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© Andy Lloyd - www.alpictures.eu
Avalanche Safety in Tignes
Discover the top Tignes avalanche safety techniques
In European ski resorts the pistes are kept as safe as is possible from avalanches by the 'Securité des Pistes' (piste rescue services).
As such, there is very little danger from avalanches on the marked runs in resort, but that's not to say an avalanche never hits the pistes, because unfortunately sometimes they do. However, as soon as you leave the pistes the off-piste area is no longer secured, and skiers and snowboarders find themselves in potential avalanche terrain.
It's entirely the decision of the individual to enter this terrain, and unlike in Canada and North America, you're completely free to do so. With the growing popularity of skiing and snowboarding and the advances of ski/snowboard tech, more and more people are venturing into off-piste terrain, sometimes before they fully understand the potential danger.
Avalanche survival, search & rescue
The best way to be prepared when going off-piste or entering the back country is to do an avalanche awareness course provided by local mountain guides.
Ideally, avoiding potentially dangerous terrain and adhering to good off-piste practise will mean that an avalanche accident is never experienced. But if the worst happens and an avalanche occurs there are search and rescue techniques that can be employed and practises that can be used to increase the chances of surviving.
When a person is taken in a slide, it is essential that they try and stay on the surface of the moving avalanche. In many cases the victim has no control of their direction or orientation as the power of the avalanche is too great. However, if it is possible then skis should be released and poles should be dropped. To make this easier it is important not to use the wrist straps on poles when skiing off-piste.
Without this equipment weighing the victim down, they should fight to stay on the surface of the moving snow, and if buried try to create an air pocket around the face to allow adequate oxygen reserves during the rescue.
A person buried by an avalanche, who has not been killed by the trauma of the slide, will typically have a fifteen minute survival window before they succumb to asphyxiation due to re-breathing their own expelled carbon dioxide. Although the emergency services in the Alps are highly trained and efficient, they cannot usually arrive at an avalanche accident site quick enough to save a victim. It is therefore essential that every member of an off-piste group is carrying the following equipment:
- Avalanche transceiver - Also known as a Beeper or Avalanche Beacon this device is worn by each member of the group, and it sends out a silent pulse so that in the event of a burial the rescue group are able to locate the approximate position of the victim under the snow. All transceivers work on the same frequency and all makes and models are compatible with each other.
- Probe Pole - The second piece of equipment used in the search and rescue is a collapsible probe pole. This is carried in your backpack and is used to pin-point the buried victim, ensuring that no time is wasted digging in the wrong place. The longer your probe the better and although they come in different sizes (140cm, 240cm and 320cm), 240cm is the smallest that is recommended as suitable for use in real avalanche terrain.
- Shovel - Finally the collapsible shovel is employed to move the covering snow and free the victim. Moving a cubic metre of snow with a shovel takes minutes, but without one it can take up to an hour. Shovels are available in metal and plastic, a metal one will usually be stronger.
Shovels and probes are essential when travelling in the backcountry. Without a probe to accurately locate a victim and a shovel to move the snow, recovery times increase massively and a victim buried under a metre of snow will take almost an hour to recover. It's often possible to buy a beeper, shovel, probe and backpack at a discounted price when they are purchased together. With this equipment a group will be able to carry out a self-contained rescue and should be able to recover a buried friend in under ten minutes.
Find out more by reading our Avalanche Safety Equipment Guide here.
Avalanche transceiver advice
- Wear your transceiver under your outermost layer. Do not bury it under too many layers, you may need to get to it in a hurry. Remember a transceiver worn just below the waterproof layer will be exposed if the layer is taken off when climbing and could then be torn off by the force of the avalanche. In addition to keeping the beeper secure, wearing your transceiver under your jacket will allow body heat to keep it warm aiding battery life.
- Do not put a transceiver in your rucksack. If this is torn off by the force of an avalanche only your rucksack will saved by the rescue services.
- Mobile phones. It has been found that mobile phones can interfere with the electromagnetic fields of a transceiver, especially in search mode. You will need to call for rescue services in the event of an accident, so keep your phone with you but make sure it is separated from your transceiver.
- Batteries. Use new batteries at the start of the season, test and change frequently. Ideally you should change your batteries when they drop below 60%. Carry spares with you, keep them in a pocket of a mid-layer to keep them warm and stop them draining of power.
- Practise. You can train in your local park or even in the back garden. The time to learn how your transceiver works is not when your friend is buried. The search should almost be reflexive.
Remember - an avalanche transceiver is the only device that permits a group to perform their own search and rescue operation in the minimum amount of time. It is not a substitute for knowledge and safe off-piste practises.
Avalanche safety equipment
There are various pieces of off-piste equipment available to skiers and snowboarders. The bare minimum that a person must carry with them is a transceiver, a shovel and a probe but there are some other supplementary options available too. You can read more in our Avalanche Safety Equipment Guide here.
Air Bag System (ABS)
An ABS is a backpack that houses two large inflatable bags that can be deployed by pulling a cord. In the event of an avalanche, the victim pulls the cord and triggers the compressed gas canister housed in the backpack. The inflated bags then keep the victim on the surface of a moving avalanche eliminating the chances of burial.
- Pros: Keeps a victim on the surface of moving avalanche; can protect against neck and head injuries by supporting head; endorsed and used by the Securité des Pistes.
- Cons: Will not help if additional snow is piled onto the victim once the avalanche has stopped moving. Requires victim to pull cord. Can be expensive.
An Avalung is a device worn on the outside of a skier/snowboarder's clothing or is built into a backpack that allows a buried victim to breathe under the snow. The Avalung has a small snorkel-like mouth piece that a buried victim breathes through. Oxygen is drawn from the surrounding snow and waste carbon dioxide is deposited behind the victim allowing them to remain alive under the snow for up to an hour.
- Pros: Reduces the largest cause of death in avalanches and lengthens successful search and rescue time.
- Cons: Requires the victim to be able to engage mouthpiece, which may not be possible.
Avalanche FAQs
Here are a selection of frequently asked questions relating to Avalanches that has been compiled from a range of sources; our own mountain experiences, chatting with the experts, your feedback, plus translations of French articles and websites. Some of the information appears in the above sections but here you will find more detail. We have put this resource together to assist you in learning more about avalanches.
Are avalanches predictable?
Avalanches are not easy to predict. Some avalanche paths are only active once every few hundred years; others are active in almost every storm. However, we can predict avalanches to a certain extent. To quote a well-known professional, Bruce Tremper, "they happen at particular times and in particular places for particular reasons". There are always observable signs of instability before an avalanche happens - recognised all too often after the fact: in 90% of all avalanche accidents, the avalanche trigger is the victim (or someone in the victim's party) and 90% of the time, a slab avalanche is involved.
Are there more avalanches in Spring?
Spring conditions may be the time of year when there are the most avalanches, but once a regular cycle of melting and freezing sets in, predicting the stability of the snowpack is more evident than during the cold winter months. During the freeze phase, the snowpack is at its strongest. Once free water has seeped into the snowpack, through rain or melting, then it can turn into ice when the temperatures go below freezing - the ice forms a sort of 'skeleton' that holds the snowpack together. Melting during the day and freezing at night is a classic springtime process. In these conditions, after a good freeze at night, the slopes are very stable first thing in the morning. Then, as the sun rises (warming east facing slopes first), the ice skeleton holding the snowpack together melts and the slope eventually becomes much less stable.
In melting and freezing conditions, the snowpack is at its strongest during the freeze phase, then at its weakest during the melt phase. In between these phases, the skiing conditions can be tremendous as long as people haven't been there late the day before. Get on the slope as the first few centimetres are beginning to melt and then get off. When melting penetrates more than 5cm, the slope has started to become unstable and you will start to break through the crust - this alone can lead to injury. Making the right calls in these conditions takes experience - but that is part of the adventure.
Can I get out of the way of an avalanche?
Dry slab avalanches typically reach a speed of 90-130km/h within about five seconds after they fracture. Wet avalanches usually travel much more slowly, around 30km/h.
Can screaming and yelling start an avalanche?
We really don't think so. However if conditions are that unstable, why would you be screaming and yelling out there in the first place - unless it is for help. In our opinion, an increase in the volume of your individual and collective voices is inversely proportionate to the level of your awareness of potential hazards. Explosives that are used for avalanche control are powerful and it is the shock wave produced by the blast that sets off the avalanche.
How can I begin to evaluate if the snow is stable or if it can fail?
Look and listen: You can understand a lot just by watching and listening.
- Look: Recent avalanche activity is the most practical way to begin to evaluate the snowpack stability. If all of the east-facing slopes around you have evidence of recent avalanche activity and you are about to set out onto the only east facing slope that has not avalanched, this is clearly not a good idea.
- Listen: When you hear and feel 'whoomphing', the snowpack is collapsing beneath you. The snowpack is telling you that it is unstable. If you're on a steep slope, it will be more than telling you, it will be releasing at the same time as the 'woomph'. First thing in the morning after a snowstorm, snowpack stability is often uncertain. It's a good idea to start out on low-angle slopes - while constantly looking around to see if there are any consistent 'themes' in the recent avalanche activity (slope aspects, depth of slabs, steepness of slopes etc.) For example, if you notice that many northwest facing slopes have avalanched, this is a theme and a clue that there is significant instability on those slopes. Whether or not it is advisable to venture out onto those slopes depends on many other factors ranging from group dynamics and skill level to recent weather events, (e.g. rapid temperature fluctuations), steepness of slopes and the terrain below. Never base evaluation of stability on only one clue.
What should I do if I'm caught in an avalanche?
Depending on the situation there are a number of things that you should try to do:
First, once the snow starts moving, try to get off the snow that is breaking up as soon as possible. You can get out of an avalanche early if you are close to the fracture line or close to the edge (or flank) especially if the snow isn't too broken up. If you are close to one of these edges, do everything you can to move towards it. If the fracture line is just above you, try to allow the snow to move past you. For example, if you are on skis, side-step up, grab a tree, do whatever you possibly can. If the fracture line is way above you and you can't make it to the side fast, point your skis or snowboard downhill, say a prayer if you are so inclined, go like hell and try to get out of the way lower down.
