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Now that we're a week into 2016, most of us have already broken our New Year's Resolutions. So this column's late, but in the spirit of better late than never: There's one thing the MIC and AMA could lobby for in 2016 in order to improve the motorcycle industry's long-term prospects.
My suggestion for an industry-wide New Year's Resolution is: Let's introduce European-style tiered licensing for motorcyclists.
Don't worry, this column won't change anything. Because even though introducing tiered licensing for American motorcycle riders would be good for business and encourage people to become motorcyclists for life, it'll never happen. In fact, the MIC and AMA'd lobby against it.
Going back to those heady days before the '08 recession, Motorcycle USA had to cobble together a pretty sad bunch of bikes for a 'Newbie' comparison test (above). I presume testers wore a paper bag over their helmets, in case their friends saw them on that Virago 250. Fast forward to 2015, however, and MotoUSA had a good handful of small sportbikes to ride in its Entry-Level Sportbike comparison (below). And riders who didn't want a sportbike had way cooler choices than that old Virago, such as the Suzuki TU250 or Yamaha SR400. It's actually a great time to be a new rider.
Yes, I'm suggesting restrictions on peoples' right to ride. If that makes you foam at the mouth, good. One of my personal resolutions was to anger more readers.
But hear me out anyway.
I first wrote about this in 2008, after Luc Bourdon ― a promising NHL hockey player ― went home to New Brunswick at the end of the hockey season. Within a couple of weeks, unlucky Luc was killed when he rode his GSX-R1000 into an oncoming semi. Two days after buying the bike.
I hate it when that happens.
I used to live right near where Bourdon got killed. It's great riding country, by the way. Lots of two-lane road with sparse traffic and few cops. The locals are friendly and lobster is cheap. It's actually not too far from Cape Breton, where it was briefly rumored that there'd be a TT-style real-roads race.
I haven't read anything to suggest that Bourdon was staging his own little TT. Locals speculated that, maybe, a gust of wind blew him into the path of an oncoming semi. And indeed, it's a windy place. But come on. Wind? Not likely. More like, no one explained counter-steering to Luc.
According to the RCMP, the semi-driver did "everything in his power" to avoid the crash. I think the responsibility can be laid at the feet of the dip$#!+ who thought it was a good idea to sell a kid with less than two weeks riding experience a GSX-R1000. A motorcycle that will go 100 mph… in first gear.
Seriously. Who thought that was a good idea?
I hope it's obvious, but I'll state for the record that this diatribe isn't a knock on Suzuki. Bourdon could just as easily have killed himself on a Kawasaki, Honda or Yamaha. The only reason that he couldn't have killed himself on a Ducati is that there weren't any Ducati dealers in that relatively remote part of New Brunswick.
Although a lot of Harley-Davidsons are heavy and visually intimidating, most of the Harley line is actually beginner friendly. Your average hog has a low seat height, torquey motor, and a combination of lazy geometry and wide handlebar providing good leverage. Those things all conspire to make Harleys good (albeit expensive) choices for beginners. Strangely, since most of their line is beginner friendly, Harley was one of the only pre-recession manufacturers to really target American newbies with a specific model. That was a good idea in theory; the only problem was, that model was the unloved Buell Blast.
When Luc Bourdon's death was all over the Canadian news, I wrote that we would be a lot better off with a progressive licensing system like the one they have in the UK, where riders need either a.) four years' experience on less-powerful bikes, or b.) to be over 24 and take far more comprehensive training and testing before qualifying to ride bikes like the one Bourdon crashed.
At the time, I thought that a hockey player's high-profile death might cause a few Canadian provinces to adopt such a system, but even in regulation-friendly Canada, that never happened.
Looking back at life on dealership sales floors in the mid-"Naughties": It was a time when manufacturers relentlessly pushed bigger and faster sportbikes onto a free-spending public. It was totally common to see beginners walk into motorcycle dealerships and be sold a 600cc supersport replica. Salesmen reassured novices they could trade up to a full-sized literbike next year when they had some experience.
I've been through this before, but it bears repeating: I'm consistently amazed how well modern sportbikes work as basic transportation. They have race-quality brakes and sharp handling that can make any rider safer. And there's a place for limitless power on the street, too, when it can be used to open up a safety gap between you and that idiot car driver. It's great to ride a bike that is easily capable of traveling at the 95th percentile of traffic speed, so that almost any potentially dangerous situation develops in front of you where you can see it as you come up to pass it; trouble's not coming up behind you where it will take you by surprise. And yes, the throttle works both ways.
But even a 600cc race replica was way, way too much bike for any beginner. Selling bikes like that to beginners was just a way to get a short-term gain at the expense of long-term pain. And I don't mean pain from injury, I mean pain in our industry. What we need to do is create motorcyclists for life; guys (and gals) who'll progress from beginner bikes through high-performance bikes and then on to adventure bikes, dual-sports, cruisers, whatever, while they ride their entire lives. Lives that aren't shortened by their love of motorcycles.
Even the beginners we didn't kill with that short-sighted 600s-for-beginners sales strategy were intimidated. They bought one bike, crashed it, and never rode again.
While this column has picked on race-replica sport bikes as examples, it's still true for other big, powerful bikes — I'm looking at you, BMW S1000XR, Yamaha Super Ténéré, etc.
When I was in the ad business, I watched dozens of focus groups from the other side of the one-way glass. And I learned that the most important things are left unsaid. No motorcycle-industry marketing flack will ever hear a (male) rider say, "I'm afraid of my bike," because 21 year-old guys can't even admit that to themselves. But when ex-riders say, "I was going to lose my license," or "I was going to kill myself," or some such macho crap, what they really mean is, "It scared me."
Fast forward to today, and if you walked into a motorcycle dealership you might think, "Wow, they really listened to Mark! Look at all those cool 300cc beginner bikes." But it wasn't a case of them listening to me, or anyone else. It was the recession. Manufacturers came to realize that they needed new models that could sell for four or five grand.
Thanks to a collapse in demand for high-end bikes, there's a bunch of great new models that won't lure enthusiastic beginners up to triple-digit speeds on a whim (or maybe just because the rider sneezed). And it's possible that a new generation of novice riders will learn something all veterans already know: That it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast than it is to ride a fast bike slow.
For the first time in decades, almost every manufacturer has a few genuinely cool small-displacement street bikes; now is the time to do more than offer them on the market. Now's the time to introduce tiered licensing and force new riders to spend a couple of years on bikes that make less than, say, 50 horsepower.
Of course, that's never gonna' happen. Because manufacturers all still want to sell novices big, expensive motorcycles; they're only offering those cool little bikes because the market forced them to. If some tech bro walks in with a big bonus and wants to buy a literbike, that's what almost every salesman will steer him towards. Nobody wants to be forced to sell a free spending buyer a $5000 entry-level Twin.
That's shortsighted, because (and trust me, I've got the accident statistics to prove this) the kid who buys too much bike buys one bike. Start that same guy on a smaller bike he can handle and, in a few years he'll buy a bigger one. So you've already sold that guy two bikes but more importantly, there's a far better chance you've set that guy on a path that will see him become a motorcyclist for life.
In the UK, before you can ride, you have to be able to jump through hoops.
There are four license tiers for UK motorcyclists, and three potential entry points: Moped, Light Motorcycle, or Direct Access.
Moped ― Riders must be 16 or older. Mopeds have a maximum 50cc motor and designed top speed under 30 mph.
A1 Light Motorcycle ― Maximum 125cc and 14.6 bhp. Riders must be at least 17.
A2 Standard Motorcycle ― Candidates must be at least 19 and have 2 years experience with A1 motorcycle. They must re-take an re-pass the practical test on a suitable machine. Maximum power 47 bhp.
A Unrestricted ― Candidates must have at least two years' experience on A2 machine, and re-take practical test on a full-power motorcycle.
Direct Access ― It is possible to go straight to a full-power motorcycle. Candidates must be at least 24. There are three tests: Theory, Module 1 – Maneuvers, and Module 2 – Road Test. Module 1 is a relatively low-speed test on a closed course (usually a coned-off course in a parking lot. Module 2 involves riding on the road for 45+ minutes, while being followed by an examiner. Both on-bike modules are far more demanding than any U.S. license test. Most riders who successfully take the direct access route spend $1,000+ on specialized training. For reference, the UK school associated with BMW charges £885 for four full days of classroom and on-bike training.


