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Hot news from the Wildlife Garden is that our bee tree is now humming with a new swarm of bees which was introduced about a month ago.
Caroline, the garden's manager, told me she's been waiting to see how the bees got on before telling everyone. Actually, they are doing really well and will be a star attraction at the garden's Yellow Book Day this Sunday, 4 July.
So 'what's a bee tree exactly?' I hear Pooh bear mumbling in my ear. It's a bee hive that's been cut into an 8-foot high ash tree trunk, pictured left. There are now about 15,000 bees in the hive which also houses eggs, young bees and honey. You can find out more about our bee tree at the event on Sunday. A word of advice, when you visit it, open the bark doors very carefully. And make sure to close them when you've had a look, as bees like the dark.
Another highlight of Sunday's event is the chance to meet our resident beekeeper, Dr Luke Dixon. Luke is an expert in urban beekeeping and helps look after the garden's 2 private beehives, which are also new this year and doing well. He will be holding 2 sessions at 12.30 and 14.00 and visitors can don the protective beekeeping clothing to have a look inside the hives.
There may be some Wildlife Garden honey to sample too, yummy!
Other activities on Sunday include pond-dipping and a guide to the garden's native plants. There will be stalls with refreshments and wild flower plants for sale.
By the way, did you know that Melissa is Greek for honeybee?
Check out the Museum's Wildlife Garden
If you're interested in beekeeping, have a look at the Beekeepers Association website for some handy hints
Find out more about honeybees on our honeybees webpages
Thanks to Matt for the bee tree image and to Luke Dixon and Kristian Buus for the recent Wildlife Garden beehive images. Click on the images to enlarge them.


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I had thought the Steve Earle controversy had come and gone quickly–mostly because hardly anyone has heard of him–but this morning the Wall Street Journal has another article on the subject. I have nothing particular to say about the controversy, but it does have a slight personal angle since I would know nothing at all about Earle had the Trunk, whose knowledge of popular music is much broader than mine, not taken me to a concert of his a year or two ago. Having heard Earle in person, I can say that his chief obstacle to broader public acceptance is not his heroin addiction, his incarceration or any politically stupid songs he may write. The biggest obstacle is that–sorry, Trunk–he can't sing. I will say in the Trunk's defense that he also introduced me to Lyle Lovett and Alison Krauss early in their careers. Two out of three ain't bad.
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"Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time." Winston Churchill
"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." Inscription on the Liberty Bell

subset: commoncrawl


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I'm something of an expert on building backyard sheds. I've constructed more than a dozen sheds, written a magazine article or two about sheds, appeared on TV to discuss sheds, and have even written a shed-building book for do-it-yourselfers.
So it's not surprising that people often ask me for advice about putting together a backyard storage building. Sometimes I get asked questions that I couldn't possibly answer: "Do you think my husband and brother-in-law can build me a garden shed?" Or, "Would an 8 x 10-ft. shed be big enough to store all my stuff?" Gee, ma'am, I couldn't say. But often, the questions have something to do with shed design, framing or siding options. There, I can help. And so with these inquisitive souls in mind I present my favorite tricks of the shed trade.
1. Start With a Sound Foundation
No shed, regardless of how well it's built, will last long if it's set on a weak base. Most sheds can be supported by an on-grade foundation, which consists of solid concrete blocks or pressure-treated wood timbers set directly on the ground. The concrete blocks or timbers (aka skids) must be leveled and spaced closely enough to properly support the shed's floor frame. Note that it's important to use solid concrete blocks, not hollow wall blocks, which can easily crack.
Also, you should never build a shed in a wet, low-lying area, and if the site is exposed to occasional rainwater runoff, set the blocks or timbers on 2 in. to 4 in. of gravel. That'll help protect the foundation from erosion.
Larger sheds, typically those more than 200 sq. ft. in size, require permanent foundations that extend down to the frost line. They're usually constructed of poured-concrete piers or buried wooden posts. (Check with the building department for specific code requirements and frost-line depth in your area.)
Finally, if you're using buried wood posts or on-grade timbers, be sure to cut them from pressure-treated lumber rated for "ground contact." Treated wood rated for aboveground use isn't intended for burial or direct contact with the ground, and will eventually rot.
2. Allow for Air Circulation
Water is wood's worst enemy. Given the right circumstance and enough time, excessive moisture can rot framing, warp floors and doors, corrode hinges and breed mold and mildew. Fortunately, there's an easy remedy. First, be sure that the lowest wood member--the mudsill--is at least 6 in. above the ground. That's sufficient space to allow fresh air to circulate under the shed.
Leave at least 2 ft. to 3 ft. of space around all sides of the shed. Building it too close to trees, shrubs, fences or other structures will block out sunlight and wind that help keep a shed dry. Plus, having clearance space around a shed makes it much easier when it comes time to paint or make repairs.
3. Build a Weather-Resistant Floor Frame
There are several ways to economize when building a shed: Install three-tab roof shingles instead of architectural shingles, or use grooved-plywood siding in place of cedar bevel siding. But don't ever skimp on the building materials used for the floor frame or plywood floor deck. I can't tell you how often I've walked into a shed and found the floor to be dangerously spongy. One building in particular had a floor so badly rotted it felt like one of those inflatable moonwalk attractions you see at carnivals.
When building the floor frame, which includes the mudsill, floor joists and perimeter band joists, use 2 x 6 or 2 x 8 pressure-treated lumber. Many prefab sheds use untreated construction-grade lumber for the floor frame, which is fine--if you plan to keep your shed indoors. Even in ideal conditions on the perfect site, a shed floor will be exposed to some moisture, and in time, untreated lumber will rot.
For the shed's floor deck, use ¾-in. exterior-grade plywood; anything thinner will flex between joists. (Note that a double layer of ½-in. exterior ply is okay, too.) If you plan to store heavy items, such as a lawn tractor or woodworking machines, consider using ¾-in. tongue-and-groove plywood. This costs slightly more, and is a bit more troublesome to install, but its edges lock tightly together, creating a rock-solid, rigid floor. In areas with excessively high moisture and large numbers of wood-boring bugs--such as Florida, Alabama and the other Gulf Coast states--consider using pressure-treated plywood for the floor deck. It's particularly resistant to moisture and insects.
4. Use Low-Maintenance Materials
Most homeowners barely have enough time to keep their homes in shape, never mind their sheds. Heck, I was supposed to paint our downstairs bathroom before the kids got out of school last month. I just picked up the paint yesterday. That's why it's smart to choose low-maintenance materials for your shed. You usually need to pay a bit extra for these, but they'll save you time and trouble in the long run.
For example, the last three sheds I built were trimmed with white PVC trim boards instead of painted cedar 1 x 4s. This new plastic lumber, which I used for the rake, fascia, frieze and corner boards, is impervious to bugs, warping, splitting or decay, and it never needs painting. Other low-maintenance options include: vinyl or aluminum windows, faux-slate roof shingles, fiberglass or steel doors, composite decking for steps, and fiber-cement siding. (I don't usually recommend aluminum or vinyl siding for sheds; neither material is rugged enough to survive the inevitable beating outbuildings take.)
5. Get Smart About Door Size and Placement
I'm always surprised at how little forethought most backyard builders give to the shed's doors. After all, there's no sense in building a shed to store a particular item, such as a lawn tractor or wheelbarrow, if you can't fit it through the door. I saw a shed recently that had its doors removed. When I asked why, the homeowner explained that he framed the doorway wide enough for his riding lawnmower, but didn't take into account the amount of space taken up by the hinged inset doors. So, he had to remove the doors to fit the mower inside. (He's in the market for a skinnier mower.)
The two types of doors most commonly used on outbuildings are hinged and sliding, and both work well. Hinged doors take up less space and close more tightly and securely. Sliding doors are easier to install and glide completely out of the way. They require additional wall space, however, to slide over when opened.
Door placement is also important. You often see doors placed on the gable end of the building, which looks nice, but makes it virtually impossible to reach items stored at the rear of the shed. A better alternative is to put the door on the long side wall, so that you'll be able to access items to the right, left and back. Another option is to install doors on both gable-end walls, so that you'll be able to easily reach items from either end of the shed.


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text:
Sorry for bad english.
Error bootfile Windows version, if it launches image on non-priority drive
I have two hard drives. First hard drive Samsung HD0, the second Western DIGITAL HD1.
Windows loaded from the first hard drive Samsung HD0, that is, the loader bootmgr on HD0. Kernel Windows 7 on Western DIGITAL HD1.
If I run a bootfile to launch IFD of Western DIGITAL HD1, get lost MBR partition table on the disk Western DIGITAL HD1. Because the priority HDD in the BIOS - Samsung.
How to beat this bug?
Is it possible to use script Windows version TBOSDTS for determining the priority HDD in BIOS and validation correct run bootfile on priority HDD? How
Use script diskpart sel disk=system possible, but not desirable ...
Thank you.


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Choose your location from the list below to view the correct local market pricing, delivery times and shipping costs for your destination
My Order
Along with her fiancé and business partner Karl Lindman, Swedish trendsetter Elin Kling launched Totême - a sportswear-inspired collection of luxury basics. Founded upon the same style sensibility that made Kling a front-row fixture, the label crafts clean, streamlined pieces in a neutral color palette. Our edit includes cashmere sweaters and chic shorts.


