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Landed: Impressions of Prairie Landscape and Culture
Prairie people have deep connections to the land. Its wide open spaces, demanding climate, and physical distances created challenges for settlers who wanted to call it home. Some loved the promise of a clean slate, a new home and land they could own. Others hated the lonely whistle of the wind, the backbreaking work and the struggle to survive. But love it or hate it, they endured—building a unique culture, social institutions and activities that helped them cope and thrive.
Judy Weiss and Sharon Willas Rubuliak present their personal perspectives on what it means to be 'Landed'. Drawing on their own roots as descendants of homesteaders in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, their work incorporates collected stories and events of yesterday as well as personal travels and experiences of today. This exhibition is an ongoing collaboration. At each venue, we add or change pieces in the collection, keeping it new and fresh.
For the PAVA exhibition we have added an installation called Pink Tea, celebrating 100 years of women having the vote in Alberta. To go with the installation, I have created a new wall piece titled Breaking Ground: Log Cabin to Courthouse Steps. This piece plays on the traditional quilt block patterns of Log Cabin, and its variation, Courthouse Steps. It touches on major issues faced by farm women in the early 20th century: lack of property rights, inability to vote or elect representatives to government; the intersection of isolation, family violence and Prohibition; and the need for medical care, dental care, libraries and education for rural women and families.
Works in Landed combine traditional hand arts – quilting, stitching and felting – with modern materials and methods, including hand-dyeing and painting, discharge, block-printing, image transfer and collage.
Aug 15-Sep 29 Galerie PAVA, of the Société francophone des arts visuels de l'Alberta
9524 – 87th street, Edmonton
Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 4pm Closed Sunday and Monday
Abstracted Exhibition
Abstracted is an exhibition of the Fibre Art Network
The show consists of 44 pieces by 40 artists, working in pairs. Each pair was challenged to create one realistic and one abstracted version of the same person, place or thing. The exhibition debuted at the LaConner Quilt and Textile Museum in LaConner, WA, USA, and was featured at Quilt Canada 2014 in St. Catherine's, ON. The show will travel until the end of 2016. Additional venues are welcome. To indicate interest in booking the show, please contact the artist.
Upcoming venues:
July 3-Aug 29, 2015 Allie Griffin Art Gallery, Weyburn SK
Sep – October, 2015 Maple Ridge ACT Gallery, Maple Ridge, BC
Ties That Bind
Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition (TREX) Program,
Region 2 – Art Gallery of Alberta
Sep 2016 – Aug 2018
Margie Davidson, Diane Duncan, Matt Gould and Judy Weiss will present their unique interpretations of 'Ties that Bind'. The exhibition will tour the northeast regions of the province of Alberta for one year, and will then tour two other regions for the remaining year. It will be shared in schools, libraries and public art galleries. Schedule and venues TBA.
Ekphrasis is a literary description or commentary on a visual work of art. Participants in this exhibition are putting a slightly different spin on this process. Twelve prominent Canadian poets were invited to create a new work, and four members of the Fibre Art Network have agreed to produce a new visual work based on each of the 12 original poems. In total, 48 fibre artists will interpret the 12 original poems. "Ekphrastic" will debut at the Quilt Museum in La Conner, Washington in October, 2016, and will be available for exhibition until December 31,2019.
My contribution is a visual response to the poem "raven" by Katherena Vermette, winner of the 2013 Governor General Literary Award for Poetry. Ms. Vermette is a Métis writer of poetry, fiction and children's literature, and she is a resident of Winnipeg, MB. Her work appears in literary magazines and anthologies across the globe. Although I can't give away the poem's content before the exhibition, I can tell you that it provoked a tremendous visceral response in me, and it presented an immediate vision for a fibre art response. It will be interesting for each of the three responding fibre artists, and for Ms. Vermetter, to see our collective works.
For information about booking the exhbition in your gallery or local area, please contact me via my blog.


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Toyota Land Cruiser Review 2018
Toyota Land Cruiser is one of the oldest Toyota model which is still selling successfully from the last half century. This aggressive looking sporty vehicle can manage both on and off road conditions well. This powerful SUV launched by the Toyota in single variant.
It is powered by 4461 cc, 4 valve, DOHC Diesel engine offers automatic transmission facility. It is available for Rs. 1.61 crore (Ex-showroom, Delhi).Read about Toyota Land Cruiser below including engine performance, mileage, safety, comfort, price, colors and other features.
Top Specifications
- 4461 cc, 4 valve, DOHC Diesel engine
- 262 bhp @ 3400 RPM Max Power
- 650 Nm @ 1600 RPM Max Torque
- Automatic Transmission Type
- 6 Gears, AWD
- Disc brakes in front and rear
- Double Wishbone Suspension:Front
- Four link with coil spring Suspension:Rear
- Automatic Climate Control AC
Engine performance and Mileage
Toyota Land Cruiser powered by 4461 cc, 4 valve, DOHC Diesel engine which churns out 262 bhp @ 3400 RPM power and 650 Nm @ 1600 RPM torque on ride. engine mated with 6 speed automatic gearbox offers AWD.
Best class performance assured by the Disc brakes in front and rear, Double Wishbone Suspension:Front, Four link with coil spring Suspension:Rear etc. You will get mileage of around 8kmpl in highways and 5 kmpl in city ride from Toyota Land Cruiser.
Available variant
- Toyota Land Cruiser VX
Safety and Comfort on Ride
Comfort and safety measures includes 10 Airbags, Dual-Stage Airbags, Anti-Lock Braking System, Electronic Brake-force Distribution, Brake Assist, Electronic Stability Program, Traction Control System, Engine immobilizer, Central Locking, Child Safety Lock, Cruise Control, Air Conditioner, Power Steering etc.
There is also Key less Start, Rear Parking Sensors, Leather Seat Upholstery, Power Windows, Automatic Head Lamps, Rear Defogger, Rear Wiper, Rain-sensing Wipers, Sunroof / Moon roof, Projector with Xenon Headlamps, Fog Lamps, Seat Belt Warning, Integrated (in-dash) Music System, GPS Navigation System, Tubeless Tyres, Alloy Wheels etc.
- Power Steering, Power Windows
- Central Locking
- Anti-Lock Braking System
- 10 Airbags, Leather seats
- Alloy Wheels, tubeless tyres
- 225 mm Ground Clearance
- 2850 mm Wheelbase
- 93 litres Fuel Tank Capacity
- 5.9 metres Turning Radius
- 285 / 60 R18 Tyres
Available Colors
- Green Mica Metallic
- Silver Metallic
- White Pearl Crystal Shine
- Dark red mica Metallic
- Black
- Gold Mica
- Beige mica Metallic
- Grey Metallic
- Super White II
- Greyish Blue Metallic

subset: commoncrawl


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|Family Room. Love the light hardwood & the darker hardwood on the steps!
Wall paint color is SW Tony Taupe, celing is SW Balanced Beige
|Finished lower level
|Love these closet doors. Found them at Lowe's
|Cute molding & coordinating paint.
|Powder Bath with awesome black/gold grasscloth wallpaper
|Love the glossy herringbone tiles!
|Other side of the office
Hope you enjoyed the pics.
Wishing you a nice weekend!


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Welcome to The Maltsters, Ranworth
The Maltsters is a family run pub and restaurant adjacent to Malthouse Broad at Ranworth. We have welcoming, friendly staff and a great relaxed atmosphere and are located in a beautiful setting with a large terrace and garden overlooking the broad.
We have an extensive menu available every day! We also offer a great selection of wines and a choice of real ales along with all the drinks you would hope to find in your favourite pub.
There are free moorings on the Staithe about 75 yards from the pub. The Broad offers lots of space for those boaters preferring to "lay off" with their mud weight. There are also available, at a cost, moorings on the Island although you will need a dinghy to get to the mainland.
We have a large car park opposite the pub. We also have a small campsite.
During the winter come and relax and unwind by an open fire and during the warm summer months sit outside with a nice cold drink admiring the view across the Broad.
We look forward to seeing you soon.


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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A market that sells locally-grown produce in Birmingham's Avondale neighborhood won a key award from the Alabama Retail Association today.
Freshfully and its co-owner Jen Barnett won the Gee Emerging Retailer of the Year Award during the annual awards presentation at The Club in Birmingham.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham's Collat School of Business also
presents the awards, which were chosen from nearly 50 nominations. The Emerging Retailer of the Year Award is named for the late Mickey Gee, longtime owner of The Pants Store and a UAB professor.
Additionally, owners, managers and employees of other businesses across the state were named Alabama Retailers of the Year for 2013. The slate of winners included 12 retail businesses with operations in 72 Alabama cities and 31 states.
Freshfully, which connects shoppers and local farmers, has in two years expanded from an online-only business to add a brick-and-mortar presence and a cafe that prepares locally-produced food.
In accepting the award, Barnett talked about the importance of brick-and-mortar stores, saying there is a part of retail that is just as important to a community as local schools and churches.
She recalled shopping with her mother at Pizitz and Watkins Book Shop, both in Roebuck, and with her grandmother at Bargain Town in Oneonta.
"I don't think kids today are going to grow up and remember shopping with their mom on Amazon," she said.
Other award winners were divided into categories.
Gold award: Department store Belk Inc., which is based in Charlotte, N.C., but has it Western Division headquarters in Birmingham
Silver award: Birmingham-based sporting goods retailer Hibbett Sports
Bronze award: Golden Flake Snack Foods, also of Birmingham
Annual sales between $5 million and $20 million:
Gold award: Lucy Buffett's restaurant, Lulu's, in Gulf Shores
Silver award: Western Supermarket in Mountain Brook
Annual sales between $1 million and $5 million:
Gold award: Bob Sykes Bar B Q Restaurant in Bessemer
Silver award: Homewood's Dorothy McDaniel's Flower Market
Bronze award: Home Gallery, Home Gallery Dining Furniture and First Impression, all in Troy. The stores sell furniture, home accessories, gifts and ladies clothing.
Annual sales less than $1 million:
Gold award: Fringe, consignment stores in Opelika and Auburn
Silver award: Birmingham's Silvertron Cafe
Bronze award: Leaf & Petal in Mountain Brook
The Birmingham Barons, the minor league baseball franchise that's in its 129th year, was recognized as an Alabama Centennial Retailer.


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It did make me look at what I did achieve in a more positive light though. In that time (since mid-Jan), I've:
- added ~36,000 words to my WIP (work in progress), and
- exercised ~55 hrs
We had our writer's meeting today and yes, I did have to wear the 'hat of shame' :) I was the only one this time - so well done to everyone else for meeting their goals!
I've set my goals for the next 2 months. I'm aiming for approx 80,000 words in my novel, and am currently up to 47,500. I'm going to aim to get it finished (as a first draft) by 21st July. I really, really want to say I've completed it!
I've drawn up a schedule - to add another 30,000 words, it's 500 words per day with a couple of days free where I know I have a full day out. It's doable, but I need to focus and make the time. And not leave it until the last thing in the day when I'm tired and it's all too hard.
Now to get motivated on the exercise again too!


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Because stereotypes were made to be broken! Or, at the very least, explored. . .
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Therapy: what's with the stigma?
Now, I want to be clear: I'm NOT criticizing this person for choosing to avoid therapy. Everyone has to make choices for their own families as they see fit. All my information is second hand, so I'm NOT judging.
What I am wondering is this: does therapy still have that kind of stigma for most people? I thought that as a culture Americans were over therapists as modern incarnation of snake oil sellers and therapy as something only for weirdos. Am I wrong about that?
And another question: is it different among LDS? In our cultural subset are we NOT over it?
11 comments:
- Kelly said...
I don't think it's Mormon, I think it's American to kind of tease people who go to therapy. I mean, think about TV shows or movies that have people who go to therapy. They tend to be caricatures of people with the weirdest problems, never normal people with real problems who need to talk them out and gain clarity and perspective. Like it or not, most of us still think of it that way.
I think, for example, of the TV show Monk, where the main character has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and goes to therapy. While there, he rearranges the couch cushions in the waiting room. When the therapist gets a new white-noise machine, Monk automatically complains about the pitch or noise level or something being different. The therapy changes nothing about Monk. And when the time is up, the therapist kicks Monk out the door, grateful to be rid of him and to collect his money from him.
The other TV extreme are self-absorbed women who go to therapy just to talk about themselves -- for lack of a best friend, I suppose. I think the media has done a great job of putting that stigma on therapy.
Why I personally don't go to therapy -- money. I bet that's the bottom line. Like I think my youngest could totally benefit from it, but at what cost? How much is too much, before you just tell yourself or your kids to just deal with it?
- August 26, 2008 at 4:37 PM
- Elizabeth-W said...
When people come to my office, I always ask if they've ever seen a counselor/therapist before. If they say 'no', I ask them what their expectations are. Do you that just about everybody is surprised that I don't have a couch? (I do have comfy leather chairs and a footrest.)
Who I blame is Woody Allen. If the person is over 40 I'll make a comment about the Woody Allen model, and they totally get that. Blame Woody!! :D
I think taking your child to a therapist is a very scary thing. Therapists have tons of power. I would be very careful--now don't think I'm saying not to. I'm just saying I personally don't see kids under about 15 years old because I don't feel confident in working with small children. I think of therapy with kids as being a specialty in itself. If I were ever going to take my child, I would be doing research on what population the therapist typically sees, what kind of continuing education the person has done recently regarding working with children, etc.
I think to some extent there is an LDS bias against counseling. In my professional lifetime I remember talks at Conference that were not counselor-friendly. Things have changed A LOT in 20 years. I'm sure by the time our children are our age, the stigma will be greatly decreased.
- August 26, 2008 at 9:36 PM
- Laura said...
Kelly-that's a good point about the money. That puts limits on it for me, too. And, yeah, I guess I should maybe concede that American culture is not so therapy friendly. But, I don't know, Dr. Cox on Scrubs had a therapist and that was cool. I've only seen Monk once or twice so I'll have to trust your judgement on that one. But don't most people realize that there IS a time and place for therapy? That sometimes it IS the responsible thing to do?
Elizabeth--you make a good point about the therapist being in a position of power with kids. As a parent I would never haphazardly pick someone to work with my children in ANY situation, let alone something as difficult to manage as feelings. I agree that LDS rhetoric about mental illness is changing. I was surprised to see the Ensign article a couple years ago about mental illness. The chatter seems more matter of fact these days in general.
- August 26, 2008 at 9:52 PM
- Laura said...
Oh, and p.s., I don't go to therapy because I lack friends. (Hi Kelly!) I go because my friends honestly don't have the time to deal with my issues or (no offense here) the knowledge necessary to help me unravel the complexities of my mood disorder. For all the therapists who would like to say it but don't, a college degree and training do matter! They do have specialized skills!
- August 26, 2008 at 9:55 PM
- Breakdown said...
I think the stigma is that therapy is for people that have problems. So if you go to therapy you have to admit to not only yourself but to almost everyone around you that you have a problem that you need help with, and no one likes to admit that they have a problem much less that they need help with it.
As for myself, I've found therapy extremely helpful. I would say that it saved my marriage. We didn't have any real serious problems, per se, but my work offered free counseling at the time and we decided that it couldn't hurt. Afterwords my wife and I felt that it was one of the best decisions we've ever made.
And therapy doesn't need to be expensive, BYU has a comprehensive clinic where you can go for about $10 to $15 a session. Sure you get students, but I feel that the little education that they do have can be a lifesaver.
And one other thing that people worry about is that the therapist will have you coming back week after week till you die. It's not true, after three sessions with our marriage counselor he told us not to come back unless we began to have problems again, and we haven't gone back for 5 years.
- August 27, 2008 at 4:49 AM
- Laura said...
Breakdown--I think you're right about the admitting a problem thing. Perhaps the problem isn't with the therapy itself but rather with our perceptions of ourselves--it takes a lot of humility to admit you need help.
- August 27, 2008 at 8:22 PM
I think it is still a Mormon thing. I was in a Sunday school class a few years back, and a bishopric member stated that people who need therapy don't trust Christ enough. We got into a verbal disagreement, but nobody with authority called him on it.
- August 29, 2008 at 7:12 PM
- Sabrina said...
I personally don't have a problem with therapy. There is definitely a place for it, when someone has either been through a traumatic situation, or has mental illness of any kind. I think I probably used to have more of a stigma about therapy of any kind, but having a brother-in-law with mental illness has really opened up my mind.
Also I know it is completely different, but I used to think speech therapy was for people that weren't smart or something...then I had a daughter who needed it, and she is a smart kid, and the therapy has completely transformed her. Speech therapy has been life changing for her, literally. So I guess my life experiences have really changed my outlook on therapy of any kind, to where I am pretty open to the fact that it can really help people, and it is not something to be ashamed of at all.
I guess I can sympathize with the "friend of a friend" who is concerned about the stigma, because even if adults "get it" some kids can really be mean. It still seems like it would be work it for her kid, though.
- August 29, 2008 at 9:27 PM
- Lucy said...
I had to smile at the comment that Anonymous wrote because I have heard the exact same thing said in church meetings. There is a stigma about it in the Church. I just don't know what the answer is. I have tried therapy and it has not worked for me at all. I have an extremely hard time opening up the gates of all that is inside my head lo these many years. And I don't know how to get beyond that. As it turned out, neither did the therapist. So I just muster on trying to make light of life in a blog that does more therapy for me than any doctor ever did. I know this sounds strange, but talking with somebody who understands is incredibly refreshing.
- September 2, 2008 at 8:58 PM
- Laura said...
Lucy-I'm glad you have found something that works for you. It makes me sad that some people still don't understand that giving your grief to Christ is a process--which sometimes involves help, whether from a bishop or a therapist. Anyway, I hope you stop by again!
- September 3, 2008 at 9:38 PM
- Mary said...
This is the assistant editor for Hospital.com which is a medical publication offering hospital news, information and reviews. We also cover a wide variety of medical issues, one of which being Children's Health and the importance of choosing the right hospital. You will notice articles on this topic under Children's tab. If possible I would like Hospital.com to be included within your blog roll, offering our information as a resource to your readers. Please let me know if this addition can be made.
Please email me back with your URL in subject line to take a step ahead and to avoid spam.
Thank you
Mary Miller,
- February 3, 2010 at 12:10 PM


