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AI is changing every industry and business function which results in increased interest in AI, its subdomains and related fields such as machine learning and data science:
We are tracking the most impactful AI use cases here. This is meant to be a list that grows over time so feel free to contribute with your comments, this list is definitely not comprehensive now. And share the knowledge with your twitter followers: @AndrewYNg claims that "AI is the new electricity". We compiled 100+ applications runnning on this new electricity. Explore to become the smartest person in the room when it comes to AI
To get the expanded list with more details, please
Marketing can be summarized as reaching the customer with the right offer, the right message, at the right time, through the right channel while constantly learning. For each step, AI provides an edge to smart marketers:
1- Optimize Product, Pricing & Placement
Optimizing product, pricing & placement allows marketers to create an attractive value proposition to customers.
Gesture Control: Gesture control enables higher levels of activity and engagement by allowing users another mode of interaction with your digital products. Quantify the gesture levels and other engagements in order to provide meaningful insights.
Pricing Optimization: Also called dynamic pricing or demand pricing, pricing optimization allows companies to optimize markdowns. Optimal markdowns minimize cannibalization while maximizing revenues. One of the easiest transformations a business can achieve, dynamic prices directly impact the bottom line and can be rolled out in a matter of days. Optimize markdowns to minimize cannibalization while maximizing revenues.
Physical placement
Merchandising Optimization: Leverage machine learning and big data to optimize your online or offline merchandising. Identify which products are of significant importance for customers. Develop similar products for up-selling and cross-selling.
Shelf Audit/Analytics: Use video, images or robots in the retail area to audit and analyze your use of shelf space. Place your product in the right place. Gain further insights regarding which shelves to perform better. Identify and manage suboptimal performing shelf spaces.
Digital Placement
Product Information Management: Manage and improve all your product information centrally to improve product discoverability and appeal. Keep your SKU's info up-to-date. Automatically modify and update the product description, box description, and all other related information.
Website Personalization: Personalize your website based on customer data. Provide them with the right products displayed on the main focus points of the page. Provide them with their own color preferences, geographic location details. Seamless integration of their data into your website's overall attractiveness.
Visual Search Capability: Leverage machine vision to enable your customers to search your products by image or video to immediately reach their desired products.
Image Tagging to Improve Product Discovery: Leverage machine vision to tag your images taking into account your users' preferences and relevant context for your products.
2- Personalize recommendations
A company with an attractive value proposition in the market can still not have much progress if it is offering the wrong product. Personalizing offers allows marketers to match their offers with the right customers.
Recommendation Personalization: Also called recommendation engine or recommendation system, these systems ensure you make the right offer taking into account all
- digital and analogue interactions (page views, purchases, email opens…) of that customer with your brand
- that customer's interactions on different web properties
- interactions of similar customers
This data is leveraged to retain and upgrade customers with personalized recommendations via email, site search or other channels.
3- Optimize marketing communication
An optimized marketing communication reaches customers at the right time at the right channel with the right message. There are numerous emerging AI companies specializing in these areas. For example, companies like Appzen track customers' cross-device behavior to ensure that your messages target customers at the device they are using at the time of your marketing communication.
Just a few years ago most messages to customers were hand crafted for specific macro-segments. Today companies like Phrasee suggest personalized messages to ensure that customers receive messages they prefer to read.
Neuromarketing: Leverage neuroscience and biometric sensors to understand how your content impacts your audience's emotions and memory. Test your content in private until it achieves the desired effect.
Context-Aware Marketing: Context is crucial to marketing. Consider these advertising experiences: You watch a video of a plane crash interrupted by an airline ad. You are reading about a specific phone model exploding when overcharged and you see the ad for that model on the same page. There are horrible yet relatively innocent examples. There has been numerous cases when brand ads were shown in-between videos of hate-groups. Context-aware advertising companies leverage machine vision and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand the context where your ads will be served. Protect your brand and increase marketing efficiency by ensuring your message resonates with its context.
3rd Party Data: Leverage 3rd party data to better understand your existing customers and target potential customers. Increase your precision by using the numbers from external sources. Expand your target audience by identifying possible leads.
Omnichannel: Personalize your marketing communication across different paid marketing platforms. Create a coherent strategy for the overall marketing strategy. Analyze comparatively the impact of your efforts on different platforms.
Retargeting: Retarget customers who have already expressed interest in your products or services. Increase your sales by engaging the right customer.
Channel specific optimizations
Mobile Marketing: Personalized, individual messaging based on each customer's real-time and historical behaviors. Most of the users are active in mobile platforms, develop your strategy in order to gain a greater share in mobile traffic.
Email Marketing: Emails that are tailored to individual behavior. Detect which email type performs better with your product and customer. Customize by including the necessary email structure and images.
Video Commerce: Auto identify products in videos generated by you or users. Make videos with embedded products shoppable by inserting relevant links.
Advocacy and Loyalty Marketing: Using advocacy system and referrals to introduce and create a customer base via personal connections. Leverage the power of connections by providing the right referral campaign. Estimate the possible sales figures in your marketing strategy by using the impact profile of your customers.
Content Generation: Choose the topic for your content marketing, power it with proprietary data feeds and let AI create unique content. Rather than spending hours for the content, automatic content generation will provide you with the right tools.
4- Connect & leverage customer feedback
Social Media Optimization: Leverage machine learning to optimize the channel, target audience, message and timing of your social media posts.
Social Analytics & Automation: Leverage Natural Language Processing and machine vision to analyze and act upon all content generated by your actual or potential customers on social media, surveys, and reviews.
5- Analytics
Marketing Analytics: Connect all your marketing data and KPIs automatically. Empower your teams to complete and share their advanced analysis with ease. Act on your data to manage campaigns, trigger alerts and improve your marketing efficiency. Achieve higher results in return on marketing investment.
PR Analytics: Learn from, analyze, and measure your PR efforts. These solutions track media activity and provide insights into PR efforts to highlight what is driving engagement, traffic, and revenue.
Social Media Monitoring: Leverage machine learning & natural language processing to monitor social media to make real-time business decisions. Analyze the momentum and emerging trends in your customers for product development or marketing campaign.
Emotion Recognition: Capture the emotional state of your customer by analyzing micro gestures and mimics. Computer vision will help you to capture the details and provide you with the real emotions of your customer.
You can check out our complete guide on the topic as well.
Sales Forecasting: AI allows automatic and accurate sales forecast based on all customer contacts and previous sales outcomes. Automatically forecast sales accurately based on all customer contacts and previous sales outcomes. Give your sales personnel more sales time while increasing forecast accuracy
Lead generation: Use a comprehensive data profile of your visitors to identify which companies your sales reps need to connect to. Generate leads for your sales reps leveraging databases and social networks
Sales Data Input Automation: Data from various sources will be effortlessly and intelligently copied into your CRM. Automatically sync calendar, address book, emails, phone calls and messages of your salesforce to your CRM system. Enjoy better sales visibility and analytics while giving your sales personnel more sales time.
Predictive sales/lead scoring: Use Artificial Intelligence to enable predictive sales. Score leads and prioritize sales rep actions based on lead scores and contact factors. Sales forecasting is automated with increased accuracy thanks to systems' granular access to lead scores and sales rep performance. To score leads, these systems leverage anonymized transaction data from their customers, sales data of this specific customer. To assess contact factors these systems leverage anonymized data and analyze all customer contacts such as email and calls.
Sales Rep Chat/ Email Bot: Chatbots are ideal to answer first customer questions. if the chatbot decides that it can not effectively serve the customer, it can pass those customers to human agents. Let 24/7 functioning, intelligent, self-improving bots handle making initial contacts to leads. High value, responsive leads will be called by live agents increasing sales effectiveness.
Sales Rep Response Suggestions: AI will suggest responses during live conversations or written messages with leads. Bots will listen in on agents' calls suggesting best practice answers to improve sales effectiveness
Sales Rep Next Action Suggestions: Your sales reps actions and leads will be analyzed to suggest the next best action. This situation wise solution will help your representatives to find the right way to deal with the issue. Historical data and profile of the agent will help you to achieve higher results. All leading to more customer satisfaction.
Sales Content Personalization and Analytics: Preferences and browsing behavior of high priority leads are analyzed to match them with the right content, aimed to answer their most important questions. Personalize your sales content and analyze its effectiveness allowing continuous improvement.
Retail Sales Bot: Use bots on your retail floor to answer customer's questions and promote products. Engage with the right customer by analyzing the profile. Computer vision will help you to provide the right action depending on the characteristics and mimics of the customer.
Meeting Setup Automation (Digital Assistant): Leave a digital assistant to set up meetings freeing your sales reps time. Decide on the targets to prioritize and keep your KPI's high.