There is a lot of controversy about what you should do if you are caught in the turning snow. First, see: 'What is it like to be caught in an avalanche?' above. Some say swim (since a person is about three times denser than moving avalanche debris) and others say roll. The most important thing is to keep your mouth free of snow especially when the snow comes to a stop; an air-pocket is essential to your survival in what amounts to a concrete tomb. It's almost impossible to dig yourself out of an avalanche. Most people suffocate within 15 minutes if they haven't actually been killed by the avalanche (approximately 10%). Before it stops, you can try pushing a hand upwards. Visual clues are the fastest way for rescuers to find you, but then, you may not be able to make an air-pocket.
These tips were provided by Henry Schniewind of Henry's Avalanche Talk - helping you make informed decisions. Henry's interest in avalanches started with a close call in the French Alps, after which he went back to the United States to study avalanche forecasting and continue outdoor pursuits, but the obsession with Europe remained and pretty soon he returned to France. Henry is a fully certified ski instructor (French Diploma), has a degree in international business and over ten years of professional experience in the mountains.
What kind of weather produces avalanches?
Wind is the most common cause of acute instability. Wind can deposit snow 10 times faster than snow falling during storms. Wind erodes snow from the upwind side of obstacles and deposits snow on the downwind (lee) sides. We call this "wind loading".
The added weight from this "wind loading" also causes avalanches. If the weight of new snow is added faster than a buried weak layer can adjust to its load, then it fractures and forms an avalanche. Rapid warming can also cause dry avalanches but this is a much rarer occurrence.
Rain or melting of the snow surface can also cause avalanches. For instance, rain on new snow almost instantly causes avalanches. Strong sun or warm temperatures can also cause melting of the snow and creates wet avalanches. Large wet avalanches occur because of a decrease in strength of a buried weak layer as a result of water dissolving the bonds between the snow grains.
But wind, snow or rapid warming do not always produce avalanches. It depends on the condition of the pre-existing snow and the conditions during the storm. With very stable pre-existing snow, even heavy, new snow with wind can bond well and be perfectly safe in the right conditions.
What kind of avalanche is most dangerous?
Dry slab avalanches account for almost all avalanche fatalities. In the northern hemisphere, these accidents happen in winter conditions (December to mid-March) and most often on north-facing slopes.
Once I'm out there, how can I reduce the odds of getting caught in an avalanche?
Go one at a time on slopes that are questionable, have an escape route planned in your mind, stop at islands of safety and don't bury and kill people in the group below you. Windward slopes and ridges especially, are the safest routes to travel on (but be careful of cornices - you can't see where they overhang when you are on top of them on the ridge). Thick trees are safer, but once the trees become sparse enough to get some good turns in, you are back in potential avalanche terrain. Finally, if things look really nasty, go back the way you came...if that is not also suspect.
Isn't it most dangerous in Spring when there are more avalanches?
Spring conditions may be the time of year when there are the most avalanches, but once a regular cycle of melting and freezing sets in, predicting the stability of the snowpack is more evident than during the cold winter months. During the freeze phase, the snowpack is at its strongest. Once free water has seeped into the snowpack, through rain or melting, then it can turn into ice when the temperatures go below freezing - the ice forms a sort of 'skeleton' that holds the snowpack together. Melting during the day and freezing at night is a classic Spring process. In these conditions, after a good freeze at night, the slopes are very stable first thing in the morning. Then, as the sun rises (warming east facing slopes first), the ice skeleton holding the snowpack together melts and the slope eventually becomes much less stable.
Is the slope safe after an avalanche has gone?
Usually it's safe. But there are a number of things to watch out for: multiple avalanche starting zones ('hang fire') looming above, dense snowfall, hard wind. If there is rapid melting going on, then there's a good chance of another avalanche coming down. It's a hard call, especially if you are going to rescue someone.
I ski on the piste, why should I be bothered about avalanches?
Many of the accidents resulting in deaths have occurred right next to the piste, due to ignorance. They could therefore have been avoided. If you are a good skier or snowboarder who mostly skis on the piste and you play around next to the piste, then you are a prime candidate for an accident. The same goes for climbers: statistics show that the typical victim of an avalanche is a male in his mid-late 20's, has a good level of knowledge about skiing, boarding or climbing, but very little knowledge about avalanches.
How long can you live under the snow?
People die quickly from carbon dioxide poisoning, because their carbon dioxide builds up in the snow around their mouths. Statistics show that about 90% of avalanche victims can be recovered alive if they are dug out within the first five minutes. However, after 45 minutes only 20-30% are still alive and after two hours almost no one is alive.
How do I judge if a slope is 'dangerous'?
Here are a few things that you should look for systematically each time you go out onto a slope (this list is not exhaustive, but it covers the essentials!):
- Steepness: Almost all avalanches occur on slopes between 35 and 45 degrees. An 'expert' slope at a ski resort is usually around 35 degrees maximum.
- Anchors: Trees and rocks that stick up through the snowpack can help to hold the snowpack in place. But the anchors need to be fairly thick to be effective. For instance a thick, mature grove of evergreen trees anchor the slab quite effectively while a sparse grove of trees has very little effect.
- Aspect with respect to wind: Recently wind-loaded, steep slopes are almost always very dangerous while recently wind-eroded slopes are usually fairly safe.
Avalanche risk classifications
Most natural avalanches occur during the spring on South facing slopes when the sun warms the snow up and causes 'Point Release' avalanches. In general these are not a significant danger as there are usually no people involved; the snow is wet and heavy and skiers/snowboarders tend not to ride it. These avalanches also move quite slowly and start from an individual point, growing in size as they move down the hill.
Most avalanche accidents by contrast happen in the cold months of December, January and February on North facing slopes. This is when the powder is best and the traffic in the off-piste is heaviest. It is also when most slab avalanches occur. In 90% of avalanche accidents, the victim or someone in the victim's party triggers the avalanche and 90% of these accidents involve a slab avalanche. Slab avalanches occur when a layer of snow that is well bonded breaks free from the layer below, and the well bonded layer slides away breaking up into large blocks of snow and ice as it makes its way down the hill.
Avalanche accidents can occur without any obvious warning, and even the most practised back country experts can get caught out. To help skiers and snowboarders make an informed decision about the risk of avalanches there is an "Avalanche Hazard Rating" system. This is marked at the bottom of the slopes by coloured flags; yellow, yellow and black and black. These flags represent a score of one to five explaining the danger posed by the instability in the snow. The scale is set by the resort using data provided by Météo France. Using a scale from one to five, the hazard indicator classifies the immediate danger that is present from an avalanche. From December to April, Méteo France provides detailed avalanche bulletins for Tignes and the surrounding areas. The app FatMap also gives a good indication of which slopes are in the potential avalanche risk range, however it does not guarantee they are safe. Regular avalanche bulletins are provided by Météo France, and English website Pistehors.com often provide up to date snowpack and avalanche information.
Although it by no means guarantees off-piste safety, following the Hazard Rating System can reduce the chances of being involved in an avalanche accident. It does not however mean that an avalanche will not occur. The following table outlines the flag based system and gives an introduction on how to interpret avalanche risk:
|Hazard Rating 1/5 - Low
|Stability: The snowpack is generally well bonded and stable
Activity: Triggering is possible only with high additional loads[2] on a few very steep extreme slopes[4]. Only a few small natural[6] avalanches (sluffs) possible
Off-piste activities: Virtually no restrictions on off-piste and backcountry skiing
|Hazard Rating 2/5 - Moderate
|Stability: The snowpack is moderately well bonded on some[1] steep[3] slopes, otherwise generally well bonded
Activity: Triggering is possible with high additional loads[2], particularly on the steep[3] slopes indicated in the bulletin. Large natural[6] avalanches not likely
Off-piste activities: Generally favourable. Routes should be selected with care
|Hazard Rating 3/5 - Considerable
|Stability: The snowpack is moderately to weakly bonded on many[1] steep[3] slopes
Activity: Triggering is possible, sometimes even with low additional loads[2]. The bulletin may indicate many slopes which are particularly affected. In certain conditions, medium and occasionally large sized natural[6] avalanches may occur
Off-piste activities: Should be carried out by experienced individuals with significant avalanche training and those who posses understanding and evaluation of potential hazards. Certain steep slopes should be avoided
|Hazard Rating 4/5 - High
|Stability: The snowpack is weakly bonded in most[1] places
Activity: Triggering is probable even with low additional loads[2] on many steep[3] slopes. In some conditions, frequent medium or large sized natural[6] avalanches are likely
Off-piste activities: Restricted to low-angled slopes; areas at the bottom of slopes may also be hazardous
|Hazard Rating 5/5 - Very High
|Stability: The snowpack is generally weakly bonded and largely unstable.
Activity: Numerous large natural[6] avalanches are likely, even on moderately steep terrain. Extensive safety measures (closures and evacuation) are necessary
Off-piste activities: No off-piste or back country skiing or travel should be undertaken
[1] Generally described in more detail in the avalanche bulletin (e.g.altitude, slope aspect, type of terrain, etc.)
[2] Additional load:- High - e.g. group of skiers, piste machine, avalanche blasting. Low - e.g. skier, walker
[3] Steep slopes: slopes with an incline of more than 30 degrees
[4] Steep extreme slopes: those which are particularly unfavourable in terms of the incline, terrain profile, proximity to ridge, smoothness of underlying ground surface
[5] Aspect: compass bearing directly down the slope
[6] Natural: Without human assistance
With all of this in mind, once on the hill it is important to remember the following:
- Avalanche accidents often occur on steeper slopes. 30-40 degree slopes are prime spots for avalanche accidents. In practical terms this means a slope that is equivalent to a red or black piste. Slopes below this range are usually not steep enough for the snow to be able to slide and above this range the snow tends not to build up in significant amounts as the slope is too steep for the snow to form a slab layer and usually too steep to ski.
- Slab avalanches often occur on the windward side of the hill. Snow is blown from one side of the hill to the other. This "wind loading" causes large amounts of snow to be deposited in one place. This snow bonds well to itself but not to the snow below setting up perfect conditions for a slab avalanche.
- Slab avalanches often fracture along convexities. Where the slope rolls from flat to steep, the snow is under the most stress as the change in gradient causes it to pull itself apart, this is often where avalanches begin.
- The danger may come from the terrain below. Even a small avalanche can knock a skier or snowboarder off their feet and if there are trees, cliffs or lakes below, the avalanche itself may not be fatal but the impact or fall may be.
- Only expose one person to danger at a time. Moving around the off-piste in a small manageable group and only traversing, climbing and skiing potentially dangerous areas one at a time will reduce the risk of triggering an avalanche and make a rescue easier if one does happen.


