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It was undeniably the place to be in Portland this past weekend.
and thanks to the press releases (who doesn't read press releases about their local farmers markets?), I knew it was going to be bigger & better than ever – doubling in size in the PSU Park Blocks.
I was literally sitting at my desk this morning, daydreaming about the vegetables I have at home.
For such an early start to the season, I was constantly thrilled, booth by booth, to see such variety! I've grown accustomed to walking home from the first market of the season with a bundle of raab or rapini or two, and I did, with a bunch more. I started my farmar adventure with a patiently delivered, cup of single origin Burundi Stumptown from Cafe Velo, nibbled on a trail mix bar from BlackSheep Bakery, explored the new routes, marked purchases for round #2, and ran into happy friends.
- The variety!
- The hipster mustaches! more than ever! with babies! (I know! It's Portland, but there were more than usual)!
- Room to move!
- Gooey (Daiya?) vegan cheese on deep dish slices at the new Via Chicago Pizza stand!
- The line for coffee at Cafe Velo is not as scary as it looks!
- Local Yukons (especially miniature! make me never want to buy another russel potato again).
- Multi-recycling & composting efforts!
- Petunia's Pastries stand!
The Photos:
The market is enormous!
There is room for 3 different music spots! Maybe more? At least 2 were official. Sadly, I don't have a photo of the cool country western singers (with mustaches).
The crowd thickens…
Broccoli raab sighting #1, check
Even more glorious raabs!
Bought my garlic here…
There are two food strips now – in the middle and the farmost SW corner.
Some vegan highlights –
I've never ordered from here, but it's nice to know it's an option.
Via Chicago
If I hadn't opted for coffee, hot peppermint tea would have been calling.
Preppin' the mushroom samples
support the fraggles
My haul: Cremini mushrooms, Yukon Gold potatoes, brussel sprout raab, broccoli raab, mustard greens, asparagus, miner's lettuce, red Chesnok garlic
My only reason to get up at 9am on a Saturday that is truly worth it. I contemplated signing up for a CSA again this year, but the farmar is truly too much fun to resist.
And the first actual dish from my haul, besides nibbling on miner's lettuce and tossing a piece to my cat:
Shells Con Broccoli Raab, modified from The Urban Vegan (with miso!)
Made with orrechiete and broccoli in the book; whole wheat shells and broccoli raab in my kitchen. Small dish of nooch for sprinklin'. Local greens and garlic.


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Onsite Renewable Energy Generation
On-site renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, is a way to supply some of the power for your facility while reducing its reliance on fossil fuels and minimizing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Many major companies, educational institutions, and governmental facilities now use some type of on-site renewable energy to provide power to their facilities.
For more detailed information about installing solar at your facility, consult "Solar Electric Energy for Your Stadium or Arena: A Guide to Understanding the Opportunities of On-Site Photovoltaic Solar Power Generation," which provides an overview of the installation process, solar system ideas, cost estimates, and federal and state incentive information.
Visit the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency for a list of available incentives and rebates in your state.
On-site renewables can be cost-effective
On-site renewables, such as wind and solar power, are most likely to keep cost of your electricity stable, improve the fuel diversity of your system, promote your facility's energy independence, and generate positive publicity by visibly demonstrating a civic commitment to reduce fossil fuel use. They also offer the potential to feed excess energy that is generated on-site back into the grid (called "net-metering," which can turn your meter backwards), a potential source of income. In addition, there are incentives available that can reduce the initial capital cost.
On-site solar generation at corporate and sports facilities:
NASCAR's Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, PA installed a 25-acre solar farm with a 3-MW system, providing electricity for the entire raceway facility and 1000 homes nearby — between 3 to 4 million kWh per year. The track's annual energy bill has been cut by $500,000. This installation, operating since August 2010, is currently the largest solar installation at a major US sports venue and the first that powers a major sports facility entirely by on-site renewable energy.
STAPLES Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Kings, and Sparks installed a 1,727 solar panel array in 2008, covering 25,000 square feet of the arena's roof. The 345.6-kilowatt system supplies 2.5% of the building's energy use (depending on energy load), producing 525,000 kWh and saving $55,000 each year.
AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, installed 590 solar panels in three different parts of the facility in 2007. These panels produce up to 122 kilowatts of renewable energy for Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers in San Francisco, the equivalent of about 40 home solar roof systems. As the first Major League Baseball stadium to feature solar power, this installation not only generates renewable energy, but has also provided a very visible showcase in the community of the importance of clean energy and energy conservation.
With the assistance of NRDC, the Philadelphia Eagles launched their "Go Green" program in 2003, making the organization one of the first in professional sports to initiate a comprehensive program focused on reducing its environmental impact. In 2010, they made an unprecedented announcement that Lincoln Financial Field will be the first professional facility in the U.S. capable of generating 100 percent of its own electricity onsite with the installation of about 2,500 solar panels, 80 20-foot-high wind turbines, and a generator that runs on natural gas and biodiesel. The Eagles offset 100 percent of their current energy use through the purchase of 14 million kWh in wind energy credits annually from NativeEnergy, and through an on-site solar energy system at their NovaCare Complex training facility that generates 16,000 kWh per year.
Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, installed a solar energy system with 46 solar panels in 2007. The 9.8-kilowatt system can provide more than 14,000 kWh of energy, which could sufficiently offset the energy consumption of their LED scoreboard for more than a year, saving $12,000 a year on electric bills.
In June 2007, the Cleveland Indians installed a 42-panel solar electric system that generates enough power to run all 400 televisions throughout Progressive Field with 8.4 kilowatts of clean renewable energy (approximately 10,000 kWh/year). In 2011 the Indians partnered with the Cleveland State University's Fenn College of Engineering to install a pioneering "helical wind turbine" design on the corner of the stadium in the hope that it will teach fans about the potential of renewable energy. The Indians' turbine will be only 15 feet tall and is anticipated to generate a minimum of 40,000 kWh per year, enough energy to power four average American households for an entire year. The Indians will build the turbine at no cost to the Club thanks to grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the State of Ohio.
FedEx Corporation constructed a solar array on the rooftops of two buildings at its facility at Oakland International Airport in 2005. The 904-kilowatt array provides approximately 80% of FedEx's peak load demand and in so doing, reduces FedEx's energy bills and the risks associated with unstable or rising fossil fuel prices. In 2009, FedEx installed a solar system atop its distribution hub in Woodbridge, NJ – the largest US rooftop solar system at the time. The 2.42-MW solar power system produces approximately 2.6 million kWh of electricity a year, providing up to 30 percent of the hub's annual energy needs.
As of September 2009, Kohl's has 78 solar power systems activated in California, Oregon, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Maryland and Connecticut with another ten installations in various stages of construction. As the largest single host of solar electricity production in North America, their solar constructions will generate 25 megawatts of electricity in California alone when complete. This is greater than the electricity generation of the five largest photovoltaic systems in the U.S. combined and is equivalent to the electricity used by 3,087 California homes. It will avoid more than 28 million pounds of carbon dioxide in the first year. An average system on a California store will have 2,340 solar panels that will nearly cover the roof of the typical 88,000-square-foot building, and all solar systems will provide about 40% of each store's power. Kohl's largest system is their Distribution Center in San Bernardino, a 1MW system with 6,208 panels that generates enough to supply 400 homes for a year.
For more examples of onsite solar generation, visit the following website:
On-site Renewables at EPA Offices
Environmental Benefits
Fossil fuel energy generation – for electricity, transportation, and industrial uses – is the principal cause of air pollution and global warming. By generating electricity from on-site solar, your organization can reduce its demand for fossil fuel energy and also reduce its contributions to smog, acid rain, pollution-related illness, and global warming.
Additional Resources
EPA Green Power Purchasing Guide
Green Power Locator
Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency

subset: commoncrawl


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See Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor & Cross Your Fingers That She's Making a Comeback
Lifetime decided to give us a taste of the network's upcoming Elizabeth Taylor biopic, Liz & Dick, which stars tabloid whipping post, Lindsay Lohan. Grant Bowler will play Richard Burton to LiLo's LizT. The black-and-white teaser pic features both actors in an unfortunate neck-kissing pose, which seems less like a tender caress and more like […]Read more