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Composite BNC RCA S-Video To HD Component Video VGA
Converter Scaler
This advanced video scaler is designed to up convert analog composite
video and S-Video(Y/C) type input to HD resolution up to 1080p or computer VGA RGB resolution up to 1600x1200 pixels through its
component video output or VGA output for display on HDTV or HDTV, LCD TV,
projector or VGA monitor/projector.
All analog videos can be enhanced to sharp and detailed
images in HD or VGA resolution. Featured with advanced video data processing for most natural and cinema quality
video for output images.
This video up converter is suitable for
applications in converting the NTSC or PAL output from VCR/DVD player, cable box, satellite receiver,
video game console, CCTV camera or all other standard video devices to digital type for display.
This video converter is served as a handy video gadget to help users streamline
their home A/V setup, digital signage for retail store, conference room or surveillance CCTV applications. It
works perfectly with all other video devices for further integration or distribution
such as component video-based or VGA-based switchers, splitters, matrix system and so
on for information distribution or visual presentation.
Easy Setup
Simply use a BNC cable, RCA A/V cable or S-Video cable for connecting any
analog video audio device to the input side
of this HD converter. Then set the output video mode switch to HD mode and use
the supplied 15-pin to 3 RCA component video adapter cable for getting the HD
component video output from this converter to the HDTV set or other component
video monitor or A/V receiver. All hardware solution.
Plug and play without any manual adjustment needed.
For getting the VGA output from this video scaler,
users simply set the output video mode switch to PC mode and connect the
LCD monitor cable into the 15-pin VGA output of this converter for display.
Selectable Video Input
This video scaler supports dual video inputs, 1 composite BNC/RCA and a
S-Video Y/C input. Input channel button is available on the top panel of this
unit for easy switching between composite BNC/RCA type and SV type for displaying sharp images on large screen
TV display or monitor.
Advanced Video Conversion
This video scaler uses advanced HD video processor with powerful 3D
digital comb filter for digitally encoded images with vivid color depth during
the signal conversion. Its auto noise reduction process helps minimize
artifacts and other video noises caused by unsynchronized video pluses.
Composite BNC RCA S-Video To Component YPbPr
This video scaler can easily up-convert the standard BNC, RCA video or S-Video
from video camera, CCTV system, satellite, game console, cable box, etc. to
sharp and clear progressive type component
YPbPr video format at selectable resolution from 480p to 1080p or 1920x1080
pixels for display on HD monitor, projector, LCD TV or HD recorder.
Composite BNC RCA S- Video To VGA
This video scaler can also scale any standard composite BNC, RCA video or
S-Video from to DVD player, video camera, CCTV system, game console, cable box,
etc. to sharp and clear progressive type VGA or RGBHV format at selectable
1024x768, 1280x1024 and up to 1600x1200 pixels for display on LCD monitor,
projector or LCD TV panel.
Sharp Image Quality
With operating frequency of up to 165MHz, output images are crystal clear and
detailed. Enjoy the vivid color information with full color depth being
presented on your big screen TV or projector.
3D Motion Adaptive De-Interlacing
This digital video scaler adopts the latest 3D motion adaptive de-interlace
processing, which can help eliminate the jagged edges of TV or DVD videos and
improve the clarity and sharpness of the overall image.
Selectable Video Output Resolution
This video scaler is featured with selectable video output resolution. An
output video type switch is located on the side of this unit. User can set this
switch to select different video resolution for output to the display properly
as needed.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Chocolate Blues and Business Networking festival is coming to Houma.
The Chocolate Blues and Business Networking festival is coming to Houma.
The event is a business-to-business networking opportunity with a business expo, open networking, door prizes, business card exchange and more.
It will be held on Oct. 10 at the Evergreen Cajun Center, 2694 W. Main St. in Houma.
The event runs from 1-7 p.m.
Organizers expect between 500 and 800 people to attend. The festival has taken place in cities across the United States.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance or at the door.
For information, advance ticket purchases or to find out how to get involved, call 232-7559.
Wade Richard of Thibodaux has been named Synergy Bank's assistant vice president.
Richard has 36 years of experience in the banking and financial services market. He will lead Synergy Bank's Gray office.
"Wade is an extremely knowledgeable banker," said Synergy Bank President Jerry Ledet Jr. "He will be a valuable asset to our clients in the northern Terrebonne and Gray area."
Richard is a Thibodaux native and graduated from Thibodaux High School and Nicholls State University.
He is a member of the Raceland Lions Club, Raceland Grand Marshals Club, Raceland Fire Department and Central Lafourche Chamber of Commerce.
Tamco Professional Coatings and Southern Crane and Hydraulics, both in Houma, were awarded a state safety award.
Tamco Professional Coatings has been in operation since 2000. It is a paint contractor in the industrial marine sector. Tamco employs about 65 employees and is owned and operated by Dwayne and Tamara McClanahan.
Southern Crane & Hydraulics LLC was established in 1989 and has more than 20 years of experience and service in the oilfield. The company is locally owned and provides various crane services such as operator/rigger testing, preventative maintenance, hydraulic systems, rentals, refurbishments and repairs.
For the fifth year, Louisiana Worker's Compensation Corp.'s Safety and Loss Prevention Department has recognized policyholders that have excelled at making their workplaces safe.
The LWCC Safest 70 Awards are presented to the 70 companies — out of approximately 17,000 policyholders — that ranked the highest in demonstrating excellence and commitment to workplace safety in 2011. Policyholders were grouped into different premium levels and selected based on a five-year data history.
New Orleans-based game developer Gameloft released its first full game created in New Orleans.
The game is called "Cosmic Colony" and is a space-themed tycooning game that allows players to colonize a planet in order to prosper.
The launch coincides with the first anniversary of Gameloft.
The game can be purchased on Apple's App Store and is also available on Google Play. It can be played on Android and Apple devices.
The game is free.
The next Bayou Industrial Group luncheon will take place on Sept. 10 at the Bayou Country Club in Thibodaux.
Doors open at 11:30 a.m., and the program beings at noon.
Robert T. Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, is the keynote speaker.
Scott will discuss Louisiana's fiscal challenges.
Reservations are required by Sept. 6.
Lunch is free for BIG members.
There is a $20 fee for reserved guests and $25 for walk-in guests.
For information, call 580-3901 or email email@example.com


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StFX Athletics invites you to purchase a ticket in support of our annual fundraiser! Tickets cost $120
There is a monthly GRAND PRIZE of a dream vacation for two, along with the following assortment of SECOND PLACE prizes:
* $250 Prepaid Visa Cards
* Signed Chicago Blackhawks Jerseys (Donated by Al MacIsaac)
* Apple Watches (Donated by John Hatch)
* Adidas Prize Packs (Donated by StFX Athletics)
* Mini Fridges (Donated by Labatts)
* Ping G400 Drivers (Donated by Pat Loftus)
Each month a THIRD PLACE prize will also be drawn for a free ticket to the 2020 Xplore the World draw
List of 2019 WINNERS - CLICK HERE
List of 2018 WINNERS - CLICK HERE
Thank you to our PROUD SPONSOR
Xplore the World Draw - Rules & Regulations
* Ticket cost is $120 (tax included), payable in lump sum or 6 monthly installments by cheque, cash or credit card.
* 2000 tickets will be sold, numbered 001 to 2000
* Each draw will take place on the last business day of the month
* 2019 monthly GRAND PRIZE winners are not eligible for a second monthly grand prize, but will continue to be eligible for the second & third prizes
* Grand prize winners can choose to accept a cash prize in lieu of trip. Cash will be 80% of trip value, up to a maximum of $2000
* StFX students, coaches & employees are eligible for the draws
* If all tickets are not sold by January 31, 2019, the StFX Athletic Department reserves the right to reimburse all buyers in full
* All trips will be organized by Travel Our Way, Antigonish, N.S.
The prize values as listed are quoted in Canadian dollars and are based on information available at the time of this proposal (June, 2018). The price is based on double occupancy and includes applicable taxes. As prices are subject to change based on the availability of product, the winners will be required to cover any costs in excess of the value of the prize listed. It is therefore recommended that the winner(s) book well in advance of their expected travel date.
Prize winners will also have the option to apply the value of their prize to another trip, or alter/upgrade the prize won. As noted above, the winner will be reponsible for all costs incurred over and above the stated prize value.


