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Browse through suggestions of cool team names to help inspire your own team name. Vote for your favorite by leaving your star rating, or leave a comment telling us where you used your team name.
Hugh Jass Construction
Heroes and Zeros
This category contains selected names that are suitable for cool team names, as suggested by our administrators and your fellow cool fans. Browse through our cool team names, and find yourself a funny, creative, cool cool team name, perfect to give yourself a headstart, and get you noticed infront of your competition. Submit your own cool team names for other members to vote on, or vote on the other cool team names that others have sent in.


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Last week we blogged about vintage nicknames for girls; now it's boy time.
Nicknames are tres chic these days, which is why it makes sense to search for new old sources for fresh examples. Here, choices from a long list of vintage nicknames from 18th and 19th century America from the Connecticut State Library.
Not only are some of the proper names used in Colonial and Victorian times now rarely heard, but the nicknames may be antiquated too.
I've left off the predictable choices like Rob for Robert or Jack for John What's here are either surprising combinations or short forms for still-used names that are in danger of becoming obscure.
Here, some vintage nicknames that will distinguish you from the Jakes, Charlies and Wills currently heard in every pediatrician's office.
NICKNAME / Proper Names
CUDDY / Cuthbert
CY / Cyrus (okay, this one isn't so weird, I just really like it)
DIRCH / Derrick
FANNY / Nathaniel (don't you dare)
FINNEY / Phineas
HAL / Harold, Henry (another favorite)

subset: commoncrawl


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Hope College has named an experienced actor, director and educator as managing director of the long-running Hope Summer Repertory Theatre (HSRT).
Richard Perez, who was most recently associate artistic director with Chicago Dramatists, joined HSRT on Friday, Feb. 1. HSRT will open its 42nd season in June.
Perez succeeds Mary Schakel, who retired in 2012 after 40 seasons with HSRT, including serving as managing director since 1979 and as producing director since 1984.
He has also been appointed an assistant professor of theatre at Hope, and will assume teaching and directing in the college's department of theatre in the fall.
"This dual appointment as managing director of HSRT and as a tenure-track member of the Hope College faculty is intended to improve the already excellent cooperation that exists between HSRT and the theatre department," said Dr. William Reynolds, who is dean for the arts and humanities and a professor of English at Hope. "Richard is a dynamic and effective teacher, a skilled director and actor, and an experienced producer and administrator. We welcome him to Hope and have every confidence that he will excel in this demanding position."
Perez was with Chicago Dramatists through a two-year, New Generations/Future Leaders Fellowship granted by Theatre Communications Group. He was previously the producing artistic director of the Bloomington Playwrights Project (BPP) in Indiana for seven seasons.
While with BPP, he was responsible for selecting, creating, and overseeing all aspects of production for the company. In that time he oversaw the production of over 30 new mainstage plays, with at least 16 of those being world premieres. In his first season as artistic director, he created the Ensemble of Artists, a group of talented writers, directors and actors who have become instrumental in the day-to-day running of the company and the development of new work.
His direction of new plays includes work by Sarah Treem, Susan Lieberman, John Green, Sheila Callaghan, Trista Baldwin and Toni Press-Coffman. His directing credits include national venues such as the New York Fringe Festival and the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices Festival.
Perez has taught acting or improvisation for The National Actor's Theatre in New York City, at Arizona State University, for Theatre Sports New York, Indiana University, Ohlone College, the Bloomington Playwrights Project and numerous workshops around the country. He has also served on several arts boards and adjudicated for many regional and national playwriting contests.
He studied acting at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and with Uta Hagen at HB Studios in New York City. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and an associate artist at Chicago Dramatists. He was also an acting apprentice at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre from Hunter College in New York and a Master of Fine Arts degree in performance from Arizona State University.
HSRT began in 1972 as Hope Summer Theatre, which was made possible by the opening of the 500-seat DeWitt Center main theatre in the fall of 1971. HSRT has operated with its current repertory format, and with its current name, since 1974.


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woocommerce sales expire date change automatically
Budget $10-30 USD
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We had a bad feeling that when the Skype Mobile app for Android was updated late last night and seemingly allowed calls over Wifi, things were a little too good to be true. And sure enough, they were. At left here is the original description for Version 18.104.22.168, which tells of "Simultaneous Wifi & 3G." That would have been a big deal because the app so far had only worked over Verizon 3G, forcing you to use its data connection, which of course you're paying for. And that, of course, is ridiculous, though you can see Verizon's intent -- it keeps you from buying an unactivated phone and using it as a Wifi VOIP phone when instead you could be burning through your monthly data allotment.
But lo and behold, we have a couple of unactivated Verizon phones here, and sure enough, they freak out when you try to use the updated Skype client. And just a few hours after the initial update, the app description has changed to read "Wifi runs while app is on 3G." So it's just as we feared -- your Wifi connection remains, but you can't actually use it. Shenanigans, indeed.
Update: Skype has published details on the update. In addition to being able to maintain a Wifi connection, you get incoming caller ID, copy-paste in IMs, emoticons, country names and flags when calling internationally, and the ability to set your location as your mood message.