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Nicotine Replacement Therapy Modestly Boosts Long-term Success Rates for Smokers
First the bad news: life-long smokers die, on average, 10 years younger than people who have never smoked. Now some good news: kicking the tobacco habit at age 40, 50, or 60 can reclaim 9, 6, and 3 of those years, respectively. The effort is worth it, at any age and for any smoker.
Some more good news: there are many tools to help smokers quit. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) provides some of the nicotine that smokers crave, but not the harmful substances found in cigarettes, thereby easing the withdrawal symptoms that make quitting so difficult. NRT is available as a patch, gum, lozenge, and prescription inhaler or nasal spray.
The use of NRT has been touted to more than double a quitter's success rate compared with smokers who go "cold turkey." This figure is based on the first generation of NRT studies, which monitored volunteers up to 12 months after quitting. It is now established that relapse back to smoking continues well beyond 12 months, making the true long-term benefits of NRT unclear. To clarify this issue, researchers analyzed 12 NRT trials that lasted beyond 12 months. Their findings, in the August 2006 Tobacco Control , revealed that NRT does provide a significant, albeit modest, boost to quit rates. But since relapse was most common during the first two years after quitting, studies that ended at 12 months overestimated the long-term benefit of NRT by 30%.
About the Study
Researchers from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Switzerland identified all randomized placebo-controlled trials of NRT that lasted longer than 12 months. Twelve studies with an average follow-up of 4.3 years and a total of 4,792 participants (NRT: 2,408; placebo: 2,384) met the criteria for this meta-analysis. Three types of NRT were studied: patch (5 trials), gum (4), and nasal spray (3); each delivered about 1 mg of nicotine per hour. Participants used NRT for about three months and received counseling; the control groups only received counseling. The researchers, therefore, were able estimate the long-term effectiveness of NRT beyond the effect of counseling.
In both the treatment and placebo groups, 30% of volunteers relapsed after the 12-month point. NRT showed significant benefits in six of the 12 trials, and no benefit in the other six. But when all the data were combined and analyzed, NRT almost doubled the rate of successfully quitting beyond 12 months. However, since the rate of success was quite low, even a doubling of this rate meant success for only about 7% of the 2,408 participants receiving NRT in this meta-analysis.
Since this study is a meta-analysis, it is limited by any flaws in any of its constituent studies. For example, some trials relied on patient report of their smoking status, which could be unreliable.
How Does This Affect You?
A success rate of just 7%, even with the help of NRT, may cause you to question if the effort is worthwhile. Well, don't; it is worthwhile. The issue is not whether or not you should quit smoking. The issue is the overall effectiveness of the prevailing approach to treatment. The trials in this meta-analysis involved a brief (3-month) one-time intervention of NRT. While NRT is helpful, a short, single intervention is apparently not enough for most smokers to overcome a long-term addiction to nicotine. In fact, most ex-smokers made 8-10 attempts before quitting for good.
The authors of this study encourage smokers and healthcare providers to treat nicotine addiction as a chronic condition that requires repeated quit attempts and ongoing follow-up and encouragement over many years. Don't give up. You are up against a formidable foe that may require more than a trial or two of NRT. Fortunately, you have other options. Studies have shown that cognitive behavioral therapy and drug treatment with bupropion or varenicline can also help you ultimately succeed.
American Lung Association
Centers for Disease Control and Preventio
Etter J-F, Stapleton JA. Nicotine replacement therapy for long-term smoking cessation: a meta-analysis. Tobacco Control . 2006;15:280-285.
Smoking cessation [patient page]. JAMA . 2006;296:130.
Last reviewed March 2007 by ]]>Richard Glickman-Simon, MD]]>
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © 2007 EBSCO Publishing All rights reserved.


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Great Advice for Holiday Wines
Judging by all the festivities I see happening around me, I reckon we are smack bang in the middle of the holiday season. Perhaps you are looking for a special wine to offer as a gift? Or, a simple easy-drinking wine to drink at a holiday party? To help navigate the myriad of wines on offer I've put together a tidy selection of wines that I tried over the past year, and found particularly tasty.
As those of you who read my column regularly might imagine, I taste a lot of different wines each week. While some can be disappointing, so many more than I have the capacity to write about on a weekly basis, are downright delicious. So, in preparing this post I read back through all my tasting notebooks from the year to pull out the gems that never made it into one of my weekly posts.
To make it easy to navigate I've divided my wine selections into
a. party wines and
b. special wines to offer as a gift
Holiday Party Wines
A few quick tips for choosing holiday party wines.
1. Remember it is all about the party, not about the wine (unless it is a gathering of like-minded wine geeks).
2. A festive holiday party is generally not the occasion to bring out the obscure attention demanding wine - keep it simple.
3. Don't obsess about having 'the' perfect wine - wines are much more versatile that many would lead us believe.
4. And as usual keep within budget.
White Wines
• 2010 Pfaffl "pepper" Grüner Veltliner, Lower Austria, Austria, $14 - Crisp, lively, unoaked. Lots of bright citrus and stone fruit with the quintessential nuances of cracked white pepper.
• 2007 Mathern Niederjauser Rosenberg Dry Riesling, Nahe, Germany $16 - Expressive on the nose. Crisp, juicy and refreshing with a lot of flavor intensity. Exotic citrus, apricot, guava and hints of honey. Medium bodied, well balanced with lovely earthy minerality.
• 2010 Kim Crawford, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand, $15 - I was so pleasantly delighted when I tasted this wine. So many Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs have become so monotone and one dimensional. This is a delightful wine. Not terribly complex, but tasty, refreshing, flavorful and well defined. Zippy, citrus, tropical and stone fruit with grassy and spicy notes.
• 2010 Martín Codax Albariño, Rías Baixas, Spain, $14 - A nice alternative to Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio and so dependable. Lively nose. Juicy, crisp with ample favors of ripe stone fruit, grapefruit and a lovely floral note. Nice minerality on the palate.
• 2010 Wild Horse Viognier, Central Coast, California $17 - Nice expressive nose - guava, lychee, apricot with hints of spice, vanilla and white flowers. Smooth, rich texture with ample bright flavors. Quite broad, juicy and easy drinking Spicy kick on the finish.
Red Wines
• 2009 Chateau d'Oupia, Minervois, France, $11 - Deeply colored with attractive aromas of ripe black fruit. Fairly full-bodied and expressive flavors on the palate - blackberry, raspberry, black plum with notes of clove, spice and pepper. Nice grip to the tannins.
• 2009 Rioja Vega, Rioja Spain, $11 - One of only four wineries allowed to use the Rioja designation in their brand name because the winery was established back in 1882, before the region was demarcated. Soft, easy drinking wine. Jam-packed with juicy ripe fruit. Smooth texture, soft ripe tannins and plenty of flavor. A great party choice.
• 2009 Bila-Haut Côtes du Roussillon Villages, France $16 - From the Charpoutier house, this wine is a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan. Deeply colored. Nice expressive nose of black cherry, wild forest fruits, spice and clove. Fairly fleshy texture, robust with supple tannins. Lots of tasty flavor and nice spicy finish.
• 2007 Raymond Merlot, Napa Valley, Reserve Selection, California - $17 - A sure crowd pleaser with plenty of personality. Plummy, tobacco, creamy vanilla aromas. Smooth with velour like tannins that caress the palate. Ample bright fruit. Nice complexity and fairly long finish.
• 2008 Hogue Cellars Merlot , Columbia Valley, Washington - $11 - Washington has earned quite a good reputation for Merlot and this one does not let the side down. Fresh and fruit driven with aromas and flavors of ripe plums, cherry jam, blackberry, baking spices, hints of toffee and vanilla. Smooth, supple tannins.
Holiday Gift Wines
Admittedly, some of the wines on my party selection list would also make for nice gifts. When choosing a wine to offer as a special gift I usually try to make a connection between the wine and the person on the receiving end. It is all too easy to buy solely on price. Too often when buying a gift we focus on the price, as the only measure of how much it will be appreciated. When I am choosing a wine to gift I try to think about the receiver's personality, interests, culture, heritage and so forth. For example, if I know that the person has Greek heritage I might try to find an interesting Greek wine.
In my opinion, searching out the obscure, less well known wine is a good strategy when choosing a wine to gift. It often enables you to get a better wine for less money. And, it shows that you've thought about it, rather than picking the well-known brand that is highly merchandized in the store.
I am not against well-known, famous wines for gifting. In fact if money is no object, many of the best have great cellaring potential and can be enjoyed 5-10+ years from now. Additionally, you may be buying for someone who prefers classic wines such as Bordeaux, Burgundy or even a Napa Cabernet. So with that here are a few worth considering.
White Wines
• 2007 Louis Jadot Meursault, Burgundy, France, $47 - A dependable lovely wine from a well-established reputable négociant. Focused nose, fresh hazelnut, melon and orchard fruit, considerable minerality, toffee and subtle spice. Broad flavored, creamy mouth feel. The lively acidity and minerality provide plenty of steely backbone. Good depth of flavor and long length. Minerality shines on the finish.
• 2007 Schloss Reinhartshausen, Erbach Schlossberg (Monopole) Riesling Rheingau - Erstes Gëwachs , $50 - From the legendary 15-acre Schlossberg vineyard, which is a monopole (owned in its entirety by Schloss Reinhartshausen). Expressive, fragrant nose. Very focused with huge minerality. Concentrated fruit and great intensity and depth of flavor on the palate. Layer after layer unfold. Complex, dense and taut texture. Racy acidity adds a steely backbone. Impressive, elegant with great length.
• 2009 Domaine du Bagnol, Cassis, France $30 - For someone who loves to try something different. Cassis is one of the prettiest villages along the French Mediterranean Coast. This is a blend of Marsanne, Clairette and Ugni Blanc. What I particularly love about this wine is its savoriness, minerality and incredible sense of place. You can almost taste the sea air. Fairly full-bodied and complex with layers of flavor - garrigue, spice, citrus peel, apricot pith. Fleshy texture and very long finish.
• 2004 Trimbach Cuvée Fréderic Emile Riesling, Alsace, $65 - I had been saving my only remaining bottle of this wine, which we recently opened to share with special friend visiting from out of town. The sheer deliciousness of the wine far outweighed the feeling that my last bottle was gone. After all wine is for sharing! Poise, focus, definition and complexity were the first words to come to mind when tasting this wine. Multi-dimensional and showing some wonderful flinty, fusel developed notes.
• 2008 Lynch Bages, Blanc de Lynch Bages, Bordeaux, $70 - From one of Paulliac's best red wine producers comes this truly lovely white. White Bordeaux accounts for such a tiny proportion of all Bordeaux wine produced. It is a style that I am particularly fond of. This is a blend of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc and it is barrel fermented. Laden with laden with flavor, dimension and complexity. Lovely balance of vibrant fruit, well-integrated oak and strong minerality throughout.
• 2009 Cobb Chardonnay, Joy Road Vineyard, Sonoma Coast , $70 - Cobb is probably more well known for their splendid Pinot Noir wines - so this is something a little more unusual to offer someone who has a particular penchant for elegant California Chardonnay. Focused and well structured. Layer upon layer of ripe flavors open up, both in the glass and on the palate with every sip. Great breadth and depth of flavor - orchard fruit, citrus, lemon curd, caramel, Asian spice and a delicious earthiness.
Red Wines
• 2009 Georges Verney, Sainte Agathe Côtes du Rhone, $35 - Probably one of the best examples of Côtes du Rhone you can find. 100% Syrah from Northern Rhone vineyards (Condrieu area). I was reading about Georges Vernay in Gerald Asher's new book "A Carafe of Red' and made a mental note to seek out this wine. Imagine my surprise when two days later, at a friends for dinner, she produced same-said bottle, which she had bought when she was in the Rhône area this summer. Every drop was as delicious as I expected it to be.
• 2005 Arnaldo Caprai, Sagrantino di Montefalco, Umbria, Italy, $56 - A powerful, tannic, full bodied wine with great ageing potential. Made from the Sagrantino grape, it is deeply colored and has an incredibly dense nose of ripe black fruit, dried wild cherry, wild herbs, spice, tar, smoke and clove. Fleshy, rich and demanding of attention on the palate. Striking mineralality adds another dimension to the wine. This is a wine that I would always decant a few hours before serving to allow the many layers of flavor open up.
• 2007 Numanthia, Toro, Spain, $60 - In the fall I had the pleasure of meeting Numanthia winemaker when he was in New York City, and taste through the Numanthia wines. It was many years since I had tasted them, and I admit I was fairly bowled over. The over-arching thought that struck me was how the wines combine great power with elegance and finesse. As well as the eponymous Numanthia, the winery makes two other wines, the delicious Termes ($30) and if money is no object, the iconic and powerful Termanthia ($200). The 07 Numanthia is made from very old vines - Tempranillo (called Tinto del Toro in Toro) It is deeply colored, dense, layered, contemplative, with enormous concentration of fruit and flavor Robust and full-bodied, yet refined and complex. Wonderful savory minerality prevails. Lot of complexity. A special gift. Could drink now but best if cellared 5+ years.
• 2007 Silver Oak, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, $100 - Expensive and one of the well-known cult Napa Cabs. That said, I was extremely impressed by the this wine. Still very young and best cellared for a few years, it is very concentrated and full-bodied. While powerful, it is not really a blockbuster, showing welcome restraint as well. Complex with many layers of deep, dark fruit- cassis, blackberry, plum, Asian spice, anise and vanilla. Definitely a keeper.
• 2004 Muga Rioja, Selection Especial, Rioja, Spain $36 - Mainly Tempranillo with Garnacha and small amounts of Graciano and Mazuela in the blend. A reserva wine that is aged in oak cask for 28 months before release. Deeply layered nose of ripe berry fruit, earth, leather, clove, licorice, hints of vanilla and smoke. A big, full-bodied wine with suede like, supple tannins that frame the wine really well. Expressive flavors that slowly unfurl with time in the glass. Lovely, savory finish.
• 2008 Buty Columbia Rediviva Phinny Hill Vineyard Estate Grown, Horse Heaven Hills, Washington, $48 - Small production, not much more than 35 barrels of this wine are made. This is a Cabernet dominant wine with Syrah as the blending partner. Full-bodied, firm structured, powerful wine with tons of flavor and fruit. The Syrah nicely fleshes out the more angular Cabernet. Ripe, supple tannins frame, adding grip and form to the wine. Rich, seductive texture. Layers of vibrant ripe fruit - black plum, blackberry, cassis, sweet spice, pepper, vanilla and a lovely savoriness that contrasts the sweet fruit.
This is a small cross-section of the wines that I was fortunate enough to taste and enjoy . Hope it is helpful.
Until next week, enjoy!
Mary Gorman-McAdams, MW (Master of Wine), is a New York based wine educator, freelance writer and consultant.
Related: Gift Guide for Wine-Lovers: Deeply Enjoyable Wine Books
(Images: Faith Durand; Mary Gorman-McAdams)


