text:
Legal Disclaimer
See also the Privacy and Data Protection
DGNET LTD., Registered in Scotland No. 189977, located at 10 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3EP, United KingdomIt owns websites:www.bestjobsau.com, www.bestjobsca.com, www.bestjobs.ie, www.bestjobs.co.nz, www.bestjobsuk.co.uk, www.bestjobsus.com, www.bestjobs.hk, www.bestjobsindia.in, www.bestjobskenya.com, www.bestjobs.com.sg, www.bestjobs.co.za, www.bestjobsindonesia.com, www.bestjobs.com.my, www.bestjobs.ph, any of them individually and hereinafter referred to interchangeably as BestJobs, BestJobs website, the Web Portal, the Web Site, the Site, the Portal, or portal.
DGNET LTD. (Hereinafter "BestJobs") ads Internet users the BestJobs Web Site for free, reserving some specific services to paid subscription or timely payment services.Access to and use of the BestJobs website is completely voluntary and it attributes to whom utilize them the condition of user.
All users accept, from the moment in which they access the Web Site, without any reservation, the content of these "Legal Conditions and Use Regulations", the "Privacy Policy" and, where appropriate, the "Special Conditions" which may complement, replace or modify them in any way in connection with the services and content of the Website (collectively, the "Legal Conditions").
Consequently, the user must read all the previous documents before accessing and using of any Service website at his own risk.
The user can access, print, download and save the Legal Conditions and other legal texts at all times. The Legal Conditions will be permanently accessible on the website through the link BestJobs Legal Conditions.
BestJobs reserves the right to modify without notice the contents of the legal conditions so that recommends the user to read them each time you access and use the BestJobs Portal.
BestJobs also reserves the right to modify without notice the design, layout and / or configuration of this Web Site, and any or all services, and add new services.
In any case, BestJobs reserves the right to deny access to this site at any time without prior notice to users who violate any of the legal conditions that apply to them.
This Regulation of Use regulates the access and use of the BestJobs Website.
The purpose of this website is to make individuals seeking employment (Bestcandidates) contact with employers or recruiters seeking candidates for job vacancies (Recruiters).
Introducing a CV in our online database significantly increases your visibility to Recruiters looking for staff. We make an effort to limit access to your CV only to recruiters for this purpose, however, we cannot offer a guarantee. We will forbid access to the service to any company that makes use of this data for different purposes.
BestJobs makes the Website available to Internet users interested in those purposes providing the following services:
- A directory of job ads classified by job function and location.
- The free publication of job ads and the possibility of direct contact with people interested in the positions offered.
BestJobs can delete from the Website any content that contravenes the legal conditions, the regulations, or morality without notice.
Users acknowledge that it is not technically possible to achieve 100 %availability of the BestJobs Website. BestJobs makes every effort to keep the Website available as constantly as possible. Still, for reasons of maintenance, security or capacity, as a result of events over which BestJobs cannot influence (eg. anomalies in public communication networks, power outages, etc.) brief anomalies or temporary suspension of the services of the Website may occur.
Obligations of Users in the Website
The User agrees to make diligent use of the Website and its services exclusively for purposes stated above, in full compliance with the law, morality, this Regulation of Use and the Legal Conditions in general, keeping at all times due respect to other users.
Any use the user makes of this Website not detailed in the preceding clause is expressly prohibited.
The User agrees to comply with the applicable laws and the rights of others to use the content and services on the Website. No reproduction, distribution, transmission, adaptation or modification, by any means and in any form, of the contents of the website (texts, designs, graphics, information, databases, sound files and / or images, logos also forbidden , etc.) and other elements of the website is allowed without prior authorization from the legal owner or when permitted by law.In particular, the User will be forbidden from: using offensive or slanderous content, regardless of whether that content affects other users or other persons or companies;using pornographic content or which violates minors protection laws, or advertise, offer or distribute pornographic products or which violate minor protection laws;disturb other users (specially via spam); use legally protected content (e.g. by legislation concerning intellectual property, trademarks, patents, utility models or aesthetic models) without being entitled to it;or to advertise, offer or distribute legally protected goods or services, as well as perform or promote actions contrary to free competition, including those aimed at capturing progressive clients (like chain systems of snowball or pyramid systems).
The user are forbidden the following actions:
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The User will be liable to them in case of contravention or breach of the obligations and / or any action that overload, impair or impede the normal use of the Website, or harm or disable the materials and information contained therein, systems information or documents, files or any kind of content stored on any computer (hacking) belonging to BestJobs, its members or any user, including the introduction or spreading of computer viruses.
In general, access to the Website does not require prior subscription or registration by the User. However, BestJobs conditions the access to some services to the prior completion of the corresponding user record when the user chooses an identifier (ID or login) and password.
The use of the password is personal and not transferable, with any transfer, even temporarily, to third parties not being allowed. The User must take the necessary measures for the custody of the password selected by him, avoiding the use of it by third parties. The User is solely responsible for the use that is made of his password, with full indemnity for BestJobs. In the event that the User knows or suspects the use of his password by third parties, it must inform of BestJobs at the earliest.
Publishing content on the Portal
All information provided by the User to BestJobs must be truthful and accurate. For these purposes, the User guarantees the authenticity of all data communicated to the Website and his legal authority to provide it.
Similarly, it is the User's responsibility to keep this information constantly updated so that it responds at all times to the actual situation of the information. The User shall be solely responsible for any false or inaccurate statements made and the damage they may cause to other websites or third parties.
Under the BestJobs anti-spamming policy, the User shall not collect or use data from other users through the information and services contained in the Website for any activities with promotional or advertising purposes, and/or send commercial communications of any class and through any medium unsolicited or previously consented by BestJobs and / or third parties.
The User acknowledges and agrees that use of the service is under his sole responsibility. Users are liable for damages of any nature that BestJobs may suffer as a result of an intentional or negligent breach of any of the obligations that are bound by virtue of the Legal Conditions or the law regarding the use of the service.
By providing information contained in the Best Jobs, the User declares himself the legitimate holder of the rights of intellectual property of the content for its reproduction, distribution, and public communication by any means, principally by Internet and e-mail, worldwide and for unlimited time.
Users are solely responsible for obtaining any authorization, permit or license should it be required for the production and publication of any content.
BestJobs does not allow the inclusion of any content that may deteriorate the quality of service.
No license
BestJobs authorizes the user to use its software to implement the features that make the different functionalities of the service, with usage rules established by the Legal Terms.BestJobs does not grant any license or authorization of use of any kind over its intellectual property or any other property or right related to the features of this Website.Users can send suggestions or proposals for improving the functionality or content available on the Website by contacting Customer Care Service.
Job ads
All ads must correspond to a true and real position and cannot duplicate a previously published vacancy.
The publication of a job ad is prohibited in any of the following cases:
- If it is allegedly unlawful under national, EU or international regulations or which purpose is to conduct allegedly illegal activities or contravene the principles of good faith.
- If it may damage the good name and reputation of BestJobs.
- If it does not meet the quality standards established in BestJobs.
- If it Includes in the field "Description of tasks" a form of direct contact with the Recruiters (Email, phone, mail, ...).
- If it is misleading, of dubious effectiveness or likely to harm against people.
- If it corresponds to job positions where remuneration is exclusively based on commission or below the legal minimum wage.
- If it requires of the Candidates a capital investment or attend an unpaid training program prior to employment.
- Consisting exchange or volunteer work or work with deferred payments
- If it corresponds to multi-level sales or pyramid schemes.
- If it supports or justifies racism, violence or hatred.
- If it requires sending photographs (except passport photograph included in the curriculum vitae).
- If it is defined as a vacancy for "models" or "masseuses" without requiring expertise or qualifications specified in this field.
- If it undermines fundamental rights of individuals, violates their legal rights, seeks to take advantage of them, annoy or may generate negative opinions to other users or third parties. Forbidden content includes but is not limited to: that which promotes or enhances the creation, maintenance and promotion of businesses related to pornography, obscene material or management of erotic contacts; that which is associated with clairvoyance, tarot, "occult" or any other related content; and generally any content deemed unsuitable for BestJobs Users.
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The published job ad shall not be used for:
- Posting false, inaccurate or misleading information
- Posting on behalf of another person, living or dead
- Advertising business or attracting customers (including but not limited to positions for multilevel companies, franchisees, clubs memberships, product distribution, or any monetary investment required by the user);
- Posting chain letters or pyramid schemes;
- Posting reviews or news, commercials, promotional products or services;
- Get massive information of people for different uses of the object of the Website;
BestJobs reserves the right to withdraw from the Website content that is considered unsuitable to the characteristics and purposes of the Website.If you notice any inappropriate content inn the website, please contact us through our contact form.Any user that inserts content that violates the law in force shall assume sole responsibility for the damages and consequences thereof, exempting BestJobs from all liability.
Registration Professional User (RECRUITER)
The publication job ads requires registration as a user. In the registration of the recruiter information by the professional it is required:
- Registering only existing companies that are established under the law.
- That the registration and use of the Website services must be authorized by the legal representatives of the company
- That there is some direct employment relationship between you and the company. You may not be an independent agent.
- Accepting that the use of the services of the Website is limited to the publishing of job ads and the search of workers for the company. Any other use is strictly prohibited.
- Accessing services or any information published on this website in a personal and interactive way. Access to the content by way of robots or automated programs is not allowed.