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|Halidoms is a Scrabble word. Scrabble point value for halidoms: 14 points.
|Halidoms is a Words with Friends word. Words with Friends point value for halidoms: 14 points.
Above are the results of unscrambling halidoms. Using the word generator and word unscrambler for the letters H A L I D O M S, we unscrambled the letters to create a list of all the words found in Scrabble, Words with Friends, and Text Twist. We found a total of 231 words by unscrambling the letters in halidoms. Click these words to find out how many points they are worth, their definitions, and all the other words that can be made by unscrambling the letters from these words. If one or more words can be unscrambled with all the letters entered plus one new letter, then they will also be displayed.
|Definition of "halidoms" found in the Merriam Webster dictionary
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subset: commoncrawl


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Hypnobabies helps mom shift her attitude!
From: "Natural childbirth is crazy!"
To: "Childbirth can be a fun, wonderful, comfortable, and relaxing experience!"
Want to read an inpirational Hypnobabies Birth Story? Click here to go to Crystal's Blog and read an amazing story.
This mom goes from thinking people who have a natural birth are crazy to having an amazing, peaceful water birth. Hypnobabies helped her have this amazing birth!


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Sharonville, Ohio
Titan Siding & Roofing serves the Greater Cincinnati and Dayton areas, including Sharonville, Ohio. We offer a full line of residential and commercial exterior renovation services. Some of the services we provide are residential roofing, commercial roofing, vinyl siding, James Hardie Fiber Cement Siding, seamless gutter systems, and replacement windows.
Titan offers premier products for all our remodeling projects in Sharonville, Ohio. A few of the products we offer are Owens Corning, IKO, James Hardie, Mastic, Variform, Exterior Portfolio, Simonton, Windsor, and Vinylmax. Our installations are performed by exterior renovation professionals with an emphasis on proper techniques and methods.
Titan has one main objective when performing our work. That is the satisfaction of the customer. Our philosophy is based upon identifying and satisfying you, while exceeding every expectation you have. Gaining and retaining customer loyalty is what we strive for.
If you're in the Sharonville, Ohio area, and have any questions or comments, please feel free to give us a call, or send us an email. If you prefer, you can fill out the form below, and one of our representatives will be in touch.
Contact Us
7103 Hamilton Mason Road | Suite D
West Chester OH, 45069
Telephone: 513-755-ROOF (7663)
E-mail: email@example.com


text: Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public-records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact the city office by phone or in writing.Please be further advised that any writing received by the City is also a public record under Florida law and is subject to being released pursuant to a public records request.


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When people describe their success stories, it's pretty common to hear about non-traditional career paths—so it should be no surprise that this was the case with Gabe Newell too.
Recently, Gabe Newell did a Q&A about computer science with a bunch of students interested in computer science on Google Hangout. At one point (13:15 in the video above, to be specific) a student asks him about valuable educational experiences, and Newell describes how he ended up learning to be a software developer while visiting his brother at work. This experience ended up being more valuable to him than stuff he learned at Harvard university, because he directly worked with people who are good at what he wanted to do. Which is not to say he didn't learn other valuable skills at Harvard...
"Not to bang on Harvard, but I learned more in three months with those guys at Microsoft than I did the entire time I was at Harvard," Newell said. "At Harvard I learned how to drink beer while doing a headstand in the snow. Which, y'know, it's a useful skill, but not nearly as useful as how to actually develop software."
Newell ended up dropping out of Harvard, but, as we all know, things ended up working out for him just fine anyway. Goes to show, the commonly-touted path of attending college isn't always the one that makes the most sense for everyone.
The rest of the Q&A is worth watching too, as Newell gives out advice and some opinions on technology—like the idea that kids texting is good, because it means they're writing. Interesting stuff!
Gabe Newell talks to students [Code.org]


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A small drone built at the University of North Texas could eventually be the key to improved communications at a major disaster.
Two UNT professors, Yan Wan and Shengli Fu, have developed a drone that disperses a Wi-Fi signal that could improve communications for first responders and victims at the center of a disaster.
The Denton Record-Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1ooqaKB ) reports the development is just one piece of a Smart Emergency Response System that the professors are working on with other academics and industry leaders across the country as part of a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow project.
Other projects completed within the system include human-operated robots that could act as first responders, trained search-and-rescue dogs and a control center base. When used together, the pieces create a communications infrastructure that will improve response to emergencies, said Wan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering.
"Communication infrastructure is the basis for the success with coordination of the rescue teams, and the dissemination of information to all of the people on the scene," she said. "All of this requires robust infrastructure, and when this infrastructure performance isn't good or doesn't exist in an emergency scenario, it becomes a big problem, so we are trying to provide on-demand communication infrastructure to help with post-emergency response."
The pair planned to join the other researchers in the project for a demonstration Tuesday at the University of Washington in Seattle.
"The event in Seattle is kind of the first-time integration because we will have the other teams, and we want to put all of the different technology together for a big, integrated project," said Fu, an associate professor of electrical engineering at UNT.
The two professors have worked to develop the Wi-Fi-enabled drone since December with the help of some students, with Wan working on the theoretical mobility of the drones and the control, and Fu focusing on the communication aspects.
After the projects are coordinated in Washington, the teams of researchers will have until June 11 to tweak the projects before the presentation for the SmartAmerica Challenge Expo in Washington, D.C. The expo will feature the response system and other researchers and companies that work on similar projects.
After the expo, they plan to continue research but also will work on figuring out the practical applications for the developments. Drones are a big topic of debate, both researchers explained, and with current Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Communications Commission guidelines, there are a lot of potential issues with the Wi-Fi drones.
This means the drones probably won't be used in the next major disaster, but with continued work and updates to FCC and FAA policies on drones, there's a lot of research that can be conducted before they are put to use in actual emergencies, the professors said.
"There are some concerns, but I think the real revelation is for the academic industry," Fu said.
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense


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Lollapalooza 2007
Tuesday, 29th April 2008 by James Turnbull
Lollapalooza is a multi-genre Music festival held each year in Chicago's downtown Grant Park. The 3-day event draws over 35,000 people each day, and for the 2007 festival the special guest was you, the GSS readers.
We'll start at the entrance, which is marked with large inflated letters that you can just about read from the aerial shot (ground level pictures). Don't worry about paying though – we're Access All Areas!
Let's head south of the entrance, past these pretty star shaped balloons (ground level picture).
Continue south and we arrive at the "AT&T stage", which played host to the likes of Daft Punk and Lupe Fiasco1.
If Daft Punk aren't your bag then let's go all the way north (past the previously featured Clarence Buckingham Fountain) to the "Bud Light Stage", where there's currently a larger turn out. This stage featured The Roots, Snow Patrol and Amy Winehouse, amongst others.
You can explore Lollapalooza 2007 further with a kml image overlay I've created from the official festival map, and complete the festival experience by watching some of the acts on Youtube.
Thanks to Steve H.
If we knew which day this image was taken then we could hazard a guess who was on-stage. Oddly, the date provided by Google Earth (November 6th 2007) is definitely wrong, as this festival was held August 3rd – 5th 2007. ↩


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Isaiah Thomas (January 8, 1749 - April 4, 1831), was an American newspaper publisher and author. He performed the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Worcester, Massachusetts and reported the first account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. He was the founder of the American Antiquarian Society.
Thomas was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was apprenticed on July 7, 1756 to Zechariah Fowle, a Boston printer, with whom, after working as a printer in Halifax, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Charleston, South Carolina, he formed a partnership in 1770.
In Boston, in 1774, Thomas published the Royal American Magazine, which was continued for a short time by Joseph Greenleaf, and which contained many engravings by Paul Revere.