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I Hit Hard Don't I: Brother Beats His Sister's Boyfriend For Laying Hands On Her!
That's what he gets for laying hands on a female
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Israel News - Stay Informed, Pray Informed
Israel is busy getting ready for US President Barack Obama's visit later this month. That means lots of security arrangements and tackling other logistical issues...and launching an official iPhone and Android app.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Monday unveiled an official smartphone app allowing users to track Obama during his stay in Israel.
The app is expected to be used heavily by journalists, but will allow anyone to receive real-time updates and watch streaming video of the American leader's various stops around the country.
The American Embassy in Tel Aviv is also taking a somewhat "entertainment-based view" of Obama's visit and is selling tickets to the president's only major public speech. The embassy's Facebook page even had a competition where participants could win 20 seats at the event.
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- LifeBridge Christian Church's Drew Depler and his team were 'act of God' during September's flood
- Firestone mom launches marathon effort to fight autism
- St. Vrain Valley School District bus drivers, staff face storm to help flood evacuees
- Longmont Humane Society volunteers logged two weeks caring for cats during the floods
- Richard Kohl leaves a musical legacy as director of the Longmont Concert Band
- Longmont couple spices up the holidays for troops overseas
- Longmont Meals on Wheels prepped thousands of meals following September floods
- Dreamer gives back after finding success through I Have a Dream program
- Residents helping Lyons recover from devastation
Just two days shy of her 23rd birthday, Erin Brazzil used her cell phone to call her father to tell him goodbye.
With the phone gripped tightly to her face she told him that she wouldn't be coming home again, that she was sorry for everything bad she had ever done.
Through tears and panic, she called out "Daddy! Daddy!" as the floodwaters rose inside her car. She was trapped inside after her Nissan Altima was picked up in a surge at Boston Avenue and Hover Street and carried east.
The water was so cold it was painful. She struggled helplessly to get out after the car was set adrift and pushed by the rushing waves as the rain continued to pummel Boulder County.
"I was like, 'Daddy, Daddy, I am legitimately going to die,'" she recalled. "I was like, 'I am so sorry, Dad. I am so sorry for everything I have done to you and Mom.'"
The engine in the car failed, electrical systems stopped working, the doors were locked and pinned tight by water pressure, and she exhausted herself trying in vain to kick out a side window or the windshield as her terrified father coaxed.
She began to make her peace with herself. With God. The waters would claim her, she was sure.
Brazzil left work at 1:53 p.m. on Sept. 12 determined to make it from southwest Longmont across the city to her babysitter's home on St. Clair Avenue to pick up her 2-year-old daughter during historic flooding. They would then set out for home in Loveland.
Rain had soaked the city, and some areas were flooding, with conditions changing moment to moment, but she waved off her boss' offer to return to the office for shelter should travel be too much to handle. No, she recalled thinking, there was no food or toiletries at the office and she needed to retrieve her daughter, Autumn.
Brazzil drove north along Airport Road until she encountered a roadblock at Rogers Road and saw other motorists were being turned back. She recalled that a volunteer directing traffic at the intersection waved her onto Rogers Road toward the city and she complied trying to devise a route to Autumn. As she approached Hover Street, Brazzil said, she stopped well shy of the intersection because the waters appeared high. As she considered her next move, a surge of water rushed the intersection and gave her no choice.
"I was losing traction. I think it was like the water met up with the lake," she said. "I had no traction. I couldn't reverse. I couldn't drive forward."
The engine revved and made a sickly sound before the car's systems failed entirely as the floodwaters began to carry the single mother away. She could not roll down windows, and the pressure from the water held the doors shut fast. She called her father in Berthoud.
"I just started to cry," she said.
The car began to take on water, initially filling only the foot well as it was pushed eastward.
Despite her apologies and declaration of certain death, Brazzil's father urged her to fight.
"You're not going to stop," she recalled him saying. "Don't you dare stop."
She secured the cell phone in the visor so she could use her hands to give herself leverage to kick at the car's windows -- at first at the impenetrable driver's side window and then the windshield.
"My foot went through, finally," Brazzil said, describing the give of the glass when she finally kicked a hole through the windshield. She tried to peel away the broken glass and cut her hands badly. Her progress stymied and she was exhausted and freezing. When she felt like giving up entirely and surrendering to the water, she thought of her daughter and kept up the fight.
She hung up with her father to continue her efforts, with a silent promise herself that she would call back with a final goodbye if she failed. In that time, he called 911 and a Longmont police dispatcher called her to try to get a location on her car to send help.
By this time, the car had settled on the shoulder of Boston Avenue near the north entrance to the Boulder County Fairground parking lot. The water seemed to rise faster once the car stopped moving.
"They were trying to keep me calm. They were asking me where I was at, exactly," she said, adding that the dispatcher said the Longmont firefighters sent out to find her couldn't see the car. She said she was near the fairground sign. "I do remember telling dispatch, 'It is so cold, so cold.' Even on the phone I think I started praying to God, telling him I am sorry."
Brazzil said she was a hard teenager to deal with and gave her parents lots of problems. Regret overwhelmed her as the water got higher and higher. She was on her knees on the passenger seat to give her head as much clearance as possible. The water passed her waist, stomach, chest, neck, and was now up to her chin. She tilted her head back to keep her mouth and nose out of the water and tucked the phone into the visor to try to keep it try and in touch with dispatch for as long as possible.
Then she saw them.
In the gray distance and through the rain, Brazzil could see Longmont Fire Engine No. 5.
She told the dispatcher should could see them, pressed end on the call, and the phone fell into the water.
She couldn't hear the firefighters and they could not hear her.
"At this point, I am like, they are not going to make it in time," she said. She was trained as an EMT and knew emergency processes. "I am going to drown, I am going to have to taste that nasty water."
She said she considered the death seriously and how to hasten a drowning.
"If they don't get to you in time you need to relax and let your lungs fill with the water," she said.
Her body ached with cold, especially along her abdomen where she had recently had surgery. "The pain, it was unbelievable," she said.
Nearby, Lt. Mike Becker and other Longmont firefighters found her car, but they were on Boston Avenue west of her car and separated by a yawning rush of floodwaters.
"You could just barely see the top of the car," Becker said. The windshield was broken.
Longmont did not have a boat or any other safe way to reach her, so firefighters were planning to wade out to her. Then Mountain View Fire Rescue, dispatched to the area to help search submerged cars in the parking lot, showed up.
"That is when the real heroes showed up with their Jet Ski," Becker said of Mountain View.
Mountain View Chief Mike Lee said they did not know that Brazzil was trapped and happened upon her in their initial search of the area. They saw her hand pressed against the windshield and immediately diverted to try to reach her. Communication between the teams on scene was rough, they said.
Three Mountain View firefighters -- Chad Rademacher, Steve Tallman and Steven Knoll -- "bobbed out" to her car. Initially they tried to open a door, which remained solidly shut in the pressure from the waters. Then they climbed onto the hood and pulled away the windshield with their hands, they said.
"She was upset, but for the conditions she was doing really well," Rademacher said.
Brazzil remembers the firefighters removing the windshield, but doesn't recall helping herself onto the Jet Ski, that Mountain View Firefighter James Wood rode out to her.
"You had a death grip on me," he joked with her on Dec. 18, when the firefighters and the woman whose life they saved met again.
She was taken to Longmont's engine. No ambulances were available on that day, so firefighter Nathan Rea wrapped her in his bunker gear to try to warm her and they loaded her in the engine to go to Longmont United Hospital, where she was treated for hypothermia and reunited with her father and daughter.
Rae told her she passed out soon after being loaded into the engine.
The other rescuers had to move on. The flooding meant they hopped call to call to call, often never finding out what happened to those they helped.
"Some of us were walking away and we were talking," Rademacher said. "This is why we do this."
Brazzil, now 23, has changed.
She awoke in the hospital, still wet, warming, and broken glass speckling her hair.
"It was just miraculous," she said. "It was just miraculous."
She said she is more grateful and more devout. She is particularly grateful for the firefighters who fought to save her.
"Have faith in public servants," she said. "They are always there for you, no matter the conditions."
She also said each person should be grateful and value themselves.
"You never know when it could be your time," she said. "Even if you think it is your time you need to fight, because the world needs you."
Pierrette J. Shields can be reached at 303-684-5273 or at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Beckies Galore: Maxim Releases 2013 "Hot 100" Can You Guess Which THREE Black Faces Made The List???
Damn, only 3 out of 100 huh? That's how y'all feel Maxim??
Maxim Releases The 2013 Hot 100
Like they always do about this time, Maxim Magazine has released their latest list of lovely scantily-clad ladies of this year. Now we already know that African-Americans aren't exactly Maxim's target demographic, but in a list of 100 beautiful women only THREE are black?!
Sorry, but there are DEFINITELY some women of color who look WAY better than some of the ironing-board butt broads they put on this list, but we'll get into that tomorrow.
Today, we'll show you which Beckies THEY think qualify as "Hot 100" material, and the few of the ladies on the browner side of things that have been "honored" by this prestigious publication.
#18 Beyoncé
Ok, ok, Blue Ivy's mama was a pretty obvious choice (even though she barely cracked the top 20), but we guarantee there is one that you didn't see coming, flip the pages to find out who she is!
Continue Slideshow
#3 Rihanna
Yeah, you might have guessed that Robyn might have made her way onto Maxim's coveted list. There are definitely white guys across America saying: "Bro, Rihanna is HOT dude!"
#1 Miley mickiefickin' Cyrus!
Number 1?! Miley?!?! Granted she's undergone her new adult transformation but "hottest woman in the world"?! They must be poppin' Mollies and sweatin' up at Maxim…smh
Hit the flipper to see the final surprise black beauty that made Maxim's list, plus a few Latina ladies that deserve some shine.
#54 Kamala Harris
That's right! The Attorney General of California and the "Best looking Attorney General in the U.S." according to POTUS Barry-O, made the list!
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|2013/02/27 ~ 2013/03/01
|Booth Number: East Hall 5, E33-27, Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition Center, Japan
The upcoming PV Expo 2013 will be held from 2/27 (Wed) to 3/1 (Fri) at Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition Center together with PV System、Expo FC、Expo、Battery Japan、Smart Grid and Eco House. PV EXPO has been expanding its scale & reputation as the best gateway to enter the growing Japanese/Asia-Pacific PV market. Concurrently held with PV SYSTEM EXPO, exhibits are ranging from a wide variety of cutting-edge technologies from materials, manufacturing equipment, and solar cells/modules to PV system related technologies across the globe.
As PID (Potential Induced Degradation) solution on solar cells results in less power decay of solar system, Gintech Energy Corporation, a global TOP 10 leading cell manufacturer, will announce its PID-free solution and high efficiency monocrystalline solar cell "Diamond Series" at PV EXPO 2013, Tokyo Big Sight, Japan, Feb 2013.
Gintech Energy Corporation has continued dedicating itself to develop high efficiency quality cells and providing optimized PV solutions for its clients. Not only does Gintech adopt the state-of-the-art automated production equipments to ensure competitive edge, but also endeavor to streamline its production processes through effective utilization of human resources, materials and capital. Gintech's current product series includes High Power Diamond and Douro Series, as well as Colorful Phoenix Series. We are looking forward to seeing you at PV Expo 2013.