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"Making the right decisions and having the right resources can make all the difference in the world with your largest investment. We want you to know your options and opportunities. We will provide you with the information you need to make good decisions with the home you buy or sell. We are committed to putting your needs 1st and keeping the promises we make!" TODAY, is better than ever to buy or sell!
Tricia Kiefer-Listing Specialist/Marketing Specialist
Tiffany Lester- Listing Specialist/Marketing Specialist
Ron Opfer- Vice President of Commercial Real Estate CBPR
Irene Boylan-Buyer Agent
Mandy Miller-Buyer Agent
Linda Steller-Commercial Coordinator
Irene was instrumental in us being able to successfully navigate the competitive (and sometimes chaotic) Las Vegas market. She went above and beyond in making sure we were informed about every possible detail and made herself available to us to view homes at a moments notice. We're planning on purchasing another home in Vegas in the next few years and without question will be using Irene!
Miss Boylan was extremely eager, knowledgeable and very helpful. She went far above any expectations I might have had. I would recommend her to anyone at anytime. I can't say enough good words for her.
Property Address
5 Bed(s) | 9 Total Bath(s) | 8,228 SqFt
3 Bed(s) | 3 Total Bath(s) | 4,195 SqFt
4 Bed(s) | 3 Total Bath(s) | 2,801 SqFt
|Property Address
|332 Gray Robin Avenue
North Las Vegas, NV 89032
|5 Bed(s) | 3 Total Bath(s) | 2,575 SqFt
|3904 New Hope Way
Las Vegas, NV 89110
|3 Bed(s) | 2 Total Bath(s) | 1,152 SqFt
|2560 Anani Road
Henderson, NV 89044
|3 Bed(s) | 2 Total Bath(s) | 1,248 SqFt
|Property Address
|618 Bighorn Creek Street
Henderson, NV 89002
|4 Bed(s) | 2 Total Bath(s) | 2,427 SqFt
|3391 Athens Street
Las Vegas, NV 89169
|1 Building(s) | 3,336 SqFt | 4 Unit(s)
|2110 Stewart Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89101
|1 Building(s) | 858 SqFt | 3 Unit(s)


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Intel Capital
The Proof is in the Partnership
Our mission is to invest across the broad spectrum of technology innovation to encourage the creation of the technologies of tomorrow. We focus on helping entrepreneurs scale from start-up to global corporation. Our technology expertise, brand capital, and access to our global network via our business development programs help Intel Capital entrepreneurs build lasting success.
Intel Capital in India
Find out more about Intel Capital in IndiaLearn More >
Venture to dream
Every great business starts with an idea. An entrepreneur has the vision and drive to turn an idea from a dream into a company. Our mission is to connect your dream with opportunities.Learn More >
Intel Capital Technology Day
Portfolio companies present their products and solutions to corporate business decision makers in customized face-to-face meeting formats designed to meet specific customer requirements.
The Art of the Perfect Partnership
Intel Capital Technology Briefings
Every year, Intel Capital proactively participates at some of the most prestigious industry events to support our companies and drive introductions to global businesses
Intel Capital Technology
Intel Capital Global Summit & Industry Events
Tap into everything from technology advances and optimizations to business best practices and corporate governance insights.


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Melanie from Creative Art & Design rescued an old tattered ottoman from the side of the road. She took it home and upholstered it with canvas drop cloth fabric giving it an updated look. She also painted two stripes on the top to make it look like a vintage grain sack.
Her original inspiration came from the Pearce Ottoman from Pottery Barn which retails between $449 – $559.
Go check out Creative Art & Design for the full tutorial.


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Easy Access
Quick Links
Working with the nonprofit community-based Brockton 21st Century Corporation, the Brockton Redevelopment Authority will provide funds to enable the issuance of short term, declining balance business loans for façade improvements in Brockton. Most funding requires matching funds invested by the business owner, and CDBG funds are available to a maximum $35,000. Larger investments may be made to upgrade key anchor business properties. All code violations must be corrected in businesses that participate in the Façade Improvement Program. The Brockton Redevelopment Authority will monitor the loans to ensure that at least one full time equivalent job has been created or retained for each $35,000 of CDBG funds advanced. To the greatest extent possible, the BRA will strive to leverage private investment in the form of equity or credit investments in these businesses.
Building owners may also qualify for a declining balance loan/grant of up to $5,000 to rehabilitate or replace existing building signage. With this program, there is no matching requirement. Building owners must elect either the matching or non matching program.
All work to facades or signage must be in compliance with the city sign ordinance and must be approved by the Façade Committee prior to beginning any work.
Official Website for the City of Brockton. ©2019 City of Brockton All Rights Reserved.


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Karen Geronimo, a member of the Mescalero Apache tribe in town for the Democratic convention, knows what she wants from Elizabeth Warren, the Senate candidate from Massachusetts: a blood sample.
"Someone needs to make her take a DNA test," said Ms. Geronimo, whose husband, Harlyn Geronimo, is the great-grandson of the legendary warrior Geronimo.
The still-simmering controversy over Ms. Warren's self-proclaimed American Indian heritage has chased her from the campaign trail in Massachusetts to the convention hall, resonating with a small but vocal constituency: American Indian Democrats.
During her academic career, Ms. Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, identified herself as a minority, citing her one thirty-second Cherokee blood, a fact that Republicans pounced on to try to portray her as an opportunist and a fraud. The line on her résumé does not seem to set well with some Indian members of her own party.
"If you're going to be Native, don't just be Native on paper," said Lexie LaMere, a Nebraska delegate and member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. "What's troubling is that she's shown nothing in her history of being involved in Native American issues."Continue reading the main story
Mr. Geronimo, wearing a "Native Americans for Obama" button, said he was disappointed when he first heard of Ms. Warren's claim.
"She needed leverage to further her career and started digging," he said. Ms. Warren brushed aside reporters who asked about the concerns on Wednesday, saying: "I've answered those questions. I'm here to talk about what's happening to America's working-class families. That's my job. It's my full-time job."
Still, she may want to avoid bumping into Indians around the hall. Jim La Pointe, the great-grandnephew of Crazy Horse and a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, had a test in mind for Ms. Warren.
"I'd like to hear her speak her native language," he said with a sly smile.
Kennedy Cousins
Kerry Kennedy, the seventh child of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, could not provide a precise head count of Kennedy cousins who have flooded into Charlotte. "It's not as many as the last convention," she said.
But suffice it to say, in the first party gathering since the death three summers ago of her uncle Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the family is here in force.
Caroline Kennedy is speaking to the convention on Thursday, two nights after her cousin Joseph P. Kennedy III, a candidate for Congress in Massachusetts, introduced a video tribute to the senator.
The senator's son Patrick, a former congressman from Rhode Island who has acknowledged a drug addiction, held a counseling session for fellow conventiongoers (the "Recovery Caucus") while his brother, Edward M. Kennedy Jr., mused about running for elected office someday.
But back to Kerry Kennedy. She has not had a peaceful summer. Her close friend Mary Richardson Kennedy, the wife of her brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr., committed suicide in May. Two months later, Ms. Kennedy, below, struck a tractor-trailer while driving erratically in Westchester County, apparently under the influence of Ambien.
Rumblings that her ex-husband, Andrew M. Cuomo, will run for president may bring fresh scrutiny to their marriage.
On Wednesday, she presided over a screening of a documentary about her mother, Ethel, and then, in an interview, let loose about Mitt Romney, her uncle's opponent from 18 years ago.
She described the Republican nominee as "just out of touch with people who are struggling."
Ms. Kennedy said she feared that under Mr. Romney, America's image abroad would suffer, likening it to the era of George W. Bush, when the United States "was the most suspected and hated country on earth." She then slammed the Republican convention as lacking diversity.
"It was," she said, "almost the last gasp of the dominance of white America."
Out and About
In Charlotte
The actress Eva Longoria, in multicolored sweat pants and sunglasses, catching a smoke break outside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
...The lockdown of the Time Warner Cable Arena around 9 p.m. set off a rather unattractive rush of name-dropping and gate-crashing by the delegates and V.I.P.'s stuck outside. "You have to let him in. He's running for Congress," one crowd member yelled, unpersuasively. True celebrity prevailed, as it usually does. The former Obama body man Reggie Love was recognized and let inside, while will.i.am simply slipped past the barricades.
...Robert E. Rubin, Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, falling into the indoor pool at a party for Democratic bigs at the Ritz-Carlton hosted by the hedge fund manager Orin Kramer, Mr. Love and Hamilton E. James of the Blackstone Group. Mr. Rubin said he didn't see the narrow ledge in front of the water as he walked into the room. "It was kind of funny," Mr. Rubin said good-naturedly as he stood in the Ritz lobby a few hours later, in a dry change of clothes. One guest said he was "waist-deep" in the pool. Tom Brokaw, who was in the room, joked that he could now blackmail Mr. Rubin. "I own him," he teased. Mr. Rubin was charmingly philosophical. "It's a great way to get attention," he said.Continue reading the main story