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A large fraction of recombinations occur following cascades from a very large number of levels close to the continuum. Since explicit treatment of these levels is not feasible, we treat this process as follows (this procedure, along with detailed descriptions of other aspects of the database and the multilevel scheme are described in detail in [Bautista and Kallman 2000]): For every ion we choose a set of spectroscopic levels starting with the ground level, which are responsible for the identifiable emission lines and recombination continua; there are typically 10 - 50 of these for most ions, although for a few ions we include 100 such levels. In addition we include one or more superlevels and continuum levels. The continuum levels represent bound levels of more highly ionized species (in practice at most only a few such levels are of importance). The superlevel is an artificial level used to account for recombination onto the infinite series of levels that lie above the spectroscopic levels. In H and He-like ions the superlevels also account for the recombination cascades of these high lying levels onto the spectroscopic levels, and the rates for such decays are calculated by fitting to the results of population kinetic calculations for individual ions which explicitly include 1000 levels. For these isoelectronic sequences we explicitly include excited levels with a spectator electron, which give rise to satellite lines, excitation of these levels accounts for excitation-autoionization and radiative deexcitation, and recombination accounts for the dielectronic recombination process. For other iso-electronic sequences, the superlevels are assumed to decay directly to the ion's ground level, and the rates into and out of the superlevel are calculated in order to fit to the total recombination rates for the various ions [Bautista and Kallman 2000]. This approach allows us to simultaneously account for the contributions of excitation, ionization, and recombination to the ion's level populations. In this way we solve ionization and excitation balance without the use of total recombination rates which is customary in many nebular calculations.
By using the approach described above and providing that every transition process accompanied by its detailed balance inverse process we insure that the level populations will naturally converge to LTE under proper conditions.


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Mimi From The Drew Carey Show Lives!
If one of Brit Brit's Cheetolings was a girl, this would be them right now.
Most of you have already laughed, weeped and come up with a plan to spike the water system with birth control pills after watching the glorious mess that is Honey Boo-Boo Chile and her creator June the Hutt on Toddlers & Tiaras and every single talk show on television. Part of me wants a daughter just like Honey Boo-Boo Chile, because she's always crunked out of her mind (Like me!), loves money more than people (Like me!) and is a drag queen Jackee Harry trapped in a little girl's body (Like I wish to be!). The other part of me thinks that Honey Boo-Boo Chile and her mom June are a product of the government to promote human sterilization. What ever their deal is, they shared it on The Silver Fox Show (in an episode that airs tomorrow) and I don't think my nightmares will ever be the same again.
Mah Boo gave the moms of Toddlers & Tiaras a child beauty pageant queen makeover, so they know what their daughters feel like. Most of the moms look like any random trick on Slutoween, but June the Hutt took the cake and ate it. Just like June's parenting skills are lost somewhere in the crack of that sideways butt on her neck, my thoughts on this are completely lost too. It's just too much of a beautiful mess. I'd scream at Honey Boo-Boo Chile to turn around and stare into her future, but homegirl is too high to understand. But I do love that she's posing like my chola friend throwing a gang sign in her 7th grade yearbook picture.
Speaking of getting high, here's a clip of Mah Boo trying the "Go-Go Juice" that June the Hutt gives Honey Boo-Boo Chile to give her energy. It's basically the nectar of the white trash gods (Red Bull and Mountain Dew).
You can try Honey Boo-Boo Chile's Go-Go Juice for yourself in a few weeks when Walmart inevitably sells it in their baby section next to Toddler's First Eye Waxing Kit and strawberry-scented wig glue for kids.


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Photo: statigr.am/girlyswagstyle
When starting out in your career, having a mentor can help lead you in the right professional direction.But many professionals don't think about having more than one mentor to get the most out of their relationships.
"Mentorship is an opportunity to really learn from someone who's been there before you," says Amanda Pouchot, Co-founder of the Levo League. "They can help you problem solve so you get where you want to go, help you identify your goals, introduce you to people."
Pouchot recommends that everyone should have three different kinds of mentors:
1. A mentor about the same age as you
This is known as the peer mentorship relationship. A mentor your own age is someone you connect with and learn from, and who probably learns from you as well.
2. A mentor two to four years older than you
Someone who's been through the same thing you're currently going through can give you valuable advice — especially if they went through it only a few years before.
3. A mentor much more senior than you
A mentor who is much older than you will have had a lot more time to reflect on issues they've seen when they were your age. If the problem you face is heated or tied to some emotion, a senior mentor has had time to distance themselves from the problem and can offer you objective advice.
However, also remember that a mentor doesn't always have to be older than you.
"I even learn a lot from our new college graduate," says Pouchot. "I would consider I'm her mentor, but she's four years younger than me and I learn things from her every day that I would not even think about."
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We provide complete solutions
Over 1 million cyber-attacks happen every day. Core Security's analytics-driven approach to security and remediation enables customers to manage access and identify vulnerabilities to minimize risks and maintain continuous compliance.
By sharing intelligence across various security disciplines, customers can automate manual processes using consistent data, prioritization methods, and reporting, to cut remediation time, reduce risk, and ultimately secure critical assets from both the user access and infrastructure vulnerability perspective.
Core Security enables enterprises to take a more comprehensive and predictive approach to safeguarding critical data and assets.
Reduce IT Cost
Through automated recertification and provisioning processes you can significantly reduce overhead costs and prioritize risks to remediate substantial threats, saving you from a costly breach.
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Improve Compliance
Instant insight, context, and actionable intelligence provides a comprehensive view of your security posture. Monitor, analyze, and troubleshoot in real time to manage risk, maintain compliance, and meet regulatory requirements.


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Make Your Dreams a Reality Now and Fall into Fantastic Savings!!
Model features hinged frame doors and rounded edges designed to be finished in oak or other hardwoods. Sizes range from 4 to 12 bottle dispensers with storage space for backup bottles. A self-defrosting, cold-plate style refrigeration system provides quiet refrigeration.
Two-stage regulator, lights & thermometer,
Insulated glass doors and 8' remote nitrogen tubing with quick-connect.
Refrigeration: auto defrost, 120 volt, 60 HZ, .8 amps per refrigerator.
Temperature range for white wine is 42 to 48 F, for red wine the range is 60 to 70F (4x2 bottle), and 42-72F (4,8 and 12 bottles).
The required minimum vented air space is 1" each side, 3" behind an 12" above unit
Capacity: 8 Bottles (4 White Wine/4 Red Wine)
This item ships directly from the manufacturer. Due to HASMAT shipping regulations this item requires special handling & Express shipping options not valid on this product.
Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery
Collections: Cellar Stuff, Wine Cellar Preservation, Wine Preservation, Winekeeper


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You can cross another name off the list of New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator candidates.
A day after interviewing with the team, University of Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham removed himself from the Saints' list of potential replacements for Steve Spagnuolo. Grantham released a statement confirming his decision on Friday.
"I want to thank Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints organization for the opportunity to interview and get to know them," the statement read. "They are a first class organization in every respect. As I said Wednesday, Georgia is a great place, my family loves it here, and I do as well.
"This is where our heart is and today I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the position with the Saints. I'm excited to start preparations for another season and along with the rest of our defensive staff look forward to coaching some really good returning players as well as developing some very talented newcomers."
Grantham's departure from the picture is another sign that former Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan will be the Saints' pick. NFL.com's Ian Rapoport has reported that Ryan has been the favorite in this process.
Ryan has told at least one person he believes he's getting the Saints job, according to Rapoport.
Saints coach Sean Payton said Friday the Saints plan to meet with one more candidate next week, but it remains to be seen if it gets that far. Ryan was scheduled to interview with the team on Friday. If that went as expected, the Saints might already have their man.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.


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Quality CareFind out why Mayo Clinic is the right place for your health care. Make an appointment.
Meet the StaffFind a directory of doctors and departments at all Mayo Clinic campuses. Visit now.
Research and Clinical TrialsSee how Mayo Clinic research and clinical trials advance the science of medicine and improve patient care. Explore now.
Visit Our SchoolsEducators at Mayo Clinic train tomorrow's leaders to deliver compassionate, high-value, safe patient care. Choose a degree.
Professional ServicesExplore Mayo Clinic's many resources and see jobs available for medical professionals. Get updates.
Philanthropy at Mayo ClinicYour support accelerates powerful innovations in patient care, research and education. Give today.
Mayo Clinic offers appointments in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota and at Mayo Clinic Health System locations.
Subscribe to Housecall
Our general interest e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.
Herbs and spices add lots of flavor with negligible calories to your food. They can help you reduce the amount of salt and fat in your recipes. Some herbs and spices even boast health benefits because they're good sources of antioxidants.
Spices come from a variety of tropical plant and tree parts, such as seeds, fruits, roots, buds, stems and bark. They're usually available in dried forms. Herbs are the leaves and stems of plants, and are available fresh or dried.
Most herbs have a subtle flavor, while spices often have a stronger flavor. Don't let that stop you from experimenting. Just use herbs and spices sparingly at first so that you don't accidentally overpower a dish.
Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission.
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A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.org," "Mayo Clinic Healthy Living," and the triple-shield Mayo Clinic logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.
This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here.


