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When you're selling your home, getting your belongings organized can seem like a low priority. You're dealing with finding the right real estate agent, the best time to list your home on the market, and maybe even house-hunting for a new place to live.
All of that can keep you quite busy considering many of us have to do those things while we work a full-time job. Organizing your home so that you can simplify your move just doesn't seem practical.
However, there is one main reason why getting organized can not only simplify your next move but also help improve your chances of selling your home faster and for more money.
When you go through the process of getting organized, you should be eliminating items from your home which helps to clear clutter. Clearing clutter is one of the first things agents and experts who stage homes for sale will tell you to do.
When the clutter is gone, the home can be shown much easier. Potential buyers can see what makes your house so special and different from others in the neighborhood.
If you're putting off the process of getting organized because you think you should wait until you accept an offer, let me encourage you to get motivated to do it sooner. I've seen it happen many times. The homeowner thinks there's plenty of time and then when an offer is accepted they're thrust into high gear because the buyer wants to close escrow fast.
Of course, your agent can negotiate the closing date but sometimes a faster closing is a must. Yes, you may be able to rent back from the new owners to give you more time to prepare to move but you can't avoid the fact that you'll need to move at some point.
Here are five tips that can help you jump start your organizing and simplify your next move. You will be glad you started before you get an offer to purchase your home.
1. Sort piles of belongings into groups: keep, giveaway, maybe, and trash. The "maybe" pile, you box up and seal for six to 12 months. If you don't have a use for your items in the "maybe" box during the year then perhaps you can donate it.
2. Give yourself plenty of time. Be patient: this process of getting organized takes time. Know that when it comes to sorting through personal papers and memorabilia, it will take you much longer than reviewing other items. Leave some extra time for the expected reminiscing that will occur.
3. Store your items in clear plastic bins. Using clear boxes helps to let you have a quick view of what's inside. If you use cardboard boxes or colored bins, use a pen to clearly label what's inside and which room it will go in at your new home. You might want to use a large piece of paper to write the label on so that you can reuse the bin again later for another purpose.
4. Get rid of the paper. A big problem in many homes is the paper trail they have from room to room. It could be magazines, newspapers, documents, advertisements, receipts... you name it. Most homeowners keep a lot of paper which creates a lot of clutter. Go through your files and reduce the paper by shredding or recycling documents you don't need. You'll find that a lot of what you're hanging on to, you just don't need.
5. Do it now! This is the most valuable tip. As soon as you finish reading this, go put a time on your calendar when you will begin to get organized. Placing it on your calendar should help you block off time to get started and prevent procrastination. If you take care of things right away, you'll find that life gets simpler. The same goes for your move. So, get organized and simplify your next move!


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In Pursuit of the Holy Grail: Building Isomorphic JavaScript Apps
Date: This event took place live on August 07 2014
Presented by: Spike Brehm
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes.
Cost: Free
Questions? Please send email to
Libraries like Backbone, Ember and Angular have led to an explosion in single-page web apps. These apps can provide UIs that feel faster and more interactive than traditional web apps, but this new hotness is not without its drawbacks.
The idealized single-page app runs exclusively in the browser, asking the server only for data. While this can lead to a nice, clean separation of concerns, inevitably some bits of application logic or view logic end up duplicated between client and server, often in different languages.
Worse still, an application that can only run in the client-side is not able to serve HTML to users or crawlers. This results in drastically worse initial page-load times, and more difficulty providing SEO.
At the end of the day, we really want a hybrid of the new and old approaches: we want to serve fully-formed HTML from the server for performance and SEO, but we want the speed and flexibility of client-side application logic.
In this webcast led by Spike Brehm we will discuss:
In our experience building isomorphic JavaScript apps at Airbnb, we have found that the inherent challenges can be separated into two areas: Writing Isomorphic Application Code and Building and Bundling.
Spike will introduce some of the open source projects and tools that you can use today to build isomorphic JavaScript apps.
About Spike Brehm
Spike Brehm is a Sofware Engineer specializing in rich-client JavaScript apps at Airbnb. In over a decade of experience with JavaScript, he has seen its role on the web morph from novelty to basic building block.
He's currently prototyping the next generation of Airbnb's front end stack, and is busy open-sourcing Rendr: a library for building web applications that run on both sides of the wire, fetching data and rendering views on client and server, built on Backbone.js and Node.js.

subset: commoncrawl


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Some proud parents in our area rang in the New Year in a special way last weekend—by having a baby.
Danielle and Trevor Lowis, of Sparta, welcomed the first baby in Kent County at Spectrum Health Butterworth at 12:17 a.m. January 1. Their son, Trenton Austin Lowis weighed in at seven pounds, eight ounces.
Spectrum Health United Hospital in Greenville proudly announced their first newborn delivery of 2011 was born 26 hours later, on January 2. Nora Mae Johnson was born at 2:57 a.m., Sunday, January 2nd at the Spectrum Health United Hospital Obstetrics Unit. Her parents, Larissa Mae and Kevin Emil Johnson, reside in Greenville. Nora is the couple's first child.
Nora was 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 20-½ inches long. She was delivered by Dr. Kelly Wiersema, MD after a short labor and delivery, totaling four hours from beginning until Nora's arrival.
The Post congratulates both the Lowis and Johnson families on their special additions!


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Explore our selection of luxury hotels, spas and venues in England, Europe. The Condé Nast Johansens team of Local Experts inspects each property year-on-year, so you can be sure to receive a premium experience.
Discover miles of stunning countryside steeped in natural beauty and countless historical sites with the very best 5 star luxury hotels in England. For luxury staycations, weekend breaks and long, leisurely holidays, England has a myriad of things to do and beautiful, luxury hotels to stay in, ensuring your trip is as relaxing as can be. Neighbour to Scotland and Wales, this island country is surrounded by the Irish, Celtic and North Seas and separated from continental Europe by the English Channel.
Choose from sumptuous settings in coastal towns, where you'll find the best fish and chips, fresh sea air and water sports in Cornwall or Dorset, or walk the British countryside with unrivalled views in the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Cotswolds and Devon. Indulge in an assortment of quintessentially British experiences, including traditional afternoon cream tea, taking in a West End show in London or visiting the many museums and galleries in towns throughout the country. End the day nestled in the 5 star luxury accommodation of your choice.
Please use our site to send a booking enquiry directly to a property and enjoy savings, special offers, a warm welcome on arrival, room upgrades and VIP privileges.


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Basilica Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
Title: 'Basilica La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain' Signed Art Print by Paul Cooklin-
Giclée Fine Art Prints
Unsigned prints are shipped directly from the print house within three working days and do not include a provenance certificate.
Signed prints are signed and dated on the front in pencil and include a provenance certificate with the title, medium, paper size and artist signature.
Signed and Framed prints include the 'Nielsen Pearl B...


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Bob Saget's Here For You
BOB SAGET'S HERE FOR YOU is a podcast that is like no other— For one, this podcast has guests who are friends of Bob's, or just really interesting people who many of you know and love. Secondly, this podcast is unique because it goes inside Bob Saget's mind, and then quickly filters out through his mouth. Bob has a way of calming people he has conversations with as well as being entertaining and often informative. Bob talks with his guests with genuine empathy and humor, while reaching his unusually diverse audience that he talks to as a friend, Bob is the dad with great advice, the irreverent funny guy who's always there when you need a laugh, and the free-associative Bob who goes off on crazy tangents then returns to the subject at hand, as serious or as comedic as it may be, to wrap up each episode in a way only Bob can do. Because he really does believe, "He's here for you."


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Hottest 100 for 2011
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.
Another year, another Australia Day. Another Australia Day, another Triple J Hottest 100. And that, of course, means an excellent excuse to set R to work on the chart data.
For those outside Australia, the Hottest 100 is a chart of the most popular songs of the previous year, as voted by the listeners of the radio station Triple J. The tradition began in 1991, but initially people voted for their favourite song of all time. From 1993 onwards, the poll took its current form* and was restricted to tracks released in the year in question.
Since the Hottest 100 Wikipedia pages include country of origin**, I thought I would see whether there is any pattern in whose music Australians like best. Since it is Australia Day, it is only appropriate that we are partial to Australian artists and they typically make up close to half of the 100 entries. Interestingly, in the early 90s, Australian artists did not do so well. The United Kingdom has put in a good showing over the last two years, pulling ahead of the United States. Beyond the big three, Australia, UK and US, the pickings get slim very quickly, so I have only included Canada and New Zealand in the chart below.
Number of Hottest 100 tracks by Country
If you have excellent eyesight, you may notice that 2010 is missing from the chart. For some reason, this is the only year which does not include the full chart listing on the Wikipedia page. There is a link to a list on the ABC website, but unfortunately it does not include the country of origin. Maybe a keen Wikipedian reading this post will help by updating the page.
I make no great claims for the sophistication or the insight of this analysis: it was really an excuse to learn about using the XML package for R to pull data from tables in web pages.
require(XML) require(ggplot2) require(reshape2) results <- data.frame() col.names <- c("year", "rank", "title", "artist", "country") # Skip 2010: full list is missing from Wikipedia page years <- c(1993:2009, 2011) for (year in years) { base.url <- "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_J_Hottest_100," year.url <- paste(base.url, year, sep="_") tables <- readHTMLTable(year.url, stringsAsFactor=FALSE) table.len <- sapply(tables, length) hot <- cbind(year=year, tables[[which(table.len==4)]]) names(hot) <- col.names results <- rbind(results, hot) } # Remap a few countries results$country[results$country=="Australia [1]"] <- "Australia" results$country[results$country=="England"] <- "United Kingdom" results$country[results$country=="Scotland"] <- "United Kingdom" results$country[results$country=="Wales"] <- "United Kingdom" results$country[results$country=="England, Wales"] <-"United Kingdom" # Countries to plot top5 <- c("Australia", "United States", "United Kingdom", "Canada", "New Zealand") # Create a colourful ggplot chart plt <- ggplot(subset(results, country %in% top5), aes(factor(year), fill=factor(country))) plt <- plt + geom_bar() + facet_grid(country ~ .) plt <- plt + labs(x="", y="") + opts(legend.position = "none")
UPDATE: there is a little bit more analysis in this follow-up post.
* Since the shift to single year charts, there have been two all-time Hottest 100s: 1998 and 2009.
** There are some country combinations, such as "Australia/England", but the numbers are so small I have simply excluded them from the analysis.
R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials about learning R and many other topics. Click here if you're looking to post or find an R/data-science job.
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We've seen Fennec in an early form before, but apparently the new
beta alpha is much more featured, and the promises being made for Mozilla's mobile browser are going to really shake up the scene if they follow through.
Mobile browsing is getting better and better, although my G1's built-in one is too slow, Opera Mini is a little weird, and Safari is too limited. Firefox aims to hit all three where it hurts, being fast, easy to control, and open to expansion. Add-ons for Firefox are supposed to work for Fennec eventually, which sounds fishy but would be totally awesome.
Mozilla is looking at a major release for as many mobile platforms as possible, including things like e-book readers. How sweet would it be to have a full-featured web browser on a Kindle or eReader-type device? Hopefully that'll happen sometime in the next 6 months.