Prescriptive Sales: Most sales processes exist in the mind of your sales reps. Sales reps interact with customers based on their different habits and observations. Prescriptive sales systems prescribe the content, interaction channel, frequency, price based on data on similar customers.
Customer Sales Contact Analytics: Analyze all customer contacts including phone calls or emails to understand what behaviors and actions drive sales. Advanced analytics on all sales call data to uncover insights to increase sales effectiveness
Sales Call Analytics: Advanced analytics on call data to uncover insights to increase sales effectiveness. See how well your conversation flow performs. Integrating data on calls will help you to identify the performance of each component in your sales funnels.
Sales attribution: Leverage big data to attribute sales to marketing and sales efforts accurately. See which step of your sales funnel performs better. Pinpoint the low performing part by the insights provided by analysis.
Sales Compensation: Determine the right compensation levels for your sales personnel. Decide on the right incentive mechanism for the sales representatives. By using the sales data, provide objective measures and continuously increase your sales representatives performance.
For more details on how AI is changing sales, you can check out our more comprehensive guide.
Generalist solutions
Analytics Platform: Empower your employees with unified data and tools to run advanced analyses. Quickly identify problems and provide meaningful insights.
Analytics Services: Satisfy your custom analytics needs with these e2e solution providers. Vendors are there to help you with your business objectives by providing turnkey solutions.
Specialized solutions
Geo-Analytics Platform: Enables analysis of granular satellite imagery for predictions. Leverage spatial data for your business goals. Capture the changes in any landscape on the fly.
Conversational Analytics: Use conversational interfaces to analyze your business data. Natural Language Processing is there to help you with voice data and more. Automated analysis of reviews and suggestions.
Data Visualization: Visualize your data for better analytics and decision making. Let the dashboards speak. Convey your message more easily and more esthetically.
Real-Time Analytics: Real-Time analytics for your time-sensitive decisions. Act timely and keep your KPI's intact. Use machine learning to explore unstructured data without any disruptions.
Image Recognition and Visual Analytics: Analyze visual data with advanced image and video recognition systems. Meaningful insights can be derived from the data piles of images and videos.
E-Commerce Analytics: Specialized analytics systems designed to deal with the explosion of e-commerce data. Optimize your funnel and customer traffic to maximize your profits.
Customer Service
Social Listening & Ticketing: Leverage Natural Language Processing and machine vision to identify customers to contact and respond to them automatically or assign them to relevant agents increasing customer satisfaction. Use the data available in social networks to uncover who to sell and what to sell.
Intelligent Call Routing: Route calls to most capable agent available. Intelligent routing systems incorporate data from all customer interactions optimizing customer satisfaction. Based on the customer profile and your agent's performance make it possible to provide the right service with the right agent. Reach superior net promoter scores.
Call Classification: Leverage Natural Language Processing to understand what customer is trying to achieve enabling your agents to focus on higher value-added activities. Before channeling the call, detect the nature of your customers' needs and let the right department handle the problem. Enhancing efficiency with higher satisfaction rates.
Voice Authentication: Authenticate customers without passwords leveraging biometry to improve customer satisfaction and reduce issues related to forgotten passwords. Their unique voice id will be their most secure key for accessing confidential information. Instead of last four digits of SSN, customers will gain access by using their own voice.
Call Intent Discovery: Leverage Natural Language Processing and machine learning to estimate and manage customer's intent (e.g. churn) to improve customer satisfaction and business metrics. Sentiment analysis through the customer's voice level and pitch. Detect the micro-emotions that drive the decision-making process.
Customer Service Response Suggestions: Bots will listen in on agents' calls suggesting best practice answers to improve customer satisfaction and standardize customer experience. Increase upsells and cross-sells by giving the right suggestion. Responses will be standardized, and best possible approach will serve the benefit of the customer.
Chatbot: Let 24/7 functioning, intelligent, self-improving chatbots to handle most queries and transfer customers to live agents when needed. Reduce customer service costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Customer Service Chatbot (Self – Service Solution): Build your own 24/7 functioning, intelligent, self-improving chatbots to handle most queries and transfer customers to live agents when needed. Reduce customer service costs and increase customer satisfaction. Reduce the traffic on your existing customer representatives and make them focus on more specific needs of your customer.
Call Analytics: Advanced analytics on call data to uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Find patterns and optimize your results. Analyze customer reviews through voice data and pinpoint where there is room for improvement.
Survey & Review Analytics: Leverage Natural Language Processing to analyze text fields in surveys and reviews to uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Automate the process by mapping the right keywords with right scores. Making it possible to lower the time for generating reports.
Customer Contact Analytics: Advanced analytics on all customer contact data to uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Utilize Natural Language Processing for higher customer satisfaction rates.
Chatbot Analytics: Analyze how customers are interacting with your chatbot. See the overall performance of your chatbot. Pinpoint its shortcomings and improve your chatbot. Detect the overall satisfaction rate of your customer with the chatbot.
Chatbot Testing: Semi-automated and automated testing frameworks facilitate bot testing. See the performance of your chatbot before deploying. Save your business from catastrophic chatbot failures. Detect the shortcomings of your conversational flow.
Data Management & Monitoring: Keep your data high quality for advanced analytics. Adjust the quality by filtering the incoming data. Save time by automating manual and repetitive tasks.
Data Integration: Combine your data from different sources into meaningful and valuable information. Data traffic depends on multiple platforms. Therefore, managing this huge traffic and structuring the data into meaningful format will be important. Keep your data lake available for further analysis.
Data Preparation Platform: Prepare your data from raw formats with data quality problems to a clean, ready to analyze format. Use extract, transform and load (ETL) platforms to fine tune your data before placing it into a data warehouse.
Data Cleaning & Validation Platform: Avoid garbage in, garbage out by ensuring the quality of your data with appropriate data cleaning processes and tools. Automate the validation process by using external data sources. Regular maintenance cleaning can be scheduled, and quality of the data can be increased.
Data Transformation: Transform your data to prepare it for advanced analytics. If it is unstructured adjust it for the required format.
Appdev: App development platforms for your custom projects. Your in-house development team can create original projects for your specific business needs. These platforms will help your team with the necessary tools.
Data Labeling: Unless you use unsupervised learning systems, you need high quality labeled data. Label your data to train your supervised learning systems. Human-in-the-loop systems auto label your data and crowdsource labeling data points that cannot be auto-labeled with confidence.
Fraud Detection: Leverage machine learning to detect fraudulent and abnormal financial behavior, and/or use AI to improve general regulatory compliance matters and workflows. Lower your operational costs by limiting your exposure to fraudulent documents.
Insurance & InsurTech: Leverage machine learning to quote optimal prices, manage claims effectively and improve customer satisfaction while reducing costs. Detect your customer's risk profile and provide the right plan.
Financial Analytics Platform: Leverage machine learning, Natural Language Processing, and other AI techniques for financial analysis, algorithmic trading, and other investment strategies or tools.
Expense Reporting: Use machine learning to improve basic business accounting, including expense reporting. Reduce approval workflows and processing cost for per unit.
Credit Lending & Scoring: Use AI for robust credit lending applications. Use predictive models to uncover the potentially non-performing loans and act. See the potential credit scores of your customers before they apply for a loan and provide custom tailored plans.
Billing: Leverage accessible billing services that remind your customers to pay. Increase your loan recovery ratios. Use automated invoice systems for your business.
Robo-Advisory: Use AI chatbot and mobile app assistant applications to monitor personal finances. Set your target savings or spending rates for your own goals. Your own finance assistant will handle the rest and provide you with insights to reach financial targets.
Regulatory Compliance: Use Natural Language Processing to quickly scan legal and regulatory text for compliance issues, and do so at scale. Handle thousands of paperwork, without any human interaction.
Data Gathering: Use AI to efficiently gather external data such as sentiment and other market-related data. Wrangle data for your financial models and trading approaches.
Debt Collection: Leverage AI to ensure compliant and efficient debt collection process. Effectively handle any dispute and see your success right in debt collection.
Patient Data Analytics: Analyze patient and/or 3rd party data to discover insights and suggest actions. Greater accuracy by assisted diagnostics. Lower the mortality rates and increase the patient satisfaction by using all the diagnostic data available to detect the underlying reasons for the symptoms.
Personalized Medications and Care: Find the best treatment plans according to patient data. Provide custom-tailored solutions for your patients. By using their medical history, genetic profile, you can create a custom medication or care plan.
Drug Discovery: Find new drugs based on previous data and medical intelligence. Lower your R&D cost and increase the output. All leading to greater efficiency. Integrate FDA data and you can transform your drug discovery by locating market mismatches and FDA approval or rejection rates.
Real-Time Prioritization and Triage: Prescriptive analytics on patient data enabling accurate real-time case prioritization and triage. Manage your patient flow by automatization. Integrate your call center and use language processing tools to extract the information, priorate patients that need urgent care and lower your error rates. Eliminate error-prone decisions by optimizing patient care.
