backstabber, which is why you don't control him. While all the characters you play in Jurassic Park will have their own agenda, for some that will mean cooperating with others.
Nima and Miles encounter Nedry's jeep and his chewed-up remains during a clue-finding investigative sequence. At this point they're not aware of the bizarre danger surrounding them; the writing and the acting in Jurassic Park the game portrays the dinosaurs the way the film did: not as monsters but as animals, albeit extremely threatening ones.
Nima, in a sequence initiated by the player, figures out that Nedry must have dropped the Barbasol can and uses an object of similar weight to simulate where it may have rolled. She and Miles are then set upon by dilophosaurs. Miles sacrifices Nima as bait to make his own escape, but he meets the requisite grisly end. Nima avoids the creatures (entirely by Quicktime event) and makes it into the jeep and ultimately to safety, ending the scene.
Telltale said this will be the first game it's done where a player can fail in a way that gets his character killed, and we saw Nima buy the farm once, just to prove that point. Dinosaur types will appear and reappear throughout the game, rather than turning the entire tale into a case of "Here's the dilophosaurus level; here's the velociraptor level," etc.
The way the film foreshadowed the threat before loosing the dinosaurs is something Telltale wants to honor, too, Grossman said, and Jurassic Park will offer its own prehistoric adversaries. "There is also a mysterious new threat that even the chief veterinarian doesn't know about," Grossman said.
The pre-alpha version of the game we saw had yet to refine the facial movements in the dialogue scenes and some details, like gunfire muzzle flashes, needed to be added. Environmentally, it was richly illustrated and the visual style is realistic, not cartoony.
Telltale believes, with some justification, it does storytelling the best of any games maker, and above all that will be the reason for picking up the game. It's more than an interactive story, but it won't be fast-twitch entertainment by any stretch. Jurassic Park's target audience will be those who enjoyed the first film and want to explore more of the island, not visit old haunts in a different medium.


text:
Archived from JustinTimerlake.com originally published on October 26. 2012
The last time I wrote a letter like this, it was when I had the good fortune of attending a once in a lifetime experience by sharing an evening with some of America's finest at the Marine Corps Ball about a year ago. I was so moved by that night, I wanted to share it with everyone. Unfortunately, this letter holds a different kind of weight for me.
Normally, as some of you know, I am (by nature) a pretty private person. So, I don't really take it upon myself to comment on things that so often go misunderstood or something that has even shed any kind of dark light on what was and will always be one of the most special weeks of my life. But, in light of the recent events, I can't fight the urge to clarify my thoughts and feelings on what has been a very upsetting portrayal of the people closest to me and myself. It's not who I am as a professional or as a man.
I can't help but think of one of the many great life lessons my Grandfather has taught me... He told me when I was younger that "Sometimes, you are confronted with challenges in life that perhaps are not your own. And, when those moments arise, the right thing for a man to do is accept that responsibility, whatever it may be, and face it with honesty and humility."
So, I'm taking his advice. If for no other reason, than to clear the air so no one has to ever wonder how I feel about it.
I'd like to start off by saying that I don't live my life making fun of people (unless, of course, I'm making fun of myself on SNL)... Especially, those who are less fortunate or those in need. I grew up with a family and community that instilled ideals in me like hard work, honesty and empathy. As a matter of fact, growing up in Tennessee, I was always taught that we as people, no matter what your race, sex, or stature may be, are equal. We have a saying there that "Everyone puts their pants on the same way (maybe this saying doesn't apply to guys who wear kilts. Although, I'm sure they put theirs on the same way too...)"
As it pertains to this silly, unsavory video that was made as a joke and not in any way in mockery:
1. I had no knowledge of its existence. I had absolutely ZERO contribution to it.
2. My friends are good people. This was clearly a lapse in judgment which I'm sure no one who is reading this is exempt from. But, I don't believe it was made to be insensitive. More so, I think it was made as a joke on me not having that many friends attending my own wedding (which IS kind of funny if you think about it).
3. Like many silly rumors that I have been made aware of about the week: It was NOT shown at my wedding.
4. I think we can all agree that it was distasteful, even though that was not its intention.
Once again, in the world that we live in where everyone thinks that they know everything, I want to be very clear... I am NOT defending the video. I agree with the overall consensus. But, to use another "pants" analogy... It seems that these days, misconception gets around the world before the actual truth even wakes up and gets its pants on.
I want to say that, on behalf of my friends, family, and associative knuckleheads, I am deeply sorry to anyone who was offended by the video. Again, it was something that I was not made aware of. But, I do understand the reaction and, by association, I am holding myself accountable.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. It really is a blessing to be able to speak directly to my true fans so that you can know exactly where I stand.
P.S. You can bet your ass that I'm having my friend do at least 100 hours of community service... Boom.


text:
ABILENE, TX –Tige Boats RZX2 has been honored as the 2017 Boating Industry's Top Product. The Boating Industry's Top Product is not an award taken lightly — it's the top honor from the #1 voice of marine industry professionals. Hundreds of products try, but it takes true innovation to take home the hardware.
The RZX2 flexes a list of features that has the most complete, versatile and forward thinking capability ever to be offered in a wake boat. Boasting the largest and most intuitive touch screen, a standard Electric Power Tower, the ultimate versatility with TAPS 3 and intelligent Smart Wheel controls, the RZX2 is truly a *complete* innovation. The Tige RZX2 didn't just win the award of Boating Industry's Top Product — it clearly deserves it.
Exclusive to the Tige RZX, the 10.6" Tige CLEAR is the next-generation of on-board technology and is sure to elevate everything about your watersports experience. The extra large, tablet style control center is first to market and is in line with the latest in luxury automotive touch screen concepts. Tige CLEAR also boasts the most surface area of any touch screen in the marketplace and a contrast ratio specifically designed to outshine the midday sun. The CLEAR user interface is all about simplicity and customization while providing all the necessary functionality. The fully customizable screen allows you to define your Tige CLEAR experience, and placement of all commonly used boat operations are easily accessible within seconds.
Fully functional steering wheel controls enhance the usability and function of the Tige CLEAR touch control center. As if the screen wasn't easy enough. Intelligent controls on your steering wheel assure that any function your desire is within one touch. Also innovative within the wheel is the favorites feature, which allows you to select a favorite boat action and favorite screen preference and make it only one touch away.
The new Alpha E2 Power Tower packs form and function into a little space. The Alpha E2 Tower lowers by electronic actuator to windshield height, making it effortless to stow, tow, or go. It is solid, silent, smooth-- and all within 7 seconds.
The Alpha E2 Powered Tower is just as durable as it is beautiful. Rigorously tested using Finite Element Analysis and crafted with custom aluminum extrusions, cast components and Delrin plastic fittings, the Alpha E2 Tower has been precisely engineered for unprecedented strength and reliability, all by using the most simple and advanced mechanisms. By lowering forward on a single hinge point, the Alpha E2 Tower is self-supported and is reinforced with its base design. Utilizing an electric actuator with integral braking systems, the Alpha E2 Tower is designed to sustain over 3,000 lbs of holding force.
The Alpha E2 makes the innovates convenience if you have to go under bridges, lower your tower to get the boat on a lift, or travel in the collapsed position for optimum efficiency.
A first of its kind, the all-new surf boat holsters create addition storage for your boards. Found in the transom area storage lockers, the holsters are designed into the liner of the boat to allow for a specific location for boards and allow the rest of the storage areas to be used for exactly that, more storage.
Surfers, wakeboarders, skiers, and passersby will all be impressed with the RZX2 thanks to a combination of the refined Convex V Hull & TAPS 3 system. This boat has made crossing over all sport disciplines easier than ever. And with the refinements on the hull, the RZX2 also offers a high-level skiing capability that has never been able to be offered in the "big boat" sector of inboards.
TAPS 3 conquers the demands of convenience and quality. The center plate (the original TAPS system), gives you precise control over running attitude, planing, and maneuverability, as well as wake shape control for wakeboarding and waterskiing. When you're ready to wakesurf, the outer plates will engage to create the list, yaw, and draw that generates the most powerful surf wave you will ever experience.
All three TAPS 3 plates will get in on the action and serve as a list enhancement device while wakesurfing. TAPS 3 will shift the Convex V Hull into its prime performance position. When TAPS 3 is engaged, it places your Tige into an optimum degree of yaw. This allows water to asymmetrically release off of the sides of the boat, channeling the power to your surf side. As your boat is both listed and put into a yaw, the power of the Convex V Hull and the Coanda Effect is enhanced. The hull then draws deeper into the water making the sweet spot even sweeter.
Other notable standard features include Indmar Raptor Series, transform seating, 3,000 pounds of subfloor ballast, RearView Camera, and the Tige 5 Warranty. Though some of the innovations found on the Tige RZX2 have been offered in single applications, never before has a feature set this modern been offered in a single boat to create a whole new level of complete innovation.