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BioMag® anti-Human CD IgG-coated particles are produced by covalently attaching murine monoclonal antibodies to BioMag® particles. The antibodies were prepared against human leukocyte differentiation antigens. Each product is supplied in phosphate buffered saline with EDTA and sodium azide added as stabilizers, and should be washed in sterile media prior to use to remove the preservative.
The CD56 antigen isoform is 140kDa and moderately expressed on a subpopulation of peripheral blood large granular lymphocytes, all cells with NK activity and by subsets of T lymphocytes. CD56 antibodies do not react with granulocytes, monocytes, or B cells.
- Hazards:
- Harmless-use normal precautions
- Handling:
- Exercise normal care
- Storage:
- Store at 4 degrees celsius;Do not permit to freeze


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Ending Homelessness to End AIDS
Fall/Winter 2012
James, a 61-year-old former skydiver, was on a six-year journey bouncing from one health crisis to the next. For three years he lived in a tent in the woods, his belongings constantly stolen or destroyed. He had been out of medical care for over a year and had a CD4 count in the 200s. After a hailstorm caused him to slip and break his arm, he moved into transitional housing. That injury was his path to an HIV housing provider. Since then, his health and overall quality of life have improved dramatically.
The transformational impact of housing on James's ability to manage his HIV and other health issues is disturbingly common and unfortunately not well understood by policy makers.
Beyond Behavior
For decades we have focused on people's behavior to stop the spread of HIV. That is important -- we should make sure people know how HIV is transmitted and how they can reduce their risk. But there are other powerful forces at work, referred to as "social determinants of health". The World Health Organization defines them as "the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system." Examples of social determinants include poverty, social attitudes like racism, availability of employment, education, and housing, and exposure to violence, to name a few.
"Housing is the greatest unmet need. At least half of people with HIV have experienced homelessness or unstable housing."
The social determinants of health actually affect the cause and course of disease more than genetics or behavior. This is true for conditions like diabetes or obesity, but they have an especially strong effect on the spread of infectious diseases like HIV. That means we must address these broader aspects of health, along with behavior change and medical care, if we are ever to see the end of AIDS.
Why Housing?
Addressing such deep-rooted issues can be overwhelming, since there is no quick fix and real change can take many years. But we have to start somewhere. At the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC) and Housing Works, we advocate for housing for people with HIV. But with so many social ills, why concentrate on homelessness?
Homeless and HIV+?
The fact is, each fundamentally affects the other. Not only is housing the greatest unmet need of people living with and at risk for HIV, at least half of people with HIV have experienced homelessness or unstable housing. There are many reasons: homophobia, intimate partner or family violence, poverty, discrimination against ex-offenders, addiction, mental illness, inadequate services for runaway and foster youth, and a severe lack of affordable housing.
Being homeless also makes it much more difficult to protect yourself from HIV. Among homeless people, the rate of HIV infection is 16 times higher than in the general population. Unfortunately, no matter what makes someone vulnerable to HIV infection, being homeless magnifies the risk.
Housing IS Prevention
Research has shown that whether or not someone is housed has a greater effect on HIV (both being infected and staying healthy after infection) than mental illness or substance abuse. People with stable housing are more likely to enter care, take their medications as prescribed, and have safer sex -- all behaviors that lower HIV risk or help manage HIV disease.
Stable housing is not only an effective HIV prevention intervention, it is also very cost-effective. Each prevented HIV infection saves $400,000 in lifetime medical costs. For homeless people with HIV, providing housing saves money that would be otherwise spent on crisis services like emergency hospitalization, prison stays, and emergency shelters. A University of Southern California study showed that providing permanent housing to just four chronically homeless people would save the city of Los Angeles $80,000 per year in substance abuse and mental health services, medical care, housing, and criminal justice costs.
Current Policy (And How to Win It)
Several programs are already in place to address affordable housing for people with HIV. The most well-known, the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA), is run by the federal government through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HOPWA was created in 1992 to provide housing assistance and other supportive services to low-income people with HIV and their families through grants to organizations around the country. The importance of housing was acknowledged again in 2010 with the release of the U.S. National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Housing was singled out among the many basic needs of people with HIV, one that must be provided to fully address the U.S. epidemic.
How can we advocate for this critical need? Well, advocacy takes on many forms and uses many strategies. In the following example, it was not a policy that needed to be put in place, but rather one that had to be stopped.
In late 2006, a proposal was made to change part of the Ryan White CARE Act's housing policy by imposing a lifetime limit on housing benefits of just 24 months. Knowing that such a limit would be catastrophic (partly because of the cyclical nature of HIV disease), the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC) fought back with research that provided overwhelming evidence of the necessity of housing for maintaining the health of people with HIV. Armed with science-based evidence, and faced with a struggling economy and a maddening lack of affordable housing, NAHC began mobilizing to stop this policy.
NAHC started by presenting the research to members of Congress, earning important allies from both parties. Representatives DeLauro, Nadler, Waters, Hirono, Soude, and Abercrombie agreed to send letters opposing the policy to Dr. Elizabeth Duke, then Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Over 100 concerned organizations also submitted comments protesting the rule. As a result, HRSA agreed to postpone its decision.
A year later, however, despite receiving hundreds of comments against the rule from organizations and over a dozen members of Congress (including then-Senator Obama), HRSA decided to implement the rule. With only one month remaining, strong action was needed. It was time for both organizational advocacy and grassroots action. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) spearheaded Congressional action opposing the rule. NAHC sent a letter opposing the 24-month rule to then-Secretary of Health and Human services Mike Leavitt with copies to every member of Congress who supported NAHC's position. A day later, NAHC and Housing Works organized a nationwide call-in, mobilizing activists across the country. HRSA knew the public was watching, and those who would be hurt by this policy made their voices heard.
The proposed rule was dropped.
The Fight Isn't Over
The example above is typical of advocacy in many ways -- reaching a goal often takes a long time and requires patience, persistence, and vigilance. Many voices are always more powerful than one, and this requires collaboration. Flexibility is essential, because different strategies will be effective at different times.
This article was provided by ACRIA and GMHC. It is a part of the publication Achieve. Visit ACRIA's website and GMHC's website to find out more about their activities, publications and services.
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Twisted Andes Adventure - South American OverlandingPosted in Events on January 6, 2014
You may know of our Ultimate Adventure (UA), where every year we take our staff, sponsors, cronies, and six lucky readers on a 4x4 summer camp–style trip of a lifetime in the U.S. Sebastian Varas from Chile was invited to the Ultimate Adventure 2012 with his LS-powered Willys, and he liked the UA so much he instituted the Twisted Andes Adventure in his home country.
The Twisted Andes Adventure 2013 is the first gathering of South American 4x4 enthusiasts from the website www.twistedandes.com. Varas is one of the founding partners of the website, which was formed 11 years ago and has become the premiere site for Latin American wheelers, with a huge following around the world. In this first year for his adventure there were 22 built 4x4s ready to romp 1,500 miles of Chilean countryside. Patterned after the UA, the trip required a team to live out of their rig for a week of camping, wheeling, and all kinds of weather, from blistering sand in the north to the freezing snow in the southern Andes Mountains. Varas built another Willys for the trip since he parted with the first one, and it was our transportation for the week.
There's no question that the Chilean scenery is awe-inspiring. Taking in the view while covering 1,500 miles in eight days in some of the toughest-built rigs on the planet is a dream come true for any wheeler worth his weight in salt. We started in the capital city of Santiago and then towed the Willys north to Copiapoé where the Atacama Desert reigns supreme. In fact, this is where the Dakar Rally is now held, and the treacherous terrain means staying alert to stay alive.
It took two full days to reach Copiapoé, a distance of around 500 miles. We stopped halfway for the night, after swapping spares on the trailer at a roadside llanteria. It turns out the trailer spare was the wrong lug pattern, unbeknownst to us. Some participants drove to Copiapoé, while a few shipped their rigs and flew in like rock stars and the rest of us trailered on.
Day 1: New Trails, New Friends
Most of the participants had never met before, but all belong to the Twisted Andes website. When the call went out that the trip was being formed, hundreds of people applied. The four partners—Sebastian Varas, Gonzalo Bravo, Facundo Lozano, and Mariano Lozano—vetted the participants and selected two handfuls from around Chile and Argentina. The wheeling in the northern and southern parts of the country is similar to the UA (think Michigan or Florida): opposite extremes with the participants' rigs built for their local area. In this trip though, having a ride that does well in all terrain would be critical.
Day 2: Pushing On Through the Atacama Desert
The second day of the Twisted Andes Adventure took us out into the depths of the dunes in the Atacama Desert. Of course, that entailed 20 more miles of sand, which resulted in Gonzalo Bravo rolling his Suzuki in a bowl. Fortunately no damage was done to skin or steel.
Once out of the mountains we made our way to the beach and headed south. Between rocks to climb and sandy beaches to skim, it was a long day—even longer for those in open vehicles, given the cold and wind. So we stopped for rest and recuperation. We opted for hotel rooms for the group because the temperature had dropped near freezing and it we hadn't reached the destination till after midnight.
Day 3: Continuing South on the Chilean Coast
The third day on the Twisted Andes Adventure was called a road day, but only about 50 miles was on pavement. After packing up and leaving our beachfront hotel, we wound down the coastline on dirt roads and two-tracks to sandy beaches and craggy rocks we could climb on. The only fisherman within 50 miles from anywhere had a '79 Jeep CJ-6 with a CJ-7 rear tailgate grafted on. He earned a 4WOR license plate!
As usual the wheeling took its toll on some vehicles and resulted in a broken hub, tweaked track bar, and even overheating issues. A few hills were conquered though during this full day of dust, dirt, and sand. As always, we kept driving until way past dark-thirty so we could set up tents in the dark and cook in the cold—another incredible day. There's just something special about completing a long hard day of wheeling in some of the most challenging terrain on the planet only to follow it up with a nice warm meal in cold weather while hunkering down near the campfire.
Day 4: Treacherous Trails Through Fields of Boulders
The Twisted Andes Adventure continued down south in Chile, but not before another great road day. By this time our contingent of 23 rigs is down to 22. The tranny went out in the Hilux of Isaias Diaz. Stuck in fifth gear, he found a used one and swapped it out in a parking lot while the rest of us motored on.
Our goal was a rock trail discovered by Sebastian Varas and preran for this trip. While only a few miles long, it starts on cobbles and finishes on boulders the size of pickups. It is a rockcrawler's paradise with multiple lines and degrees of difficulty.
The La Cebada Trail is in a wash right off the main highway. It starts easy and quickly morphs into a giant-killer. The damage count included an axle shaft U-joint, a front axle, a rear axle, a clutch, an oil pan, a gas tank, a steering arm, and more.
We scratched, skidded, crawled, and broke as we finished the trail and made our way to the next campsite by midnight, complete with a fire during the Chilean holiday. Once again we had a perfect end to a long day of epic wheeling and freezing temperatures with a nice warm campfire basking under the seemingly endless stars.
Day 5: Long Road Ahead
Our fifth day on the Twisted Andes Adventure continued in Chile as a road day from the north to the south. After a killer rock trail at night and an awesome camp and BBQ at midnight, we woke to repairs being made. Varas' Jeep received custom doors and hardware for the trip since the good weather would turn cold and rainy, much as it would if you drove from Alabama to Michigan. In the Southern Hemisphere the seasons as well as the toilets are backwards, and it gets colder as you head south.
Every fuel stop on our 450-mile trek revealed more and more damage and parts in need of repair. Road days can be the worst for 4x4s because the weak links become apparent. We found spun bearing caps, leaky covers, broken sealing studs, and even some Mustangs at our fuel and rest stops. Double-swapping rigs on the support trailers was needed to get us all the way to camp.
At Facundo Lozano's farm, where we camped, the shop was filled with half of the rigs for a long night of repairs, and a bit of lamb as well! The next day was a road/trail day, so all of the rigs needed to be in tiptop shape for the long trek ahead.
Day 6: Breaking Parts in the Pouring Rain
The Twisted Andes Adventure continued in the south of Chile. We hit the road heading south early so we could take in two trails that lay 200 miles away in Linares. The local wheelers met us and guided our caravan into the foothills of the Andes Mountains. This is where the "twisted" part of the Twisted Andes website comes from: the deep ravines switch back and forth, causing the axles to flex in opposite directions. Smooth and steady is the technique here, punching it only when necessary.
The La Cruz Trail wound around the mountains in slippery style, especially since it had started to rain. The decomposed granite formations made the twisties more fun with both looseness and grip. Rolls and breakage marked the end of the first trail, and we hit the second trail just as rain began to pour. The second trail consisted of a deep slot in the hillside barely wide enough for a fullsize 4x4. Even smaller rigs bounce side-to-side like pinballs while grasping for traction in the soupy mud. Steeply climbing into the hills at night with the ground level over the cab roof is as challenging as it gets. The lack of visibility and the slippery slopes caused another roll, one that took hours to recover from.
Day 7: Highway Hijinks
On the seventh day we rested—sort of. The plan was to regroup and rebuild after drying out from the night before. The night run had taken its toll on vehicles and participants alike. Broken windows, crushed cabs, busted axles, and even a bent Hi-Lift jack were counted as casualties.
The group departed on separate schedules for an easy day with few miles to travel. They could find spare parts and fix the carnage en route. But as always, the weather conspired with the night to slow us down. Heavy rains and a Jeep with no wipers caused a slow trip to the town of Cunco, nested near the Andes amid lakes, trails, and snow.
Days 8 & 9: Night of a Thousand Winchings
Our final days of wheeling on the Twisted Andes Adventure would prove to be the most challenging. Starting in the summer tourist Mecca of Cunco, Chile, we headed out on the Colico–Caburgua Trail into the Andean foothills. With temperatures near freezing and a couple feet of fresh snow on the ground, the 20-mile route connecting the two lakes seemed ambitious in a day. With a full contingent of 23 wheelers and three local guides, we set off.
The first hill showed us how the rest of the trail would be: steep and slick with mud and slop, with minimal traction regardless of tires. On the first climb alone, no less than half the group had to resort to winching. Three miles later the hills and holes had conspired with the melting snow to turn the trip into a chocolate sundae sort of look, with sun sparkles keeping us warm as the fresh snow slowly turned to brown soup. By the time our group crossed the river it was hitting dusk, and with more winch action than trail tracking we turned the group around to fight another day.
The problem was that after 25-some vehicles had churned the earth into a quagmire, we needed to return through the same mess we had made. By now the trail was impassable without winching, and even that equipment was breaking down. One battery terminal melted from the stress, two cables were rendered useless, and a front driveshaft had failed. All before midnight, some 12 hours after we started. Hence the final day of the Twisted Andes Adventure began with four rigs hooked together by winch lines in a hill assaulting relay system of anchors and winching. On what has come to be called the Night of a Thousand Winchings, we pulled cable and strapped 4x4s until 7 a.m., bringing to an end a 1,500-mile off-road adventure unrivaled in the annals of South American history.