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I love Apple products, and have been using OS X fairly exclusively for nearly seven years. Now and again, however, I have use Windows to get various chores done, and a feature that Windows 7 has down pat is the ability to snap windows around on the screen.
There are a couple of tools for OS X that attempt to replicate this, but the best one I have used so far is called Windownaut, from Binary Bakery. It makes arranging and snapping windows a breeze, and also has some extra powerful features that I've never seen before!
Window Snapping
Windownaut's primary purpose is to enable flexible and powerful window snapping on a Mac, and has a lot of options to boot. It runs as an unobtrusive background application, and allows you to "snap" a window to any side of your screen either through dragging or configurable hotkeys. And you can go beyond the typical left/right/maximized options that Windows 7 gives you too: Windownaut allows you to pick any side, any corner, maximized, centered, or even moved to another Spaces screen. Talk about options!
Custom keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to any particular window snap option, so I have mimicked the typical Windows 7 left/right/max choices with the Option+Cmd+arrow keys, and it works wonderfully. Dragging to an edge to snap works well too, giving a nice semi-transparent block to show where the window will end up. Windownaut also works well with Spaces, if you have them enabled. Dragging windows between different spaces in Snow Leopard for example will first show the snapping animation, but then move the window to the next space without interference.
One area where Windownaut could improve its snapping behavior is in returning a window to its original size and position after you've snapped around to a couple of different orientations. Windownaut will remember the last size and position, but not necessarily the original, unsnapped one. This causes me to do a little more clicking and dragging to resize and reposition windows than I'd hope, but perhaps that will be added in future versions.
Window Button Enhancements
But wait, there's more! Windownaut can also add extra functionality to the red, yellow, and green window buttons in the top left of every window, often referred to as the traffic lights. By either adding a right click or a modifier key, each of the buttons can perform new actions. For example, you can assign a right click of the red button to quit the application, instead of just closing the window. Option-clicking the yellow button could allow you to show the currently open document in the Finder. You can also choose to display the layout selector to snap the window to a certain position, or force quit the application.
This may seem like a departure from typical OS X behavior, but I've been surprised how often these additional options have come in handy for me. Hopefully more options will be available here in the future as well for even more powerful shortcuts.
An important thing to note is that Windownaut dives deep into how OS X functions in order to work its magic. There are other tools that perform in a similar manner (BetterTouchTool, etc.), but every time I've tried one of these apps I always end up experiencing problems clicking and not having the system respond as it should.
The developer of Windownaut, Hisham Khalifa, has worked extra hard to remove these types of bugs, and he seems to have nailed them all. Since the official release of Windownaut I have not experienced any hung clicks or stuck buttons, which is a major accomplishment.
Windownaut is available for purchase from the Binary Bakery website for $9.99 for use on up to two Macs, or in a three-pack for $16.99. There is a 14-day trial so that you can try it before you buy. If you are looking for a way to recreate Windows 7's window snapping functionality with a lot of added power, I would definitely recommend trying out Windownaut.
Windownaut enables window snapping in OS X via dragging to screen edges as well as by keyboard hotkeys. It also adds extra functionality to the traffic light buttons in each window.
- Windownaut |
- 9.99 |
- Binary Bakery


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Asteroid to Come Within Record Distance From Earth Friday
The asteroid 2012 DA14 is set to pass Earth Friday at a recording-breaking distance of roughly 17 miles – lower than most communication and television satellites.
The 14,000-ton rock, half the size of a football field, will whizz past our planet at 19:25 GMT. NASA scientists have said that though it would certainly be a close call (the closer we have in memory for an object that size), impact is unlikely. It will pass closer even than the geosynchronous satellites that orbit the Earth, but there is no risk of impacts or collisions.
In parts of the globe in darkness around the time the rock will pass, it will be visible using good binoculars or a telescope. Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia will be the places privileged with the best view of it.
The asteroid orbits the Sun in 368 days - a period similar to Earth's year - but it does not orbit in the same plane as the Earth.
But keen viewers anywhere can find one of several live streams of the event on the internet, including a feed from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Nasa, available from 19:00 GMT.
2012 DA14 was first spotted in February 2012 by astronomers at the La Sagra Sky Survey in Spain - once a fairly small-scale, amateur effort to discover and track asteroids that has in recent years become a significant contributor to our knowledge of these "near-Earth objects".
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone


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China Black Color Wood Chiavari Chairs for Sale Rental
HAIDONG & TOREGAL -- Professional Chiavari Chair Manufacturer in China since the year 1990...
Buy Chairs from manufactuer directly! high quality with reasonable price will bring you more benifits!!
Our Advantages: *High quality hard wood frame. Raw Material:Robinia Pseudoacacia(Chinese Locust Tree) *The unique making technology of interior structure to ensure chair's reliability. *The precision design of perforation.Durability ensured with steel flat socket cap screw and locknut. *V-shaped Metal cocked hat(angle iron) support the bottom of chair making it very stable and strong. *The Distinctive Design of Wood Structures with Mortise and Tenon Connection. *Our chiavari chair are distinguished by special design.Our chair's seat board isn't made of plywood. *Even a good plywood may heat expand and cold contract.Our unique design of chair's seat endows chair with excellent solid and durable stability.Durable,the outward appearance is exquisite.
Advanced Equipment & skillful workers:
20000 square meter factory,
Skillful workers,
Advanced production equipments,
The production ability is over 35000 pcs monthly.
Using specific process to control and minimize the gas bubbles,
making the chair frame clear & strong.
Factory passed ISO9001-2008
Resin chair passed ANSI-BIFMA certificater,
Wood chair passed EN12520 certifcate
Table passed EN12521 certificate
We are a professional manufacturer of banquet chairs and tables in China since 1990,
such as chiavari chairs, wedding chairs, chateau chairs, castle chairs, folding chairs,napoleon chair,
folding tables and cushions. They are very suitable for rental industry,banquet,wedding,restaurant
and other special events.
Our Clients: Chiavari Chair Rental Chicago,San Diego,Singapore,Atlanta,Malaysia,Michigan,Johannesburg,Cape Town,Durban....
pls call MS. Grace at any time
office tel: 86 532 82562218Mobile Tel: 0086 15969885437
or send an letter to: sales(at)cnhaidong(dot) comWelcome to visit our offical website: www cnhaidong com
1. Q:What is the maximum weight that could be handled by the chair?
A:Static load 350kgs
2. Q:What is the material used for the production of the chair?
A:Material: Chinese Locust Tree
3. Q:Can I get a sample chair? What is the cost and procedure of this?
A:Yes. but the sample is charged, we will express the sample to you once receive the payment.
4. Q:Do the chairs come with a warranty?
A:3 years limited warranty on frame under normal using
5. Q:What is your loading port?
A:Our loading port is Qingdao, China.
6. Q:Would it be possible for me to have someone meet with you and visit your office and factory?
A:Yes. Welcome to visit our office and factory at your convenience.


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Throbbing Members:
Mansur Zennelli
Michael Barrett
Salvatore Aidone
Duncan Millar
Christopher de Cinque
Mission Statement:
We have coalesced before you on this earthly plane to chew bubblegum and kick ass. We aren't out of bubblegum either... We've put measures in place to ensure we have a steady supply, ready for chewing as soon as the flavor of the pieces in our mouths has depleted. Now, considering our tireless jaws burn through packets faster than you can say 'butt menagerie', you might be thinking "these fools can't maintain that level of consumption, purchasing their gum at the recommended retail price!? I've done the math and even if they were purchasing that cheap crap imported from Bangladesh, the stuff that's 15% bonemeal, they'd be broke and bubbleless in a matter of weeks, what gives!?"... To this we say: ARE YOU PAYING FUCKING ATTENTION?? DID YOU NOT READ THE PART ABOVE ABOUT THE MEASURES WE'VE PUT IN PLACE??? Allow us to elaborate... After some intense negotiations, we came to an agreement with the Abbott government, the jargon-free gist of this agreement being all our gum purchases are heavily subsidized so long as we place subliminal messages in all future recordings. These messages are designed to encourage impressionable young listeners to vote for the Australian Liberal Party, whilst maintaining the facade that the band is a bastion for progressive, leftist thinking, promoting weekend shamanism, fashion conscious activism and various other new age, masturbatory endeavors. This agreement has come to be known as 'Operation Bug-Zapper' to the various corporate cabals and shadow organizations that dictate how us plebs live our lives.
We hear you asking another question... "If what yous guyses is saying is trueses... Why the hell would you share this information in a public forum such as your own website!?". Oh you sweet, naive cob of corn... WHO THE FUCK READS A BAND'S MISSION STATEMENT ON THEIR WEBSITE?!? There's no one here except for you and the other out of touch droogs, clinging to the vestiges of what a band's online presence was circa 2002. Expect an unmarked van rocking up to your location shortly to whisk you away for what you now know... Quick, say goodbye to the loved ones in your immediate vicinity! Didn't you get the fax? It's all about social media now... If you don't have a Facebook profile for your local business/company/brand/band/cause, well, quite simply, it DON'T EXIST. If it isn't trending up and down the twittersphere it's not worth mentioning. We must rejoice in the Orwellian uniformity of a standardized profile from which we can express ourselves and display our personality in an abbreviated, neatly segmented format. Don't you feel like you'll fucking vomit if you see another profile header that reads something like "Dipshit Mc Derp | 24 | Meerkats | Aspiring Breatharian | Cum-swapping"? If the answer is yes then join us in our quest for subversive dominion over this big ole brown planet.
We are here to combat the insidious narcissism that is slowly but surely pervading our collective subconscious, here to crop-dust apathy with the sexy flavor of the all new Diet Agent Orange™. We are here to compel you to dance your ass off in a trance of bliss, all the while morphing your reality tunnel in such a way that your perspective just might change on some shit... Nothing is true, everything is permitted. We are here to stand tall, ugly around the edges, take up arms and MELT. EVERY. FUCKING. FACE. OFF... (The good kind of metaphorical, aurally induced melting, not the horrible, body disposing, acidic kind.)
First Temple
- Debut Album (2009)
1. Kissing Cousins
2. Reindeer Age
3. Sweet#hart
4. Vanguard
5. A Night at the Spleen
6. I'm a Ghost of Twilight
7. Permafrost
8. Deluge
9. Afterbirth
10. Arecibo Message
11. Couldn't Let You Love Me
12. Had to Put It in the Soil
The Penance and The Patience
- Albumette/EP (2008)
1. We Want Guarantees, Not Hunger Pains
2. Dulcinea
3. Breathing Underwater
4. Here's To Entropy
5. Ofelia… Ofelia
6. Jewels for Eyes