Early Diagnosis: Analyze chronic conditions leveraging lab data and other medical data to enable early diagnosis. Provide a detailed report on the likelihood of development of certain diseases with genetic data. Integrate the right care plan for eliminating or reducing the risk factors.
Assisted or Automated Diagnosis & Prescription: Suggest the best treatment based on the patient complaint and other data. Put in place control mechanisms that detect and prevent possible diagnosis errors. Find out which active compound is most effective against that specific patient. Get the right statistics for a superior care management.
Pregnancy Management: Monitor mother and fetus health to reduce mothers' worries and enable early diagnosis. Use machine learning to quickly uncover potential risks and complications. Lower the rates of miscarriage and pregnancy-related diseases.
Medical Imaging Insights: Advanced medical imaging to analyze and transform images and model possible situations. Use diagnostic platforms equipped with high image processing capabilities to detect the possible diseases.
Healthcare Market Research: Prepare hospital competitive intelligence by tracking the market prices. See the available insurance plans, drug prices, and many more public data to optimize your services. Leverage NLP tools to analyze the vast size of unstructured data.
Healthcare Brand Management and Marketing: Create an optimal marketing strategy for the brand based on market perception and target segment. Tools that offer high granularity will allow you to reach the specific target and increase your sales.
Gene Analytics and Editing: Understand gene and its component. Predict the impact of gene edits. Before using gene therapy, use models the uncover what are the possible outcomes and find are the other solutions.
Device and Drug Comparative Effectiveness: Analyze drug and medical device effectiveness. Rather than just using simulations, test on other patient's data to see the effectiveness of the new drug, compare your results with benchmark drugs to make an impact with the drug.
Hiring: Hiring is a prediction game: Which candidate, starting at a specific position, will contribute more to the company? Machine's better data processing capabilities augment HR employees in various parts of hiring such as finding qualified candidates, interviewing them with bots to understand their fit or evaluating their assessment results to decide if they should receive an offer
Performance Management: Manage your employees' performance effectively and fairly without hurting their motivation. Follow their KPI's on your dashboard and provide real-time feedback. This would increase the employee satisfaction and lower your organization's employee turnovers. Actualize your employee's maximum professional potential with right tools.
HR Retention Management: Predict which employees are likely to churn and improve their job satisfaction to retain them. Detect the underlying reasons for their motive for seeking new opportunities. By keeping them at your organization, lower your human capital loss.
HR Analytics: HR analytics services is like the voice of employee analysis. See your people analytics and make better people decisions. Gain actionable insights and impactful suggestions for higher employee satisfaction.
Digital Assistant: Digital assistants are mature enough to replace real assistants in email communication. Include them in your emails to schedule meetings. They have already scheduled hundreds of thousands of meetings. Use the power of artificial intelligence in your day to day activities. Your own on-demand powerful AI backed assistant helping you 24/7.
Employee Monitoring: Monitor your employees for better productivity measurement. Provide objective metrics to see how well they function. Forecast their overall performance with the availability of massive amounts of data.
Building Management: Sensors and advanced analytics improve building management. Integrate IoT systems in your building for lower energy consumption and many more. Increase the available data by implementing the right data collection tools for a effective building management.
Analytics & Predictive Intelligence for Security: Analyze data feeds about the broad cyber activity as well as behavioral data inside an organization's network to come up with actionable insights to help analysts predict and thwart impending attacks. Integrate external data sources the watch out for global cyber threats and act timely. Keep your IT infrastructure intact or minimize losses.
Knowledge Management: Enterprise knowledge management enables effective and effortless storage and retrieval of enterprise data, ensuring organizational memory. Increased collaborative work by ensuring right individuals works with right data. Seamless organizational integration through knowledge management platforms.
Natural Language Processing Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage Natural Language Processing libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom NLP powered systems or to add NLP capabilities to your existing systems. In-house team will gain experience and knowledge regarding the tools. Increased development and deployment capabilities for your enterprise.
Image Recognition Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage image recognition libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom image processing systems or to add image processing capabilities to your existing systems.
Secure Communications: Protect employee communications like emails or phone conversations with advanced multilayered cryptography & ephemerality. Keep your industry secrets safe from corporate espionage.
Deception Security: Deploy decoy-assets in a network as bait for attackers, to identify, track, and disrupt security threats such as advanced automated malware attacks before they inflict damage. Keep your data and traffic safe by keeping them engaged in decoys. Enhance your cybersecurity capabilities against various forms of cyber attacks
Autonomous Cybersecurity Systems: Utilize learning systems to efficiently and instantaneously respond to security threats, often augmenting the work of security analysts. Lower your risk of human errors by providing greater autonomy for your cybersecurity. AI backed systems can check the compliance with standards.
Smart Security Systems: AI-powered autonomous security systems. Functioning 24/7 for achieving maximum protection. Computer vision for detecting even the tiniest anomalies in your environment. Automate emergency response procedures by instant notification capabilities.
Machine Learning Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage machine learning libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom learning systems or to add learning capabilities to your existing systems.
AI Developer: Develop your custom AI solutions with companies experienced in AI development. Create turnkey projects and deploy them to the specific business function. Best for companies with limited in-house capabilities for artificial intelligence.
Deep Learning Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage deep learning libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom learning systems or to add learning capabilities to your existing systems.
Developer Assistance: Assist your developers using AI to help them intelligently access the coding knowledge on the web and learn from suggested code samples. See the best practices for specific development task and formulate your custom solution. Real-time feedback provided by the huge history of developer mistakes and best practices.
AI Consultancy: Provides consultancy services to support your in-house AI development including machine learning and data science projects. See which units can benefit most from AI deployment. Optimize your artificial intelligence spending for best results from the insight provided by a consultant.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Digitize your processes in weeks without replacing legacy systems which can take years. Bots can operate on legacy systems learning from your personnel's instructions and actions. Increase your efficiency and profitability ratios. Increase speed and precision and many more.
Predictive Maintenance: Predictively maintain your robots and other machinery to minimize disruptions to operations. Implement big data analytics to estimate the factors that are likely to impact your future cash flow. Optimize PP&E spending by gaining an insight regarding the possible factors.
Manufacturing Analytics: Also called industrial analytics systems, these systems allow you to analyze your manufacturing process from production to logistics to save time, reduce cost and increase efficiency. Keep your industry effectiveness at optimal levels.
Inventory & Supply Chain Optimization: Leverage machine learning to take your inventory& supply chain optimization to the next level. See the possible scenarios in different customer demands. Reduce your stock keeping spending and maximize your inventory turnover ratios. Increase your impact factor in the value chain.
Robotics: Factory floors are changing with programmable collaborative bots that can work next to employees to take over more repetitive tasks. Automate physical processes such as manufacturing or logistics with the help of advanced robotics. Increased your connected systems by centralizing the whole manufacturing process. Lower your exposures to human errors.
Collaborative Robot: Cobots provide a flexible method for automation. Cobots are flexible robots that learn by mimicking human workers' behavior. Smart engineering systems for solutions still requiring human oversight.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Implementation: Implementing RPA solutions requires effort. Suitable processes need to be identified. If a rules-based robot will be used, the robot needs to be programmed. Employees' questions need to be answered. That is why most companies get some level of external help. Generally, outsourcing companies, consultants, and IT integrators are happy to provide the temporary labor to undertake this effort.
Cashierless Checkout: Self-checkout systems have many names. They are called cashierless, cashier-free or automated checkout systems. They allow retail companies to serve customers in their physical stores without the need for cashiers. Technologies that allowed users to scan and pay for their products have been used for almost a decade now and those systems did not require great advances in AI. However, these days we are witnessing systems powered by advanced sensors and AI to identify purchased merchandise and charge customers automatically.
Self-Driving Cars
Self-Driving Cars: From mining to manufacturing, self-driving cars/vehicles are increasing efficiency and effectiveness of operations. Integrate them into your business for greater efficiency. Leverage the power of artificial intelligence for complex tasks.
Vehicle Cybersecurity: Secure connected and autonomous cars and other vehicles with intelligent cybersecurity solutions. Guarantee your safety by hack-proof mechanisms. Protect your intelligent systems from attacks.
Vision Systems: Vision systems for self-driving cars. Integrate vision sensing and processing in your vehicle. Achieve your goals with the help of computer vision.
Driving Assistant: Required components and intelligent solutions to improve rider's experience in the car. Implement AI-Powered vehicle perception solutions for the ultimate driving experience.
To see all AI use cases, feel free to:
And if you have a specific business challenge, we can help you find the right vendor to overcome that challenge.
Sources: Though most use cases have been categorized based on experience, we also took a look at some sources before finalizing the list:
- Tractica's AI use cases list