BestJobs will validate the compliance with the above assumptions based on their best judgment or by demand of third persons or institutions, and reserves the right to refuse registration of a company. Failure to comply with the registration rules can mean the immediate cancellation of the User account and the destruction of content associated to it beyond recovery.
Posting job ads
- All job postings are reviewed by the team of BestJobs to validate their quality and compliance with the legal conditions. Once validated, ads will be displayed on the Site. The validation process usually takes a few hours since its introduction on the Web, but sometimes can increase up to 2 working days.
- The offers have a validity period of 30 or 90 days, extendable by the user according to the terms of service. Once past the validity period, ads automatically cease to be public.
- The active ad can be modified by the advertiser at any time during the period of validity. Any offer modified after its original validation will stand pending publication until a new validation by the team of editors. In this case the elapsed time for this process is not added to the original validity.
- If the job ads published have expired but have not been eliminated by internet search engines outside BestJobs, traffic is redirected from these to a selection of similar ads.
- BestJobs looks after the content of the ads to ensure it is correct, however it is not responsible for errors that may appear or for the damages that may cause such errors to third parties. The content posted is solely the responsibility of the User who published it.
- The advertiser may terminate its relationship with BestJobs at any time. You can simply delete your job ad and your user account, or contact BestJobs via the contact form.
- BestJobs reserves the right to terminate this agreement at any time with or without notice.
Paid Services
BestJobs includes within its functioning access to paid services, either through timely payment or by subscription, enabling an improved use of the site. Access to these services by Users is voluntary.Prices and rates applied to each product or subscription correspond to those published in the portal at the time of hiring them, and do not in any case include the costs derived from the method of payment chosen by the user, or applicable taxes that may apply before the actual payment.BestJobs will issue an invoice upon payment of a product. Users professionals working bidders will be provided with the invoice within the area of managing your personal account.
Paid products and their operation
At the time of publication of these legal conditions, payment products available on the Website are:
- Premium Service, which allows access for Recruiters to the following features:
- Access to the contact details of Candidates in the CV database.
- Manually update ads past 72 hours the previous update in ways that improve their position in the directory of offers for top positions.
- Highlighted format for the User's job ads in the directory.
- Priority review of new and modified job ads for faster publication.
- Placement of the User's company profile ahead of any company that does not have the Premium Service in the Recruiter's directory for greater visibility.
Access to and use of the Website by Candidates does not require prior subscription or registration as users. Users that register with the Website through the registration form you are offered the following services free of charge:
- A search engine and directory of job ads by category and location.
- A list of the BestJobs most sought ads by users.
- A record of the last ad searches by the user that is permanently retained and can be accessed from any computer.
- Subscription to the Job Alert service, which sends job alerts of newly published ads.
- Application to job ads published so that your registered contact details are accessible to the Recruiter.
- Free publication of your CV on the Website and the configuration of the level of privacy that determines whether it can be accessible to Recruiters automatically or not.
By registering as a user of Best Jobs, the Candidates expressly authorizes BestJobs to disclose the information and data provided in the registration form and curriculum to Recruiters, always respecting the privacy level determined by the User.Registration on this Web Site is restricted to those over 16 years old. Registering users under 16 is not allowed even with the consent of parents or guardians for the processing of their personal data.
>Electronic communications and alerts
The Best Jobs Website provides a free service for Job Alerts to be sent to the e-mail of the Candidate who is registered with the corresponding form.Users can modify or delete alert services quickly, easily and free of charge, either by logging into their personal account and disabling the option to send alerts, or by following the instructions at the bottom of the body of the electronic communications received.
Personal Data
BestJobs will treat personal data in terms of the Data Protection Policy that Users may find in the Legal Conditions of the website.The User expressly consents that the contents introduced by them may be found and accessible through Internet search engines.Users guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, validity and authenticity of the personal information and pledge to keep it updated.
Security measures
Given that security measures regarding privacy and security on the Internet are not foolproof, BestJobs does not guarantee that third parties, authorized or not, may be aware of the type, conditions, characteristics and circumstances of use that Users make of the Website, or that they may access, intercept, delete, alter, modify or manipulate messages, communications or content of any kind that Users disseminate or make available to third parties through these features.
Warranties and Liability
Except where expressly described in the Legal Conditions and the rest of the regulatory framework of the Website, BestJobs is not liable for any damages of any kind arising from the lack of accuracy, completeness, timeliness, errors or omissions that may be displayed by the information and services contained in this Website or other content which may be accessed through it, and assumes no duty or obligation to verify or monitor the content and information.
BestJobs does not guarantee the availability, continuity or infallibility of the operation of the Website, and therefore excludes to the fullest extent permitted by law, any liability for damages of any kind that may result from the lack of availability or continuity of the Web Site and the services enabled therein, as well as errors in access to different web pages or those from which, if any, such services are rendered.
BestJobs excludes all liability for damages of any kind that may result from the services provided by third parties through this Website and the media that enable them to manage service requests, and specifically but not limited to: for acts of unfair competition and illegal advertising as a result of the provision of services by third parties through the Website, as well as the lack of truthfulness, accuracy, completeness, defects, problems, relevance and / or timeliness of the content transmitted, stored, received, obtained or made available or accessible through the services provided by third parties through this Web Portal.
The User has the right to withdraw from the Website in a simple and effective manner and to stop receiving messages from it. BestJobs cannot guarantee that other users who already have the e-mail address of the user through their contact in the Site will not attempt to contact them in the future.
The Website includes within its content links to web sites owned or operated by third parties in order to facilitate access to information available through the Internet.BestJobs assumes no liability for the existence of links between the content of this site and contents outside the same or any other mention of external contents to this site. Such links or references are for information purposes only and in no way imply support, approval, marketing or relationship between BestJobs and persons or entities or managers of such contents or sites wherever they are.
Applicable Law and Jurisdiction
The present legal conditions and other conditions of the Web Site shall be governed by English law.
For any questions which may arise or actions arising from the provision of services and content on BestJobs and the interpretation, application, fulfillment or breach of what is established, BestJobs and the User submit, unless the law says otherwise, to the jurisdiction of the English Courts and Tribunals.
Intellectual Property Rights & Industrial
Copyright © 2014 - BestJobs - All rights
All exploitation rights reserved.
This Web Site is governed by English law and is protected by national and international legislation on intellectual property.
The texts, designs, images, databases, logos, structure, brands and other elements of this site owned by BestJobs are protected by laws and international treaties on intellectual property.
Any reproduction, transmission, adaptation, translation, modification, public communication or any other use of all or part of the contents of this site owned by BestJobs, performed in any way or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, is strictly prohibited unless prior written permission of BestJobs or other owners. Any infringement of these rights may result in extrajudicial or judicial civil or criminal proceedings that may apply.
The texts, designs, images, databases, logos, structure, brands and other elements of this website are owned by BestJobs and third parties who have yielded to BestJobs exploitation rights.
The presence in the Web Site of any text, graphics, images, databases, logos, structure, trademark or other intellectual property of third parties does not involve transfer of said property rights to BestJobs.
The legitimacy of the rights of intellectual or industrial property corresponding to the contents provided by the Users is solely their responsibility.
In the event that any User or third party considers that there has been a violation of their legitimate rights of intellectual property by the introduction of a specific content on the website must duly notify, in writing, to DGNET Ltd. 10 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3EP, United Kingdom, stating:
- Personal identification data of the holder of the allegedly infringed. If the claim is submitted by someone other than the person concerned, he shall indicate on whose behalf he is acting.
- The contents protected by intellectual property and its location in the Website.
- Proof of the existence, ownership and validity of such intellectual property rights.
- Express declaration in which the person accepts responsibility for the accuracy of the data and information provided in the notification that this item relates.
See also the Privacy and Data Protection


text:
|2004-08-17, 19:36
|Link #21
Team the box!
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Badside
|2004-08-18, 01:36
|Link #22
Bishoujo Goodness Galore!
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Stuck Between Reality and Fantasy
for instance, if i remember correctly some of the manga's descriptions of things were a bit more...explicit (i think i remember Henrietta's accident being described in greater detail in the manga)
|2004-09-07, 11:29
|Link #26
Bishoujo sweet!
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Australia
What the fuck is ADV doing. Dont tell they stoped releasing it because is not that popular as the other two, god I hope not.
|2004-11-22, 17:10
|Link #30
Join Date: Oct 2004
Age: 38
Not much stuffs has happened to our girls so you guys don't have to worry.
Except that :-
Spoiler for Henrietta's fans:
Spoiler for Rico's fans:
Spoiler for Triela's fans:
Spoiler for Claes's fans:
Spoiler for Angelica's fans:
Spoiler for Supervisors & Terrorist:
And according to Amazon. ADV will release GSG Vol.2 next spring, around March 2005.
|2004-11-23, 03:18
|Link #31
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2004
did elsa come back from the grave? j/k
Gunslinger girl is kindda old but it's still my fave, next to Elfen lied and FMP fumoffu. I wonder if the vectors can cut thru pure carbon fiber....might make an interesting crazy cross over comic!!! except of course Japanese are not interested in cheap american sale boosting tactic for their dying superheros series eheheh
|2004-11-23, 06:10
|Link #32
Join Date: Oct 2004
Age: 38
|2004-11-23, 12:09
|Link #33
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2004
actually that was a joke on the cross over part. I am just making fun of all those cross over in American comic to boost sales.