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A Purse is the better friend of a lady. A high-quality and suitable leather purse will surely show to other individuals who you're and may inspire your trendy nature and taste. You could have generally ideal to find one purse that will choose all the things and instances, and a classic leather handbag could be your answer.
A top quality classic leather handbag must be handmade and created using the premium leather. This will provide your search and your personality an excellent image. But be mindful where measurement and shape you decide on a purse since it has the ability to influence and form your personality.
In general leather bags are outstanding and look distinguished and elegant at the same time, therefore they'll match the city or from the town. Custom leather bags are one of the main extras in the style business of those days.
Trendy handbags are used both by the women and the teenagers to perform today's passionate style splendor idea. Style leather give bags perform admirably with both conventional and informal gowns and for each event. Girls trendy leather purses are available in numerous models and design that is likely to match the patient taste of the buyers.
The fashion world features a substantial position in lifestyle, permitting persons to utilize their components to produce and define themselves. The custom leather style purse represents their part as the vital fashion addition by showing a thoughtful picture of one's home to the world.
In the same way the decision of a careful purse enables the patient to establish themselves, the form and structure of the purse is yet another piece to installing the dimensions of every woman's body. It is needed for the woman to be familiar with and understand her very own body's portion as that could be the foundation to start to decide which purse selection would be finest.
The designer bags are suitable for a university planning teenagers who desire to look elegant & cool and also a very proficient qualified girl who wish to look extremely advanced and niche.
These leather bags have dominated the fashion world using their great looks; number other product like jute, plastic, rayon or fabric may exchange the enchantment and splendor of the leather bags. They look tremendously stylish and elegant. You can make good impact with the modish custom leather handbags and win minds of individuals about you.


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Stacy White @stacywhitephoto
"Signs of Autumn" - One of my favorite places in Grand Teton National Park is Blacktail Ponds Overlook. It's a pretty quiet area, but the view is spectacular. On this particular morning, there were elk bugling in the distance.
Filippo Bianchi
I took this photo early in the morning when I was there during one of my trips in USA, August 2014.
Billy DiMirra @billydimirra
This is a true Van Life photo. My wife and I camped in Grand Teton for a week in our Van, Winston. We woke up early one morning to make some coffee and catch the sunrise over the Tetons. As the Coffee was steeping we opened the rear doors to this view.
Kyle Medina @k.r.medina
Was my first time in GTNP. While driving Teton Park Road, the road give you a perfect leading line to the Teton Mountain Range.
Juan David @jdo_tetons
"Golden Reflections" - I got up incredibly early to be at Schwabachers Landing for sunrise. The color of the early morning light on the Tetons was mesmerizing.
Simone Anne @simone_anne
Our first view of the moon after August's great American eclipse, a little sliver over the mountains while the sky was still purple from a clear day in the wilderness.
Bridgette Bugay @bridgettegb
Twilight on Jackson Lake
Mt. Moran - Was a cold morning waiting for sunrise at the infamous Oxbow Bend.
Jack Bronzeit @j_l_bronze_photography
For me, this image shows the Grand Teton National Park in all its glory. From the imposing mountains in the back, to the long exposure smoothed sky and clouds, the leading line of the rocks and the shoreline bring this image together perfectly.
Jerry Cagle @photographersguide2_se_arizona
Fog and early morning light grace the spires of Grand Teton National Park.
Deidra Goodwin @the_tokenvegan
A red fox in Grand Teton in March.
Tom Mace @triopodtravelers
Mormon Row Spring Morning
Caroline Meyer
I was able to capture this photo during a camping trip on the hills opposite the mountains.


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Here is a screenshot of a Mahjongg game running on Portable.Net together with the Qt# GUI toolkit.
Your comments please...
You are invited to add your comments concerning this at the appropriate page of the DotGNU Wiki
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted in any medium or format, provided this notice is preserved.
This page is maintained by Norbert Bollow <firstname.lastname@example.com> with support from the DotGNU Website mailing list.


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$439.95 (-11%)
Product Description
ESM P-39 AIRACOBRA GEN 4 ELECTRIC RETRACT SET comes complete with working OLEO STRUTS and Aluminum hub wheels. These are specially designed for these ESM AIRACOBRA models!
- Nose Wheel is 3″
- Main Wheels are 4″
These are servoless retracts and only require a channel on your receiver to operate.
They draw very low voltage , typically about 9-12 Mah per cycle.
Technical Note: You are advised to add threadlocker to each set screw on the entire retract mechanism and struts/wheels. This will ensure vibrations from your engine/motor do not allow the screws to vibrate loose. Failure to do so may cause your retract oleo strut, mechanism or wheel/axle to loosen causing damage to your model. Please ensure you take this simple precaution.
1 Year ESM Factory Backed Warranty:
ALL NEW ESM GEN 4 ELECTRIC RETRACTS arriving beginning with Sept 2015 ESM shipment. ESM GEN 4 Electric Retracts now feature enhanced drive mechanism and come with a Factory 1 year warranty! Buy with confidence with the exclusive ESM Factory 1 year warranty covering electric drive retract mechanisms and electric control module. Coverage begins from original date of purchase. Warranty does not cover damage from landings or struts. Warranty is not transferable to second owner. To submit claim email [email protected] for a claim #. We will normally require you send in the core parts to VQ WARBIRDS for exchange of a replacement. Any failed components are then sent back to ESM for evaluation to better the product. Warranty does not cover damages resulting from using too high voltage or improper connection of units , damage from landings or crashes. Warranty does not cover damage of oleo struts or axles. Customer is responsible for postage to return core parts for warranty claim. VQ WARBIRDS will send customer replacement components back once inspected and approved for replacement. VQ WARBIRDS and ESM retain the right to void warranty at sole discretion if product is deemed to be damaged from improper installation, overload, short circuiting, water, fire, or any other use other than normal reasonable use.
What would you like to know about this product?


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BIG screen. BIG impact. BIG advantages over conventional display solutions.
Available in screens up to a spectacular 80″ class (80″ diagonal), these LED-LCD interactive displays give you convincing reasons to think BIG — with brilliant color images for greater communication power. Superior collaborative ease with touch-screen convenience. For versatility and performance in business meetings, teleconferences, presentations, training/classroom instruction and high-impact signage, there's never been a better time to think BIG — and think Sharp.


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In Stockton, California, an income tax is imposed on a certain percentage of the income of all individuals and businesses. Generally, income from all sources may be taxed. The federal government has had explicit constitutional authority to impose an income tax since 1916, with the passage of the 16th Amendment. This came after the Supreme Court had consistently found a federal income tax to be unconstitutional. States, including California, have always been allowed to impose whatever type of income tax they liked.
Everyone in the United States must pay the federal income tax. However, you only have to pay the state income tax of the state in which you reside. You should speak with an accountant or tax lawyer in Stockton, California if you aren't clear about what system your state has.
Income Tax Deductions in Stockton, California
A tax deduction is simply a reduction in the part of a person's income that is taxable. For example, if someone makes ,000 per year, and gets a ,000 tax deduction, their taxable income is ,000.
This should not be confused with a tax credit, which is simply a reduction in somebody's tax bill. A tax credit will usually reduce your tax liability far more than a tax reduction of the same amount.
Many common expenses in Stockton can be deducted from your taxable income. They include mortgage interest, charitable contributions (if property documented, of course), the price of tax advice, union dues, and many others.
How Can A Stockton, California Tax Attorney Help?
Income tax laws in Stockton, California can get very complex. You should speak with an accountant or tax Attorney if you have any questions about your income tax liability.


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Whether you are looking for an oil change for your Acura, Audi, BMW, Buick or any other make, chances are your vehicle will need to get an oil change service at some point during its lifetime. We at The V Shop in Plantation have been performing oil changes on vehicles since 1995. During an oil change service, our Reliable technicians will replace your engine oil, oil filter, and inspect the fluids in the engine bay and potential leaks.
There are two different types of engine oil: conventional and synthetic. There are big differences between the two. Conventional oil is made from petroleum-based products and synthetic oil is made from petroleum or synthetic-based stocks. Some drivers prefer synthetic oil over conventional oil due to how it is formulated to help provide advanced protection against major causes of engine stress, such as heat build-up, too much friction, and deposits. Conventional oil is more prone to thinning at higher temperatures and thickening at lower temperatures. However, these problems can be prevented as long as you get your oil change when it is time to get so instead of putting it off.
Depending on the type of oil you use on your vehicle and the number of miles on the odometer, there is a regular schedule that should be followed when it comes to getting an oil change. A general rule to follow is to get an oil change every 5,000 to 7,500 miles. Here are some signs that you need to get an oil change:
If you need to get an oil change, come to The V Shop in Plantation to get one as soon as possible! It is important to get an oil change when it is time to get one because it can cause damage to your engine.
Getting an oil change is part of a standard maintenance procedure on internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. This service is extremely fast and it is affordable to get one. Most vehicles have a regular schedule of when to get an oil change, depending on the number of miles driven and the type of oil your vehicle is using. When that time comes, bring your vehicle to The V Shop in Plantation. We can take care of all our oil change needs, whether it would be a lube oil filter or synthetic oil change. We've been servicing cars since 1995 and offer a cost-effective and efficient service for your vehicle. Our highly skilled technicians will assess the make, model, and year of your vehicle and will recommend the appropriate oil type for your car.
Reasons You Should Do Business With Us:
If you are in the 33313 area, bring your car to The V Shop today. Schedule an appointment with us online at or give us a call at 954-587-3291. The V Shop - Your Dealership Alternative For All of Your Car Care Needs.