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Dear Redeemer friends, We have just completed an awesome time in MA, leading TSM [The Significant Marriage], watching God literally work miracles in the lives of a few of the couples. It looks like the largest church in the area will be making TSM their marriage ministry and will become the hub for other churches to get involved. Being here has been especially important to us since we lived in MA the first 5 years of our marriage and began our marriage ministry here as a small group meeting in our home with some of the couples who attended this TSM!
We leave tomorrow [Wednesday, Jan. 15th] for London for SKI [Sunshine Kids International] and TSM meetings and to spend time with Dave's niece.
On Sunday we will fly to Frankfurt, Germany where we will lead TSM for the expat community the following weekend, spending a lot of time with the 15 couples who had attended our TSM there last May.
On Jan 26 we head to India where we will attend the Happy Feet Show on the 3rd and work at St Catherine's. Then we lead TSM for the Catholic community Feb 8-10. We would appreciate your prayers for us for both weekends and for traveling mercies. And especially then for our time after with Dave's Hindu family. We depend upon your prayer covering.
We miss SoCal and our Redeemer family more than we can express. We won't be back home till April when we return to prepare for the SKI silent auction April 13. We trust God will continue to bless and keep you all until we return. We love you all!!
Dave and Mary

subset: commoncrawl


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Accessories: Flap Kit.
Colours: White, black and grey.
Note: Oval reflector is also available to Ultra R COB 3000, Amber R COB 3000, and Twist R COB. Final shipping destination may require minor modifications of components as well as article numbers, be sure to state the country in which the fixtures will be used.


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Hello there! I'm very excited and grateful to share a piece I was fortunate enough to work on for The Boston Globe! This lovely piece was written by Gail Thorell Schilling and is a touching account of her father's lifelong love of gardening and the comfort it provided for him; and thus in his passing, the comfort his garden still brings the author. I was honored to work on this project and wanted to share a little bit of the process with you!
Upon reading the piece, I knew flowers and foliage would be the focus, so I felt right at home! I worked on a few thumbnail sketches, and the art director and I chose to further explore a landscape concept with a mighty spruce as the main focus.
I had a lot of fun creating this piece and helping bring Gail's story to life. Check out the time-lapse video below to watch me paint it! Cheers!


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Fri June 28, 2019
DUPAGE COUNTY- A June 2019 report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) highlights the need to continue to fight drowning, which remains the leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1-4. Non-fatal drowning injuries have also increased. From 2016-2018, 73 percent of childhood submersion injuries treated at emergency departments involved children below age 5. In 2018, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, six Illinois children died due to accidental drowning.
In the spring of 2019, the DuPage County Health Department (DCHD) became a CPSC Pool Safely campaign partner with the goal of reducing child drownings and entrapments in pools and spas.
To keep children safe around the water, follow these Pool Safely tips:
· Install a four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate around all pools and spas.
· Designate a Water Watcher to supervise children at all times around the water. This person should not be distracted by smartphones, reading materials or conversation.
· Learn how to swim and teach your child to swim.
· Learn how to perform CPR on children and adults.
· Avoid entrapment by teaching children to stay away from pool drains and pipes. Keep long hair, bathing suit straps and draw strings away from drains.
· Ensure that any pool or spa/hot tub that you use has drain covers that meet federal safety standards. If you're not sure, ask your pool service provider for details.
Before going to the pool, take the Pool Safely Pledge then pass it on to three friends or loved ones. Together, we can promote safety in and around the water in DuPage County.
To learn more about DCHD's Pool Safely Northern Illinois Program, please call (630) 221-7198.
Click here to download a printable version of this News Release


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Game information
Home Team: Lawton Eisenhower
Away Team: Lawton High
Date And Time: 09/14/2018 7:00 pm
Location: Lawton Eisenhower High School
Game Preview
Presented by:
One of the loudest rivalries, not just in Oklahoma, but across the nation, Lawton High and Lawton Eisenhower always provides an intense atmosphere that is difficult to match. This rivalry is so crazy, fans from both teams stay on their own sides of the field and do not cross during the game.
The stands will be packed with 15,000 screaming fans on Friday night, as the two teams, who have been competing since Lawton Ike opened in 1964, line up against each other yet again.
Lawton Eisenhower :13
Lawton High :42
Game Summary
Lawton High came into Friday night's game with Lawton Eisenhower with a mission, to keep the City Championship and to gain the Great American Rivalry Series Championship Trophy. They did just that with a dominant 42-14 victory over Lawton Ike.


text: New on Market ! Special offering by Developer of Bayview Suites at Cabo Villas Beach Resort (Heart of Cabo) on Medano Beach. One of 6 luxury units overlooking bay with spectacular views of Lands End & privileged access to resort's private beach area, 6 restaurants, spa, gym & amenities. Perfect for private & family use, or vacation rental with very high year-round occupancy & rates for investment ROI. Full rental booking, management & concierge guest services available directly from resort. *Furnishings & views shown are from the model unit, actual furniture packages & views vary according to unit & floor level. New furniture packages are included by developer with full price offers. This special offer is limited to just 6 units & won't last long, make an appt to see Bayview Suites today!