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"The pieds-noirs - the poor white European agricultural labourers from France, Spain, Sicily, Malta and Corsica who settled in Algeria - produced a melting-pot of migrant culture in urban Algeria, despite the straitjacket of colonialism. This was reflected in the popular music styles of the country. Algeria's own music ranged from the lyrical street poetry of kasbah chaabi songs to the classical purity of the nuba, a 24-hour song-cycle from the Arab-Andalusian tradition of the ninth century. But the pieds-noirs brought in music from Europe, too - French variété, Spanish flamenco, rumba and bolero. Towards the end of rthe second world war, American GIs stationed in the Maghred added the mambo and cha-cha-cha, jazz and boogie-woogie. This rich mix, known as Algerian music hall, was the place where Besame Mucho might explode into Maghrebi." - Sarah Adams, The Guardian
Salim Halali, Blond Blond, Line Monty, Youssef Hagége, Maurice el Mediono, Lili Labassi...
These stars of the Music Hall thrilled the audiences of Algeria's largest venues, like Algiers' Casino de la Corniche and Oran's Théâtre de Verdure during the 50's.
This unique taste of the Algerian "Music Hall" evokes a bygone time of cultural mix, with rumba, cha-cha-cha and French chanson blended with Arabic North African traditional music.
Mustafa - Cha Cha Oriental


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March 24th, 2018
I absolutely am in love with this purchase. It has been worn a few times already and has held up great after each wash with no fading, loss of shape or pealing. This graphic works best I think against the grey I chose. Love that this artist represents the beautiful diversity of our Puerto Rican culture. This image resonates with me being that I am Puerto Rican of mostly African descent. Thank you Ida Yvette Robles for representing all of us Boricuas!
Matt McCary
March 22nd, 2018
This item arrived stained and dingy. The t-shirt itself has a stain on it and the color is absolutely nothing like the photo. The product detail has my image on a white tank top; however, the tank top that arrived looks like it was washed with a bunch of brown clothes and has a dirty look to it, aside from the stain. I took a picture of a Gildan white t-shirt I own (thats been washed several times already) with the tank top I received to show how dingy the tank looks. I've opened a ticket regarding a refund or replacement on this item and still have yet to hear back from anyone. Yet again, not a good first impression for this company.
Another beautiful Iris from a local garden. These are one of my favourite subjects to photograph
I have been working in the broadcast industry for the last 19 years and have recently branched out into nature and wildlife photography. I am self taught in both videography and now photography. I remember growing up watching just about every nature documentary on television. Being out in nature to me is one of the best things any person can do. The chance to see and capture photographs of nature has been a highlight in my life. I have always had an affinity for nature in all forms. I find beauty in just about any aspect of the natural world we live in. The world is a master piece and wildlife makes up each aspect of that master piece. It was been a privilege to be able to get out and capture images of the various forms of life that...
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In a word or phrase, what does leadership mean to you? Helping people to achieve or accomplish one goal.
Why did you join the program? I joined the Jeter's Leaders program because I wanted to expand my horizons and help to improve my community by promoting social change.
What do you hope to gain from the program? I am a student-athlete and believe this program can enhance my leadership skills on and off the field.
What is or do you think will be your favorite part of the program? The college tours, because education is one of my strongest family values.


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When it comes to wild, weird and wonderful 4x4s, trucks and hot rods, there is no place like the annual SEMA show in Las Vegas to bring out the wackiest! SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) represents the leading aftermarket gear manufacturers from around the globe, and each November they take over Vegas for a massive exhibition to showcase their gear and vehicles.
SEMA is the place to see the wildest vehicles, the latest products and the who's who of the automotive aftermarket industry. It's also the place that Australian manufacturers hit the world stage with some of the hottest gear in town and are often accepted as leaders in their fields.
There's nowhere like Las Vegas for glitz and glamour, so we sent Cristian Brunelli to SEMA in 2015 to capture the bling in this gallery.