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The Complete Peanuts 1987-1990 Gift Box Set (Vols. 19-20)
by Charles M. Schulz
two 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcovers in a custom slipcase • $49.99
See More Previews / Order Now!
A boxed set of the nineteenth and twentieth volumes of The Complete Peanuts, designed by the award-winning graphic novelist, Seth. Shipping shrinkwrapped, with volumes 1987-1988 and 1989-1990 packed in a sturdy custom box designed especially for this set, it's the perfect gift book item. (For more information on the contents of each volume, see the individual product listings linked above.)
"The Complete Peanuts has framed Charles Schulz's enduring masterpiece about as well any lifelong fan could've hoped." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives," The A.V. Club
"Charles Schulz was an American treasure — an artist, philosopher, and keen observer of human life." – Bill Clinton
PEANUTS ® & © Peanuts Worldwide


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I've had Stone Cold for quite a long time. Thank goodness I finally wore it! This is three coats here.
The polish has really chunky, flakie-like shimmer. Glass-flecked? It's absolutely amazing in person.
Stone Cold is super sparkly, shiny, and metallic looking but my pictures absolutely do nothing to show that! You really have to see/wear this one in person to appreciate its beauty.
It also has this terrific depth to it. It looks blackened beneath the sparkly shimmers.


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Previously expected, but never before confirmed, Microsoft's plans for Windows Phone updates have been spelled out explicitly in a job posting, of all things. First noticed by MobileTechWorld, the job spec outlines the update policy for the platform—one major update a year, and some unspecified number of minor updates. The position in question, a Program Manager role, will be driving the development of these minor updates.
With Windows Phone "Mango" due in fall, about a year after the release of the platform, this confirmation is not in and of itself hugely surprising. What is a little more surprising is the way we learned about the policy. Though the company explicitly says that regular updates are a "key part" of its plans for the platform, it has always stopped short of explaining just what it means by "regular." In the first eight months on the market, Windows Phone has been updated three times, but only one of those updates—the "NoDo" copy-and-paste update—actually provided any features to end-users. The other updates were "pre-NoDo," that enabled updating to NoDo, and a post-NoDo subsequent security fix.
This job posting confirms that the pattern for the first year is going to be replicated in future years—though hopefully without the same teething trouble that caused so many headaches for the NoDo and pre-NoDo updates.
Windows Phone trails iOS and Android in a number of key functional areas; more regular updating, to fill functional deficits and get the improvements into users' hands, would seem an obvious strategy. So is one major update a year enough? It certainly can be: iOS has a similar schedule of one major release every 12 months. However, there's a difference: iOS adds to these a substantial number of minor updates—both more plentiful than the number Windows Phone has received so far, and more useful. Without these frequent minor updates, a strategy closer to that of Android, which has a new significant release roughly every six to nine months (alongside regular bug-fixing updates) might be a better option.
If Microsoft is to make a success of this update policy, the minor updates need to improve. Though Mango will indeed be a substantial upgrade—easily the same magnitude of an iOS major update—the minor updates have, so far, been more than a little disappointing; Microsoft hasn't matched the steady trickle of new features that iOS boasts, meaning that the functional gap between platforms has only widened over Windows Phone's lifetime. It's plainly an area that needs improvement—and the person who eventually fills the advertised position may be responsible for providing that improvement.


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Egyptian Christians at prayer rally before the constitutional referendum (AP Photo)
A new study published on the eve of the Christmas holiday provides a chilling assessment of the future prospects for a once thriving Middle East Christian community and concludes Christians are suffering more persecution around the world than any other religious group, mainly due to "Islamic oppression."
Civitas, a conservative-leaning British research organization, on Sunday published the report titled "Christianophobia." Civitas described some of author Rupert Shortt's disturbing findings:
Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression, according to a new report from a leading independent think-tank.
But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they will be accused of racism.
They fail to appreciate that in the defence of the wider concept of human rights, religious freedom is the "canary in the mine", according to the report.
The refusal of young Christians in the West to become "radicalised" and mount violent protests against the attacks on their faith also helps to explain the "blind spot" about "Christianophobia" in influential liberal Western circles.
The study explains that Christians are more likely to face persecution than any other faith group and that they are especially threatened in Muslim societies. Shortt explains that this oppression is only magnified by already rampant anti-Americanism and "the false belief that Christianity is a 'Western' creed." This, even though the religion was born in the Middle East.
He quotes research findings which show that "between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left or been killed over the past century" and that the threat has only been exacerbated by the rise of militant Islam in Egypt, Iraq and Syria.
Shortt takes Western policymakers to task for not exposing the threat. He writes: "The blind spot displayed by governments and other influential players is causing them to squander a broader opportunity. Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally."
The study examines Christian persecution in seven countries: Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, Burma, China and India, citing examples such as a Salafist website 'Guardians of the Faith', which once wrote: "Being a Muslim girl whose role models are the wives of the Prophet, who were required to wear the hijab, is better than being a Christian girl, whose role models are whores."
The study also describes past cases in which Christians targeted other faiths, such as in the Lebanese civil war and the Balkan crisis; however, Shortt believes Islam is particularly susceptible to violence. He writes: "There is a theory that the idea of jihad is more deeply embedded in Islam than related notions in the other world religions – and therefore that Islam is more susceptible to violent extremism – because of the martial context in which Islam took root."
Though the mainstream media rarely report it, one glaring exception to the institutionalized persecution the study describes is Israel, where the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) on Sunday published statistics showing that Israeli Christians are both well-educated and prosperous. But even in Israel, they face intimidation from their Muslim neighbors.
Israel National News reports:
When it comes to education, Christian Arabs are among the most successful groups in Israel. In 2011, 64% of the community's high school graduates were eligible for Bagrut matriculation certificates, generally a requirement for entry to university, while among Jews that figure was 59%, and only 48% among Muslims. The CBS statistics also showed that Christian Arabs enjoyed relatively high incomes, and were generally more prosperous than their Muslim neighbors.
But there is concern that the Christian community is shrinking – due to intimidation by their Muslim neighbors. […]
Many Christians have complained of being targeted by Muslims, whom they believe are trying to either drive them out of cities that have traditionally had large Christian populations, or to "persuade" them to convert. In 1999, for example, radical Muslims in Nazareth rioted as they attempted to wrest land from a major Christian shrine to build a mosque. Christians in Bethlehem, too, have complained of being persecuted by Muslims, and being encouraged to leave. In 1946, Bethlehem was 80 percent Christian and Nazareth 60 percent; those numbers are now 20 percent and 30 percent respectively, with the percentage of Christians in the city shrinking every year.
Pro-Palestinian activists consistently blame Israel for the shrinking Christian population in those cities, rather than Islamic extremism and a higher childbirth rate in Muslim families. This, as Palestinian officials and other Muslim organizations accuse Israel of trying to "Judaize" Jerusalem, the location of the most holy site for Jews, the Western Wall.
Jerusalem Municipality advertises free Christmas trees (Photo courtesy: IsraellyCool.com)
But the Jerusalem municipality belied that accusation when over the weekend it invited the city's Christians to come in and collect a free Christmas tree, courtesy of the city of Jerusalem.
Israel's Jerusalem Development Authority also announced it would help local residents and shop keepers decorate the streets with festive lights around the Old City.
(H/T: The Telegraph, IsraellyCool)