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By John Goralski
Sports Writer
Andrew Goralski stepped off first base to reach for a hard line drive, but the ball skipped past him on the infield dirt. It wasn't an error. Most defenses would have surrendered to a well-earned hit. Southington's defense wasn't ready to give up.
Matt DiNello was already in position, sliding behind Goralski to snatch up the ball. Dave Palladino had already cast aside his catcher's mask to back up first base, but Brett Susi was already in full stride from the pitcher's mound.
DiNello side armed a throw to Susi. The umpire signaled the out, and the Blue Knight defense stepped back in formation to face Conard's next threat.
"It's those little things that people might not even notice," said Blue Knight coach Charlie Lembo. "Everyone was right where they're supposed to be, and those are the types of things that a coach wants to see as you get to the end of the season. Errors are going to happen. Strikeouts are going to happen, and pop-ups with bases loaded are going to happen. As long as people are where they're supposed to be, I know it's starting to click."
The Knights are far from finished as they approach their final week. With just two games remaining, Lembo said that he's not even thinking about his tournament rotation. At 15-3, the Knights have already secured a tournament berth and a home game. At 10-2 in the CCC West, Southington has already secured a share of the conference title.
That would be enough for most teams, but the Knights still have something to prove.
"We have two games left and a share of the division, but I know that these guys don't want to share it," said Lembo. "We want to win the division outright, but we're also playing for seeding. Greenwich should end up 17-3, and we beat them. Amity could end up 17-3, and I think we have them by lot. We could end up with the third seed, and then we'll focus on our tournament goals."
So strap yourself in. The Knights are just getting started.
"Let's get through the regular season and keep playing well," said Lembo. "Then, we'll turn our focus to the state tournament."
Last week, the Knights sandwiched a rare loss with a pair of lopsided shutouts as they moved one step closer to their ultimate goal—home field advantage. Through 18 games, the Knights have out-scored opponents, 120-31. The offense is averaging almost seven runs per game. The team's batting average is hovering well over .300, and the team's ERA is one of the lowest in years. Southington is holding teams to just 1.7 runs per contest with the most difficult regular season schedule of any of the top 10 teams in Class LL.
It seems to be coming together at the right time, and the offense is finally clicking from top to bottom.
On Monday, leadoff hitter Ted Shaw went 4-for-4 with a double and three runs to spark a 14-hit offense to an 11-0 win over Farmington. Dave Palladino (3-for-3, 3 RBI) hit a homerun, and the Knights opened up a 9-0 lead by the second inning.
On Friday, Matt Sirois went 4-for-4 with two runs and two RBI to pace a 17 hitt offense during a 13-0 win over Simsbury. Justin Rose (3-for-4) drove in four runs. DiNello (2-for-4, 3 runs), Rose, and Palladino scored home runs, and Southington opened a 6-0 lead by the second inning.
Even in a 5-2 loss to Conard, Southington out-hit the Chieftains and enjoyed an early lead.
"We got two runs in the first inning, and we probably should have had four," said Lembo. "They play on a field with no fence, so they were playing us really deep. We hit some balls really hard, but they made some really nice plays in the outfield."
On the mound, Southington has shown that it doesn't matter which pitcher they turn to. On Monday, Goralski (4-0) teamed with Kyle Cole and Joe Hayes for a four-hit shutout. On Friday, Susi claimed his seventh win in as many starts, allowing just three hits through six scoreless inning before turning the ball over to Hayes for a scoreless seventh.
Even in the loss to conard, Joe Rivera struck out seven with five walks and three hits over five innings, and Cole finished the game out with a scoreless inning on the mound.
"Joe Rivera is 4-2, but he's only given up four hits in those two losses," said Lembo. "He's had that kind of hard-luck tag, but hopefully it turns around next week. We're going to need all three of them in the tournament."
Now the Knights will look to complete their run at a CCC West title with games against New Britain and Hall. With two wins, they'll enjoy home field advantage until the tournament turns to neutral fields. Then Lembo will think about a state title run.
Is this the year? We'll find out.
To comment on this story or to contact sports writer John Goralski, email him at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Groves man guilty of murdering friend with shotgun
A Groves man has pleaded guilty to murdering his close friend in a drug-fueled rage.
Cody Hokett died from a shotgun wound to the chest suffered at John Mason Broadway's former residence at 3131 Cleveland St. in Groves.
Broadway, 27, was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury Sept. 6, 2012, for first degree murder in Hokett's death.
According to an affidavit for search and arrest warrant obtained by The Examiner, on July 23, 2012, police responded to the aforementioned home to find Hokett sitting on the front step, partially slumped over and covered in blood.
Hokett was able to tell police he had been shot, and police observed a severe gunshot wound to Hokett's upper right back and chest area.
The initial 911 caller was also at the scene and told police he was coming by the home to "drink a beer" with Broadway when he found Hokett in the doorway, bleeding profusely. The caller told police that before they arrived, Hokett told the 911 caller that Broadway had shot him, according to the arrest affidavit.
Hokett was rushed to St. Mary's Hospital where he would die some 30 minutes after police found him in the doorway of Broadway's residence.
When police searched the home, Broadway was nowhere to be found, but police were able to secure the murder weapon — a short-barreled shotgun with a shortened wood stock — at the bloody crime scene.
In a later interview with police, Broadway's friends and family said Broadway was acting bizarre and abusing drugs, "possibly including methamphetamine and bath salts," the arrest affidavit said. At least one friend told police Broadway was ranting about "the evil government," and was bragging about another small pistol with extra ammunition in his possession.
A prosecutor familiar with the case confirmed both Broadway and the victim might have been involved in a methamphetamine ring.
Tuesday, Sept. 24, Broadway pleaded guilty to murdering Hokett, taking a plea deal that would cap his punishment at 25 years in jail.
He is set to appear for sentencing in Judge John Stevens' Criminal District Court Friday, Sept. 27 at 9 a.m.