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Kim Kardashian Shares Sneak Peek Of The New Kardashian Kollection
The stylish sisters look fabulous in the Kardashian Kollection Spring 2012 promo shot — and lucky for us, Kim also gave fans a sneak peek into the trio's upcoming collection!
Our favorite reality sisters Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian got together for their Sears Kardashian Kollection Spring 2012 photo shoot and not only did Kim post a pic on her blog, but she was also kind enough to give fans a look inside the new collection!
As much as we enjoy all the sisterly love, we're loving those fabulous Kardashian Kollection outfits they're wearing even more! So, what do the siblings have in store for the upcoming season?
Well, according to Kim, lot's of amazing new patterns are on the way, such as the tribal button-up blouse that Khloe is stylishly sporting in the new photo! Kim, on the other hand, is rocking a sexy, striped black and white criss-cross dress that would look amazing on any figure!
The reality star promises that more looks are on the way and we can't wait to check them out!
What do YOU think? Are you loving the spring Kardashian Kollection?
– Jennifer Velez
More Beauty & Style


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NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Ivy League has released its list of student-athletes selected for 2011 All-Ivy Academic honors in fall sports. Ten Yale student athletes were selected.
Here are Yale's honorees:
Taylor Cramm, Sr., Volleyball, Economics
(Laguna Niguel, Calif.)
Captained the Bulldogs to their third Ivy title in the last four years; honorable-mention All-Ivy selection.
Marcus DiLallo, Sr., Men's Soccer, Psychology (Wellington, Fla.)
Started all 17 games; tied for the team lead with five assists; helped anchor a defense that yielded only 16 goals and posted four shutouts.
Cliff Foreman, Sr., Football, History (Washington)
Had 14 solos and 16 overall tackles as a regular at defensive end; finished with 4.5 tackles for loss, including two sacks.
Kristen Forster, Jr., Women's Soccer, Psychology (Trumbull, Calif.)
Started all 17 games; scored three goals, including two game-winners; finished with eight points.
Nihal Kayali, Jr., Women's Cross Country, Political Science (La Jolla, Calif.)
Yale's third finisher at the 2011 Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships; helped Bulldogs to best League finish in five years.
Kirsten Krebs, Sr., Field Hockey, Psychology (Selinsgrove, Pa.)
Appeared in all 17 games; finished with 10 points on four goals and two assists.
Dinah Landshut, Sr., Field Hockey, Economics (Hamburg, Germany)
Second-team All-Mideast Region; unanimous first-team All-Ivy; finished with 16 assists, one shy of school record.
Kevin Lunn, Jr., Men's Cross Country, Humanities (Santa Barbara, Calif.)
Second-team All-Ivy after finishing 13th at the 2011 Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships; Yale's top finisher at NCAA Regionals.
Wes Moyer, Sr., Football, Psychology (Alameda, Calif.)
A starting linebacker until a late season injury; finished with 21 solo tackles and 26 overall stops.
Julian Sheinbaum, Sr., Men's Cross Country, History (Scarsdale, N.Y.)
One of the Bulldogs' regular scorers; helped Yale to an 11th-place finish at the NCAA Regionals.


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Sneezing Sickness - A strange plant infection that causes its victim to spread the plants seeds by sneezing them about. Larger lumps of phlegm or saliva sprout is spat out in a sunny place, producing more of the plants. As the Magical version of seasonaly allergies the affliction is limited in term and non-life threatening.
Ideas ( Lifeforms ) | June 5, 2005 | 1xp


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All warriors face challenges that test their character, commitment and faith. Click on the topics that concern you to learn more from other warriors who found answers for their journey.
Warriors hold to a set of guiding beliefs or principles that shape their worldview and characterize their community. Each branch of service offers its own focus, but all hold to core truths about the value of defending the constitution and honoring the legacy of those who served before them. All hold to the 13 values you'll find in this section.
Our goal is to offer insight, perspective and support to warriors and their families as they put these guiding beliefs and principles into practice.
Page: 1/2
Photo by is licensed under CC BY 2.0
August 18, 2016
| Tagged:


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A wedding, some golf and conducting unofficial workouts with teammates is keeping Tony Romo, the Cowboys' star quarterback, on the move this month.
The website TMZ is showing off exclusive photos where Romo will get hitched to actor Chance Crawford's sister, Candice. The secret location was identified by the website for the May 28th nuptials as the Dallas mansion Arlington Hall.
On The Dallas Morning News Cowboys Blog by Rainer Sabin, Romo is also looking to compete May 9 in a qualifying round for the U.S. Open.
According to the Dallas Cowboys official blog Romo has also been conducting unofficial workouts at an undisclosed location, away from coaches and other team personnel due to the lockout.
Romo may need the lockout to end and the next season to begin in order to get some rest.


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9 Manhattan Street
Lyons, N.Y. 14489
|This photo was taken on the 22nd anniversary of the
Americans with Disabilities Act
"It's more than a garden it's a healing experience!"
|The Native Way
Trail Works, Inc. in conjunction with Forever Wild for Everyone believes that all people, regardless of their ability or age, have the right to enjoy nature and its many benefits. Our role as stewards of the Forever Wild for Everyone program in Wayne County is to develop and/or designate nature trails without barriers that everyone can enjoy.
Who benefits from the garden
Nursing Homes, Adaptive living facilities, Hospitals, Veterans, Local ARC, Group homes, Schools, Day Care Facilities, Sr. Citizen Homes, Pre-schools, After School Program, Lyons Community Center, Rehabilitation Centers, Brain Injury Centers Young Families with Baby Strollers, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
For information of the Trail of Hope E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com
Cell 315-573-8170


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Caring for the (Near) Majority: Addressing the Needs of Older Adults With HIV
Thanks to the success of HIV treatment, and the fact that one in six new HIV infections occurs in older adults, people ages 50 and older will account for the majority of people with HIV in the U.S. by 2015. But they face many barriers to HIV testing and treatment.
HIV Testing
Older adults are often absent from discussions around the testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. The majority of older adults continue to have sex well into later life, but the myth that they are not sexually active persists. Ignoring the high rates of sexual activity among older adults can delay the care they need, and research suggests that doctors are not addressing these patients' sexual health issues. The National Social Life Health and Aging Project (NSHAP) found that fewer than half of patients had talked to their doctors about sex after the age of 50. Many physicians do not think of their older patients as being sexually active or at risk for HIV. If they don't discuss sex with patients, they are unlikely to offer them HIV testing, and the patients themselves may not feel comfortable asking. In addition, older adults are sometimes unaware of their risk for HIV. For many, HIV continues to be viewed as a gay disease or a young disease. Heterosexual older adults in particular may be unfamiliar with HIV risk factors.
Older lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals also encounter barriers to HIV testing. Doctors often make assumptions, and some treat all their patients as if they are heterosexual. LGBT people who are unsure whether their provider is gay-friendly may be reluctant to talk about sex for fear of discrimination. A study of older LGBT clients at the Center on Halsted in Chicago found that only half had talked to their doctors about their sexual problems. In addition, discrimination can result in lower use of health care and other social services.
Failure to test for HIV has serious health effects for those who have HIV but are unaware of their status. Late testers are less likely to recover CD4 cells after starting medication and may progress faster to AIDS.
Doctors are not the only group responsible for the failure to test older adults for HIV. Current CDC guidelines do not recommend HIV testing for people over age 64. To reduce barriers to testing that result in late diagnoses, the CDC should update its guidelines to recommend HIV testing for all adults. More needs to be done to promote HIV testing for older adults, including targeting older adults themselves through social messaging campaigns. For example, these campaigns can let older adults with Medicare know that their coverage includes once-a-year HIV testing. Finally, doctors need to be trained to talk about sex with their patients regardless of their age, and to include HIV testing as a routine part of medical care.
Barriers to Care
People with HIV regularly encounter barriers when seeking care. These barriers can take many forms, including how others make them feel about the fact that they are positive, how the people with HIV themselves feel about the disease, and whether they have the tools and support they need to manage HIV. Newly diagnosed older adults, as well as older adults who have been positive for many years, may face additional barriers because of their age. HIV is still viewed as a young person's disease, and older adults with HIV may encounter ageism and additional stigma.
Older adults with HIV also have to deal with aging-related illnesses and a declining immune system. It can be difficult to find a doctor who can address both HIV and aging issues. Generally, HIV doctors do not know a lot about aging, and geriatricians are not up to date on HIV management. ACRIA's Research on Older Adults With HIV (ROAH) study found that older adults with HIV have an average of three times more comorbidities (other health problems) than HIV-negative adults over 70. For HIV-positive people with multiple conditions like arthritis, high blood pressure, and diabetes, it can be difficult to handle taking the many medications required. Tips for dealing with this include having a "brown bag" session with their doctor to see if it's okay to combine all their medications. This means putting all their prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, vitamins, and herbal supplements (which can react with HIV meds) into a brown bag and bringing it to their doctor.
While many challenges to the care of older adults with HIV remain, there has been much progress on the issue, including the creation of guidelines to address their medical needs (aahivm.org/hivandagingforum).
Depression and Isolation
Depression is a concern for people with HIV, especially among older adults. People are more at risk for depression as they get older, and it can be a barrier to care, since people with depression are less likely to take care of their own health. Almost half the people surveyed in ROAH reported being depressed at some point in the previous year. Untreated depression can have serious health consequences, since it is known to weaken the body's defenses. It can also lead to not taking HIV meds as directed, which can cause drug resistance and lower CD4 counts. Health care providers need to develop better strategies to diagnose depression and to reduce the stigma of getting mental health care. Depression is treatable, and more programs for people with HIV should target and treat it.
Social support is critical in helping people cope with chronic illness, but it can be difficult for some older adults to obtain. As people age, they can experience losses of spouses, partners, and friends, as well as employment. In addition, chronic health problems can make it difficult for people to get out of the house or leave their neighborhood, limiting the activities they once enjoyed. Many older adults with HIV report receiving support but say they need more.
Studies have shown that older adults with HIV may not have the social supports that people without HIV have. Family is often a main source of caregiving, but some research has demonstrated that many older adults with HIV do not have family to rely on. Some LGBT adults are separated from their families because of their sexual orientation. But regardless of sexual orientation, HIV-positive older adults are much less likely to be partnered than the general population. They also are more likely to live alone -- some research has shown as many as 75% of those with HIV over 50 are living by themselves. Not receiving emotional and functional support can result in loneliness, and people in ROAH reported significantly more loneliness than the general population. Transgender individuals had the highest rates of loneliness, followed by men. More programs that support socialization could be a key factor in fighting these issues.
HIV stigma is widespread, and it continues to be linked to "taboo" behavior. Older women and heterosexual men may face different stigma issues -- many people are unaware that they are at risk for HIV, and this can increase stigma for those with HIV or for those trying to protect themselves. Stigma can increase the stress of disclosure, and people with HIV who do not disclose find it harder to obtain the services needed to manage their HIV and other conditions.
A study of older clients of GMHC in New York City asked about the barriers they encountered when trying to receive services. A quarter reported they were afraid they would not get treatment or that their HIV status would be disclosed without their permission. Over 40% felt that service providers "don't like people like me," and that number rose to 65% for the women in the study. Over half of the respondents did not know where to get services, were unable to get free services, had to wait too long for services, and did not think services were available locally. Finally, having to care for others and difficulties making appointments were reported by 25% of people in the study. Providers, including aging providers, need more cultural competency training to meet the needs of their HIV-positive and LGBT clients.
Retention in Care
Staying in care is critical, yet fewer than half of people with HIV are consistently in care. The Continuum Engagement Model, which was developed to rank retention in care for people with HIV, breaks down users of health care as regular, sporadic, and non-engagers. A regular user is defined as someone who makes an appointment every six months and doesn't miss more than two appointments a year. A sporadic user is someone who completes only one appointment a year, misses at least two appointments a year, and uses an urgent care clinic once a year. Non-engagers are people who have an initial visit but do not return after that. A 2010 study found that among people with HIV, 25% were regular users, 32% sporadic users, and 43% non-engagers.
Providers should be aware of the factors that negatively affect people's ability to stay in care:
- current or prior injection drug use
- low social support
- lack of engagement with the health care provider
- unemployment
- mental illness
- child care needs
- transportation needs
- hospitalization
The benefits of staying in care are well documented:
- increased access to HIV medications
- improved adherence
- suppression of viral load
- improved immune function
- less chance of drug resistance
- reduced health care costs
- less risky sexual behavior
- less risk of an AIDS diagnosis
There is some good news: Research finds that older adults are more adherent to HIV medications than younger people. And once connected to care, older adults are more likely to stay connected.
What can be done to assist people who are newly in care to help them become regular users of services? For one thing, health care providers need to increase their outreach efforts. This includes reminder calls, regularly updating patients' contact information, maintaining emergency contact numbers, conferring with other providers, and phone counseling by peer educators. Also, providers should consider using health care navigators, who assist patients in negotiating the difficulties of the health care system -- things like making appointments, lack of transportation, inconvenient appointment times, long waits for appointments, and conflicts with work or family responsibilities. The good news is that care coordination helps keep people in care and that support systems improve retention in care. Teams of doctors, nurses, social workers, aging service providers, and patients must work together for successful outcomes.
Too many barriers remain for HIV testing of the older adult population. These barriers can be reduced through prompting doctors to have conversations with their patients about sexual health. Doctors should also receive LGBT cultural competency trainings so that they avoid making assumptions about their clients. Lastly, the CDC should recommend HIV testing for all adults, not just those under the age of 65. For older adults living with HIV, more can be done to decrease obstacles to care. This can include more research on aging with HIV and programs that include socialization and support individuals as they face other illnesses. Health and social service providers need additional training in HIV to increase knowledge and decrease stigma towards those with HIV. Finally, teams of providers should work together to assist keeping HIV-positive individual in care and therefore better health.
Liz Seidel is a research scientist at ACRIA.


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Many parents are very interested in multiple vitamins and other products which can supply kids with DHA, calcium, etc. Some of them believe those products are important to kids' health. What's your advice on choosing these products?
Dr. Greene's Answer:
Over the years I've learned to appreciate vitamins and the role they play in the healthy development of our children. I've seen firsthand how a mother's vitamin intake can help a growing infant, even before she conceives. I've monitored the decrease in the value of the nutrients that our children digest, even when we think we're feeding our families all the fruits and vegetables they need to stay healthy.
Some people say nutritional supplements are not necessary. They say all parents have to do is to provide a well-balanced diet for their families. We want families to make home-cooked meals, to eat veggies and fruits. But we know how hard it is for busy families to find the right balance, and we recognize that, no matter how hard parents try, our food is not what it used to be.
This year we're excited to introduce our new line of vitamins, ones I've developed to specifically address nutritional needs for women before they conceive, pregnant moms and, of course, our children. As our motto states, our nutritional supplements were designed for mom, for baby, for life.


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Over many years All Souls Church has developed a strong reputation for its music ministry – becoming known round the UK and beyond through the activities of the All Souls Orchestra in outreach events such as Prom Praise.
Music at the Sunday services varies; from the All Souls Orchestra to a smaller group of instrumentalists; from choir to an informal group of singers to a soloist; under the leadership of one of the All Souls Music Team, guided by Michael Andrews. We hope that there is something for everyone, old and young, traditional or contemporary, regular member or guest.
To see when the All Souls Orchestra is playing for services at All Souls, click here.
There are many opportunities for those with a talent and interest in music to use their gifts in service at All Souls. We have a large number of people on the books, but with the comings and goings of London life being what they are, we can always make space for more!
The following is a brief summary of these opportunities. If you are interested in finding out more, please email firstname.lastname@example.com and someone from the Music Team will contact you to give you an idea of skills and commitment required in each case.
Sunday by Sunday we book a small group of players to accompany the music worship. Due to the large number of people interested in taking part, we employ a rota system so the commitment will vary. It is worth noting that we have more of some instruments than others so frequency will vary depending on your instrument! These groups comprise of orchestral instruments, guitar, drum, piano, singers.
The All Souls Choir is an SATB group comprising of amateur singers from many different backgrounds. Meeting to rehearse each Thursday evening and committed to either morning or evening service each Sunday. Through the Choir there is also the opportunity to stretch yourself through occasional concerts. The annual All Souls Choir Carol Concert is a highlight of the All Souls music calendar, as well as combining with the All Souls Orchestra to perform in major London venues for Prom Praise.
Over the forty years of its existence the membership of the
All Souls Orchestra has extended widely and now includes members and non-members of All Souls, and has active student participation. Due to the number of players used on each occasion the Orchestra is able to include a range of abilities and ages.
See external site for more about the Orchestra and how to join.
Buy into the AS Music Sound - if you enjoy the 'All Souls Sound' or are looking for creative material for your church group to play - also look on the Orchestra's website for Music Scores - edited down from the ASO library into an accessible format for smaller groups.
You don't have to be musical to help with the music! There is a fair amount of back room support needed either on Sunday's or on Orchestra trips away. Commitment to suit availability. Get in touch to find out more.
As well as information on how to get involved in the All Souls Orchestra, go to the external site to find out the full extent of All Souls Music wider ministry activities:
- forthcoming Prom Praise events and how to get tickets for them
- opportunity to buy CDs, DVDs and Music Scores
- information on the Orchestra's education work, Prom Praise for Schools
- and much more …