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Survival Skill: How to Start a Fire With a Lemon
Thank god I know how to survive a situation where all I have to keep me warm is six copper clips, six zinc nails, wire, steel wool and a fucking lemon.. In this video I show you how to make fire with a lemon. This is an awesome survival tip that you don´t want to miss.
This Article Was Originally Posted on goodshomedesign.com Read The Original Article here
The Cutest WAFFLE MAKER – Car Waffle Maker
Love waffles? Why not take it to the next level with awesome cars and trucks! We're all about inspiring creativity and re-imagining breakfast so you can start everyday with a smile. Find this Waffle Maker in the link below…
Find it HERE…
This Article Was Originally Posted on goodshomedesign.com Read The Original Article here
Australia is Dropping Vegetables From Choppers to Feed Wildlife Starved by Fires
Australia has been going through some tough time with forest fires spreading all over the country and causing a severe loss of wildlife. In areas where the fire has stopped burning, the remaining animals are still struggling to find food and survive. Luckily, Australians have found an ingenious way to help animals in these hard times and started a rescue program that involves food dropped from helicopters.
Among the most affected are the wallabies and since they are left without their natural habitat, finding food is extremely hard for them. So, now the wallabies are showered with carrots and sweet potatoes that are being dropped from helicopters, this way staying safe and undisturbed. Of course, this is only a temporary solution but one that solves a major issue and ensures the survival of this species.
A lot of other animals are in danger of going extinct in Australia, so there is still a lot of work to do and everyone can get help by donating to organizations such as The World Wildlife Federation – Bushfire Emergency Fund, World Animal Protection, Animals Australia or WIRES Wildlife Rescue.
In New South Wales, thousands of kilograms of carrots and sweet potatoes are being dropped by planes and helicopters in fire-affected areas to help wildlife. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
This Article Was Originally Posted on goodshomedesign.com Read The Original Article here
Life Finds A Way: Pictures After The Australian Bushfires
Humans don't appreciate nature to its fullest, and in many cases, the beauty offered by Earth is taken for granted. Pollution and climate change are major issues in our times, and they have severe repercussions, but nature somehow always finds a way to recover.
The same thing applies to Australia's forests, the might survivors of months of terrible bush fires that left the country mourning. Experts suspect that the bush won't fully recover to its previous state, but signs of animals returning have been more than promising.
Thanks to years of evolution and arid climate, many Australian plants have adapted to the climate and learned how to protect their buds in case of high temperatures or even fire. This means that they will start to sprout soon and can even find nutrients in ash.
Pictures of green trees and plants among the ashes are circulating the Internet and they are once again proof that life is cyclic, and nature can recover after experiencing a traumatic event.
Hopefully, soon there will be more and more pictures like these, filled with hope and wildlife will return too to the Australian bush.
This Article Was Originally Posted on goodshomedesign.com Read The Original Article here
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I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm having some trouble finding the thread.. I was wondering if anyone could let me know where to get a reasonable price and quality zafu and zabuton set, preferable online? What is a good price? Anything to look for or avoid? I see some sets on amazon for $95 which seems a little high but I'm not sure.
Thanks for your help


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|» Home » Daily Gold Rates » Monthly Gold Rates » Yearly Gold Rates » Jewellery Designs
|Gold Weight Estimated
|Pavan ( Grams)
|Total Price of Estimated Gold
|Rs. (»Today's Gold Rate)
|Estimated Making Charges
|Estimated Cost of Diamonds Used
|Rs. 30,000
|Total Estimated Price of Ornament
|Rs. *
|Previous «
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|» Disclaimer


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Big or small, we've got a solution when you need it. Our advanced service and support tools provide you with great customer service. Contact us today to learn more about Dynamic Concepts creative technology tools.
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Freundliche Menschen, die ihre Geschenke, Bücher, Lehrbücher, CDs, DVDs, Videos, Foto / Elektronikartikel hier bei AMAZON kaufen, unterstützen optimal die Spaßpost! Vielen Dank!
Hinweise zu Autoren.
|Two old ladies were outside their nursing
home, having a drink and a smoke, when it started to rain. One of the ladies pulled out a
condom, cut off the end, put it over her cigarette, and continued smoking.
Lady 1: What's that?
Lady 2: A condom. This way my cigarette doesn't get wet.
Lady 1: Where did you get it?
Lady 2: You can get them at any drugstore.
The next day, Lady 1 hobbles herself into the local drugstore and announces to the pharmacist that she wants a box of condoms.
The guy, obviously embarrassed, looks at her kind of strangely (she is, after all, over 80 years of age), but very delicately asks what brand she prefers.
"Doesn't matter son, as long as it fits a Camel."
The pharmacist fainted


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SPOT Satellite Messenger with Tracking
Just $149.95
SPOT GEN 3 Satellite Personal Tracker
The World's First Satellite Messenger and TrackerThe SPOT "Satellite Personal Tracker" also known as the Spot Locator unit has more features and services than other Emergency Handheld GPS Personal Location Beacon units selling for over $1000.00
Never be lost, stranded or be in potentially life threatening situations in remote areas beyond the range of cellular phones.
Now, with Spot Satellite Messenger you can send a message for help or tell family members, friends or the emergency responders where to find you using GPS accuracy regardless of cellular coverage. Help is just a push button away!
SPOT's message and tracking functions enable users to send messages to friends, family or emergency responders, based upon varying levels of need and to visually track the location of the SPOT Satellite Messenger:
- "Alert 911" button dispatches emergency responders to an exact location
- Ask for "Help" button sends a request for help to friends and family
- "Check In" button lets your contacts know where you are and that you are okay
The Spot "Track Progress" sends and saves your location and allows contacts to track your progress online.
- GPS location coordinates accurate to within 20 feet
- 99.4% Satellite Reliability Using a 48 Satellite Constellation
- Weight 7.37 ounces
- Dimensions 4.38 x 2.75 x 1.5 inches
- Waterproof
- Floats
- Shockproof
- Operating temperature range -40 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit
- Uses easy to replace AA lithium batteries
- Standby battery life approximately 12 months
This is an essential line of communication in emergency situations. There are over 64 million consumers in the United States that are outdoor enthusiasts. The National Association for Search and Rescue has participated in an estimated 50,000 or more search and rescue missions each year. These rescues usually begin and the rescuers have no inclination where the victim may be located. Not only can SPOT send messages to family, friends, or the authorities it also provides GPS accuracy on your location. The SPOT satellite messenger gives a location within 20 feet of accuracy. The SPOT Locator is great for commercial lone worker safety applications or for people who live in areas where natural disasters may occur. Drivers who drive outside their cell phone coverage area would also benefit from this valuable tool.
SPOT Satellite Messenger has a rugged waterproof construction, floats, and is functional in extreme temperatures and climates. It uses AA lithium batteries that have a standby of approximately 12 months. It is light and easy to transport with coverage in practically all of the continental United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Australia, sections of South America, Northern Africa, and Northeastern Asia. This also has coverage in hundreds or thousands of miles offshore to these areas.
There is a proven 99.4% reliability with the SPOT messenger system. They process over 6 million messages a month or approximately 2.3 messages per second. The SPOT network uses a GPS satellite system to verify a user's location.
Optional unlimited tracking service will transmit your location to friends and family using Google maps every 10 minutes for a 24 hour period. Tracking can be reactivated by the user of the spot unit by a press of a button. Learn more about SPOT's Service
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text:
More parents of teen girls not fully vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) are intending to forgo the shots altogether - a trend driven by vaccine safety concerns, new research suggests.
That's despite multiple studies showing the vaccine isn't tied to any serious side effects but does protect against the virus that causes cervical cancer, researchers said.
"There were a lot of very sensationalized anecdotal reports of (girls) having bad reactions to the vaccine," said pediatrician and vaccine researcher Dr. Amanda Dempsey from the University of Colorado Denver.
"Safety concerns have always risen to the top of the pile, in terms of being one of the main reasons people don't get vaccinated, which is unfortunate because this is one of the most well-studied vaccines in terms of safety and is extremely safe," Dempsey, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all kids - both boys and girls - receive three HPV shots as preteens.
Researchers led by Dr. Paul Darden from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City got their data from a national immunization survey that involved phone calls to almost 100,000 parents.
They found that from 2008 to 2010, the percentage of teens who were up to date on their Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), MCV4 (meningococcal) and HPV vaccines all increased slightly.
Still, about three-quarters of girls ages 13 to 17 were not up to date on their HPV series in 2010. And the proportion of parents of those girls who said they didn't plan to get their daughters the rest - or any - of their HPV shots rose from 40 percent to 44 percent, the research team wrote Monday in Pediatrics.
At the same time, the proportion who cited safety concerns as their reason for abstaining from getting the HPV vaccine increased from less than five percent to 16 percent.
For all three vaccines asked about in the survey, other reasons parents gave for skipping their teenagers' shots included not thinking they were necessary, not having had a specific vaccine recommended by a doctor and, for the HPV vaccine, believing their child was not sexually active.
"These are wonderful vaccines preventing severe diseases," Darden told Reuters Health in an email. "HPV is the first vaccine that will prevent cancer which is a tremendous health benefit."
Dempsey said past research has suggested that although more girls are being vaccinated against HPV, vaccine rates haven't increased as quickly as for other shots, such as Tdap.
Darden reports having been a consultant for Pfizer, and one of his co-authors is on a safety monitoring board for vaccine studies funded by Merck, which makes Gardasil, one of the HPV vaccines.
Parents shouldn't rely on the media or Internet to learn about vaccines, according to Dempsey, since it's hard to tell what information is legitimate.
"If they have questions or concerns, they should trust their provider to give them accurate information about the vaccine," she said.