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Modern DC Corruption … from "the select few"
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Truthout
If you want to know what really matters in Washington, don't go to Capitol Hill for one of those hearings, or pay attention to those staged White House "town meetings.†They're just for show. What really happens – the serious business of Washington – happens in the shadows, out of sight, off the record. Only occasionally – and usually only because someone high up stumbles – do we get a glimpse of just how pervasive the corruption has become.
Case in point: Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of The Washington Post – one of the most powerful people in DC – invited top officials from the White House, the Cabinet and Congress to her home for an intimate, off-the-record dinner to discuss health care reform with some of her reporters and editors covering the story.
But CEOs and lobbyists from the health care industry were invited, too, provided they forked over $25,000 a head – or up to a quarter of a million if they want to sponsor a whole series of these cozy get-togethers. And what is the inducement offered? Nothing less, the invitation read, than "an exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will get it done.â€
The invitation reminds the CEO's and lobbyists that they will be buying access to "those powerful few in business and policy making who are forwarding, legislating and reporting on the issues …
"Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No.†The invitation promises this private, intimate and off-the-record dinner is an extension "of The Washington Post brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard.â€
Let that sink in. In this case, the "stakeholders†in health care reform do not include the rabble – the folks across the country who actually need quality health care but can't afford it. If any of them showed up at the kitchen door on the night of this little soiree, the bouncer would drop kick them beyond the Beltway.
No, before you can cross the threshold to reach "the select few who will actually get it done,†you must first cross the palm of some outstretched hand. The Washington Post dinner was canceled after a copy of the invite was leaked to the web site Politico.com, by a health care lobbyist, of all people. The paper said it was a misunderstanding – the document was a draft that had been mailed out prematurely by its marketing department. There's noblesse oblige for you – blame it on the hired help.
In any case, it was enough to give us a glimpse into how things really work in Washington – a clear insight into why there is such a great disconnect between democracy and government today, between Washington and the rest of the country.
According to one poll after another, a majority of Americans not only want a public option in health care, they also think that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power over policy, that money in politics is the root of all evil, that working families and poor communities need and deserve public support if the market system fails to generate shared prosperity.
But, when the insiders in Washington have finished tearing worthy intentions apart and devouring flesh from bone, none of these reforms happen. "Oh,†they say, "it's all about compromise. All in the nature of the give-and-take-negotiating of a representative democracy.â€
That, people, is bull – the basic nutrient of Washington's high and mighty.
It's not about compromise. It's not about what the public wants. It's about money – the golden ticket to "the select few who actually get it done.â€
When Congress passed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, "the select few†made sure it no longer contained the cramdown provision that would have allowed judges to readjust mortgages. The one provision that would have helped homeowners the most was removed in favor of an industry that pours hundreds of millions into political campaigns.
So, too, with a bill designed to protect us from terrorist attacks on chemical plants. With "the select few†dictating marching orders, hundreds of factories are being exempted from measures that would make them spend money to prevent the release of toxic clouds that could kill hundreds of thousands.
Everyone knows the credit ratings agencies were co-conspirators with Wall Street in the shameful wilding that brought on the financial meltdown. But when the Obama administration came up with new reforms to prevent another crisis, the credit ratings agencies were given a pass. They'd been excused by "the select few who actually get it done.â€
And by the time an energy bill emerged from the House of Representatives the other day, "the select few who actually get it done†had given aw ay billions of dollars worth of emission permits and offsets. As The New York Times reported, while the legislation worked its way to the House floor, "It grew fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions and out-and-out gifts,†expanding from 648 pages to 1,400 as it spread its largesse among big oil and gas, utility companies and agribusiness.
This week, the public interest groups Common Cause and the Center for Responsive Politics reported that, "According to lobby disclosure reports, 34 energy companies registered in the first quarter of 2009 to lobby Congress around the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. This group of companies spent a total of $23.7 million – or $260,000 a day – lobbying members of Congress in January, February and March.
"Many of these same companies also made large contributions to the members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation and held a hearing this week on the proposed 'cap and trade' system energy companies are fighting. Data shows oil and gas companies, mining companies and electric utilities combined have given more than $2 million just to the 19 members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee since 2007, the start of the last full election cycle.â€
It's happening to health care as well. Even the pro-business magazine The Economist says America has the worst system in the developed world, controlled by exe cutives who are not held to account and investors whose primary goal is raising share price and increasing profit – while wasting $450 billion dollars in redundant administrative costs and leaving nearly 50 million uninsured.
Enter "the select few who actually get it done.†Three out of four of the big health care firms lobbying on Capitol Hill have former members of Congress or government staff members on the payroll – more than 350 of them – and they're all fighting hard to prevent a public option, at a rate in excess of $1.4 million a day.
Health care policy has become insider heaven. Even Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House health reform director, served on the boards of several major health care corporations.
President Obama has pushed hard for a public option but many fear he's wavering, and just this week his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel – the insider di tutti insiders – indicated that a public plan just might be negotiable, ready for reengineering, no doubt, by "the select few who actually get it done.â€
That's how it works. And it works that way because we let it. The game goes on and the insiders keep dealing themselves winning hands. Nothing will change – nothing – until the moneylenders are tossed out of the temple, the ATM's are wrested from the marble halls, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government – the one that reads, "For Sale.â€


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Original TIF File
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[Title-page to] Fables.
Bentley-Blake Collection
1 leaf : illustration ; 24 x 15 cm
Rare Books
Title page. Gay, John, 1685-1732. Fables.
Engraved title-page with vignette (mask with long hair, within oval).
Frontispiece and plates facing pages 65 and 129 (Fables 25 and 48) signed: "G. Neagle sc[ulp].", remaining plates unsigned: "plates ... very closely copy ... those in the 1793 Stockdale edition ..." which has plates signed by Blake and others.--Cf. Bentley.
Two octavo editions exist with the same title-page and virtually the same type-setting, page for page, except for the spacing between lines and the setting of leaf A2. In the smaller edition, the last line of text on A2 recto (page [iii]), excluding footnote, ends "as he pro-" and the catchword is "bably"; in the larger octavo edition, the last line ends "is not known." and the catchword is "The". In the smaller edition pages 138, 142 and 143 are misnumbered 140, 144 and 145 respectively and leaf Q3 is unsigned. In the other octavo edition pages 138, 142 and 143 are numbered correctly, but page 242 is misnumbered 422 and leaf Q3 is signed. Leaf R4 is unsigned in both editions.
Blake Suppl. no. 461 is the large octavo edition.
See Catalogue Link below for full Victoria University Library catalogue record.
Blake Suppl. no.461
Public Domain
Blake, William, 1757-1827, association, Gay, John, 1685-1732, author
Title page


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Recycling Trailer and Mascots for Special Events
The City of Modesto has free custom-made recycling trailers designed to recycle cardboard and beverage containers in the form of CRV plastic, cans and bottles. Each trailer has an overall capacity of 14 cubic yards or 4.5 cubic yards per compartment. It will not be necessary to purchase or store any special recycling containers for your event. Our staff will deliver and pick up the trailer and/or recycling bins at your event and take the material to be processed. Our special event recycling is created to accommodate the recycling needs for festivals, concerts, sporting events, large school events, parades and much more, reducing costs for event producers and keeping recyclable materials out of our landfills! All proceeds are matched dollar for dollar by O'B Green O'Brien's Market and support the City of Modesto's "Adopt A Park Program." Newly added are our recycling characters: a glass bottle, aluminum can and plastic bottle. Please invite them to your next special event to encourage recycling and to be a part of your waste reduction efforts in Modesto.
Additional Information
For additional information on how you can have a recycling trailer at your next event, please contact Vicki Rice, Recycling Program Coordinator at 209-577-5495 or via email.


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Loyola University > School of Law > Faculty > Faculty and Administration Profiles
Faculty and Administration Profiles
Christine G. Cooper
Title/s: Professor Emerita
Office #: Corboy 1315
Phone: 312.915.7149
Email: email@example.com
Prior to attending law school, Professor Cooper was an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and she received a graduate degree in anthropology. She was the legal literature editor of the DePaul Law Review. Following law school, she received an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and then was associated with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. She joined Loyola's faculty in 1978, and remains an active labor arbitrator. She was co-chair of the ABA Committee on Employee Rights and Responsibilities, for which she has chaired committees and delivered numerous papers. Topics on which she has written and spoken include sexual harassment, the toxic work place, affirmative action, employment contracts, constructive discharge, and labor preemption. She has provided continuing legal education programs for the American Bar Association, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, and the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education. She has done sexual harassment training program for government and educational institutions, as well as for private industry. Professor Cooper was recently elected Secretary of the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law.
B.A., Rosary, 1969
M.A., Illinois, 1974
J.D., magna cum laude, DePaul, 1975
LL.M., Harvard, 1976
Professional & Community Affiliations
American Bar Association, Labor and Employment Section, Continuing Legal Education Committee, Public Member; Committee on Employee Rights and Responsibilities, Co-Chair
2008 - Co-Chair, ABA's Employment Rights and Responsibilities Committee, Chicago Chapter
Selected Publications
Contracts chapter in Holloway & Leech, Employment Termination: Rights and Remedies (Supp. forthcoming n.d.)
Your Genes or Your Job: Genetic Testing in the Workplace, 3 Employee Rights Quarterly 1 (Fall 2002)
Ethical Obligations of Employment Lawyers: Selected Sources, PLI Employment Law Institute, Chicago, November 15-16, 1999
Employment Law Practice Points, IICLE Website (Monthly Updates, beginning March, 1998-May, 1998)
Employment Contracts: What You Need to Know and Do Now in Employment Law Update Seminar Handbook (IICLE, 1997)
Employment Torts: What You Need to Know and Do Now in Employment Law Update Seminar Handbook (IICLE, 1997)(co-authored with Connors)
The Search for Sex Equality: A Perspective from the Podium on Law and Cultural Change, 36 Loy.U.Chi. L.J. 445 (2005) [article]
Recent Presentations
Moderator, "The Supreme Court Speaks: Proof of Discrimination After Sprint," National CLE Teleconference, May 2008
Co-Keynote Speaker, 14th Annual Employment Law Institute, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, April 17, 2008


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Inexperienced drivers will pay more for their vehicle insurance starting next year, and the Insurance Corp. of B.C. is inviting up to 7,000 of them to sign up for a smartphone-based training program to improve their skills.
The expanded "telematics" pilot project is open to drivers with less than five years of experience as a fully licensed driver. That includes "novice" drivers in B.C.'s graduated licence program.
An initial pilot program for recording drivers' speed, braking and level of distraction showed enough results to expand the program with a small in-vehicle device that communicates with an app installed on a smartphone, ICBC says.
"We heard from those pilot participants that most believed the use of telematics would make the roads safer for everyone," said ICBC president Nicolas Jiminez. "This is our next step in a thoughtful examination of telematics technology and how it might help keep these drivers safer."
ICBC says the most inexperienced drivers, those with less than one year fully licensed, are more than five times more likely to be involved in a crash and for that crash to be severe than a driver with 20 years of experience.
Interested drivers can sign up for updates at icbc.com/driverpilot to apply for the program that will launch next summer.
Rate increases for next year have been approved the B.C. Utilities Commission, which reviews monopoly services such as basic vehicle insurance, electricity and natural gas rates. Inexperienced drivers will have a higher rate that reduces with years of safe driving, and rates will be adjusted to reflect higher risk in urban areas and regional statistics.
I wish I could tell you what your #ICBC rate will be next year, but I'm 60 pages into rate application and it's not looking good. Here's a chart that shows your region's risk rating though #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/MzjEFon2gy— Tom Fletcher (@tomfletcherbc) November 29, 2018
The provincial Crown corporation has struggled with rising accident rate and big increases in injury claim and legal costs.