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You Just Stay Over There
JudyAnn Rector 8/7/2012 12:48:47 PMSO cute, Robin... beautiful image. #1479232
Lyn Darlington 8/14/2012 4:17:00 AMVery cute.... Wonderful capture and detail! #10275123
Terry Cervi 9/24/2012 1:13:47 PMLove that title! Great shot, Robin! Congrats on your finalist! #10336772
Lyn Darlington 9/24/2012 1:24:24 PMCongrats on your finalist! #10336857
JO ANN CLEVELAND 9/24/2012 1:42:30 PMCongrats on this adorable finalist Robin!
jo ann c. #10336970
Kathy Salerni 9/24/2012 5:16:43 PMBig congrats on your well deserved Finalist, Robin! I love this! #10338162
Merna L. Nobile 10/19/2012 10:20:25 AM
I heard the good news and could not be happier for you! CONGRATULATIONS, Merna
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The purpose of this group is to learn how to improve member's investment performance in both good and bad markets.
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Giving back to the technical community is very important to Rackspace so we've open sourced a lot of the technology behind Cloud Monitoring. In this series of blog posts, we'd like to introduce you to these different technologies and why you should care about them. Primarily we'll focus on the why, what and how you can use them.
For us (and many others), open source is an enabler to building new products (just like the cloud) and we're part of strong communities and other projects. However, when we get a chance to open source something, we jump at the opportunity to give back. And to be honest, we get back something in return. Peer review, feedback and general discussion around the technologies help us make them better.
We've invested a lot of time and effort in Node.js and it has enabled so much velocity in such a familiar paradigm. We have a ton of modules to share with the community. The first one we'd like to share is around testing and test automation. So to kick it off, our first piece of technology is the Whiskey test automation stack named after our team's favorite adult beverage.
When we first started working with Node.js there weren't many different test frameworks available. There was expresso and some other BDD frameworks and that was pretty much it. Since we didn't really follow the BDD practices we decided to go with expresso.
It worked fine for basic async and unit tests, but it didn't really offer any kind of test isolation and process orchestration which we were looking for. Those are just two of the reasons we decided to write our own test framework called Whiskey.
Test Isolation
In Whiskey test isolation is achieved by running each test file (a test file is a collection of tests) in a separate child process. This model is also more scalable compared to a classical model where all the tests run in the same process. Currently child (worker) processes communicate with a parent (reporter) process over a Unix socket, but in the future we could easily change this to TCP and distribute child (worker) processes over multiple servers.
Process Orchestration
In our product we have a lot of integration tests and services that tests depend on. Those services also have a lot of inner-dependencies, e.g. Zookeeper and Cassandra need to be started before the messenger service and so on. At first, when we only had a few services, we used a custom SCons target that started all the services before running the integration tests. Maintaining custom SCons targets soon became too cumbersome and simply starting all the services one by one in a sequential order was relatively slow. That's why we added support for process orchestration to Whiskey.
Process runner uses a simple JSON configuration file where you specify all the services and their dependencies. When you start Whiskey with –dependencies <config path> option, the config file is parsed and used to start services in the correct order. If it is possible, multiple independent services are also started in parallel, which speeds up the whole bootstrap process.
If you are interested in more details you can also read a post I wrote on my personal blog called Whiskey Node.js test runner now with more goodness – introducing process runner.
Test Coverage
One of the important features on our list was also a fully integrated code coverage framework. Expresso did offer basic code coverage support, but it only supported outputting the results to the console, which is not useful for larger files and projects. The code coverage module in Whiskey is similar to expresso using node-jscoverage for actually instrumenting the code, but it offers more flexibility and features, including:
● three different reporters – text, html and json
● support for hooking up the coverage for services started with the process runner
● support for aggregating code coverage reports
Aggregated code coverage reports are especially useful if you have multiple test suites in a single code base. In our case we have two types of tests – simple unit tests which don't rely on external services and more complex integration tests which rely on different services. We use the JSON reporter when we are generating code coverage reports. This way, Whiskey writes out a JSON file with the code coverage statistics before exiting. In our case we end up with multiple different JSON coverage report files: one for simple tests, one for integration tests and one for each node service that has been started by the process runner. The report files are aggregated with a –coverage-aggregate option and we end up with a nice looking HTML report.
Those are just a few of the cool features of Whiskey. Other features include:
● support for async tests
● support for tap output
● support for reporting variables which have leaked into the global scope
● support for generating Makefiles with common test targets
● simple integration with node debugger
● support for reporting tests timing
That's it for today. Don't forget to check the Whiskey github page and check back for a future post when Racker Gary will talk about the Node.js Cassandra CQL client we have open sourced.
As much as we love building these technologies, we'd love for people to use and break them. All of these projects are released under the Apache 2.0 license and available under the github.com/racker organization. Would you like to work on project like this? Check us out, we're hiring.


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Just exactly the sort of dreck real bloggers fear will clog up the Internet: Photos posted to the Little Pond blogs. Many more are in the blogs themselves. All can be downloaded at a higher resolution by clicking on the photo itself.
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MIT men's soccer got off to a good start against Roger Williams at home on Wednesday night with a goal by freshman Austin Freel (San Diego, Calif.) after a cross from senior Chris Hammond (Wilmington, Del.) 15 minutes into the first half. The Engineers went on to defeat the Hawks, 3-1, raising their record to 5-2 and lowering Roger Williams' to 5-2.
Just 10 minutes after the first goal, Trevor Hoxsie scored what would turn out to be the sole Hawks' goal. Thirty seconds later, sophomore John Kramer (Glastonbury, Conn.) netted the ball again, scoring his first goal of the season with the help of classmate Alex Dago (Chicago, Ill.) and Hammond. Keeper Tom Mangels had to make only one save and sophomore goalie Sam Cannon (Scarsdale, N.Y.) saved two before the end of the first period, leaving MIT ahead, 2-1.
The first 40 minutes of the second half passed with no change in the score, the ball switching possession every few seconds. After two blocked shots at goal, Dago was finally able to sink the ball into the net on his third attempt after a cross from senior Ben Lewis (West Hartford, Conn.) with less than two minutes remaining. The Hawks were unable to catch up with such little time left and MIT was ultimately victorious.
The Engineers will travel to Emmanuel College on Saturday, Sept. 22 for a game at 1:00, while Roger Williams will travel to Nichols earlier that day.