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How to make Flower Laurel - Thread Crochet by Crochet Geek
Flower Laurel - Thread Crochet
Crochet Geek will demonstrate a crochet flower. This flower is worked with thread and a steel crochet hook. Subscribe Today for free crochet lessons - http://goo.gl/DxXpTr and hit the like button.
You are welcome to share completed crochet projects, pictures, videos and free patterns to Crochet Geek's Google+ Community.
Written by Teresa Richardson
Video Tutorial: Flower Laurel - Thread Crochet
Video Tutorial: Left Hand Flower Laurel - Thread Crochet
Skill Level - Intermediate
SC - Single Crochet
HDC - Half Double Crochet
CH - Chain
SL ST - Slip Stitch
TC - Triple Crochet
Size 1 steel crochet hook
Size 5 Thread
Tapestry Needle
Stitch Instructions and Definitions:
Triple Crochet: Wrap the thread around your hook twice, insert through the top loops of the previous stitch or below the chain, wrap the thread over, pull through. Wrap the thread over the hook, pull through two loops, wrap the thread over the hook, pull through two loops, wrap the thread over the hook, pull through two loops. This completes the triple crochet.
Chain 5, join
Round 1: Chain 3, this will count as the first stitch, DC through the chain ring. *Chain 2, 2 DC, 7 times total from *, work a final chain 2, join with the beginning chain 3. (2 Double Crochet, Chain 2 - 8 total)
Round 2: SLST to the chain 2 space. CH 1, SC in the same space, *CH 5, SC in the next space, 7 times total from *, chain 5, join with the beginning single crochet. (There will be a total of 8 chain 5 loops with a SC between)
Round 3: SL ST to the chain 5 space. *CH 2, work 9 triple crochet through the chain 5, CH 2, slip stitch in the same space, slip stitch to the next chain 5, Complete 8 times total from *. (There will be 8 petals with 9 triple crochet each and a chain 2 on each end)


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The Magic Of Making Up Review. Does it really work?
Magic of Making Up Overview
The Magic Of Making Up is a step-by-step plan for anyone who has recently gone through a breakup and wants to get their ex back. I found the advice to be really helpful and easy to follow – it was as though TW Jackson (or T Dub) took me by the hand and walked me through each and every step to get back with my ex.
This is the process the Magic Of Making Up took me through:
- Getting to grips with my break up and identifying what caused it.
- Preparing my mind to get my ex back.
- Looking deeper into my relationship to see where it had gone wrong.
- Following the system, where I learned exactly what to say and do, and in which order, to get my ex interested in me again.
What is really impressive is how detailed the advice was. I was never left figuring out anything on my own. For example, there was a whole section about getting my ex to go on a date with me.
After reading it I literally knew what to say and when to say it, and what to do if my ex acted a certain way or was not willing to see me. TW Jackson's advice covers all the "what if" scenarios.
The only problem you may have is being able to absorb all the information and strategies at once. But this is not really a bad thing, because once you finish reading the book, you will have confidence in knowing how to get your lover back. I did!
Hey! This is Tracy James here … and you're reading my uncensored review of what I really thought about The Magic of Making Up.
How I Discovered The Magic Of Making Up
When I went through a breakup, I was desperate to get my ex back by any means possible. The fact that the love of my life of 5 years had decided to call it quits just did not make sense to me. And I was determined to fix my relationship.
I had tried other relationship books before, but most of them seemed to be written by rich housewives who had probably never gone through a breakup in their lives before. Well, that's my opinion anyway!
After seeing me in such an emotional state, a good friend of mine suggested I try the Magic of Making Up. She said it was the latest relationship book on the market and that it had already saved over 6100 relationships in 2008.
At first I was a rather skeptical, but since the recommendation was coming from a close friend, I decided to give it a go, and this is my experience with the guide…
4 Ways This System Helped Me
The Clean Slate technique – This showed me how to "write off the old relationship" and give it a clean, new meaning. At first I struggled to use this technique, since it required me to change my attitude, and stop being so defensive. But when I mastered it, the results were amazing – I found that it not only improved my relationship with my lover, but with my friends and family too.
Second Chance letter – TW Jackson understands that a lot of us find it hard to open up and write a great love letter. So he not only provided 20 pages of important advice on what to write in the letter to get my ex thinking about me, but also provided me with a template to follow and use as my own. It was a great short-cut to getting my feelings out effectively.
The Fast Forward strategy – I was really suffering from a broken heart after the breakup, so this 5-step plan really helped get me on the fast-track to getting over the emotional pain. This gave me the confidence to get my ex back.
The Instant Reconnect method – This stealthy form of persuasion showed me how to use psychological triggers to get my ex thinking of how good we were together. It was dead easy to master, and absolutely amazing to see how well it worked – as I found my ex begging me to take them back!
Magic Of Making Up: Pros and Cons
Following are the advantages of using Magic Of Making Up
- TW Jackson is a down-to-earth guy. Watch his videos on the product page and I think you'll agree he really cares about helping people.
- Helped over 50,000 people
- Practical ideas anyone can use
- Bonus book "Clean Slate Method" that shows you how to apologize and get forgiveness
- Bonus book "Mind Magic" which contains extra ideas to win back your ex
Summary of Cons
- The ebook is only 62 pages. However, there's little fluff in the book and the "Mind Magic" bonus with its extra tips to get your ex back makes up for any shortness.
- Some ideas seem simple. One famous trick is the "instant reconnect technique" where you lean over a dinner table to wipe off an imaginary piece of food from your ex's mouth. The theory TW Jackson gives behind it is lovers only do this. Though the technique appears simple, it can work. Also, other techniques in the book are more effective.
Magic Of Making Up: Does it Really Work
The Magic of Making Up ebook uses simple and effective processes known to help couples re-unite.
This particular book gives answers that shows you when to begin acting towards a resolution that allows you to start again with your ex.
This includes knowing how to use specific situations, such as another girlfriend or boyfriend, to your advantage, as well as secrets for bonding and re-connecting with your loved one almost instantly.
Everything is aimed to help you get back in touch with your loved one to start over again.
There's heaps of bullet points in the ebook (which is in a easy downloadable pdf format) so it's a to-the-point guide with little fluff. TW Jackson seems to be a real honest guy looking to help people who broke up.
Reviews hitting this book are showing its concepts and ideas provide the ultimate solution for getting back with your ex.
Several people who've read and implemented the advice given say it works at getting couples back together, dating again, and even moving back into a marriage after divorce!
This course is one of my recommendations to help get your ex back. Through The Magic of Making Up, you can find the secrets, moves, and tricks that allow couples who broke up to get back into a relationship.
Will The Magic of Making Up Work For You?
Look, what I have said about the Magic of Making Up is my honest experience with the guide and TW Jackson's techniques. I was in a desperate state when I bought the book.
I had tried other relationship advice before, but with little success. My friends and family did not really understand my situation, so they could not help me either.
I was determined to get my ex back, and stop them from slipping out my life. And I believe the Magic of Making Up is the sole reason I was able to get my ex back, and have a stronger relationship than ever before.
So will it work for you? Only you can really answer that question. But what I can say is that the guide is for anyone who is serious about saving their relationship or marriage, without ever having to resolve to begging and pleading. If you follow it properly and take action, you will most probably see your ex begging you to take them back. That's what happened to me and it was a really nice situation to be in!
If you believe your relationship is worth saving, then follow T Dub's advice. Honestly, you have nothing to lose!
>> The Magic Of Making Up <<
Please leave a comment below
I hope you found this the Magic of Making Up Review helpful.
I'am sure there are plenty of ways to analyze this information that we haven't thought of. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments.
King Regards,
Tracy James