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OSI is an American progressive rock band, originally formed by Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos in 2002. Chroma Key keyboardist and vocalist Kevin Moore is the only other full-time member of the band. The collaboration may be considered a studio project, as its members and contributors write and track most of their material independently, sharing and developing tracks long-distance, only coming together at the end of the process for mixing and additional tracking. The band's name is a reference to the Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived American government agency formed in 2001 to support the War on Terror through propaganda. The band has featured a number of guest musicians on its albums, including Steven Wilson, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Sean Malone, Joey Vera and Gavin Harrison.
Matheos recruited Moore and Dream Theater's then-drummer Mike Portnoy to perform on what was originally planned to be a Matheos solo album. Matheos and Portnoy originally planned to produce a progressive metal album similar in style to Matheos' work in Fates Warning. Moore changed the music's direction, incorporating electronica into the original progressive metal sound. The band's debut album was released by InsideOut Music in 2003.


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Stellaris Utopia Expansion
Paradox interactive
Space 4X games have been one of my favorite gaming genres for a long time now. Ever since I played Master of Orion 2. MOO2 had a certain magic about it that I really haven't seen duplicated since its debut way back in 1996.
The only game that came close to being as addictive as MOO2 was Stardock's 2008 4X space strategy game, Sins of a Solar Empire. I poured countless hours into SOASE, its subsequence DLCs, and its successor, SOASE Rebellion. However, after a while, the SOASE series began to become less and less interesting to me. I suppose the beginning of this started when a friend (whom I'd duped into buying it so that we could multiplay together) said: "You can't even customize or build your own ships?" I think he was onto something there. Oh, and the three civilizations you had to choose from were pretty much cardboard cutouts which couldn't be altered in anyway, save for technological research paths.
Stardock's other major space game, Galactic Civilizations III, was fun for a while, and you could build your own custom races, but it grew sort of stale eventually. One of the main things that bothered me about GalCiv III was that there were no administrators which you could assign to planets or space stations, nor were there any admirals to head up your fleets (although it seems that Stardock will be addressing that in their next DLC).
Then Paradox Interactive dropped its science fiction 4X title Stellaris upon the gaming masses last year, literally out of nowhere it seemed. However, I must have been one of the only ones in the dark about it since it quickly became Paradox's fastest selling game, ever.
What I really liked about Stellaris is its emphasis on exploration, at least in the early game. I also appreciated how long it took to even get your first colony settled. In other 4X space games, you could literally have planetary colonies set up within five minutes of gameplay. In Stellaris, you had to wait until you could actually afford a colony ship (they're rightfully expensive) and then they took a full year to build (luckily in game time) so we're usually talking about at least a half an hour to do so.
One of major critiques of Stellaris was that its mid-game seemed to taper off and became more or less aimless. And although Paradox has tried to address this in updates and a story pack titled Leviathans, it really needed a full-fledged expansion to address this issue. Well, evidently Paradox was listening because its first major expansion, Utopia, is upon us, and boy is it indeed stellar.
One of the first things that I noticed about the expansion's changes was that I couldn't just start a game with my saved civilization. That's because one of the first additions to the game are Civics. You are now free to choose what type of philosophies with which your government operates, and that will further individualize it based on what type of Authority and Ethics it embraces.
But it doesn't stop there. Although civics choices show up in the early game, two additional new factors, Traditions and Ascension Perks, make their appearances during the mid-game. Traditions encompass such things as Harmony, where your civilization strives to work towards a common good, or Expansion, which gives bonuses to your colonial endeavors, and so forth and so on. These in turn can lead to the mighty Ascension Perks, which are harder to develop.
Ascension Perks can deliver huge payoffs and can even change a game's victory conditions. You can now learn the ways of the machine and turn your entire civilization into cyborgs or even full-on robots, ascend to a different plane as telepaths with psionic powers, or transform them into genetically altered super-beings. There's even an option for making your faction operate as a singular Hive Mind. In all, Civics, Traditions, and Ascension Perks all work to further individualize each stellar nation, and they are very welcome additions.
You can also now dictate how your civilization will treat slave populations. You can give them certain rights, turn them into battle thralls, or you can go the Soylent Green route and turn them into food. The universe is now also very dynamic when it comes to interstellar refugees looking for safe havens, and you can determine how your people will react to them. Will you recklessly take them all in, allow limited numbers, or shun them altogether?
Habitat Stations also make it viable to be a powerful force in the universe while not necessarily possessing the most territory. That's because these stations allow you to "build tall" instead of expand outwards—meaning you are basically building immense, artificial worlds with which to house your ever growing populations. This makes it even more crucial to gather intel on your enemies since you can't just gauge their relative military strength merely based on how large or small their territories are.
The late-game has also been given a much needed shot in the arm with the addition of Megastructures. These gigantic constructs take huge amounts of resources to erect, and copious amounts of time as well. This makes for an interesting dilemma. Should your civilization sacrifice early on and only field a smaller, defensive fleet so that you could begin construction of one of these immense projects? Or perhaps forgo them entirely and have a larger, more aggressive navy? Combined with the Leviathan story pack's War in Heaven, and gigantic space monsters roaming around, and the late-game can become very active indeed.
Utopia is what Stellaris needed in order to make it much more of a complete game. It offers lots of additional civilization customization and individuality, different types of victory conditions, and more mid and late-game content. Now if only we could get espionage systems integrated into diplomacy, and maybe energy-based (lava planets and gas giants?) and aquatic beings (aquatic worlds?). But as it stands, what a brilliant expansion Utopia is.
Stellaris Utopia Expansion offers some excellent visuals that suit its futuristic theme. However, you have to have a fast gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
Visit CyberpowerPC's website to check out all of the other great deals as well!


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Scott was born in Glasgow in 1978 and attended Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design full time from 1996 - 2000, with the ambition of becoming an artist. He graduated with a BDes (Hons) in Illustration and Printmaking.
Since graduating Scott has been a full time artist, working from his studio in Glasgow.
Today, he is an internationally exhibiting artist with a significant online following established via the popularity of his YouTube channel, which now has over 29,000 subscribers and 3.3M views.
Print reproductions of Scott's work are produced in the UK, U.S, Canada and China and sold worldwide.
Scott's approach to painting draws upon a tremendous energy and positivity, which is reflected in the themes of hope and optimism that infuse his work. Read more about the paintings here.