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Online Course Development Time Grant Application
To access form simply click on the link above. When prompted click on the blue download button to your right. This should give you access to completing the Adobe form. Please use FireFox so that the form can be opened in Adobe and you can save your form.
Due Dates for All Faculty Scholarship Grants
- One online course development grant will be available for the fall semester and one course release will be available for spring semester. Both are awarded in the fall.
- Grants are only release time, which is currently limited to one course (three or four semester hours.)
- Grants are only awarded to full-time faculty members.
- Each full-time faculty member is eligible for one grant (either $700 or $1300 per year) AND one release time (including online course development grants) grant per academic year.
- The applicant is welcome to make his or her own version of this form. The applicant must simply follow the organization of the form and include all information requested in detail.
- Applications should be completed in Word and emailed as an attachment, first to the applicant's dean, for approval, and then forwarded by the dean to Elise Hiatt (firstname.lastname@example.com). Please write "Faculty Scholarship Committee application" in the subject line of the email.
- Only complete applications approved by the applicant's dean will be considered.
- All applications must be emailed by the dean to Elise Hiatt before 5 PM on the deadline. No late applications will be accepted for any reason.
- All decisions of the Faculty Scholarship Committee are final. Notification of the outcome of the Faculty Scholarship Committee will come from the chairperson of the committee.
- No post-grant report is necessary once the applicant has received written confirmation from the chairperson of the Faculty Scholarship Committee.
Criteria for Online Course Development Grants
- Grants are generally for the development of online course. Online courses are defined as those that require students to meet most of the course requirements online. The courses may have a face-to-face introductory/orientation meeting and/or requirements for face-to-face examinations.
|Second Monday in September.
|Second Monday in October.
|Second Monday in February.
|Second Monday in April


text:
Stocks are rallying across Europe.
England's FTSE 100 is up 0.5%.
France's CAC 40 is up 0.5%.
Germany's DAX is up 0.2%.
Spain's IBEX 35 is up 0.4%.
Italy's FTSE MIB is up 0.2%.
The market strength comes on the tail of strong January Chinese import and export numbers.
Most economist agree that the figures were probably boosted by Chinese New Years.
Regardless, optimism is holding.
SEE ALSO: 28 Charts Every Gold Investor Must See >


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Like many of the 4,600 Hutu refugees in the United Nations camp in this remote riverside village, Odette Mporayonzi remembers in all its terrifying detail the army attack that killed her husband and hundreds of her compatriots and finally drove the survivors out of the country formerly known as Zaire.
On May 13, just as many of the refugees had begun to prepare breakfast, they heard the ominous sound of trucks approaching. Moments later, soldiers began circling their makeshift camp at Wendji. And as orders to fire were shouted by men speaking the languages of Rwanda and Zaire, the massacres began.
''My husband had gone to fetch firewood, so I was all alone when it began,'' said Mrs. Mporayonzi, 20, who was seven months pregnant at the time of the massacre, and spoke as she nursed her tiny daughter. ''The bullets were falling on us like the rain in a storm. I ran until I fell, and then I just watched what happened.
''The soldiers kept shooting and shooting, and so many people were dying. When a Zairian soldier stopped to rummage through the belongings of people who had been killed, an officer shouted to him in our language, 'That stuff can wait until our mission has been accomplished!' ''
Since Laurent Kabila's first days in power there have been persistent reports of a massacre at the western city of Mbandaka, which, unlike earlier reports of massacres in the east of the country, took place well after Mr. Kabila's forces had gained a strong upper hand in the country's civil war.Continue reading the main story
The reported massacre of as many as 2,000 Hutu refugees at Wendji and Mbandaka, which began just four days before Mr. Kabila took power and changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has become a major test in a battle of wills between the United Nations and the new Government. Since a United Nations-mandated investigation team arrived here nearly one month ago, Western diplomats say Mr. Kabila's Government has repeatedly thrown up obstacles to its work. Last week the team was denied permission to travel to the Mbandaka area, where investigators had planned to begin their field work.
While investigators are being delayed and their work obstructed, they fear the witnesses they need will disappear.
Mr. Kabila and his Government have repeatedly denied persistent reports that their Rwandan-supported army, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, massacred Rwandan Hutu as they drove tens of thousands of the refugees clear across Africa's third-largest country during a successful seven-month campaign for power.
The Hutu refugee populations though made up mostly of women and children, nonetheless harbored substantial numbers of men suspected by Rwanda's Tutsi-led Government of taking part in the 1994 massacre of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsi.
Congolese officials now say that they have only consented to investigations of massacres that are alleged to have taken place in the country's east, and that the investigation may only cover the period before Mr. Kabila seized power from the former dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, on May 17.
''This is a deliberate provocation on the part of the Secretary General of the United Nations,'' said Etienne Richard Mbaya, the minister who has represented the Congo's Government in its dealings with the investigators.
United Nations officials, who have already yielded to the Kabila Government's demands on other questions, such as the choice of the leader of the investigation, insist, however, that their mandate includes no such restrictions.
In recent days, the exasperated Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has given increasingly direct warnings that if Mr. Kabila's officials continue to impede the investigation, the team will be recalled, hindering the new Government's ability to attract international assistance.
In the meantime, there are mounting fears that while an international forensic team remains blocked in Kinshasa, the Kabila Government may be cleaning up suspected massacre sites and rounding up potential witnesses.
In the last week, for example, according to local church workers and relief experts in the city of Kisangani, the driver of a tractor that is believed to have been used around one major suspected massacre site, as well as the Belgian proprietor of the surrounding farm land, were arrested without charge. The Belgian Embassy in Kinshasa has confirmed the detention of the farm owner, Antoine de Klerk.
In Loukolela, the Hutu survivors who have gathered across the Congo River from the former Zaire, 200 miles northeast of Kinshasa, say they know little about the conflict that pits the United Nations against Mr. Kabila's Government.
What they do have, however, are consistent accounts of the murderous attacks that they suffered in the Mbandaka area, as well as at several other stops during their westward trek of more than 1,000 miles across the country.
Mrs. Mporayonzi remembers wandering the woods after the attack had subsided, and said she was taken in by a Zairian family to whom she owes her survival. They told her that she looked enough like the local people to pass undetected, gave her a white bandanna to wear, in the fashion townspeople had adopted as a sign of support for Mr. Kabila, and urged her not to talk to people.
The next day, while she stood in front of the house where she had taken refuge, Mrs. Mporayonzi said a truckload of solders drove by and then stopped. She had feared they were looking for her, but instead they grabbed a Hutu boy on the street.
She said they yelled, ''Here is another son of Habyarimana,'' referring Juvenal Habyarimana, the Hutu former President of Rwanda. ''Right there in the road the soldiers swung the boy by his feet and beat his head against a tree trunk until he was dead.''
Mrs. Mporayonzi said she turned away in horror but had to bite her hand to keep from screaming for fear of giving herself away.
Emmanuel Hikiamana, a 24-year-old Hutu refugee, said that rather than risk being discovered and killed at Wendji he had run on in a panic through marshland to the nearby river port city of Mbandaka, where others fleeing with him had been told there was a ferry crossing to the Congo Republic.
''At least 20 people were shot down right in front of me,'' Mr. Hikiamana said of his flight from Wendji. ''The attackers were a mixture of Zairians fighting for Kabila and men who spoke Kinyarwanda,'' the language of Rwanda.
A young, fit man with a bright smile, Mr. Hikiamana made it to the Mbandaka ferry unscathed. By the time he got there, however, the two trucks that had attacked his camp at Wendji had already arrived, and soldiers were just beginning to open fire on the crowded barge.
''When I saw that, I just hid in the brush for a while until I felt safe enough to keep running,'' he said. Later, he crossed the river in a canoe.
Other refugees told of encountering Zairian soldiers who offered to save them in exchange for small sums of money, and of Zairian civilians who, visibly disgusted by the killings, helped them without asking for anything in return. These people, they said, had been warned of reprisals if they did not surrender any surviving Hutu.
Among the most terrible of the accounts was that of a Hutu man who did not wish to be identified, who was led with his family through the forest by a Zairian man. As they neared a road, the man said they were detected by two soldiers, who captured his wife, two children and an orphan girl in their care.
''My family was ordered to sit on the side of the road along with other refugees already caught,'' he said. ''There were about 80 refugees with their hands tied behind their backs, lying face down on the side of the road. They started beating the refugees, and when they appeared dead, they dragged them into the swamp.
''I saw almost all 80 of these refugees beaten to death, including my wife and two children.''Continue reading the main story