The comic industries in America must be kindda piss that comic books remain in the nitch market whereas mangas are getting mainstream. Although the rise in american acceptance to manga also coincide with the falling of the Japanese animation industries. Sad isn't it.
|2005-12-27, 02:26
|Link #36
Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2004
I have a couple of questions about the manga.
1. Is the manga still going? I saw there are 6 volumes out in Japan, but that doesn't tell me if the series is still being written (and I can't read Japanese...).
2. Does the manga contain a significant amount of material not in the anime, especially in volumes 4-6?
|2005-12-27, 02:41
|Link #37
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Catafriggm to answer your questions.
1) Yes currently the series is still ongoing in Japan. Volume 6 just came out about a week ago. It's serialized monthly meaning so many pages are printed in a giant phone book like comic with other different manga series. After so many pages come out they put them in tankoubons aka manga form of about 200 pages plus. And that is your volume format.
2) The anime and manga are pretty much dead on with each other but the manga keeps going with lots more action and story. Plus a few new characters etc. Basically Angelica is still alive and kicking that's why I believe she never died in the anime. The anime barely covers the first 2 volumes maybe half way at most into volume 3. So if they wanted to they have enough reference material to animate another season.
I already have volumes 1-5, while I'm waiting for volume for number 6 to arrive from Japan hopefully sometime this week.
|2005-12-27, 03:02
|Link #38
Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2004
Aha. Thanks for the info. I did like the anime, and I was wondering if there was any additional material in the manga. That just leaves the question of whether ADV will ever get around to translating the rest of it after volume 3 (considering their manga web site hasn't been updated in a year and a half, it makes me worry about the state of the company... ).
And while I'm mentioning my own desires, I REALLY wish somebody would license the Elfen Lied manga (as fan groups are doing an underwhelming job of translating it, as well as that I'd also like hard-copies of it).
|2005-12-27, 04:09
|Link #39
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Yeah I got fed up with ADV and their licensing of a manga series and never releasing them in a timely fashion or the rest of the volumes when they been out in Japan for like a year plus. So since I can read enough japanese I decided I can't wait so I ordered the whole series raw 1-5 even though I bought 1-3 by ADV. I mean volumes 1 to 2 took 1 and half years in the states.
Ridiculous I'll never buy manga from them ever again they are a joke I hope their manga division goes under. Even their translations are going down hill, plus all the errors that get through did you ever preview Yotsuba.
I was waiting for number 6 to come out and came across the release date in time to pre-order it. Man I love this series it really heats up in volume 4 onward and the art work keeps getting better and better.
|drama, gunslinger girl, seinen
|Thread Tools

subset: commoncrawl


text: We stayed at Casa Bella Rita B&B on our way to Santa Teresa. It is a really beautiful place as are the owners Rita and Steve. So warm and welcoming!! We felt as if we had known them for years. Rita arranged for us to be picked up from the airport which made things a lot easier. They recommended some... More


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text:
About Me
- Sharad Mitra
- Bangalore, Karnataka, India
- Strategic Senior Producer with over a decade of experience in PC, consoles, and social media game production. Proven track record of managing and delivering projects for both client-side and client-facing companies. Experienced in developing specifications project planning, scheduling and tracking, scalable production processes, scopes, SOWs, budgets, and timelines; good understanding in marketing strategies, emerging trends, analytics, and comparative analyses. Well versed in managing multi-million dollar projects/budgets and art outsourcing to vendors. Skilled in adapting to multiple cultures, and in managing international talent. Deep knowledge industry tracking and scheduling tools including MS Project, JIRA and Hansoft. Good understanding in 2D and 3D art and animation.
Useful Presentations/Docs
- Powerpoint Presentations (2)
- Technical Docs (3)
- You Should Know (3)
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Unreal Level
Hi All
This is my latest W.I.P.,a level for Unreal Tournament 2004
Mesh is done in max8.0 and will be used as a static mesh for the unreal editor.
Posted by Sharad Mitra at 10:41 PM
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text:
Dakota Fanning: Hot Pink Tips!
Dakota Fanning shows off her newly dyed hot pink tips while out on Tuesday (January 17) in Los Angeles.
The 17-year-old actress graces the cover of Elle UK's February issue, where she chatted about fame and younger sis Elle.
Dakota also opened up about being a young actress in Hollywood.
"I feel like I've lived a long time, but then I realize, 'Oh, I'm actually only 17.' I don't think there should be an age limit on an interest, do you know what I mean?" she told the fashion mag.
FYI: Dakota is wearing Miu Miu sunglasses.
WHAT DO YOU THINK of Dakota Fanning's hot pink hair?
10+ pictures inside of Dakota Fanning out in Los Angeles…


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Everyone is gearing up for this afternoon's colossal clash between the U.S. and Germany, and the Germans are no exception. The cocky bastards that they are, almost all of the coverage in their papers pretty blatantly take shots at our boys.
Above is the front page of today's Bild. The words over the photoshopped image of a beaten up Jürgen Klinsmann read "Klinsi, today you see stars!" Inside the paper, the article is even more forceful under the headline "USA vs. Germany: That is why we must never lose." They continue:
On Thursday Jogi's boys playing against the USA - and it's about EVERYTHING! The match against the team of Jürgen Klinsmann (49) is the showdown to win the group. Because for Germany everything is possible: from 1st place in the group up to the World Cup stop.
Even if Belgium is turned off: After that would threaten Argentina with the first sooooo heavy chunks. That is why we must never lose! So guys: USA beat and win the group!
Express ratcheted up the insults even more. Their front page plays off of a Sport headline ahead of a group stage match in the 1998 World Cup, where they called the Americans the "Burger Boys":
This time, the article calls the USMNT a fast-food team ill-equipped to face the well-fed, sophisticated palates of the German juggernaut:
Germany-USA: Defeat against the Fast-Food Kicker would be disaster
Joachim Loew (54) loves to drink a glass of red wine in the evening. He likes to eat healthy. A piece of meat, fish, salad. He's not a posh gourmet. Rather, one who likes the good bourgeois food.
On Thursday's Fast Food! The United States. Land of Burgers. The ingredients are German this time. A bit Klinsmann, a bit Vogts, a bit Jones. For Löw it only says: plastering, Jogi!
[Should Germany lose] it would be a football disaster. Germany, the land of football gourmets, would lose to these fast food kicker - because the stomach would turn.
The Hamburger Morgenpost at least tried to get analytical, and asked a former German international who played under both Klinsmann and Löw, Arne Friedrich, to break down the USMNT:
Tim Howard is a rock-solid goalkeeper, an experienced man, but he comes not into areas of Manuel Neuer or Roman Weidenfeller. There we are clearly better occupied.
In particular, the full-backs DaMarcus Beasley and Fabian Johnson begin to wobble under pressure.
Michael Bradley is also primarily a worker, a very strong player running. Footballing he is not Mesut Özil. This is even more true on Kyle Beckerman, a rustic type.
Clint Dempsey is the superstar of the team. He has just signed a very lucrative contract with the Seattle Sounders. In it you have to watch. With Chris Wondolowski they still have a clipper, an unassuming guy, but freezing cold in front of goal.
Game idea
When Americans try to find a solution to the footballing team Jogi Löw, they will have no chance.
You've had your say, Germany. Over on this side of the world, we're content to let you yuck up your apparently imminent win, focusing on our own game instead. We're just 'bout that action, boss. And we're about to see what's what.
Bild cover image via Twitter


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Our friend Jan Gulley came up with the idea of cruising through the canals in the countryside of France on a houseboat. Sounds like fun, we all said, so the research started.
The funny thing about research is it doesn't matter how much you do; some things are just meant to be figured out when you do it. And we had some great laughs doing just that.
We were told we would get some training on navigating and operating the locks before we took out the boat. I think something got lost in the translation of the word "training." To me it sounded like, "there is your boat, see you in a week." OK, it was a little more than that, but we reasoned, how hard could this really be? We just had to keep it between the ditches - literally.
Within an hour after we had arrived to pick up the boat, we were cruising down the canal toward our first lock at a blistering speed of 3 knots. For those of you without nautical experience, that translates to 3.445 mph. That, by the way, is top speed for this beast. The boat was about the size of a 12-foot-by-60-foot trailer. The locks are a generous 14-feet wide. After a quick math lesson, it became apparent that getting this boat through the locks was going to prove interesting, to say the least.
Upon approaching a lock, it was important to slow down your speed so you could maneuver into the lock. Additionally, there was usually a boat in front of you going through the lock or sometimes two or three waiting in line in front of you to go first. We often had to wait our turn, allowing us ample time to build our anxiety as we watched others go through with seeming grace and ease.
Now let me explain something - when you slow down the boat, your steering ability is greatly reduced, and it felt like half the time we tried to enter the lock sideways, which explained why the front and both sides of the boat were decorated with big blue bumpers. And those bumpers are bouncy. We looked very much like a pinball every time we went into a lock. To add to our joy, most locks are a gathering place, so we never lacked for an audience. My French is bad, but "Crazy Yank" is easy to translate.
We left most of the lock entry duties to my buddy, Jim Gulley, for two reasons. One, I didn't want to do it. Two, I didn't want to do it. I used the excuse that I needed to man the ropes.
Most of the locks are manned, but as you get further into the countryside the locks are unmanned and you need to operate the lock yourself. This job fell to Sandy and Jan. About halfway through the fifth day of our seven-day journey, we were actually starting to feel somewhat competent with this process.