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HONOLULU – For the second straight day, Stuart Appleby plodded along the soft fairways of Waialae until he closed strong with improbable shots for eagle or a string of birdies.
That recipe could really come in handy Sunday.
Appleby, who holed out with a 5-iron for eagle on the 16th hole in the opening round, chipped in from 90 feet across the green on the par-3 seventh Saturday. That was part of a birdie-birdie-birdie finish for a 4-under 66 and a share of the lead with Shigeki Maruyama.
But the tournament is only half over.
Because of rain that washed out play Thursday, the Sony Open will try to finish Sunday with a 36-hole finale.
"A bit of a crap shoot," Appleby said. "There's a lot of guys in this tournament, absolutely. So it'll be a very interesting finish."
If the trade wind ever arrives, just about everybody is still in the hunt.
Appleby and Maruyama, who had his second straight 65, were at 10-under 130. They were one shot clear of Roland Thatcher (65), Steve Marino (67) and Mark Wilson (67). Another shot back was a group that included Justin Rose (68) and Matt Kuchar (68), who has picked up from last year when he won the PGA Tour money title and Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average.
The cut was at 1-under 139, and 83 players will get paid.
But because of the 36-hole final, the playing cut was the number of players nearest to 60. With late birdies by Daniel Summerhays and Matt McQuillan, that cut was 56 player at 3-under 137.
That knocked out the likes of Vijay Singh and Zach Johnson.
The gap between top to bottom at the start of Sunday will be seven shots, which can easily be made up over 36 holes.
"Guys can win from seven and eight back on days like that," said Davis Love III, who shot a 66 and was only four behind. "That makes it interesting. It's whoever gets hot with the putter."
The 41-year-old Maruyama, who hasn't won on the PGA Tour since 2003, loves playing Waialae because the size of his Japanese gallery is larger than usual and there usually isn't a premium on power along the palm tree-lined fairways.
He's not sure about Sunday, however. He looked at his shoes and said with a laugh, "My feet. It's a problem."
"I'm getting older, and 36 holes is going to be a struggle," Maruyama.
What should help is the flat property of Waialae, an old-styled course near the shores of Waikiki Beach.
Anthony Kim matched the low score of the day with a 64 to reach 5-under 135. He was tied with Ernie Els, who might have an advantage based on his experience — not only from winning at Waialae, but playing 36 holes on the last day.
Els faced a 36-hole final round just last month in winning the South African Open. And not many will forget that 36-hole final at Bay Hill in 1998 when he overwhelmed Tiger Woods and Love in the final group.
"That turned out good," Els said, smiling. "I'm kind of looking forward to tomorrow. I've got a month off after tomorrow, and I'd like to let it all hang out."
Just like his opening round, Appleby wasn't doing much overly exciting. He was 1 under for his round with three holes to play when he chipped in for an improbable birdie on the seventh. Then came an approach to 2 feet on the next hole for a tap-in birdie, and he reached the green in two on the par-5 ninth for a two-putt birdie and a share of the lead.
"Tomorrow, we've got a bit of a sprint, even though it's going to take us all day," Appleby said.
It's not unusual for the PGA Tour to cut to the nearest number of players to 60. The priority always is to finish on Sunday, and that's the first option mentioned in its guidelines.
But it could lead to an awkward finish. Love recalls early in his career playing the Colonial, which Keith Clearwater won by three shots despite finishing on the ninth hole in the final round.
Els, for example, will be in the first group off Sunday morning on the first tee. There will be no time to change the groups based on third-round scores, so the South African will finish on the ninth hole.
"Anybody who's made the cut has got a decent change to play for the championship tomorrow," Thatcher said.


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Robert Klein (born February 8, 1942) is an American stand-up comedian and actor.
Klein was born in the Bronx, the son of Frieda (née Moskowitz) and Benjamin Klein and was raised in a "prototypical 1950s Bronx Jewish" environment. After graduating from De Witt Clinton High School, Klein planned to study medicine. However, he changed his mind during his studies in university. After graduating from Alfred University, he studied at Yale Drama School when he got wind of an opportunity to audition for The Second City. In a piece he wrote for the improvisational troupe's book, Klein recalled sitting in a room full of other hopefuls, including Fred Willard. Klein's audition consisted of an improvisation set with Willard about two guys in a nightclub, which was successful enough to get Klein and Willard hired by Second City. Klein had said another young man, Billy Dee Williams, was invited to join the troupe, but turned it down.
Klein is divorced from opera singer Brenda Boozer. They have a son, Alexander Stuart Klein.


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Sunday, February 19, 2012
How you can tell that the peak oil debate is (almost) over
"The media doth protest too much," I thought (with apologies to Queen Gertrude in Hamlet). As for Gandhi, a quote commonly attributed to him may shed light on where we are in the peak oil debate: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win."
So, it appears that we are now in stage three of a four-stage process. This may not be so farfetched as it seems. I can remember when I first began writing regularly about peak oil in 2004. The main problem was that the media was simply ignoring the issue. It just didn't fit any category which the vast majority of reporters recognized.
That was followed by a period of ridicule from oil industry representatives, economists, and a few writers in the trade press, but almost no one in the mainstream media. "Pshaw, pshaw," they seemed to say in chorus, "no sensible person would take the idea of a near-term peak in world oil production seriously." (Never mind that these people mostly misunderstood the problem of peak oil as being one related to the size of the remaining resource rather than the rate of extraction.)
Now we have come to the point where there are open attacks in the mainstream media. Yes, there have been attacks before, mostly in the trade press and on specialized sites and blogs on the Internet. It was more internecine conflict within the industry, narrow professional circles, and the activist community. But that doesn't really count as a public brawl when your true audience is the mass of nonspecialists. Now, we have the equivalent of that with the publication of a major piece in Nature, a respected scientific journal, but one that mere mortals are able to read. The piece in question has the reactionary forces in full attack mode.
An op-ed in The National, an English-language publication in Abu Dhabi, set the bar very low when it comes to facts and logic. Bloomberg Businessweek emitted a piece entitled "Everything You Know About Peak Oil Is Wrong" on the same day the Nature piece appeared--almost as if the writer knew it was coming. The Bloomberg piece trots out mostly tired, irrelevant arguments and a few that are relevant but factually wrong. Gail Tverberg does a good job of critiquing this very sloppy piece. Chris Nelder at Smartplanet takes on the Bloomberg piece as well as a number of poorly argued responses to the Nature article.
But the latest counterattack actually began last fall with Daniel Yergin, the smooth-talking and smooth-writing oil optimist that peak oil activists love to hate. Yergin felt compelled to push back in The Wall Street Journal at peak oil ideas in the course of promoting his new book. Thanks, Mr. Yergin, for bringing up the subject.
Many readers will no doubt be acquainted with the saying: "There is no such thing as bad publicity." This corresponds perfectly with Gandhi's phase three of a struggle. The opposition is now forced by obvious circumstances--i.e., no increase in oil supplies despite years of record prices--to explain away something that peak oil theory explains perfectly.
It may be disheartening to see so much disinformation in the media spewed by people who ought to know better. But it is ever so delicious to contemplate the desperation hiding behind their fretful posturing and incantation. I can almost hear them say, "It can't be so, it can't be so...it simply mustn't!" They seem to believe that if they say "Bakken, Brazil, offshore, tar sands, technology" enough times in a row, it will make $100-a-barrel oil go away. But that incantation will not make the data go away, and so we must keep pointing out that the trend remains flat despite all of those things.
Perhaps the surest sign that the peak oil message is now in fighting form is that the former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, agreed to a debate last week with one of the foremost scientific voices in the peak oil camp. It may be that Hofmeister is just a good, fair-minded citizen who thinks the issue should be aired. But the fact that he chose to give his imprimatur to the notion that peak oil needs to be debated speaks volumes.
Rock-star investors such as T. Boone Pickens and Richard Rainwater have long since put their imprimatur on peak oil. Major banks such as Australia's Macquarie Bank and Germany's Deutsche Bank (PDF) are also embracing the near-term peak thesis. And, embarrassing government leaks like this recent one in Australia and this one from the British government last year demonstrate that behind the scenes government planners and politicians are gravely concerned.
Does that mean that peak oil activists have reached their goal of informing the public and policymakers about the risks and opportunities posed by peak oil? Of course not. This is where the hard work begins because the debate has now been elevated to the national and international stage. And, that means we can look forward to a continuous clash that is increasingly in the public eye.
Now is also the opportune time for a well-financed, coordinated communications strategy (which I proposed here in 2008) that can take advantage of a new media environment more open to the idea of resource constraints.
Far from being discouraged by the rash of peak oil denunciations in the media lately, I am invigorated by it. Remember: we're now on offense; they're on defense. The opposition has to explain why oil production has been flat since 2005 despite high prices. And, the twisted logic and demonstrably false assertions they offer will provide ever better opportunities to trump them again and again.
I have always maintained that when you are in a public dogfight in the media, if you are explaining, you are losing. The peak oil movement now needs to focus on planting doubt about the official cornucopian story. And, the best way to do that is continuously to poke holes in the arguments of the optimists, arguments that can be shown to be ridiculous by combining simple logic with the data that is publicly available.
8 comments:
- Mary Logan said...
You make good points, Kurt. I enjoyed going back and reading your 2009 article at The Oil Drum on establishing consensus, and your Four Principles for PR.
Diffusion of change often follows a bell curve of some sort, typically, often with some sort of tipping point thrown in. In this case, however, we're talking about global change in world views, with physical energetic limits coming into play to a world in overshoot. We are at the precipice, and an oil shock would be all it takes to get the herd of slower adopters moving.
Allowing the deniers to frame the problem and the questions is part of the problem. Since we are at the tipping point, it is time to start from assumptions of the need for economic contraction. Start the conversations by making explicit the assumption that diminishing resources for a still-growing system mandates a completely different way of living. A simple cartoon like the one below can make the point very quickly and succinctly.
As you said, keep it short. But I would add, don't take it to the media. Make them come to you. At this point, the media will be late adopters, way behind the eight ball. Let 'em catch up. There is enough science out there that we can get on with adaptation, and they need to just come around to it when they see fit. IMO, the reason that the peak oil community falls into the trap of arguing peak oil endlessly with people like Yergin is that the peak oil folks haven't quite dealt with their own grieving.
We have framed the problem space, and we need to work on solutions. It is way past time to move on, for both camps--actually it is 4 decades past time. We don't need to go back and keep reframing the problem space on someone else's argument?
- Robin Datta said...
There may have been the need to debate the geocentrists so as to promote the heliocentric view; even today there are remote tribes that think that the sun goes around the earth, and that mode of thinking has even left its mark on language: we say the sun "rises" or "sets".
However, the crocodile of reality will chomp down soon enough on those in de Nile. Perhaps raising the alarm may enable a few to escape, and that may be sufficient motivation to shout oneself hoarse. Other than such altruism, there is no need for a debate.
- Rita Strakosha said...
I have opened a site on peak oil and the approach I use is to teach people how to live without oil, energy, consumer goods. That is, how to be self-sufficient in a post-oil world. So, even those who do not believe in peak oil can begin to adapt to the new reality. It is difficult to find detailed information on life without oil and in one place. Most people do not know what they need to do.
- Mary Logan said...
@Rita, Wendell Berry said:
"It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey."
"We are going to have to gather up the fragments of knowledge and responsibilities that have been turned over to governments, corporations, and specialists, and put those fragments back together again in our own minds and in our families and household and neighborhoods."
The reunification has to happen in our own minds first, cognitively, but more importantly, emotionally? We are so removed from being People of Nature . . . .
- Kim Gyr said...
I wonder whether the surest signs that Peak Oil is about to hit are the huge increase in the anti-democratic moves that the Republican Party has been associated with, from voting ID requirements and calling the President's nationality into question to being close to those who have literally stolen vast sums both from European countries (Iceland, Greece, Portugal, etc.) and from the American people (the Savings and Loan Scandal, Property Bubble, Crash of 2008/Derivatives, etc.), to say nothing of the wars in Iraq, and now potentially Iran!
There have always been crooks in American finance and politics, but it seems that the pace of thievery has recently greatly accelerated. Why, if not for the fact that CEOs have far greater knowledge of the future of petroleum than we do?
Peak Oil has been described in Europe at least for the past 30 years, because that is where I first learned about it. Please view my projects for an eternity without petroleum and coal at www.greenmillennium.eu
If the components of our genes can be described as having survived all the generations since the beginning of life on this planet until now, had we not better protect them, in the form of children to be born in the Years 12,012 and 1,002,012 by building the world's first 100% sustainable global infrastructure illustrated on my website?
Thank you for all that you are doing!
Mr. Kim Gyr
Director, Green Millennium
- Kim Gyr said...
I am a simple product designer, and history shows that you can also make people change in an instant by making something attractive, even if is smaller, for the same money - view our movement to notebook computers and tablets, cell phones and hybrid cars.
So, all that I have tried to do with my Linear Cities is to demonstrate how much healthier people will be, how much better the food will be, and how quickly we must build them if we want our kids to survive!
- Dr. Morbius said...
Unfortunately the part that goes "then you win"...win what?
I think Kim is right. When Republicans try to pass laws which make sure that only registered voters can vote, they demonstrate clearly that the peak oil debate is almost over.
Although Yergin himself is not a Republican, and Leonardo Maugeri is not even a US citizen, it is clear that political motives are driving the denial machine.