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PayFocus + HR Enhanced Feature: Manager Self-Service
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This article is part of: Executive Briefing Service
To find out more about how to join or access this report please contact us
Our latest analysis shows staggering differences in 'app-lag' (the time it takes for an app to get a response over the Internet) across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, and twenty mobile operators. This has significant consequences for customer data experiences, and potentially operator market performance too. Operators in France, particularly Bouygues and Free, are delivering a superior customer app experience while 3 in Italy and Movistar in Spain are European laggards. (October 2015, Foundation 2.0, Executive Briefing Service.)
Executive Summary
- Because mobile applications and web pages are made of lots of small 'microservices' that collectively deliver the overall solution, latency – the time taken for an HTTP request to be sent and a response received from the server – often has a bigger impact on user digital experience than broadband speed. As a result of this, STL Partners is exploring latency as a proxy for customer 'app experience' over mobile networks.
- STL Partners uses 'Total roundtrip latency' as a measure of customer app experience because this measures the time taken from the moment the user takes an action, such as pressing a button on a mobile device, to receiving a response – in effect, a packet arriving back and being processed by the application at the device. Total roundtrip latency measures the full customer 'wait time'.
- Two core latency performance indicators are examined in this report:
- Average total roundtrip latency.
- Percentage of requests with total roundtrip latency above 500ms. 500ms is used as this is estimated to be the latency above which user experience materially suffers. This is a critically important indicator since it is possible for an operator to have a low average latency performance but still have a high percentage of requests with a poor customer experience. In other words, the 'long-tail' of poor performance adversely affects the customer even if lots of HTTP requests are dealt with very quickly. For example, in the chart below we show the distribution of latencies for two operators. Operator A has lots of very fast requests and a long tail of requests with high latencies. Operator B has much fewer fast requests but a much shorter tail of poor-performing latencies. The chart clearly shows that operator B has a much higher percentage of requests with a satisfactory latency even though its average latency performance is lower than operator A (318ms vs 314ms). Essentially operator A is let down by its slowest requests – those that prevent an application from completing a task for a customer.
Figure 1 – Using latency as a measure of performance for customers
Figure 2 – Percentage of app requests with total roundtrip latency above 500ms – markets
- In five core European markets (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), there are very wide differences between operators and countries in total roundtrip latency performance.
- Overall, France is the best-performing country. France also has the two best-performing operators in Europe: Free and Bouygues Telecom.
- At the other end of the scale, Italy and Spain are the worst-performing countries, and contain four out of five of the worst performing operators in 3 Italy, Vodafone Italy, Telecom Italia, and Telefonica subsidiary Movistar in Spain.
- Telefonica has the dubious honour of having a second subsidiary in the bottom five performers – the recently acquired E-Plus in Germany, which is currently being integrated with the better-performing O2 network.
- Overall, the report covers the performance of 20 leading operators across the 5 countries and quantifies the performance of the leaders, laggards and those in the middle of the pack.
- Latency as a proxy for customer app experience
- 'Total roundtrip latency' is the best measure for customer 'app experience'
- Latency is becoming increasingly important
- STL Partners' approach
- Europe: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain
- Quantitative Analysis
- Key findings
- UK: EE, O2, Vodafone, 3
- Quantitative Analysis
- Key findings
- Germany: T-Mobile, Vodafone, e-Plus, O2
- Quantitative Analysis
- Key findings
- France: Orange, SFR, Bouygues Télécom, Free
- Quantitative Analysis
- Key findings
- Italy: TIM, Vodafone, Wind, 3
- Quantitative Analysis
- Key findings
- Spain: Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, Yoigo
- Quantitative Analysis
- Key findings
- About STL Partners and Telco 2.0
- About Crittercism
- Appendix 1: Defining latency
- Appendix 2: Why latency is important
- Figure 1: Total roundtrip latency – reflecting a user's 'wait time'
- Figure 2: Why a worse average latency can result in higher customer satisfaction
- Figure 3: Major European markets – average total roundtrip latency (ms)
- Figure 4: Major European markets – percentage of requests above 500ms
- Figure 5: The location of Google and Amazon's European data centres favours operators in France, UK and Germany
- Figure 6: European operators – average total roundtrip latency (ms)
- Figure 7: European operators – percentage of requests with latency over 500ms
- Figure 8: Customer app experience is likely to be particularly poor at 3 Italy, Movistar (Spain) and Telecom Italia
- Figure 9: UK Operators – average latency (ms)
- Figure 10: UK operators – percentage of requests with latency over 500ms
- Figure 11: German Operators – average latency (ms)
- Figure 12: German operators – percentage of requests with latency over 500ms
- Figure 13: French Operators – average latency (ms)
- Figure 14: French operators – percentage of requests with latency over 500ms
- Figure 15: Italian Operators – average latency (ms)
- Figure 16: Italian operators – percentage of requests with latency over 500ms
- Figure 17: Spanish Operators – average latency (ms)
- Figure 18: Spanish operators – percentage of requests with latency over 500ms
- Figure 19: Breakdown of HTTP requests in facebook.com, by type and size


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At The Gandalf Group, it is our firm belief that public opinion research and communications strategies must be results driven. Our approach to brand development, policy advocacy, reputation management, or issue management is based upon research with the public – as citizens and as consumers. We believe that only by utilizing research as the foundation to any strategy can the key message development, overarching program elements and tactics be ultimately successful. This approach is fundamental to The Gandalf Group vision.
The Gandalf Group is a leading provider of public opinion research, strategic communications advice and issues management. We have the ability to provide a strategic set of recommendations based on the research to advance your agenda or respond to specific issues and objectives.
We are a boutique firm combining expertise in advanced statistical research, politics, economics, law, the media and communications. Our professional staff brings multi-disciplinary skills to bear on our clients' challenges, designing unique solutions for every challenge, while drawing on unparalleled expertise. Numbers and descriptions are easy to generate in this business. The Gandalf Group's niche is designing research that provides the best understanding and advice for moving forward.
We have advised many public sector clients as well as some of Canada's largest private sector corporations and organizations. Our work includes the design and completion of public opinion research, upon which strategic communications plans for the general public or targeted stakeholders can be then carried out.
We have developed the expertise to identify key success factors in creating research, the ability to understand the research to make the difference in informing strategy, and how best to carry out subsequent communications efforts.
For qualitative research, we use a variety of methodologies including focus groups, triads/dyads, on-line discussion groups, one on one elite interviews, and larger focus groups using the Perception Analyzer. In conducting quantitative research or surveys, we put a particular emphasis on designing survey instruments that maximize the use value of the data. Advanced statistical techniques such as multivariate regression or clustering allow us to explore relationships within the data.


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Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
La Llorona
Some viz dev based on a mexican folk ghost tale, La Llorona. The original story is meant to be a cautionary tale to warn children not to wander off or misbehave, for La Llorona, or "The Weeping Woman", is in an eternal search for her children whom she has drowned with her own hands out of passion and despair for a man who bore them with her and yet denied her the love she sought from him.
The artwork derives not directly from the folktale, but from a contemporary California ghost story about a widower who learns of the tale and comes to confront the ghost itself.
Labels: Characters, Environments, Storyboards, Work
Jacket, Pt. 1
First part of the story. popguncomics.com
Labels: Comics
Jacket, Pt. 2
Short story for Popgun Vol. 4.
Labels: Comics
Grad Show Paintings Pt. 2
Photographed by http://www.seanteegarden.com
Labels: Characters, Paintings
Grad Show Paintings Pt. 1
A series of oils paintings on mirrors that I did for my grad show at Art Center College of Design. Photographed by http://www.seanteegarden.com
Labels: Characters, Paintings
Good Souls
Labels: Paintings
BFG Vis Dev
Labels: Characters, Environments, Work
Geek Love
Labels: Characters, Environments, Storyboards, Work
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The Children and Young People's Specialist Service comprises the Children's Social Work services (including child protection; disabled children and children in need; children and young people in care; fostering and adoption) and leads on safeguarding children issues for the Council.
The Service provides a range of resources to support parents and carers in looking after their children in the community and to support children and young people in Bath and North East Somerset in realising their full potential. The service also recruits and supports foster carers and adoptive families to look after those children who cannot be cared for within their own family. The service is fully committed to working in partnership with parents and young people to provide and develop services to meet their needs and always promote the best interest of children.
The service has strong working relationships with other agencies, such as Health, Police, Education and Youth Services, and with the voluntary sector, and works with these agencies to provide integrated services to children and their families.
The Service has offices based in Civic Centre, Keynsham.
Additional Information
Contacting the Child Protection Team, Children in Need Team, or the Disabled Children's Team


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Vivitar Bluetooth Cardio Tracker
Health& Wellness
The Bluetooth Cardio Tracker makes it easier to keep track of your health. It allows you to record your steps, distance traveled, calories and sleep quality. Whether on your daily jog or your day to day life, let this portable device keep record of your daily activities. Easily view your progress, incoming phone calls and text messages with the featured bright display.