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Mental health experts say a new tougher New York state gun control law might interfere with treatment of potentially dangerous people and even discourage them from seeking help.
The law would require therapists, doctors, nurses and social workers to tell government authorities if they believe a patient is likely to harm himself or others. That could lead to revoking the patient's gun permit and seizing any guns. (source)
New laws tend to have unintended consequences worse than the conditions or situations they are intended to remedy. The hysteria over the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre has such strange bedfellows as the NRA and some of the most liberal Democrats calling for psychological or psychiatric evaluations of potential gun owners.
Question: Does the state have enough of an interest to require a breach of the privacy normally holding between a patient and his clinician making the state an invisible presence in the conference room?
Question: Might more mayhem be prevented by letting clinicians do their job rather than imposing requirements on them.?
Question: Might imposing a reporting requirement on clinicians expose them to homicidal danger once the client realizes that his counselor has breached the shell of confidentiality holding between them?
Question: Given the ambiguities holding between what clients talk about and what they might actually do might a reporting requirement expose clinicians to needless criminal and civil sanctions if their best guess turns out to be wrong and a client they thought safe did something horrendous? The point is, it's a lot easier to judge how dangerous a patient was in retrospect and hold a clinician responsible.
Views: 1531
@Gallups Mirror
Sorry it took so long to get back. Little matter of my father dying.
In the case of the old South, it's obvious that "wrong" was applied in different ways to free white people and black slaves, probably due to many people feeling that the slaves were subhuman animals.
...and was defended using 'incongruous, inaccurate, or dishonest' arguments, like that one.
...and was defended using (what we todaywould regard as 'incongruous, or dishonest' arguments...
Africans are not "subhuman animals". Even if slavers believed this, they were wrong ('inaccurate') as a matter of fact, not opinion.
This is what you and I believe today, but unfortunately until DNA came along it wasn't indisputable that other races were subhuman. It's not like proving something in chemistry or physics such as the melting point of gold
On that point alone, (by today's values) slavery is unjustifiable ('unjust') thus slavery in the old south was wrong (by our lights). It follows that (today we believe) it's wrong ('incongruous') not to apply 'wrong-ness' to slavery, when it meets these conditions.
Otherwise—you tell me—how could they treat the slaves as they did? Unless they were just evil people. Were they?
We've already covered this. Exploitation is greatly advantageous to the exploiter, whether it's wrong or not.
If you admit context than you have conceded my point.
Your point is that slavery in the old south was wrong as a matter of opinion. And your point has been falsified many times over.
So, is it your position that people always knew that slavery was wrong because of what we today would call weak arguments against it? When did humans first start becoming logical? Certainly it wouldn't be hard to find that people in the past believed a lot of things that today we'd call wrong, silly, or outrageous. I'm sure that in the future many of the things we believe today will prove to be factually wrong. Other things will be thought to be silly or outrageous as well. I'm equally sure that many of the moral/ethical positions we hold to be certain today will be held to be wrong.
My point is that values and definitions (how words are used) vary across time. Nothing you've said really disproves that point wrong.
But go ahead, like President Bush on the aircraft carrier deck, declare complete and total victory.
Unseen - I'm sorry about your father.
Thanks. He lived to 92 and died at home surrounded by his family after a long and steady decline followed by a series of medical setbacks and cataclysms. It was time to go. A very loving and generous man who never made an enemy, he will be missed by all who knew him.
RIP to your father
"Tough New York Gun Law May Hold Unintended Consequences" I hope that the politicians that wrote these laws get what's coming to them as a unintended consequence for them, impeached for violating constitutional law.
Video's are starting to pop up on YouTube, apparently there are a few gun owners in NY State at are a bit upset at the new law and those who voted it in.
Question: Does mandatory reporting by doctors and hospitals of gunshot wounds have any beneficial advantages? "Might imposing a reporting requirement on" doctors and hospitals "expose them to homicidal danger once the client realizes that his" doctor or hospital "has breached the shell of confidentiality holding between them?"
Question: Does mandatory reporting by teachers, hospitals, doctors and counselors of suspected child abuse or child sexual abuse have any beneficial advantages? Shouldn't we let these people "do their job rather than imposing requirements on them" while the abuse continues?
After all, a pound of cure is worth an ounce of prevention --


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Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Mercian Ootori
Review by Nonjatta contributor - Dramtastic:
Mercian Ootori (the malt in this whisky came from Karuizawa distillery). Aged 15 years. 40 per cent alcohol.
Nose: A rich succulent bouquet. A big bunch of bananas, vanilla, walnuts, oranges, firm grain and fresh cut timber. Sounds sweet. It is!
Palate: Smooth and creamy; mashed bananas, more orange, sweet lemon and the same firm grain.
Finish: Fairly short but smooth, with nutmeg, orange chocolate and continuing the flavors from the palate.
3 comments:
Looks heavily inspired by the Hibiki bottle design! Is it a round bottle, or more oval in shape? Can't quite tell from the angle there.
- October 25, 2010 at 7:25 PM
I think it is oval. Is that right Dramtastic?
- October 25, 2010 at 9:41 PM
- dramtastic said...
I would call it almond shaped. As for inspriration, is it the chicken or the egg that came first. I think this Mercian pre dated any Hibiki bottling but that is still only speculation on my part.
- October 30, 2010 at 12:36 PM
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Vinny Guadagnino, the one who literally pales in comparison to everyone else on Jersey Shore, has landed his very own Jersey Shore spinoff. In a press release, MTV announced today that it's given the greenlight to The Show with Vinny, "a hybrid talk show/reality series."
The format of the show is that Vinny will interview "the biggest celebrities" in his mother's Staten Island home, over a meal that she has prepared, while other family members like his Uncle Nino sit around the table and interject. The network says, "Celebrities will let their guard down to have a meal and a candid conversation about whatever comes up complete with lots of commentary from Vinny's peanut gallery of loved ones." While they promise "big friggin' stars," they don't give specifics about who is expecte to appear on the show.
The show, which wasn't given a premiere date, will be produced by Jersey Shore creator SallyAnn Salsano and will undoubtedly be really helpful for all those people who occasionally suffer from anxiety and have to go home for three or four days and eat a lot of Italian food.


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Posts tagged 'micro enterprise'
A Mexican Tale of Women and Sheep
Emmanuel M. von Arx | KF 16+17 | Mexico
Who would have thought that my second Kiva Fellowship would teach me just as much about microfinance as about the rearing of sheep? Seriously, ask me anything you want: How do you best hold a lamb? How do you wrestle with a grown-up mutton? How do you treat sheep for worms? Where and how often do you set them a vaccine? How do you determine a sheep's age? Why does a sheep bite normally neither hurt nor bleed? For what reason does a sheep have four stomach compartments? And how do you compel a lamb's reluctant mother to accept her kid after birth? I owe this knowledge to UNAM-educated veterinarian Linda Velázquez Rosas, who made a sheep-expert not just out of me, but also out of 200 amateur sheep-owners in and around the little town of San Felipe del Progreso, two hours west of Mexico City. This training was made possible by Vision Fund Mexico (also known as Fundación Realidad or FRAC), a Kiva field partner that excels both at financial and non-financial services (in a previous blog post I documented an artisan fair in Mexico City that was co-organized by FRAC).
Continue Reading 6 July 2012 at 08:00 Emmanuel von Arx 6 comments
Beyond Financial Services: Mexico's Greatest Artisan Fair
Emmanuel M. von Arx | KF 16+17 | Mexico
Shortly after arriving at my first Mexican microfinance organization, FRAC (or Fundación Realidad, soon to be called Vision Fund Mexico), I had the joyful task of presenting in the name of Kiva two Social Performance Badges to its enthusiastic staff: one for Vision Fund Mexico's strong and persistent focus on poor people, and one for the organization's success in empowering families and communities. The description of the Family and Community Empowerment Badge on Kiva's homepage immediately piqued my interest: it states that recipients of this badge "implement innovative business practices and offer services in addition to their financial products to meet the needs of the people they serve." Innovative business practices and additional services beyond financial products? At FRAC? I began to ask members of FRAC's staff and was soon pointed to some great examples of non-financial services that Vision Fund Mexico has provided in past months and year: they include support in product marketing and distribution given to beekeepers and artisan villages, over 380 free financial literary workshops for well over 4,000 borrowers, and free expert veterinarian training and medical services provided to hundreds of borrowers who are raising cows and sheep in their backyard. While I hope that some of these topics will be addressed by future guest blog posts of FRAC staff members (continuing the series that was started by Rosa's gorgeous post on her recent field visit), I will report here on FRAC's selfless contribution to Mexico's largest artisan fair, the Expo FONAES. In many ways, this is just another example to David Gorgani's great piece on the wide range of non-financial services that Kiva field partner organizations provide.
Continue Reading 22 June 2012 at 08:00 Emmanuel von Arx 4 comments
Recycling for Life and Family in the Mexican Countryside
Emmanuel M. von Arx | KF 16+17 | Mexico
I have a confession to make: I love to browse Kiva borrower profiles – even occasionally without any actual intention to make a loan. I believe that reading the stories of borrowers from all over the world and knowing their dreams tells me more about a country and the mentality of its people than even the best of all travel guidebooks. And knowing some of the challenges they are facing in their lives and how they are surmounting them, being aware of the long hours they work every day and their dedication to their families – all this inspires me deeply and on a very personal level: if people can thrive under difficult circumstances thanks to incredibly hard work and a dream, then I should and will be able to do something meaningful and lasting with my own life as well! My Kiva lender profile reads: "I loan because… Kiva borrowers never cease to inspire me with their courage, talent, and dedication!"
That strong sense of inspiration that speaks to me out of every Kiva borrower's history has been multiplied during my time in the field as a Kiva Fellow in the course of many personal meetings with borrowers. I have met literally dozens of borrowers who have left an indelible mark in my heart and mind. But recently I have met a borrower who is so extraordinary and unusual that even I – one of the more seasoned Kiva Fellows – was blown away. Her name is Ma de los Angeles and this blog entry tells the story of her work and her success.
Continue Reading 1 June 2012 at 08:00 Emmanuel von Arx 6 comments
The Heart of Kiva – A Guest Blog from Mexico
Emmanuel M. von Arx | KF 16+17 | Mexico
Kiva is all about stories – what draws us all in and inspires us to lend are the stories of courageous micro-entrepreneurs that speak of hard-ship and success, challenges and dreams, love and dedication. But Kiva is not just about borrowers and their stories. It is also about the people behind the scene on the ground – the staff of the close to 150 field partners of Kiva – who screen loan applicants, grant, administrate, and look after Kiva loans, and make sure that Kiva borrowers are treated respectfully and fairly. Their stories are almost never told. Yet, the local staff of Kiva´s Field Partners are those people who make the magic happen – they are the ones who make Kiva possible. If Kiva Fellows are called the "eyes and ears in the field", I propose local MFI staff be called "the brain and heart of Kiva." MFI staff has insights on the conditions on the ground, the local mentalities, and the practical aspects of microfinance that can rival (and – I have no doubt – normally exceed) those of Kiva staff and Fellows. Yet, their perspective is seldom heard and their stories are rarely told.
Just how much local field partner staff have to tell and to share with the world I learned during the brief three week period during which I had the pleasure to be the Kiva Fellow for FRAC or Fundación Realidad (soon to be known as Vision Fund Mexico) in Mexico City. FRAC, has over 200 employees – they encompass 200 breathtaking stories and lives from all over Mexico, coming together in FRAC's vision of wanting to provide financial and non-financial services to those families who do not have access to formal banking services in order to improve their quality of life.
During my work in FRAC's Mexico City Headquarter, the MFI's staff turned out to be an endless source of inspiration for me. There was not one person I talked to whose story and motives wouldn't be worth sharing. Within a few brief hours I felt not just surrounded by close friends, but soul-mates – I discovered that everybody around me was at least as passionate and enthusiastic about FRAC's and Kiva's work and the impact of micro-finance as I am.
As soon as I told FRAC's staff about the Kiva Fellows Blog, I was bombarded with requests of staff members to publish their thoughts and their experiences on it. Many have a particular pet project they feel most passionate about; others have made an experience on the job they are keen to share. Thus grew the idea of creating a little guest blog within the Kiva Fellow Blog. I offered to all staff to publish their thoughts and words on the Fellows' blog as a way to make readers aware that Kiva doesn't just connect lenders with borrowers, but that it connects lenders with local staff with borrowers with friends with staff with borrowers with lenders with… stop! Let's just say: Kiva connects people through lending!
Rosa Gonzalez is the first staff member of FRAC who agreed to share her experience. She was hired by FRAC as their English-Spanish translator a few days after I joined the organization as a Kiva Fellow. Rosa translates both borrower profiles and journals for FRAC borrowers before they are being published or sent to lenders. But let me introduce Rosa in her own words – you will immediately see that they are pure poetry.
Continue Reading 24 April 2012 at 08:58 Emmanuel von Arx 5 comments
Cooperative Karaoke; Celebrating 47 Years of Savings and Loans
By Marcus Berkowitz, KF16, Ecuador
Institutional birthdays in the US can be fairly stuffy affairs. Seating is often arranged to maximize contact with those in the institution with whom one has never spoken (perhaps for good reason, argue some guests) and they tend to be remembered more for inappropriate comments inserted into otherwise boring speeches rather than for the celebrations that they hope to be but rarely are.
Not so at the Cooperativa San Jose de Chimbo (CSJ). Instead of standing around awkwardly, everyone secretly wishing they were somewhere else, the 47th birthday of CSJ (conveniently combined with the office Xmas party) was a chaotic and energetic no-holds-barred inter-office Karaoke war. This post includes video evidence…
Producto Creer: How for a Bank Doing the Right Thing Can Pay Off
By Emmanuel M. von Arx, KF16, Guayaquil (Ecuador)
My host and Kiva´s partner organization Banco D-MIRO provides over ten different types of microloans to borrowers in and around Guayaquil: among them loans to finance housing improvements, school expenses, medication, and loans awarded specifically to employees, young clients with a business idea but no experience, and – as Ecuador´s only microfinance institution – discount loans for HIV-positive micro-entrepreneurs. Yet, one borrower group beats all other borrowers in their dedication and commitment to paying back their loans on time: the well over 400 disabled borrowers of Banco D-MIRO, whose payment discipline has turned "their" loan – "Producto Creer" ("Product Believe") – into the most successful and inspirational product of D-MIRO´s extensive spectrum. The delinquency rate of Producto Creer is by far lower than that of any other major micro-loan type of Banco D-MIRO, which means that borrowers of Producto Creer are better at paying back their monthly rates than any other client group! In these times of economic and social turmoil, Banco D-MIRO´s Producto Creer may be a much needed reminder that it may pay off for banks to do the morally right thing.
Continue Reading 20 December 2011 at 04:00 Emmanuel von Arx 1 comment
All Loans Lead to Home; When an Agricultural Loan is also a Housing (or Student) Loan
By Marcus Berkowitz, KF16, Ecuador
"We built a little house" she replied happily, when I asked how she had used the loan. I looked down at my sheet. Oops. This loan, according to its Kiva description, was for corn seeds and fertilizers.
Of course, we have no right to insist on any particular loan use. That's not the point. But of the first three borrowers with whom I had spoken as part of Kiva's Borrower Verification process, not a single one had used the loan for the purpose listed on Kiva. And two of three had built houses with their loans. What gives?
Continue Reading 15 December 2011 at 05:38 marcusofulano 3 comments