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LOS ANGELES -- The case against Lance Armstrong is closed. His legacy as a seven-time Tour de France champion endures.
Federal prosecutors dropped their investigation of Armstrong on Friday, ending a nearly two-year effort aimed at determining whether the world's most famous cyclist and his teammates joined in a doping program during his greatest years.
Armstrong steadfastly has denied he doped during his unparalleled career, but the possibility of criminal charges threatened to stain not only his accomplishments, but his cancer charity work as well. Instead, another attempt to prove a star athlete used performance-enhancing drugs has fallen short, despite years of evidence gathering across two continents.
"I am gratified to learn that the U.S. Attorney's Office is closing its investigation," Armstrong said in a statement. "It is the right decision and I commend them for reaching it. I look forward to continuing my life as a father, a competitor, and an advocate in the fight against cancer without this distraction."
The probe, anchored in Los Angeles where a grand jury was presented evidence by federal prosecutors and heard testimony from Armstrong's former teammates and associates, began with a separate investigation of Rock Racing, a cycling team owned by fashion entrepreneur Michael Ball.
U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. announced in a press release that his office "is closing an investigation into allegations of federal criminal conduct by members and associates of a professional bicycle racing team owned in part by Lance Armstrong."
He didn't disclose the reason for the decision, though Birotte has used discretion in pursing high-profile criminal cases before. Last February, his office closed an investigation of mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp.
The pronouncement comes after a pair of less-than-successful cases against top sports figures accused of doping. Home run king Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice and sentenced in December to 30 days' home detention -- a conviction he's appealing -- but prosecutors were unable to convince a jury he lied about using steroids. Roger Clemens' steroid trial is slated for April 17 after a judge declared a mistrial last summer when prosecutors showed jurors inadmissible evidence.
Investigators looked at whether a doping program was established for Armstrong's team while, at least part of the time, it received government sponsorship from the U.S. Postal Service. Authorities also examined whether Armstrong encouraged or facilitated doping on the team. He won the Tour de France every year from 1999-2005.
The hurdle for prosecutors wasn't so much to prove whether any particular cyclist used drugs, but to determine if Armstrong and other team members violated federal conspiracy, fraud or racketeering charges. Unlike Bonds and Clemens, who testified before a federal grand jury and Congress, respectively, and were accused of lying under oath, Armstrong was not questioned in front of the grand jury.
Betsy Andreu, who with her husband and former Armstrong teammate, Frank, accused the cycling champion of doping, said she was shocked by Birotte's decision.
"Our legal system failed us," she said. "This is what happens when you have a lot of money and you can buy attorneys who have people in high places in the Department of Justice."
Led by federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who also investigated Bonds and Clemens, U.S. authorities sought assistance overseas, requesting urine samples of U.S. Postal riders from France's anti-doping agency and also meeting with officials from Belgium, Spain and Italy.
Prosecutors also subpoenaed Armstrong supporters and ex-teammates to testify in Los Angeles. Among them were Ukrainian cyclist Yaroslav Popovych, who rode on three Armstrong teams dating back to 2005; Allen Lim, an exercise physiologist for Team Radioshack; and longtime Armstrong friend Stephanie McIlvain.
The investigation began after Novitzky was told about a cache of PEDs found by a landlord in the vacated apartment of Kyle Leogrande, a cyclist who rode for Rock Racing and had a doping ban, according to several people familiar with the case.
The case also was spurred by disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis, who claims Armstrong had a long-running doping system in place while they were teammates. Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for drug use, acknowledged in 2010 he used performance-enhancing drugs after years of denying he cheated.
One of the most serious accusations came during a "60 Minutes" interview last May when former teammate Tyler Hamilton said he saw Armstrong use EPO during the 1999 Tour de France and in preparation for the 2000 and 2001 tours.
Chris Manderson, the lawyer representing Hamilton, told ESPN.com's Bonnie Ford the former cyclist was honest in his testimony to grand jurors, his further discussions with federal investigators, and in his "60 Minutes" interview.
"He told the truth and I think people believed that,'' Manderson said. "The fact that doping occurred is a separate issue from whether a federal crime occurred. If (federal authorities) made a decision not to prosecute, that doesn't mean that somebody didn't cheat in a bicycle race.''
The report also said Armstrong loyalist George Hincapie, another ex-teammate, told federal authorities that he and Armstrong supplied each other with PEDs and discussed them. Hincapie released a statement after the segment aired, saying he did not speak with the show and didn't know where it got its information.
U.S. anti-doping officials said Friday they will not be dissuaded by the government's decision to close the Armstrong probe.
"Unlike the U.S. Attorney, USADA's job is to protect clean sport rather than enforce specific criminal laws," said Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "Our investigation into doping in the sport of cycling is continuing and we look forward to obtaining the information developed during the federal investigation."
As the investigation progressed, Armstrong assembled a legal team, hired a spokesman and briefly created a website to address any of the allegations reported by the media.
Frustrated by a slew of news articles about the investigation, Armstrong's attorneys filed a motion in July, asking a judge to order federal agents to testify about their contacts with reporters.
Armstrong consciously maintained a high profile throughout the investigation, raising money for his cancer charity, Livestrong, and racing in events such as off-road triathlons. He had no reason to hide, he said.
A spokeswoman for Livestrong, Katherine McLane, said the group was "very glad to hear this news." She called Armstrong an inspiration to millions of cancer survivors.
That could have played a role in prosecutors' decision, one expert said.
"The government always has a tremendous amount of prosecutorial discretion regarding whether or not to bring an indictment. In this case it appears that they have acted judiciously and likely considered all of the good works of Lance Armstrong and his foundation," said Mathew Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the case.
Information from The Associated Press and ESPN.com's Bonnie Ford was used in this report.