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Why did the FTC help Trader Joe's break into Maine?
After the FTC seized property from Whole Foods and offered it to Trader Joe's at below-market price, the popular grocer finally entered the Portland, ME, market. Why does Trader Joe's need the FTC's help breaking into that market?
Trader Joe's Gets FTC Discount
Portland, Maine, is getting a new Trader Joe's — courtesy of the Federal Trade Commission. For some reason, Trader Joe's didn't see a reason to enter the Portland market until the FTC offered to seize some property from rival grocer Whole Foods and sell it to Trader Joe's at below-market price. The locals appear ecstatic; the FTC has already received over 340 comments from Portlanders praising federal intervention in their local grocery market.
The basis for all this is the FTC's 2007 lawsuit claiming Whole Foods's acquisition of Wild Oats Markets violated federal antitrust statutes. After a split court of appeals' panel voted to retroactively enjoin the completed merger — and after the FTC announced there would be another rigged "trial" presided over by one of its own members —Whole Foods signed a "settlement" requiring the sale of 32 stores to government-approved buyers. Among the stores to be "divested" was the now-closed Wild Oats store in Portland.
The FTC staff ordered Whole Foods to retain The Food Partners, LLC, a Washington-based "investment banking firm" to conduct the sales. Last month Matthew S. Morris, the divestiture trustee for The Food Partners, filed a petition with the FTC seeking approval for the sale of the closed Portland store and related assets to Trader Joe's East, Inc., which operates 338 stores throughout the U.S. but none in Maine. The FTC refused to disclose the terms of the deal to the public.
In his petition, Morris states that opening a new Trader Joe's at the former Wild Oats site "would increase competition in the marketplace" and that "as there are a limited number of grocery stores in this trade area, Trader Joe's will offer more choice and be one of the only grocery stores to offer quality foods at a good value." Morris cites no research or evidence in support of these claims, which sound more like something you'd read in a Trader Joe's press release than an official government filing. (Furthermore, unless you have a "Star Trek"-style replicator, there are a "limited number of grocery stores" in every trade area.)
There's little substance to the petition beyond citing Trader Joe's ability to operate a store in Portland. Morris notes that Consumer Reports ranked Trader Joe's "the second-best supermarket chain in the nation" and that "Trader Joe's philosophy is to bring its customers the best food and beverage values and the information to make informed buying decisions with the more than 3,000 unique grocery items." (Boy, it sure sounds like Morris might want additional future business from Trader Joe's; his firm previously advised the company's acquisition of select stores from Albertson's.) Morris also tells the FTC that Trader Joe's can finance the Portland acquisition completely through existing capital and cash reserves; after all, Trader Joe's had more than $6 billion in sales in 2008.
All this begs the question: Why does Trader Joe's need the FTC's help breaking into the Portland market? The FTC has spent three years micromanaging the aftermath of the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger; it awarded Matthew Morris and his partners a lucrative, no-bid government contract to profit from the forced sale of 32 stores; and now it's helping a large, well-established company break into a market that it could've entered at anytime. Something smells fishy — and it's not the tuna steaks on sale for $8.99.
First there's the FTC's bait-and-switch position regarding Trader Joe's. When the Commission needed to establish antitrust liability against Whole Foods, Trader Joe's was considered insufficient competition for Whole Foods. The FTC's chief economic expert during the court proceedings, University of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy, hemmed and hawed about whether Trader Joe's constituted part of the FTC-defined market for "premium natural and organic supermarkets." The FTC's entire antitrust case rested on the notion that Whole Foods and Wild Oats were part of this distinct market that excluded all other supermarkets and grocers.
Dr. Murphy's expert report (which cost $85,000) told the district court that "Trader Joe's competes with Wild Oats and Whole Foods but to a significantly smaller degree … Trader Joe's does not offer a competitive constraint on the vast majority of Wild Oats and Whole Foods products." Murphy noted that unlike Whole Foods, Trader Joe's "uses a small-store format" and did not emulate Whole Foods's "upscale, lifestyle, high service." Accordingly, Murphy did not include Trader Joe's in the market for "premium natural and organic supermarkets." But now that Whole Foods has surrendered, the FTC suddenly has no problem acknowledging Trader Joe's as an acceptable substitute for the closed Portland Wild Oats store.
(For his part, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey said he always considered Trader Joe's, not Wild Oats, as his company's primary competitor: "Trader Joe's is very aggressive with their pricing and this company more than any other acts as a market constraint on our pricing.")
Next there's the matter of the competition "lost" by the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger. The FTC's public case did not go into detail about individual geographical markets. A cursory examination of the Portland market actually shows the market has been in flux for several years. Wild Oats and Whole Foods were not longtime competitors in Portland — in fact, they operated competing stores for about a year.
Wild Oats opened its Portland store in 2003 after nearly two years of delays due to financing issues. The store also faced some public backlash for locating right next to an existing, independent natural foods store, The Whole Grocer. In 2006, The Whole Grocer's owner sold the store to Whole Foods, which had already announced plans to enter the Portland market. Whole Foods closed The Whole Grocer, opened its own store, and acquired Wild Oats the following year.
So if we're treating competition as a zero-sum game, was it "lost" when Whole Foods acquired Wild Oats, when Whole Foods bought out The Whole Grocer, or maybe when Wild Oats decided to compete directly against The Whole Grocer? Remember, the stated goal of antitrust is to "restore" competition that might be lost. Combined with this notion that "premium organic and natural supermarkets" are a distinct market, and what the FTC is really saying is we need to restore the competitive conditions that existed between 2006 and 2007: two national chains that sell natural and organic products. Prior to 2006, you had a national chain competing against an independent, local store, which does not satisfy the FTC's market definition.
All that said, what about the fact that the FTC has received public comments overwhelmingly supporting a Trader Joe's in Portland? Sure, it's a great propaganda tool for the FTC, but it's meaningless. Public comment doesn't influence FTC decision-making; statute doesn't even require the agency seek or review comments in these cases. What matters in FTC actions are the opinions of government antitrust lawyers and their paid experts (like Dr. Murphy).
But the public support for Trader Joe's does underscore the notion that this is a dynamic marketplace that other stores, including Trader Joe's, could enter at anytime. FTC intervention doesn't make the market function any better; it merely adds another layer of political graft to the system.
We don't know the terms of the Whole Foods "divestiture" to Trader Joe's — the FTC keeps all that information from the public — but it's a fair assumption that Trader Joe's was the only bidder in Portland, and the company is likely paying less-than-market value for the Whole Foods assets. In effect, the FTC's actions are a subsidy to Trader Joe's to enter the Portland market; it may even be the case that Trader Joe's would have opened a Portland store even sooner, but it waited to see if it could get an "FTC discount" for the former Wild Oats store. In any event, there's no reason to think Trader Joe's would not have come to Portland but for the FTC's intervention.
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