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Seifu Abebe
Seifu Abebe, born in 1973 in Addis Ababa, is a multimedia artist who celebrates the beauty of everyday life around him. Since he was a child, Seifu has had a fascination for the human spirit, developing a deep interest in art as a means to experiment with this fascination. After graduation from high school, Seifu joined the Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Arts and Design.
Seifu has over 12 years of experience working as an art director, graphic designer and creative artist; showing his work in more than 30 solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally including the Ethiopian National Theater Art Gallery, the Economic Commission for Africa, the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, the National Museum of Ethiopia, as well as shows in the United States and Canada. He is a chairperson of the Ethiopian Visual Artists Association and the Art Director of What's Out magazine.
Seifu paints with oil and water color; he creates sculptures, mural and chalk art, sandblasted art on glass and glass engravings, as well as using his keen artist eye in interior design.
Seifu believes that the world is a combination of two elements - lines and color - and says that only art has the power of relieving our souls from the intense and dark world that draws us into its pitfall, transforming us into a world of light and beauty. This spirit is clearly visible in his work.


text: Enjoy the best northeast Georgia has to offer with this rustic-motif cabin on the Chattahoochee River in Panorama Estates. Make this your second home for family and friends or use for vacation rental income with its proven record for producing income year-round. Bedrooms and bathrooms on each level and upgrades throughout, tongue and groove walls and vaulted ceilings, hardwood and tile floors, granite counter tops, rock fireplace, owner's suite on main, cedar exterior, metal roof, rocking chair and screened porch, huge laundry room, indoor recreation room, outdoor hot tub, and gentle front-yard access to your own river playground. Alpine Helen, Sautee Valley, wineries, arts, and other outdoor and entertainment venues are only minutes away.Our Agency Professionals


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Fashion class is now in session! Get an A+ in gift giving with the Women's Teacher's School Supplies Crew Socks. These fun socks feature some of your teacher's favorite things including books, apples, pencils, and rulers. Perfect for a holiday or end-of-year gift, these novelty socks make a great school-themed present. Show your favorite instructor how much you care with these cool socks.
- A unique gift idea for any educator!
- Fits women's shoe size 4-10.5
- 52% Nylon, 45% Cotton, 2% Spandex, 1% Rubber
- Machine washes cold, inside out. Only non-chlorine bleach when needed. Tumble dry low. Do not iron.
- One pair pack
- Imported


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Why Not You? by Erin Johnson
by Erin Johnson, optiMize President 2016 (This article was originally published by The Michigan Daily)
What comes to mind when you hear "social innovation?" Is it entrepreneurship? Technology? Big ideas? When I hear "social innovation," I think optiMize. I think unity, trust, family, and community — the real things that will inspire people to change the world.
I had one of the hardest days of my life this year. Fortunately, it was a Sunday: the day we always have our optiMize Core Team meetings. I almost suggested canceling the meeting, unsure if I would be able to avoid crying while reading through the weekly updates. The meeting went on anyway, and, of course, I cried while reading through the weekly updates. The meeting ended, but nobody left. They sat with me; they wanted to know more, learn more and do more. When I did go home, I received an influx of texts, e-mails, Google invites for coffee dates, offers to just sit with me quietly — all from my optiMize family.
You don't find that in many places — that selflessness. It's difficult to find a community of people who are determined to make a difference, no matter how simple or seemingly small that difference may be. The optiMize community shares one collective purpose: to make the world a better place. It doesn't matter if you're supporting someone in their time of need or doing groundbreaking entrepreneurship work. Everything optiMize stands for can be seen in the daily actions of our community members. The love, understanding, empathy, and support that was shown to me on that day may have seemed amplified at that moment, but this was not a singular moment. This was optiMize. Those intangible, positive elements that resonate with the actions of everyone in the community are what will drive change in this world.
The central mission of optiMize is to create positive action by replacing the phrase, "Somebody should do something about that," with "Why not me?"
The teams in our Social Innovation Challenge have fused their intangible, positive elements with optiMize's mission to inspire the impact we want to see. We have a team combatting Islamophobia by creating thought-provoking artwork, while another is creating virtual reality games for children with disabilities and another is working with Kenyan farmers to create a sustainable fish feed. And that's just the beginning. Members of the optiMize community are building their ideas from the ground up, and from the ground up they are aiding in making this world more just, more sustainable and just plain better.
For me, optiMize has served as an active reminder to seek out change wherever change may be necessary. It's a contagious environment — you discover optiMize, you meet inspiring people who embrace the ability to question and transform, and then, without hesitation, you begin. That's all it takes — just ask yourself, "Why not me?"