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But with the recent Craigslist murder of a friend, of a friend, in Idaho I was EXTREMELY cautious of making any more purchases in that manner. But really, how can one pass up such beauty when this is just what is needed?
I got brave, contacted the seller, and got specifics. (A friend tore it out of their house and put in a new staircase. They were just going to TRASH THIS!!! Luckily the gentleman saw the beauty in it!)
Then I asked around for someone interested in riding along to pick up the treasure, as I was positive I would NOT go alone. A friend instantly agreed (thanks Ann) but she lives 2 hours away and it's not exactly convenient for either of us on short notice. And...this was 1 1/2 hours away in a different direction from her. So I called the seller, told him my concerns due to recent happenings, and requested that we meet in a highly visible, public location or I would have to wait a couple days until I could get a buddy to ride along. He was very understanding and instantly agreed to meet anywhere I chose, even suggested the police parking lot. We agreed upon a big parking lot (we needed space) on the main highway through town. So I was on my way, feeling pretty comfortable.
The meeting went well, the location was great and the product amazing! Turns out there were 5 newel posts and 5 sections of railings...SCORE!!! Then the gentlemen not only suggested the local antique store but he drove in front of me and showed me how to get there, then introduced me to the owner and went on his way. Nice man.
Built in 1939 as the US Post Office. Ivan lives in the basement and has been slowly restoring the building for 15 years! He gave me a couple architectural lessons concerning the construction of brick buildings...which I found interesting
and he cut me some deals!
This HUGE screen door is from the old barber shop across the street from the Post Office. Ivan wanted the striped barber shop pole but he had to buy the building to get it! (It's still there, in place. But he put a storm door where the screen door used to be.)
I found a spoon carved drawer, purple glass, two antique glass sconce globes and a bunch of porcelain doorknobs!
Just down the block was the beautiful County Courthouse built in 1904 (I believe). There were so many amazing architectural details on this building! What a charming town. I definitely need to go back and spend some serious time looking around!
On my return home I decided I may as well hit more antique stores on the way since I had never really been in the area before. In Mountain Lake I found another really, really fabulous shop. Forgot to take pictures of it, but here is what I bought.
I could have spent HOURS in that store and brought home a whole truck load of goodies. But I do intend to go back as Tammie said she has more architectural salvage for me, so I will get the chance to check it all out again!!
When I was 10 miles from home filling up with gas, I checked my email as I had inquired about more salvage. I had a message so I swung by to check out some doors I had seen.
OH...MY...GOSH!!!! Talk about SpEcTaCuLar detail!! So ornate and beautiful I just couldn't leave without agreeing to make them mine!
(This photo does not do them justice...I will post better ones tomorrow when I go back to pick them up...my truck was full! The seller also agreed to throw in all vintage hardware that he has in storage down across the road...can't wait to see what that will be!!)
When I called the seller he recognized my phone number as being from Idaho. Turns out his son lived in the neighboring town from where I lived for 23 years, and...AND the son was actually my husband's boss in Idaho!! Small world!
Yep...it was a good day! Maybe even great!
Remember the staircase that started this whole journey? It's very possible that the "extra" newel posts and railings that weren't initially in the photos that I saw, that I never intended to keep, will actually fit PeFecTly in our newly converted attic!! Very possible, as you can see from the photo below...or maybe it's not so obvious ;)
Anyway, I will have to sneak a spindle from one of the slanted rails to fill the hole where one is missing, and it won't be long enough because of the slanted cuts. But...BUT...
there was this little piece of cut off spindle that Craig handed me as I got in my car. "Oh," he said. "Here are some little pieces that go with it."
Just enough to "fit" that patched up, borrowed spindle??? Hope so! Guess you will have to check back to find out!
Keep pickin'


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For all its powerful potential, retail IT users know all too well the error problems with RFID, especially when the more powerful UHF chips get close to liquids or metal.
But as RFID enters mainstream status in 2006, retail users are going beyond traditional engineering means to address those shortcomings and falling back on the time-honored shared-risk, shared-reward approach with suppliers.
Consider the case of Rachel Bolt, assistant director of information systems for the $700 million Piggly Wiggly grocery chain, with 114 stores in South Carolina and Georgia.
Shes a big fan of RFIDs potential, but she absolutely considers the read rates shes seeing today as "not acceptable," she said.
"With a 97 percent read rate at the case level, Im still going to have to count it. Whats the point?"
Bolt said that she wants 100 percent read accuracy, but when asked what she would realistically accept, she paused and said, "99.99999 percent."
"This means that were not actually doing RFID today. Were simply enabling ourselves to play in that space. There are foundational pieces that a company must have in place. If and when the time is right for us to start receiving the products in our DC [distribution center], well have what we need to implement RFID, but Im not ready to embrace it yet."
To deal with less-than-fully-reliable pallet readings, Bolt is asking that her suppliers provide more accurate advance ship notices. If that happens, she is considering leveraging RFID to allow for the Holy Grail of supply-chain: good faith receivings.
That would involve allowing a consumer goods manufacturer—such as Nabisco—to bring deliveries to the chain and "drop it, leave it and nobody has to check it in."
Such a potential process with the chains more than 900 suppliers "puts the fear of God" into their operations people, Bolt said.
Thats where shared-risk, shared-reward comes into play, in the form of a negotiated error rate. Piggy Wiggly has been in discussions with Nabisco for just such a negotiated rate.
Bolts plan is to conduct periodic audits. If the audit is covering two months of shipments and if, lets say, products come up short by one percent, the supplier would be charged that amount retroactively for the prior two months.
"Wouldnt that put the impetus of accuracy into their court rather than ours," Bolt asked. "True good faith receiving, its incredible what that could do to streamline our process."
But its all based on a foundation of accurate RFID readings, which Bolt cant get.
Part of the debate involves where retailers should use UHF (Ultra-High-Frequency) as opposed to HF (High-Frequency) versions of RFID.
The newer UHF versions have two key differences: read distance and read speed.
UHF can read from a much greater distance, roughly five meters on a typical passive UHF tag, compared with about a meter for the same tags HF cousin, said Raghu Das, a managing director for IDTechEx, a technology consulting house in the UK.
UHF also has the edge when it comes to faster data transfer rates, allowing many more tags to be read simultaneously.
But UHF suffers from two distinct disadvantages, and that is the core of the error issue. Much more so than HF, UHF readers get flummoxed by liquids and metals.
"Water has a tremendous effect on UHF" and that includes "moisture in the human body," Das said. "Thats one of the reasons people are struggling to get it working."
Although the liquid issue can be dealt with, liquids can crop up in sly ways. The liquid inside the bloom of warehouse workers have caused problems and there have been reports of tracked cows confusing the readers, too.
Dog food maker Purina is reported to have experienced UHF RFID problems when tracking bags of dry dog food. Why? The dry food apparently absorbed enough moisture from the air to confuse the readers.
Next Page: Engineering RFID tricks.


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Currently the UCI has a rule making national federations send their top three male cyclists to World Championships if they are ranked in the top 50 internationally. The rule does not exist on the women's side. Thus, this year in 2013, fewer of the world's top 50 ranked female cyclists are traveling to Louisville for the World Championship, despite having the finances to do so and the ability to be competitive on the world stage.
The UCI should change this rule to apply to women. It will cost nothing to the UCI or the national federations, and will raise the level of competition at the World Championship race. Following Helen Wyman's Op-Ed in VeloNews calling for this change yesterday, more than 1,100 people have signed a petition to the UCI requesting the same.
Check out the petition and sign it if you agree at: http://www.change.org/petitions/uci-cyclocross-commission-include-each-nation-s-top-3-ranked-women-riders-in-world-championship.


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MANILA-- The decision to declare a state of emergency or martial law is primarily a political decision and does not rest on the military.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla issued this statement when queried about President Rodrigo Duterte's earlier announcement that he is mulling at the possibility of declaring martial law in some parts of Mindanao in wake of the threats being posed by lawless elements and terror groups known to be operating in the region.
These groups often conduct kidnap-for-ransom activities and other criminal acts to fund their illegal activities and proving detrimental to development of Mindanao and its people.
"The decision to implement a state of emergency or martial law does not lie with the AFP. It lies with the political leadership and depends (on the prevailing security situation)," Padilla said in Filipino.
However, the Chief Executive is not keen to implement this most extreme measure and is urging the local government units in Mindanao to help the police and soldiery in curbing these threats and allow genuine peace and progress to come into the area.
Source: Philippines News Agency


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Grit - Always Reaching Further
We coach and mentor all levels of cyclist from beginner to elite. As coaches we believe in providing the very best support framework to ensure you achieve the most from yourself. Communication and contact are key. We provide custom and pre built training programmes depending on your needs as well as expert analysis and training feedback. We also use a network of specialist we can refer to make sure you achieve your very best.
We provide you with the knowledge, understanding, accountability and a solid support network. We are always reaching further and help you focus and enjoy the process.
Custom Detailed Training Programmes
Using Training Peaks we deliver personalised training programmes.
Data Analysis
Using the latest software and expertise we analyse and give feedback based on your training data.
Group Training Sessions/Skills Clinics
We offer a range of group rides, group training sessions and skills clinics.
Grit Coaching is a community of like minded riders with a team mentality. We all support each other to get better.
Getting Started with a Grit Coach/Mentor
Step 1
Sign up directly by going to Hire a coach page or contact us first to make an appointment via Skype or meet at a local cafe if you are Auckland based and talk through our coaching levels and process.
If you are keen to meet up first then we go right to step two and answer any questions you might have.
Step 2
We meet up and talk through your specific goals, Training history, Time available to train. Plus a few other key areas to help the coach create an effective plan.
We also go through our coaching process and software we use to deliver the training programmes and generally make sure we are on the same page.
As well as cycling and strength and conditioning we also have a range of specialty partners which we have tried and tested extensively. Its all part of our aim to offer solutions and knowledge to any requirement you may have.
Step 3
We set up your Grit Academy account and start to create your training programme with either your own Training Peaks account or our own programme builder depending on your level of coaching. From here we get into the nitty gritty and you start your training. We constantly evaluate and refine your training. As well as use a very thorough process for delivering feedback to help you grow and learn as an Athlete. This is where the magic happens!
The Coaches
Logan Mort
Logan brings over 15years of racing experience both domestically and internationally as well as a degree in sport and exercise science from AUT university plus the experience of coaching 100+ athletes to success in National and World age group championships, International stage races, ultra distance events like the Trans Continental and hundreds of goals achieved in many other events around the world and in NZ. Logan has ridden just about every event in NZ and knows what is required for all of them.
Emma Hadley
Emma Hadley, the other half of the coaching team, has a real passion for working with female riders to achieve their cycling goals. Along with Mark Taylor from Mt Eden Cycles she has created a women's cycling group which has helped 100s of women to get into cycling over the past 3 years. Emma loves all things cycling from road biking, off road mountain biking, gravel adventure to ultra distance cycling events. She offers the support and knows how to give you the confidence to achieve even the biggest of goals.