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Honeywell International (NYSE:HON) revealed surging fourth-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations on Friday as the diversified manufacturer capitalized on modest revenue growth and the absence of year-earlier pension expenses.
Continue Reading Below
The maker of aerospace and safety products said it earned $947 million, or $1.19 a share, last quarter, compared with a profit of $251 million, or 32 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding one-time items like the pension charges, it earned $1.24 a share, up from $1.10 the year before and above the Street's view of $1.21.
Revenue increased 8.4% to $10.39 billion, compared with consensus calls from analysts for $10.19 billion. Organic sales increased 5% and Honeywell ended the year with a backlog of $15.5 billion worth of orders.
"Honeywell had a very strong fourth quarter, capping off a terrific year across the board with record sales, margins, and earnings," Honeywell CEO Dave Cote said in a statement that acknowledged a "continued slow-growth environment."
Honeywell said aerospace sales increased 3% last quarter to $3.1 billion as international strength and commercial sales offset slower federal government spending.
Automation and control solutions posted a 10% jump in sales to $4.58 billion thanks in part to acquisitions. The company also enjoyed a 12% rise in performance materials and technologies revenue to $1.73 billion.
Looking ahead, Honeywell reaffirmed its 2014 projections for EPS to rise between 8% and 12% to $5.35 to $5.55. Revenue is seen increasing 3% to 4%, translating to a range of $40.3 billion to $40.7 billion. Analysts had been modeling for somewhat stronger 2014 EPS of $5.54 on revenue of $40.85 billion.
"While we think it's prudent to remain cautious on the global economy at this time, we're increasingly confident in our 2014 outlook based on the momentum from the fourth quarter. And, the benefits from smart gain deployment actions position the company for strong earnings growth and outperformance over the next 5 years," Cote said.
Shares of Morristown, N.J.-based Honeywell advanced 1% to $90.70 in premarket trading Friday morning, putting them on track to extend their 12-month rally of 32%.


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This concludes my series The Life of Alice Susan HILLIS, my great grandmother.
Alice's husband Dewey Francis BASCOM died 2 Jun 1975 at Mercy Hospital in Anderson, Hamilton county, Ohio. He was 77 years old.
The top portion of Dewey's funeral card.
Four years later, Alice died on 31 Jul 1979 in Deer Park, Hamilton county, Ohio. She was 83 years old.
For some reason she is listed in both the Ohio and Kentucky death indexes. I have yet to order her death certificates. I believe that she was living in Kentucky at the time with her son, but died in a Cincinnati hospital. For some reason, the family reported her death to Kentucky.
This is a portion of her obituary.
Alice and Dewey are buried in Arlington Memorial Garden in Kenwood, Hamilton county, Ohio. I still need to get a photo of their tombstone.
That concludes my series on the life of Alice Susan HILLIS. I hope you have enjoyed this series and I hope to do more in the future.
Note: I did not include full portions of Dewey's funeral card or Alice's obituary because they list their two daughters who are still living.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
The Life of Alice HILLIS - Her death
4 comments:
I have enjoyed reading. People's lives fascinate me and I love to her their stories.ReplyDelete
You did a really nice job with Alice's story Tina!ReplyDelete
I really enjoyed reading about Alice. I am always surprised when reading about other folks' history, how similar the names and places, especially in that Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio area. I am almost to say -- "hey, do you think Alice knew ..." Thanks for a well done series.
Well well researched, Tina. I enjoyed meeting Alice and I loved your favorite photo of her and your great-grandfather. You did a great job.ReplyDelete
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Toshiba 20JL7R service manual download pdf repair instruction scheme free
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- Home /
What We Do and how we do it
We come to work every day to create amazing things. Whether it's a strategy, a crazy little app, an integrated platform or simply a line of copy, everything we create is fuelled by our obsessions: the power of relationships, stories and the rapidly evolving relationship between people and technology.
Every QuirkStation is filled with crazy smart people who are highly specialised, but we believe that our success is a by-product of collaboration that results from our organising model: Think. Create. Engage. Optimise (T.C.E.O).
The specialists within these various disciplines collaborate with one another to form a cohesive team capable of conceptualising and executing on any strategy to drive results.


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CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) Shane Larkin scored a career-high 27 points to lead Miami to a 73-57 win over Jacksonville Friday night.
Julian Gamble added 13 points for Miami (2-1), which bounced back after losing 63-51 to Florida Gulf Coast on Tuesday.
Larkin hit 9 of 13 shots from the floor with five assists and four rebounds.
Miami shot 59 percent (23 of 39) while holding Jacksonville to 40 percent shooting (20 of 50).
Miami, which played without leading scorer Reggie Johnson due to a sore tailbone, scored the game's first 11 points and took a 27-23 lead into the break.
Jacksonville (1-2) pulled to 31-29 before Miami went on a 9-1 run keyed by Larkin, who made a layup and a 3-pointer to stretch the lead to 40-30.
Jacksonville would get no closer than seven the rest of the way.
Dylan Fritsch led Jacksonville with 23 points including six 3-pointers.


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When you are at home enjoying yourself and company of others. Then you are abruplty disturbed by the phone, it is someone you can't stand talking to and you don't answer. They then go to call your cell phone and any other phone possible in your house to get your attention.
Your gandmother you hate calls you, you don't answer and they call another phone in your house to get your attention. This annoying person is Phone Hopper.
by Savage Yeti July 11, 2009
buy the domain for your diy site


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As Tech N9ne and the rest of the Strange Music artists put on shows around the nation, the performances on all ends are impressing people.
From the beginning acts with ¡Mayday! to Kutt Calhoun to Tech N9ne himself, fans and journalists are raving about how impressive this show is becoming.
The Silver Tongue contributor Travis Phillips published a review from the July 27th show in Atlanta, and needless to say, the author of this piece was more than impressed.
"I honestly couldn't tell you a single song that ¡Mayday! performed,with that said, they put on a amazing show. It didn't feel like a rock set, more like hip-hop with an amazing live band. The crowd was completely hypnotized by the insane energy, hands being thrown in the air, everyone on their feet, and yet no one was reciting a single word."
Phillips also expresses his feelings when Tech N9ne finally stepped out onto the stage.
"So with expectations high Tech N9ne finally appears on stage. The thunderous roar of yells, applauds, screams, and even squeals were let out. I've never seen anything like it."
To read the entire article, click here.
Make sure to follow Tech N9ne on his official Twitter page and pick up his new cd if you haven't already, All 6's and 7's.
What did you think of this article? Have you been impressed by the performances on this tour so far? Let us know in the comment section below!


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Samsung Music Hub: An Ambitious Start, But Not Quite Beautiful Music
I like the idea of having all my music available wherever I am via cloud services, such as iTunes Match, Amazon Cloud Player, or Google Play Music. (See my post on "The Jukebox in the Sky.") It would be even better, though, to have any song by any artist available wherever I am.
There's no perfect solution, but I've long been partial to subscription services that let you effectively play just about any song you'd like, such as Rhapsody (my old favorite), Rdio, or newer variants like Spotify. (I have worries about running a peer-to-peer network, though, especially from a network with business data on it.) These are rental services; you only play the music while you subscribe. I like the idea but I thought they would be more attractive than they have been. With the exception of the free and limited version of Spotify, they've mostly been niche products.
Such services should be even more popular in a world with more mobile devices, so I'm intrigued by how both Samsung and Sony have recently entered the market. I've had a bit of a chance to try Samsung Music Hub, which offers a plethora of music features.
In fact, it's hard to think of a music feature the Samsung service doesn't have. The basic offering includes a music player, a cloud service (for uploading your music to the cloud and then playing it), a store, a cloud radio service (à la Pandora), and the subscription service that let you download subscription content for offline listening for $9.99 a month. I admire the breadth of the service, but it seems a bit overwhelming at times.
On the Galaxy S III (the only compatible device right now), your options include playing "MyMusic," which consists of songs on the device or uploaded to the cloud service; the catalog, which includes all the songs Samsung provides in the service; or radio. There are also other ways of getting to that music, including recommendations and a search function. Music Hub does a fine job of finding and playing music on the device. An uploader successfully takes music from a Windows PC and moves it to the cloud—something you would do for music not included on the service, such as artists not covered, personal songs, or perhaps bootlegs. Overall, the service works well, but is a bit more complex to use than I'd like.
All the major labels and many minor ones are represented in the catalog, but while it has a wide selection, in general, it lags behind the other services. In particular, it doesn't offer a section of new releases for each week, and in many cases, seems to add the new music after other services. There are some notable gaps, missing music from Beyoncé and the most recent album by The Avett Brothers. All of the services have slightly different catalogs, but one of the things I most like about subscription services is the ability to use it to hear new albums.
Of course, the biggest issue right now is that it only works on one Samsung device, though that will change. (You can also access it through the Web, but it doesn't seem really designed for that.) Sony's offering, Sony Music Unlimited, is in contrast noticeably broader, working not only on a larger range of Sony devices (everything from the PlayStation Vita to Bravia TVs), but also on Android tablets, phones, and on some iOS devices.
In general, I think the variety of devices covered is a crucial feature, along with the breadth and currency of the music catalog and the ease with which the service helps you discover new music. Samsung Music Hub shows a lot of promise, but it needs improvements in all these areas to be a truly strong contender.