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Butane Lab
The purpose of this lab is to determine the molar mass of Butane. Materials
1. funnel
2. thermometer
3. bucket
4. butane lighter
5. tap water
6. graduated cylinder
7. electronic balance
1. Rinse bucket and fill it ¾ way
2. Rinse glassware
3. Place thermometer in tray
4. Record pressure of Mercury
5. Record temperature of water in tray
6. Weigh your dried lighter before the procedure and after the procedure and record the butane gas lost 7. Record collected volume of butane by releasing into graduated cylinder 8. Test the gas by removing the cylinder from the water and inserting a lit splint inside of the cylinder. 9. Rinse all materials
When the lab was performed, the pressure was 762.5 millimeters of mercury. The weight of the dried butane lighter was 13.84 grams before the lab was performed. After the lab was performed, the lighter was 13.63 grams. .21 grams of butane was lost. The recorded collected volume of Butane was 76 milliliters. 23.7 torr of Mercury was recorded. The Ideal Gas Law says that n = .0795
This experiment could have been improved in many ways. For one, the process of submersing the top of the graduated cylinder in water without getting air bubble inside of the graduated cylinder could have been performed in a smoother fashion. Also, the process of lighting the butane lighter could have been better if the person lighting the lighter stopped at a more exact position instead of an approximate location. Another way the experiment could have been improved is if the person holding the graduated cylinder held it away from their selves to avoid injury.
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This week we shall discuss the propriety of selling egg Matza to Ashkenazic Jews who avoid egg Matza on Pesach (except in case of great need). We will discuss the debate between the Rishonim concerning the permissibility of eating egg Matza during Pesach. We will also deal with an aspect of the prohibition to cause someone to sin (Lifnei Iver Lo Titein Michshol, or Lifnei Iver, see Vayikra 19:14). Our discussion is based on Rav Ovadia Yosef's responsum on this question (Teshuvot Yechaveh Daat 1:10).
The Egg Matza Debate – Rashi and Raavad vs. Tosafot and Rambam
The core of the egg Matza debate is the question of how to resolve an apparent contradiction between two passages in the Gemara. On one hand, the Gemara (Pesachim 35b) states that flour that is kneaded with fruit juice cannot become Chametz. On the other hand, the Gemara (Pesachim 36a) states, "On Pesach one should not knead dough with wine, oil, or honey." Rashi (ad.loc. s.v. Ein Lashin) explains, "Because it becomes Chametz quickly" and is difficult to insure that it has not become Chametz. The problem is that the Gemara on Pesachim 36a express concern that dough mixed with fruit juice will become Chametz, yet the Gemara on Pesachim 35b state that dough kneaded with fruit juice cannot become Chametz.
The Rishonim resolve this apparent contradiction in two ways. Rashi (ibid.) explains the Gemara on Pesachim 35b to mean that dough kneaded with fruit juice cannot become "Chametz Gamur" (full-fledged Chametz). However, dough kneaded with fruit juice does, in Rashi's opinion, become "Chametz Nuksheh" (partial Chametz). Rashi explains that one is not punished with Karet for eating Chametz Nuksheh, but one is nevertheless forbidden to eat Chametz Nuksheh on Pesach.
Rabbeinu Tam (cited in Tosafot Pesachim 35b s.v. Umei Peirot) disagrees with Rashi. Rabbeinu Tam interprets Pesachim 35b as teaching that fruit juice cannot become Chametz at any level when mixed with dough. He explains that Pesachim 36a speaks of fruit juice mixed with water that one kneads with dough. The mixture of water with fruit juice greatly accelerates the process of "Chimutz," leavening. It is therefore difficult to insure that it will not become Chametz and must be avoided on Pesach.
The Rambam (Hilchot Chametz Umatza 5:2) adopts the same approach as Rabbeinu Tam. He rules that pure fruit juice mixed with dough cannot become Chametz, "even if one lets the mixture rise the entire day until the dough becomes swollen it is permissible to eat, because fruit juice does not ferment; rather it merely decays" (Masrichin). The Rambam adds that this applies only if no water has been added to the fruit juice. For an explanation of the chemical difference between Chimutz and Sirachon see Dr. B.P. Munk's essay printed in Techumin 1:97-99.
The Raavad (ad. loc.), though, cautions that there are some who disagree with the Rambam and assert that fruit juice mixed with dough becomes Chametz Nuksheh. The Magid Mishna (ad. loc.) responds that the majority of the Geonim and Rishonim agree with the approach of the Rambam and reject Rashi's view. The Magid Mishna asserts that the Rambam and Rabbeinu Tam are correct and records that common practice accords with their lenient ruling. Rav Ovadia lists the Rishonim who side with Rabbeinu Tam and the Rambam, including the Rosh, Ramban, Rashba, Ran, Meiri, Raavya, Ri, Rabbeinu Simcha, Ohr Zarua, and Rokeach.
Shulchan Aruch – Rav Yosef Karo vs. Rama
Rav Yosef Karo (Shulchan Aruch 462:1-4) rules in accordance with the lenient ruling of the Rambam and Rabbeinu Tam. The Rama presents a compromise approach to this issue. On one hand, he writes that Ashkenazim refrain from eating Matza that was kneaded with fruit juice unless they are elderly or sick. The Vilna Gaon (Biur Hagra 462:4 s.v. Ubemidinot) explains that Lechatchila (ab initio) Ashkenazim seek to accommodate Rashi's stringent view. They are also concerned that water might have unknowingly been added to the fruit juice. The Aruch Hashulchan (O.C.462:5) condemns those Ashkenazim who fail to abide by the stringent custom. Sephardim (as noted by two great Sephardic authorities - the Pri Chadash O.C.462 and the Chida, Birkei Yosef 462:7), however, follow Rav Yosef Karo's codification of the majority view of the Rishonim.
Rav Ovadia Yosef (Teshuvot Yechaveh Daat 1:10) notes that Ashkenazim are permitted to give Matza that was kneaded with fruit juice to children. The Rama does not specifically mention children but elsewhere (O.C. 276:1 and 328:17) he writes that children are considered to have the status of a sick individual. Twentieth century authorities dispute until what age a child has this status (see Nishmat Avraham 1:197). Opinions range from age three to age nine. Dr. Abraham S. Abraham (ibid.) is probably correct in suggesting that it is more appropriate to assess the health and maturity of the individual child, rather than assign a specific age for all children. A proof to this is the fact that the Rama does not mention a specific age.
Egg Matza
Rashi (cited in Tosafot Pesachim 35b s.v. Umei Peirot) is uncertain whether flour kneaded in eggs has the same status as flour kneaded in fruit juice. On one hand, egg liquid appears similar to water and thus the appropriate comparison should be to flour kneaded in water. On the other hand, Rashi notes that flour that is kneaded in eggs rises in a manner that is thicker than flour that is kneaded in water. Thus, Rashi is concerned that the Gemara's prohibition to knead flour with fruit juice because the resulting dough will rise too quickly to properly supervise that it not become Chametz applies also to eggs.
Tosafot, however, record that Rabbeinu Tam disagrees with Rashi and permits eating egg Matza on Pesach. Moreover, Rabbeinu Tam practiced in accordance with his lenient ruling and ate egg Matza on Pesach. The Rambam (Hilchot Chametz Umatza 5:2) indicates his agreement with Rabbeinu Tam by excluding eggs from the list of items such as grape juice that ferment when mixed with water and flour. Nevertheless, the Ashkenazic practice to follow the stringent opinion applies to egg Matza as well as fruit juice Matza (see Shulchan Aruch O.C. 462:4).
Lifnei Iver Considerations
Accordingly, the question arises whether one may sell egg or grape juice Matza to Ashkenazic Jews. Rav Ovadia rules that it is forbidden for Sephardim to sell egg Matza to Ashkenazim even though Sephardim regard egg Matza as permissible. A precedent for this approach is the Mishna (Yevamot 13b) that states that men and women from the families of Bait Hillel and Bait Shammai used to marry each other. The Gemara explains that this occurred despite the fact that Bait Hillel and Bait Shammai had different standards regarding Mamzeirut. They were not concerned that a prospective mate was a Mamzer because they informed each other if a prospective mate would considered a Mamzer according to the others' standards.
Accordingly, the Rama (Yoreh Deah 119:7) teaches that a host must inform his guest that a food item is forbidden to the guest by his standards, even though the host abides by the lenient standard. Thus, Rav Ovadia (Teshuvot Yechaveh Daat 4:53) rules that one may not serve products whose Kashrut depends upon the Heteir Mechira if his guests do not subscribe to the Heteir Mechira. Similarly, one should not serve milk that was not rabbinically supervised to someone who subscribes to the strict opinion regarding Chalav Yisrael.
Rav Ovadia notes that one who does not obey these rulings violates the prohibition of Lifnei Iver Lo Titein Michshol (Vayikra 19:14). Rashi (commentary to Vayikra 19:14) explains that the Pasuk prohibits offering someone bad advice. Presenting someone with an item that is forbidden to him by his standards falls into the category of giving bad advice. This is similar to the Minchat Chinuch's (Mitzva 232) assertion that one violates a Torah prohibition of Lifnei Iver if he facilitates the violation of a rabbinical prohibition, by his bad advice.
Hence, Kashrut organizations print on the boxes of egg Matza that Ashkenazim are forbidden to eat this product unless they are old or infirm. Bakery owners must prominently display signs that indicate which products are forbidden to Ashkenazim. However, what should one do if he sees an Ashkenazic Jew purchase egg Matza on Pesach?
Rav Ovadia rules that one may attribute (Toleh) the purchase of egg Matza to a permitted purpose such as feeding it to a sick or older individual. The precedents to this ruling are as follows. The Mishna (Shviit 5:8) teaches that one may sell an ox in the Shmittah year to a farmer who is lax in his observance of Shmittah. The Mishna permits us to be Toleh that the farmer is purchasing the ox for a permitted purpose such as for slaughtering. The Chatam Sofer (Teshuvot Y.D.19) takes a similar approach regarding his ruling that a non-Jew is forbidden to eat eggs because it is defined as eating a limb from a live animal according to the Halachic standards for Bnei Noach. He defends the accepted practice of Jews selling eggs to non-Jews, because the Jews are Toleh that the non-Jews are purchasing the eggs for a purpose that is permitted to them.
I am aware that one Rav instructed his congregants to avoid serving eggs to their non-Jewish workers because of the Chatam Sofer's ruling. However, it appears that Poskim have not accepted the ruling of the Chatam Sofer regarding eggs (see Encyclopedia Talmudit 3:131-132 where this ruling of the Chatam Sofer is merely referenced in a footnote). In fact, even the Chatam Sofer introduces this assertion by stating that it is a novel idea. One should consult his rabbi for a decision whether he must abide by this ruling of the Chatam Sofer.
The strength and vitality of Klal Yisrael rests upon respecting and revering the diverse Halachic practices of the various segments of the Jewish community. Each legitimate group has a rock-solid basis for its practices and we should respect and protect them. A synergy of the diverse sections of Klal Yisrael can be created only when we value our differences. Hence, we are forbidden to cause someone to sin according to his standards even though we regard the matter as permissible. Nevertheless, we may give someone the benefit of the doubt when there is a plausible Halachic justification for what he is doing.