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|July 10, 2012, 12:18 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: September 15, 2004
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Posts: 680
make sure your basic skills are good before beginning to shoot in competition
Make sure that your basic safety & marksmanship & gun handling skills are reasonably well developed before you attempt to shoot IPSC/USPSA or IDPA type matches.
Safety is a major concern. Some people get way too nervous at their first few matches and forget about keeping their finger off the trigger unless on target and ready to fire, and keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction at all times. Another issue is courses that involve movement, or opening doors or windows. Be careful not to sweep yourself with the muzzle when opening doors.
Make sure your basic skills are strong before you try to shoot in a match OR forget about trying to be fast, and just focus on being safe, accurate and smooth.
One of the shooters in my pistol club is a young guy (just turned 21) who is athletic and coordinated and naturally "fast" HOWEVER he hasn't been shooting very long, and doesn't practice basics enough. When he come to a match, he's faster than h*** but he can't hit anything. For certain he jerks and bashes on the trigger, and I suspect that he sometimes forgets to look at the front sight. After watching him shoot the last match, I noticed that he also squeezes his whole hand while firing ("milking") rather that moving the trigger finger independently as a unit. I don't think he does that all the time, but only when he's trying to go really fast.
What he needs to do is a basic shooting course like MAG 20 (what used to be called "stressfire") or Gunsite 150. But he doesn't see it that way, and would instead rather try to find a competition oriented class to go to . . . which I think may not correct his problems.
You can only learn from experience if you pay attention!
|July 10, 2012, 10:08 AM
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Join Date: September 28, 2008
Posts: 10,447
If the competition class doesn't do it, then he'll probably think it's the gun.
And he's needs a new one, just like the guys who win have.
Walt Kelly, alias Pogo, sez:
"Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent."
|July 10, 2012, 01:16 PM
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Join Date: July 20, 2008
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 2,654
Handgun is a hard platform to learn how to shoot. For me accuracy and basic fundamentals come first. While i'm working on my speed i care about accuracy more.
I want a dedicated comp handgun because i'm not modifying my M&P 40 for comp as it's my nightstand gun. Though i can understand some could think it's the gun not the shooter..
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me."
|July 13, 2012, 02:46 AM
Join Date: May 7, 2012
Location: Miami, FL
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|July 13, 2012, 11:00 AM
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You may never shoot bullseye competition, but fundamentals are fundamentals and there is no better guide to give you the fundamentals.
The book is $6.95 from the CMP Bookstore, written by the best shooters in the world.
Kraig Stuart
CPT USAR Ret
USAMU Sniper School Oct '78
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|July 13, 2012, 12:26 PM
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Join Date: June 29, 2012
Location: Phoenix
Posts: 188
Any course that focuses on basic marksmanship skills cannot begin to get you where you need safety wise. The matches are a "free range" concept at times and you need to keep the gun pointed downrange, finger clear of the trigger, no matter which way you are going. That's one reason the RO follows you at all times. Getting practice moving with the unloaded pistol and changing mags on the move will help but it takes time to be fast and safe at it. There's just way too much to think about. Practice with a dry gun with a friend playing RO and move slowly until it becomes a natural act. Tell the RO that you are a new shooter too he can help you and may be a bit more forgiving.
|July 16, 2012, 12:49 AM
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Location: Edmond, OK
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What is the purpose of this thread? Too discourage new competitive shooters?
My Forum: www.BoomerShooter.com, My Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/jessetischauser
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|July 16, 2012, 06:32 AM
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Nope, we have introductory competitions to attend so you don't try to go fast to impress anyone and get into trouble on a complicated course of fire where you are moving up and down range and concentrating on finding all 20 targets that may be hidden from most points on the course. Nothing is worse for a new shooter than being DQ'd in your first match because you ran out of ammo on your belt and when you reached into your pocket to get your extra magazine used your strong hand with the pistol in it to hold your pants so you could get your hand out easier. Then there's always the need to quickly adjust your hearing protection with both hands with the hot gun in hand. The list goes on and on. Go slowly at first and don't show up not being somewhat familiar with the equipment.
|July 16, 2012, 10:12 AM
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Location: Edmond, OK
Posts: 209
Sorry the tone of your post sounds exactly like your saying, "hey new guy, don't show up and make me have to work and watch you as an RO".
I for one hope everyone comes out to shoot a match with us. I'd be happy to give them a run down on safety protocall prior to the match.
My Forum: www.BoomerShooter.com, My Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/jessetischauser
Accurate Iron 2011 | Accurate Iron Benelli M2 | Stag Arms Model 3G | Accurate Iron Glock 34 | Accurate Iron Glock 35 | Red Neck Tactical Nova | Stag Arms Model 3
|July 16, 2012, 10:33 AM
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I think the big thing is don't worry about time or overall score on your first matches. Just worry about properly completing the course and mechanics. Time and score will take care of themselves. I'd rather properly complete a course with a decent score on hits than come out with some blistering fast time.
597 VTR, because there's so many cans and so little time!
|July 16, 2012, 11:58 AM
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As RSO's at any club we MUST BE the ambassadors to the shooting sport as well as the competitions making newcomers feel welcome and wanting to return for the next match.
NRA Life Member, NRA Range Safety Officer, NRA Certified Pistol Instructor,, USPSA NROI Range Officer,
ICORE Range Officer, ,MAG 40 Graduate
As you are, I once was, As I am, You will be.
|July 17, 2012, 08:46 PM
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Location: Red Rock. TX
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...which may be the OP's point. Going fast before the skills are there does not work.
I will suggest that training should target the end goal. Competition-oriented for the games, combat/tactical class for that goal.
|July 17, 2012, 10:31 PM
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Location: Mississippi
Posts: 2,654
It's not mags that bother me. I don't want to alter the gun due to it's intended purpose. If i had planned on getting it for competition i would likely put the apex kit in it, get competitions sights, and a couple of other personal modifications. Just something that i don't want to do with the gun. Would love to have a high cap 2011 or a nice 1911 to run single stack and limited 10 with. I'm not changing any time soon as i'm trying to get my progressive press on the way so i can stop buying factory ammo and loading on a single stage. At the same time also putting a little back for a 1911 of my specifications. JMO though.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me."
|July 25, 2012, 04:59 AM
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Join Date: September 15, 2004
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
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Somehow some people chose to find negativity in my original post that wasn't there.
My point was and is that you need to have a reasonable level of skill before you should attempt IDPA or IPSC competition. I am NOT suggesting that you have to be some kind of an expert, but you do need to know how to be safe, how to watch the front sight, how to manipulate the trigger without jerking it too terribly bad, how to clear malfunctions and reload while keeping your finger off the trigger and the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, ect.
New shooters should focus on safety, and on being accurate and performing the weapon manipulations correctly. Speed will come with practice.
Clubs should be open to assisting new shooters, because that's how we grow the sport. But you do need a base level of skill before you attempt to shoot in competition.
You can only learn from experience if you pay attention!
|July 25, 2012, 08:55 AM
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Location: Edmond, OK
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I still disagree. I have taken several non gun owning friends and family members to actual action shooting matches and they did great. I guess it all depends in who is giving them the safety and firearms orientation.
I personally choose not to discourage anyone from coming out and Shootibg a match with us.
I have found The Shooters with a little knowledge of firearms and a general idea of what they think is safe from either hunting or plinking at the farm to be the Shooters that don't understand the 180 rule the most. I see a lot of muzzle up and muzzle down as being confused for being safe. These Shooters have a tendency to break the 180 slightly because the gun is pointed up or down and not directly at something or someone. I make a point to reiterate that the 180 is up and down as well. Walking up range with your gun pointed up or down is ok when hunting but a big no no in a match.
I also see a lot of the old swinging of the Arms down and then back behind the shooter in frustration after they finish or finish trying to complete the course of fire.
I actually had to DQ my father-in-law at his first match because he finished Shooting then pointed the gun down and started to walk back up range before I could give the unload and show clear command.
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Last edited by Jesse Tischauser; July 25, 2012 at 09:03 AM.
|July 25, 2012, 09:30 AM
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Join Date: June 19, 2011
Location: Texas
Posts: 358
A friend talked me into shooting at an IDPA match a few weeks ago.
It was a lot of fun. But I knew I had no chance of wowing the crowd with my mad skilz so I just focused not having any procedurals.
First timers ... what a tremendous learning curve. There is so much going on and so much to pay attention to. I had never shot at a target while moving before. That was odd ...
I did OK ... I didn't get DQed and I hit a target or two. Only real coaching I got was to pull the gun from the holster more vertically and not cant it over before the muzzle clears the holster. I was getting really close to sweeping my leg.
And I have a bad habit of dropping the muzzle, pointing it at the ground in front of me.
Lots of learning occurred.
While it might not be my cup of tea to get neck deep in competition, it is certainly an opportuity to draw attention to weaknesses and bad habits.
|July 27, 2012, 10:58 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: September 11, 2005
Posts: 127
I get so tired of all the excuses made for new shooters at action pistol matches. TIRED of it.
I do not give two hoots if you are new to this, there is no excuse for failing to check your ego at the start position and focusing on safety and responsibility. Stop worrying about what others may think about your performance. YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO DO IT RIGHT AND SAFELY even if that means you walk every inch of the course and take 10 minutes and people hate you for it. So what? Stop letting your fragile ego motivate you to do dangerous and irresponsible things.
I apply this same standard to myself. Yes, I have DQed before. All I said was thank you, shook the man's hand, put my gun away and kept taping and brassing with my squad for the rest of the 4 hours we were there. These games are dangerous and nobody has any right to have even a nanosecond of lapse of safety and keep shooting.
|July 27, 2012, 11:46 AM
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Join Date: June 29, 2012
Location: Phoenix
Posts: 188
Yep, check your ego at the make ready postition and don't argue with the "Range God". Better yet go to an introduction course for beginners first if they have one at your club. Many of the older shooters show up to help and just to shoot too.
|July 27, 2012, 12:09 PM
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Join Date: September 11, 2005
Posts: 127
Don't know about the range god thing. Otherwise, I agree.
|July 27, 2012, 04:16 PM
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Join Date: June 29, 2012
Location: Phoenix
Posts: 188
It's true. Disrespect the RO and it won't go well. One guy I know is still on a 2 year suspension from two major clubs for arguing disrespectfully with one while at a match. I just take whatever they say in stride. I had one make a bad call a few weeks ago and give me a 10 point penalty. Reviewing the video showed my foot inside the box and not out. Oh well, didn't have much chance of winning the Silverado that week anyways.
|July 28, 2012, 09:30 PM
Join Date: September 16, 2006
Posts: 25