text:
After waiting 20 minutes for an unfortunate woman at JFK to disrobe, set off the alarms twice, divest of some belts, get a pat-down, and re-wrap, it dawned on me: some folks may need advice on dressing for flying!
First of all, if you're one of those people who wants to sock it to the TSA by going through in your undies, you know, be my guest. This doesn't apply to you — although even then I'd probably avoid a bra with too much hardware. For the rest of us, the objectives are simple: ease of dressing and comfort.
One dreams, of course, of looking like an effortlessly chic jetsetter off the Sartorialist, (these chic suggestions from Refinery29 would doubtless help in that regard) the sort of person who uses those Evian sprays and has some immense cashmere throw in her bag. But most of us will settle for just avoiding a pat-down, and not setting off any alarms helps. So with that in mind, heed these basic — but still crucial! — rules.
No Hardware.
No belts, no watches, no buckles, no metal. Unless, that is, you like hearing that pleasant alarm sound.
Slip-on Shoes
Be it boot or bootie or slipper or flat, you want something you can get off at the last second and have on again without causing a bottleneck. Not to mention, slip off in-flight.
Oh, and Wear Socks. Always.
This advice is really for me.
Think Easy Layers.
Again, you want something you can slip off and on. Plus, boyscout-style, this is the best way to adjust to the plane's temperature — or to changing climates.
Warm Stuff
I'm a big fan of slipping a beret and a warm scarf into my luggage in case of in-flight chill: easier than wrangling with layering in your seat.
On the Upgrade Question.
I wish I had some dynamite advice on how to dress to maximize your chances of an upgrade, but the one time this actually happened to me, I was in this weird coat with a fur collar that my mom got me. More to the point, the flight wasn't full. When I've worn my best entitled-rich-person costumes, in the hopes someone might think I look like someone who should really be in business class, no one has been fooled. And besides, it's so much easier to check in with the machines.
Pants or Skirt?
When I was little, I once read somewhere that if you go down one of those emergency slide things into the water, it takes all the skin off the back of your legs. For years, I wore nothing but long pants. Nowadays, I occasionally vouchsafe a sweater dress.
Climate Change?
Moving from somewhere cold to hot or vice versa is tricky: but again, light layers help. Swap a light sweater for something wool or cashmere, or bring gloves and a hat. And at the end of the day, sometimes there's nothing for it but to shlep a coat. Ideally, have someone meet you with one!
So, What to Wear?
Well, I'm not going to be so bossy as to order you to wear anything, but I can tell you a few combos that well-traveled friends recommend:
- Tunic or sweater-dress, leggings or tights, pull-on boots or ankle-boots.
- Leggings, tee, big cozy cardigan, boots or ankle-boots
- Comfy jeans (a risk if there's a lot of metal), thin cashmere sweater, scarf, flats
- Jersey dress, jean jacket or sweater, flats
And Wear Comfy Underwear
This is non-negotiable.
What's your foolproof travel outfit? What gets you through security at lightning speed and keeps you cozy in-air? Spill!
For all of our handy Dress Code guides, go here.


text:
About Wally
In 1931, Airstream began with Wally ByamˇŻs dream: to build a travel trailer that would move like a stream of air, be light enough to be towed by a car, and create first-class accommodations anywhere.
Every inch of an Airstream has a function. Airstream is the most thoroughly tested brand in trailer history. Its engineering is the culmination of over 80 years of experience plus millions of miles on roads throughout the world.
With Airstream, there is no planned obsolescence. Airstreams of the Thirties are still on the road today, sturdy and modern as ever. They are intended as a lifetime investment in happiness.


text:
BETA: This is a new service - your feedback will help us to improve it. Find out more about the beta phase.
Details of this orphan work
These are the known details of this orphan work. If you know who the right holder is for this work, please contact us.
Work details
Thumbnail of still image:
Applicant or licensee name:
The University of Reading
Applicant or licensee country:
United Kingdom
Application number:
Application date:
Status of application:
Licence Granted
Title or short description:
Anatomical drawing of a human skeleton, modelled on the Discophoros (the discus-bearer)
Full description:Human skeleton within an inked outline of a body, modelled on the classical sculpture called the Discophoros. An index, in pencil, on the right side lists the bones which are identified by numbers and letters drawn on the skeleton.The remains of a Royal Academy School label in the top-right corner of the page. The artist has signed her signature on the reverse. Graphite and black ink on wove paper. 78 x 55.9 cm.
Category:Still visual art
Type of work:
Museum, gallery, library or archive holding the work:
The University of Reading Art Collection
Details and dates of publication, broadcast and/or distribution:
|Free hand outs for live event, exhibition or similar
|Use in a live event, exhibition or similar
|In newsletter, bulletin, e-newsletter or e-bulletin
|In non-commercial promotional material – print and digital
|Digitise and make available on-line, including on social media
|Preservation purposes
|Use on stage or in performance
|Educational purposes – use in learning/ training materials, including e-learning
|Use in thesis/dissertation
|Personal use
Known creators or right holders
|Minnie Jane Hardman (née Shubrook) (1862-1952)
Known identifiers
eg International Standard Book Number (ISBN)


text:
GDC Vault is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
|Session Name:
|Building Blocks: Artist Driven Procedural Buildings
|James Golding
|Company Name(s):
|Epic Games
|Track / Format:
|Visual Arts
Did you know free users get access to 30% of content from the last 2 years?
Creating a detailed city window-by-window is a daunting task. Having to adjust every window when requirements change is even worse!
The first part of the talk describes the problem at hand - that of creating a city where buildings look very detailed, do not take long to construct, can be easily modified, and allow automatic generation of a low level-of-detail version. Existing approaches are compared, and pros and cons are listed.
This talk then proposes a new method, expanding on current academic research. The approach is to allow a designer to place very simple shapes to define the building layout, and then assign a set of rules (created by a technical artist) to decorate it procedurally. The rules work by extracting rectangular regions (scopes) from the faces of the building, and recursively breaking them into smaller regions, until finally using a library of feature meshes (doors, windows, columns etc.) to fill in that region. This approach is explained with reference to several real-world examples of buildings.
Rules then connect to form a directed graph, so it can be useful to present the 'rule set' to artists graphically in that form. Many of the rule types that we have found useful will be explained, with use-cases. This includes splitting, repeating, occlusion tests, edge-angle and height tests, and more. Specific difficulties like trim work, roofs and non-rectangular faces are discussed, and the requirements for artist-created meshes are mentioned. Some detail is also given on the general technical challenges involved in rendering a building constructed in this modular method.
The talk then covers automatically creating LOD versions of these buildings. The lowest LOD is the simple shape already defined by the designer, but the transition from high to low can happen incrementally based on special rules. An offline render process is used to texture the low-LOD buildings, with special steps to generate masks for reflective windows.