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Spanking video
Spanking videos (or spanking movies) are non-mainstream erotic (in some cases, pornographic) videos centered around adult (M/F, F/F, F/M or M/M) spanking scenes. Spanking videos are available for purchase on VHS videotapes, DVDs or via digital download from Internet websites.
About half of the videos produced since the first stag reels of the 1930s feature an all-female (F/F) cast, appealing to men and lesbian/bisexual women alike. Male-punishes-female (M/F) titles take up a much smaller percentage. Some video producers occasionally mix F/F and M/F scenes together. Femdom (F/M) videos are a small but growing niche market along with the more specialized all-male (M/M) titles.
Until fairly recently, spanking videos did not include pornographic content. However, many of the larger companies (Shadow Lane, Lupus Pictures, et al.) now offer a few (mostly M/F) titles that combine spanking with hardcore sex scenes.
The early years[edit]
The first spanking fetish movies emerged on the fringe of the underground pornographic film industry in the silent movie era. As early as the 1920s, short films or "blue movies" with erotic corporal punishments began to appear, primarily in France. One of the earliest U.S. stag films, The Casting Couch (1924), shows a woman beating a bound man with a riding crop.
Fetish reels were shown in brothels, at private all-male parties (hence the terms "stag film" and "smokers"), as well as "members only" cinema clubs. In Europe the 9.5 mm (0.37 ″) camera designed for amateur filmmakers was introduced in 1922. This remained popular until 1932 when Kodak's 8 mm (0.31 ″) film format became the industry standard for non-professional films.
These silent, crudely made film-loops (3 to 10 minutes in length) depicted simple fetishistic fantasies such as schoolgirls getting spanked by their teacher or a mistress punishing a clumsy maid. Nearly all of the these filmmakers remain anonymous. One notable exception is Jacques Biederer's Biederer Studio and Ostra Studio in Paris. He was the best-known producer of sophisticated fetish photographs and films in Europe. A handful of rare films by Ostra and others can still be found in a number of vintage erotica compilation videos.
Several rediscovered Ostra films from the 1930s can also be viewed at the Internet Archive website:
- Dressage au Fouet (a mistress dominates and whips her slave)
- Sous Les Caresses du Martinet (depicts a playful, sadomasochistic lesbian relationship)
- The Broken Vase (a lady punishes her inept maid)
- Jeunes filles sans uniforme (schoolgirls spanked outdoors, possibly by Ostra Studio)
Another example, La fessée à l'école, is featured in Polissons et galipettes, pornographic footage from the 1920s released in 2002 (see Links below).
In the 1930s and '40s, a few films used bondage and corporal punishment as a prelude to explicit sex scenes. (See Espirit de Famille and another French stag film at the Internet Archive.) But the majority of these early, black-and-white films featured little more than mild, often whimsical, scenes of bondage and spanking. Over the next few decades, harsher scenes of whipping, caning and various kinky BDSM elements including role playing, gradually increased.
The mainstream film Quartet (1981), set in Paris in 1927, offers a glimpse of a photo studio much like Jacques Biederer's. A nude model wearing only a maid's apron poses with a martinet, about to whip her mistress (video).
The 1950s: Bettie Page and Irving Klaw[edit]
The 1950s is best represented by the 8 mm (0.31 ″) film-loops of Irving Klaw made in his New York studio. One of his models, Bettie Page, became a world famous icon of fetish and cheesecake photography.
Klaw made around 200 of these silent films (averaging 5 minutes in length) featuring bondage, female wrestling, and other S&M subjects, including spanking. (The subject matter was based on specific requests from his kink-obsessed clients.) Page appeared in close to 50 of these films shot between 1953 and 1954. Most of them were lost or destroyed, but around 60 have been preserved and released on various DVD compilations.
Klaw's films usually display a playful, lighthearted tone. There is nothing severe or sadistic to be found in any of his work. For fear of prosecution, Klaw carefully avoided anything that could be considered pornographic. All of his films feature an all-female cast and had no nudity or sexual content. Klaw's women are always clad in their underwear with stockings and fetishistic high heels (sometimes in corsets or leather bondage outfits). The typical corporal punishment scenario would involve a servant or slave girl who is bound and spanked for misbehaving.
His films and photo stills taken during the movie sessions were discreetly sold at his Movie Star News shop in Manhattan as well as through a mail order catalog and ads placed in various clandestine fetish and girlie magazines. Klaw's main business was selling pin-up photos of models and movie stars.
Klaw is unique in that he was a legitimate businessman with a storefront operation who produced kinky stag films as a sideline. He was cautious in regard to the existing obscenity laws, but did not conceal his identity. His name appears in the title credits of all his film-loops. By contrast, all of his contemporaries, many of whom show a Klaw influence, remain anonymous to this day. Fetish films with identifying production credits did not appear until the late 1970s with companies such as HOM Inc. and Nu-West.
Sexploitation films of the 1960s[edit]
In the 1960s, Klaw's underground film-loops would have a direct effect on the emerging sexploitation film genre. Three of the earliest "roughies", Olga's Girls, Olga's House of Shame (both 1964) and Tortured Females (1965), show Klaw's influence and include the first mainstream scenes of erotic bondage, spanking and whipping of abducted half-naked women.
Increasingly graphic and sadistic corporal punishments continued in dozens of similar adults-only films such as RENT-A-GIRL (1965), The Defilers (1965), and Love is a Four Letter Word (1966). In the '60s amateur fetish loops and low-budget exploitation films both became more extreme and may have had a back-and-forth influence on each other.
Mondo Keyhole (1966), offers a rare inside look at the fetish film industry of the '60s, including the filming of a BDSM stag film. Danish Blue (Denmark, 1968) shows a spanking photoshoot and a humorous spanking stag film (video). More film-within-a-film scenes can be found in 1968's Starlet! (a pillory whipping), Over 18...and Ready (1969, video), and Uschi Digard filming a whipping scene in 1973's Superchick (video clip).
Harrison Marks[edit]
England's contribution to the roughie exploitation genre was the controversial and frequently banned Pattern of Evil (1968) directed by Harrison Marks. This had a dark S&M theme and explicit sex scenes.
Since 1960 Marks had been producing scores of 8 mm (0.31 ″) "nudie" films. Nearly all of these involve busty women undressing in simple fantasy vignettes. However, in 1967 he began to dabble in bondage and discipline scenarios. Captive girls are chained and whipped in a medieval dungeon; a leather-clad dominatrix flogs a male slave, etc.
By the late 1970s he was selling Super 8 mm (0.31 ″) spanking loops (100 feet (30 m) in length) in the well-known spanking magazine Janus. (For example, an issue from 1977 promoted four of his titles, Whiplash, Bottoms Up, Flagellation, and Hot Ass, for £12 each.) In 1979 Marks began working for Janus as a photographer. In 1982 he left to create a similar magazine, Kane. He then went on to direct a string of spanking videos in the '80s and '90s.
The rise of fetish stag films[edit]
The introduction of the improved Super 8 mm (0.31 ″) format in 1965 led to a sudden increase in the production of a variety of underground "stag party" films.
There were three main types: nudist and striptease "art" or "glamour" films, hardcore pornographic sex movies, and kinky fetish loops. This last group covered a variety of offbeat subjects. The majority were simple films showing either female wrestling or topless girls struggling in bondage. Other stag reels were equal parts bondage and spanking, with a bit of wrestling thrown in.
With the exception of a few French reels, fetish loops of this period had no sexual content and mostly featured an all-female cast. In fact, the producers carefully avoided showing full-frontal nudity. This was clearly a precaution to separate themselves from explicit pornographic films which were frequently prosecuted by legal authorities.
The early films from the '20s to the '50s were mostly made in the controlled environment of a studio using a tripod-mounted camera. The sets comprised a few simple props and furniture items placed in front of a large curtain or blacked-out backdrop. By contrast, the new wave of 1960s B&D film-loops were casually shot with hand-held cameras in actual living rooms and bedrooms with little attention paid to lighting or composition. Looking more like amateur home movies, some are hopelessly dark and murky while others are terribly overexposed. The punishments are typically performed in an unrealistic and perfunctory manner (comical by today's standards), with the girls self-consciously aware of the camera. Performers are often seen pausing and looking toward the camera for stage directions.
Advertisements for stag movies (plus ads for inexpensive movie viewers and projectors) became a regular fixture in the back pages of dozens of men's girlie periodicals as well as a new breed of specialized spanking magazines (Corporal, Bizarre Life, et al.). The spanking and bondage reels were frequently described using coded language such as "damsels in distress" films designed for "sophisticated connoisseurs of the bizarre and unusual". Most of these shadowy shell companies listed a discreet P.O. box address in Los Angeles, New York or Amsterdam.
The primary market for bondage/spanking film-loops was the private collector with his own 8 mm (0.31 ″) or 16 mm (0.63 ″) projector. However, starting around 1966 grind-house theaters in major cities across the U.S. began screening two- and three-hour compilations of these short films. This mimics what had been done years earlier with striptease loops. Because these films have no sound, music was often provided by whatever phonograph records the theater had on hand. A rare example of this is shown in the mainstream British film Performance (filmed 1968, released 1970). One scene depicts a sleazy London theater showing a 1930s-40s French fetish film to a crowd of lecherous old men. (The complete reel can be found on the Cult Epics DVD Vintage Erotica anno 1940; a shorter version is online at the Internet Archive.)
Style and scenarios[edit]
Many of these films have the light-hearted feeling of a slumber party gone wrong. Typically, a group of pretty, semi-clad girls will start out playfully wrestling in their living room and end up spanking each other. But there are also a number of darker films that show strict domination and more severe spanking and whipping punishments.
The most frequently used scenarios involve a lesbian couple in some petty dispute and a stern dominatrix (most fetish films, then and now, are F/F) who disciplines one or more unruly slave girls. The action usually begins with a "cat fight" struggle for dominance followed by a lengthy bondage sequence. After being securely bound with rope, the submissive receives a long and vigorous spanking with one or more implements (hairbrush, paddle, flogger, etc.).
Some stories include an ironic "turnabout" ending with the slave(s) getting free, overpowering the mistress, and giving her a taste of the whip and paddle. During this decade we also see the earliest attempts at creating a more sinister dungeon-based scenario — usually a basement hastily rigged with homemade bondage equipment and improvised torture devices. Here, abducted girls are held captive by sadistic mistresses (and sometimes male masters) and subjected to various torments and punishments.
All of these story elements would eventually become standard ingredients used countless times in the full-length spanking and BDSM videos to come two decades later.
Interracial casting[edit]
Another interesting development in the '60s is the sudden appearance of a fully integrated cast at a time when mainstream films continued to neglect non-white actors. Hollywood films paid scant attention to the social changes wrought by the Civil Rights movement. And yet, underground erotic films portrayed black and Latin women as all-powerful mistresses who dominate, bind, and punish their white slave girls. Incredibly, these obscure, modestly produced 8 mm (0.31 ″) movies were the first films to obliterate racial stereotypes by reversing the traditional power roles. Some film loops, as well as a few obscure spanking magazines, featured pairs of black women punishing each other.
In addition, a number of grindhouse sexploitation films – mostly "roughies" with fetishistic scenes of whipping and spanking – also featured black actresses. These include: RENT-A-GIRL (1965), Mondo Keyhole (1966), Maidens of Fetish Street (1966), and In Hot Blood (1968).
One of the few known producers of interracial spanking loops is fetish magazine publisher Leonard Burtman. In the late '60s he shot dozens of short films in his Manhattan apartment and promoted them in photo-layouts in his spanking magazines Corporal and Bizarre Films.
Links to selected 1960s film loops:
- Latex Mistress - spanking and whipping a group of slave girls
- Black mistress spanks white girls
- Black dominatrix disciplines slave
- Latina dominatrix punishes schoolgirl
- Dungeon BDSM - note the variety of standard and improvised equipment.
- A doctor ruler-spanks two nurses - somewhat rare M/F scenario
Still photos taken from stag loops (along with posed shots taken during filming) in black and white and glossy color were also sold in sets and appear on a number of magazine covers such as Forced Enema (c. 1968, see Bizarro Sex Loops 15), Sapho, and Teens in Bondage (aka Dungeon Orgy, see Bizarro Sex Loops 23).
The 1970s[edit]
In the 1970s color film became more prominent and a few producers such as House of Milan began experimenting with longer multi-part stories. Up to this time these 8 mm (0.31 ″) reels still had no audio track (a few had music but no synchronized sound) and an average length of only 7 to 10 minutes. There were also hand-held 8 mm (0.31 ″) movie viewers sold in men's magazines that came with a selection of pre-recorded music tracks.
By 1972 X-rated sex films had made the transition to full-length 35 mm (1.4 ″) features screened in designated "adult" theaters and drive-ins. This made pornographic loops obsolete and they gradually faded away. At this point the sex and fetish genres more or less went their separate ways.
Softcore and hardcore pornographic films (and a new genre of R-rated sex comedies inspired by the '60s nudie-cuties) were quickly assimilated into mainstream culture. Many of these films freely exploited S&M themes and displayed all sorts of kinky behavior (see the film list on the pornography page). Still, fetish film-loops remained a fringe industry that continued to secretly struggle along until the end of the decade.
1980s to the present[edit]
The introduction of the videocassette recorder (VCR) in the early 1980s led to a period of explosive growth in home video production. This completely changed the way adult films were created and sold. The era of the clandestine 8 mm film loop was over. Videotape did not require the expensive and cumbersome processing used to develop and duplicate films. Now producers could make slick, professional-looking mini-movies (averaging 40-60 minutes in length) with full color and sound at a rapid pace with a very small investment.
At the same time, laws regulating mail-order and storefront businesses selling adult films had become far less stringent, especially in the U.S. Most video rental stores included an adults-only section tucked away in the back or off in a separate room. As a result, what had always been a tiny underground industry quickly expanded into a booming mainstream business.
In England, The Perils of Mandy (1980), directed by Kenneth F. Rowles, illustrates part of that transition. Five years earlier Rowles produced The Ups and Downs of a Handyman, a bawdy sex comedy that featured a kinky spanking scene. The Perils of Mandy, a campy, poorly-acted tale of a sexy schoolgirl, followed a similar pattern, but was never completed. However, the existing 40 minutes of film had some over-the-top scenes of star Gloria Brittain being caned and abused by her lecherous headmaster. The footage was edited and released on videocassette by the Vision-On Video Film Company as a spanking fetish movie – one of the very first to hit the market. (See video clip.)
In the United States, David Nielson (using the pseudonym Ed Lee) founded the company Nu-West. He began producing spanking film-loops using the Super 8 format in 1978, but soon switched to videotape. The company's first major spanking actress was Debbie, who appeared in videos from 1980 to 1985. Nu-West (along with House of Milan) was a pioneer in the creation and marketing of spanking videos in the U.S.
Some the earliest video stars began as magazine fetish models such as Kiri Kelly, Bobbie Tawse (both playing submissive roles) and Alexis Payne, who became a premiere dominatrix in the industry. Performers from pornographic films who became popular bondage/spanking stars include Tanya Foxx, Sharon Mitchell, Ashley Renee, June Bauer, and Greta Carlson.
A number of professional dominatrices also made the transition to video. Some even started their own production companies. The most well known are Dana Specht (Momma Spankings), Stephanie Locke, Star Chandler, Jacqueline Omerta (Pacific Force), Isabella Sinclaire (GwenMedia) and Irene Boss (MIB Productions).
Specialty videos[edit]
This new video age also led to a more specialized approach aimed toward niche marketing. In the '60s and '70s film-loops randomly combined various fetishes including female wrestling, bondage, paddling, whipping, pony play, erotic torture and sadomasochism. By the '80s this was no longer the case. Fetish videos were quickly divided into specific "purist" categories and marketed to appeal to the hard-core enthusiast.
Thus, the new all-bondage films had no spanking just as spanking videos had no bondage. The consumer could now choose from a variety of single-subject videos entirely devoted to one activity such as "cat fighting", foot worship, tickling, pony play, Femdom, rubber, latex, and so on.
Dungeons and dominatrices[edit]
One of the most popular (and most broad-based) categories is the ubiquitous torture-dungeon BDSM video. In the '80s and '90s, industry leaders B&D Pleasures, London Enterprises, and its sister company House of Milan created a standard format that has been widely imitated ever since. These videos took a middle-of-the-road approach that offered a little bit of everything.
The basic formula – endlessly repeated in thousands of videos – involves a cruel dominatrix who bullies and abuses her cowering slaves (or innocent captives). In a sinister dungeon they are humiliated, bound and/or shackled, gagged, spanked, paddled, whipped all over, tormented with nipple clamps, clothes pins, dripping wax, the rack, suspension devices, etc. By the late '80s, German export videos began to appear that combined extremely harsh punishments with non-consensual hardcore sex acts.
This genre offers novelty and variety for the S&M crowd, but holds little appeal for the corporal punishment purist who prefers to see a schoolgirl caning or a cheerleader being paddled.
Bondage, spanking and BDSM[edit]
A pattern was set that remains to this day. Fetish movies were channeled into three main categories: bondage, corporal punishment (CP), and BDSM (which combined elements of the previous two). Corporal punishment (spanking) videos comprise a variety of subcategories, probably due to customer feedback, to appeal to a wider audience. There are CP videos that concentrate on a single punishment method, implement (cane, paddle, whip), scenario (home, school, office, etc.), gender pairing (M/F, F/F, F/M), and even body position. Thus, the over the knee spanking traditionalist, caning enthusiast, flogging fetishist, and others, can find videos tailored to suit their interests.
For example, Nu-West, one of the oldest and largest producers, started in 1982 with a few silent spanking loops on Super-8. A year later they were mass producing half-hour featurettes on videotape. To meet customer demand, they went on to create separate brands for femdom (Leda) and flagellation (Flag Concepts) videos and changed their name to Nu-West/Leda Productions.
Reality videos[edit]
Another subgenre that has grown since the '90s is the unscripted, reality-based video without professional actresses or models. These documentary style films offer authentic punishment scenes with girl-next-door amateurs. Raven Hill Studios has produced three popular series using this approach (Beach Girl Spankings, Resolved by Corporal Punishment, and Spankin' Down the Highway). Pacific Force (Real Couples, Real Spankings), Mood Pictures (Mood Castings), Spanking Casting, Amateur Spankings, Bun Beating Fun, Real Life Spankings, The Real Spanking Court (with real-life court trials), as well as many others continue to develop and expand on the reality/amateur video concept. Another variant is Chelsea Pfeiffer Entertainment's long-running Chelsea Spanks! series featuring unscripted, spontaneous all-punishment sessions with professional models.
Three other companies, Bars and Stripes in the U.K., My Spanking Roommate in the U.S., and Spanking Family in Hungary (an affiliate of Spanking Casting), were inspired by reality TV shows and soap operas and have created contained environments (prison, an apartment complex, etc.) for a large cast of regular characters (played by professional models) to live out a series of continuing stories.
The influence of the Internet[edit]
Beginning in the '90s, the Internet offered a new platform for established movie producers, as well as countless new start-up companies, to promote and sell their videos. Eventually videotape cassettes would be replaced by more sophisticated digital recordings placed on discs (DVDs) and uploaded to websites. Companies could now show, at their websites and video archive sites such as Spanking Tube, free preview trailers of their films, actress interviews, and other behind-the-scenes features.
Advances in streaming video technology allowing one to view movies online (and download copies to their computer) has forever changed the way films are produced and marketed. Ironically, this new Internet technology has revived the old film-loop concept. Many companies were quick to realize the potential in selling individual short films (5 to 15 minutes in length) online in addition to full-length movies on DVD. Some add new short films to their websites on a weekly basis. Today, many producers such as Punished Brats and Chelsea Pfeiffer Entertainment create short films in a series for sale on their website that are later released on full-length compilation DVDs. It is also increasingly common for feature-length films to be chopped up into short segments for sale as an online commodity.
Amateurs and independent producers[edit]
There has also been en explosion of amateur home made videos made available, for free or for sale, on thousands of personal web sites from every part of the globe. And many popular fetish actress/models manage their own sites where they sell exclusive videos (some even do customized videos based on client requests).
The Internet has made it possible for many well-known performers in the fetish industry to create their own web-based video production companies. Many of these enterprising women write, direct, and produce in addition to performing on camera. The more prominent among these actress-producers include Jennifer Brooks (Brooks Applications), Eve Howard (Shadow Lane), Jacqueline Omerta (Pacific Force), Amber Wells (Punished Brats), Chelsea Pfeiffer (Chelsea Pfeiffer Entertainment), Clare Fonda (Clare Fonda Productions), Bobbie Tawse (Bobbie's DropSeats), Amber Grey, Pandora Blake (Dreams of Spanking), Isabella Sinclaire (GwenMedia), and Madison Young.
Besides pay-per-view and other forms of online marketing, there are many vintage and contemporary spanking videos that can be viewed online for free. For a partial list of available films, see the Spanking videos on the Internet page.
CP vs. BDSM videos[edit]
Today there are hundreds of amateur and professional producers specialising in spanking/corporal punishment videos. While many people consider corporal punishment/spanking merely subsets of BDSM, CP videos are a completely separate genre with a unique ethos.
Perhaps the most common theme in CP videos is the traditional headmaster/schoolgirl scene. Domestic scenes are also popular — husbands spanking wives, bosses spanking secretaries, parents spanking sons or daughters, etc. But the combinations and pairings are as diverse as the scenarios.
S&M videos[edit]
BDSM films produced by companies such as London Enterprises, House of Milan, Bon-Vue Enterprises, et al., differ widely from spanking/CP productions. The stereotypical "whips and chains" S&M video involves a strict, sadistic dominatrix-type mistress (or male master) who punishes misbehaving slave girls in a dungeon stocked with elaborate bondage and torture devices. Some stories show women being abducted and forced into slavery or prostitution.
There is always some spanking and paddling included, but the emphasis is placed on dominance and submission reinforced by bondage, flogging, humiliation, and torture.
This atmosphere of power exchange is further enhanced by such kinky trappings as leather and latex fetish clothing, corsets, spike-heeled shoes or boots, gags, shackles, masks, hoods, and so on.
The psychology of spanking scenarios[edit]
By contrast, spanking videos eschew the sinister and fantastic mistress/slave dungeon scenario and base their stories in more mundane real-life settings such as the home, office, school, sorority house, reform school, and prison. (However, the harshness and cruelty in prison stories is closer to BDSM films.) These familiar scenarios are more in line with the fantasies of everyday people who might not relate to the extreme and specialized aspects of the BDSM lifestyle.
Many domestic and classroom videos, either by design or coincidence, have a strong nostalgic appeal for those who witnessed or experienced corporal punishment at home or at school. Just like pornographic films, the overwhelming majority of spanking videos are created to satisfy deeply-rooted adolescent sexual fantasies. That is why the most popular archetypal sex symbols continue to be schoolgirls, cheerleaders, sorority girls, teachers, and librarians. The power to control, humiliate, and punish (in an erotic context) the flirtatious schoolgirl, the haughty cheerleader, authority figures from the past or the unobtainable sorority girl is, in effect, a psychological form of sexual revenge.
Sexual sadism[edit]
On the other hand, S&M videos centered around the cruel torture and abuse of desirable women, is a more violent adult-based fantasy. These films frequently include disturbing elements of sadism and misogyny.
Unlike the comparatively innocent spanking fantasy, the BDSM genre includes sex-oriented punishments such as breast and genital torment (whipping, clamps, hox wax, piercing with needles, etc.). Its victims are submissive slaves and abducted women. One rarely, if ever, encounters schoolgirls, cheerleaders, or sorority girls (one exception being Japanese schoolgirl bondage videos).
Punishing the maid[edit]
The other popular trope used almost exclusively in spanking videos is the master-and-maid (especially French maid) scenario. This comes from the universal power fantasy of having a compliant, domestic sex slave (even though the sex is implied and not shown).
The maid, always young and beautiful, is portrayed as a powerless, and often frivolous, play-thing. She even looks like a doll in her sexy, revealing uniform. She normally gets punished for being lazy, flirtatious or foolishly inept. The maid is easily manipulated and constantly under control. She serves her master (or mistress) by performing demeaning and humiliating chores and is swiftly spanked for the slightest transgression.
The majority of spanking videos avoid bondage, cruelty, and stories about violent abduction and slavery. Here, the punished girl willingly, albeit reluctantly, submits to an authority figure such as a parent, aunt, teacher, headmaster, etc. Instead of the elaborate torture devices of BDSM films, they rely on traditional punitive implements like school canes, paddles, rulers, tawses, birch rods and over-the-knee (OTK) spanking by hand. Plus, pervertible household items such as hairbrushes, belts and wooden spoons are also commonly used.
Other belittling punitive measures may also be employed, such as forced nudity, wearing a dunce cap, standing in the corner, counting cane or paddle strokes out loud, writing lines of contrition, mouth soaping, and sitting or kneeling on a hard or rough-textured surface.
In recent years the industry has grown to accommodate increasingly more dramatic settings such as prisons (see Bars and Stripes), corrupt institutions and oppressive political regimes. Bondage has also become more popular with the makers of hardcore caning videos such as Lupus Pictures and Mood Pictures, both of which specialize in period-piece films showing the abuses of fascist governments.
Most spanking videos are purely disciplinary in nature. That is, the story is about someone being punished and there is little or no sexual element. Very few pure spanking videos have any overt sexual contact at all (Shadow Lane and Lupus Pictures have recently introduced sex scenes in a few titles). However, there are enthusiasts who prefer loving, consensual erotic spankings where both parties get pleasure from the act. There are a few companies, most notably Shadow Lane, that cater to this fantasy as well.
Spanking videos vary widely in style, quality, and price. Each person has his/her own unique and personal idea of the ideal spanking video and the producing companies (see spanking pay sites and spanking product shops) have their devotees. Most maintain websites to advertise their products with descriptions, stills, trailers and video clips. In recent years, video piracy has become a major problem, especially with file-sharing sites.
See also[edit]
- List of spanking video producers
- List of spanking actors
- Spanking videos on YouTube
- Free spanking sites
- The History of spanking in film
- Spanking in mainstream films
- Spanking and BDSM in TV commercials
- Sexploitation film
- Scene Negotiation Checklist
- Spanking Tube
- Spanking video review site
- Spanking video clips (short spanking videos)
- Still
- BDSM Movie Review
- Consumer's Spanking Video News and Reviews
- Heavy Fetish - free archive of Spanking & BDSM videos
- Irving Klaw: Bondage Classics - Betty Page, et al, (38 min.)
- Spanking Review - in-depth reviews of spanking related sites
- Spanking Library - hosting site for free video clips
- Spanking video trailers from DSH Productions
- Lupus Pictures - Czech spanking video producer
- Mood Pictures - Hungarian spanking video producer
- Pornhub - archive of free spanking & porn videos
- PornoTube - archive of free spanking & porn videos
- Retro Porn Classics - archive of free spanking & porn videos
- Sarah Gregory Spanking - major video producer and owner of Momma Spankings, Triple A Spanking, and Cheerleader Spankings
- Sound Punishment - a leading UK-based producer of CP films
- SpankBang - archive of free spanking & porn videos
- Spanking.com - seller of adult videos and products
- Spanking-Models.com - RealSpankings.com site for hiring spanking actresses
- SpankingTube - free video clip archive
- Xhampster - archive of free spanking & porn videos
- XNXX.com - free spanking/porn video archive
- Xvideos - archive of free spanking & porn videos
- Youjizz - archive of free spanking & porn videos
|Spanking in various media and art forms