It's hard to imagine how a typical lock entry went. In the morning after a great breakfast, Sandy and Jan would take the bikes from the roof of the boat and ride along a beautiful trail beside the canal and headed to the next lock. With the fresh breeze blowing their hair, the sun shining, beautiful flowers creating a heavenly scent in the air and occasionally stopping to snack on fresh wild raspberries, they would peddle along gaily, having great conversation and discussing their wonderful husbands. Their goal was to arrive at the next lock ahead of us and begin the process of opening it for "the beast."Read more at http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120304/XPLORE/203040342/Cruising-through-France-3-knots?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs
Jim and I were on the boat deck zipping along at 3 knots, the steady hum of our diesel engine creating a constant background noise, "Burrrrrrrrrrrrrr."
Since Jim was driving the boat, I would serve as his gofer. "Jim you want something to drink?" Burrrrrrrrrrr. "Sure." Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. "Here you go." Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. "Thanks." Burrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The sun is beating down on us, so I put up our little beach umbrella and we sit side by side to share the shade. Burrrrrrrrrrr. Good thing we are in France. Burrrrrrrrrrrr.
"There's the lock," I said. Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Jim slows the boat down. Burrrrrrrrrrrr. The noise gets louder as the engine throttles back. We start to drift sideways. Burrrrrrrrrr. The engine revs as Jim puts it in reverse. Burrrrrrrrr. We drift the opposite direction. Burrrrrrrrrr. We don't see the low-hanging branch on the tree at the edge of the canal.
Snap, there goes our beach umbrella, caught on the branch and dragged across the deck and into the water. Burrrrrrrrrr. Jim's moving forward as I'm trying to fish the umbrella out of the water with a mop handle. Burrrrrrrrrrr. The motor groans as we start our pinball entry into the lock. Burrrrrrrrr. I nearly go overboard rescuing the umbrella. Burrrrrrrrr.
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If you're a student who knows that you need to have some kind of post-secondary education to get a job that pays well, but you also know that you don't have the money to go to college or a trade school, what do you do?
Many students in that situation give up. If they stay in school, they don't hit the books as hard as they should. When they graduate - if they graduate - their options are limited.
The job market is changing. No longer can you graduate from high school one day and start earning a decent paycheck at a factory the next. Eight of every 10 jobs require more than a high school diploma.
The challenge - especially in Rockford - is to find ways to motivate students and show them that college is attainable.
That's why Rockford Promise, the initiative that aims to offer a free college education to any child who graduates from the public schools, is so important.
As Transform Rockford moves along in the process of making this city a more desirable place to live, Rockford Promise can be one of the solutions.
Thousands of people demonstrated that they want to be involved in making Rockford a better community when they showed up at two public meetings late last year. The process continued last week with two "community visioning" sessions. There will be more of those sessions this month.
It's no surprise that the "visioning" attendees voted to focus on economic development (jobs), education, community safety, diversity, and health and infrastructure.
Those areas are intertwined and define a good community. A well-educated community is a healthier, wealthier and safer community.
A typical adult with only a bachelor's degree will earn $1.42 million over a 40-year career, or $650,000 more than a typical individual who has only a high school diploma, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center Those college-educated adults create demand for goods and services - they create jobs, in other words. And a community with a well-educated workforce is more attractive to businesses, another job creator.
About 20 percent of Rockford-area adults have a bachelor's degree or more. The national average is 27.5 percent and the Illinois average is 29.5 percent. We have a long way to go to be just average.
Madison, Wis., which usually makes it toward the top of the best cities lists, has an unemployment rate about half the national average and its median family income is $20,000 higher than Rockford's.
Nearly half - 48.2 percent - of Madison residents 25 years and older have college degrees. Madison is home to a Big Ten university, so it has a huge advantage, but the numbers show what having a few more smart people in town will do.
We can't get more college-educated people until we improve our high school graduation rates. Only 64 percent of Rockford students graduated within four years. The state average is 83 percent.
However, Rockford's top students are outstanding. Sixty-one percent of those who graduate go to college. A further challenge is getting those students to return home and work here. The more that go to college, the more likely some of those will come home.
Rockford Promise has been around since 2007 but hasn't gained the support that the program it was modeled after - the Kalamazoo Promise - has. In Kalamazoo, anonymous donors have paid the bills.
The Kalamazoo Promise started in 2005 and has produced remarkable results for the schools and the city. Students are doing better in class, and the district has seen enrollment grow 24 percent since the program started. That means more people want to move to Kalamazoo, which creates demand for housing and higher property values.
That can happen here, too. We need to commit to the program and find the money necessary - $5.6 million, according to a study by the Upjohn Institute. That's seems a small price to pay for transforming a community.
Coming Tuesday: A path out of poverty


text: Breadcrumb Home Scott Suttell Blog March 25, 2013 02:30 AM Cleveland and other cities are leading a downtown revival Scott Suttell Tweet Share Share Email More Print A quick-hit edition: Forbes.com includes Cleveland in this feature/slideshow about 15 U.S. cities that are revitalizing their central business districts to lure young professionals. "Today, more than $3.5 billion is currently invested in furthering the area's redevelopment. The Global Center for Health Innovation and a 750,000 square foot convention center will open this summer, totaling $465 million," Forbes.com notes. Downtown's population "nearly doubled in the two decades ending in 2010, according to Census data, and the area welcomed the biggest percentage increase in population growth of any district in the greater city as a whole." The website adds that from the fourth quarter of 2011 through the fourth quarter of 2012, the number of housing units grew about 13%, according to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance. An additional 715 units are expected to come online in 2013. Forest City Enterprises is playing a key role in the continued "de-malling" of the Washington, D.C., area, according to this story from The Washington Post. The Cleveland-based company's Washington unit plans an upgrade of Ballston Common Mall in Arlington, Va., "that would include adding a row of sidewalk retail along Wilson Boulevard and building 306 residential units above the property," the newspaper reports. Thomas W. Henneberry, chief operating officer at Forest City Washington, tells The Post he has begun discussing the future of the 579,000-square-foot mall with county officials and pitching the idea of a reconfiguring it with prospective restaurant and shop owners. In trying to open the mall up to the street and add housing to it, The Post says, "Forest City is pursuing a similar strategy to other mall owners in the area who have watched shoppers migrate to more urban, mixed-use projects." A new report from CardHub.com, cited in this Wall Street Journal story, says that more than 50% of U.S. consumers "don't keep a budget — and more than one in five don't have a good idea of their spending." And Clevelanders are among the worst offenders. The Journal says CardHub ranked the 30 biggest metro areas based on six factors: credit scores; debt-to-income ratios; combined bankruptcy and foreclosure rates; amount of "revolving" (credit card) debt adjusted for cost of living; total debt-to-median home price ratio; and non-housing expenses adjusted for cost of living, relative to average income. The best budgeters were in Boston. Cleveland was No. 5 on the 'worst budgeters' list, behind Orlando, Tampa, Cincinnati and Atlanta. USA Today rounds up what it considers the country's 20 best athlete-owned restaurants, and one of them belongs to a former member of the Cleveland Browns. At No. 8 on the list is Bubba's Q, the barbeque joint in Avon owned by Al "Bubba" Baker. After retiring from professional football in 1990, Mr. Baker, a defensive lineman, and his wife, Sabrina, opened a catering business featuring "Southern-style barbecue cuisine." The story notes that Bubba's Q "has since done pretty well," earning honors from, among others, Cleveland Magazine for "Best Ribs" and "Best Barbecue Restaurant" from 2009 to 2011. You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio. Recommended for You View the discussion thread.


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In the age of sharing every tiny scrap of our lives—every emotion felt and purchase made and bar visited and etc., etc., etc.—Devin Friedman socializes with the barely pubescent geniuses of Silicon Valley and asks: What is the endgame of your revolution? And can you promise me it won't suck?
Cupertino is where Apple is. Palo Alto is where Facebook is. Mountain View is where Google is. Geographically speaking, then, Y Combinator, let's call it YC, is in Googletown, a flat suburban place dotted with low bungalows and bathed almost always in sunlight. On a side street here, more of a service road, really, sits the small building that houses the company. It hardly exists at all, physically. It's just two rooms—the office, where the three full-time employees can sometimes be found, and the main room, which, with its bright plywood picnic tables and orange acoustic tiling, looks like the dining hall at one of the better youth hostels in Denmark. YC is a kind of tech-industry incubator, maybe the most important in the world. It's the place where people are trying to invent the ways we're going to behave, at least as far as the Internet goes, in the future.
The first person I meet at YC is an entrepreneur named Jiggity, who is 22 years old and got his computer-science degree from MIT about twenty minutes ago. His real name isn't Jiggity; it's something Korean, but Jiggity is "more memorable when I'm meeting a whole lot of people." Jiggity is building something called Teevox, which is going to turn your iPhone into a remote control for your computer. A remote control that can search and play every movie, TV show, album, video, etc., that exists on your hard drive. (YC lesson one: Your smartphone is now, or will be, your basic interface with the world.)
The way things work at YC is like this: You and your co-genius collaborator apply out of Stanford, MIT, or Cal (more or less); if YC accepts you (it accepts only 3 percent of applicants), it gives you $20,000 (in exchange for a portion of your company), helps you develop your product, and, three months later, puts you in front of a room filled with the most important investors in Silicon Valley to ask for money—money you will get, and often in large quantities. The average YC business emerges from the three-month start-up process worth millions of dollars.