text:
All Posts Tagged With: "Ashlie Johnson"
CHANEL Beauté at the 2017 Golden Globe Awards
January 11th, 2017 |By Marta | Related | Filed Under
Good read. Chanel Beauté Interviews from the 2017 Golden Globes. Chanel Beauté Partners with Makeup Artists and Manicurists at the 2017 Golden Globe Award
An Interview with Makeup Artist Mélanie Inglessis (@melaniemakep) on creating her beauty look for Ruth Negga:
What steps did you take to prep for the look, and what inspired you?
Products mentioned in this post are available at: chanel.com


text:
This year's Abel Prize has been awarded to the Belgian mathematician Pierre Deligne for "seminal contributions to algebraic geometry and for their transformative impact on number theory, representation theory, and related fields". The Abel Prize was established in 2003 in memory of the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. It's awarded annually by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and makes up for the fact that there isn't a Nobel Prize in mathematics.
Pierre Deligne.
Deligne has been honoured for a whole body of work, but there is one result that is particularly striking. It has its origin in the work of the legendary 18th century mathematician Leonhard Euler. Euler was considering sums of the form
What happens when you let get larger and the larger, that is when you add more and more terms to those sums? In the first case the sum gets arbitrarily large as you increase : you can make it as large as you like simply by adding more terms. Mathematicians say that the infinite sum
diverges. In the second case the sum also gets larger and larger – but this time it never goes beyond the number You can make get arbitrarily close to by increasing , but never any bigger. The infinite sum
is said to converge to .
Thus, introducing the power two in the denominators of the fractions has made a huge difference. What about introducing other powers? It turns out that the series
converges for any power that is greater than 1. This turns into a function of . For every the value of is the number the corresponding sum converges to.
But Euler made another remarkable discovery. In 1737 he proved that the infinite sum could be written as an infinite product
This is quite an intriguing result: what started out as an expression involving all the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, ... turned into an expression involving only the prime numbers.
Bernhard Riemann, 1826-1866.
More than a hundred years after Euler, the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann considered Euler's so-called zeta function again, making another remarkable connection and shedding light on a problem that has intrigued mathematicians for centuries: just how are the prime numbers distributed among the other numbers?
Euler's zeta function takes real numbers (greater than 1) as input and returns real numbers as output. Riemann considered an extended version of the zeta function which involved a slightly more exciting set of numbers: complex numbers. You build them by pretending that the equation
has a solution (which of course it hasn't in the real numbers) and calling that solution The complex numbers are numbers of the form
where and are real numbers. You can define addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, for example, you add two complex numbers and like this:
and you multiply them like this
(recalling that )
What's more, there is also a geometric interpretation of complex numbers: you can identify each complex number with the point on the plane that has coordinates The ordinary real numbers sit inside the complex numbers – they are of the form – and they correspond to points on the plane whose second coordinate is 0. Riemann's zeta function takes complex numbers as input and returns complex numbers as output and it agrees with Euler's function for real numbers with
With remarkable insight Riemann recognised that his function could give you information about the primes. The prime number theorem states that the number of primes you find below a given number is approximately equal to Since this is only an estimate, the obvious question is by how much the formula misses the correct value: you want to know the error term. Riemann realised that the complex numbers for which could give you information about that error term. He conjectured that all these so-called zeroes (or at least the interesting ones) are of the form
in other words they correspond to points on the plane whose first coordinate is If this hypothesis is true, then this puts tight bounds on how large that error term can be.
To this day Riemann's famous hypothesis has not been proved: it presents one of the hardest unsolved problems in mathematics, some would argue the hardest one.
So far all this has been about numbers, but Deligne's work has been in a field called algebraic geometry. Where is the connection? Tim Gowers has written an excellent overview of this, so we'll borrow some of his insight to give a cursory glance.
That algebra is connected to geometry is something we are all familiar with from school. If you give the points on the plane coordinates , then the equation
defines a circle: it consists of all the points that are at distance 1 from the point . So algebra can define geometric shapes.
The Abel Prize is named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, 1802-1829.
In this example the numbers and we considered as coordinates were just ordinary real numbers. But there are other sets of numbers too. We've already met the complex ones, but you can also consider the hours on a clock, starting at 0 and going all the way around to 11. They are ordinary natural numbers with the important difference that when adding hours you start again from the beginning when you've gone once around the clock. You could do this for any other number too. For example, in a three-hour day you have 2+1=0, 2+2=1 and so on. The numbers from 0 to 2 with this form of addition form what is called the field . Unlike the real, natural or complex numbers, this field contains only a finite amount of numbers.
Now you can ask yourself what happens to the circle if you are only allowing and to be members of : which numbers and are members of and at the same time satisfy the equation
It turns out that our "circle" now only contains four points: and
Now you can build a bigger field from in a similar way to how you built the complex numbers. The equation
has no solution in but let's nevertheless give that non-existing solution a name, say It plays the same role as in the complex numbers: we look at numbers of the form
where and are elements of As for the complex numbers there is a notion of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division for this new field. But as our original field this new field contains only a finite amount of numbers: it contains of them. Using a similar approach (adding solutions to particular equations) you can construct a whole sequence of fields
where the subscripts indicate the number of elements of each field. And you can do this not just for the number three but for any prime number to get a sequence
For each of these sequences you can ask how many points the "circle" given by our equation
contains. This will give you a sequence of numbers:
(the number of points in the circle for ), (the number of points in the circle for ), (the number of points in the circle for ), and so on.
And there is more room for play. Rather than just considering the equation of a circle
you can consider any set of equations (to be precise, any set of polynomial equations). Again, given a sequence of fields
you get a sequence of numbers
each number giving the number of solutions that exist for the set of equations in the corresponding field.
And now we are slowly approaching the connection to the Riemann hypothesis. Riemann's zeta function, if the hypothesis is true, gives us information about the error terms associated to the prime number theorem. Now given a sequence of numbers coming from a sequence of fields as described above you can form a function
In the 1940s the mathematician André Weil made a series of conjectures about functions derived in this way which came to have a huge influence in mathematics. Some of these are the exact analogue of things that were already known about Riemann's zeta function. And one of them, concerning the zeroes of the functions in question, is an analogue of the Riemann hypothesis. Functions such as above are also called zeta functions.
And there is more to the analogy. Like the Riemann zeta function these new zeta functions give information about error estimates. As an example, suppose you have a natural number and want to know in how many ways you can write it as a sum of 24 squares. You're looking for sets of 24 numbers so that
How many such sets are there? It turns out that there is an approximate formula in terms of the number . But it's only an estimate so again you would like to know information about the error is for each .
In 1916 the legendary Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan suggested bounds for that error term. It later turned out that Ramanujan was right: that's a consequence of Weil's analogue of the Riemann hypothesis.
In 1974 Deligne proved Weil's analogue of the Riemann hypothesis in what the Abel Prize citation describes as a "real tour de force". And the citation continues, "Deligne's powerful concepts, ideas, results and methods continue to influence the development of algebraic geometry, as well as mathematics as a whole." The original Riemann hypothesis, though, remains tantalisingly open.
Further reading
- You can read Tim Gower's overview of some of Deligne's work on the Abel Prize website.
- You can read about previous Abel Prize laureates on Plus and also listen to an interview with Ragni Piene, the chair of the Abel Prize committee.
- You can read more about complex numbers and the Riemann hypothesis on Plus.
How is (2,0) a solution ??
Am I missing something about multiplying the nos. of F3 ??
Please reply @ firstname.lastname@example.com
2^2+0^2=4+0=1 (mod 3)
2^2+0^2=4+0=1 (mod 3)