I see nothing wrong with the OP's opening statement.If a new shooter is an active duty /former military or a LEO or has taken advanced training beyond getting a CCW then they are most likely good to go.If the shooter has never shot anything but paper targets from a stationary stance then they need to stand by and watch the first match to see what is required.Next month they should be squaded with an experienced and patient RO and WALK not run the stages.If a club offers a new shooter clinic all the better.
|July 28, 2012, 10:59 PM
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Join Date: July 28, 2012
Posts: 7
you should give him some pointers ask him if hed like to go out to the range and shoot togethor sometime , that would be the best thing for the guy. Prob good for you to have a "refresher course"
Im new to the world of fireams...bought my first handgun 8 months ago and now own a 3 others lol go to the range atleast ounce a week, just took my CPW, did a combat shoot 2 weeks ago and it was a so much fun. Cant wait till this coming weds for the next one.
But made me understand that I need proper training, or just a helping hand for someone that has the knowledge.So I understand where your coming from but
I autox and road race sports cars and everyone goes out of there way to help people just starting out...keeps racing strong and just good karma. Plus I had alot of folks help me over the years so its my way to give back.
Dont get me wrong Ive already meet some great people at the range but at the combat shot must folks were kinda cold towards me. Lucky for me I had one guy kinda giving me the low down on scoring etc. Its kinda like car racing where you have to go slow at first to be fast.
But thats just my 2 cents. BTW I;m mike glad to be on this site already I can tell Im going to learn alot by reading alot of threads.So thanks to everyone thats shared their knowledge.
|July 29, 2012, 09:56 AM
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Join Date: October 25, 2001
Location: Alabama
Posts: 15,171
I have seen it both ways, you have to strike a happy medium.
I have seen people enter an IDPA match who are barely qualified to operate the mechanics of their guns.
On the other hand, I have heard and read people to say "I need to get ready, maybe I can get to a match next year."
It would be nice if everybody could get training so that they would be safe and effective from the start, but that is not likely. Said training is either expensive enough to discourage many or it is offered by the same volunteer labor that puts on the matches. Those volunteers only have so much time and energy to support the sport and training is not as frequent as it would have to be to catch all the beginners.
It is up to the shooter to study and practice the requirements of his chosen event so he can be safe and not interfere with proceedings. But don't while your life away "getting ready." Get out there and test yourself and see what you need to learn and practice. If you pay attention and stay active, helping out around the range, you will get plenty of help and advice.
|July 29, 2012, 04:11 PM
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Join Date: July 28, 2012
Posts: 7
i deff understand
One thing we do in the grassroots car racing circles is have "meet ups" or socials cookout, talk, learn from each other, plan for up coming events..do install days where people with more experience helps others install parts that are out of their comfort range.
In autoX we have instructors that vol for the race day..depending on how many newbies are there the instruc has 1 or 2 students. He rides with them,gives input on what they did wrong, gives input to correct them. ANd they dont have to be the best of the best in world of racing. Just someonethat knows the rules,safe, top 10 kinda driver.
I could see that to be very helpfull in shooting sports. Bt it is alot to ask of someone, but others (like myself) love helping others out Its pretty great when you can see your student getting faster and faster, and they know where they made mistakes..
I will add that there is a ton of great info on here if you search for it. More then enough to get a nice solid grasp of the basics as far as being safe and a better shooter.
I can deff see where someones nerves at the first few events would make them forget certain key steps in safety. I guess another cross over from racing ....".you have to slow down to go fast"
|July 29, 2012, 11:57 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: September 15, 2004
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Posts: 680
new shooters
New shooter's seminars are a great idea. I've helped out with a bunch of them, although it's been quite a few years ago now
New shooters really have to concentrate on where their muzzle is pointed and how to move / reload / clear malfunctions with their fingers OFF the trigger.
They also need a little bit of tutoring so they don't break the 180, re-engage targets they have passed, or sweep their support hand while trying to manipulate a door or window.
Time permitting, I think there is nothing wrong with coaching a new shooter a little bit as they do a walk-through prior to shooting.
You can only learn from experience if you pay attention!
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wyoGuide, another way to improve the Linux desktop
There are currently some initiatives to improve the Linux desktop, to make the Linux desktop better suitable for the average user. The Tango project tries to improve the look of the desktop by defining style guidelines and naming conventions of graphic elements (icons, etc). The Free Standards Group created the "LSB Desktop Project" to improve the binary compatibility between different distributions. There is some on going work at the freedesktop.org which improves various different aspects of the desktop by developing standards. And finally the OSDL set up the Portland initiative which should take care of the Linux desktop itself.
But all these initiatives lack a rather large part of necessary improvement. Because from the user's point of view, the usability of a system is only partially defined by the usability of the desktop. A large part (IMO the larger part) is defined by the usability of the used applications. Usually when a user speaks about the usability of a desktop he most of the time means usability of the applications. Logically to improve the Linux desktop, the usability of the applications has to be improved since usability is the most important factor of the attractiveness of a system.
The wish for improving the application available on the Linux desktop doesn't mean enhancing their functionality. Most applications already are rather high sophisticated, sometimes even more than commercial applications, but an average user has problems using them since he doesn't find the correct commands, doesn't know how to do something to get his work done. By wishing for improving the applications, it's meant to improve the usability, how the functionality of the applications can be found and used by an average user.
The usability of a certain application can't be determined without also looking at other applications. Most applications have a common set of the same or similar functions and all these functions should be done in the same or a similar way. On the other side different functions have to be done in different ways. The usability of an application can only be fully determined in the context of the other uses applications.
OSDL Linux desktop survey
The just released Desktop Linux Client Survey from OSDL lists "application support" as the first top inhibitors of a Linux desktop adoption. "Application support" in this survey means the users wished applications which aren't available on Linux albeit a majority had Linux deployed and probably knew all the applications which are available on Linux desktop.
The survey doesn't answer anything why users wished none-free applications. It also doesn't answer if these users are willing to pay for these applications. It only shows that users didn't wish to use the free available applications. While the missing functionality most probably can't be the reason the only sensible alternate explanation is the users aren't happy with free applications.
LinuxQuestions.org thread
The thread at LinuxQuestions.org about "What programs would you like to see ported to Linux" shows the same problematic again. All kind of none-free applications are wished and just very few alternatives are listed. You can assume that only Linux fans visit LinuxQuestions.org so this thread is even more amazing. So even if all these users have Linux deployed they don't wish the free applications. Poking through the thread gives the impression that users seem to have difficulties to become familiar with any of the free application.
Novell: Cool-Solutions web site
Novell is sponsoring quite a lot of Linux efforts but it seems they have come to the conclusion that not everything goes as expected. They have put up the Cool-Solutions web site which clearly shows that users prefer none-free applications again. I guess many of these users (likely business users) would pay for these applications and just discard any free alternative. Unfortunately also the Cool-Solutions site doesn't provide any reasons for these user preferences.
Reasoning regarding a usability problem
If you use a Linux desktop system you most probably use all kind of applications. Some of these follow the guidelines from Gnome, some those from KDE, some those from Java and a rather large part follow any other guidelines or none at all. So while on other platform all applications look and behave rather similar, on Linux each application looks and behaves quite different. Therefore it's almost impossible to conclude from how one application behaves, how others will. No wonder many users have problems to become familiar.
Just look at a sample issue, how free applications present their help to the user in case one doesn't know any further. Some applications have man pages, some have info pages, other have just some local documentation, some have an online help (hopefully the web is working) and just a few have a context sensitive help. It's obvious that such a help situation isn't very much liked by the users.
What about none-Linux user liking to switch?
While many application do run under e.g. Windows very few do in a platform friendly manner. So all sort of problems arise some might be real some just imaginary. Most important these applications just look and behave different than the other applications. This is worse since these users are mostly accustomed with a rather consistent look and feel, much more than the Linux users. Therefore they expect more and are faster disappointed when it isn't the case. So many potential users liking to switch are just scared away.
How can this situation be improved?
Well the Linux desktop community has to come to terms and finally agree on a single set of guidelines which have to be established. This is a rather tricky task since it seems neither OpenSource developers like to follow any guidelines nor do Gnome and KDE like other guidelines but their own. But it's no question, any Linux user would greatly gain from such a single set of guidelines as would the whole Linux community itself.
Free applications should also compete on other platforms against their commercial counterparts just to show what they are capable of. But they have to look as native applications as true cross-platform applications. Only then users will try out these applications and hopefully become familiar with.
The most important step towards reaching this goal is to establish wyoGuide as this single set of guidelines, so finally the free applications become more user-friendly and improve the tiring experience of the Linux desktop. This also allows every free application to become cross-platform, lifting the monopolists grip on the desktop quite considerable (see Cross-platform, the freedom to choose any computer) and hopefully fix the Ubuntu Bug #1 at least partially. Sure wyoGuide is still work in progress and it really needs sample code for more frameworks, so there is still much room for improvements.
If you're really interested in the success of the Linux desktop it's your task to push wyoGuide and the cross-platform movement forwards. Only then you'll get nice and usable free applications, only then will vendors be inclined to port their own applications to Linux. Everything lies in your hand, you can make it happen.
For more information look at the cross-platform wiki http://wyoguide.sf.net/wiki and see what you can do or go to the developer section http://wyoguide.sf.net/wiki
To improve the Linux desktop it's essential to improve the applications as well. While a Linux desktop is possible to some sort of extend, the final breakthrough will only come when the available applications are used and wished by the majority of the users. Only then the overall picture of a Linux system will fit in the eyes of the users.
To make your application usable you have to follow some sort of guidelines, to make it usable in a greater context you have to follow guidelines in a cross-platform fashion. wyoGuide gives you the necessary help you need to achieve this goal.
To make the Linux desktop a success it needs the participation of everybody. It needs developers who do the actual code writing and it also needs the users who provide the feedback and takes care of any none coding task. Only when everybody is working together will the Linux desktop finally become a success.
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Sep 23, 2006
Sept. 23, 2006
BOSTON, Mass. - Yale traveled to Boston Friday afternoon and dominated Harvard, taking four of the top five places. The Elis won 21-34 with Jake Gallagher leading the way with a time of 25:08.
Brian Gertzen came in second with a time of 25:14, while Joseph Kingsbery edged out teammate Murat Kayali for fourth place, both finishing in 25:25. Rounding out the top five runners for the Bulldogs was Andrew Pitts in ninth place with a time of 25:35.
This is the fifth straight year that Yale has beat Harvard in this meet.
Report by Victor Cheng '08, Yale Sports Publicity