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Mixed Berry Mint Iced Green Tea
- 4 cups of water
- 1 Salada Family Size Green Tea bag
- A couple fresh mint leaves
- 1 c fresh blackberries
- 1 c fresh raspberries
- 1 tbsp honey (optional)
- Ice
- Additional mint and berries for presentation
Bring four cups of fresh cold water to a boil.
Pour boiling water over 1 Salada Family Size Green Tea bag and mint leaves in a 32 oz pitcher.
Let it steep for 5 minutes.
Puree raspberries and blackberries.
Strain berries with fine mesh sieve to remove seeds.
Remove brewed tea bag and mint leaves.
Add stained berries and honey (optional) to the tea and stir.
Pour tea into glasses with ice, garnish with fresh berries and mint.
« Back To All 'Green Tea Recipes'


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One-of-a-kind art, oil painting with attached sea objects, called "Angel Releasing Dove". Combining land, sea, and spirit. The wings are actual sea shells, the dove is a "dove" from inside an actual sand dollar. The painting is on 10×8 canvas, with attached metal hanging loop.
Signed by artist
This is an original one-of-a-kind piece. While Natalie may choose to create a similar work, this art will never be duplicated exactly or mass produced.
From Natalie: "I found these sea items at the beach at Tybee Island, Georgia while hunting for treasures. I'm truly happy and at peace when near the ocean. I thought that the sea shell pieces looked like angel wings, so I wanted to incorporate them into a painting."
Video to watch Natalie paint this art
*The colors/appearance on your screen may differ slightly from how it looks in person.


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Check out the Commons Market Sunday, July 15 as we join a bounty of incredible antique and vintage retailers and designers at the historic Niagara Commons. It's a place where you'll discover all kinds of new—and old—things to love.
Back to All Events
Earlier Event: June 5Port Dalhousie Supper Market
Later Event: July 9Port Dalhousie Suppermarket


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Just a quick post to remind you all to enter my contest! Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win an awesome children's book. The contest closes tonight at 9, and so far the odds are 1 in 4 so go enter! :) I'm sure you can think of someone who would like a new book for kids! I'm spending my time in the kitchen today, recipes and pictures to come! But first, as promised, here is what we did with those silly pictures we took on Monday...
Step 1: Cut out picture
Step 2: Glue stick to construction paper in various colors (a good exercise for the kiddos)
Step 3: Cut construction paper leaving a border around the picture
Step 4: Attach magnet to the back
Step 5: Cover in clear contact paper
Step 6: Stick 'em to the fridge
Step 7: Step back and giggle
Have a wonderful Friday!
Elizabeth Ann


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What is m.o.r.e.?
"Mediocrity is the enemy of excellence," as Dr. Renny McLean so wisely put it. I couldn't agree more.
As I went through my medical training and observed the inefficiencies of our health care system, I felt trapped. I wanted to do more for my patients. I wanted to expect more than a mediocre outcome. But that paradigm wouldn't allow for it.
I strive for excellence in all I do and yearned for an approach to Medicine that held the same standard. And that's exactly what I found in Functional Medicine! It is the root-cause, whole person approach to Western Medicine that enables you to heal and get MORE out of life.
And "M.O.R.E." represents the four pillars of my Lifestyle Coaching and Functional Medicine programs:
"M" is for the mind. The mind and body are a unified unit. I'm a firm believer that disease is spurred by "dis-ease" of the mind. I guide you on a journey to fine-tune your mind-body connection and overcome the mental obstacles holding you back from your ideal health.
"O" is for order. Many of us have a better system for organizing our closets than we do for our health. Let's fix that. With structured systems to address nutrition, exercise, stress, and sleep, I'll help you get the key parts of your life back in order.
"R" is for restoration. No one waits for the foundation of their house to totally collapse before repairing it. Our bodies experience a lot of wear and tear, yet many of us wait until we've collapsed into illness to take action. Thus, we require periodic restoration of our vital systems, especially for the gut, hormone, and detoxification pathways.
"E" is for energy. I don't know a single person who doesn't want more energy. Fortunately, this is an energy crisis we can fix! From the microscopic perspective, we optimize the tiny "batteries" that power your cells (the mitochondria). And on the macroscopic level, we strategize how to minimize drain from environmental factors – the people, places, or things – that have you feeling less than your fully radiant self.


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One-hundred-and-twenty-one years after the birth of E.E. Cummings, and the crude complex is just like one of his poems – undecided about where it is going next. Economic Analysis: Our experts have surveyed for this project for the last four years and have made the demographics given in the enclosures. Speculation will always rum rampant when it comes to trading, but the best way to keep updated with what's going on is to keep your ears and eyes on the news. You should a have a good understanding of economic terms and factors like current account deficits, interest rates, monetary policy and fiscal policy before trading Forex.
Yes, refugees because as soon as our troops leave the government collapses and the boat people start coming over (not just from China, Vietnam, Haiti, and Cuba) seeking political asylum and economic opportunities when the USA is already in the middle of the Second Great Depression and can't take care of the people born here. In a more recent development (see news feed below), Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has announced the shutting down of its Philippine plant, causing about 500 Filipinos to lose their jobs.
Although this is a published hub, this is nevertheless a work in progress as the recession is still ongoing, the Philippines is still largely affected and the economic growth is still in the low end. The government also said that final numbers for 2015 would indicate the economy will have been flat for the full year, rather than the deep contraction of 2.3 percent that had been expected.
This coalition is again resisting administrative and economic reforms that would both boost growth and help build the government's capacity to manage crises. Alexis Tsipras received good news at the weekend when a stress test showed the top Greek banks need to raise a lowish 14.4 billion euros in capital. The more the country exports; the higher the chances of economic growth due to the generation of income.
The results of the ECB's health check of Greek banks show the top four lenders are short of €14.4bn in capital under supervisors' so-called adverse scenario", where lenders must be able to withstand a worsening of economic and financial conditions. Recently, though, in the throes of a devastating economic crisis, the Greeks were divided once again, and the talismanic No" was commandeered by one side.


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45 East First Street (First Avenue), (212) 780-0262, chefjoedoe.com
In a city with so many of us of shtetl descent, why don't more chefs employ Ashkenazi accents? Joseph Dobias does.
Latkes, haroseth and matzo brei are some of the Eastern European Jewish touches Mr. Dobias, formerly of Savoy, employs on the frequently changing menu at his tiny East Village restaurant, JoeDoe. They're a tribute to the parents of his life and business partner, Jill Schulster, who — with Jewish staples like chicken liver and brisket — introduced Mr. Dobias, an Italian-American, to flavors he found new and inspiring.
His signature sandwich elevates folksy creamy chicken liver by pairing it with a food New Yorkers embrace: bacon. It's called the Conflicted Jew ($10).
I craved more conflict from it. Bacon-wrapped chicken livers are an old party staple; the combo long ago lost its frisson. Here, the thick challah toast threatens to overwhelm its fillings.
But there are plenty of brawling matches in Mr. Dobias's cooking, bold ideas and twists on established dishes. At brunch, duck stands in for corned beef in the hash ($17); fried pork jowl doubles for Canadian bacon on the Benedict ($12). The former is rich, gamey and satisfying topped with poached duck eggs (an extra $2). The latter goes too sparingly on the jowl, which is crispy outside, chewy inside, deliciously salty, but a tease.Continue reading the main story
Among Mr. Dobias's influences, Asian appears as often as Ashkenazi. Bok choy's sweet, crunchy nature popped when it was tempura-fried ($9). Too bad it sat atop a "kimchee soup" bereft of the namesake's funk.
But hanger steak ($26) was a winner, with an Asian sauce and house-made Chinese noodles. A crisp potato latke added whimsy.
Mr. Dobias's hefty cooking begs for Ms. Schulster's inspired cocktails. The Maryland Crab Boil ($10) blends Old Bay seasoning with lime, honey and Siembra Azul tequila for a lip-smacking mid-Atlantic margarita. Even better are her "prepared beers" ($11): artisanal liquors and touches like preserved orange or peanut dust bring out beer's chic.Continue reading the main story