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Kabul: At least 11 persons were killed and over 30 injured when a bomb rocked Kunar province of Afghanistan on Saturday, sources said.
The attack occured when a motorcycle bomb was detonated in Asadabad, Xinhua quoted sources and witnesses as saying.
The blast occurred near the provincial governor and police station around 8.30 a.m. (local time), killing 11 people, including three police officers and injuring 30 passersby, a provincial security source said.
The obvious target of the attack was an Afghan Local Police (ALP) patrol, he said.
Security forces have cordoned off the area for precautionary measures.
The toll could rise, as many of the injured were in critical conditions.
Further details about the incident were forthcoming amid the absence of official statement.
No group has claimed responsibility yet for the attack, but the Taliban insurgent group routinely claims responsibility for such attacks.


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Riad Monika de Saint-Ay
- Profile
29 Hart Soura
Medina, Marrakech
In the heart of the thrilling Marrakech Medina, outstandingly well restored, Monika de Saint-Ay Riad greets you with style and sophistication. The swimming pool is the privilege of a dream, stay rocked by the sound of the water, allow yourself to be enchanted by it.
- Services:
- Service Areas:
Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz,
Related Luxury Travel Companies:
Respecting the historical importance of the house, Riad El Fenn has been restored to the highest of standards with love and attention to detail. Within these ancient walls you will find everything you need for a wonderful stay in Marrakech, whether you just want to relax and unwind, or have a base [...]
Easily accessible, just 5 km from the center, Al Assala invents another lifestyle Marrakech. Outside the bustle of the medina and hidden from view, Villa Al Assala hiding amidst old palms in the heart of the huge oasis that is the Palmeraie of Marrakech. In this paradise bathed in light, the days [...]
Relaxing breaks in Marrakeh. Gardens, patios, murmouring fountains, birdsong... A former palace of the Pasha of Marrakech, Riad Al Moussika is now a holiday retreat dedicated to the art of good living. Spaces to feel comfortable in, flooded with sunlight or cool and shady behind shutters - as the [...]
Riad Dixneuf La Ksour ideally located, near the famous Djamaa El F'na square and easy to reach, even by car, this splendid house immediately charm people by its authenticity, its great elegance and its discreet luxury. The patio with its pleasant small pool, the quiet lounges, the rooms fitted with [...]
Riad El Mansour is a six bedroomed boutique hotel, situated a short stroll from the vibrant and pulsating Place Jemaa el-Fna. This world heritage site is at the heart of the legendary 'Rose city' of Marrakech; one of Morocco's most popular vacation destinations. Designed for those seeking a more [...]


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personalized ceremonies
Sing, Sing, Sing!
Weave the sunlight
Cradle the moon
Sing in the morning
At nighttime, at noon.
Fill spaces and places and faces and graces,
Sing loving paths and mystic reunion
Sing, Sing, Sing!
August 7 was a good day to die.
Rowena Barham, my great aunt and like a sister to my mom, died at age 102 and counting. A genteel Southern lady who taught first grade in Jackson, TN, Rowena lived at Alexandria Place. The last year of her life, they extended her care over and beyond that expected of an assisted living residence. She was at home in her room of familiar furnishings, decorated with photos of her wedding, travels, and family. I am especially fond of this photo, which shows her in her bridal gown with her husband J.T. I pulled this photo from the trash at her home to restore it to her. Because of an unscrupulous financial advisor, Rowena's home was being stripped. By coincidence and some lucky sleuthing, my brother and I recovered the picture you see here. It feels like vindication and a triumph of sorts.
Robert Hoard, married to my dearest friend Eileen, died on the same day, surrounded by family present in person and by Skype. I had the great honor of sitting vigil with him the night before. Bob was a character who loved to dance, play cards, and brag about the accomplishments of his four daughters. Bob had a kind heart. One always knew when he was in the room.
Godspeed to both of you.
"We are all just walking each other home."


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7 Carver St.
Brandon, VT
A Little Twisted is, as should be expected, different from other art galleries. Located next to the Bank of Middlebury building at 7 Carver Street, our gallery features affordable, unusual work from within the realms of pop culture, steampunk, occult, taxidermy, sci-fi, and/or outsider art. Pieces include hand blown glass, metal sculpture, oil paintings, leather work, needlepoint, handmade dolls, jewelry, carved wood, prints, and arguably the coolest selection of postcards in the county. Our hours are very seasonal and are updated on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
We also gladly open by appointment- call 247-2731.


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Get in Touch
We will advise and assist you to:
Acknowledging that nowadays logo placement and name exposure is considered a bonus but is not the primary goal of sponsorship, your sponsorship packages may be enhanced and scaled to include ongoing, unique and current communication activities for your sponsors. These benefits are essential to demonstrate to your sponsors, as well as your prospective sponsors, that you take a pro-active approach to ensuring your sponsors receive benefits and coverage both leading up to, during and following your event. Catalyst Event Solutions can work with you to develop a comprehensive activity calendar listing the suggested activities, approximate implementation dates and completion date to track the progress of these services.
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text: Unfinished Elm Cube Side Table 6This cube is currently unfinished, awaiting sanding and finishing.$455 with a hand rubbed oil finish$505 with a stain and a hand rubbed oil top coatAsk a question about this product Your Name(*) Please let us know your name. Your Email(*) Please let us know your email address. Phone Number(*) Invalid Input Message(*) Please let us know your message.


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Hospice of Alamance Caswell and KidsPath will hold an American Red Cross Blood Drive on Wednesday from 12:30 to 5 p.m. at the Hospice office building, 914 Chapel Hill Road in Burlington. Call 336-532-0117 to sign up to donate or for more information.
Southern Caswell Ruritan Club at 3498 N.C. 62 S. will hold a ham and egg supper from 4 p.m. until � on Feb. 9.
Cherry Grove Ruritan church league softball organization meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Cherry Grove Ruritan Building. If interested, please have your coach attend. For more information, call Randy Davis at 336-227-1295.
Veterans of Foreign Wars Robert Lee Pate III Post 10607 will meet at the Post Home at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 7. All members are invited.
Members of Burlington American Legion Post 63, Auxiliary Unit 63 and Sons of the American Legion Squadr4on 63 will meet at the Post 63 Home at 7 p.m. Wednesday following a dinner at 6:15 p.m. All members are invited.
Center Methodist Church at 9203 Center Methodist Road/Green Hill Road off 87 South, Graham will hold a country breakfast on Feb. 23 from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. with sausage, bacon, country ham, homemade biscuits, gravy, grits, eggs and more. Donations are accepted. Everyone is welcome � we appreciate your support.


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Cpu Cooler Fan E86 A Cooling For Intel 775 1155 1156 1150 - Chinaprice: contact company for price
Type: 'For Intel 775/1155/1156 /1150
Processors Support 'Intel Core 2 Quad 95W)
Intel Core 2 Duo and Pentium Dual Core
Intel Celeron
AMD Socket AM2 and AM3
AMD Phenom (95W)
AMD Athlon and Sempron '
Dimensions(D xW xH -mm) 112x110x45mm
Fan Speed(RPM) 2500±10%RPM
Wires & Connectors 3
Air Flow Rate(CFM) 55CFM
Acoustical Noise(dBA) 23±3dBA
Rating Voltage(V) 12 V
Package Color Box
Company Contact:
- Posted By: Minontech Group Ltd
- Phone: 18507255293
- Address: Building 2, Minle Industrial Zone,Shenzhen city, G, ShenZhen, China
- Email:
- Website: http://www.minontech.com
Published date: July 15, 2013 -
- Business Description: involved in international trade import export of goods, products, and services
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UBoC's academic partners at the University of Leeds, the Leeds Ecosystem, Atmosphere and Forest (LEAF) research centre, officially launched on the 24th November 2014 with an event held in the School of Earth and Environment.
The aim of LEAF is to bring together all the forest-related research being conducted across the University of Leeds. By linking researchers across faculties, LEAF will strengthen existing collaborations and encourage new inter-departmental partnerships, establishing the University of Leeds as a leading national centre in forest research.


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Using Identity Server and Bearer Tokens to Authenticate Sitecore
In Sitecore 9.1, Sitecore switched the authentication system from ASP.NET Membership to Identity Server 4 with ASP.NET Identity. This allows Sitecore to stop using hand-rolled bearer tokens and start using real industry standardized authentication.
See your xDB marketing data in session
When I was at Sugcon EU recently, I was asking around how developers and marketers were seeing their xDB data, in session. This is seeing the facets, patterns, profile calculations, marketing automation, etc., in the current browser so that you can test your personalization in real time.
Assign profile keys to your content via RULES!
I thought if I could just centralize the profile keys and remove the requirement of assigning profile keys. I could take the work load of the editors and put it on logic using data we already have. So this needed to be on the item level, lets use rules!
How to stop editors from uploading media directly to the server file system
Sitecore has the ability to allow users to upload media files directly to the server instead of the database. When SQL admins want to keep the DB's tidy by keeping the files out of SQL, this is a good option. But when you do, the Ops team is in charge of moving those files between servers.