Jiggity lays out for me a future where his product is central to the way we live our lives, filled as they are with a constantly proliferating collection of DVRs and MP3s and MPEG-4 files and streaming video, etc. Teevox will make finding and playing all that media so much simpler. Especially when people finally realize that TVs are basically going to be giant high-def computer monitors.
Of course, there is also a social element to Teevox. Almost all the consumer products (hereafter: thingies) being built at YC are straight-up social-media products or have features meant to take advantage of what is known as the social layer of the Internet. It's kind of a priori now that to get the low-hanging fruit on the Internet, your thingy has to in some way exploit our apparently bottomless desire to share the details of our lives and thoughts with people we kind of know.
Teevox's social element is that you will be able to "see" all your "friends" all the time and know which movie or TV show they're watching and watch it "with" them if you want. Just a tiny facet of the coming era of the kinder, gentler panopticon, when all our lives will be transparent.
Jiggity sits at one of the picnic tables and pitches me for about an hour and a half, his fuzzy halo of hair bobbing emphatically with each gesture, sweat forming on his brow, his constant smile transmitting, I think, a shadow of resentment. Resentment—and he never said this—that for his product to succeed at the scale he wants it to, people like me would probably have to adopt it. People who are a little confused by stuff like Twitter but also kind of self-congratulatorily contemptuous of it.
The reason I'm here is to try to see social media through the eyes of people like Jiggity. For the past month, I've been trying to fully engage with the social layer. I joined and contributed to such services and platforms as Quora, Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, Blippy, Swipely, DailyBooth, Goodreads, Daytum, etc., etc. I tried to tweet five times a day. I gave two sites access to my credit cards so I could share my purchases with my friends. I did my best to check in wherever I went on Foursquare. And what it all made me feel, mostly, was stupid. And anxious—that I didn't have enough people following me and then that I was the kind of person who wants people to follow him. Every update, every tweet, every check-in, ultimately began to feel not unlike doing my expenses. The experience isn't unusual. I think old people like me (I'm 38) often do this stuff to feel like the world hasn't yet left them behind, but we don't have any natural hunger for it. It's kind of like androids having sex: We know we're supposed to do it, but we're not really sure why. Meanwhile, and infuriatingly, we know that humans just like to bone.
Jiggity and I are joined by another entrepreneur, a guy named Rahul, a slender 27-year-old Englishman of Indian extraction who's 50 percent hair and 50 percent brain. He jumps right in on the question of whether I'll ever start to enjoy social media. "The average male loves to be the clown," Rahul says. "He loves to be the center of attention and to tell jokes. What if he could do that at scale? With all your friends all the time? With more friends than you could previously have done? And have the affirmation of more and more people? That's powerful."
Sitting here pinioned between the photon-cannon brains and futurey salesmanship of Rahul and Jiggity, I realize there's something that makes me simultaneously excited and agitated. It is an unfamiliar sensation: optimism. Jiggity knows. Rahul knows. Everyone at YC knows. The world belongs to them. You can hardly be alive in 2010 and not know that. You can't know what Facebook is without knowing that. This—Silicon Valley in general and YC more specifically—might be the last place in America where people are this optimistic. The last place in America where people aren't longing for a vague past when we were the shit.
Let's Scale Ourselves!
"So who am I?" Rahul says. "I'm a computer scientist. I've never had a real job. I've known since I was 15 years old that what I wanted to do was start and grow a software company. And I've been doing that since college. In 2006, I started a Ph.D. at Cambridge, because I had this crazy delusion that doing that was a really good way to start a technology company. I quit one and a half years ago. Then I ran the part of [Cambridge] that helps staff and students start businesses. And I ran that so well and we raised so much money that I could pay myself to do it full-time. One of the things I'm reasonably good at is sales and raising money. Shortly after that, we started Rapportive."
Rahul projects like he's a speaker at a TED conference, with a ton of enthusiasm and, more important, human accessibility. This is part of the program in Silicon Valley—being a person. There's a real cultural aversion to putting on airs, a premium on "exposing" yourself as a human being. Here, the rich and powerful all wear jeans and T-shirts with geeky phrases on them. The offices, even of companies worth millions or billions of dollars, can feel like underfunded start-ups. At thingy headquarters there are often no private offices, only big open rooms with tables and chairs. Mark Zuckerberg, the prime avatar of this generation, doesn't even have a private office. It's the cultural antithesis of the power centers of New York City, where you put on a costume that obscures the idea that you're a regular person. If you're wearing a costume in Silicon Valley start-up world, it's the costume of a genius living on ramen who doesn't care about money (Zuckerberg doesn't appear to spend any of his money), a person so enthralled with thingies that he has abandoned whatever high-status position he had before to build them. (This is part of the required narrative: To make your thingy, you have to quit something impressive, like Cambridge or Google or McKinsey Co.)
Rapportive, Rahul explains, is an application that inserts the social layer into every e-mail you receive. "Imagine if, whenever anybody e-mailed you, you could open the e-mail and instantly see their photograph, their occupation—what they do, their recent tweets, their activities on Facebook. Let me show you what that would look like." Rahul opens up a message on Gmail, and on the right flank, instead of ads, you can see data from Rapportive: a photograph of the sender and a summary of information about him from whatever social-media platform the sender uses—LinkedIn, Mixcloud, etc. "We just raised a million dollars to build that."
I ask him why one would want all that information about whoever happens to e-mail you. "Lots of reasons," he says. "Imagine you want to hire someone: I've had a number of e-mails from people saying, 'It's very interesting looking at the social lives of people who are applying for jobs.' Because seeing someone's recent tweets is actually more valuable than reading someone's résumé. So that's the new economy. That's the new world of personal interactions. And Rapportive exposes that, and we believe in it."
How do you get all that information about people?
"We're all spewing a lot of information out into the Web; some of us know about it and some of us don't. Rapportive is collecting all of that and putting it into one place. We're very careful not to find anything that you couldn't find in half an hour of Googling. We just save you that half an hour."
I still have an embarrassingly antiquated idea of what people mean by "privacy" when they complain about, say, Facebook. To me the danger is basically some Russian guy who steals my credit card number. Or Google knowing my porn predilections. Both of those things are certainly happening. But the "private" stuff that's most likely to get you into trouble is the information you willingly share—semipublic stuff provided by you that can become known by audiences you don't anticipate. My reflexive response to that privacy fear would be to pull all data whatsoever from the public sphere—erase my Facebook account, stop with the Twitter. People like Rahul have the opposite solution: Flood the social layer with information you want out there about yourself.
(If you're confused by the term social layer, think of the word layer as meaning "lens." The social layer is one lens you can look through to see the content of the Internet. Who you're connected to, what they're connected to, what they like and don't like.)
"More and more people are going to have careers where they move from one thing to another fairly publicly," Rahul says. "And what people are really investing in is your track record. Your brand. What you do and what you say and what you think are just as important as your skills. Specifically for me, for our company, it's very important for me to be known, to have credibility, and to have opinions."
Rahul isn't worried about people knowing who he is; he's worried about not enough people knowing who he is. I had this idea when I was in the midst of my ill-fated share-athon the previous month: Maybe the social layer could be a kind of mass experiment in the liberating nature of extreme truth. We'd all be exposed as needy, nostalgic, compassionate self-Googlers. But to people like Rahul, an open society isn't one where people have access to the real you. It is simply providing access to the identity you very carefully construct for human consumption.
"So how is [your thingy] going to help me?" I said.
"You need to rapidly respond to people, and you need to know a lot about them," Rahul says. "I have a thousand and something followers on Twitter. And I've interacted with pretty much all of them at one point or another. Personally. I need to scale that to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands. It's a brand. It's powerful!"
"You're selling a product, so that makes sense," I say. "But don't those tools make people who don't have products begin to see themselves as the product?"
"That's a good point. I believe that more people are going to work for themselves, and more people are going to do what they're passionate about. If you love Disney characters, fuck it, go and monetize Disney characters. If you love Apple laptops, go and become an authority on that and gain a following. This wasn't possible ten years ago. What we're talking about is monetizing passion. Monetizing authority."
"But why is that good? Am I actually going to enjoy myself more?"
"You'll be a bigger person. More people can appreciate who you are more often."
"Don't you think the need to be a quote- unquote bigger person leads to unhappiness and anxiety?"
"I think it's more likely to lead to happiness than material possessions, than the pursuit of more wealth."
"But isn't it precisely the same as the pursuit of more wealth? It's just replacing money with followers."
"Yes it is. But don't reduce it to a number."
Thank You, Facebook!
We can't really move forward without talking about the elephant in the room. When you say "social media" to someone who isn't super techie, he's likely to say, "What's that? Oh, you mean Facebook?" And I'm here to tell you the answer to that question is yes. Social media is Facebook. Before I came out here, I didn't really know why Facebook was such a big deal. It had more than 500 million users, which I know is a ton. And I knew that this spring, according to one of the companies that track Internet activity, FB surpassed Google as the most trafficked Web site in the world, the only time anyone displaced Google in three years—and it's been number one ever since. But I didn't really understand how it was any different from MySpace or Friendster—or a lot of other companies that didn't end up being as powerful or worth as much as everyone thought. And I can tell you now that, according to basically everyone who has more than ten bucks to invest in Silicon Valley, it's different. That it has, as they say, won. Bear with me if you know this stuff already.
First of all, Facebook made identities on the Internet real. People have been pouring embarrassing information onto the Internet for decades now, but no one knew, because there was no Facebook. Facebook has become, in Silicon Valley received-wisdom shorthand, the White Pages of the Internet. It's where everyone is. If you're looking for an actual person from the real world, the first place to look now is FB. And most people who know what they're talking about don't think that's going to change, because 500 million users have, together, a lot of gravity. It's hard to move them all at once. Would it be fun to join another social network if you couldn't find people on it? (Though I also think, as an outsider, that the one thing the Internet has taught us lately is that nothing has gravity.)
Okay. So first it owns your identity. Then it owns your connections. Your friendships. If someone has an interesting bit of information (I got divorced! I had a baby! Look at my pictures from Mexico!), FB knows exactly who might be interested in that bit of information. It is the only place with the channels already up and programmed to distribute it. And you're more likely to pay attention to information delivered through FB's channels because it's coming from people you presumably know and trust and might even like. FB has built the infrastructure of the social layer. Anyone who wants to use it has to use FB's skeleton. Which is fine with FB. One of the smartest things FB ever did was make its connections available for any other party to use. You want to sign in almost anywhere? Just use FB Connect. Why compete with FB when it's expensive to compete with FB, and you're going to lose, and it lets you use its network for free? A by-product of that is that FB knows a lot about you. Like, more than you tell it. Rahul says it's not long until it knows when you get married or when you die, even if no one directly lets it know. One of the founders of a YC company called 1000Memories.com (it's FB for dead people, only more interesting) says he heard FB can already tell when you're about to break up with someone: certain communication patterns emerge.
One of the guys I talked to about why FB is so powerful is Angus Davis, CEO of a company called Swipely, one of the services for "sharing" information about all your credit card purchases with your friends. If you buy new sneakers at Niketown or a Protein Berry Razzmatazz at Jamba Juice, as long as you use a credit card Swipely has access to, it will appear in your feed. It is one of those Internet businesses so far out on the periphery of social sharing that even people who adopt nearly everything are a little scared to use it. But the endgame for these businesses is different from what it seems.
"The big change, the big shift in the Internet that's happened in the past three or four years, is the shift toward social being the most important thing," Angus says. "So now increasingly you discover content or care about content in the context of your friends. Up until now, Google's PageRank has been the dominant way that content gets sorted, ordered, and found on the Internet. And the threat from Facebook is to say, 'Wait, we're going to reorder the whole Internet, all the content out there. And instead of its being based around some algorithm that a search engine says is important, we're going to base it around who you are, who your friends are, and what those people are interested in.'"
A more pessimistic way to look at it is that we're slave labor, getting lured by our desire to show off what we buy (Swipely) or our witty repartee (Twitter), by our need for affirmation (all of the above), or by our habit of looking at pictures of girls from high school all day instead of doing work (FB), and we end up not only driving traffic to these sites but filtering information so that FB and Twitter and Swipely can capitalize on it. They would say they're just trying to make it easier for us to find movies we like. That's probably true, too.
How to Get a Million People to Share Pictures of Themselves
YC has turned out 208 companies since it started four years ago. Like I said, they've got an incredible track record of success, and they've gained a lot of power here. In fact, a few days after I leave, Silicon Valley will be swept by the news of a kind of collusion against YC—what will become known on practically every business-journalism outlet as "Angelgate." A lunch will be held at some place called Bin 38. At this lunch will be Silicon Valley's most influential superangels. (That's a real title you can have, but remember, we're talking about a place where people call themselves—literally have printed on their business cards—"Resident Ninja.") According to some credible leaks, part of the lunch dealt with how to stem the growing power of YC. That's how good these people are at picking their entrepreneurs and honing their ideas. The other part of the discussion—and some attendees have denied this—was reportedly about how to do some old-fashioned monopolistic price-fixing.
Still, YC's success is a particular Silicon Valley kind of success. The most impressive YC companies aren't necessarily household names: Dropbox, Scribd, Bump, Posterous, Reddit, Airbnb. But YC is essentially taking educated bets about what the next Facebook, Twitter, Mint.com are, and these companies are handicapped pretty well for that. One of YC's big successes in the past year is a company called DailyBooth. It's like Twitter—it's a platform for communication, you can "follow" people, and people can "follow" you—but instead of typing 140 characters, you just take pictures of yourself. Here I am in my room in my pajamas. Here I am at Starbucks. Here I am in my new sweater. Here I am in my room again in my pajamas. (It seems like, as often as not, a DailyBooth picture is of someone in his bedroom in pajamas.) That's the whole thing. There's no pretext that you have information you need to get across or a really good joke. It's a thingy that, you might argue, reduces the psychological physics of the social layer to its simplest equation: I'm alive right now; I'm a person; look at me.
DailyBooth is a good way to see one of the central parados of the social layer. People engage in this stuff, I think, for the affirmation. To prove that they exist. But in effect, the collection and aggregation of all those photos, all those bits of unique self-expression from, literally, 500 million people (and Zuck says that a billion is basically a fait accompli) actually nullifies humanity. True, the smallest detail of your life might be amplified and spread instantly across what is the simplest and most effective distribution network ever invented. But more likely is that detail being almost instantly buried by the incredible volume of other people's smallest details.
DailyBooth launched about a year ago, and though its traffic isn't huge, it grew 1,000 percent this year. Go to DailyBooth.com and watch the live feed. It's breathtaking. And I don't mean that in a glib way. It's breathtaking the way Facebook is if you stop to think about the snapshot of us that's captured in its billions of gigabytes of cached human need. The live feed is a record of every single self-portrait posted to DailyBooth. You see a face blossom onto the feed, at the top where everyone is looking; then, three seconds later, you watch it get pushed down by the next face, and three seconds later pushed farther by another face, and down again until that person is gone, probably never found again. The faces are mostly too young to have any kind of a protective shell. Faces with a profound, Clearasil kind of beauty. The sheer number of sideways hats is astonishing. And the number of displayed soft drinks—so many people are at a loss for what to say about themselves except that they're drinking a Coke. As a little experiment, I'll take a three-minute break from typing this right now, at 8:41 p.m. on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, and write down what people say: A sexy girl asks, is her picture "Facebook worthy?" A girl with a giant plastic bong writes: "this is the most amazing thing i have ever smoked out of / my face basically explains how amazing this is / i am so medicated right now." A (relatively) older woman types: "Like I need one more social media network to keep up with...but I can't resist! Love this site!"
The company was started by two guys, Ryan, 24, and Jon, 23. It operates out of a few hundred square feet in an office building near the entrance to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Today (late August 2010) they're working on their iPhone app—eight people work for DailyBooth, and the most recent hire is a guy whose specialty is building interfaces for phones. There are a bunch of worktables, new ethereally lit Macs, a wonky VoIP line, some sandwich stuff in the fridge, and a shitload of whiteboards. Ryan is from suburban Cincinnati, and Jon's from the UK. They've never worked, geographically, together—Jon still lives in England. They met in a Web-development chat room. They've been building stuff since puberty: Jon sold his first Web application when he was 13 for $2,000; Ryan sold some Web-development software when he was 20 for $40,000. When YC granted them an interview after they applied, they didn't have the cash to buy plane tickets, so they spent half a day building an application that worked on Twitter and auctioned it off on a Web site. Day to day, the company is now operated by a 30-year-old guy named Brian Pokorny, who used to be an angel investor. (I guess the answer is yes, you can be a former angel investor when you're 30.)
The original idea for DailyBooth was that people would go there every day and upload a photo. Those pictures would be archived on the site and turned into a kind of time-lapse movie of you growing up. But given the tools provided, people didn't want to create an arty movie. They wanted to look at and comment on and flirt with one another. So the founders built that instead. (YC lesson two: Fuck the business plan. Throw your thingy up as soon as possible, see how people use it, and change it to fit what they want.)
The first thing I want to know is why, apparently, people on DB don't feel exposed, vulnerable, embarrassingly narcissistic. "There was a study done," Brian says. "They gave people video cameras. Everyone over the age of 25 would turn it outward, and everyone under the age of 25 would turn it inward. This is the first platform that captured this behavior of turning the camera inward. It created a platform for communication around that one behavior. Look at the iPhone 4. It has two cameras—they added one specifically to face inward. And the fact that Steve Jobs, who's sort of the person who defines what's acceptable in technology and behavior, put this here? So this behavior is becoming even more acceptable."
Brian takes me under his wing for the time I'm in Silicon Valley, because I kind of make him take me under his wing. He's a student of the social layer, complete with theses and examples. Before DailyBooth, he spent four years as the right-hand man to Ron Conway, the most prolific angel investor in Silicon Valley (he was an early investor in Twitter, PayPal, Foursquare, Google, etc., etc.). Brian's job was to evaluate twenty companies a week for Ron, to tell him where to put his money, to develop theories about which thingies work and which don't, to help instruct him in how the Internet evolves vis-à-vis human psychology. (A more general thesis about the basic disappointment of the Internet: It ultimately evolves only where it meets human desire, which itself is geared for life circa 200 b.c. If the Internet ultimately disappoints, it's because it was made for humans. Give us instant connection to everyone and the ability to collaborate in vast seamless networks and we spend 99 percent of those resources telling everyone what kind of oatmeal we ate for breakfast and 1 percent of it building Wikipedia.) The reason he quit his job with Ron Conway is that DailyBooth was an almost chillingly perfect distillation of the theories he had about what a thingy needs to be virally, scalably successful.
Brian's first theory is about something he calls friction. Friction is what you don't want. Friction is what keeps people from signing up for your site or downloading your app. Because it's too expensive, because it's too embarrassing, because it's too difficult, because it's difficult at all. The Internet has been working to reduce friction. To make everything easier to use, easier to sign up for, easier to navigate, cheap, free, freer than free. In a perfect world, there'd be friction if someone didn't sign up for your thingy. Again, FB has it right: It's frictive to not have an FB account; just ask anyone who has to explain six times a day why he doesn't have one.
Okay, people want to share stuff with the world. So the Internet gives us blogs. Lots of people use them. But you need to know how to code HTML to have a blog. So that's a problem, and the people in Silicon Valley realize that. They get busy and build blogging platforms so those of us who don't want to read manuals or learn how to do something hard can still tell everyone what we think. Blogger, then MovableType, then Tumblr., and so on. But there's still a creative friction—you still have to have something entertaining to say. Even on MySpace, you were basically building and maintaining your own static Web site. That's what Facebook made easier. You're not in charge of doing anything besides populating the fields on your profile page, uploading some pictures, typing some words into the status-update box. You don't have to be saying anything besides "At O'Hare," or "Mayonnaise is awesome." Same concept with Twitter: You only have 140 characters—there aren't paralyzing creative options here. But Brian Pokorny thinks DailyBooth appeals to people who want even less friction than Twitter: Here, you don't need to think of something witty or informative to say in 140 characters or fewer. All you have to do is take a picture of yourself.
"I kind of studied a lot of the people on YouTube and Foursquare," he says. "The thing that was compelling was that, in four to five months [since it launched], DailyBooth already had a subset of the main YouTubers using it, which was one set of early adopters. And not only did they like it but it was an order of magnitude of less friction for them to publish a photo than it was to edit a video for ten hours. And they'd get the same feedback."
There's a second theory that makes DailyBooth a kind of elegant, perfectly simple social-media product. It's closely related to the friction concept, only this one violates one of the laws of thermodynamics: You have to get more out of a system than you put into it. "In the best products, you put minimal amounts in," Brian says, "and you get a lot back out. Like Twitter. You follow ten people. You maybe tweet once in a while. And you get all this news content and information. You don't have to do very much, and you get a lot back. Facebook? The same thing. You connect to your friends and, boom, you're flooded with all this stuff. Maybe you put in one thing, and all day long you get all this stuff to look at. DailyBooth, the same thing. You take one picture and you get ten comments back for one post."
Ashvin Kumar, the Scariest Man on the Internet
I'd wager that of all the companies I've mentioned in this article, the one that freaks you out the most is Swipely. The place where you give it access to your credit card and it starts sharing all your purchases with your "friends." I mean, let's start with "give it access to your credit card." But there's a business that freaks people out more than Swipely. It's called Blippy. (I know, I know: You might think that Internet companies might try not naming themselves something nonsensical that implies lots of exclamation points.) Blippy is like Swipely with one big functional difference. Blippy displays how much money you spent on something. If you buy a $365 sweater at Barneys, your Blippy friends will know you bought a $365 sweater at Barneys.
The people who invented this thing must, I figure, be either extraordinarily craven or idealistic and visionary in some way I don't yet understand. And I mean that sincerely; the more I learn about social-media products, the more I realize that their true purpose often isn't clear, even to the people who use them. I meet one of the Blippy founders, Ashvin Kumar, at a diner in Palo Alto.
"Since we were the first to do this, we kind of, like, carved out this niche in people's consciousness as being this radical thing," Ashvin said, without my bringing up the fact that even people who are self-proclaimed oversharers are scared of Blippy. "You've tried it; you know it's not that radical."
He's right. It doesn't feel radical when you use it. When you buy something, Blippy asks you to review it—to do more of the filtering the social layer needs to organize the Internet for you. Every time I reviewed something, it went into the live feed, and a few minutes later I would get a bunch of positive responses. People clicked "awesome" or "informative" or "funny." It felt good. It felt like I'd finally found what most of us are looking for: a place where people would listen to us and congratulate us on our opinions about everything.
The system is gamed for that to happen. How do you make people be nice to one another? First, you install buttons for "awesome" and "funny." Second, you use real identities. The social layer means that you have a static identity on the Internet. And while that's more likely to help your future boss find the picture of you with the cock and balls drawn on your forehead (thanks, Rahul!), it also makes the Internet a kinder, more compassionate, more polite place. If people know it's really you commenting on something on Blippy—you, the guy with the Facebook account and the girlfriend named Polly and the Phish fan page and all that—you're much less likely to act like a creep. And third, you establish that behavior immediately. If the first hundred people who use the site behave a certain way, the next hundred thousand will behave the same way. It's creating a feedback loop that makes you want to come back to the Web site. And the feedback loop is what forms the right addictive behavior for the site to work. Addiction is requisite.
Now that the social layer has been built, some people say the next layer will be the game layer. The game layer will install game mechanics in everything, and game mechanics are a way to manipulate human behavior. The optimists say that we can use game mechanics to manipulate ourselves to be better—nicer, more productive, not as fat—and that the companies who figure out how to install that layer will be the next Facebooks. Here's how Rahul explains it: "The biggest trend in Web applications right now is adding game design. With the theory of game design, you want a curve like this: increasingly large payoffs at random but increasingly spaced intervals. So the first payoff is very small, and the next payoff is a little bigger, and the next one… To begin with, you get a payoff one out of five actions, then it's one out of twenty, then it's one out of fifty—but those intervals have to be random. That is the key to human addiction. And any system that has that property, whether it's Facebook, World of Warcraft, or physical drugs—that's what makes business work. Facebook is very watered-down. They could ratchet up the gaming significantly."
Game mechanics mostly means overtly turning thingies into games. Part of the reason people share their location with Foursquare is that by using it you're playing a kind of real-life game. By checking in, you can become "mayor" of your favorite bar, you can unlock "badges," etc. That feature is basically for people who don't understand why they're using Foursquare—the company wants to give them an artificial reason to keep using it until they figure out what they like about it. But even without the overt game mechanics, the gamelike nature of social interaction is why we're addicted to social media in general. It's why I'm addicted to e-mail. Most e-mails I get are bullshit. But every once in a while, I get an e-mail that feels affirming in some special way—someone I like thought of me, someone is saying something nice to me, someone is telling me he wants to give me money, my wife is sending pictures of our daughter. Ergo, I check my e-mail about every twenty-seven seconds. You can't totally blame the Internet for the fact that we're basically crackheads. Our bodies are designed with the flaw of wanting to be crackheads. And manipulating that flaw is partly how you get 500 million users for your thingy.
I say as much to Ashvin: "Doesn't the Internet just want me to be on the Internet all the time? Isn't that what the social layer is? 'Wait, don't go! Your friends are here! We have pictures of your ex-fiancée! Someone might think you're cute! Everyone wants to know what you think of Nights in Rodanthe because you're "awesome" and "funny" and "informative"!'"
"The one thing in the world that everyone's going to compete for is people's attention," Ashvin says. "It all depends on your attention. If you hang out on Mint.com for an hour every day, then they have your attention. And if they can sustain that attention with relevant information, whether it's with advertising or not, they're succeeding."
Is that all social media is doing? Playing psychological video games in ways that form habits and drive revenue for Internet companies? Ashvin says no. And he points to Quora as an example of why this isn't the case. Quora actually does make you feel optimistic. It's a thingy that is meant to harness the collective knowledge of all the smart people who use the Internet and get them to answer human questions and provide nuanced human answers. Because, he says—and the man is correct on this point—the quality of information on the Internet sucks right now. (Anyone who tells you how much better the Internet made things should think about that.) Basically, he says, if you want information, you end up on Wikipedia. Quora is used by basically everyone in Silicon Valley now. All the famous people are on there, sharing high-quality information and shoring up their own online identities—their personal identities—and in the process helping the world be less dumb.
"Quora is going to—if they continue to do what they're doing—compete with Google," Ashvin says. "Think about the Google-search experience: not very intuitive. The right way to ask a question is to ask a question and put a question mark at the end. The thing about Quora is there's no notion of technology trying to figure this stuff out. A human question is put into a feed of topics, and people who are experts in that will answer the question. And they're building this corpus of information. It's not social in the traditional sense that 'Oh, he's my friend.' In the world of Quora, and in the world of information identity, a stranger is often more important than a friend. Especially if the stranger is the expert on the topic that I need to know about."
A Short Coda About a Happy, Social Place
There actually is a place where the future is bright, where all the most utopian visions about the capabilities of social media are manifest in the real world. Where everyone is connected to everyone, and those connections make everyone's life richer, make everyone more creative, more successful, more interesting, more fulfilled. There's a place where most people use the hive mind and the greased rails of communication to make astonishing things. It's here: Mountain View. Silicon Valley. Start-up Land.
This isn't just the place where they invent this shit; it's the single place where the life that's advertised is lived. Where the adoption rate, if the product is right, approaches 100 percent. Where the world has been mapped out by the inquisitive people with GPS-equipped smartphones and Foursquare, and difficult technical questions are answered by friendly experts you don't know. (It's hardly a coincidence that the one area of Quora that's already fleshed out is the part about how to build thingies.) It's like that because it's a small world, filled with highly educated people with similar interests and a deep philosophical understanding of what the point of all this stuff is. That it's the perfect social network doesn't just mean Silicon Valley is more efficient at making stuff. It affects the products they make. Products that promise to, if we can work together, systematize the world. It's a place where there's a deep belief that human society can be perfected. These people, the Ashvins, are optimistic not only because theirs is the last ascendant American industry but because implied in all those products is the idea that the human problem can be solved. They're working in a world—the Internet—that's wholly manipulable, that behaves according to rules. A world like a geometry textbook. And that way of thinking bleeds out into how they design stuff for us to use.
But you know why I think they're really happy? Because they get to build all this stuff. The act of creation is maybe the most frictive thing going. Using the stuff is meant to be frictionless, but making it isn't. And their happiness comes from friction. Most happiness probably comes from friction. It's why having sex with someone you've fallen in love with (not the easiest, safest process, falling in love) is so much better than having sex with a prostitute (no friction there). And that is why the happiest and most fulfilled people who use social media are here. Making it. The only problem is that it's not scalable. That's the flaw, really, with this: The only way to scale it is to remove the friction.


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Dark chicken cutllets freshy grilled in authentic chinese marinade. Served on a bed of mixed greens and alfalfa sprouts. Add a soup and you have a full dinner right there! I broil the cutlets. In order to keep it moist after broiling, I pour on some of the extra marinade and cover the pan well. Keep in the oven on warm until ready to serve...
2 lb dark chicken cutlets
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup soy sauce
4 Tbsp sugar
5 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
1½ tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 head fresh romaine lettuce,checked, cut into pieces
½ oz alfalfa sprouts
1 purple onion sliced thinly
2 kirbys sliced in rounds
2 Tbsp mayonaise
- salt to taste
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Trim off extra fat from the cutlets. Rinse the pieces and lay flat in 9x13 inch pan.
Put all the marinade ingredients in a bowl and mix very well. (You can do this with an immersion blender.)
Pour marinade over the chicken and let marinate for about half an hour.
When you are ready to grill the chicken pour off the extra marinade that is in the pan. (Reserve it for later.)
Broil cutlets on high for twenty minutes on one side. Turn it over and broil for another fifteen minutes on the seconed side.
When it's ready, pour the reserved marinade back onto the chicken. Cover pan well and keep in the oven on 300 degrees Farenheit until ready to serve. (This step helps keep the chicken very moist)
In large bowl toss together all the salad ingredients with the 2 tablespoons mayonaise and the salt and cayenne pepper.
Divide salad into four individual plates. Put warm grilled chicken on top and Serve!


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CHARLESTON, S.C - The Charleston Southern women's basketball team defeated the Falcons of Pfeiffer at a score of 74-59. This improves the Bucs' record to 4-6 (0-0, BSC) and drops the Falcons of Pfeiffer to 3-3 (2-0, Conference Carolinas). Leading the Buccaneers was senior guard Katie Tull who had a career high in points with 29 on the night.
Senior guard Kelsey Wasmer also had a great afternoon on the hardwood for the Buccaneers with her third double-double of the season. Wasmer pulled down a career high 12 rebounds and put in 18 points. Wasmer was a tough defensive matchup for the Falcons throughout the game.
The Bucs had good ball pressure on the Falcons, forcing 14 turnovers from Pfeiffer in the first half and 26 for the game
Charleston Southern was in control of the game but couldn't quite seem to get too far ahead of the Falcons in the early going. In a sequence towards the end of the half the Falcons answered two threes by senior Katie Tull with threes of their own.
To open the second half back-to-back threes by Tull helped the Bucs extend their lead to 17 points.
The better the Bucs began to shoot, the further the Falcons were forced to extend the zone to get hands in the face of shooters. This opened up the passing lanes between the zone and created easy scoring opportunities for the Bucs.
The Bucs lead hovered around 15 points for most of the second half, but a three from Kellie Rhoney in the corner cut the Bucs' lead down to seven. The Bucs' scrappy Div-II opponents from Pfeiffer would not quite go away, but as the Falcons began to tire, the Bucs began to get more open shots and extend their lead.
Katie Tull led all scorers Bucs with 29 points and shot 7-of-14 from beyond the arc. Tull has shot an amazing 56 % from three-point land within the friendly confines of Buccaneer Field House this season. Tull also previously set a CSU record for threes in a game this season in the Bucs first home victory over the Lady Tigers of Voorhees College.
Leading the Pfeiffer Falcons in the losing effort were Devona Knight who had 13 and Domonique China who also had 13 points on the afternoon.
Pfeiffer will now enjoy the holiday break until January 3rd when the Lady Falcons will host Barton in Conference Carolinas action at 5:30 p.m.


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Shure's TC3 System: A Place for Everything
February 17, 2010 by RVBusiness · Comments Off on Shure's TC3 System: A Place for Everything
Anyone who's ever turned a wrench knows how important a large, clean and segmented work space is. Shure Manufacturing Corp. understands the needs of the service technician — or well-equipped do-it-yourselfer — and the company's TC3 System integrates all the essential space and tools needed to maximize efficiency and productivity. The system incorporates both stationary and wall-mount units to allow for multiple configurations, depending upon space requirements, and are available in single- or double-bay configurations. Painted steel bench top and painted chase panels are standard, as are locks on the upper cabinets (they also are available for lower cabinets, as are stainless-steel chase panel upgrades, optional leg levelers and powdercoating in a choice of 22 colors). Reels and in-ground lift power units can be mounted and concealed inside the workbench, along with air, water, oil, light and electric integrated supply reels (sold separately). The matching tool storage cabinets include full-extension drawers with 400-pound capacity. For more information, contact Shure Manufacturing Corp., 1901 W. Main St., Washington, MO 63090; (800) 227-4873, www.shureusa.com.


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***This post was originally published on BeerBlotter.com, a seattle beer blog to which I regularly offer commentary.***
UPDATE: Since this was originally posted on BeerBlotter.com, I was advised of a myriad of conversation on the topic. Here are a few additional links to the BeerNews.org report and the Full Pint's interview with Moylan's brewmaster (who produced his lawyer's response to Port's claims)
I was shocked to see this one yesterday; so shocked that I had to read it twice and pull the court records to believe it. Port Brewing, the business entity that sells Lost Abbey beers, has sued Moylan's Brewing.
Port Brewing's other business name, Lost Abbey utilizes a celtic cross symbol as its emblem. Well, Moylans Brewing (a historically irish brewer) decided to use a remarkably similar cross for their new Celts Golden Ale. You can see images of the conflicting marks by viewing this article by BeerNews.org. The two images are virtually identical.
Port's Tomme Arthur provides, on his blog, that Port notified Moylans of concerns back in April of this year. However, after months of impasse, Port has decided to go forward with a Trademark infringement action in the US District Court for the Southern District of California. You can review the Complaint by following this link.
The gist of the suit can be found in some of the opening paragraphs:
9. Plaintiff has engaged in extensive marketing and promotion of their Celtic cross trademark and has enjoyed significant sales of their beer and merchandise, including sales of the Celtic cross beer tap handles.
10. Due to Plaintiff's extensive use of its stylized Celtic cross image marks (collectively referred to herein as the "Port Brewing Marks"), Plaintiff has built up significant goodwill therein and its branded merchandise has been praised and recognized in the brewing industry and through various media.
11. As a result of such longstanding, substantial and continuous use, the Celtic cross- branded products have long been immediately recognized by consumers and the trade.
18. Upon information and belief, Defendant recently began using a stylized cross beer tap handle within its course of business that is strikingly similar to the Port Brewing Marks.
19. Upon information and belief, Defendant is currently using a stylized cross beer tap handle, at its brewery and at other participating restaurants, bars, taverns and breweries across the nation, including within this District, featuring marks confusingly similar to Plaintiff's stylized Port Brewing Marks. Defendant is providing this infringing beer tap to distributors and such taps are being particularly confused with Port Brewing's protected beer taps where both companies' beers are being served.
Arthur is now taking a beating from craft beer enthusiasts – a beating that probably is not warranted. Unfortunately, beer is business. Businesses work hard to develop an image and when two closely competing businesses have confusing marks, someone needs to take a step back. Apparently, Port and Moylans will let the court decide who needs to take that step.
Tomme has been pretty beat up about the response from beer fans. He put together a well-written and thought out response to the negative animus. Here is a good snippet, but please read the whole thing by clicking on this link:
Please check our FAQ's which we compiled to address this issue. At this time, we are waiting for a response from Moylan's Brewing Company and still are open to a resolution that neither weakens nor devalues our Lost Abbey Trademark stylized Celtic Cross Tap Handle. …. The bigger and healthier the Craft Brewing business gets, the harder it is to be unique and distinctive. Intellectual Property is something that all breweries (small and big) need to value. It's one of the biggest assets we can own.
Lastly,filing paperwork with the Federal Courts does not mean we are obligated to sue Moylan's Brewing LLC. I can tell you that we at Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey are not giddy with excitement about this filing. When I look out my office window, I know the 12 people who work at this brewery aren't high fiving each other about their owners decision to do this. But they understand that Intellectual Property is a big part of this brewery and the beers we sell.
…at this time, it is a solely two small passionate craft breweries who happen to disagree looking to protect their intellectual property. Ultimately, a compromise that doesn't involve the courts may be reached. And then we can all go back to focusing on doing the things we do best.