text:
San Francisco, CA – Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips both went 2-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored to lead the Cincinnati Reds to an 8-3 win over the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday.
Devin Mesoraco added two hits and a pair of RBI and Jay Bruce had a pair of hits and an RBI for the Reds, who have gone 5-2 since the All-Star break.
Mike Leake (10-4) gave up one run on 12 hits over six-plus innings to pick up the win.
"It wasn't a real pretty game, but we won. It was nice to come out here and win three out of four going into LA," said Reds manager Dusty Baker.
Hunter Pence went 5-for-5 with an RBI and Pablo Sandoval had two hits and drove in a pair of runs for the Giants, who have dropped four of their last five games.
"Disappointing tonight. We squandered too many chances tonight. It doesn't matter how many hits you get, it is when you get them," said Giants manager Bruce Bochy.
San Francisco out-hit the Reds 15-13, but left 15 runners on base.
Chad Gaudin (4-2) was tagged for six runs on seven hits and five walks over 3 2/3 innings to absorb the loss.
The Reds scored a run in the first inning. Shin-Soo Choo doubled, moved to third on Xavier Paul's groundout then scored on Votto's sacrifice fly to center field.
Cincinnati tacked on three more in the third. With Votto on first and two outs, Phillips lifted a line drive to right-center field. The ball got past both outfielders and Votto came all the way around to score. Bruce followed with an RBI double, and after Todd Frazier walked, Mesoraco singled to center to score Bruce.
Pence's RBI single in the home half made it 4-1.
The Reds added two runs in both the fourth and sixth innings. With the bases loaded in the fourth, Votto ripped a grounder to third, but it was enough to score Leake. Phillips followed with a sacrifice fly to center to plate Choo.
Votto opened the sixth with a triple to right then scored on Phillips' base hit. Mesoraco scored Phillips three batters to make it 8-1.
With two on and one out in the eighth, Sandoval laced a double to left field to score Tony Abreu and Marco Scutaro to pull the Giants within 8-3.
Game Notes
Leake has won three straight starts and eight of his last 10 decisions ... The Reds have won eight of their last 10 games versus the Giants ... Frazier has a seven-game hitting streak ... The Reds were 4-for-14 with runners in scoring position ... 14 of the Giants' 15 hits were singles ... The Giants went 4-for-16 with RISP.


text:
Four years after she nearly died from rabies, Jeanna Giese is being heralded as the first person known to have survived the virus without receiving a preventative vaccine. But Giese (pronounced Gee-See) says she would gladly share that honor with others if only doctors could show that the treatment used to save her could spare other victims as well. "They shouldn't stop 'till it's perfected," said Giese, now 19, during a recent interview about physicians' quest to refine the technique that may have kept her alive.
Giese's wish may come true. Another young girl infected with rabies is still alive more than a month after doctors induced a coma to put her symptoms on hold, just as they did with Giese. Yolanda Caicedo, an infectious disease specialist at Hospital Universitario del Valle in Cali, Colombia, who is treating the latest survivor, confirmed reports in the Colombian newspaper El País that the victim is an eight-year-old girl who came down with symptoms in August, about a month after she was bitten by an apparently rabid cat. Caicedo said that the family had sought treatment for the bite in Bolivar, at a hospital about three hours by foot from their rural home, but that the child, Nelsy Gomez, did not receive the series of vaccines that can prevent the virus from turning into full-blown rabies.
The five shots contain minute amounts of the dead rabies virus and are designed to nudge the body into developing antibodies to fight it. Patients are also given a shot of immunoglobulin (in this case a synthesized rabies antibody) to protect them while their immune systems produce antibodies to the vaccine virus. But the combination is only effective within six days of infection, before symptoms show up; when Gomez developed signs of the disease, it was too late for the shots. With no other options available, doctors induced a coma.
Caicedo is hopeful, but indicated that Gomez will face a long, slow recovery. She would not say how long Gomez was comatose but told ScientificAmerican.com that she had been awake for "a few days" and is stable. The child can move her fingers but cannot walk or eat on her own, and her eyes are open but she cannot speak yet and physicians are not sure if she can see, Caicedo says.
Giese, informed of the case, says that she "hopes and prays" that Gomez will survive.
Giese was the keynote speaker at a conference last week in Atlanta, where scientists gathered to discuss the latest research being conducted on ways to battle the deadly disease. During her talk, she urged physicians to continue efforts to pin down treatments that work.
Giese was 15 when she was infected after being bitten by a rabid bat she had picked up outside her church in her hometown of Fond du Lac, Wisc.
Her parents cleaned the superficial wound and she says they did not believe it was necessary to seek further medical treatment. "We never thought of rabies," she says. By the time Giese began displaying signs of rabies three weeks later—fatigue, double vision, vomiting and tingling in her left arm—it was too late for the antirabies vaccine cocktail.
Instead of giving her up for dead, the doctors decided to "shut the brain down and wait for the cavalry to come" by inducing a coma to give her own immune system time to build up antibodies against the virus, says Rodney Willoughby, an infectious disease specialist who treated Giese at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Willoughby devised the treatment credited with saving Giese there, which has since become known as the Milwaukee protocol.
Rabies kills by compromising the brain's ability to regulate breathing, salivation and heartbeat; ultimately, victims drown in their own spit or blood, or cannot breathe because of muscle spasms in their diaphragms. One fifth die from fatal heart arrhythmia. Doctors believed that Giese might survive if they suppressed her brain function by sedating her while her immune system attacked the rabies virus.
This was the first time the therapy was attempted, and doctors had no clue if it would work or, if it did, whether it would leave her brain damaged. But Willoughby says it was the only chance doctors had of saving her.
When she arrived at the hospital, Giese couldn't talk, sit or stand and fell in and out of consciousness—she also needed to be intubated to help her breathe. "She was critically ill," Willoughby recalls, "and looked as if she might die within the day."
In addition to inducing the coma, doctors also gave her the antivirals ribavarin and amantadine. They tapered off the anesthetics after about a week, when tests showed that Giese's immune system was battling the virus. For about six months after awakening from the coma, physicians also gave her a compound called tetrahydrobiopterin that is chemically similar to the B-complex vitamin folic acid, which may have improved her speech and ability to eat, Willoughby says.
He notes that physicians gave her the supplement after tests showed that she had a deficiency of the compound, which is known to boost production of serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitters needed to perform motor, speech and other routine bodily functions.
Remarkably, Giese survived. She recovered most of her cognitive functions within a few months, and other skills within a year, Willoughby says. She got her driver's license and is now a sophomore at Marian University in Fond du Lac, where she is majoring in biology. There are lingering signs of her illness: Giese, once an avid athlete, says she now lists to one side when she runs and walks and no longer plays volleyball, basketball and softball as she once did. She also speaks more slowly and sometimes not as clearly as before her illness, but Willoughby says these effects may fade over time.
Giese is "pretty much normal," says Willoughby, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. "She continues to get better, counter to conventional medical thinking."
Rabies has an incubation period of two weeks to three months and kills within a week of the symptoms showing up. The vaccine series and other immune therapies are useless at this point and may even speed up and increase the severity of the symptoms. Usually, patients are made as comfortable as possible in the hospital or, in countries without sophisticated health care, sent home to die an agonizing death.
Antiviral drugs and immune therapies including steroids, disease-fighting interferon-alpha and poly IC (which stimulates the body's own production of interferon-alpha) have been tried, but none have been shown to be lifesaving on their own, Willoughby says.
Over the past four years, the Milwaukee protocol to differing degrees has been used a dozen times, but until now Giese was the sole survivor. Exactly why she lived—and the others died—is still a mystery.
In a 2005 report on her case in The New England Journal of Medicine, Willoughby speculated that she may have been infected with a rare, weakened version of the virus. Today, he chalks Giese's survival up to aggressive intensive care, the decision to sedate her "and 10 percent sheer luck." Which element of that combination made the difference, and whether the antivirals she was given helped save her is unknown.
"In all honesty, we were probably just pretty lucky," he says. Only another survivor, and then animal and clinical trials, will show if the therapy works, and why, he says. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans to test the protocol on rabies-infected ferrets; Thai and Canadian doctors, who unsuccessfully treated a 33-year-old man with rabies with the Milwaukee protocol, recommended in the Journal of NeuroVirology two years ago that physicians exercise "caution" in using the treatment, because it is too expensive and lacks " a clear scientific rationale." Willoughby says it cost about $800,000 to treat Giese.
Rabies is 100 percent preventable with vaccinations if patients receive them before the onset of symptoms, including hallucinations, delirium, muscle spasms, paralysis and hydrophobia. Yet an estimated 55,000 people, mostly in Asia and Africa, die from it annually because of misdiagnosis or because the illness is not recognized until it has taken hold, according to the journal Neurologic Clinics. Often, patients dismiss the potential seriousness of bites, cannot afford follow-up medical treatment or, in some situations, are unaware they've been bitten, as was the case of a 13-year-old Connecticut girl who died of rabies in 1995.
Vaccine shortages as one manufacturer, Bridgewater, N.J.–based sanofi–aventis, upgrades its factory to meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements, and chronic shortfalls of immunoglobulin also play a role in the fatalities. The vaccine-immunoglobulin regimen costs $1,200 to $2,000 in industrialized nations and $100 to $300 in developing countries—an out-of-reach sum for many people, Willoughby says.
Though it's promising that Gomez is still alive, "The hope that the outcome will necessarily be the same as with Jeanna, particularly in a developing country, is expecting a bit much," laments Charles Rupprecht, chief of the CDC's Rabies Program
Willoughby acknowledges that even if Giese's success is reproducible—and the Milwaukee protocol perfected—it likely will only be available for use in 10 percent of cases, because of limited medical facilities in developing countries.
"Re-creating that in a place stricken with poverty, you get into ethical issues of whether we should do this when we should be about prevention; and does that society have the ability to rehabilitate a patient who may survive but with severe [side effects]?" Rupprecht says. "Jeanna created several ethical issues for all of us to deal with this bug."
Giese says that the fourth-year anniversary of her illness has brought up some bitter memories that she'll probably never shake, but she's glad to be alive—and doing as well as she is.
"It takes some getting used to, but I've kind of come to terms with the fact that I'm the only…[survivor]," she says. "At 15, I never would have thought that anything like this would ever happen, and that I lived is just amazing."
An animal lover who owns a dog, two rabbits and six birds, she hopes to one day open a sanctuary in Fond du Lac for endangered animals, including "big predators like lions and tigers and wolves," and maybe even bats, too.
"I'm not scared of them at all," Giese says of bats. "I'm more passionate about animals than I was before. Animals are my happiness and reason for living."
Additional reporting by Barbara Juncosa