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It seems that IKEA has a special mission on this planet - to make everything that is possible easier and more accessible. Now the rule "collect yourself" applies not only to furniture, but also to dishes! The company released a series of illustrated recipes: never before cooking was so elementary, and at the same time thoughtful to the smallest detail.
With the help of Toronto-based marketing company Leo Burnett, IKEA came up with Cook This Page, a collection of recipes printed on parchment paper.
Illustrated recipes include images necessary ingredients, all the information on their number and other details. All you have to do is lay out your ingredients where they're marked on the page.
And that's not all: posters are printed on parchment paper using safe food colors. When all the ingredients are in place, the sheet can be easily folded and sent it to the oven. The creations have not yet appeared in the stores, but present a few striking examples.
A Scandinavian take on the Italian classics: ravioli with Swedish meatballs
Step : 2 A little salt and garlic
Step : 3 Oregano leaf
Step : 4 wrap sheet
Step : 5 Send it in the oven
Salmon with lemon and herbs is a restaurant dish that can easily be prepared at home with an IKEA leaf
Step : 2 Pepper, onion powder, salt
Step : 3 Bon Appetit
Cocktail shrimp
Get the video here:


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Scientists map genetic evolution of leukemia
The diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood cancer, often causes confusion. While some patients can be treated with repeated blood transfusions, others require chemotherapy, leaving some uncertainty about whether the syndromes actually are cancer.
Now, using the latest DNA sequencing technology, scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that the blood disease is an early form of cancer with characteristics that are very similar to the fatal leukemia to which it often progresses. And by mapping the genetic evolution of cancer cells in seven patients with myelodysplastic syndromes who later died of leukemia, they have found clues to suggest that targeted cancer drugs should be aimed at mutations that develop early in the disease.
The research, by a large team of Washington University researchers at the Siteman Cancer Center, appears online March 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The scientists sequenced all the DNA the genome of tumor cells from the patients over time. While some cancer cells in each patient acquired new mutations as they evolved, they always retained the original cluster of mutations that made the cells cancerous in the first place.
This discovery, which must be confirmed in larger studies, suggests that drugs targeted to cancer mutations might be more effective if they are directed toward genetic changes in the original cluster of cancer cells called the founding clone. Drugs that target mutations found exclusively in later-evolving cancer cells may kill those cells but likely wouldn't damage founding clones that do not carry the later mutations.
"It's probably not enough to know that a particular mutation exists in cancer cells," says senior author Timothy Graubert, MD, associate professor of medicine at the School of Medicine who also treats patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "We likely will need to dig deeper to find out whether a mutation is in the founding clone that initiated the cancer or in a later-evolving clone."
In other words, think of this cancer as a tree, Graubert says.
"To kill a tree, you have to pull out the roots," he says. "If you only cut off a limb, it will just grow back. We're saying that to be effective, targeted cancer drugs probably need to attack mutations at the root of this disease."
About 28,000 Americans are diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes each year, most over age 60. They occur when blood cells produced in the bone marrow don't fully develop and immature cells crowd out healthy ones. In about one-third of patients, the disease progresses to a fatal form of leukemia.
As part of the new research, Graubert and his colleagues teamed with researchers at Washington University's Genome Institute who sequenced the genomes of cancer cells after the patients developed acute myeloid leukemia. Then, they determined whether the mutations they found were present when the same patients were first diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes.
They identified every mutation, typically hundreds, that developed in each patient's bone marrow cells as the cancer evolved. They also showed that about 85 percent of the patients' bone marrow cells were cancerous, regardless of whether they had myelodysplastic syndromes or leukemia.
Even in the earliest stages of myelodysplastic syndromes, when typically only a small number of immature blood cells populate the bone marrow, roughly 85 percent of bone marrow cells were part of the malignant clone.
"These results clearly establish that myelodysplastic syndromes are truly an early form of cancer," says first author Matthew Walter, MD, assistant professor of medicine, who also treats patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "But until now, there were a lot of people patients and physicians included who questioned this."
That such a high percentage of bone marrow cells are malignant so early in the course of myelodysplastic syndromes that progress to leukemia may help improve the diagnosis of the disease and aid in determining prognosis, Walter says.
In the current study, funded in part by a federal stimulus grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the researchers also identified 11 mutations in the patients' cancer cells that were later found to occur in other patients with acute myeloid leukemia, an indicator of the mutations' significance. Four of these mutations had never before been linked to myelodysplastic syndromes or leukemia.
To track the evolution of cancer cells, the researchers captured segments of DNA involved in every mutation and repeatedly sequence those regions more than 600 times each. Using this deep sequencing approach, developed at The Genome Institute, they could identify not only the founding clone in each patients' bone marrow cells, but also "breakaway" secondary clones that contributed to both the progression of myelodysplastic syndromes and acute leukemia. In all cases, the secondary clones could be traced back to the founding clone.
"This tells us that the secondary clones were not distinct cancers, but that they all evolved from the founding clone," Walter says.
The researchers say that sequencing the entire genomes of the cancer cells was essential to piecing together a picture of the way cancer evolved. While this technology is not yet routinely available to cancer patients, Graubert and Walter say reduced sequencing costs and improved analytical approaches should make it easier for more scientists to get a sense of the clonal nature of a patient's tumor cells.
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There is a silent killer of the modern age, which most of us are not aware of. We tend to believe that office jobs are ideal since you get to sit down comfortable all day long, instead of to put out a lot of physical work.
Well, that time spent sitting down is more dangerous than we may think. No matter how comfortable it may seem, you will soon start to literally feel the effects of the lack of physical movement. In other words, our bodies were not meant to sit down so many hours every day, this aspect damaging our well-being and health, more and more with every passing day.
While you can be extremely happy for getting an office job, thinking that you are done with running around, you'd better think twice about this aspect. People that spend too much time sitting on a chair face significantly increased risks of developing various illnesses and even record a shortage of lifespan.
Recommended: Best Under Desk Treadmills For Your Office Work
Why is this happening?
First of all, your muscles are the ones that suffer from the lack of activity. When sitting down, your body stops burning calories, because it doesn't need to do this anymore. Thus, your muscles become useless and record a decrease in their mass.
Also, while sitting, the dilatation in our arteries also drop, which means less blood flow and lesser oxygen carried to our brain and other organs.
The more we sit down, the more inactive our insulin becomes. Thus, the sugar in the body is not being processed correctly, which translates into a body weight gain and difficulty in weight loss, plus the elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
And if this is not enough, the LDL cholesterol levels, which is the bad type of cholesterol, are also increasing, putting you at the risk of gaining even more weight.
In time, muscles will begin to break down and pump less blood to your heart, which increases the chance of developing heart issues. And the worst part is that physical exercises will not help unless the time spent by moving exceeds the one you spend sitting. With other words, if you do not do sufficient physical activities, once you sit down again the deterioration will continue.
Avoiding sedentary time and getting regular exercise are both important for improving your health and survival," said Dr. Alter. "It is not good enough to exercise for 30 minutes a day and be sedentary for 23 and half hours.
What Should You Do?
We are not made to be sedentary beings, so if you want to live a long and happy life, you need to act now.
- After every hour of sitting down, take a 5 minutes break to stand up and walk around your office or room.
- Be careful to remain hydrated, so drink plenty of water.
- Get a standing desk, which will force you to stand up even if you can't stop working, which is also helpful.
- When talking on the phone or texting, do it while standing up as well.
- You can also park your car at the other end of the parking lot, which will make you walk a bit more.
Let's recap why sitting too much is so bad for you!
Watch the following video.
The point is to stand up, walk, and do as much physical movement as possible, to counter the damaging effects of sitting.
The Most Beneficial Things to Get rid of Sitting Too Much
Did you learn something new? Share with your friends!
Last update on 2019-06-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API


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Shawn Mendes Performs Tribute To Victims Of Gun Violence
Shawn Mendes and Khalid gave a spine-tingling performance during this year's Billboard Music Awards. The two performed their new song 'Youth' alongside the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Show Choir to help send a powerful message, right on the heels of the recent tragic shooting at Santa Fe High School that left 10 dead.
Khalid wore a t-shirt with the words "Protect Our Children" on it, with the word "guns" crossed out. Shawn, and the MSD choir, all wore Shawn's official 'Youth' merch with all proceeds going to March For Our Lives.
The song is from Shawn's upcoming new self-titled album, and is inspired by the terrifying Manchester attack during Ariana Grande's concert last year.
Introducing the performance was Bebe Rexha, who explained that Shawn and Khalid's performance would be a tribute to the shooting in Santa Fe.
She said: "This past Friday, we experienced another tragedy, and this time at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Just a few weeks ago, many students from that very high school joined the protest against gun violence. And they're no different than tens of thousands of young adults across this nation who took a stand, and are raising their voices to say, 'Things must change.' They inspire me with their hope, with their compassion, and with their determination to make a difference and build a better world. Here to pay tribute are Shawn Mendes and Khalid joined by the show choir from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida."