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European Commission
Brussels, 3 July 2012
Revision of the Insurance Mediation Directive - Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is insurance mediation?
Insurance mediation means:
2. What is the Insurance Mediation Directive (IMD) about?
The current IMD regulates the selling practices of all insurance products. It covers the regulation of general insurance products such as motor insurance as well as life insurance policies including those which contain investment elements such as unit-linked life insurance products.
3. Why does it need to be revised?
The financial crisis has underlined the importance of ensuring effective consumer protection across all financial sectors, which can only be achieved with proper regulation and supervision of all financial service providers and agents that deal directly with consumers.
Adopted in 2005, the IMD contains principles that each of the 27 Member States has implemented in substantially different ways. Certain parts of it are in need of modification or clarification, and some important matters proposed today do not fall within its current scope.
Strong concerns have been raised about standards for the sale of life insurance products with investment elements (e.g. unit-linked contracts). Currently, less strict standards apply to those products than to non-insurance investment products (regulated under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), currently under revision – see IP/11/1219 and MEMO/11/716). This means that there is cross-sectoral inconsistency, since market participants are offering insurance-based investments in place of other investments.
Concerns have also been raised about the limited scope of the IMD, particularly that it does not regulate direct selling – that is sales of insurance products directly by insurance undertakings (without the intervention of intermediaries)- so there is not a level playing field for all players involved in the selling of insurance products.
4. How is this revision relevant for the economy?
The revision of the IMD is part of a 'Consumer retail legislative package', together with the PRIPs (Packaged retail investment products) proposal on investment products' disclosures and UCITS V (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) (see IP/12/736) and aims to:
5. What exactly will change?
Currently, only agents and brokers are covered by the IMD. With the new proposal:
(1) The scope of the revised IMD will be extended to all sellers of insurance products, including insurance companies that sell directly to consumers. Other market players who sell insurance products on an ancillary basis (e.g. car rental companies) will be included in a proportionate manner in the scope of the revised IMD.
(2) Rules that address more effectively the risk of conflicts of interest, including rules mandating the disclosure of remuneration by intermediaries, will be introduced.
(3) Improved requirements would apply to life insurance products with investment elements, covering sales standards, conflicts of interest, and a ban on commission for independent advice.
(4) There would be mutual recognition of professional knowledge and ability, as evidenced by registration and proof of professional qualifications acquired in another Member State.
(5) Special information requirements would apply where suppliers adopt the practice of bundling products together by informing the customer that it is possible to buy the two products separately.
(6) Effective, proportionate, and dissuasive administrative sanctions and measures by competent authorities in respect of breaches would be required by providing guidelines to Member States.
6. What does a seller of insurance products need to disclose? How will the transparency rule work in practice?
The IMD revision proposes several improvements to deal with conflicts of interest between the seller of the insurance product and the potential client.
For instance, customers need to understand the status of the person who sells the insurance product. The salesperson will thus have to clearly demonstrate the role in which he is acting (agent, broker, direct writer, etc.) by presenting a business card when selling the product.
The seller will need to disclose the nature (based on a fee, commission or salary) and the structure (financed directly by the client or an undertaking) of his /her remuneration and what the premium encompasses in terms of services (claims handlings, advice, administration, etc.). At the same time, rules will be introduced to more effectively address the risk of conflicts of interest, including disclosure of remuneration by intermediaries.
7. What is the difference between mandatory disclosure and on-request disclosure? How is this regulated in different Member States? How the transitional period will work?
"Mandatory disclosure of remuneration" means that the intermediary should disclose his remuneration to the customer. "On request regime" means that the intermediary needs only to disclose his remuneration if a customer specifically requests so.
The situation is very different in Member States. Some Nordic markets (Finland and Denmark) have prohibited intermediaries from receiving commissions from insurance firms, and therefore went further than introducing simple transparency requirements. Other countries (such as Sweden and the UK) already require mandatory disclosure for some insurance policies.
As for the remuneration disclosure, the Commission proposes a five-year transitional period. This means that a mandatory 'full disclosure' regime is envisaged for the sale of life insurance products and an 'on–request' regime (i.e. on customer's demand) for the sale of non-life products with a transitional period of five years. After the expiry of this transitional period, the full disclosure regime will automatically apply for the sale of non-life products as well. This timeframe is long enough to allow SMEs to prepare and adjust their practices to the legislative change and to measure the impact of the suggested change in practice, whilst it is sufficiently short to put a full system in place in the foreseeable future. There is also a process for review and evaluation by the Commission of the Directive after its entry into force. This review shall in particular consider the impact of these disclosure rules on non-life insurance intermediaries that are small and medium-sized undertakings.
8. Do the new rules recognise the difference between non-life/pure life insurance products and life insurances with investment? How will national differences in insurance distribution be taken into account?
Some investment products are packaged as life insurance policies. These are high-risk products. The IMD revision introduces a more stringent regime for the selling practices of those products (life insurance policies with investment elements). Thus, the customer buying such a product will obtain information about the product's insurance coverage as well as the investment risks related to it. Enhanced requirements would apply to the sale, covering sales standards, conflicts of interest, and a ban on commissions for independent advice.
For non–life or pure life insurances, the new IMD would continue to have the features of a "minimum harmonisation" legal instrument at European level. This means that there is the possibility for Member States to impose stricter requirements.
For life insurance products with investment elements, a new chapter will be introduced. This chapter refers to additional, stricter conduct of business requirements for those who sell life insurance policies with investment elements and will contain conduct of business rules similar to those laid down by MiFID II.
9. Will the revised Directive apply to all market players? What will the main changes be for travel agents, car rental companies or loss adjusters or example?
Yes, it will apply to all market players.
The directive will apply to direct sellers (insurance undertakings) and will cover providers of after-sales services (such as loss adjusters).
Conversely, certain intermediaries selling insurance on an ancillary basis, or carrying out after-sales services, could use (instead of registration) a simple declaration procedure with lighter information and organisational requirements under the supervision of an insurance undertaking or registered intermediary.
10. Who will benefit and how? What are the costs and benefits of the proposed revision?
Consumers will benefit from the increased scope of the directive, which will ensure that they are protected no matter which sales channel they chose when buying insurance. They will also benefit from the enhancement of existing sales standards and the extension of those standards to new areas of protection, for example new regulations requiring that insurance sellers disclose conflicts of interest. By introducing improved and harmonised advice standards, consumers benefit by being able to compare offers in a simpler manner, even gaining the ability to compare offers across different distribution channels. This is likely to lead to an improved understanding by consumers of the services and products on offer. As a result, consumers will be inclined to compare offers and shop around for products and deals better suited to their needs. This reduces the cost paid by the consumer.
The benefits of a more stringent regime and increased consumer protection standards can be represented by calculating the reduction of "consumer detriment" ("consumer detriment" is calculated on the basis of the number of cancellations of life insurance policies before they mature, i.e. "early withdrawal" when consumers have bought products that are not suitable for their needs). Since consumer detriment could reach up to €1 trillion for EU27, only counting the sale of unit-linked insurance products, one can assume that even if a small percentage of reduction of consumer detriment could be attributed to improved regulatory standards, this small percentage will still represent a very high figure of benefits which greatly surpasses the proposal's administrative costs.
European insurance businesses will also benefit from greater consumer confidence and expanded business opportunities, including greater options for cross-border sales. Lower costs of operating cross-border and higher consumer confidence (and therefore demand) will increase sales. This should increase competition between sellers and spur positive innovation in the industry. Similar impacts could be expected from policy options that encourage insurance intermediaries' cross-border activity.
The current total costs to companies and authorities is estimated to be, in view of the large number of undertakings affected (about 1 million), a relatively moderate cost averaging about €730 per undertaking. Those costs will not be distributed equally between all undertakings – undertakings selling life insurances with investment elements will be affected more than those undertakings that only sell general insurance products.
11. Will SMEs benefit from the revision of the current rules?
SMEs which carry on insurance mediation as their principal business are already subject to the IMD. Accordingly, they are currently subject to requirements such as good reputation, competence, disclosure of status and whether advice is given and on what basis. Some 48% of sales are currently covered by the IMD – a percentage that will increase to 98% under the new proposal. The increase is mainly due to the inclusion of sales by insurance undertakings, which do not classify as SMEs under other directives (Solvency II).
The intermediaries which are SMEs and are currently outside the IMD's scope will be brought into its scope by this proposal. They are essentially businesses whose principal activity is other than insurance mediation (so this activity is purely ancillary to their main business). These intermediaries will be subject to a lighter regime as a proportionate approach to the ancillary nature of the mediation they perform.
Proportional requirements have been introduced to take account of SME concerns and to respect the principle "less complex products, less complicated rules".
12. When will the new rules come into force?
Before the new rules can come into force, the proposal must first be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council. This is likely to happen during 2013. Work on subsequent technical measures to give effect to a number of provisions would start soon thereafter, with an entry into force most likely in 2015.
13. Tangible Changes: examples of how IMD will help consumers
Hungary – In Hungary, only 17% of consumers interviewed said they relied on professional advice when buying insurance. This is emblematic of the lack of trust that pervades the insurance services market. Few consumers actually trust those intermediaries or financial advisers who ought to be in place to help them. According to a 2008 study led by AVIVA1, nearly 50´% of all consumers interviewed relied on recommendations made by friends and family, meaning that significantly more consumers rely on informal sources of advice rather than professional sources. This contributes to the general lack of information that pervades the insurance sector.
How would the IMD Revision help in this situation? Up until now, the vast majority of Member States (21 out of 27) have not instituted any requirements obliging intermediaries to disclose their remuneration or their relationship to the direct writers of the insurance product. The revised IMD would make it mandatory for intermediaries to inform their customers of this information. Ideally, this will help instil trust in consumers and encourage them to seek professional advice. The Commission's proposal also ensures that should a consumer seek advice, that advice will be honest and unbiased as a general principle, the intermediary needs always to act in the best interest of his customer. The combination of these policies will pave the way for increased consumer trust in reliable, helpful sources of information, resulting in a greater number of safer and more informed insurance product purchases.
The Netherlands – Recently, consumers in the Netherlands filed a class action lawsuit over the mis-selling of equity-linked insurance products. The consumers claimed that the insurance sellers did not sufficiently disclose the costs associated with those policies, so investors were met with far lower investment returns than they had been led to expect, in addition to finding that there were penalties on early withdrawal – penalties that the insurance sellers had also failed to notify them of. This is a problem that affects the entire EU: for EU27, the potential consumer detriment stemming from the sales of unsuitable life-insurance products could be as great as € 1.1 trillion.2
How would the IMD Revision help in this situation? Differences in regulation between life insurance products and mutual funds have caused significant problems for consumers. Currently, less strict standards apply to those products than to non-insurance investment products. The IMD revision proposal aims to address this grey area by clearing up the regulations surrounding life insurance products ad explicitly delineating the rules regarding them. The IMD revision proposal also states that all information regarding such insurance products must be fully disclosed and clearly presented by their sellers to consumers.
Aviva survey on consumer attitudes: http://www.aviva.com/customers/consumer-attitudes-survey
Commisison impact assesment on IMD, Executive Summary.
Side Bar


text: On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 03:32:15PM -0500, Rick Friedman wrote: > for CFM, I'm a > little surprised you appear to care so much about latency, since I'd > expect your workload to have the usual volume/surface-area scaling, and > thus doing a lot of work in a single node, and needing only moderate > bursts of bandwidth for nontrivial problem sizes. CFD problems come in lots of different kinds, and you seem to only have run into time-explicit problems where you run with a large grid until it reaches steady-state. Those have the least amount of communication. Other kinds of problems have less data per cpu, and care about latency. Or you can be using an implicit technique, which is usually a huge matrix computation, which can be solved in a variety of ways, some of which are lower-communication than others. In short, you don't want to ever make any any generalization about CFD as a whole. You need to specify the solution technique and data size at a minimum. -- greg

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Annual Student Symposium
For 38 years, Beloit College has recognized outstanding undergraduate student research during the Student Symposium Day. Each spring, classes are suspended for one day to allow all students and faculty to participate in the Symposium Day program.
The Annual Symposium is an opportunity for selected students to present their research to an audience of their peers and mentors who, in most cases, are Beloit College faculty. In some instances, however, students have worked on their research with faculty from other campuses ranging from the University of Chicago to the University of Ghana. Each year, approximately 50 students are selected to present their research.
Approximately one-third of Beloit College students go directly to graduate and professional study. Almost 70% of Beloit graduates eventually continue on to post-baccalaureate study within ten years of graduation.


text:
Shinedown Offer Behind the Scenes Look at Upcoming Album 'Amaryllis'
Shinedown are giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at their highly anticipated new album 'Amaryllis' ahead of its March 27 release date.
Shinedown's popularity has grown with each release since their 2003 debut album 'Leave a Whisper.' The band reached the pinnacle of their career with their wildly successful 2008 album 'The Sound of Madness,' which sold over 1.3 million copies in the United States alone.
Most bands in their position would wonder how they can outdo themselves with the follow-up to such a successful album, but not Shinedown. "It's not about beating ['The Sound of Madness'], it's about taking it to a new level," says vocalist Brent Smith of their upcoming album 'Amaryllis.'
We recently premiered the music video for the band's current chart-topping single 'Bully.' Watch it here. And in a new video of Shinedown via Noisecreep, you can see the band rehearsing for their headlining spot on the Avalanche tour, as well as talking about their history and the direction on the new album. Check it out below:


text:
This finding about the effects of no fault divorce says so much about how laws can encourage or discourage the worst in men. Even without assault on women being specifically institutionalized, laws have an enormous impact.
A 2004 study by Stanford Business School discovered fascinating facts about how no-fault divorce impacted women:
- 20% reduction in female suicide after 20 years (none for men)
- 33% reduction in domestic violence against women (after a rise in other states vs. a drop in no-fault states)
- Decline in the domestic murder rate for women (none for men)
Researchers concluded a key driver of these trends was that men were encouraged to behave better because they knew it would be easy for their spouses to divorce. [emphasis mine]
The Real Causes of Divorce -- America Has to Stop Blaming It on Women
Views: 229
There's a problem with divorce being blamed on women? In almost all of the breakups and divorces I know of, amongst my friends, it was almost always the guy's fault, acknowledged by pretty much everyone. Amy was a bit of a headcase, but she was special.
© 2019 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: The Nexus Group. Powered by


text:
- Where: Beijing, Wuhan, Xi'an
When: April 13 – 23, 2011
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The subject of diabetes is one that is close to my heart. My father is a diabetic and recently a close friend was diagnosed as one too. Every new discovery to a "cure" is always exciting news. It is exciting that intestinal surgery has brought remission of the disease on some people.
The following is a press release from New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center/Weill Cornell Medical College.
NEW YORK – Growing evidence shows that surgery may effectively cure type 2 diabetes – an approach that not only may change the way the disease is treated, but that introduces a new way of thinking about diabetes.
A new article, published in a special supplement to the February issue of Diabetes Care by a leading expert in the emerging field of diabetes surgery, points to the small bowel as the possible site of critical mechanisms for the development of diabetes.
The study's author, Dr. Francesco Rubino of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, presents scientific evidence on the mechanisms of diabetes control after surgery. Clinical studies have shown that procedures that simply restrict the stomach's size (i.e., gastric banding) improve diabetes only by inducing massive weight loss.
By studying diabetes in animals, Dr. Rubino was the first to provide scientific evidence that gastrointestinal bypass operations involving rerouting the gastrointestinal tract (i.e., gastric bypass) can cause diabetes remission independently of any weight loss, even in subjects who are not obese.
"By answering the question of how diabetes surgery works, we may be answering the question of how diabetes itself works," says Dr. Rubino, who is a professor in the Department of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.
Focus on the Upper Intestine
Dr. Rubino's prior research has shown that the primary mechanisms by which gastrointestinal bypass procedures control diabetes specifically rely on the bypass of the upper small intestine – the duodenum and jejunum. This is a key finding that may point to the origins of diabetes.
"When we bypass the duodenum and jejunum, we are bypassing what may be the source of the problem," says Dr. Rubino, who is heading up NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell's Diabetes Surgery Center.
In fact, it has become increasingly evident that the gastrointestinal tract plays an important role in energy regulation, and that many gut hormones are involved in the regulation of sugar metabolism. "It should not surprise anyone that surgically altering the bowel's anatomy affects the mechanisms that regulate blood sugar levels, eventually influencing diabetes," Dr. Rubino says.
While other gastrointestinal operations may cure diabetes as an effect of changes that improve blood sugar levels, Dr. Rubino's research findings in animals show that procedures based on a bypass of the upper intestine may work instead by reversing abnormalities of blood glucose regulation.
In fact, bypass of the upper small intestine does not improve the ability of the body to regulate blood sugar levels. "When performed in subjects who are not diabetic, the bypass of the upper intestine may even impair the mechanisms that regulate blood levels of glucose," says Dr. Rubino. In striking contrast, when nutrients' passage is diverted from the upper intestine of diabetic patients, diabetes resolves.
This, he explains, implies that the upper intestine of diabetic patients may be the site where an abnormal signal is produced, causing, or at least favoring, the development of the disease.
A Theoretical Explanation
How exactly the upper intestine is dysfunctional remains to be seen. Dr. Rubino proposes an original explanation known in the scientific community as the "anti-incretin theory."
Incretins are gastrointestinal hormones, produced in response to the transit of nutrients, that boost insulin production. Because an excess of insulin can determine hypoglycemia – a life-threatening condition – Dr. Rubino speculates that the body has a counter-regulatory mechanism (or "anti-incretin" mechanism), activated by the same passage of nutrients through the upper intestine. The latter mechanism would act to decrease both the secretion and the action of insulin.
"In healthy patients, a correct balance between incretin and anti-incretin factors maintains normal excursions of sugar levels in the bloodstream," he explains. "In some individuals, the duodenum and jejunum may be producing too much of this anti-incretin, thereby reducing insulin secretion and blocking the action of insulin, ultimately resulting in type 2 diabetes."
Indeed, in type 2 diabetes, cells are resistant to the action of insulin and the pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin to overcome the resistance.
After gastrointestinal bypass procedures, the exclusion of the upper small intestine from the transit of nutrients may offset the abnormal production of anti-incretin, thereby resulting in remission of diabetes.
A Call for Research
In order to better understand these mechanisms, and help make the potential benefits of diabetes surgery more widely available, Dr. Rubino calls for prioritizing research in diabetes surgery. "Further research on the exact molecular mechanisms of diabetes, surgical control of diabetes and the role played by the bowel in the disease may bring us closer to the cause of diabetes."
Today, most patients with diabetes are not offered a surgical option, and bariatric surgery is recommended only for those with severe obesity – a body mass index (BMI) of greater than 35.
"It has become clear, however, that BMI cut-offs can no longer be used to determine who is an ideal candidate for surgical treatment of diabetes," says Dr. Rubino.
"There is, in fact, growing evidence that diabetes surgery can be effective even for patients who are only slightly obese or just overweight. Clinical trials in this field are therefore a priority as they allow us to compare diabetes surgery to other treatment options in the attempt to understand when the benefits of surgery outweigh its risks. Clinical guidelines for diabetes surgery will certainly be different from those for bariatric surgery, and should not be based only on BMI levels," he notes.
"The lesson we have learned with diabetes surgery is that diabetes is not always a chronic and relentless disease, where the only possible treatment goal is just the control of hyperglycemia and minimization of the risk of complications. Gastrointestinal surgery offers the possibility of complete disease remission. This is a major shift in the way we consider treatment goals for diabetes. It is unprecedented in the history of the disease," adds Dr. Rubino.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all cases of diabetes, and is a growing epidemic that afflicts more than 200 million people worldwide.
Type 2 Diabetes May Be Caused by Intestinal DysfunctionPosted by Puteri | 5/05/2008 02:16:00 PM | 2 comments »
The subject of diabetes is one that is close to my heart. My father is a diabetic and recently a close friend was diagnosed as one too. Every new discovery to a "cure" is always exciting news. It is exciting that intestinal surgery has brought remission of the disease on some people.
2 comments
Bob (The Traveller)
5:43 AM, May 06, 2008
Wow.. this is exciting. I know some people are insulin resistant but the pancreas produce more insulin to counter it. These people are non-diabetics. In diabetics, the cells are insulin resistant and the pancreas do not produce more insulin to balance because the sugar detecting mechanism does not work well. This surgery seems to tackle the sugar detection mechanism aspect making them like the first group of people. But I still do wonder what makes insulin resistance... I heard it's the lack of insulin receptors on the cells.
11:38 PM, May 06, 2008
The best pictures of cats,pictures of cute cats,funny pictures of cats,funny cat videos,in the http://www.pictures-of-cat.com/


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Keswick Vineyards benefit for Daryl Bagley
The folks out at Keswick Vineyards will be hosting a benefit auction for their vineyard manager, Daryl Bagley, who was recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Bagley has worked in the Virginia wine business for 25 years. The event will be held this Friday, July 9 from 6pm to 9pm.
"Agricultural work doesn't always leave one in the best financial circumstances, and unfortunately Daryl does not have any life insurance to support his wife and girls," say the folks at Keswick on their website.
The silent and live auction will include some rare wine lots (including signed bottles by Dave Matthews), great packages from hotels and B&B's, professional chefs, and cooking classes.
Jazz musician, Joshua Walker, will be playing live all evening and Harvest Moon has generously offered to cater the event. For more information contact the vineyard at email@example.com or 434-244-3341.
If you are unable to attend the event and would still like to contribute to Daryl and his family please mail checks (payable to Ann and Daryl Bagley) to Keswick Vineyards at 1575 Keswick Winery Dr., Keswick, VA 22947. For credit card donations click here.
3 comments
I hope this is a heads up for all of us moms and dads to get life insurance.
My prayers are with Mr. Bagley and his family. Unfortunately, the rest of of us probably don't have such good connections to raise money for us should the unthinkable happen- so get life insurance!
I don't work in the insurance industry. I am in the military, though, and I have seen plenty of younger men die and leave behind wives and young children. The family of a soldier who dies will get $550k, but that won't go very far if he has a family.
My 20-year term life policy for $500k costs me just $24 a month. I guarantee that most of us are able to find at least double that to insure our cars, and probably triple that amount for text and data cell phone plans.
There are plenty of quote sites available online. To anyone supporting a family- do what it takes to support them if you were to die tomorrow!
Nothing against the military, but that death benefit is one more example of how well we actually do try and take care of our soldiers. Very few jobs would offer such death benefits for the average Joe.
I am sorry to say most of the military Vet's would have far less in their savings account if they died at a normal age. 550k would pay off the spouse's home, and pay for in state college tuition, books, and housing for her children just fine. Given that a house payment is not needed, she should be able to save something of her own.
Yeah, I agree, it's great. Beyond the death benefits there are a lot of programs and organizations for support. I counsel that it's not enough for someone with a family, though.
I am not arguing we need to increase the military death gratuity and SGLI- just that people have to take responsibility for themselves. A man dies at age 35. Figure he owes $250k on the house, there's $300k left. If your kids are at the age where they have 10 years left at home, that's $30k a year in support to your family.
If your spouse gets a decent job or remarries, no worries. But if your spouse is a stay-at-home mom whose best job prospect is $30k (and paying a day care), she'll need more. That is why I spend the small amount of $24 a month- 3 lunches at Subway- for a term life policy.
Anyone with a family needs to seriously think about getting life insurance. It's no fun to think about dying- I usually only do so when in turbulence or cleaning my gutters- but we have to do it.


text: On Sep 30, 2008, at 11:37 AM, Robert G. Brown wrote: > > > However, I would think it would require a lot of work to get the > kernel(s) to respect a usec-synchronized clock, assuming that one > could > constrain the hardware so that it didn't generate too much random > (e.g. > interrupt) noise on its own. > > rgb > > -- I don 't think this is all that hard - once we got the cycle counters synchronized here at SiCortex, the rest of Linux behaves fairly well. The first trick is to get all the timer interrupts to happen at the same time. On our MIPS cores, this is easy by using an interrupt generated by a comparator against the cycle counter (architectural feature). I would hope there is something similar in x86. Once the timer interrupts are synchronized, pretty much all background tasks become syncronized. This even works for many device drivers that use the device interrupt to schedule a tasklet or top half. The next step is gang scheduling of kernel threads, so that all the, say, kswapd's system wide chose the same timer tick to wake up. The next step is gang scheduling of user threads, so that all the, say, cron daemons wake up on the same timer tick. Our experience is that just aligning the timer interrupts helps a lot. -Larry


text:
R&S ZVA-Z110 mm-wave converters allow measurements in the W band
Munich, 12 October 2007 — The R&S ZVA-Z110 mm-wave converters add the frequency range from 75 GHz to 110 GHz (W band) to the high-end network analyzers from Rohde & Schwarz. This covers important frequency bands such as for vehicle distance radar (77 GHz) or aerospace and defense applications (94 GHz). Additional hardware is not necessary, which saves time and costs. Moreover, Rohde & Schwarz is the first provider to support multiport measurements in the W band. The four-port models of the network analyzers do not require an additional external generator, which considerably reduces measurement times. The R&S ZVA-Z110 converters from Rohde & Schwarz set standards in the field of test and measurement for the W band. The converters can be integrated into wafer probers. The dynamic range of typ. >110 dB allows faster measurements and tests on high-rejection filters. Owing to the converters' multiport technology, it is possible to perform three-port and four-port measurements on balanced circuits for MMICs in the automotive area (77 GHz). Tests on low-noise amplifiers can also be performed without any problem for the first time. These tests require low input power levels, which were not provided in existing solutions. The R&S ZVA-Z110 now makes it possible to continuously attenuate the output power by as much as 25 dB. This is especially of advantage when doing research on radar and satellite applications. With respect to test setup, the R&S ZVA-Z110 converters are designed to save time. They are entirely integrated into the firmware of the high-end network analyzers from Rohde & Schwarz. The converters can thus be operated as if they are part of the base unit. Diagrams show the user how to connect the converters. The automatic setting of the power levels prevents damage to the converters. Moreover, Rohde & Schwarz offers the R&S ZV-WR10 calibration kit for the W band. The R&S ZVA-Z110 mm-wave converters for the R&S ZVA24, R&S ZVA40, and R&S ZVT20 network analyzers are now available from Rohde & Schwarz.


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Got this from Home Depot for $1.99 November 2011.
What with me having about 5 types of cactus now ive started looking at other types with an eye to developing my cactus range. Being a bit poor at the moment I could only afford small things. they had a massive Golden Barrel for $20, well, a 1 or 2 gallon pot, but I spotted this tiny one and figured that I can wait. I just with they did other plants at smaller sizes.
I planted this in the front garden but then I ran over it with the lawn mower.
This is really small at the moment


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HOWTO: Install Sabayon with GRUB2 and GPT on a New System
A. A Little Background:
In terms of HDD formatting and booting, the world of computing is in the middle of an interesting yet confusing phase. Both the transition from MBR to GPT partition schemes and the new GRUB bootloader, which is not backwards compatible, introduce a learning curve where geeks haven't had one in a long time.
The Goal:
- A flexible and extensible, forward compatible 64-bit Linux-based system
- Sabayon will be the primary OS, with partitions for 2 more distros
- The ability to easily erase and reallocate partitions if desired
- Separate partitions for swap, /data, and /boot to be shared between all distros
Hardware and Software used:
- A newly built system with modern components
o 2.8GHz Hex-Core AMD CPU o AM3 Socket MoBo with new BIOS that recognizes all hardware o 4GB DDR3 RAM o 1TB HDD o Samsung DVD/CD optical drive
- Sabayon 5.3 x86-64 KDE DVD
- Most recent GParted Live Disk
- Most recent Super Grub Disk (just in case)
- Printout of guides or 2nd computer to figure things out
GPT vs. MBR
MBR, or Master Boot Record, is a partition table format that has been around for over 30 years. It has served us well, but it is quickly becoming obsolete. It is still, by far at the time of writing, the most deployed and most compatible way of doing it for desktop PC's. If you've ever partitioned you know that there are annoying quirks that it has. The two most confronting are that it only allows for 4 primary partitions and the device it is used on cannot exceed 2TB.
GUID Partition Table, or GPT, is the next generation solution for sorting HDD's and SSD's. GPT pushes the device limit all the way out to 9.44 billion TB's, allows for seemingly unlimited primary partitions, and even allows you to attach a short label to each, so they may be easily be identified when unmounted. Eliminating the primary-logical volume distinction allows for simpler, more flexible partitioning. Finally, GPT is a bit more reliable, in that it writes the partition table to the drive redundantly, making your system easier to recover should that precious sector happen to be the one to go bad first.This is the scheme we want for today and the next few years.
GPT is still not as broadly compatible as MBR setups, especially when it comes to aging hardware and OS's. It needs 3 GPT-aware components to make it work:
- Bootloader
- All installed OS's (Most recent Linux distros have this feature)
- Partitioning Tools (GParted and parted win again)
GRUB2 vs. GRUB1 (Legacy)
GRUB2 is a more efficient, more capable version of its predecessor. Still, there is no shortage of complaining, whining, and cry for help on any number of forums about the progressive changeover thereto. The structure is different and it is not backwards compatible with its predecessor, meaning that all distros you use with a GRUB2 system must use GRUB2 instead of GRUB Legacy. Simply put, the new version is better, but it involves adaptation of the user, and the OS or combination thereof that you may wish to use with it may not yet be compatible as is. Unlike GRUB Legacy, GRUB2 supports GPT disks. Sabayon, Ubuntu and its derivatives, and several others have made the jump, so GRUB2 is the way to go.
B. Partitioning:
1. Make sure your optical drive is set as the first boot device in your BIOS. Place the GParted Live disk in the tray and reboot.
Choose your graphics configuration, keymap and language preference accordingly.
2. Choose 'Create Partition Table' from the Device menu in GParted.
Click the arrow to expand the Advanced options. Select 'gpt' and click 'Apply.'
When this finishes, you will have blank hard drive ready for new partitions.
3. Select the empty gray area representing your hard drive, then click 'New' to begin creating partitions.
4. The FIRST partition on your drive should NEEDS to be a small one for the system to store your partition table and GRUB2's 'boot.img' file. This should be a FAT32 partition of minimum size, like 32MB's. This is a slightly more transparent way of doing what MBR used to do in the first sector of your HDD all along. Yes, you must do this or your system will not work. Click 'Apply'. Right click on the partition and choose 'Manage Flags', then select "bios_grub". Close the window and right click on the partition again, this time choosing 'Label.' Enter "BOOT_GRUB."
Apply it.
5. The SECOND partition NEEDS to be your /boot partition. This is where GRUB2 will store its configuration files and links to your OS partitions. You need both this and the above BOOT_GRUB partitions for this to work. Be generous, make this a 1GB partition in ext2 format. Flag it "boot" and label it "GRUB_FILES".
6. Create a Linux swap partition, 1-2 times the size of your RAM, in linux-swap format. No label or flag is necessary on this one.
7. On to the OS partitions. I want 3 of them and I like to have plenty of space, flexibility for all sorts of things, including source-based distros, so I went with 60GB each (61440 MB). I like to put these at the end of the space, so create the 60GB allocations in ext4 and slide the box to the far right until there is zero space following it. Do this for as few or as many as you would like and label them in a manner that will assist you in figuring out which is which. I labeled the partition on which I intended to install Sabayon as.... "SABAYON".
8. Last, but not least is where I am going to put all my goodies, the /data partition. This should take up the remainder of the HDD space, be formatted to ext4, and labeled "DATA". I have found this is the best way to do it on a multi-boot system. You can store your files and key folders there, such as your Firefox and Thunderbird profiles, and symlink the dot files from within the /home folder of each distro, respectively, without getting too jumbled up.
9. Be sure to click 'Apply.' Sketch out a quick map of your partition table, to include the /sda#'s and what goes where.
It should look something like:
(Screenshot of Partition Table needed here.)
Exit GParted Live and select Reboot. When it ejects the disc, place your Sabayon DVD in the tray, close it, and hit enter.
C. Install Sabayon
Sabayon's new installer, Anaconda, is really easy and quite fast. I should know, I did this about a dozen times in a day and a half figuring this out. :oops: I really appreciate the devs work on streamlining it. It really is self-explanatory. There are only a few things to pay mind:
1. If you are multi-booting and using the /data method that I recommend above, be sure to use the same username in each distro. This will save you headaches in accessing it. Once you get Sabayon installed, you will probably have to change the ownership and permissions on the partition within Sabayon.
2. When you get to the partitioning setup, choose the option to do a Custom Layout. Make it match the relevant parts as you partitioned them with GParted and choose the appropriate mount points.
It should look something like this:
|Mount Point
|<---Don't touch
|<---Don't touch
|<---Don't touch (other distros)
3. When the installer asks you if and where you want to install the bootloader, choose to do it and leave the default setting of MBR on /sda and move forward.
This is where it will mess with you, if you look at the options, because you know that there now is no MBR on your disk and it should write it to the first partition of the HDD, which is an alternate option provided. GPT is intuitive and provides for attempts to write to the MBR and defers them to the BOOT_GRUB partition that you gave it as a present in proper fashion. Let it do its thing, it works better that way. 3 installs on that little snag, folks, trust me on this one.
4. When the installer finishes, reboot, making certain to remove the Sabayon Live Disc by pressing your drives button as soon as you see the BIOS graphic. You should soon see the GRUB menu and then your new Sabayon begin to load. As I mentioned before, you may have to change the ownership of your /data partition to your username instead of the root account to get to it easily and be able to write to it. This can be done graphically as root or in a terminal using a 'chown -R' command.
I haven't tried to install other distros yet, but I like the idea of having Sabayon be the GRUB2 host, as it runs the latest version and has GUI tools to manipulate the grub.cfg. I'll let you know how that goes when I get into it.


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Thai Un-peanut sauce Kale Chip Recipe and menu
This week we've had a lot of kale at the House of Yum. I called this kale week. It might have been more accurate to call it kale chip week, as every single recipe I've shared for kale has involved my beloved Mr. Nesco and, well, turning kale into dehydrated raw foods chips. I made balsamic sweet onion kale chips, tahini un-cheesy kale chips, and now, thai un-peanut almond kale chips. I didn't mean to; it just happened that every time I had a bunch of kale in my hands my thoughts automatically turned to dehydrated chips. The last recipe came about when I planned to make Valerie's Red Curry Thai Kale Chips, got as far as the almond butter when I found out I was out of curry sauce, and switched gears to follow up on an idea I had previously for a Thai "peanut-sauce" kale chip, sans peanut.
It is a good thing you are all more creative than I am, because my Kale Carnival turned out a bevy of glorious recipes, with only a small kale chip contingent. Rikki's raw kale salad reminds me that kale can be good fresh, Cheryl's Kale Pesto demonstrates that sometimes kale can be wonderful when you don't even recognize it, while Wendy's Kale and Potato Cakes shows us how comforting kale can be in a family friendly dish.
I'm inspired, and sad to say goodbye to kale as the week draws to a close. I don't think I'll ever have a problem finding a new way to make kale, thanks to all of these entries and ideas. The linky will be up for at least 5 more days, so I welcome you to join in and add your favorite kale recipe to the carnival. I might just have to have another one of these ingredient carnivals soon!
Speaking of ingredients, I thought I'd share a quick menu.
Monday: American Vegan
Alisa's Orange "Cheesy" Sauce with steamed broccoli and gluten-free pasta
Tuesday: Indian
Cauliflower Pilaf
Okra Supreme
Wednesday: Japanese Fusion
Slightly Spicy Tofu-Avocado Sushi Rolls
Friday: Italian
Alisa's Go Dairy Free Eggplant un-cheesy parmesan
Gluten-free Flatbread
Baked Good: Chocolate Surprise
Shared with Org Junkie and In My Box and Slightly Indulgent Tuesday
When I shared this kale chip with my Dad, who last wrinkled his nose in dismay at "dried leaves" from the oven, he took one, tasted it, and got a twinkle in his eye. Then he grabbed another handful. That says it all, I think.
Almond Butter Sauce Kale Chip Recipe
1 very large bunch of kale (or 1 1/2 small bunches), deveined
1/2 cup raw almond butter (scant)
Combine ingredients for sauce, put clean and spun dry kale in a large bowl, massage sauce into leaves and dehydrate on 115f for 6+ hours or longer until leaves are dry and crunchy. The curlier the leaves, the longer you will have to dehydrate.
Use any leftover sauce for dressing.
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text:
MySpace Music Present The Game LA to LAX in Las Vegas Part 1
The Game Give MySpace A Interview And A Show For The Upcoming L.A.X. Album. Part 1
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text:
Pegasystems has enhanced its "Pega Cloud" business process management (BPM) offering with cloud security and integration technologies that the company claims will help bind its technology to existing data centers. This on-demand BPM solution is presented as an all-in-one BPM cloud offering with dynamic case management capabilities and 24x7 managed services and support.
In an effort to try and differentiate its technology, Pegasystems says that unlike most cloud BPM offerings that only provide the ability to model solutions, Pega Cloud for BPM has all the capabilities of Pegasystems' SmartBPM platform to help design and run BPM solutions on-demand. Pega Cloud for BPM also claims to avoid the need to procure, install, and maintain IT infrastructure that typically adds to project costs and implementation time.
While industry analysts argue that elasticity and powerful virtualization tools also need to be core parts of any "all-in-one" cloud proposition, Pegasystems appears to have assumed that these factors are either implied or implicit in its own offering. "Pega Cloud empowers clients to move their solution from the cloud to an on-premise solution if they wish to do so, without locking them into only running their applications on the cloud," according to the company.
"Nearly one out of five companies who are improving their business processes with BPM are using public or private cloud services to support at least one of their business processes," said Michele Cantara, research VP at Gartner. "Adoption of BPM cloud technologies is growing. Companies that might not have considered cloud solutions a year ago are considering using BPMS as a service, when the cloud service provider is able to ensure security, address country-level data location regulations, offer true pay-as-you-go pricing, integration with core on-premise systems, and on-premise and cloud deployment options. Process simplification and the move to shared service centers is fueling demand for BPMS cloud-enabled platforms to support private cloud deployments."


text:
Polysciences offers colloidal silica microspheres packaged as economical 5% solids dispersion of amorphous silica particles in water with NaOH as a stabilizer. One of the advantages of silica microspheres over polymer microspheres is their exceptional stability. Also, the surface of silica microspheres can be easily functionalized by reaction with organosilanes.
0.10µm ± 0.03µm
- Hazards:
- Harmless-use normal precautions
- Handling:
- Exercise normal care
- Storage:
- Store at 4 degrees celsius;Do not permit to freeze


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Someday she returned and also stated the proprietor, Danny, asked if she wished to do a "try-out" to begin obtaining a couple of reservations. I asked just what a try-out was, to which she responded that Danny offers the lady an individual session to see if they depend on functioning criterion.
" Yet you're not interested to do that right?" I asked.
Amy drew a $100 costs out her bag. "I understood we were brief on rental fee this month, so I believed it would certainly be safe as well as I really did not assume it would certainly be infiltration anyhow"
Currently I was reclaimed "hold on, so there was infiltration or otherwise?" I quized, my mind competing back to when she was providing me an impact work simply that early morning and also appeared exceptionally sexy.
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I have a sweetheart, Amy, that has actually been researching the last couple of years as well as had a number of laid-back work to bring some added cash money in. Previously this year she began doing just what she assured was just front workdesk assistant job at evening for a companion firm/ whorehouse. I began dropping her off to make certain she was risk-free yet ended up being comfy with it after a month or so.
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text:
Connie Lower, EdD
Dr. Connie Lower is part of the core faculty in the Entry Point & Social Science department that is part of the Division of General Education at Ashford University, where she has been a faculty member since 2008. She has a Doctorate in Education with a specialization in the Instructional Process and a Certification for the Superintendency from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, as well as a Master of Science in Educational Administration and a Bachelor of Science in K-9 education from Illinois State University at Normal. She began her education experience as a science teacher and entered administration in 1985 as a public school assistant superintendent and superintendent before moving into higher education. Dr. Lower has always been passionate about education and the opportunity to assist others in attaining their goals, whether pre-schoolers or adults. "Ashford has students that are serious about upgrading their lives and the lives of their families," she says, "and the Ashford staff members are all tremendous individuals who wish to give these non-traditional students a chance." To prospective students, she says, "You are here at Ashford because you have a dream of fulfilling a goal that will make your life comfortable and full of joy. Everyone at Ashford believes in you and will serve as your support system and your cheerleaders when you need motivation to continue on!" Dr. Lower lives in Lanark, IL, and she and her husband have nine children and 27 grandchildren.


text:
Estimated price for 1 night/2 adults
Estimated price for 1 night/2 adults
Estimated price for 1 night/2 adults
Hit the beach and soak up some rays at one of Byron Bay's famous beaches, which are some of the prettiest and cleanest on the east coast of Australia. Bring your surfboard too, as Byron is known for its great surf breaks! Head a little further east and visit Cape Byron, Australia's most easterly point and a great location for whale and dolphin watching. The most commonly sighted whale is the Humpback as they migrate past in May and June to breed, and return in September and October with their calves. Take a stroll around Cape Byron and up to the lighthouse, as the area has spectacular views of the ocean and rainforests. Our Byron Bay accommodation also makes a great base for experiencing the local Aboriginal culture and historical sites, which are maintained by members of the Arakwal clan. The area has a number of sites where the Aborigines camped and ate pipis, fish and animals, and the oldest site in the region is located at Palm Valley.
Head out of town and visit Crystal Castle, just 20 minutes from Byron. This tranquil place is a popular attraction and features stunning crystals surrounded by beautiful gardens, as well as a store that sells jewellery and other spiritual goods. For a great family day out, head to Macadamia Castle and visit the animal park, mini golf course, adventure playground and try a range of tasty macadamia goodies. Byron Bay also has a wide variety of quality restaurants, great takeaways, clothes boutiques and a number of shops selling works by local artists. The Byron Bay Markets are held the first Sunday of every month at the Butler Street reserve, and have numerous stalls selling handcrafted wares, artworks and locally-grown produce. Byron Bay is also home to a number of annual music festivals including the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival, held over the Easter weekend, and the Splendour in The Grass Festival, held at the end of July.
Byron Bay is an easy two hour drive from Brisbane and a one hour drive from Sydney, making it ideal for a beach escape. Leaving the car at home? Take advantage of the shuttle buses that run between the Brisbane CBD, airport, Surfers Paradise and Ballina. No matter how you get there, prepare yourself for a great holiday with our Byron Bay accommodation.
Need insider tips on must-see attractions in Byron Bay? Check out our Byron Bay travel guide!
Hotels in Byron Bay start at AU$72 per night. Prices and availability subject to change. Additional terms may apply.
The best fares to get you there
Affordable cars to get you around town
Save more by combining flights, hotels and cars
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text:
THE PRINCIPLE- The Movie Big Science Does NOT want YOU to see. SEE IT NOW.
Discuss bitcoin, litecoin, terracoin, and new and upcoming variants.
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See File handling.
Ctrl+X Ctrl+F
Load file into a buffer ready for editing. If the name of a non-existent file is given, then an empty buffer is created in to which text can be inserted. Only when a save is done will the file be created.
Ctrl+X Ctrl+S
Save the contents of the current buffer to the associated file. If there is no associated file, one is created with the same name as the buffer


text:
As a Euclid, Ohio native, who is proud to call that town my birthplace — and a fan of Lincoln Electric, where my father worked nearly his whole adult life and where I worked my first real communications job — I am proud to see this story about how Lincoln will be erecting one of the nation's largest wind turbines right on its property.
Lincoln agreed to buy the turbine to demonstrate its support of building a wind turbine manufacturing facility in the Greater Cleveland area. Just the one turbine is expected to save the company nearly a half-million dollars on its electricity bills.
I can't wait to see it along the highway and hope I can learn more about the technology that goes into such a large machine. I imagine there are some powerful hydraulics that will run it. Stay tuned!


text:
SANTA ANA (CNS) – A mother who reportedly abducted her 4-year-old girl from a motel in Santa Ana was found with the little girl at a movie theater in Victorville, police said today.
Both the mother and child have been taken into custody.
The mother, Rachel Ashley Marks, 25, was booked into the Santa Ana Police Department Jail for alleged child abduction. The child, Taylor Faith Marks, has been returned to her father, according to a department statement.
Officers were called to the hotel at 2600 N. Main St. around 8:30 a.m. Friday. They were told that the father, who has sole custody of the girl, was with the child's mother on Thursday night, according to Santa Ana police.
All three spent the night at the motel, but when the father woke up the child and her mother were gone, in violation of a court-ordered child custody agreement, police said.
Investigators believed the mother may have been en route to Las Vegas, where she lives, according to Santa Ana police.


text:
Since I rarely plan meals ahead of time, I am usually at a loss for what to make when it's time to get started on my cooking for the day. It was one of those weekend mornings when I was stumped, as usual, on what to make for breakfast. I turned to my bookmarks folder for help and inspiration came in the form of this recipe that I'd bookmarked ages ago, from Arundathi's blog. The original recipe is Anjum Anand's, and here she demonstrates how the cake (I like to call it a baked rava upma ) is made.
1 cup semolina/rava/sooji/cream of wheat
1 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup water (somewhere between ¼ to ½ cup of water - use just enough to make a thick batter)
½ tsp red chilli powder
½ tsp roasted cumin powder
1 tsp baking soda
Also required are:
2 Tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2-3 finely chopped green chillies
5-6 curry leaves, finely chopped (kasuri methi would work too, for a different flavor)
½ tsp ginger paste
½ onion, finely chopped
¼ red bell pepper, chopped
¼ cup frozen peas
Preheat the oven to 375 F and grease a loaf pan.
Heat the oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, green chillies, chopped curry leaves and ginger, followed by the vegetables in quick succession. Cook for a minute or two, stirring frequently.
In a large bowl, mix together the semolina, yogurt, water, the contents of the pan, and salt to make a fairly thick batter. Add more water if required, to bring the batter together.
Stir in the baking soda and immediately pour the batter into the loaf pan.
Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top is golden-brown. Mine was almost done in 30 minutes; so I turned off the oven and just let it sit inside for another 5 minutes or so.
Remove from the oven and cool for a bit. Slice and serve.


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Millions of boomer men have recharged their sex lives thanks to Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs, but are their wives equally thrilled?
That was the question that writer Judith Newman poses in her article "Love in the Time of Viagra," in the May issue of Prevention magazine.
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As she puts it, "While men of a certain age are undoubtedly thrilled to have their sexual potency restored, maybe their wives' enthusiasm is a bit more subdued? What at first glance seems an obvious win-win situation for both husbands and wives can have a raft of unintended consequences. "
She's not knocking the little blue pill. She calls it "a wonder drug," and says it can have both psychological and cardiovascular benefits for men.
The problem comes in balancing the husband's newfound sexual prowess with his wife's post-menopausal changes , including lower sexual desire and vaginal changes that can make intercourse uncomfortable.
Newman also writes that both partners need to realize that the pill doesn't work by itself — desire and intent are still needed.
Get discounts on everyday products and services with your AARP Member Advantages.
"Couples really need to talk about what each partner in the relationship expects," says a couples counselor in the article.
Good advice even if you're not taking the little blue pill.
Photo credit: bravenewtraveler via Flickr.
Also of Interest
- 6 Reasons Why Sex Is (Much) Better After 50
- 4 Surgeries to Avoid
- Shopping for health insurance? The health insurance marketplace is now open
- Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being


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Oglethorpe University
Oglethorpe University provides a superior education in the liberal arts and sciences and selected professional disciplines in a coeducational largely residential small-college environment within a dynamic urban setting. Oglethorpe's academically rigorous programs emphasize intellectual curiosity individual attention and encouragement close collaboration among faculty and students and active learning in relevant field experiences. Oglethorpe is committed to supporting the success of all students in a diverse community characterized by civility caring inquiry and tolerance. Oglethorpe's talented self-reliant and motivated graduates are prepared to make a life and to make a living to grow as life-long learners and to be energetic and intelligent contributors in a rapidly changing world.
School Information4484 Peachtree Rd NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30319-2797
Locale: Suburb: Large
Open Admissions: Yes
Sector: Private not-for-profit, 4-year or above
Carnegie Basic: Baccalaureate Colleges--Arts & Sciences
Religious Affiliation: Not applicable
Accrediting Agency: Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges
Common name(s): Oglethorpe
Students & Faculty
Total Tuition $53,490.00
SAT Scores:
25th-75th percentile
ACT Scores:
25th-75th percentile22-28
Note: 25th-75th percentile ranges show the range of scores achieved by the middle 50% of students who were admitted to the school.
Other Requirements:
Degrees & Programs
|American/United States Studies/Civilization
|Art History, Criticism and Conservation
|Biology/Biological Sciences, General
|Business Administration and Management, General
|Chemistry, General
|Drama and Dramatics/Theatre Arts, General
|Economics, General
|Engineering, General
|English Language and Literature, General
|Fine/Studio Arts, General
|French Language and Literature
|History, General
|Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration, General
|International Relations and Affairs
|Liberal Arts and Sciences/Liberal Studies
|Mathematics, General
|Organizational Behavior Studies
|Physics, General
|Political Science and Government, General
|Psychology, General
|Rhetoric and Composition
|Spanish Language and Literature


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The explosiveness of the Patriots' offense is well-documented and undeniable. But the Patriots' defense has received mixed reviews early in the 2011 season.
The Pats' defense has given up an NFL-high 477.5 yards per game and 368.8 passing yards per game. It's also given up 24.5 points per game, which is toward the bottom of the league.
The unit improved a bit in Week 4, holding the Raiders to 19 points — the lowest point total that they've given up so far this season. But there's some that wonder whether the Pats will be able to grind out wins, which is something most playoff teams will have to do at one point or another.
Still, despite a less than impressive start by the team's defense, there's still reasons to be optimistic.
There's a lot of talent on the Pats' defense, which means that the early-season woes could simply be a case of the unit not quite gelling yet.
Also, the defense has showed that it can often provide a "bend but don't break" type of effort. The Pats have created some turnovers when teams have moved the ball into the red zone, and the defensive line has been quite stingy near the goal line.
The Pats have struggled to stop opponents at times, but the defense has still showed that it has big-play capability.
Cornerback Devin McCourty, who is coming off a very impressive rookie season, hasn't played up to his full potential thus far, which can be looked at in one of two ways. It's either concerning or it's reason to believe the defense will only improve once he does get back on track.
The same can be said for injuries that have hampered Albert Haynesworth, Patrick Chung, Leigh Bodden and Ras-I Dowling at points this season. Injuries are always concerning, and Jerod Mayo's knee injury could hurt the defense, but they also show that better days could be on tap once everyone is at 100 percent — or as close to it as possible.
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RAW Nitrogen contains 20% Ammonium Nitrogen (N) in a Water Soluble form. RAW Nitrogen does not contain nitrates or urea which enables it to be applied at all stages of growth and bloom. Continue Reading
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RAW Potassium contains 50% Water Soluble Potash derived from potassium sulfate. This is the highest concentration of natural Water Soluble Potassium available to the home gardener. Continue Reading
RAW Kelp is 99% Kelp extract from seaweed (Ascophyllum Nodosum). This product is water Soluble and contains only 1% soluble potash which is a direct reflection of its purity. Continue Reading
RAW Humic Acid contains 59% Humic Acids derived from Leonardite which is the most concentrated, water Soluble humic acid product on the market today. In nature, humic acid has a buffering effect on the pH of soils. Continue Reading
RAW Silica contains 45% Silicon Dioxide which is the highest concentration of silicon dioxide available to the home gardener. RAW Silica is flowable and suspend-able in water and naturally available to the plant. Continue Reading
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Yuccca - A Garden Secret from the Desert
RAW Yucca is made from 100% natural yucca extract from the plant Yucca Schidigera. It can be used as wetting agent for nutrient solutions and foliar sprays and is great for flushing excess salts from the root Zone. Continue Reading
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Feeding Your Garden Cane Molasses
RAW Cane Molasses is a highly concentrated, water Soluble micronized molasses that gives all the benefits of Liquid Molasses without all the mess. Continue Reading
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Microbial Inoculants
Grow Stage MICROBES are a specific group of Beneficial Bacteria and Fungi formulated specially for the Grow / Vegetative Stage of plants. This variety of Microbes is designed to promote Root Growth & Nutrient Availability during the Grow Stage. Continue Reading
Harley Smith Products & Tips: RAW Microbes Bloom Stage
Microbial Inoculants
Bloom Stage MICROBES are a specific group of Beneficial Bacteria and Fungi formulated specially for the Flower/Bloom Stage of plants. This variety of Microbes is designed to promote Nutrient Availability & Plant Protection during the Bloom Stage. Continue Reading
RAW Enzymes are Uncut, Tech Grade Enzymes. Active ingredients are Cellulase, Xylanase, and Beta-Glucanase. No Fillers, No Dyes. RAW Enzymes are soluble and compatible with all nutrient programs, from hobby to professional, soil to hydroponics. Continue Reading
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RAW Potassium contains 50% Water Soluble Potash derived from potassium sulfate. This is the highest concentration of natural Water Soluble Potassium available to the home gardener. During fruiting and flowering, large amounts of potassium are used by the plant in a matter of days which can lead to potassium deficiencies. RAW Potassium is ideal for boosting Potassium (K) levels, treating deficiencies and creating optimal recipe solutions. Works in conjunction with all nutrient and feeding programs.
Available in: 2 oz | 8 oz | 2 LB | 10 LB | 25 LB
* Click on the size for a print ready image


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RELEASE DATE: November 10, 2009
Hailing from Middlesbrough, a small industrial town in North East England, Oli Heffernan has been making loops, field recordings and 4-track doodles at home and on holidays since the mid nineties. From early on in his life, he has played with a number of different groups, and over the years ended up supporting bands like The Fall, Echo And The Bunnymen, Clinic, John Cooper Clarke, Leaves, Future Of The Left, Archie Bronson Outfit.
His current Project, Detective Instinct, was born out of a combination of boredom and a need for distraction...
I began by going through old tapes and realizing a lot of it was good stuff and i needed to do something worthwhile with it so I wrote to a few friends from bands I'd been involved in or had played with and then we began a type of online exchange of recordings: I'd send tracks out then they'd add vocals and send them back, Mike Watt heard the songs on myspace and wrote asking if he could play them on his radio show in LA so i chanced my arm and asked him if he wanted to get involved, which he did. I then began asking other people who's work i admired and was surprised by how many people wanted to contribute, and it went from there...
Buried in the mix of the songs are field recordings of haunted buildings, people going about their business, and lots of found sounds recorded while he was on tour throughout Europe with Das Wanderlust. The imagery for the series as well, was found in an old book of woodcuts bought in a dusty bookshop in a small seaside town, assembled with the help of Nicky Peacock.
Sick Room Records has the privilege of releasing the first four collaborations as a series of limited edition 7-inch EPs, entitled Detective Instinct Presents:
Oli has also recently been working with:
P.O. Box 47830, Chicago, IL 60647 | Email Us
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© 2001 - 2019 Sick Room Records. All rights reserved.
Website development by Melodic Virtue.


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Valve Opens Portal for Linux Gamers
Jun 27, 2013 5:00 AM PT
Online gaming service Steam announced on Monday that the popular shooter, puzzle-solving hybrid action game Portal now fully supports Linux.
The game had been available on the open source operating system in beta form since early May, but with an update released earlier this week, Portal was declared stable and ready for purchase by Linux users.
Gamers who had bought a Windows PC version of Portal can download the game to Linux for free, but it's also available for sale for US$9.99.
Steam maker Valve did not respond to our request for further details.
A Noteworthy Arrival
Back in May Valve had announced that Portal, along with the zombie apocalypse shooter Left 4 Dead 2, would be released on Linux. The fittingly named sequel Portal 2 will reportedly be available on Linux later this year.
Currently there are approximately 100 Linux games sold through Steam, but Portal is one of the biggest titles released on the open source platform to date.
In the game, players have a typically big gun that, instead of shooting bullets, can make portals that allow players to get through a mazelike world.
Trending Toward Linux
In many ways, Valve's decision to bring this hit game to Linux speaks volumes about its view of the gaming landscape and its long-term plans.
Indeed, earlier this year Valve CEO Gabe Newell gave an early indication of those plans when he called Windows 8 a "catastrophe" for game developers. That comment came not long after Valve had announced its plans to bring its Steam gaming platform to Linux, which had long suffered from the perception that it was not up to par for gaming purposes.
"Based on our reading of Gabe Newell's public statements, we understand Valve's genuine concern that Microsoft intends to take Windows into a walled garden model that would inhibit the freedom of developers to create content for the operating system, as well as benefit from that development, as they would normally expect," said video game analyst George Chronis, editor of DFC Dossier.
"Therefore, publishing to Linux can be considered a prudent endeavor to explore a viable alternative," Chronis told LinuxInsider.
Filling a Void
While Microsoft was once a major supporter of PC games -- and Windows was considered by many to be the gaming platform -- that view has begun to fade.
"Microsoft is destroying one of the major advantages of PCs over other platforms: its openness and minimal barriers for entry," said video game industry consultant Mark Baldwin of Baldwin Consulting.
"This is not only going to affect the PC platform," Baldwin told LinuxInsider, "but long term it will have an effect on all game platforms, since the PC has always been the platform for exploring new game ideas."
The Linux platform, however, could fill that void.
'Not Much of a Stretch'
Of course, with new console systems from both Microsoft and Sony on the horizon as well as numerous tablet options and even an open source gaming console from Ouya, there's no doubt Linux-based PC gaming faces competition.
Indeed, "the question at this stage should not be whether Portal on Linux drives revenue in any significant way, but whether Portal on Linux works from a user-satisfaction standpoint," Chronis suggested.
"It is not much of a stretch to see many of Valve's core community being capable and amiable to a dual-boot scenario," he added, "if a future version of Windows becomes too restrictive."


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The Atlantic coast of the United States—from Cape Cod south to Florida—is graced with one of the world's most delicious seafoods: the blue crab ( Callinectes sapidus ). In my home state of Virginia, the "blue" is widely appreciated ... yet I'm constantly surprised at the number of people (both here and elsewhere) who've never tried catching crabs, nor cooked and eaten the easily gathered delicacy.
Fortunately, the aggressive crustaceans are so abundant (especially through the middle Atlantic and southern states) that I don't feel too concerned about encouraging more people to take advantage of them. Furthermore, few creatures are better equipped for survival. Crabs can swim efficiently and crawl rapidly ... have keen, 360° eyesight ... and, as you know, are blessed (from their point of view, if not from ours) with an imposing pair of powerful claws. Such characteristics make catching the feisty little fellows interesting ... and sometimes even downright exciting.
No license is required to take crabs, although there are restrictions on both the legal size and bag limit. In Virginia, for example, it's illegal to keep more than one bushel per day (which is certainly an ample haul), and the law protects crablings smaller than 4 3/4" across the widest part of the back shell ... critters which don't have enough meat to bother with anyway. (Regulations in other states may vary, so be sure to check before you catch.)
How to Bag Them
The blue crabs' favorite feeding grounds are salt marshes. Swimming into such areas with the tide, the crustaceans feast on the rich animal life which thrives there. Consequently, the best time and place to go crabbing is on a rising tide in an area well supplied with marshland. [EDITOR'S NOTE: It's a sad sign of our times, but you should always call your local health department to check out the purity of the water in your chosen foraging grounds.]
Crabs come in from deeper waters when the ocean warms in the late spring, and remain available until fall ... when colder weather drives them back into deep ocean dormancy again. (In the far South, however, they can be found—albeit in limited numbers—prowling in the shallows throughout much of the winter.)
During the warm water season, though, crabbing is never the "sometimes" proposition that fin fishing is. If the tide is right and you've located a good spot, there's no need to worry about whether or not they'll be biting on a given day. They will be.
The most common (noncommercial) means of catching crabs is to use a chicken neck, a fish head, or a chunk of salt pork tied on a string and weighted with a lead sinker or rock. Drop the baited line into the water, and soon you should feel a gentle tugging. Watch out, though, because—if the line isn't secured or carefully observed—your quarry may quietly make off with the entire rig.
When a crab has latched onto the bait, carefully retrieve the line until the tasty crustacean is just below the surface of the water. If you pull it out into the air, the startled creature will almost always release its meal and escape. To avoid such losses, slide a long-handled net into the water below the bait and scoop up your catch. (I prefer to use a net made of stiff wire mesh, since a crab can get amazingly tangled in the more common twine variety ... and disengaging the struggling shellfish from a cotton web while avoiding painful nips requires too much patience.)
Other Methods
There are several other ways for an amateur crabber to catch his dinner. Many sporting goods stores and bait shops sell inexpensive ring nets, which are strung around two concentric wire rings, the larger of which is usually one and a half feet in diameter. Weighted and baited in the center, these snares lie flat on the marsh bottom so the crabs can enter. When one is lifted from the water, the outer ring forms a circular wall of netting that prevents the agile arthropods from escaping. Ring nets can even be made at home with little difficulty. (Crab traps, which are wire mesh boxes with sides that fold up when lifted, are also available but are somewhat more expensive than the simpler nets.)
When using ring nets and traps, you can catch two or more
of the clawed brutes at a time, and fewer crabs will be
lost. Such snares can also be used from docks and bridges
that are too high above the water for dip-netting.
The most sporting way to catch crabs, however, is to stalk them in their own territory with a long-handled net. Just walk along the shallows or through the creek and salt-marsh thoroughfares while keeping a sharp eye out for the well-camouflaged crustaceans. A quick set of reflexes is an asset in this form of crabbing, because the shy sea creatures will scuttle away quickly when they sense your presence. This kind of foraging will also occasionally net you an' extra dividend: a soft-shelled crab ... which is a blue that has just molted and its new shell hasn't yet hardened. (The little "softies" are truly a delicious treat!)
A Contact Sport
First-time crab foragers often hesitate to pick up an escaping crustacean as it dashes toward freedom or takes a defensive stance with pincers raised. And when novices ask me how to approach this delicate task, I always tell them ... carefully!
For safety's sake, you should pick crabs up from behind ... with your thumb and first two fingers placed clear of those clashing claws. Another workable method is to hold the crustaceans by the "elbows" just behind the powerful pincers. (The disadvantage to this technique is that two hands are required.) If you're really nervous about getting nipped, it's best to simply wear heavy gloves or bring along a pair of kitchen tongs.
Once a crab is caught, drop it into a cooler filled with ice or place it in a wet burlap sack. The idea is to keep your prospective dinner moist, cool, and alive until you're ready to cook it. (Crabs put in a bucket of still water will quickly suffocate as the liquid loses its oxygen.)
Incidentally, the "angling" methods that I've described will work on other crab varieties as well. The waters of northern New England and the Pacific coast don't have the blue crab, but they do host some species ... although they're usually not as abundant as southeastern blues, or as aggressive at taking bait. Still, since few people take advantage of the crabbing opportunities in such areas, I've caught a good number of local delicacies (like rock crab and green crabs) using ring nets.
How to Cook Them
Once you've bagged a bunch of crabs, you'll want to cook
them up right away. To steam any variety of hard-shelled
crab, put about an inch of water in the bottom of a large
pot and add a few ounces of vinegar, along with a couple of
tablespoons of "crab boil" spice (such as Old Bay Seafood
Seasoning, available in many grocery stores). Bring the
water to a boil and drop the live crabs in upside down, so
that the spices will permeate the meat. Finally, sprinkle
some more spice on the top of the last layer, cover the
pot, and let it steam for about 10 minutes. As they cook,
the crabs may squirm briefly . . . but the boiling water
and steam will kill them quickly. Once the shells turn a
brick red, your dinner is ready.
To prepare soft-shelled crabs, use a sharp knife to cut out the eyestalks, then—with the crab on its back—make a small cut just below the mouth and remove the stomach ... a gelatinous, coiled mass. Next, make two more slits along the sides ... fold back the soft, new shell ... and cut away the spongy, grayish gills (otherwise known as "dead man's fingers"). The rest of the crab is edible, shell and all, and the best and easiest way to cook softies is to saute them in melted butter until they're brown on both sides. (Soft-shells can also be breaded and deep-fried.)
How to Eat Them
Many people are puzzled the first time they're served a steamed, hard-shelled crab: They know there's meat in there, but don't know exactly how to get at it (and lose a lot of the tasty morsels in their attempts). So here's a step-by-step description of the proper way to proceed.
First, cover the table with newspaper and supply it generously with napkins, bowls for empty shells, and plenty to drink. Serve the crustaceans right up in the cooking pot—if you like—because a crab feast is far too messy for ceremony.
Now, crack the claws with a mallet or a nutcracker and extract the meat. (A nutpick is sometimes useful for the latter task.)
Next, break off the walking and swimming legs where they join the body and suck out whatever meat and juice is in them. (There usually isn't enough inside to justify breaking them open.) Then turn the crab upside down and remove the "key," a flap attached at the rear of the shell and extending forward, flat against the abdomen. (Males have long, pointed keys, while females have broad, triangular flaps known as "aprons.") Set the crusty seafood delicacy right side up again ... slip a finger under the top shell at the crustacean's rear ... and pry it off to reveal the insides.
That done, remove and discard the white coiled stomach and the dead man's fingers. You'll also see a yellowish or greenish substance which is known as "mustard." This is the crab's liver, and it's quite tasty.
In order to get to the rest of the meat, break the
remaining portion of the crab in half lengthwise. Where the
rear swimming legs were attached, you'll find the "back fin
lump," the largest and sweetest chunk of seafood anywhere.
(Of course, there're dozens of other little chitinous
compartments filled with succulent bits which can be
extracted with your fingers or a nutpick.)
When you've picked the crustacean clean, wipe your hands and face ... take a long drink of cold beer or white wine to quench the spicy burning in your mouth ... and start all over again!