text:
Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the web pages you visit. You can use it to make a web site more readable or more usable. You can fix bugs that site owners can't be bothered to fix themselves. You can alter pages so they work better with assistive technologies that speak a web page out loud or convert it to Braille. You can even automatically retrieve data from other sites to make two sites more interconnected.
Greasemonkey by itself does none of these things. In fact, after you install it, you won't notice any change at all …until you start installing what are called user scripts. A user script is just a chunk of JavaScript, the same scripting language you use on your own web site. But user scripts don't run on your own web site; they can run on any web site, and they can do anything JavaScript can do. In fact, they can do more than that, because Greasemonkey provides special API functions that give user scripts even more power than traditional JavaScript.
The term hacking has a bad reputation in the press. They use it to refer to someone who breaks into systems or wreaks havoc with computers as their weapon. Among people who write code, though, the term hack refers to a "quick-and-dirty" solution to a problem, or a clever way to get something done. And the term hacker is taken very much as a compliment, referring to someone as being creative, having the technical chops to get things done. The Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the good ways people are hacking, and pass the hacker ethic of creative participation on to the uninitiated. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology.
Greasemonkey has existed for less than a year, and hundreds of people have already written thousands of Greasemonkey scripts to scratch their own personal itches. Web enthusiasts with zero JavaScript experience have written scripts to route around broken web sites, alter site styles, and roll back ill-conceived site redesigns. More experienced coders have created link trackers, password managers, and personal shopping agents. Some have even added entirely new features to complex web applications—without ever needing to talk to the application developers or wait for bureaucratic approval.
Clearly, there were a lot of itches waiting to be scratched.
Some hacks in this book are short and sweet; they do one thing and do it well. (One is just a single line of code!) Other hacks are hundreds of lines long, complete with their own user interface, their own data cache, and their own preferences. This book showcases the best of the best, from "Hey, that's always bugged me," to "Gee, I don't know how I ever lived without this," to "Wow, I had no idea a browser could do that."
You can read this book from cover to cover if you like, but each hack stands on its own, so feel free to browse and jump to the different sections that interest you most. If there's a prerequisite you need to know about, a cross-reference will guide you to the right hack.
The book is divided into 12 chapters, roughly organized by topic:
It's hard to do cool stuff when you don't even know where to click. The hacks in this chapter will get you started using the Greasemonkey interface, installing user scripts, and developing your own.
The Web revolves around links. Make them work for you! Learn how to control links that try to open a new window, launch unwanted applications, execute JavaScript, or otherwise behave badly. Plus, see how to follow links without clicking.
The Web revolves around links. Make them work for you! Learn how to control links that try to open a new window, launch unwanted applications, execute JavaScript, or otherwise behave badly. Plus, see how to follow links without clicking.
You can't spit in this town without hitting a web form.
<input> boxes in particular make a satisfying "ping" when you hit them. Discover what all those forms are doing behind your back. Plus, never forget a web site password again.
You don't just live online; you occasionally work there, too. Make the browser a better tool for web development with these hacks. Does the term AJAX ring a bell? You're going to love this chapter.
Hey there! Yes, you. Stop searching for porn long enough to read this chapter. It's all about how to make searching the Web easier and faster. What you do with that information is between you and your webcam.
Web-based email sucks. But you can't live without it. Have you ever accidentally hit "Reply All" instead of "Reply"? (Did your coworkers ever forgive you?) Who the hell put them one inch away from each other? Find out how to add essential features to web mail services such as Gmail and Yahoo! Mail.
Accessibility affects everyone, in every walk of life. One in 13 workers reported some form of disability last year. Learn how to make your own web site more accessible, and see how Greasemonkey can help people with disabilities use the Web.
Invasive site registrations. Brain-dead browser sniffers. Frames. Something about the Web makes content providers stupid. Learn how to route around them.
Blogs are all the rage. They've reached the tipping point. They've jumped the shark. They've taken the meme by the horns and the cliché by the throat. Dive into the wonderful world of syndicated feeds.
Find a book on Amazon.com and get price quotes from five other retailers without leaving the page. Enough said.
Good things come to those who wait. No, wait; this is a Hacks book! Jump right to the end; I've saved the best for last.
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This is a tip, suggestion, or general note. It contains useful supplementary information about the topic at hand.
This is a warning or note of caution, often indicating that your money or your privacy might be at risk.
The thermometer icons, found next to each hack, indicate the relative complexity of the hack:
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text:
Mixed Prometheus reviews certainly haven't stopped director Ridley Scott from climbing back on the genre movie horse. In fact, he's just signed a huge deal to produce and or direct six more genre films in Ireland.
Slashfilm is reporting that Scott signed a deal with Focus Features International, linking Scott Free London to a large slate of genre movies. Ridley will oversee six low budget genre movies ranging from horror and thrillers to science fiction. Each film will shoot in Northern Ireland - which is gorgeous, so that should provide a neat backdrop.
Looper, Sinister, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious are all great films that proved you don't need massive budgets to be entertaining. We can't wait to see what Ridley Scott will produce on a smaller scale.


text: "Per Jessen" <per at computer.org> writes: > What would you like to know ? > I doubt if the z-server architecture is particularly advanced, but it's > probably on a par with other modern processors. > I've done system-level development (mostly assembler) for the 370 and > 390 architectures for 10-12 years - ask away. I've done VM, MVS and TPF - > not much else runs on 390 - except for Linux now. I'm curious: - in pure (integer, symbolic, or floating-point) computational speed, without much memory access, how do the 390 processors compare to other modern CPUs? (I know that's not what they're sold for, but I'm interested to hear the answer.) - in memory bandwidth (stream benchmarks, for example), how do they compare? - in I/O bandwidth, how do they compare?