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The Flying Frenchies
Tancrède Melet and his friends grew up in the French Alps and perform daring extreme feats combined with music and dance in the mountains. The have now shot another film that shows their breathtaking stunts.
Corporate Christmas Cards
Companies in Germany send out between 50 and 80 million cards in the weeks before the festival. Graphic designs such stylized Christmas trees or stars are especially popular. The motto is: "less is more."
Doppelgänger on Demand
In a world where you can get almost anything online, the Berlin-based start-up Twinkid is carving out a niche with 3-D printed, life-like painted figurines. Rich in detail, the miniature models are created through a fusion of photographic and 3-D technology, and are complete clones of their sitters.
Most teenagers today wouldn't dream of buying a CD. Instead they get all their music online from downloads - whether legal or illegal. The Bianca Story is a band from Switzerland that is looking for its own revolution through crowdfunding - and sharing.
Cardboard Artist Bartek Elsner
Bartek Elsner is an urban artist in Berlin who trained as a graphic designer, but ever since rediscovering cardboard he's been thinking outside the box. We meet him and look at some of his installation-creations.


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Jul 09 |08:00
A BlankTV Premiere Presentation:
Canvas - "Fragile Hearts"
Established in 2012, CANVAS hail from Bedfordshire England. Canvas play their own unique brand of Ambient Hardcore. Weaving soft, ghostly, melodies, with hard, heartfelt, grind, Canvas paint a portrait of emotion that we can all see ourselves in. Check them out at a show to get the full effect!
Fragile Hearts is about losing faith in your religion and questioning the doubts and suspicions surrounding god, heaven and hell. The video was shot over 24 hours in Billington Manor, United Kingdom.
>> Click HERE to grab a FREE download of the Take Heart EP NOW! <<
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Cafe Normandie Early Dining Menu All Night
From the restaurant that brought Annapolis a French cuisine created and prepared by Jean-Louis, Cafe Normandie, we offer this wonderful package: simply order off their early dining menu a special for 2 people then enjoy your dish anytime, when you stay at Chez Amis. Price includes 3 course fixed priced menu: appetizer, entree and dessert. Liquor, tax and gratuity are not included. Let us know your preferred reservation time and evening.
Cost: $60 per couple
Please note that the cost for this package will be charged against the credit card you use to place your reservation when the confirmation email is sent. As we purchase these items at that time, we cannot offer a refund if you cancel your reservation. All sales for this package are final.


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Solstice Sunglasses Assistant Manager / Co Manager in Las Vegas, Nevada
The Co Manager assists the store manager to operate the retail location by ensuring the store consistently meets and exceeds company standards and reinforces customer service through maintaining and representing the company's core values of service, quality and integrity to create total customer satisfaction.
The responsibilities of the Co Manager include:
Demonstrates a strong leadership ability
Participates in store selling efforts to ensure personal goals as well as store sales and productivity goals are met.
Assist the store manager to ensure all operational responsibilities are carried out for both opening and closing procedures.
Assist with recruiting interviewing and hiring of staff
Train delegate and supervise staff to develop and maintain individual selling goals, customer service and product knowledge skills.
Participate in weekly meetings with the store staff and maintain daily communications binder.
Ensure housekeeping and safety standards are upheld through out the entire store.
Ensure entire staff adheres to Mystery shop guidelines.
Create and promote strong business relationships with vendors, mall management and local businesses
Partner with Store Manager/ DM/ RM and/or Loss Prevention to address concerns regarding policy violations in a timely matter.
Actively listens and accepts direction and guidance from management
Maintains a positive, upbeat and energetic demeanor
In the (long term absence) of a manager the Co Manager may have some of the responsibilities of a store manager. A District Manager will oversee the Co Manager.
Other duties deemed necessary
Previous retail experience preferably in a similar roll
College Degree preferred
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Reliable and prompt
Demonstrated time management and organizational skills
Computer literate (word, excel and lotus notes)
Available to work flexible hours, 40 hours a week, 2 nights a week, weekends and holidays
Ability to stand for long periods of time
Ability to lift and carry 25lbs.
External Company Name: Solstice
External Company URL: http://www.safilo.com/en
Street: 785 South Grand Central Pkwy Suite 2109


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Not gaining weight
How can i increase weight My height is 5'10. But my weight is only 60. I tired many thing bt i can't increase weight Sugget any way to increase weight I am vegetraion
Answers (1)
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hello,1. Include Calories In Your Diet- Everything we eat has some calorie content. So like we eat food with fewer calories to lose weight, we need to eat food that has more calories to gain weight. You need to take in more than 250 calories daily to add roughly half a kilo to your current weight. 2. Increase The Number Of Meals- Have six meals in a day – three big meals and three small. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner should be heavy and calorie-rich. A heavy dinner adds weight to your body as your metabolism is not as active when you sleep as compared to when you are awake. 3. High Proteins Along With Calories- Only calories won't add to your body weight,include the right amount of proteins to your diet. Remember , if you want to put on weight and look fit, you need to build muscles not flab. Eat - Eggs, lean meat, fish, pulses, sprouts, and dairy products that rich sources of proteins. Fish such as tuna and mackerel are rich in oil and are one of the best ways to increase weight. 4. Weight Gain Supplements- Another way to go about this is by including some additional supplements in your diet. In some cases, just the diet and exercise may not bring results as quickly as you expect. Whey protein is an increasingly popular supplement that you can add to your milk or smoothies. 5. Workout To Gain Weight- Sometimes, gaining weight isn't just about adding a few pounds but it is also about building muscles. The best way to go about this is to start working out. Developing your lean muscles as opposed to fat deposits not only makes you stronger but it also adds mass . This is definitely the right mix to gain weight.
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nigeria | sesame square
Aiming squarely at a brighter future for Nigeria's youngest learners.
Of the 25 million children under age 6 in Nigeria, the majority live in poverty — having a devastating impact on education. Poor families may need children to stay home and work, causing low rates of literacy and school enrollment, especially for women and girls — which is why a show like Sesame Square inspires hope.
The Nigerian version of Sesame Street is teaching children across all segments of society critical lessons on ABCs and 123s, girls' empowerment, and health and hygiene — all crucial in a country where early childhood education is scarce and diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS are all too common.
Developed in collaboration with advisers from Nigeria's Ministries of Education and Health and the country's educational community, Sesame Square aims at a broad range of children's educational and developmental needs in one of Africa's largest and most diverse countries. The program debuted in May 2011 on the Nigeria Television Authority with 26 half-hour episodes featuring Sesame's engaging mix of live-action and animated segments. Season 3 began in September 2013.
At the heart of the show are the Muppets. Take Kami, a bubbly and curious 5-year-old who is HIV-positive. Through her openness about the disease, Kami addresses this sensitive subject in an age-appropriate way. She's a role model for families impacted by the disease and a powerful agent for overcoming stigmas and misconceptions concerning HIV/AIDS.
Kami's friend Zobi is a blue monster with an obsession for yams and a taxi he forever tinkers with, yet never seems to get running. Zobi's adventurous personality draws children in with laughter and, in turn, engages them in learning. Accompanied by celebrity guests, Kami and Zobi introduce episodes with a "Word of the Day" segment highlighting Nigerian children living in cities and villages across the country.
Major support for Sesame Square is provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).


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Kakadu National Park, NT
In amongst the wetlands, wildlife and rugged gorges, World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park holds one of the highest concentrated areas of rock art in the world. As many as 5,000 Aboriginal sites have been found here, including rock art, shelters, stone tools, grindstones and ceremonial ochre. This detailed, dramatic record of life in Kakadu stretches back more than 50,000 years - from the first evidence of human occupation to the arrival of Europeans.
Aboriginal families camped in rock shelters around Ubirr in Kakadu's north-east, and today you can see paintings of the fish and animals they hunted. Barramundi, catfish, mullet, goannas, turtles, possums and wallabies line the back wall in the main gallery in a rich, ochre tapestry of life. You'll also see some of the world's finest examples of X-ray art - where animals' bones and organs are as visible as their exteriors - in this gallery. Other paintings record contact with the first 'whitefellas' in the area, thought to be the early buffalo hunters of the 1880s. One has his hands in his pockets, while another has his hands on his hips and is 'bossing Aboriginal people around'.