text:
A prominent Chicago business leader who founded one of the nation's largest discount futures brokerages has died.
Barry Lind, of Winnetka, died in a California emergency room early this morning after he was struck by a car in Rancho Mirage Wednesday night.
Lind, 74, who formerly served on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange board of directors, co-founded Chicago-based Lind-Waldock in 1965, a discount futures brokerage firm that grew into one of country's largest before it was sold in 2000.
Lind is also credited with helping modernize the CME and with helping create the International Monetary Market. He was the cofounder and managing partner of Silver Young, a private equity firm in Chicago that invests in real estate, restaurant development and other ventures.
"He was the most generous , helpful person. He helped everybody out … hundreds of people, both emotionally and financially," said Alan Young, a cousin and longtime business partner. "He was very, very charitable. He was adored by employees and friends. … I've gotten 200 phone calls today."
Authorities in Riverside County, Cal., said Lind was crossing a street at a busy intersection when he was struck by a car. Someone else had been involved in a traffic accident, and Lind had arrived at the scene to help make arrangements for a tow truck, said Sgt. Brent Sechrest of the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner's office.
It doesn't appear that alcohol was a factor in the crash, and though the crash remains under investigation, charges against the other driver are unlikely because it appears Lind did not have the right of way, said Corp. Angel Ramos of the Riverside County Sheriff's department.
A prominent Chicago business leader who founded one of the nation's largest discount futures brokerages has died.