text:
Altså: hånd, hænder - men ikke ånd, ænder.
Henrik Nordbrandt
Today, I lead men into battle. Their bullets are made of lead and I am worried. Tomorrow, it will be clear that I have led some of them to an early death.
I have not yet read the little red book you sent me. I will read it soon, I promise.


text:
Iran's CERT on Sunday first issued an alert about the relatively rudimentary malware, which was discovered to delete data off of various drives at specific times and dates. The malware is a "very simple" knockoff of other wiping malware with no relation to those previously discovered malware attacks, and "very few machines" were infected by it, according to the CERT.
Researchers from Symantec, Kaspersky Lab, AlienVault Labs, and SophosLabs all have studied a sample of the malware, a.k.a. Batchwiper or GrooveMonitor. They concur that it's a simplistic yet lethal piece of malware that doesn't appear to be related to the nation-state built Stuxnet and Wiper that hit Iran's nuclear facility, or the destructive Shamoon that wiped 30,000 workstations of their data at Saudi Aramco, and deleted files at the Iranian oil ministry.
It's the latest in a series of data-destroying malware attacks targeting specific organizations in the Middle East. This return to 1980s and early-'90s malware that damages or deletes data puzzles researchers. "It's not the kind of thing you'd expect a nation-state [to create]," says Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser for Sophos.
He says it's odd that Iran sounded the alarm about such an unsophisticated attack. "This [malware] is something anybody could have done," he says.
Batchwiper/GrooveMonitor uses a DOS BAT file that was converted to a Windows Portable executable file. It wipes data off of drivers lettered D through I, as well as files on the user's desktop, and is set to do its dirty deed during specific dates, including between Dec. 10 and 12, and Jan. 21 and 23, as well as various dates that run through 2015.
"That's not something we see almost ever," Wisniewski says. "It's one of the few things that suggests that it's a targeted attack. It's very weird: Why would you care if it's Dec. 12? What those dates mean is a mystery."
The author of the malware even made an obvious typo in the code that prevents one feature from functioning. SophosLabs found a second variant of the malware, but it's still the same basic code.
Kaspersky Lab also saw an error in the code. "Other than the geographic region there doesn't seem to be any commonality with this file-deleting malware and the previous attacks we've seen. Even though the code is extremely simplistic it looks like the author managed to slip in a mistake, by not deleting a line of old code," says Roel Schouwenberg, senior researcher for global research and analysis at Kaspersky Lab, in a blog post.
Just how it spread is unclear. Jaime Blasco, labs manager at AlienVault Labs, thinks it may be via USB. "We don't have details about the infection vector but based on the dropper it could be deployed using USB drives, internal actors, SpearPhishing or probably as the second stage of a targeted intrusion," Blasco says in a blog post.
The Iranian CERT initially reported that the malware was efficient yet simple, and was wiping out disk partitions and user profile directories without being detected by antivirus software.
"This is as basic as it gets. But if it was effective, that doesn't matter. If it wasn't clear already -- the era of cybersabotage has arrived. Be prepared," Schouwenberg says.
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Add Your Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.


text:
Our Mission:
My first husband, Capt. Jerry Zimmer, was an F4B Phantom jet pilot, whose aircraft was shot down on August 29, 1969, approximately 20 miles South of Da Nang, Vietnam, after six months in country. Neither Jerry nor his navigator, 1st Lt. Al Graf, was able to eject, before the aircraft crashed into the Que Son Mountains. Initially Jerry and Al were classified as Killed in Action/No Body Recovered (KIA/NBR). Years later, both Marines were listed as MIA, along with other service members whose bodies were never recovered.
Jerry has been gone nearly a half century, and hope for recovering his remains had run out a long time ago. However, in recent years our family became involved with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), now merged with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), and learned that Jerry's and Al's remains might, in fact, be recoverable, so we are doing everything possible to support their efforts to make this happen and bring our guys home where they belong.
Posts Tagged 'Gold Star Families'
DAVID'S STOCKING by JULIE KINK SPRAYBERRY
December 2005
I wasn't looking forward to hanging David's Christmas stocking this year. I've found that most of the things in life I didn't want to do – because they remind me of people or things that aren't here anymore – are things I really need to do.
So I lifted his stocking carefully out of its box like Mom used to do. Seeing a tiny hole in the heel, I turned it inside out to sew it. A few old, brittle scraps of wrapping paper fell out. What gift, I wondered, what year? What little thing had our parents placed there in the stocking to be found on Christmas morning – was it for David or for me?
An aunt knit woolen Christmas stockings for all three of the Kink children years before I was born. The names Paul, David, and Susan were knitted in bright red above a fuzzy white Santa face, and a pair of crossed candy canes. They were magnificent, large enough to hold an apple, an orange, a box of chocolate-covered cherries, a can of smoked oysters, and a Life Saver Sweet Storybook. I was born last, nine years after my sister, so I never got my own knitted stocking, but I loved the look and feel of the others. They were a special part of our Christmas.
The year that David was killed in Vietnam, Mom started filling his stocking for me. It made me feel special, sharing my big brother's stocking like that. Even though I got everything that was inside. It was still David's stocking, and it still needed to be hung up at Christmas.
Looking back, I think it was one of the important lessons of my eighth year: you don't have to quit hanging a person's Christmas stocking, just because they're not there to see it. For so many years, I watched Mom brush away tears as she would lift it so carefully out of its box, and pack it away just as carefully after Christmas. We eventually sent Paul's stocking off to him in Montana, and Susan's stocking off to her in South Carolina. Mom went into the nursing home, but David's stocking stayed right here with me. It has never missed a Christmas.
And now, Mom is gone. And now, I am lifting David's stocking out of its box and wiping away a few tears, just like Mom used to do.
This year, I shed tears for people I don't even know, the more than 2,000 families who will wonder if they should hang a Christmas stocking this year. The families of the young men and women who, like my own brother in 1969, went off to fight a war and never came back.
The families wondering if you ever stop thinking about them.
You don't.
I wish to the core of my soul that there was something I could do or say that would let them know they aren't alone. What I really wish, is that the war would end, and there wouldn't have to be any more families like mine, left wondering.
What do you do with a person's Christmas stocking after they're gone?
You carefully take it out of its box, you hang it up, you fill it with treats or gifts. Or just memories . . . and then, you go on.
A sensitive, beautifully-written Christmas story by Julie Kink Sprayberry, published 11 years ago in memory of the brother she barely new — David — who was killed in Vietnam when an UXO detonated and took down his LOH after he'd been in country one month. Like so many who lost loved ones long ago in Vietnam, Julie's story will resonate in its simplicity but very special message. My thanks to Julie for allowing me to publish her story, as we celebrate another Christmas day without David, Jerry and so many others who died while serving our country.


text:
Charlotte, NC – Gerald Henderson scored a career-high 35 points and made all 12 of his free throw attempts as the Charlotte Bobcats ended a 10-game skid by downing the Boston Celtics, 100-74, on Tuesday.
Ben Gordon added 17 points and Josh McRoberts recorded a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Hornets, who won for the first time since Feb. 19.
"It feels good to win again," Henderson said. "We work hard every day to get a win out here. It's just extra special to do it with a career night. We played hard out there and it paid off."
Jeff Green and Jordan Crawford each netted 14 points for the Celtics, who have lost two straight following a five-game winning streak. Brandon Bass and Avery Bradley donated 10 points apiece in defeat.
The Bobcats came out firing to start the second half, outscoring the visitors 7-0 to take a 10-point lead. Bass had a put-back dunk with 4:49 to play in the third to bring the Celtics within 64-57, but Boston struggled to close the quarter and managed just four points after the bucket.
New Orleans, though, took advantage to score 12 points during the span to take a 76-61 lead into the fourth. Boston, meanwhile, was outscored 27-15 overall in the third, and made a mere 3-of-15 from the floor.
The damage had been done and proved to be just what the Bobcats needed, as the lead grew to 24 on a monster alley oop slam from Gordon to McRoberts around the midway point of the fourth.
The Bobcats never looked back before cruising to the much-needed win.
"We approached the game with the wrong mentality," Boston coach Doc Rivers said. "We laid an egg. We could never get it started. They played really hard. We just couldn't match how hard they played tonight for whatever reason. That's on me. That's disappointing that I couldn't get that out of our guys. They were clearly so much more competitive than us the entire night."
The second quarter saw both teams go toe-to-toe, as the margin never got higher than four points for either squad. Henderson's fadeaway jumper sent the hosts into the break up, 49-46.
Henderson and Gordon paced Charlotte offensively, accounting for 19 of the team's 30 points, though, Henderson stole the show in the first half with 21 points.
The Celtics had a more balanced attack at the break with 10 different players finding the scoreboard, but none were in double-figures.
Charlotte scored the first eight points of the contest, though the Celtics held a 20-19 edge after one quarter.
Game Notes
Paul Pierce missed the contest to catch up on rest ... Charlotte holds a 2-1 edge in the series this season, having also defeated Boston in Charlotte on Feb. 11. ... Kevin Garnett scored just five points in 20 1/2 minutes of play ... Boston leads the all-time series 22-9 ... The Bobcats held a 40-24 advantage on points in the paint ... The Celtics are 12-20 on the road this season.


text:
Tribal Court Civil Jurisdiction Ordinance
Please click here for the Tribal Court Civil Jurisdiction Ordinance.
Judge Dismisses Case No. CIV-13-042
President Parton appeared in CFR Court on July 16, 2013 along with the Tribe's legal counsel as authorized by the Wichita Executive Committee. A motion to dismiss was filed in Case No. CIV-13-042. The judge granted the defendant's motion to dismiss stating that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction & the jurisdiction over the Tribe without an expressed waiver of sovereign immunity of the Tribe. You may click on the following links to read the Complaint, Motion to Dismiss and the Civil Minute Order.


text:
4 Reasons to Remember the Sabbath
By Mark Dance
I had run through my adrenaline and serotonin. I was simply going through the motions. I was bone tired and worn out. My physical, mental and spiritual gas tanks were empty.
Soon after becoming the pastor of Second Baptist Church of Conway, AR in 2001, we began a period of rapid — and unexpected — growth. A couple of years later we bought 50 acres next to U.C.A. and began the long, laborious relocation process.
For an extended season, I was meeting with planning teams, consultants, potential donors, small groups, staff, etc. I justified my schedule — and my ambition — to myself, my family and the church staff as a temporary seasonal burst. "Like a sprint," I said. I rationalized that CPAs do it every year during tax season, athletes do it before offseason, politicians do it before an election…blah, blah, blah.
When my warning light came on, I did what most terminally driven people do - press the pedal to go faster! While I thought I could leap (or build) tall buildings in a single bound, I came to realize I was a man of flesh, not steel. I paid the price for that stupidity. So did my family, staff and church.
I had nothing left to give. There were no scandalous train wrecks, suicidal thoughts, or immoral actions - but the relationship erosion had clearly crept into my life and ministry.
I reached out to my family doctor and learned I was clinically depressed. A week later a licensed therapist confirmed it by diagnosing me from the pew!
Fortunately my depression was temporary and treatable since it was diagnosed early. But, I also believe it could have been avoided.
I am healthy now and want to use my experience to help other people. Here are four good reasons to apply the Sabbath to your life.
Sabbath is a Gift to Enjoy
Humans have been hard-wired to both work and rest. If we stop doing either, we stop living full and abundant lives. Each of God's commands was given to be a blessing, not a burden.
The Sabbath originally was a gift to freshly emancipated slaves. Slaves don't usually get gifts, much less days off. God wanted them to know that they were no longer slaves, but His sons and daughters.
He not only provided deliverance, but rest and food, as well. God provided twice the amount of daily manna they needed on the day before Sabbath, so they would not have to collect it during their only day of rest. What a generous God!
"If you keep from desecrating the Sabbath, from doing whatever you want on My holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it not going your own ways, seeking your own pleasure, or talking too much; then you will delight yourself in the Lord" (Isaiah 58:13).
You would expect high-fives all around, but the Israelites were awkward with the new normal.
The people of God were not yet used to life without their Egyptian taskmasters. Some even wanted to go back to that awful life of slavery. Embracing a new lifestyle on God's terms took a considerable amount of courage. Many resisted and rejected His gift, which also was a significant sign of their new covenant with God.
We still resist and reject His Sabbath gift, don't we? I sometimes marvel at how quickly I slip back into my chains of slavery. Ministry can sometimes mask the lure of Egyptian bondage.
I'm not saying I have perfected the art of Sabbath keeping, because I still struggle every single week. But I am not going back to Egypt without a fight! I have found the rest of God right where He left it for us, in the open pages of His Word.
God not only blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy, He blesses those who courageously and consistently observe it. He wants to bless you as you explore and apply Sabbath principles to your busy life. You will find those closest to you also will be blessed when you consistently receive God's gift of rest.
The Sabbath is a practical gift, as well. It stops you for short periods for rest and refueling. Rest is refueling for another week to accelerate.
Sabbath is a command to obey
Rejecting or neglecting this gift is nothing short of open rebellion. It wasn't optional and initially was enforced with a death penalty. While those desert rules were intense (and fortunately temporary), they do give us glimpse into the seriousness of the Sabbath to God.
No. 4 on God's top 10 list, Sabbath is a 24-hour cease and desist order! It is not a punishment, just a reminder that we were created to work hard and then rest easy. We do not need to choose between the two.
Pastors are among the worst at ignoring the Sabbath command. Motivated people like us don't comply because we don't want to, don't think we need to or, frankly, don't know how to stop. Many of us are conservative in what we believe about the Sabbath, but are liberal in our practice of it.
As a pastor, I work hard on Sundays, so it is not even close to a Sabbath rest for me. Like others who work on Sundays, I must find a way to disengage from my occupation for a full day every week. God won't let your job and family and ministry fall apart because you obeyed Him and unplugged for a day.
Sabbath is an example to follow
"So the heavens, the earth and everything in them were completed. By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation" (Genesis 2:1-3).
Balance is an illusion for driven people. Life is too unpredictable to balance. A better biblical goal is to live a life in rhythm. Athletes understand the need for a pre-season, season and off-season. So do accountants and politicians. Even nature's seasons and cycles remind us of God's rhythm.
Jesus demonstrated how our lives can be in a healthy rhythm between life and vocation. We see Him oscillating between work and rest. Sometimes He would encourage the crowds to stay and eat, heal one more person or pray all night. Other times He would retreat to the lakes, mountains or wilderness for rest and renewal. One time Jesus even slept through a life-threatening storm. Why? Because He was tired!
A healthy Sabbath lifestyle includes seasons of intense work, followed by periods of intentional rest. Rhythm is a series of sprints and recoveries. A life of work, rest, and worship is an abundant life. That is still plan A.
Sabbath is a person to love
"Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
In Matthew 12 we see a Sabbath showdown between Jesus and the Pharisees. These Sabbath saboteurs tried unsuccessfully six times to place their rabbinic restrictive yoke of man-made rules on Him. Telling the Lord of the Sabbath how to observe it was laughable. But we do the same thing; we make up our own rules and ignore His.
The application is flexible, but the command is not. One day a week, disconnect from work and connect through worship and rest.
God graciously allowed me to lead 2BC for five more years, which were the best five years of my pastoral ministry. We ended up finishing the relocation and repurposed our downtown campus into a ministry center.
Mark Dance, D.Min. has been the Director of LifeWay Pastors since 2014. Mark and Janet live in Nashville and have two grown children. Mark was the pastor of Second Baptist Conway from 2001-2015. Connect with Mark on Twitter, Facebook or his markdance.net.
*This article is used with permission.


text:
When 50 Cent announced that part of the proceeds from his new energy drink would be used to help fight hunger in Africa, some questioned whether his motives were genuine.
But the rapper says he's making a difference, and since a visit to the continent earlier this month, he's a changed man.
"It enlightened me in different ways," 50 Cent said. "To actually see people under the circumstances that I saw was a totally different experience. I don't think you can prepare yourself for that, no matter how many times you've seen the images."
The rapper-turned-humanitarian flew to Kenya and Somalia with World Food Program earlier this month to witness the effects of hunger firsthand. He has a goal to provide one billion meals to hungry children over the next five years. Every purchase of Street King, an energy drink the rapper promotes and launched last fall, will provide a meal for a person in need through the United Nations' program. So far, the rapper says he's provided more than 3.5 million meals.
50 Cent said he was touched by the children he visited in Nairobi, the capitol of Kenya. He said the children were oblivious to their living situation, and showed the same optimistic energy you would see from American kids on the playground.
"They have one meal a day, the same meal every day," he said. "There's nothing there — within their eyes and the way that they interacted with each other — that would indicate that they feel deprived in any way. They are the exact kids that you would see here, and that was so confusing. It made you want to pick them up and take them home with you, but you can't. ... So you have to do something that makes a difference."
The rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, hopes to influence his peers in the entertainment industry and other young entrepreneurs to create a similar business model that gives back a percentage to charities.
But while art often imitates life, don't look for a softer side to his rap, which has depicted gritty street life. 50 Cent said he will always follow his grandmother's advice: "Just don't forget why they liked you to begin with."
Still, the trip did inspire him to return to the studio to record new material.
"I've put portions of my experience there in the actual songs, but it's so small that they'll have to listen to get it," he said. "I wanted to keep the record, creatively, in a space where when people listen to it, they just enjoy it before they can really understand what it was I'm saying; there's things on it that have double meanings."


text:
Pretty much everyone can rattle off the names of our solar system's eight (formerly nine) planets, but ask the average person to list some moons and you'll be lucky if they can tell you more than two or three.
Now, you obviously can't expect people to remember the name of every single satellite in the solar system (after all, they outnumber the planets by around 20 to 1), but if you have even the slightest interest in astronomy, it wouldn't kill you to be familiar with at least an even ten. So with that in mind, we've assembled this reference guide to ten of the solar system's most noteworthy moons.
Moon: Europa
Parent Planet: Jupiter
Why You Should Know it: Despite being covered by distinctive, criss-crossing cracks and ridges, Europa's water-ice surface is largely free of craters, making it perhaps the smoothest solid body in the entire solar system. More interesting than Europa's frozen exterior, however, is what lies hidden beneath it.
A growing body of evidence suggests that there is a vast liquid ocean lurking underneath Europa's solid surface, and a lot of scientists are eager to tap this watery interior in search of life. As Michael Shara — curator of the astrophysics division at the American Museum of Natural History — told us: "If we can figure out a way of putting a probe through the ice… who knows what we could find [in the subsurface oceans of Europa]. It would be fascinating to go look, and I think we have no choice but to go look; we must do it."
Moon: Io
Parent Planet: Jupiter
Why You Should Know it: Io is very close in size to our own moon, but it couldn't be more different. Despite having a mean surface temperature of less than -250 degrees Fahrenheit, Io is home to over 400 raging volcanos, making it the single most geologically active object in the solar system.
Moon: Mimas
Parent Planet: Saturn
Why you should know it: This list is an important reference for any self-respecting science geek, but Mimas is especially relevant for fans of science fiction for what should be obvious reasons. In brief: Mimas is no space station. It's a moon. Like many of Saturn's orbiting bodies, Mimas is small and icy, but it's also home to "Herschel" — the name astronomers have given the massive crater situated on the moon's leading hemisphere.
At 139-kilometers wide, Herschel is almost one-third the diameter of Mimas itself, causing the moon to bear a striking resemblance to the Death Star. Incidentally, Herschel crater was discovered three years after the release of A New Hope (Star Wars has a way of predicting astronomical discoveries). Bonus geek points: Temperature maps of Mimas reveal hot regions that look exactly like Pac-Man eating a dot.
Moon: Enceladus
Parent Planet: Saturn
Why You Should Know it: Enceladus is one wacky little moon. Like Europa, its surface is covered in water ice, but it's also home to some of the most impressive geysers in the solar system. Scientists had suspected for years that Enceladus was venting water vapor from its surface, but it wasn't until 2005 that they had direct visual confirmation that the moon was doing so by spewing jets of the stuff from geysers on its surface.
More recent images have revealed that this water vapor is expelled so violently that it makes it all the way to Saturn itself, making Enceladus the only known moon to affect its planet's climate directly. And, of course, water vapor could also indicate the presence of a water ocean, making Enceladus yet another attractive destination in the search for alien life.
Moon: Triton
Parent Planet: Neptune
Why You Should Know it: Of all the biggest, "major" moons in the solar system, Triton is the only one that orbits in a direction opposite that of its parent planet's rotation. Astrophysicists call this a "retrograde orbit," and it's typical of moons that have been "captured" by their parent planet.
But Triton not only orbits Neptune more closely than most captured moons, it's also orders of magnitude larger (as a point of reference, Triton is even bigger than ex-planet Pluto). Understanding how Neptune managed to wrangle Triton into its close, nearly perfect circular orbit could teach us a lot about how cosmic bodies interact, and also about the Kuiper belt — the mysterious ring of icy bodies encircling our solar system from which Triton is thought to have been apprehended.
Moon: Iapetus
Parent Planet: Saturn
Why You Should Know it: Iapetus may be one of the most mysterious moons we've ever discovered. For one thing, it is two completely different colors; the moon's trailing hemisphere is as bright and reflective as snow, but its leading hemisphere is as dark as freshly poured asphalt — a characteristic that has led many astronomers to refer to it as the "painted" or "yin-yang" moon.
How the yin-yang moon acquired this bizarre coloration is a mystery; nobody is even sure what the dark material is made of. Equally puzzling, however, is the prominent ridge that runs almost perfectly along Iapetus' equator (a feature that has earned it yet another nickname: "the walnut moon"). Like the moon's two-toned coloration, nobody is sure how the ridge, pictured here, came to be.
Moon: Phobos
Parent Planet: Mars
Why You Should Know it: Mars' moon Phobos may not be the biggest moon on this list. It may not have the most interesting geology, or the most peculiar orbit, or the most promising environment when it comes to harboring extraterrestrial life. Be that as it may, there is a very, very good chance that it will become the second moon — and the third cosmic body — to host human travelers on mankind's journey out into the Universe.
Mars will almost certainly be the first planet that we'll put put astronauts on, but landing people on Phobos first would be easier, less expensive, and more strategically sensible than landing them on the Red Planet right away, making Phobos what NASA scientists have called the "critical link between Moon and Mars exploration."
Moon: Titan
Parent Planet: Saturn
Why You Should Know it: If moons could be considered for reclassification under planetary status, Titan would be the first to come under review. It is the only moon in the entire solar system with a dense atmosphere (which can be clearly seen in the form of an enveloping haze in many recent Cassini images, including the one featured here); it experiences rain and snow; and it's even home to geological features like lakes, valleys, plains and deserts. In fact, according to NASA's Dr. Rosaly Lopes, "Titan looks more like the Earth than any other body in the Solar System."
Plus, as an added bonus: you can shatter Ewoks (or, alternatively, Wookies) on Titan by tossing them into lakes of liquid farts.
Moon: Hyperion
Parent Planet: Saturn
Why You Should Know it: Phil Plait — astronomer extraordinair and master of ceremonies over at Bad Astronomy — once called Hyperion "the solar system's weirdest moon" — and that's saying something. For one thing, Saturn is home to some pretty wonky moons (just look at how many of the natural satellites on this list orbit the ringed planet); secondly, Phil Plait has written about some weird moons in his day — so what makes Hyperion the weirdest? Well, a lot of things, but for starters: the loofah-like moon happens to be weirdly foamy. Writes Plait:
As you can see, it's saturated with craters. But they look funny! The overwhelming impression I get is that Hyperion is made of resilient foam, like a packing peanut. I'm also fascinated by the ginormous crater that dominates this face of the moon. If Hyperion were made of stiff rock, an impact that size would've shattered it like a bullet hitting a pebble. But if the composition of the moon is able to compress and compact - like foam, or something with lots of pockets of empty space inside it - the impact would do pretty much what we see here.
Moon: Moon
Parent Planet: Earth
Why You Should Know it: It's hard to go wrong with the original. Sure, it's the first moon humans ever observed, but it wasn't until the 1950s that we finally managed to get a glimpse of its far side; and just last week we learned that the Moon may have been partly responsible for sinking the Titanic, demonstrating that our Moon has been — and will always be — a source of wonder and mystery. [Photo, and top photo, by Rick Baldridge via NASA]
Want to know which moon is the solar system's awesomest? Check out our Satellite Smackdown.
All images via Wikimedia Commons unless otherwise indicated