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WED, DEC 10, 2008 at 9:46 AM
Grammy nominations for No Age and Flight of the Conchords!
Last week, the nominations for the 2009 Grammy Awards were announced and we were pleasantly confused to discover that once again TWO (2) artists recording for the Sub Pop label earned nominations!
We are, of course, talking about No Age and Flight of the Conchords.
In category 80 (aka Best Comedy Album), the self-titled debut long-player by Flight of the Conchords is up against albums by Lewis Black, Kathy Griffin, Harry Shearer, and… George Carlin.
And, in category 88, (the award for Best Recording Package) No Age and art director Brian Roettinger have been nominated for the really very amazing, and yes, also handsomely packaged Nouns album! How crazy and amazing would it be if No Age won a Grammy??? We have all available fingers crossed.
This is becoming almost a regular thing. Last year, you'll remember/we'll take this opportunity to remind you, not only were The Shins up for Best Alternative Album (for Wincing the Night Away), but Flight of the Conchords ACTUALLY WON A GRAMMY for their EP The Distant Future. Full details on all that are here
Congratulations to both No Age and Flight of the Conchords—we're very proud of you guys and regularly attempt to impress people by claiming to know you.
Good luck!
[Entirely without permission, we helped ourselves to the No Age photo here from the No Age blog]


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history lessons
Somewhere in Australia in a dusty forgotten box I have a heavy black compass that was one of my great-grandfather's tools of trade. My great-grandfather was nominally Czech because his family home was in Opava near the current border of the Czech Republic and Poland. But he was born in the late 19th C – […]Also tagged europe, ex-yugoslavia, forest, history, wildlife


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The friendly young ladies
Pantheon Books, 1945 - Fiction - 284 pages
When seventeen-year-old Elsie runs away from home, she seeks out her older sister Leo, only to find Leo sharing a houseboat, and a bed, with the beautiful, fair-haired Helen. When Elsie decides to stay for a bit, she turns Helen and Leo's lifestyle upside down. An enchanting portrait of Bohemian life in 1930s London, this delightfully provocative romantic comedy was written in 1943 in opposition to the despair characteristic of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness or Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour.
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LibraryThing ReviewUser Review - atreic - LibraryThing
I read this book because I was reading reviews of the Well of Loneliness, and it was mentioned. In fact, the comment was something like 'oh God, the Well of Loneliness, it's so up itself and tortured ... Read full review
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The writing is excellent which makes the story effective. The young Elsie is a very sad character who doesn't have much grasp of the reality that everybody else seems to understand so well, but their ... Read full review
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Weak jobs report, Europe fears pound stocks
(AP) Updated at 4:09 p.m. ET
Stocks closed down sharply Friday after the U.S. Labor Department earlier in the day released a dismal report on hiring and employment. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 275 points, or 2.2 percent, to end at 12,118.57, its steepest one-day drop in more than six months.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq composite index both fell more than 2 percent.
American employers added just 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate increased to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent. Economists had forecast a gain of 158,000 jobs.
The government's labor report, considered the most important economic indicator each month, also said that hiring in March and April was considerably weaker than originally thought.
Rotten May jobs report underscores weak recovery
Will the weak employment report prompt action from policymakers?
Watch: Weak U.S. job report -- blame Europe
"The big worry now is that this economic slowdown is widening and accelerating," said Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, a market research firm.
The job picture remained dark elsewhere in the world. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro currency stayed at a record-high 11 percent in April, and unemployment spiked to almost 25 percent in Spain.
There were also signs that growth in China, which helped sustain the global economy through the recession, is slowing significantly. China's manufacturing weakened in May, according to surveys released Friday.
The Dow's fall leaves it with a loss for the year of 0.2 percent. Two months ago, the market was up more than 8 percent.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 32 points to 1,278.04. The Nasdaq was off 79.86 at 2,747.48. Both indexes are still up for the year -- about 2 percent for the S&P and 6 percent for the Nasdaq.
Traders sold all types of risky investments and stampeded toward the safety of U.S. government bonds. Bond prices rose sharply, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note down to 1.44 percent, the lowest on record.
May was by some measures the worst month for the stock market in two years. Investors' worries about Europe's debt crisis intensified as the month wore on.
The jobs report drew traders' attention back to the weakening U.S. economy, said Todd Salamone, director of research for Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.
"The weaker jobs report translates into anticipation of slower growth ahead and weaker corporate earnings, and that ratchets stock prices lower," Salamone said.
Stovall said that traders are waiting to see what governments and central banks might do to juice global economic activity. Otherwise, the losses would be even deeper, he said.
The Fed undertook programs in 2009 and 2010 to buy U.S. government bonds to lower interest rates and help stock prices, but it has resisted a third round of that approach, known as quantitative easing.
Anticipation of bond-buying by the Fed "might put in a little bit of a floor to the market, but the overall economic picture is still bad," said Bob Gelfond, CEO of MQS Asset Management, a New York hedge fund.
The price of gold shot higher. It rose $47 an ounce to $1,611. For much of the past three years, investors have bought gold for safety during a turbulent time for the world economy.
The dollar weakened. The euro rose half a penny against the dollar to above $1.24. A day earlier, fears about Europe's finances had pushed the euro to a nearly two-year low against the dollar.
Gold spiked and the dollar fell partly because traders expect more intervention by the Federal Reserve, Gelfond said.
Bond-buying adds to the supply of money coursing through the economy and leads some investors to worry about future inflation, which would make the dollar less valuable. Traders buy gold as a hedge against inflation.
The price of a barrel of oil fell about $3 to $83.53, extending a month-long slide.
Fewer than 20 of the 500 companies in the S&P index were higher for the day.
Homebuilder stocks were down the most, despite a report that construction spending rose for a second month in April. PulteGroup fell 11 percent, D.R. Horton 9 percent and Lennar 8 percent. The three had the biggest declines of companies in the S&P 500.
Boeing, the biggest U.S. exporter, fell 2.8 percent, one of the biggest declines among the 30 companies that make up the Dow. Traders fear that the economic slowdown will hurt global demand for its airplanes and defense technologies.
Stocks closed way down in Europe. Greece's benchmark stock index fell 4.4 percent, Germany's 3.4 percent and France's 2.2 percent.


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James Holmes Update: U. of Colo. releases thousands of documents regarding accused Aurora shooter
(AP) DENVER - The University of Colorado at Denver has released thousands of documents that may relate to the man accused in the Colorado theater shootings, but much of the material appears to be heavily redacted.
PICTURES: The Colorado massacre suspect
More than 2,000 records were released Wednesday after news organizations, including The Associated Press, requested them to learn about James Holmes' year at the school.
A significant number of the documents appeared to be entirely redacted by the school. The university cited federal laws that bar the release of academic or medical information.
Holmes was a graduate student in neuroscience at the university before the July 20 shooting.
He is accused of opening fire inside a suburban Aurora theater during a showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." Twelve people were killed and 58 others were injured.
Holmes is charged with multiple first-degree murder and attempted murder counts. He has yet to enter a plea.


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WARNING: This blog entry was imported from my old blog on blogs.sun.com (which used different blogging software), so formatting and links may not be correct.
(See intro for a background and caveats on these coding advice blog entries.)
If you've been coding in C, you've probably picked up the habit of initializing all your fields:
char *foo = NULL;
int bar = 0;
This is necessary, because in C, memory can be left uninitialized, so there's no telling what value
foo will have before it is assigned something.
In Java, however, the language specification clearly defines default values, so virtual machines will for example always initialize reference fields to
Specifically, this means that code like the following is redundant:
private int foo = 0;
private Bar bar = null;
private boolean baz = false;
The alternative form of initializing the fields explicitly in the constructor, is the same:
private int foo;
private Bar bar;
private boolean baz;
public Foo() {
foo = 0;
Bar bar = null;
baz = false;
You can leave out the above initializations, and the program will behave the same way. Carl Quinn once convinced me that this was more readable, so I picked up the habit, and I now swear by it. On the one hand, you can argue that leaving the explicit initializations in is more readable because you're making it really clear what it is you are intending. On the other hand, Java programmers quickly learn what the default values are and understand that an uninitialized field is the same as a nulled out field.
It turns out that the two forms are not exactly identical! If you disassemble the above code, you'll find the following bytecode is generated:
4: aload_0
5: iconst_0
6: putfield #2; //Field foo:I
9: aload_0
10: aconst_null
11: putfield #3; //Field bar:LBar;
14: aload_0
15: iconst_0
16: putfield #4; //Field baz:Z
If you leave out the initializations, none of the above bytecode is generated. In a simple microbenchmark there was a measurable time difference (about 10%) for the case where a handful of fields were initialized versus leaving them uninitialized, so it's clear that Hotspot doesn't completely eradicate the differences here. (<speculation>Perhaps it just zeroes out the whole object memory block when allocating a new object, relying on the default values to all be represented as zeroes natively, and this is done even when all fields are later initialized?</speculation>)
Obviously, speed considerations is not what should be the deciding factor here. This was a microbenchmark doing nothing other than construct objects with and without initialization - it's unlikely that you'll find a measurable difference on a real program. What really matters is readability. I should also point out that Findbugs will treat these two scenarios differently. If you print out a field value in the constructor, it will warn about an uninitialized field if the field was not explicitly initialized in the field declaration.
I can see arguments both for and against explicit field initialization, but I think this is one of those cases where convention wins. I personally find code cleaner and more readable when you leave your fields with implicit rather than explicit initialization.
P.S. Remember that null fields are often a bad idea and should be initialized to null-objects!


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The Vango Genesis 500 is an example of the new generation of inflatable tents that is starting to gain ground in the camping equipment market. This review is based upon experience gained during its use as a base camp tent on a weekend youth group camp.
First of all it is worth noting that this is a BIG tent, both in terms of when it is packed (80 cm long x 40 cm wide x 45 cm high) and when it is erected (500 cm long x 300 cm wide x 210 cm high. It could be carried in a canoe but, given its size is more likely to be suited for use at a base camp location or on a camp site. At 15.5 kg in weight, it is definitely not something that youll want to be carrying too far.
EDIT Picture of actual tent added with dog for scale
It is remarkably simple to put up. Most large tents need at least two people to erect however, this tent can easily be put up single-handed. It really was simply a case of: (1) remove the tent from its bag; (2) roughly peg out the corners of the tent; (3) pump up the airbeams to the pressure shown on the dial of the hand-pump provided; (4) adjust the corner pegs and then roll out and peg down the guy ropes. Altogether this was completed in well under 10 minutes by one person even though wed never seen the tent erected before. Given its design, it could be erected in a strong breeze but, its not a mountain tent, so dont expect to be able to pitch it up in a gale.
Once the tent was up we had the chance to examine our new abode. The tent has three compartments: two window-less sleeping compartments at the rear and a large windowed admin compartment at the front with entrances to either side. The partition between the two sleeping compartments can be readily removed to create a larger and more flexible space. Even with three adults in the tent, it was spacious in the extreme and even a 6-footer can stand up comfortably inside both the porch area and sleeping compartments.
On the night we used the tent the weather provided a range of challenges. In the rain, the tent shed water well and there was no seepage whatsoever either from the top downwards or through the sewn-in groundsheet. When the breeze picked up the tent was rock solid with the airbeams being, if anything, more rigid than comparable flexible aluminium poles. Later, the sky cleared and the temperature dropped fast to near freezing but, the tent proved surprisingly well insulated for such a big tent. Overall, a good experience in use.
The following day we had to take the tent down and pack it away and this was the only real area of where any criticism could be levelled. Deflating the airbeams is a simple case of unscrewing the valves and letting the air out quite a whoosh given the high pressure! After lifting the pegs and rolling up the guy ropes we then tried to roll up the tent and pack it away. This was a little bit of a wrestling match and definitely a two-person job and it took us three attempts to get the beast back in its bag something that a stronger and larger bag with compression straps would readily address.
With an RRP of £550 (seen on sale with Ellis Brigham for £419) you are getting a lot of tent for your money. It goes up quickly and easily and will stand up to most of what the British weather will throw at it in the Spring-Summer-Autumn months. It is well layed out and plenty big enough for family use in a fixed location. What it isnt is compact or lightweight but, its not meant to be. One improvement would be a stronger and larger bag but, if that is the worst it can be criticized for, then it is still a good buy.
EDIT Link to Vango website http://www.vango.co.uk/gb/5-person-t...nesis-500.html


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ali stone
I spose I would say that this is all well and good but you must consider your client as well as end user and your own interpretation as a designer.
Clients generally have major pre-conceptions too that are design related. I would love to say that Lloyds bank, Nat West etc are designing what I believe to be unnecessary web 2.0 styled elements (shiny buttons, gradients etc) but then it's very difficult to argue that with Barclays. Clients will often see the trends and embrace them, their experience is not on the side of originality it is from their personal (usually limited experience).
Anything outside of what they understand often scares them and you have to be very careful not to alienate a client or make them feel stupid.
Essentially what I am saying is that be pioneering/push the boundaries but it's the careful application combined with the understanding that is the key. Like Mike says you should go through your design and subtract anything that offers no benefit in it's visual communication i.e. what is that ribbon saying to me? Less = More


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CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – Lance Cpl. Eamonn Garber wasn't sure things would work out, and that was bad mostly because his unit was at war.
The Marines with the Operations Platoon Engineer Support Company in the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion faced an unexpected change in leadership two months after they arrived in Afghanistan, and they were worried it would derail their otherwise smooth deployment.
The ubiquitous "needs of the Corps" required an engineer officer back here at the unit's home base, so their platoon commander needed to redeploy to the States. In turn, the 50 enlisted Marines were stuck with a young new boss — one without an engineering background. The Marines said they feared it could be a tough transition.
When 1st. Lt. Amanda Mathew showed up to take command in December, she became the first woman to lead a deployed combat arms platoon. The young officer was riding on the forefront of a wave of changes, one that started months earlier when then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the Pentagon to integrate women into combat arms military occupational specialties. Since then, the Corps has opened a number of combat MOSs to women, along with a slew of new billets.
Still, the countdown for the service to complete integration — or otherwise apply for waivers — ends Jan. 1, 2016. And the voices of dissent and criticism have only grown more shrill, more concerted and — at times — even more cruel and ruthless with every new opening.
That's the climate Mathew faced when she stepped into her new role at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
Sgt. Joseph Cain said other Marines he ran into in Afghanistan were skeptical of their new platoon commander.
"After awhile you take offense," Cain said.
In the end, he and other 1st CEB Marines stood up for their new platoon commander — a first lieutenant who trusted their work, could crank out 22 pullups and quickly learned the ins-and-outs of combat engineering. Cain said he found a quick line that quickly silenced other Marines.
"She's better than your lieutenant," he said he'd tell them.
When the Marine Corps decided to lift some restrictions on women in combat, it made them eligible for jobs previously only held by men. That included leadership positions in combat arms platoons, a coveted job among young officers across the Corps.
"Most, if not every junior officer wants to be a platoon commander and have that hands-on experience with the Marines, and have those kinds of decisions afforded to you," Mathew said.
As the Corps assigns women to new jobs, officials and research organizations are evaluating the process and are trying to find the best way to continue integrating women across the service. By the end of 2015, the Marine Corps will complete a large-scale study and make recommendations for the commandant to consider. They're looking at Mathew and other women who perform in previously closed units in their current MOS as a part of this evaluation process.
While Mathew is a test subject of sorts, Marines in her platoon said their deployment went very well. Besides that, the novelty of the situation faded just days after Mathew took over.
"Besides saying, 'Good 'morning ma'am, good afternoon ma'am,' you forget," Cain said.
Some resistance
Mathew became a combat arms platoon commander after the Marine Corps opened 19 battalions that were previously staffed only by men to women. That included combat engineer, tanks, low altitude air defense, and other units under the combat arms umbrella. The Corps previously put women only in the headquarters elements of those units, but under the new policy they would be closer to the fight.
Prior to these changes, women still went outside the wire and incidentally fought and died in combat, including in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they weren't specifically assigned to a combat unit, unless they were assigned to special units like the Corps' Lioness programs.
But the decision to put women closer to the fight continues to make some people uneasy. Without fail, when the topic of women in combat is raised, there's a social media frenzy, and the critics are quick to spin out the line that women aren't physically capable of doing these jobs, or they're concerned that standards will weaken. There are also concerns that the integration would change the culture of the unit, destroying cohesion. Other opponents are plainly and openly misogynistic, repeatedly making off-color jokes.
Other female combat engineers faced resistance in a male-dominated world. In 2013, Gunnery Sgt. Robin Baker became the first female combat engineer gunny when she pinned on rank in Afghanistan while serving with Combat Logistics Regiment 2. She joined the Marines in 2000 and she told military public affairs that there were only four other women in her specialty training, and that some of the men she worked with questioned why she was even there, or told her that she wasn't capable of doing her job because of her gender. Those comments, however, just made her push harder, she said.
In 2012, 1st. Lt. Brandy Soublet was named the first female maintenance management and logistics officer for 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion in Twentynine Palms, California. There was a brief awkwardness when she first arrived at 3rd CEB, she said.
"I got some wayward looks from some young Marines," she said. But those looks quickly stopped, and she was simply viewed as the new lieutenant. Soublet is now a captain and a company officer at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Two years after the Pentagon announced the changes, the integration of women in combat continues to weigh on the minds of young Marines. When Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel addressed Marines here in August, one female Marine asked him for his views of women in combat. Hagel said he was satisfied with the way the Corps has integrated its units so far, and that the service was moving diligently to open up positions to women without lowering standards.
Besides putting women like Mathew into combat units, the Corps has three other simultaneous efforts to integrate women.
In June, the Corps stood-up the Ground Combat Elemental Integrated Task Force, a group of about 500 Marines, both men and women, who will serve as volunteer test subjects.
Researchers from universities and think tanks will study how they physically complete various combat-oriented tasks. Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine Corps spokeswoman, said that they're determining the physical demands and gender-neutral occupational requirements for these tasks, and then they'll find ways to make sure that the best and most qualified Marines can compete and receive combat arms jobs. The volunteers will complete entry-level schools for baseline training before they start testing at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
The Corps also opened 11 MOSs that they have determined do not need additional research before including women. And finally, the Corps is expanding research at entry-level training schools to get more data and make a more informed recommendation on how to include women.
Filling a new role
Mathew's unit deployed in October, and she learned she was going to become a platoon commander about two months later. Her executive officer told her to start learning how to lead a combat engineer platoon, but she said she only had a week to prepare before she took charge.
Since she said she couldn't possibly master everything she needed to know about the three-section platoon that quickly, she oriented herself enough to steer the platoon. She knew she'd have to turn to the Marines for guidance, she said.
Her Marines said that willingness to learn about what they did established trust and helped build a solid relationship.
"She would learn so she could lead better," Garber, the lance corporal, said. "She would come around and she would learn about our gear, how it operates. She did maintenance with us once."
Cain said that showed the Marines she trusted their expertise. She didn't ask questions to hit them with a pop quiz, but to tap into their knowledge, he said, which was different from a lot of other leaders he worked with.
While Baker and Soublet both had some tense moments when stepping into new roles as women, Mathew said she had a different experience.
"Marines are going to be loud and obnoxious and absolutely ridiculous, but at the end of the day they are a group of absolute professionals that are going to get the mission done and get it done very well," she said. "I was received very well. I didn't have the impression that I need to prove myself. It's more that I needed to accomplish the mission and take care of the Marines."
Sgt. Maj. Dan Krause, the top enlisted Marine with 1st CEB, said he didn't hear anyone take issue that Mathew is a woman.
"It didn't come up at all," he said.
The MOSs that compose a combat engineer battalion go to school and train with women, so the male Marines are more used to working with females, he said.
"It wasn't like she was an infantry platoon commander all the sudden," he said.
Besides that, Mathew is an exemplary young officer, so Marines were going to respect her anyway, he said.
"She definitely leads from the front, the way she carries herself, the way she looks in uniform, her physical fitness," he said. "She has everything you look for in a Marine officer."


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Wetpixel Eastern Fields Expeditions, PNG, January 2012
(trip info text by Tony Wu)
I probably don't need to write too much about the Eastern Fields, as I can let Craig do the talking in the following video:
What I can add is that the Eastern Fields atoll system, like the areas I described above, is not over-dived, is not over-fished, and is not sitting next to areas suffering from over-development.
In case you haven't noticed, I like travelling to unspoiled places. I don't mean "unspoiled" in the over-Photoshopped-vacation-brochure sense. I mean truly unspoiled…as in, "almost no one has ever been there" and "you definitely won't see anyone else underwater there" unspoiled.
The plan for January 2012 is to do two trips. On the first trip, we'll visit several of the best sites around the Eastern Fields. Depending on how the weather and water look, we may dash over to another reef system called the Ashmore's. The exact itinerary will be a judgement call based on prevailing conditions.
The second trip will concentrate on my personal favorite dive site in the area, Carl's Ultimate — a site named after my friend and mentor Carl Roessler.
It's a small bommie in the middle of a channel that gets swept by nutrient-filled currents. To say the marine life is "amazing" is like saying the Great Barrier Reef is "big". It's a major understatement.
Devoting most of an 8-day trip to a single dive site would normally be madness, but believe me, once you see this site, you'll want to stay.
I'm co-organising the Eastern Fields trips with Eric Cheng and Wetpixel again, so there will no doubt be lots of photographers on board!
Prices and dates are as follows:
1. 10-20 January 2012, Eastern Fields
Cabin 1 US$4395/ person
Cabin 2 US$4125/ person
Cabin 3 US$3855/ person
Cabin 4 US$4395/ person
Cabin 5 US$4395/ person
2. 22 January - 2 February 2012, Carl's Ultimate and more
Cabin 1 US$4827/ person
Cabin 2 US$4530/ person
Cabin 3 US$4233/ person
Cabin 4 US$4827/ person
Cabin 5 US$4827/ person
Click here to email Dan Baldocchi, who is handling the bookings for these trips.
An overview of trip logistics from our previous excursion can be found here, and here is a trip report that Eric posted after our trip.
My trips videos from last year's excursion are here and here.
Trips aboard Golden Dawn are always an adventure, with lots to see, terrific food, wonderful conversation and unforgettable experiences.
All of these trips will be dedicated to photography.
The waters of Papua New Guinea are teeming with marine life, and you can't get to many of the places we'll be visiting except on a liveaboard. Even better, at any given time, we will probably be the only people in the water!
If we find some place or thing that everyone wants to spend time on, we'll adjust accordingly. Similarly, if we see that conditions aren't right, we'll move on and look for a more suitable location.
In other words, we'll have a plan, but we'll go with the flow to maximise fun, safety and photographic opportunities.
Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to sharing an adventure with you!
UPDATE from Eric Cheng
We're back from the trip! Here's the trip slideshow:
There's also a Wetpixel thread tracking pictures and experiences.


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|Dirty 101
Short review: The Dirty 101 preview pages are packed with boner-inducing two-girl pairings like Eve Angel and Judith Fox or Angel Dark and Bianca Fox as well as multi-girl orgies. Inside the site, girls act out their deepest desires for each other with extreme penetration, fisting, and speculum play.
Content Amount: The site is updated with a new video every week. As of this writing, there were 130 videos in the archive. You also get access to 10 bonus sites and two additional bonus sites for every month you remain a member.


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njperrone wrote:jaap wrote:I have already given an example of a function that is neither even nor odd that has a zero sum:
f(x) = { 1-cos(2pi x) for 0<x<1; 0 elsewhere}
this actually does not sum up to either 0 or infinity. So is excluded, by definition, from the theorem.
f'(x) = { -2pi sin(2pi x) for 0<x<1; 0 elsewhere}
f'(x) = 0 for all integers x
so your sum will be 0.
njperrone wrote:jaap wrote:A worse example, here is an odd function with a zero sum.
f(x) = { 1-cos(2pi x) for x>=0; cos(2pi x)-1 for x<0 }
and this one actually works with my theorem.
f'(x) = { 2pi sin(2pi x) for x>=0; -2pi sin(2pi x) for x<0 }
f'(x) = 0 for all integers x
so your sum will be 0, even though the function is odd.