text:
Form(s) 1 (Black) by Alice FitzgeraldRegular price €120.00
Single colour hand-pulled screen print
500 x 700mm / on 300gsm Munken Pure paper, edition of 20, signed and numbered by the artist.
About the Exhibition
Inspired by organic shapes and natural forms alongside the geometric structures she comes across in daily city life, this latest collection at Damn Fine Print was driven by two self-imposed rules. One colour only, and all elements must be touching another – creating dramatic mono-colour prints that use scale and closeness to replace the order of space in an elegant, playful and direct way.
Using a completely analogue process she makes paper cut collages that are then transferred to silkscreens for screenprinting in the studio. Speaking about her work, Fitzgerald says: "I've taken on Alex White's belief that, in graphic design, 'no individual part is viewed as more important than the whole design. A good balance between unity and variety must be established to avoid a chaotic or a lifeless design.'
"Through these idiosyncratic, elemental forms, I'm looking to strike a certain kind of balance between order and chaos, with every element part of the whole.
"For this series, I gave myself two rules: one colour only, and all elements must be touching another, the order of scale and closeness have replaced the order of space in my earlier work."
About the Artist
Fitzgerald is an accomplished visual designer with her own branding and design consultancy. Her work sits in the permanent collection at Dublin City Council and Fitzgerald has previously worked as Art Director at Zero-G studio and the celebrated Mongrel Magazine.
Shipping and Returns
This poster is sold unframed securely packaged in a cardboard tube. For full information on shipping and returns, click here. Please note colours may vary between computer screens.
Frames can be purchased through Damn Fine Print in black, white and natural wooden finishes.