text:
|P is for Practical
I need answers QUICKLY!by wombat (Curate)
|on Oct 23, 2000 at 23:27 UTC ( #37994=perlquestion: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
wombat has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:
AUGH! Bretheren! You've got to help me! I started taking the midterm in my Perl class, and the questions seemed to be written in MISHMASH I snuck out the back door and pretended like I was going to the loo, but I've come here instead! Please answer all of the following questions for me... Uhh and from the 15 minutes I took looking at the test and panicking, I kinda need these in the next 35 minutes.
Oh no, they've started searching the stalls. They'll soon find me, and I doubt they'll give me extra credit for being able to connect to the site through my Palm pilot rigged to a cell phone. I'm going to go back to the room and spend the next 30 minutes trying to think of excuses, and then I'll projectile vomit towards the front and run out screaming. I'll re-establish the connection, copy the answers, and then turn my paper in in the hubbub and confusion. Since I've never been to the professor's office hours or discussion section, I don't think he knows my name, and thus won't be able to find my test amid the swarms of others. Okay.. .hurry now!
Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom


text:
Shop Shurtape Tape(9 Products)
Industrial adhesives, sealants & tapes keep things together
Close gaps and protect surfaces with industrial adhesives, sealants and tapes that can be used for shipping, painting and repairs around the office.
Close seams in packing material, or seal the energy-draining leaks around windows and other fixtures, with industrial adhesives, sealants and tapes. From masking tape to protect surfaces during an office-wide repainting to caulk that fills in the gaps around plumbing fixtures, these sealants and adhesives are a must-have for nearly every upgrade or repair your office needs.
Tape of all types
Equip your maintenance workers with multiple rolls of every type of tape they might need. Electrical tape is a safe choice for splicing wires and repairing shorts. Masking tape keeps drips of paint off trim and comes off easily, leaving no marks. Duct tape, originally developed for HVAC applications, is great at almost any job as a general-purpose tool. Remember to supply your shipping department with cellophane tape for wrapping parcels, ideally with a handheld dispenser that feeds tape to just the right length before cutting it with a serrated edge. This greatly speeds up packing and shipping and allows higher-volume shipping.
Sealed with a twist
Permanently seal little gaps and open spaces with caulk and other sealants. Load a fresh tube of caulk into a caulk gun, and then lay down a smooth, uniform bead to stop leaking water from the plumbing system or escaping air from around window frames. Use thread sealant, or industrial piping compound, to make a good seal on threaded pipes carrying water, steam, air or gas. Apply the thread compound in small doses from a convenient handheld stick that's small enough to fit inside a utility belt.
A fast-acting glue will adhere to a surface in minutes and provide a tight seal or bond. Stock your office with a range of different products that will work with any project you need. With a selection of sealants and tape, you can seal boxes that you ship to customers, fix cracked equipment around the shop, and do much more.
The top brands. Shop for putties and adhesives from 3M, Tesa, and Berry Plastics to find the adhesive that has the strength that you need. Fast-acting. Whether it's a durable tape or a liquid adhesive, you will find that most products stick to the materials in only a few seconds.
The right glue for the job. Use a sealant or adhesive for a variety of different surfaces, including metal, wood, and plastic.


text:
The IAEA and Iran meet in Vienna to push for access in the Iranian Parchin military base where it is believed suspicious explosives testing was carried out before power
The UN nuclear watchdog held fresh talks with Iran Friday in Vienna, where it was expected to push for access to a suspected testing site near Tehran.
The agency's chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and deputy director general Rafael Grossi were meeting Iran's envoy to the agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, to try to get greater access to Tehran's contested nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is especially interested in the Parchin military base near the Iranian capital, where it believes suspicious explosives testing was carried out before 2003 and possibly after that.
Western powers and Israel suspect Iran of trying to develop a bomb behind the veil of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge denied by Tehran, which says it is developing civilian atomic power.
The agency says it was denied access to the Parchin site during two visits to Iran in January and February.
In a report last month, the IAEA said new satellite imagery indicated "extensive activities" at the base, where it said for years there had been virtually none.
This included the razing of two small buildings and what looked like a water run-off, suggesting a clean-up, experts said.
On May 21, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano visited Iran after talks in Vienna.
Afterwards, he noted that the two sides were close to a deal that would allow agency inspectors greater access to sites, people and documents tied to Iran's nuclear programme.
Earlier this week however, he hinted that a deal might still be some way off.
"If we do not have access to the Parchin site or other people, information and sites, then... we cannot give assurance that all the activities in Iran have peaceful purposes," he added.
Soltanieh refused to comment on the talks Friday, when he arrived for the meeting at the United Nations headquarters in Vienna, though two days earlier he expressed optimism that a deal would be concluded.
During talks in Beijing Friday, China's President Hu Jintao urged his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to cooperate with the IAEA, state Xinhua news agency reported.
Hu also called on Iran to be "flexible and pragmatic" ahead of talks with the so-called P5+1 world powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- in Moscow on June 18-19.
Talks between the P5+1 and Iran were revived in Istanbul in April and they met again in Baghdad in May, although little was achieved.
A key source of dispute has been Iran's enrichment of uranium to 20-percent purity, bringing Tehran consistently closer to producing the 90-percent enriched uranium required to make a bomb, according to Western powers.
On Thursday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin insisted Moscow supported Tehran's atomic programme as long as it was "peaceful."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meanwhile called on Iran to be ready to take "concrete steps" on its disputed programme ahead of the Moscow talks.
Barring progress there, an EU oil embargo against Iran will come into force on July 1, adding to a range of sanctions imposed under UN resolutions.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said in recent months that making, owning and using atomic weapons is "haram" (forbidden) under Islam.
Iran's regime also insisted Thursday that Western powers must recognise Tehran's "right" to uranium enrichment if talks in Moscow are to advance. It says the the country needs the process to produce medical isotopes.