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We help our clients create better
ways to read, better ways to learn,
and better ways to publish.
We design and build software for reading, learning, and publishing. We help our clients develop software for phones, tablets, and desktops, powered by their great content. We help them create new cloud services for distributing content and data. And we work with our clients to implement systems that create and manage digital content.
Our team includes engineers, UI and UX designers, and content management specialists. We can blend our team with yours so that we deliver exactly what you want, in a way that you can use.
Atomic can start at a project's beginning and help you take it all the way to launch. And we can help bridge gaps or provide expertise for projects that are already on their way. See below for some of our recent clients and projects in tablet development, content management, cloud services, and mobile commerce.
Atomic is hiring. We're looking for articulate, full-spectrum product creators who combine expertise with the ability to speak their mind, think critically, and find the simpler, more reliable way to get the job done. We hire people who take pride in their work and can explain to anyone — programmer, designer, user, client, manager, or CEO — exactly why it's great. We are located in DUMBO, Brooklyn, with a very distracting view of Manhattan and the East River. Brooklyn Roasters coffee and Front Street pizza is on the company.
Send us an email explaining why Atomic sounds like your kind of place, along with your resume or portfolio. Here are our current openings:
- Full stack Web developers, who take engineering seriously and love working as part of a team.
- A senior Web developer, with proven skills, who is a good communicator and enjoys working as part of a team.
Hello. Feel free to drop us a line
or drop by. We'll talk
blink tags and spinning logos.
20 Jay Street, Suite 203
Brooklyn, NY 11201


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Combine the value of California's alfalfa and forage industry with the state's dairy industry — the largest in the nation — and you get a total figure estimated to be approximately $6 billion. The two industries are closely linked, of course, with around 80 percent of California's alfalfa production being purchased by dairymen.
Those statistics were cited in a letter that CAFA sent in February to the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Washington, D.C. The letter was written when CAFA's Board of Directors learned that an alfalfa position had opened up due to a retirement at the ARS facility in Beltsville, Md. The letter requested that the open position be redirected to UC Davis to help address water quality and irrigation management research that would serve California and other western states.
The population shift to western states and the jump in dairy production is a trend that will obviously continue and put more pressure on water issues that challenge alfalfa and forage production and also impact the dairy industry. In 1970 western dairying accounted for only 20 percent of the nation's milk supply, a figure that jumped to 40 percent in 2000. When it comes to ARS dairy forage research in the West, however, there's a void that needs to be filled to help solve pressing issues unique to California and other western states.
The ARS established a major presence in Wisconsin some 30 years ago when it opened the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center near Madison. It's a cooperative effort between the USDA, the University of Wisconsin and other land grant colleges.
According to the Dairy Forage Research Center's Web site, "It coordinates multidisciplinary research involving engineers, microbiologists, chemists and plant and animal scientists at locations in five states. The research is directed toward increasing yields and quality of forage grown and harvested, reducing losses associated with harvesting, storage and feeding, and maximizing use of forage nutrients by the dairy cow for milk production." The facility has "2.5 acres of buildings, three types of cow barns, calf and heifer housing, a milking center, research and hospital areas and a feed center flanked by a dozen silos."
What's obviously missing from that description on the ARS Web site is the ability to conduct research directed to irrigated agriculture and related issues unique to California and other western states. CAFA's letter to the ARS was accompanied by a "position paper" that summarized reasons for establishing a presence in California that would also serve other western states. It was pointed out that: "Methods are badly needed for growers to adjust to lower supplies, and improve water-use efficiency, while still maintaining forage production and profitability. Techniques for better irrigation methods, scheduling, monitoring, or equipment, as well as for deficit irrigation for drought or temporary economic water transfers are needed."
At some point in the future there will hopefully be a Dairy Forage Research Center in California that serves the West and is similar to the ARS facility in Wisconsin. In the meantime, however, the first step is to convince the powers that be at ARS to establish an alfalfa research position that focuses on irrigated land.


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Mar 21 |08:00
A BlankTV Premiere Presentation:
The Prestige - "Captive"
Behold, The Prestige! - Hailing from Montreal, Canada, The Prestige began in spring of 2008.
After turning heads with their debut EP "The Great Floods", recorded with Antoine Lussier (Ion Dissonance, Emmure ), winning a spot on Montreal's warped tour, doing tons of mini tours and even playing live on television at Musique Plus, the boys spent the last few months writing and recording a dozen new songs for their upcoming release "Ecotone"!
Get ready for it, cause they're the next big thing out of Montreal!
Directed by: Philippe Monaco
>> Pickup music from the band HERE! <<
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Stardust Starlust
- Discontinued
- Published By: eXtasy Books
- Author: Gabriella Bradley
- Page: 226
- Word Count: 56500
- Publication Date: September 15, 2010
- Heat Level:
- Available Formats: Adobe Acrobat, Epub, Hiebook, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Mobipocket (.mobi), Palm DOC/iSolo, Rocket
- Categories: Erotic Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance , Science Fiction
Flowerdance--It is Tundora's initiation into the temple of love that evening, but the ceremony does not quite proceed as planned.... Moondust--After an asteroid damages her transport pod, Narida wakes up on an alien world and finds love and sex like she's never known.... Timewarp--After discovering their sexual attraction for each other, Jan and her co-pilot are hurled into a timewarp.... Incunabula--Cassandra's ship has been lost in space for a long time. Now that their supplies are gone, she and her crew face death. But their ship is suddenly pulled toward an ice planet. She wakes up naked in an ice cavern.... The Scarlet Star--Sharin has a strange dream. She slides down a rainbow--a beautiful naked man waiting for her at the end, ready to take her....


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The only big concern voiced by most of the drummers during the day concerned the kick pedal. Unlike Rock Band, where the pedal attaches to the bottom of the kit, the World Tour pedal is completely free-standing. As it turned out, almost everyone had issues with the pedal "roaming" on them while playing songs with a lot of kick pedal. It would start to move further and further away. We were told this was common with players when first using the pedal, but eventually people would learn to keep their heel on it to keep it from moving away. Our suspicion is that it won't take long before people start coming up with DIY solutions to keep the kick pedal in place.
If, for some reason, you're happy with your existing drum kit, the good news is that it'll be fully compatible with Guitar Hero World Tour. If you use one of the Rock Band kits, the game will automatically condense the note charts down for you. In doing so, you'll have slightly fewer notes to hit and you'll miss out on a few points here and there. But from our testing, the GHWT kit seems like the more impressive hardware, and -- other than possibly picking up something like the $300 ION kit -- it's the one we imagine we'd rather be playing on.
Having spent a significant amount of time with the new guitar and drums, we didn't want to ignore the vocal sections, which, as it often turned out, is an area players often seem reluctant to jump into. After all, it's usually not hard to play a guitar or drum chart to a song you've never heard, but singing is an altogether different story. So we had plenty of opportunity to check that out.
As in other singing games, vocals in World Tour are broken down into phrases. Sing a phrase well enough and you'll get max points and start building a streak; string phrases together and you'll build a 4x streak (or 8x with Star Power activated). The biggest difference between World Tour vocals as compared to other games like Rock Band and Karaoke Revolution is that's there's no meter to fill up during a phrase. There's a little comet-like icon that changes color if you're hitting the right pitch or not, but the only indicator that you've successfully hit a phrase is to watch if the multiplier at the right side of the screen is at 1x or not.
Grading your performance is also a little different that what players might be used to. It's possible to maintain a perfect streak through an entire song and yet still end up with 85%. That's because you're graded on every note that's available to sing: You only need to hit about 80% of a phrase to successfully continue a streak, but getting a perfect 100% should be a far bigger challenge.
As with World Tour's drums, you don't have to wait for special phrases to appear in order to activate Star Power. As long as it's available, you can activate it by hitting a button on the controller. There aren't any percussion sections to worry about, but as with the drums, there are freestyle sections where you can just mumble and tack on a few extra points. These sections have been coded so singing in pitch will give a little extra bonus. It's a small bonus, but at least one that'll discourage random yelping.
What about the microphone? The one we used at Neversoft was basically the same Logitech model used for Rock Band, except with a World Tour logo on it. We're not huge fans of that microphone, but it should work well enough for the average player who's more interesting in shredding or pounding the virtual drums.


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Randall Wayne Becker, aged 61, died Saturday, June 8, 2013 in Manhattan, Kan.
Randall Wayne Becker, aged 61, died Saturday, June 8, 2013 in Manhattan, Kan.
He was the son of Elmer and Donna Becker, and had grown up in El Dorado, graduating from El Dorado High School with the class of 1969.
Randy attended Kansas State University for a short while, before going to work for Dillon's in Manhattan, where he worked for almost 30 years.
He was preceded in death by his father, Elmer. Surviving family are his mother, Donna of El Dorado; his brothers, Steve of St. Louis, Mo., Vince of West Valley, Utah,and Jeff (Lori) of Olathe; his sisters, Debbie Becker (Stuart) Lanson of Scottsdale, Ariz., Nancy (Kevin) Buyer of Silverdale, Wash., and Amy Becker (Brad) Amend of El Dorado; two daughters and their families, Laura (Rick) Pierce; and granddaughter, Brooklyn of Beloit and Candace (Josh) La Berge of Manhattan.
Please make any memorial contributions to Homecare & Hospice, 3801 Vanesta Dr., Manhattan, KS 66503.