text:
After not working on it for some time, I think it has come quite a long way the last couple of weeks as I picked up work on structured SVMs again. So here is a quick update on what you can do with it.
To the best of my knowledge this is the only tool with ready-to-use functionality to learn structural SVMs (or max-margin CRFs) on loopy graphs - even though this is pretty standard in the (computer vision) literature.
The most commonly used software for learning structural SVMs is SVM^struct by Thorsten Joachims, which is a great piece of software, but imho not that easy to use and written completely in C (with a Python interface, though).
A quick reminder on what structured prediction does (I wrote about this before). So you are given a list of input objects $X_1, ..., X_n$ and corresponding $Y_1, ..., Y_n$, and you want to learn to predict the output $Y$ for some unknown input $X$.
This is a generalization of standard a multi-class classification in two ways:
- The input objects $X$ are structured, meaning they are not just an array of numbers, as usually the case in machine learning, but something more complex, for example a sequence or an image or a graph. There are usually some numerical values associated with X, but it is somehow more than just a flat vector.
- The output objects $Y$ usually belong to some very large set. Think of labelling a sequence of length $r$, where each entry can take one of $m$ classes. Then the set of possible $Y$ has size $m^r$ - which grows exponentially fast in the lenght of the sequence. To cope with this, $Y$ is also assumed to have some structure, that can help us generalize in the presence of so many classes.
The mathematical formulation of structured prediction is
\[ Y = f(X) = \text{argmax}_{\hat{Y}} g(X, \hat{Y}, \theta) \]
Here $g$ is a function that encodes the compatibility of $\hat{Y}$ with $X$ and depends on a set of parameters $\theta$. The prediction $Y$ is given as that $\hat{Y}$ that maximizes the compatibility with $X$.
If you want to view this in a probabilistic way, you can replace $g(X, \hat{Y}, \theta)$ by $p(\hat{Y}| X, \theta)$. Then the prediction $Y$ is the maximum a postiory (MAP) estimate for $Y$.
The task of structured prediction is to find parameters $\theta$ such that we predict well on future data $X$.
There are several steps in doing this. First, we have to say what "good" means.
A common measure is the hamming loss on $Y$. So for the sequence example above, we don't punish all possible outputs equally, but penalize based on how many entries of a predicted sequence are wrong.
As we can't know about future data, we do the standard thing of regularized empirical risk minimization. In English, this means we want a model that does well on the training data and is simple. Usually this is formulated as
\[\min_\theta L(\mathbf{X}, \mathbf{Y}, \theta) = \sum_{i=1}^n l(f(X_i), Y_i) + \frac{1}{C} R(\theta)
where $l$ is for example the Hamming loss and $R$ is some penalty on the complexity of the parameters, for example the euclidean (L2) length and $C$ is a trade off between complexity and goodness of fit.
The next step is choosing the form of $g$. In pystruct, I implemented the structural SVM and structural Perceptron approaches, which use a simple linear form:
\[ g(X, \hat{Y}) = \left<\theta, \psi(X, \hat{Y}) \right> \]
Here, $\psi(X, \hat{Y}) \in \mathbb{R}^d$ is a joint feature of $X$ and $\hat{Y}$ and $\theta$ is simply a vector of weights. All the structure of the problem is encoded in $\psi$.
Now that we have all the math together, we can see there are several parts to the problem:
- Defining and computing $\psi$, the joint feature of $X$ and $\hat{Y}$ that defines the structure of the problem.
- Computing $\text{argmax}_{\hat{Y}} g(X, \hat{Y}, \theta)$.
- Find the best parameter settings $\theta$ by solving
\[\min_\theta L(\mathbf{X}, \mathbf{Y}, \theta),\]
i.e. the actual learning part.
(For reference, SVM^struct concentrates on solving 3. - and does a great job at it).
1. Problems (i.e. CRFs): Knows about the problem structure.These know about the structure of the problem, the loss and the inference.
This is basically the part that you have to write yourself when using the
Python interface in SVM^struct.
I am only working on pairwise models and there is support for grids and
general graphs. I am mostly working on the grids at the moment.
2. Inference Solvers: Does the heavy lifting in inference.There are some options to use different solvers for inference.
A linear programming solver using GLPK is included.
I have Python interfaces for several other methods on github,
including LibDAI, QPBO, AD3, which can all be easily used with pystruct.
This is where the heavy lifting is done and in some sense these backends
are exchangeable.
3. Learners: Know about learning.These implement max margin learning, similar to SVM^struct.
There is an online subgradient version, a one-slack QP version and the
standard n-slack QP version. The QPs are solved via cvxopt.
They are not particularly optimized but getting there.
Often this is not the bottleneck when working with loopy graphs.
There is also a simple perceptron. I might be adding an interface to SVM^struct here, if I'm not happy with my current solvers in the future.
Now let the code speak. First, let us look at some ways to use the library.
I definitely want to explain the inner workings, too, but that might be another post.
pystruct includes several examples. Lets walk through a simplified version of the binary svm example first, and work our way up from there.
The example simply shows how to implement a standard binary SVM in the pystruct framework. This is just an illustration - don't use that to actually solve your SVM problems, as it is not really optimized for that ;)
Binary SVMFirst, we load some data using scikit-learn. We use the digits dataset and make it into a binary prediction task. We add a column of ones as the structural SVM doesn't implement a bias term.
In [1]:
import numpy as np
from sklearn.datasets import load_digits
from sklearn.cross_validation import train_test_split
# do a binary digit classification
digits = load_digits()
X, y = digits.data, digits.target
# make binary task by doing odd vs even numers
y = y % 2
# code as +1 and -1
y = 2 * y - 1
X /= X.max()
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y)
X_train_bias = np.hstack([X_train, np.ones((X_train.shape[0], 1))])
X_test_bias = np.hstack([X_test, np.ones((X_test.shape[0], 1))])
The data here is actually not structured, just an array.
In [2]:
(1347, 65)
The labels are also not structured:
In [3]:
The two labels are encoded as -1 and +1 as common in SVMs.
In [4]:
array([ 1, -1, -1, ..., -1, 1, 1])
Now we first import and instantiate the problem description for a binary SVM.
In [5]:
from pystruct.problems import BinarySVMProblem
problem = BinarySVMProblem(n_features=X_train_bias.shape[1])
Now we import one of the learners. These are completely agnostic to the kind of problem we want to solve. Let's try the online subgradient method. We provide it with the instance of the binary SVM formulation, set the regularization parameter $C$ in the terminology from above)
In [6]:
from pystruct.learners import SubgradientStructuredSVM
ssvm = SubgradientStructuredSVM(problem, C=20, learning_rate=0.0001, max_iter=50)
Now we train the algorithm. The learners all have the usual scikit-learn interface:
In [7]:
ssvm.fit(X_train_bias, y_train)
Training primal subgradient structural SVM final objective: 0.339834 calls to inference: 67350
And evaluate on the test set:
In [8]:
ssvm.score(X_test_bias, y_test)
Let's have a look at some predictions:
In [9]:
array([-1., 1., 1., 1., -1.])
That wasn't very hard now. But also not terribly exciting.
So, a little step up in complexity:
Let's get the original labels back:
So, a little step up in complexity:
Multi-Class SVM.The Crammer-Singer multi-class formulation is a special case of a structural SVM.
Let's get the original labels back:
In [10]:
y = digits.target
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y)
X_train_bias = np.hstack([X_train, np.ones((X_train.shape[0], 1))])
X_test_bias = np.hstack([X_test, np.ones((X_test.shape[0], 1))])
In [11]:
array([8, 5, 2, ..., 4, 9, 3])
In [12]:
from pystruct.problems import CrammerSingerSVMProblem
In [13]:
problem = CrammerSingerSVMProblem(n_features=X_train_bias.shape[1], n_classes=10)
In [14]:
ssvm = SubgradientStructuredSVM(problem, C=20, learning_rate=0.0001, max_iter=50)
In [15]:
ssvm.fit(X_train_bias, y_train)
Training primal subgradient structural SVM final objective: 0.619628 calls to inference: 67350
In [16]:
ssvm.score(X_test_bias, y_test)
In [17]:
array([5, 5, 2, 0, 2])
But no let us finally get to something a bit more interesting
CRFs on grid graphsActually pystruct contains some code to handle grid-graphs but to demonstrate the interface, I'll represent the graphs explicitly. First, let us generate some 2d grid toy data.
In [36]:
import pystruct.toy_datasets as toy
from pystruct.utils import make_grid_edges
X, Y = toy.generate_blocks(n_samples=3)
We generated 3 examples. Each example here is a 10 x 12 grid with two possible labels, 0 and 1:
In [44]:
plt.matshow(Y[0, :, :])
(3, 10, 12)
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x67bf650>
The input is a noisy version of this label (actually there are two features per point in the grid).
In [45]:
plt.matshow(X[0, :, :, 1])
(3, 10, 12, 2)
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x69c2910>
We hope that the pairwise CRF can learn to smooth the data to get consistent, sharp labels out.
Now we import the class for handling CRFs with arbitrary (gobally shared) pairwise potentials,
Now we import the class for handling CRFs with arbitrary (gobally shared) pairwise potentials,
GraphCRF and instantiate it.
As for such a grid graph the inference is already non-trivial, we have to choose an inference method. Let's go with AD3 for the moment.
In [ ]:
crf = GraphCRF(inference_method='ad3')
clf = SubgradientStructuredSVM(problem=crf, max_iter=200, C=100)
To feed the instances to pystruct, we explictly represent each edge in the grid:
In [ ]:
G = [make_grid_edges(x) for x in X]
In [53]:
array([[ 0, 1], [ 1, 2], [ 2, 3], [ 3, 4], [ 4, 5], [ 5, 6], [ 6, 7], [ 7, 8], [ 8, 9], [ 9, 10], [10, 11], [12, 13]])
Now we reshape the input a bit. GraphCRF expects the input
X to be of shape
(n_nodes, n_features) and the output
Y to be of shape
(n_nodes,) for each sample.
In [ ]:
# reshape / flatten x and y
X_flat = [x.reshape(-1, 2) for x in X]
Y_flat = [y.ravel() for y in Y]
The actuall input when using GraphCRF is then a tuple for each sample
x=(features, graph).
In [ ]:
X_structured = zip(X_flat, G)
Then the rest is easy again:
In [ ]:
clf.fit(X_structured, Y_flat)
Y_pred = clf.predict(X_structured)
Now let us look at the prediction:
In [57]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x6bc7b50>
In [ ]:
And compare against just using the features, without using any interaction between the nodes:
In [61]:
plt.matshow(X[0, :, :, 1] > 0.0)
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x7379390>