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In this program the participant will learn how Painting & Coating constitutes an important activity for preserve the medium and long term operatibility of our plant, preserve asset values, maintain safety, preserve corporate image and be environmentally friendly.
The program will introduce the participant to the different coating technologies and materials available – and how these are being leveraged to corporate advantage.
The program will emphasise the good and best data collection, planning and management Practices.
At the end of the program the participant will prepare a Painting Action Plan for his organization.


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Enough already with Evolution vs Scripture!
Is that really all there is to say about the two great creative human endeavors of Science and Spiritual Endeavor? Does that debate really exhaust all there is to say about these domains where so much effort and time have been poured?
I have no problem with people like Dawkins and company taking people's intolerance to task. I too am intolerant of the intolerant. But there simply is too much at stake not to take the long view and as an astrophysicist the long view is what I was trained for. In that sense the phenomena of "Religion" stretches far, far back into its roots in Mythology, a word which must been taken in its positive sense of "sacred narratives. Taken in this way the positive roots of Science can be found in Myth as well.
Its only been 50,000 years since the awakened encounter between human self-consciousness and the world began in earnest (a bare instant in cosmic time) so the long view here is the only one which makes sense.
Paradigm change in science comes not when some long standing paradox is resolved but when it is transcended. For decades at the end of the 19th century people fretted about the relativity of the speed of light. Whole books worth of results on the luminiferous aether and its properties were worked out. Einstein did not solve this problem he simply ignored it. Instead of figuring out how the speed of light would change in different moving frames of reference he simply said "It doesn't" and followed the consequences of that radical assumption.
When it comes to Science and Spiritual Endeavor I propose something similar. The tired debate about some particular interpretation of some particular scripture, the narrow debate about some particular idea of a particular form deity, is old and tired and backward looking. We have become a global species folks, a global community with a view that stretches back to the dim past and forward to an infinite future. Time to get inclusive.
There have been, are, and will be many ways in which human beings interpret their encounter with that aspect of experience they feel as "sacred". That is the direction to face now. That is the third alternative rising above battles about God vs Physics. I am certainly a-theistic in that, like my boy Einstein, a personal supernatural deity who always fails to choose the Mets as the world series champs (dang!) does not resonate with my experience, intuition or understanding. But "religion" does only refer to particular arguments about God and his/her/its' imagined powers. That is the long view. To dismiss that view because of the "popularity" of various fundamentalisms around the world is to miss the promise that perspective offers.
So I propose changing the question we ask and seeing where it leads us. The problem is not how does anyones scriptures, sutra's etc match with scientific results but instead how does the aspiration, born of lived experience, drive what is best in Science and Spiritual Aspiration. Perhaps this route taken with radical open-mindedness and radical scepticism - the hallmarks of true science and true spiritual longing - can lead us on a new path away from an antagonism that only serves the antagonists and teaches the rest of us absolutely nothing.
The Great Pant Rip Episode of 2012
6 years ago


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Helping you to make informed apps and technology choices for your students!
The iPad has turned even experienced technology users into...
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Spectronics's comment, February 8, 2013 3:09 AM
Thank you for your endorsement Carol! It means a lot to us. :)
Amber Ramshaw Wakefield's curator insight, February 26, 2013 6:33 PM
Special Education needs all the help they can get-here are some great ideas!
Steven Blomdale's curator insight, March 9, 2013 2:18 AM
This is a useful workshop for Special education teachers to learn more about digital technologies to support special needs students. Integrating technology into is an important aspect when supporting students in a special education classroom. Special education teachers develop students ICT capabilities through exposing students to adapt to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve (ACARA, 2013). Students learn to use ICT effectively and appropriately to access, create and communicate information and ideas, solve problems and work collaboratively, and in their lives beyond school. Consequently development of this capability is achieved through effectively engaging students in learning to make the most of the digital technologies available to them (ACARA, 2013)
Nevermore Sithole's curator insight, March 12, 2014 6:40 AM
Wonderful Visual on SAMR As A Framework for Education 3.0 ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
María Dolores Díaz Noguera's curator insight, March 12, 2014 10:26 AM
AMR as a Framework for Education 3.0


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Discover SIM GE
- Overview
- Partner Universities & SIM GE
- New Academic Programmes
- Professional Body
- Awards & Accreditations
- The Global Edge
- SIM Achievers
- SIM Heritage
- Modern Learning Spaces
Applying Classroom Lessons To Real Business
Myanmar entrepreneur Thein Myint Oo applies SIM's principle and practice of lifelong learning in his own daily life
"I WAS looking for the best place to study, without travelling too far from home," says Thein Myint Oo from Myanmar. "My mum didn't want me to go to Europe or England. In South-east Asia, Singapore sets the gold standard for tertiary education. People in Myanmar consider Singapore a safe environment to study.
"And SIM was the best place for private education in Singapore," says Thein who came to Singapore in 2006. He enrolled in SIM's Diploma in Management Studies. On completion he went on to the second year of the SIM-RMIT Bachelor of Business (Entrepreneurship) programme, graduating in August, 2010.
"At RMIT, we have to do research and explore the subject, and not just depend on the lecturer. Before taking the Marketing exam, for instance, I went around to the shopping malls to find out how shops conducted their marketing and promotion campaigns. RMIT programmes have lots of projects, which are real-life," says the 30-year-old entrepreneur who is into the infrastructure business, such as the construction and maintenance of solar energy farms.
His tertiary studies also taught him important lessons in the management and entrepreneurial thinking process. "Through my studies, I understood what leadership entails and why cooperation is so crucial to success.
"A university life is what I called a honeymoon period in a young adult's life. When it is over, you will face actual life as you work with colleagues and partners in the real world. To survive and prosper, you must know how to apply the business and management theories you've learnt in the classroom."
And we shouldn't stop our education when we graduated. "I believe in lifelong learning and I definitely like to continue studying. I suppose I would only stop when I'm 70," Thein adds with a laugh.
As part of his continual education, he reads books because their contents are like "feedstock for the brain". "I love to read Buddhist Scriptures too as they give me peace of mind," he adds. The scriptures or Sutras recount Buddha's discourses and their application in daily living.
For leisure, he plays games, reads, and watches football matches.
Infrastructure Business
Currently, Thein is involved in two projects. The first is a 10 megawatt solar energy farm to be completed this year (2015), covering 40 acres, and costing about US$20 million. Another 210 MW is coming up soon. "I started the company with my Dad about three years ago," he says. "I've got investors from Belgium and Canada, who were interested in the renewable energy business. The 210 MW solar farm will be one of the biggest in Myanmar.
"I am also setting up a factory to produce lightweight concrete, which is suitable for low-cost housing. I've seen machinery in Thailand for producing such concrete and I would like to bring it into Myanmar."
— Posted online, 6 May 2015


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Those of you not privileged to live in the Miami area and thus unable to get Florida Panthers games on your radio, have probably have not heard the greatest goal calls in hockey history by a Mr. Randy Moller. Randy, while not the most accomplished NHL player of all-time, has turned himself into an icon in South Florida because of his completely nonsensical calls of Panthers goals. Do you know of any other hockey announcer who can mix in a "Homey don't play that!" or a "Beyonce had one of the greatest music videos of all-time!" or a "I draw ding dongs on people!" into a hockey goal call? I thought not.
Listen and be utterly astounded...
The great (and slightly insane) hockey goal calls of Panthers announcer Randy Moller
Posted at 8:00 AM CT
Similar Topics: announcers, lists, NHL, Panthers, randy moller, sports, Video
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Woody Harrelson tells MTV News that he has landed a starring role in Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic "2012".
The story deals with an apocalypse in the year 2012 which coincides with the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21st 2012.
Harrelson says his character is "a sort of modern version of the Greek Cassandra, a prophet nobody believes… I play a guy who's been talking for a long time, the whole world thinks he's crazy. But he's been talking that there's gonna be hell to pay for what's been going on ecologically and everything."
He joins John Cusack, Danny Glover, and Amanda Peet in the release which begins filming shortly in Vancouver.


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Mosquitos - Both Male & Female
Mosquitoes are exceedingly rare in amber. I find mosquitoes maybe 2 times a year. They are just so rare that I never expect to find any in the many thousands of pieces that I run across.
If you have ever cut down a pine tree and noticed the beautiful smell that emanates from cut surface, you will understand why so many insects are attracted by the odor. Mosquitoes are not attracted to the smell, the go for carbon dioxide and heat. Because of that you will not find mosquitoes in amber. When you do run across the exceptional piece that has a mosquito, it has been caught in the resin by happen chance, not by design.
In this piece there is a perfect female mosquito (family Culicidae) and a male (possible genus of Culex). Both sexes have a proboscis, which the males (and sometimes females) use for obtaining plant juices, but the females are blood suckers. You can ID the mosquito as a male because the antennae are plumose (hairy). Please note that once seldom sees one mosquito, much less two, much less a male AND a female. This is just unheard of. By the way there is another female mosquito in this piece, but it is hard to see and hard to identify.
There is also a lot of other stuff inside this piece. A couple female worker ants, Hymenoptera, Formicidae, a large wasp, Hymenoptera and a small wasp, 2 fungus gnats, Diptera, Mycetophilidae and a tropical stingless bee. There are is more inside this amber also. You are going to have great fun looking at it.
The piece is uniform flat, about .25 inches thick by 2.25 x 1.4 inches. So this is a nice sized piece.
Here is a scanned image of the snail next to a ruler so you can see the actual size.


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Good post by Enrico Signoretti (thank you)
A few days ago I had an interesting chat with Andy Warfield at Coho Data and the topic of Network/Storage relationship came up several times. (Quick disclaimer: I'm currently doing some work for Coho)
In a couple of my latest articles (here and here) I talked about why many large IT organizations prefer PODs to other topologies for their datacenters but I totally forgot to talk about networking (I also have to admit that networking is not my field at all). So, this article could be the right follow-up for those posts.
Read on here


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Welcome to WebmasterWorld Guest from 220.127.116.11
Forum Moderators: open
Yahoo Inc's second-biggest investor urged Microsoft Corp to raise its $42 billion bid for the Web pioneer and warned Yahoo it has few options left, raising the pressure on them to seal a deal.
In a quarterly letter to investors released on Tuesday, Bill Miller, the star stock-picker at U.S. asset manager Legg Mason Inc, estimated fair value for Yahoo to be near $40 per share, versus Microsoft's original offer of $31 per share.
Microsoft "will need to enhance its offer if it wants to complete a deal," Miller wrote in a February 10 letter, one day before Yahoo formally rejected Microsoft's plan for the company.
Major Yahoo Investor Wants Microsoft To Raise Its Offer [uk.reuters.com]
Microsoft is in a bad position. You can not negotiate if you are not willing to walk away.
I really don't see how microsoft owning Yahoo will improve Yahoo or MSFT's ability to compete. They should know they are competing with a BRAND name which is difficult to overcome. Throwing money at things doesn't always beat out a brand name.
A sale to Microsoft still appears to the most likely scenario for Yahoo. Microsoft is likely to be willing to increase its offer. The company has said it is willing to "pursue all necessary steps" to consummate the deal, which could mean going directly to shareholders.
If Microsoft, in fact does not get this done, that�s not going to look very good. They have said from the beginning; surrender or we'll take you by force. You just can't say stuff like that if you don't mean it, because the next time around you�re a joke.
It's going to be very interesting, and it�s going to have a pretty profound impact on a lot of people, especially the ones that hang around here.
So who around here is sweating this deal and who is looking forward to it? Anybody hope that News Corp or AOL get the big Y!?
The founders don't have the significant enough number of shares to influence the decisions. They will come around the table by next month after exploring all the options.
From a Yahoo partner point of view I dont know how it will affect my revenue I make from working with Yahoo. I am not sure how they will merge ppc networks across both search engines.
From an advertiser point of view I am even more confused as the new Yahoo PPC centre is actually not too bad since they relaunched. But then again MSN ad centre is not particulary good from any point of view.
I cant see any positives yet...
Bigger usually doesn't make a company faster, and engineers working for MSN instead of Yahoo won't think any smarter or faster. The problem isn't money; it's brilliant minds.
Yahoo was working on a new system, which had to be delayed, and never went far.
Its YPN for ads is still (!) in Beta and still limited to the US. It is also still notoriously unable to serve up relevant ads because its targetting is awful.
Google Adsense got out of Beta years ago (or was it ever in Beta?); its ads are very relevant; and it's been international for a long time.
These Yahoo failures are mostly engineering failures (which poor leaders have allowed, by not replacing the engineers).
MSN's ad network isn't very impressive, either.
So who is going to get Yahoo ads into relevancy? Who will get it out of Beta? And when will it go international?
MSN needs a Steve Jobs, who turned Apple around by ideas and vision, e.g., the ipod.
What big new thing has ever come out of MSN in the last ten years?
Online MSN is in the similar sitation compared to Google as Apple is relative to MSFT--a small fraction of the market.
Unless and until MSN can poach or find the next Steve Jobs, or some hot shot from Google, its plans leave little cause for optimism.


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How Bitcoin Works
December 4th, 2013
Fascinating and more than a bit clever, if you'll excuse the pun.
No signal
October 27th, 2013
I'm writing this in the notes app on my phone because I've got no signal so cannot log into my blog, or download and set up the WordPress app (which itself wouldn't be able to connect to my blog anyway, and I can't remember whether it works offline). Actually, worse than having no signal, I've got a patchy 2 bars and a GPRS connection that occasionally steps up to Edge but then drops out completely and the process starts over again. The tease.
I'm at my in-laws' house and they don't "have the Internet" here, and actually don't particularly want it either. Oddly there are no neighbours' WiFi networks in range; I just tried in the hope of finding a BT Openzone (or Fon) I could latch onto. Nope. Not even any private ones. A luddite neighbourhood?
I remember (of course) not having the Internet. Other than games, in those days PCs were more or less devoid of distractions. The 1996 equivalent of scrolling through Vines for 10 minutes was playing a game of Minesweeper on the big setting.
I remember my dad having Compuserve, and it seeming a bit boring. Then, later, I remember picking up a Freeserve disc from Dixons in Stockport and being fairly excited about getting on the World Wide Web – but not being exactly sure what the web was or whether I'd be that into it. I think I assumed it'd be a novelty for a while – I liked the idea of email – but had no idea quite how big a deal it would turn out to be. "Quite", you might say.
By 1997 I had made my own website complete, of course, with a visible hit counter and a Java plugin ripple effect. The future.
At university in 1998 we had an internet connection at our student house in Leeds but only on one of our PCs at a time, depending on which room we ran the phone extension and modem to. "Are you going to be long on the Web? Can you give me a shout when you're finished so I can use the phone?"
We played 2-player Warcraft II and Starcraft between the bedrooms on floors 2 and 3 by way of daisy-chaining parallel printer cables (remember LPT1?) and putting a Laplink cable on one end to reverse the gender and pin-out. I always lost.
And Unreal Tournament through a 56k 'v90' was unseen assailant frag hell. Though it's impressive that it was playable at all.
None of this was that long ago. It's remarkable how quickly we've come to expect connectivity to the Internet, wirelessly everywhere, such that now (trips into the wilderness aside) being offline is the exception rather than the norm.
The Internet has become a kind of magical Higgs-Field-like property that pervades the very air we breathe… Until we lose signal and the spell is broken.
"Oh for God's sake, why won't it just load?!"
So, keeping in mind that famous Louis C.K. clip, I won't complain. That such a thing as a wireless Internet connection exists at all is little short of a miracle (well that and the culmination of decades of work by scientists, mathematicians and engineers).
Instead I'll write this offline on my phone to kill some time until I'm tired enough to fall asleep. Which is, conveniently, now.
Moved this blog
March 10th, 2013
Click away now if you're not interested in web servers.
Having spent much of the last few years making sure clients' websites are fast and responsive, I finally got round to sorting my own blog out. It was letting the side down, being quite sluggish and unoptimised in its shared hosing environment. So I've moved this over to my own server which is running Varnish, nginx and also PHP 5.4 with APC.
WordPress, which this blog runs on, works out of the box in Apache + PHP environments but getting it running in nginx (with PHP-FPM) was a bit of a pain in the arse. This is mostly because .htaccess files are an Apache thing so don't work in nginx. nginx has its own syntax for setting up redirects and there are tools out there for converting between the two but none of the ones I found converted my existing rules successfully.
Frustratingly, following these official instructions to the letter did not work either. Getting the main WordPress installation working was fine but the problem was WP Super cache which relies on some specific rewriting logic. Certain valid post URLs were throwing up 404 errors depending on the state of the cache and what characters were in the address. At that point it had reached 1am so I decided as an interim to put Apache on the server too. I'll return to the nginx configuration sometime soon. I have other sites running off this server through nginx, it's just that WordPress-plugin-specific problem that needs solving.
Running Varnish on the server means it's now easy to route traffic to either Apache or nginx as required based on the request hostname and of course it caches the returned documents so speeds things up even more. Ideally I'd have assets going to a CDN but given that I only get a handful of visitors each day it doesn't really seem worth the effort.
Anyway, that's it for dev-ops news. Hopefully this blog will be a bit more responsive from now on.
Bitcasa having teething troubles?
February 22nd, 2013
*See update at the end of this post*
Having read several favourable reviews I signed up for a Bitcasa account yesterday. The desktop app for OS X looks good and works well. The user-experience is not entirely dissimilar to Dropbox in that you have a special folder which is then synchronised to their cloud storage. However the the Bitcasa drive is a mounted network drive, so doesn't take up space on your hard disk, whereas the Dropbox folder is local.
"Infinite storage" sounded appealing and they're running a $69.99 offer for a year, so I went for it.
However… I'm now finding it incredibly slow to upload files. Speedtest.net tells me the upload bandwidth of my internet connection is 13Mbps, or ~1.88 MB/s. Bitcasa (mirroring a folder through the app) is just about sustaining 190KB/s which means it's using only around 1/10th of my available bandwidth.
Dropbox by comparison on the same machine and connection manages around 750KB/s, which is about 4 times as fast.
I've tried to get some help from them but at the moment it's like talking to a brick wall. 24 hours on they've still failed to respond to two support tickets I raised, nor have they replied to my nudge on Twitter. And there are at least a couple of threads in their community forum filling up with comments from what sound like extremely dissatisfied customers – such as this one.
I hope it's just teething trouble and they sort this out, but the apparent stony silence from the company doesn't bode well to me. As one forum user commented (here):
"The bottom line is it came out of beta too early and we're paying the price now."
Surely the first and most important thing to do is talk to their new paying customers. When people part with their cash they want service!
Update – 23 Feb
Last night I received a reply from Bitcasa on Twitter:
@_ade We're currently working on catching up on support tickets. We'll definitely take a look into your tickets.
— BitcasaSupport (@BitcasaSupport) February 22, 2013
Also, they've responded to my ticket and have commented (and apologised) in a number of the forum threads, such as this one:
"We definitely are inundated with tickets, and are working very hard to respond to everyone as quickly as we can, in order to best address everyone's help needs."
It sounds as though they've had a huge influx of users and that's taking its toll on both customer support and the system itself. Plus there are seemingly a few bugs in the software that need ironing out. From their explanations, due to their protocol the data transfer rate is affected by the ping time to the server. They're using Amazon Web Services so are currently restricted to US, Japan and Ireland data centres.
Being in the UK I'm getting a ~30ms ping time to
eu1.api.bitcasa.com, which is pretty good, and my Bitcasa upload speed seems to have vastly improved overnight without me having changed anything. I'm now getting around 800KB/sec according to their app, which is not too bad. I hope it stays that way.
I'm sure they will get things sorted out but, as ever, customer support is key. If things are going wrong 24 hours without a response can feel like a long time for a paying customer. Even to acknowledge that there's a problem and to say "we're working on it" goes a long way in these situations.
Technology is getting ahead of us
January 24th, 2013
The clock in the station I commute from each morning was for a few weeks displaying the wrong time. I think it was about five minutes fast. And then they stuck a handwritten Out Of Order notice over it, which remained for a further two weeks, until they finally took it away, presumably to have its network interface replaced or its firmware flashed or something along those lines. Three weeks hence it has still not been reinstalled.
I can't help think that with an older clock someone could have simply gone up a ladder and pushed the minute hand back by five minutes and that would have been the end of the matter.
Are we becoming too dependent on high-level technical systems?
Relativistic game engine from MIT Game Lab
November 5th, 2012
A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. Custom-built, open-source relativistic graphics code allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player's own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay.
Leap Motion demo
June 27th, 2012
Great demo video of Leap Motion's new device in action:
And here's the full accompanying article.
Thanks to @kerridashanne for the link!


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Graphic Design/Marketing for Print, Web and Media
Versatile, experienced, knowledgeable - these are the qualities gained from hands-on, effective graphic design and marketing/advertising management. I have recently completed nearly 13 years of in-house design and marketing and advertising coordination with four different Southern California manufacturers.
Print design, Media Advertising and Placement, Web Design / Marketing and Copy Writing are but a part of the many skills and talents I've acquired from a rich and varied career. This all translates into a sensible choice for your department or project. To discuss your assignment or project please contact me: firstname.lastname@example.com
Design and conceptuals for folding carton, corrugated box (including POP displays), poly bags, clamshells and blisters - Either in-house or agency experience, working with specialty printers and packaging vendors to accomplish prize-worthy creations
Sales and Marketing Collateral
Working for three different Southern California manufacturers, four years as a printing broker, years of freelance design and advertising support, buying and selling literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of printing has made my work designing for print applications highly refined and suitable for any pre-press department or press - including offset litho, ROP, silkscreen, flexo/direct and digital. My work is always clean and free of error.
A diverse offering of stylized line art, renderings and cartoons are available to choose from - by hand or computer aided, both effectively and with attention to answering concept solutions foremost in mind. My preferred style is something I like to call: "hero art."
Media Advertising Design and Photography
Few designers would be willing to negotiate media advertising schedules and placement on a regular basis. Many in-house marketing departments expect this however. My experience with media placement is heavy in the trade-media but extends to consumer as well. My advertising design and development experience will save time, money and problems because I know and understand print media demands! Your direct mail campaigns and projects are designed and produced with a thorough knowledge of all current postal and printing standards and guidelines. Web design is offered with the design architecture based on Search Engine Optimization objectives. Indeed, SEO is offered as part of my services.
Logo and Corporate Identity
Logo design is my specialty. I have been developing logos and identity programs for more than 30 years. I have valuable experience in trademark registration and copyright issues as well. My design style is bold, clean, straight-forward and sensible, but clever and sophisticated. Your logo will be original and memorable - and reasonably priced!


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Kirkcaldy's industrial heritage:'They Taught Us Skills For Life - We Are The Engineers!
By Paul McCabe - Fife Free Press -July2, 2015
A new book has been released which chronicles an important, but almost forgotten, part of Kirkcaldy's industrial heritage.
Called 'They Taught Us Skills For Life - We Are The Engineers!' the book tells the story of the former Melville-Brodie Engineering Company in the words of the workers themselves.
It was the brainchild of the Retired Melville-Brodie Club which was formed by two former employees,
Dougie Reid and Willie Black, in 2009, and who have been working on the book ever since.
The club, which unveiled a memorial on the site of the former works on the corner of Maltings Road and Junction Road last year, contacted writer and historian Margaret Bennet [End of the Shift] to help put the project together. She found writing the book "exhilarating and exciting".
She said: "I have an interest because my dad was an engineer, so when Dougie got in touch with me we hit it off because I was tuned in to this sort of thing having grown up with it. I think the engineers' history has been neglected.
"The whole world knows about Kirkcaldy's history with linoleum, but has anybody ever given credit to the guys who not only made the machinery that maintained it but actually designed it? Melville-Brodie was just amazing.
"Kirkcaldy alone could hold its own with any engineering city in the world."
Dougie said that the book, released on Grace Note Publications with a foreword from Gordon Brown, is the second part of a trilogy of projects which began with the memorial and will end with the creation of a website which will be ready by the end of July.
"We couldn't ever have imagined ourselves achieving it all," he said.
"We thought the book might be around 50 pages but it's three times longer!
"We'll be sending out a copy to all schools across Fife too."
Dougie said that the club was an ongoing project, adding: "Willie and I are now offering our services to any schools and colleges who would like us to come along and talk to them.
''We've already met with the engineering students at Fife College and had a great day.
"This has all come together at the right time and I'm really pleased."
Exhibtion and book launched by author Margaret Bennett, John Greig, William Black, Ron Fleming, Dougie Reid and Councillor Kay Carrington.
A Grace Notes Scotland Project
This book has grown out of an oral history project, 'The End of the Shift', which aims to record the working practices and conditions of skilled workers in Scotland's past industries. Publicity about the project caught the interest of a group of retired engineers, who had all served apprenticeships with a prestigious Kirkcaldy firm, Melville-Brodie Engineering Company. Having lived through times when Scotland seemed blighted by industrial closures, the engineers could identify with 'The End of the Shift' as they had experienced the effect of closing down Melville-Brodie Engineering Company. The entire workforce was dispersed, and with it, the skills, expertise and wisdom of generations. Kirkcaldy also lost a company that had been the pride of Scottish engineering.
Conserving the oral history of this specialised area of industry is part of a Grace Notes Scotland project, 'The End of the Shift', which records the experiences of workers in past industries of Perthshire and Fife. The wider project includes mines, mills, dye-works, bleachworks, and other factories, and is jointly funded by Heritage Lottery and the Gannochy Trust. On behalf of all who have taken part, Grace Notes Scotland accords sincere thanks to our sponsors for supporting a project that not only benefits a wide number of people but will also leave a lasting legacy to Scotland.


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Bowl Lifting & Tilting Device is very useful and easy to operate and clean. Salient features of the Bowl-Lifting Apparatus are as like- Totally closed operation to avoid dusting; it can connect with granulator for continuous discharge; it is easy to clamp with fluid bed dryer bowl which is made of stainless steel. That is why, we are considered as the notable Bowl Tilting Device Manufacturer in India.
Documentation like DQ, IQ, OQ and FAT provided with the machine.
Elicon Pharma
Elicon House, Survey No. 160/ 161 A, Wakan Pada, Masjid Gally, Thane, Maharashtra - 401208, India
Phone :
Mobile :
Call Us :


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We have all been shocked by the terrible news about the Earthquake in central parts of Italy. Our thoughts goes out to those affected by this tragedy.
If you wonder about the upcoming conference in Modena we can assure you that nothing has changed. The city of Modena (and the entire region) is far away (4-5 hours by car) from the earthquake area and has not been affected. The Italian organisers has also assured us that the University itself is earthquake proof certified with modern buildings.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organisers. Contact information can be found here: http://www.eda2016.unimore.it/contact
We hope to see you all in Modena.


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PLAYBOY: In your new memoir, I Am The New Black, you describe your childhood as being filled with poverty and violence. Was it really as horrible as it sounds?
TRACY MORGAN: When you grow up black in Brooklyn, in the ghetto, you see a lot of shit fast. I seen my first murder when I was just six, seven years old. His body was lying out there all night long, brains splattered on the sidewalk, people just fucking standing around looking at it. Motherfucker is dead and everybody in the neighborhood knew who did it. But nobody said shit. Because you could be next. It's the hood, man. It's about fucking survival. That's why it's so promiscuous there. You sell some pussy, that's like an ATM machine. It truly takes a village, man. Sometimes you gotta put out to survive.
PLAYBOY: You claim in the book that your sense of humor was a "bullet-proof vest." How did being funny keep you out of harm's way?
TRACY MORGAN: The kids in the schoolyard could be cruel. A lot of them were sociopaths. But if you got a big brother, you could go get him and your big brother would come out and fuck 'em up. I couldn't do that, cause my older brother was born with cerebral palsy. I'd get my big brother and he'd come back cripple. So I had to develop a sense of humor, make motherfuckers laugh to keep 'em off my ass. When you're the funny motherfucker or the motherfucker who can sing, when you're the source of entertainment, they protect you. But you gotta make it worth it for them.
PLAYBOY: You also suggested that you briefly sold drugs. Is it wrong to imagine you as the funniest drug dealer ever?
TRACY MORGAN: I was, man. As a matter of fact, my dealing partner, my best friend, god bless him, he was murdered a month to the day after my son was born. We used to be chopping that crack, bagging that shit up at night, three o'clock in the morning, and I'd be making that motherfucker laugh. And he was like, "Yo Trey, why the fuck you doin' this, man? You should be at the fucking Apollo or something." I'd tell him, "Shut the fuck up, Al." He got killed and I went into comedy. He's guiding me right now. He's probably sitting here next to us, him and my father and my grandmother. All of them are with me every day, every second of the day, leading me in the right direction.
PLAYBOY: I Am The New Black details some pretty painful memories from your life. Was there anything you were reluctant to share?
TRACY MORGAN: I was a little worried talking about my father's death. That cuts deep, y'know? He got AIDS, and he went from about 200 pounds all the way down to maybe 90 pounds. He didn't even look like my father anymore, he looked like a skeleton. I came home from football practice one day, when I was in the 12th grade, and he was sitting outside our building. I said, "Dad, what you doin' out here?" He looked so fragile, no teeth in his mouth, and he said, "I had to get out of the house, get some sun." I picked him up, took my father upstairs in my arms. We got to the door and he started crying, blood coming out his eyes. I said, "Dad, what you crying for?" And he said, "I remember when I carried you up here when you was a baby." Two, three weeks later, he was dead. That shit was really… it's heavy, man. But that was my life.
PLAYBOY: You play a character on 30 Rock named Tracy Jordan who's more than loosely based on you. When Tina Fey pitched the show to you, did you ever wonder, "Wait, is she making fun of me?"
TRACY MORGAN: Tina is my baby girl. She's my sister from another mother of a different color. I'd do 25 to life for her. She is down like four flat tires. She pitched the show to me like, "Yo, this is your personality, it's your alter-ego." She knows everything about me because we'd spent so many years working together on Saturday Night Live, and she knows my voice probably better than I do. People fear what they don't understand and they hate what they can't conquer. Tina Fey never did that with me. She said, "Keep the cameras rolling and let Tracy do what he do." I love that about her.
PLAYBOY: How are you and your character similar? Where does Tracy Morgan end and Tracy Jordan begin?
TRACY MORGAN: Tracy Jordan is a part of Tracy Morgan, but Tracy Morgan is not a part of Tracy Jordan. Tracy Jordan is a figment of my imagination. He's a character that I do when I go to work. When I'm not at work, Tracy Morgan is much more interesting and far out than Tracy Jordan could ever be. Look around my home. I got fucking sharks and tarantulas in here! I got a fucking gargantuan bird spider over there, eats monkeys and birds and shit. I'm like Michael Jackson. They said, "Well, he had Bubbles the chimp and a giraffe." Well yeah, because he was a fucking genius! Nobody could do it like Mike! Who else could walk around with a fucking monkey? You think you're getting away with that shit? There's a little Mike in me. I got my own animal kingdom.
PLAYBOY: You've repeatedly insisted that Tracy Jordan isn't based on Martin Lawrence, yet there are some glaring similarities. Are you sure there isn't a little of Martin Lawrence in that character?
TRACY MORGAN: Martin Lawrence didn't corner the market in doing crazy shit. You got Dave Chappelle, you got me, you got all kinds of crazy motherfuckers out there. Everybody does something bizarre in their life. It's just that black entertainers stick out. When we do something crazy, they go, "Oh, shit!" Mike Tyson ain't the first motherfucker to put a tattoo on his face.
PLAYBOY: So when Tracy Jordan stripped down to his underwear on an episode of 30 Rock and ran through traffic, that was pure imagination?
TRACY MORGAN: That was based on my uncle! My uncle Fat Mike! He ran down the street in his underwear with a light saber! Several times! Several motherfucking times, man. He was way crazy. He was Tracy Jordan to the fifth power. I grew up around funny people my whole life. When you live in poverty so long, you see some strange shit. You live in that desperate fucking situation of deprivation and degradation, you see some strange fucking shit.
PLAYBOY: How about a character like Spoonie Luv from Comedy Central's Crank Yankers? Aside from being a puppet, just how fictional is Spoonie?
TRACY MORGAN: Spoonie was a tribute to one of my best friends ever. We played high school football together, and he got murdered in the 90s. Spoon had charm, he was my dude. He was making fun of some young guy up in the Bronx and the guy got a gun and fucking shot him. So Spoonie Luv is my tribute to Spoonie. "Spoonie Love from up above." That's what I used to say on the show, remember? "Spoonie Love from up above." That's my tribute to an old friend.
PLAYBOY: You told David Letterman last year that your hobbies include "Doing karate and trying to get female pregnant." Now that you're older and wiser, have your hobbies changed?
TRACY MORGAN: I've got my third degree black belt and I've gotten several women pregnant, so I've moved on to other things. These days, I'm into bike-riding and breaking water. I like breaking women's water. If you're pregnant and you need your water broke, you need your labor induced, give me a call and I'll ride my bike over and take care of it. I don't have to know you. I'll put a mask on you. Women need that labor induced.
PLAYBOY: You've claimed that you had your first sexual experience at just 8 years-old. How is that even possible?
TRACY MORGAN: I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't say I was effective. I didn't knock the bottom out the pussy or nothing. She was 14, babysitting me and my brother. She was in the tub and she told us, "Come do it to me." So we did it to her. I didn't start getting busy for real until around 15, maybe less than that. There was a fat girl in the projects that let us take turns on her. That's the first time I felt wet pussy. It was awesome, man, awesome. It was the first time I ever did it naked and with the lights on. There was one time, when I was maybe 19 years old, I was selling crack—at that time in the 80s when crack was king—and I gave this girl five or six cracks for some pussy. She had a fat ass, I mean fucking bubble-butt Kim Kardashian to the third power ass. But it looked like a mule had kicked in her face. So I made her put a brown paper bag on her head. I cut out holes for the eyes and a smile, and put a cigarette in the mouth hole. It was like fucking the Unknown Comic.
PLAYBOY: Your stand-up includes a lot of jokes about anal sex. Are you just talking about it for shock value, or are you really a butt fiend?
TRACY MORGAN: I like fucking ass! Ain't nothin' like the butthole. The ass is a delicacy, goddammit. I'd put hot sauce on it. When you eat the brown hole, that's when her toes do this. (He sticks his legs out and curls his toes.) You got to be willing to do anything to please your woman, to satisfy her. I didn't invent it. You think I was the first one to think of having anal sex with a girl? Hell no. That shit's been going on for fucking thousands of years. I'm quite sure Adam fucked Eve in the ass. In the Garden of Eden, he tore her ass up and she was screaming like a motherfucker.
PLAYBOY: In November, you're performing at Carnegie Hall as part of the New York Comedy Festival. After so much time on closed studio sets for TV, is it weird to get back in front of a live audience?
TRACY MORGAN: No, no, it's not weird, because I'm not just funny when I'm onstage. I'm funny when I'm in the elevator, I'm funny when I'm in the shower, I'm funny when I'm pumping gas, I'm funny in the barber shop. I'm not a motherfucker who needs to be onstage to be funny. I don't need no stage, I don't need no microphone. I make myself laugh all day long. I'm a lot funnier when it comes to attitude and behavior. I've never told a joke in my life. Rodney Dangerfield told jokes. I don't do that. I observe.
PLAYBOY: You've said that you joined Saturday Night Live "as a puppy and left as a man." How exactly does working at a comedy sketch show turn somebody into a man?
TRACY MORGAN: I've seen Saturday Night Live break people. If you can survive that, you can survive anything in show business. Anything. SNL makes you fucking tough as steel. Cause when you get your sketch cut, there is no explanation. You just take that loss. There were plenty of nights I only said goodbye at the end of the show. And it hurt. Will Ferrell was perfect for the show, so he was always in everything. But when you're the black dude, it's different. Plenty of days I just sat in my dressing room and cried. Then my fangs came down one day and I said, "Fuck this!" And I began to feed.
PLAYBOY: Your best SNL characters, like Brian Fellows and Astronaut Jones, were happy idiots. Do you think ignorance is sometimes bliss?
TRACY MORGAN: Ignorance is definitely bliss. It is always better not to know. I take that approach whenever I do standup. I think not having too much knowledge keeps you on your toes. I may have an idea of what I'm going to talk about onstage, but I don't plan it out. That's the beauty of it. Sometimes I surprise myself. We didn't know what this interview was going to be like until we got into a bag! It's all about being honest. That's it, that's all you gotta do. You know why we love Richard Pryor? Cause he was always fucking honest with us, man. He gave us everything. He was a shell of a man when he left. It was the open wound technique. "Hey, give me that knife, man. (He mimes cutting open his chest.) Here, look, laugh at this." Then when you're done, you stitch it back up. And stay away from people for a couple of days. Cause people can be salty. They rub salt in your fucking wounds. And it gets infected.
PLAYBOY: You've frequently referred to Lorne Michaels as "my Obi-Wan Kenobi." Does he have special powers we don't know about?
TRACY MORGAN: Yeah. Motherfucker took me out of the ghetto. That's my dude, man. He's been like a dad to me. I remember when I was on Saturday Night Live my first year and I wasn't getting much. I was down, I was ready to quit. It was three o'clock in the morning, man, I'll never forget. Makes me want to cry sometimes when I think about it. I love that man. I love that man. (Long pause. He starts to cry.) I'm sorry, man. Excuse me. (Another long pause.) Son of a bitch… motherfucker's good. I remember one time… Lorne brought me in his office… he said, "Tracy, you here… not because you're black. You here because you're fucking funny, man." (Bursts into tears again, wipes his face with his shirt.) Changed my whole perspective. He changed my mind. I wasn't so guarded anymore. I knew that white people weren't so fucked up. I could've fallen into some dark shit. I could've fallen into that bullshit trap. But he wouldn't let me. I left his office and I was crying for like two hours. It made all the difference to me, not just for my career but for my life. I had no excuses anymore. Just like Obama said, no more excuses. They say every Jewish man is supposed to love one black motherfucker in this life. I'm glad Lorne Michaels chose me.
PLAYBOY: A lot of SNL alumni try (not always successfully) to bring their characters to the big screen. Are we ever going to see Astronaut Jones the Movie?
TRACY MORGAN: I'd never do a movie about any of the characters I did on SNL. That's just not me. It's not my handle. But I'd love to do a movie about one of my family members. I can't wait to produce and write and direct my own movie, cause that's where I want to go with it. Martin (Lawrence)'s done it. Eddie (Murphy)'s done it. Will Ferrell's done it. You should see the comedy that's in my head. I'm gonna put Blanket in my movie. Michael Jackson's son? I want to do a movie about Blanket as an older man. That's why motherfuckers grow up and start gangbanging. Your father name you Blanket, what the fuck you gonna do? Imagine that shit. Motherfuckers in your neighborhood saying, "Yo, Blanket, what's happening?" He's seventeen years old, what's he going to say? "Yo, I told you my name's Derrick! Jermaine, I want my $450 dollars, man! I sold you the fucking car!" He's got a hard road to climb. Talk about baggage.
PLAYBOY: During the Golden Globe acceptance speech for 30 Rock, you called yourself "the face of post-racial America." Do you really believe in a post-racial America?
TRACY MORGAN: We come a long way from steppin' and fetchin'. "Here come the judge," that kinda thing. I think progress is being made. Who you think is buying hip-hop? Black kids? That's white kids, man. I see more interracial couples now than ever. But we got a long way to go. You can count on one hand the number of black actors on TV, especially network TV. Damon Wayans has this joke that I can relate to. He said, "I made $14 million dollars last year and now white people ask me, 'Is there still racism in America?'" And Damon's like, "Well, iffum there is, I ain't seen none!" That's kinda how I feel.
PLAYBOY: Sometimes the funniest comics are also the most quiet and reserved in their private lives. Do you resent it when fans expect you to always be "on"?
TRACY MORGAN: Comedians are the monkeys of show business. You go to the zoo, everybody likes to see the monkeys, right? Cause they jerk off, they play with their own shit, that kinda thing. Until the monkey throw his shit at you. Now you want to kill the fucking monkey. Some people actually believe that when they turn off their TV, I just lay down in the box. Just the other day, it started raining and this young boy yelled at me, "Tracy Morgan, what you doin' out in the rain?" Motherfucker, life hits me in the face just like it does you. What about the phone call I got earlier from the IRS? You care about that? "My momma's got cancer in her breast/Don't ask me why I'm motherfuckin' stressed!" That's a quote from my man Biggie Smalls.
PLAYBOY: You're clean and sober after a very public battle with alcoholism. Do you ever worry that you won't be as funny or outrageous without the booze?
TRACY MORGAN: Never. I've always been funny. Why do I have to be drunk to be funny? Because John Belushi and Chris Farley put that stigma on funny people, that we all gotta be high or drunk to be funny? That's fucked up. I can be crazy without the liquor. I'm old school funny. I'll do anything to get a laugh. I never drank before I went onstage. My problems came after I came off. Reality can be harsh. People would make comments like "You weren't all that funny" or "You should've done this instead." They gotta tear you down. So I would drink. Now I just ignore people. I ignore their ignorance. I see through them and under them and around them. That's just the way they are and it's got nothing to do with me. You can't let people get in your head, cause they'll live there rent free.
PLAYBOY: It's not like you don't go out to nightclubs anymore. How do you resist all of those temptations?
TRACY MORGAN: Fuck temptations! I'm 40 years old! What am I going to be tempted by? Pussy? Money? I did all that shit already! Love? Fools fall in love! Love don't love nobody! It takes a fool to learn that. Love yourself if you want to love some-fucking-body. Love yourself. Start with you. It's been over a year and a half since I had a drink. I don't even think about it anymore. I love my sobriety. There is nothing in this world, other than probably my son dying, that would ever get me to go back to that shit. Ever! I don't focus on what I don't want. I used to be like, "Oh, I hope I don't go into this club and get drunk." I don't do that no more. I focus on what I want. "Give me a seltzer water. What the fuck I just say? Give me a seltzer water, I don't want that shit!"
PLAYBOY: After two DUI arrests, you were court-ordered to wear an ankle bracelet that monitored your alcohol intake. Was that enough to scare you straight?
TRACY MORGAN: The bracelet made me feel like a slave. I felt like Kunta Kinte (from the novel Roots.) Some days I wanted to cut my foot off, just to get rid of that shit. But that wasn't rock bottom for me. Rock bottom came when I was sitting in my house and my oldest son came downstairs and he was sitting on the couch, it was just me and him, and the lights was really low, and he looked at my foot like this. (He shakes his head.) He was disgusted with me. I felt like an asshole. I felt like a jerk. That was it for me. That was the end of my drinking. The end of it, right then and there. We're working on our relationship right now and he tells me what he sees, and I'm trying to love me. He comes over from time to time and cooks me dinner. We watch Sport Center. He's my son, man. The last time he was here, maybe two days ago, he said, "Yo Dad, you know what it feels like? I feel like this is the happy ending we always wanted. It ain't perfect but it's a happy ending."
PLAYBOY: You've given your demons a name: Chico Divine. Has Chico gone into permanent retirement?
TRACY MORGAN: That's my alter-ego. Chico Divine! Chico's the party motherfucker. He takes his shirt off in clubs and gets drunk. And then he comes home and shits and pisses in the kitty litter. When I was in the clubs, that motherfucker destroyed my marriage. 21 years of marriage, man. To a loving wife that was always there. Chico ruined my marriage. But I bury that motherfucker every day. I know he could come back from the dead. He's like Jason Voorhees. I bury him every day. I go back to the graveyard to make sure he's there. Dig him up, look in the coffin, "Yeah, he's there," then I bury him, put the dirt back on. I don't know about tomorrow. Today I don't want the motherfucker alive. Things are well for me, things are happening for me.
PLAYBOY: Now that you're single and more famous than ever, is there no shortage of women you'd like to get pregnant?
TRACY MORGAN: It's easier than it used to be. At my age, getting pussy ain't a problem. Anybody can get pussy if they got a little dough. This ain't high school. It ain't free no more. After that, you got to trick. I don't even gotta speak when I'm out. I put that jewelry on and I stand in the right light, and my diamonds go bling. But I'm not trying to fuck my fans anymore. I'm just not. You gotta be careful with that. You spend too much time in comedy, you start thinking they're responding to you. You start thinking that every woman that smiles at you wants to fuck you. Maybe you just made her stop thinking about her emotional shit for a few hours. And that's enough for me now. I've only got one dick and I can only fuck one woman at a time. I'm 40 years old, I learned about having too many women. That's a lot of headaches, man.
PLAYBOY: Are you telling us that your sex drive has diminished at 40? You're becoming an old man?
TRACY MORGAN: Fuck no! I bought my girl a Girls' Scout outfit. I bought her the wig and everything. I made her go outside and knock on the door, try to sell me some cookies, goddammit. "Mister, do you want to buy some Butterscotch cookies?" I'm in my boxers and I'm like, "Yeah, come on in, baby. I'll buy a couple boxes from you." Then I fucked the shit out of her on the couch, that couch you're sitting on right now! And then we ate some cookies.
PLAYBOY: Now that you're rich and famous, are you a hero in your old neighborhood?
TRACY MORGAN: It's hard when you come from where we come from. You don't see people make it out. You don't see it. Where I come from, it's broken dreams and no hope. It's the ghetto, man. The older people try to stomp that shit out. They see kids with a dream, if their lives didn't turn out the way they wanted, they'll try to crush you. Those motherfuckers don't give a fuck. So now when I go back, motherfuckers are like, "You owe us!" That's how America is sometimes. We love to blow you up, and then we love to break your ass down. People got to take responsibility for their lives. I don't owe nobody nothing. Yeah, you laughed at me when I was in the fuckin' hood. Now I come back to see my grandpa and you approach me like I owe you something? Sometimes my happiness don't include everybody else. Sometimes my happiness just includes me.
PLAYBOY: You're estranged from your mother and most of your immediate family. Was that their decision or yours?
TRACY MORGAN: When I first started doing comedy, nobody in my family was there for me. They never came to the clubs, they never watched me on Saturday Night Live. My mother never came to see me. She called me a wanna-be. My wife and three sons are the only ones who believed in me. So I'm breaking the cycle. I'm not following a generational curse. You gotta be tough, bro. Everything I went through as a kid, it made me hard as steel, sharp as cleats. Most people ain't gonna change, cause they're stuck in cycles of poverty and generational curses. My father told me before he died, "You're gonna break that cycle!" At the end of the day, I love me. Cause I'm the only one I can depend on. It's hard to find unconditional love in this world, man.
(This story originally appeared, in a slightly different form, in the November 2009 issue of Playboy magazine.)


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