text:
I didn't know this until I went to work for Apple Retail, but their credo is "Enriching Lives." I never had a job with a philosophy attached to it. I know the Marines have one. It's Semper Fi. If you see that on a bumper sticker, it's Latin for, "Mess with this car, and you're dog meat."
This isn't brick and mortar, it's glass and steel. Pseudonymous Apple Store employee J. K. Appleseed takes you backstage at Apple Retail, the supercollider of human expectations and consumer technology.
Retail mottos seem heavy-handed. Do you remember when all Macy's commercials ended with the slogan, "That's the magic of Macy's?" Come on, it's a department store, not Disneyland. Can you imagine having to say that every time you rang someone up?
"Uh, I'd like to get this tie."
"That comes to $29.50. Here's your receipt, sir."
"That's the magic of Macy's."
"Did… did you mumble something?"
"It's bad enough without you pointing it out, sir."
"The magic of—?"
"Craig, I'm going on break! To shoot myself in the face."
I first heard Apple's credo during employee training. I was not prepared for corporate culture. Sure, there are icebreaking games and group activities, but there's also a long section where you just sit there, and someone reads you the rules. They turn page after page in a manual, reading both the rules and the perfectly rational reasons for each rule. That was a bit intense.
The trainer asked if anyone knew that Apple Retail had a credo, which I guess is more serious than a mere motto. Several did. I didn't. It's not printed anywhere. Employees don't say it aloud in the store. I got sort of a smug vibe off of those who knew what it was, and then I realized that I had just become one of them! Nobody told me we were getting a slogan! It just gets put on you with the job, along with two blue shirts and a name tag.
Perhaps to ease the silent cynics like me, our trainer then told us one of the most famous recruiting stories in Apple's history. In 1982, Steve Jobs needed to find a replacement to run Apple. He wanted John Sculley, the publicity genius who was the President of Pepsi Cola. Sculley clearly knew how to make the most of attacking a number-one competitor like Coca-Cola, which is what Apple would have to do to Microsoft in the personal computer market. It was far too early to dream of first place, but here was a guy who could make sure everyone perceived you were a close second. After inspirational tours, conversations, and presentations failed, Jobs put it to him this way, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?"
Now that's a sales pitch.
Becca is tall, sarcastic, and thinks the store is perpetually over air-conditioned, so she usually wears a hoodie or sweater under her blue shirt. Her title is Creative.
"Geniuses repair devices." She explained on my first store tour. "Creatives teach customers how to use those devices."
Technically, everyone in the store teaches customers how to use Apple products in one way or another, but Creatives actually run lessons and workshops. Such educational efforts makes the motto a lot easier to see and believe.
From where I stand, the Creative position looks pretty damn good. For starters, I literally have to stand, all day. Creatives get to sit on stools beside their students to deliver the One-to-One service, a year-long membership akin to personal training at a gym.
One-to-One is practically free. The annual fee is the same price as an hour-long private computer lesson in any major city, except that it entitles you to as many lessons as you can schedule. Even if a student only schedules two lessons in their allotted year, that's a bargain. A cynic might see the service as savvy PR, while the believer will see it as an expensive commitment to the credo. I see it as both.
Some Apple stores have theaters. Others have designated workshop tables where a display can be set up along with a speaker and a portable microphone. Creatives and a few senior Specialists get to facilitate workshops on any number of topics. It must be fun to put on a little show. Those headsets look cool, in a geeky way.
When I ask what her job's really like, Becca tries to set me straight.
"I've been a Creative for four, five… for too long, so I will try hard not to spoil it for you. Let me just tell you that it's not the job that Apple thought it was going to be."
She says, "The first Creatives, and I'm sorry this sounds like a Greek myth, back in the heyday of retail, were hired on the basis of massive professional experience. They had to be able to teach anything, and they were hired directly into the Creative position. Nowadays, you have to work your way up from Specialist and then apprentice in the Family Room. It's a pain. But back then, the company recruited film editors to be ambassadors of Final Cut, sound engineers for Logic, and photographers when they pushed Aperture more. These folks were flown to Cupertino for two weeks, all expenses paid, to study how to teach. Pretty awesome. The idea was that a high functioning level of computer user would flock into Apple stores to meet with Creatives, making it a dynamic space for the exchange of techniques and potential."
I nod. She smirks.
"The reality is, I spend all day teaching senior citizens how to Google things or post their profiles on JDate. Come on, I'll show you."
Becca's twelve o'clock appointment, Denny, is in his sixties. Or seventies. I realize I don't know how to tell. He laughs that he's an old dog learning new tricks. (Becca tells me later he opens with that joke every single time.) He brings a mouse, because his knobby hands find the trackpad unwieldy.
The meat of the lesson is that he wants to write a book, but refuses to use anything but TextEdit, because having paid for the computer, he feels that buying word processing software on top is just a scam. Becca diplomatically and patiently helps him justify a paragraph or two. They move onto email. Denny has a buddy in Florida who sends him filthy jokes, and he forwards every one to his son. Yep, he's that parent, the one who makes you consider setting up a special, parental, spam filter.
Becca's caustic wit puts some co-workers off, but her honesty puts Denny at ease. She's conspiratorial with him, like they're in on something together, and that makes him feel safe, and that lets him ask the questions he needs to ask.
There is real fear behind some of his keystrokes. Not a cartoon fear like the screen will explode if he Control-clicks the wrong thing, but a media-stoked insecurity that's actually founded and grounded. His is a generation that's constantly scolded that their passwords are too easy to guess and frequently alarmed that any email attachment could hide worms and Trojan horses. TUAWjust reported on an Apple ID-specific phishing scam. Everything senior citizens hear about technology is filtered to them through younger people rolling their eyes. It must be maddening to ask for help on something your kids or your kids' kids have already absorbed and take for granted.
My afterglow from Becca's lesson, a recharged compassion for the elder generation, and my growing respect for our motto hit a wall when I see a very different grandfather raise hell. He's shouting at a manager, because he was told One-to-One lessons were an hour. They are actually fifty minutes, the manager explains calmly. The Creatives have to take into account the time it takes to end a lesson, field last minute questions, set up another appointment for the customer, and then greet and seat the next customer. The manager apologizes if there was an expectation set for hour-long lessons. The old man feels like he's being nickel and dimed, that his trust has been broken.
I disagree. He says he wants to come in once a week? I do the math. If he takes two weeks off for vacation, that's still fifty lessons in a year. Fifty fifty-minute lessons come to less than two dollars per lesson. A buck and change to sit with someone like Becca? How can he be yelling in someone's face about that? I would dread watching him come in at ten 'til the hour, wondering if I'd been assigned to be his teacher. At least Genius Bar sessions are usually done in twenty minutes, good or bad.
Becca shrugs and gives me a smile, "It's ups and downs, JK. Sometimes you gotta just sit there and listen."
I became a Genius instead of a Creative. I sometimes wonder why Max has never tried for either. He's got the brains, and he's a great communicator. I caught a glimpse, maybe, when a bunch of us went to see Gravity. Nerds at a 3D space adventure wouldn't seem like the obvious place for an altercation, but then again, that is where you'll find us, dateless and up in arms about esoteric technical matters.
So the movie ended, and we started the slow walk up the aisle.
In one row, a dude says to his bro, "That was like, so symbolic."
The bro replies, "What was?"
"The part where Sandra Bullock was a baby."
"The part where she was floating in the thing, all curled up."
"I thought she lost her baby."
"No, she was the baby."
"That's not right."
"Curled up, like a baby. You know what I mean. They curl up?"
He tucks in his elbows, lifts one knee, and kind of squats on the other leg. I actually have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
"Fetal position," Max blurts. "It's called fetal position."
Spoiler alert—there's a point about midway through the film where Sandra Bullock's character takes a rest, floating weightless, curled up, in a cozy, backlit chamber with a cable snaking behind, not unlike an umbilical cord. The shot lasts for what feels like several minutes, and you'd have to try hard not to recognize that it mimics photographs taken from inside a pregnant woman's womb. I didn't realize I knew that image, but when you see it, it's unmistakable. It's not just symbolic, it's so overt that I can't believe someone has to explain it to someone else. Maybe that's how Creatives feel all the time, and they deal. I can't think of any other recent movie that has used that visual.
However, one visual we're all too familiar with unfolds right in front of me. That's where some fool like Max mouths off to the wrong guy. The dude uncurls. He seems to inflate and rotate toward us in slow motion, like an Alien or a Terminator. He's a frowning tower of power when he asks Max, "What did you say?"
"You're welcome?" offers Max.
"You think you're smart?"
Max doesn't flinch. The dude's bro sizes me and our friends up. We're not that impressive.
"No, I know it." Then Max points at me. "This one's an actual Genius."
Nice. Great. Becca hooks Max's arm, peeling him away from the dude.
"Let's go." She says.
"Just trying to enrich some lives," Max snorts.
Becca and I exchanged a glance.
Teaching looked fun. Workshops looked fun. Either promotion to Genius or Creative would've meant a life-changing bump in salary for me, but more Genius spots were opening up at that time. The Genius pay rate allowed me to go part-time, and working part-time freed me to take classes, pursue freelance work, and explore internships. I felt like I'd navigated a bunch of life-enriching jobs while still trying to enrich my own. Tack that onto the motto: That's the magic of enriching lives! Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose!
Inspired by some of the favorite lessons Creatives deliver in the store, here are three simple things you can teach a beginner computer user in about half an hour. I've taught these to my own parents, who—bless them—are two of the worst computer users ever. On the other hand, I am their only IT source, so investing the time was totally worth it.
1. Improving Video: Five minutes
Having a digital camera or a smartphone means shooting video at almost any time. Or at too many times. Avoid the two most common errors that defeat pleasant viewing. One, don't bother shooting with vertical framing. It may seem to frame a standing speaker better, but inevitably leaves giant black spaces on the usually horizontal display screen or television later. Two, stop moving around so much! Steady your elbow on a desk or wall. Pretend you're on a tripod. Capture the scene, and we'll feel like we're there inside it. Shake the camera everywhere as you strive to follow action, and all we see is motion sickness.
2. Password and Email safety: Ten minutes
Have the talk. No, your bank didn't send you that email asking for your email password. No, there is no such thing as a lottery settlement you forgot to pick up. No, you don't want to watch the outrageous video attachment with the weird extension letters. Phishing is such a scumbag con, and even if it taints your parents faith in humanity to explain, it's worth the time hardening their defenses. If it helps, there are several easy tutorials online about making strong passwords. You can Google them.
3. Teaching Video Chat: Fifteen minutes
Video-chat is the easiest, most gratifying thing you can teach a beginner of any age. If they own a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, and hopefully have wifi access and a built-in camera, the pieces are in place. It's just a matter of re-introducing them to make what is essentially a phone call.
In the store, Creatives or Specialists often demonstrate by setting up a video-chat between two people who are two feet apart. What's nice is they can see what's happening on both sides, not only what it looks like to call someone, but what it looks like on the other person's screen when the call comes through. And then boom, you're speaking on camera. Skype, FaceTime, and GoogleChat are old news to most computer users, but such a blast every first time around. It opens a door to chatting with distant family, particularly with grandchildren, and it's a cute dose of "The Future is NOW!"
I have to apologize for a late follow up to an excellent email I received. A reader was able to send me Apple's own chart showing the increasing gap in performance between older iPhones and new iPhones. The curve is exponential, as you would expect, following Moore's Law. (Moore theorized that processor speeds would double every year, and the rate of change has actually been even faster.) It follows that computing devices outgrow their previous iterations by larger and larger gaps. While a woefully misinformed New York Times Magazine article about Apple drew deserved mockery and predictable fan outrage, the real damage, this reader noted, was that it pulled attention away from the discussion. The article buried the chance for fair analysis about obsolescence by trying to sell the notion that obsolescence was sinister and planned.
I also received a fair number of messages from people who couldn't believe the story about the customer thinking their song had gotten stuck in a USB cable. However, I also received four other examples of the same story from Apple Stores and resellers all over the world. In one case, the customer was sure the entire music library had gotten stuck! You can't make this stuff up.
This article was republished with permission from McSweeney's and is the sixth in an ongoing column series.