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By Kevin Gibson
Liver manufactures hepatic excretion. The fluid performs essential roles not beyond the body of a patient. It prepares fats with respect to digestion. Gallbladder is an organ, what one. keeps bile after being manufactured through the liver. There are different techniques, which are used in the course of method of treating of gallbladder. The most commonly used management method is the removal of the voice. Small cuts are made on the visible form of a patient in order to be the occasion of way to enhance its removal. You are probable to acquire excellent services if you hire appropriate Gallbladder surgeon Russellville AR.
Surgeon commences the course by inflating the body of ailing individuals with carbon dioxide. This allows him or her to clearly feel the manner in which he or she is in operation. During the procedure, surgeon inserts lighted vent into the body of the delicate person. Service provider uses video mentor to see the activities the surgeon is winning in. These activities include insertion of surgical charter and the removal of the concerned organ.
Intended results cannot be accomplished except proper preparations are done. Preparations serve in preparing the patient both physically and psychologically. After indefatigable goes through a technique known during the time that intraoperative cholangiography, surgeons are able to discern most appropriate procedures to undertake. It is for the period of this period during, which the contented is served with appropriate medications to withstand in pain reduction.
Different surgeons regard different qualities. Some are more thoroughbred than others. Furthermore, some are additional talented than others. This means, you need to do proper research before you single out a professional, who will provide you with services you have been dreaming of. Best surgeons are keen-eyed. They are knowledgeable in issues concerned with anatomy, pharmacology, pathology and physiology. Knowledge enables them yield quality services to their clients.
When you hire services of a surgeon with good personality you are likely to subsist advantaged. A good surgeon understands challenges, what one. a service seeker is going from one side. This enables him or her to furnish right services for his or her concede good. Good surgeons attend to patients the opportunity to pass they would like to be attended. Excellent professionals in this specialty are without particularizing flexible.
It is very stressful to labor in a theatre. Some of things qualified there are not pleasing. Only professionals by capability of tolerating all kinds of situations are talented to work in such surroundings. Best surgeons are fall of the wind. When patients realize that service provider is unruffled they remain comfortable.
Good surgeons are not and nothing else committed, but also dedicated. They rectify on their activities in order to pr~ services whose quality is pleasing. These types of professionals put efforts needed when providing medical care. In other altercation, they prioritize the needs of weakly people.
During this kind of surgery, appropriate facilities are used to ensure desired results are attained. These kinds of the community have fine motor skills, which enable them use, these pieces of gear successfully. Good surgeons have excellent watch-hand coordination skills. Excellent surgeons are in most cases strong and are able lift patients then there is need to.
About the Author:
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Houston & Peach
Houston health department offering flu vaccine
The Houston County Health Department is now offering seasonal flu vaccinations weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Traditional seasonal flu shots and flu mist are being offered for $25. The health department is located 98 Cohen Walker Drive in Warner Robins. The vaccines do not offer protection from the H1N1 virus.
The vaccines will also be available at Rozier Park in Perry on Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call (478) 218-2000.


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Contact us for more information on taking your business to the next level by choosing Ontario, California:
Ontario has a vast business infrastructure in place and City Officials continually work to improve the City's pro-business environment. With a highly skilled workforce, reasonable lease rates, quality office and retail development, and more than 100 million square feet of industrial, manufacturing and distribution space, Ontario is the best place to grow your business.
Need more information about the City of Ontario? Check out a few of our downloads below or feel free to contact us to get more specific information.


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Rocca Plate
Rocca Plate
What do you do with the rocks, shells, pinecones etc that you collect on your hikes and beach walks? Do they languish in the junk drawer forgotten, doomed never to see the light of day?
We are here to help! This series of plates and trays were created to help you display your bounty in informal groupings. Place one beautiful rock on a small Rocca Plate or several little shells. By creating a landing area for your discoveries, order is easily created out of your beautiful disorder. Designed to fit perfectly on a window sill, or display them on a coffee table or several on a dining table. (They can also double as a coaster or trivet.)
This plate is hand knit from 100% wool. It is then put through the felting process which transforms the plate from a loose floppy item (think knit sweater) into a semi-sturdy structure (pure magic!).
Approximately 4.5" length and 5" wide - small
Approximately 4.5" length and 8" wide - medium
Approximately 4.5" length and 10" wide - large
Approximately 7.5" length and 7.5" wide - large square


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I searched all over for a fix and cannot find any help.
So i picked up my gnex in which I havent used in some time and decided I wanted to flash the latest 4.4 aokp nightly.
I pasted the zip file along with gapps zip file on my sd card, updated to latest version of clockworkmod (v220.127.116.11)
Did factory data reset, reset cache partition, wiped dalvic cache
tried to Install zip from sd card and I get message e: error in /sdcard/0/aokp_toro_kitkat_nightly_2014-02-08.zip (status 7) Installation aborted.
So now I am stuck. Phone will not boot back into last version I had installed and like a moron I deleted the last rom off my sdcard before i started.
I should also note that the phone is not recognized by my pc when I plug it in. I tried to sideload a different rom but It seems to not see phone even tho it makes a noise when connected. I do not know if usb debugging is activated.
Please help I dont want to have to use phone as paper weight. Thanks!!!


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On March 30th, the Intellectual Property Colloquium welcomed Professor Dotan Oliar, Class of 1966 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, to discuss one of his works-in-progress. Professor Oliar's paper is entitled "Copyright Registrations: Who, What, When, Where, and Why." In it, Professor Oliar discusses the results of an empirical study that addresses the current patterns of copyright registration. He hopes that his findings will aid lawmakers in critically evaluating the effect of copyright law on creation and will further aid in copyright reform.
The Intellectual Property Colloquium is a seminar course in which visiting speakers come to St. John's to present their in-progress research and discuss it with St. John's students and faculty. Learn more about studying IP at St. John's.


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25th Street Bridge over I-71 to Close Overnight FridayOvernight Monday,
May 19, crews will close the West 25th Street bridge over I-71 to
complete a bridge deck pour. Emergency vehicles will not be able to
travel across the West 25th Street bridge. More information here.
Eddy Road over I-90 to Close on Thursday, May 22On Thursday, May 22, crews will close Eddy Road over I-90 from 1
a.m. to 5 a.m. in order to perform a bridge deck pour operation.
More information here.
Cleveland: Woodhill and Buckeye Road Intersection to Close
for One YearOn Wednesday, May 21, crews on behalf of the Ohio
Department of Transportation (ODOT), will close
the intersection of Woodhill Road and Buckeye Road until May 2015 to allow for the
reconstruction of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority underpass
railroad structure. More information here.
Cleveland: Herman Avenue Eastbound over U.S. 6/U.S. 20/SR 2
to Close for Bridge RepairsOn Monday, May 19, crews on behalf of the Ohio
Department of Transportation (ODOT) will
close Herman Avenue eastbound over U.S. 6/U.S. 20/State Route 2 (West Shoreway)
as crews begin a project to rehabilitate the Herman Avenue bridge. More
information here.
& Valley View: Overnight Friday Lane Closures on I-77 SouthboundOvernight
Monday, May 19, crews working on the I-77 bridge deck replacement project will
perform a bridge deck pour. More information here.
& Newbury: SR 87 Resurfacing and Culvert RepairsBeginning Monday, May 19, crews on behalf of the
Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) will install a temporary traffic
signal to maintain one lane of two-way traffic on SR 87 between SR 306 and
Sperry Road for culvert repairs until early-June 2014. More information here.
CountyBoston Road over I-71 Bridge
Maintenance, StrongsvilleSR 2/Main Avenue Bridge, ClevelandU.S. Route 42 (Pearl Road) over Big
Creek & NS Railroad, ClevelandPayne Avenue over
I-90, ClevelandValley Parkway over
I-77, Brecksville
County*NEW*State Route 44 Resurfacing and
Culvert Repair, Auburn Township
Click here
to view the weekly construction update for more information on ODOT
construction projects in Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties.
For up-to-date information on closures
and restrictions near downtown Cleveland and the George V. Voinovich Bridge
visit www.innerbelt.org.
All work listed in this update is
weather permitting.
For more information contact:
The ODOT District 12 Communications
Office at (216) 584-2005 or email email@example.com


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Monthly Keyboard Club meetings are held at 9:00 on the second Thursday of the month.
Friday, September 17 Gather – 9:15 AM
Fall Luncheon: Mount Olive Lutheran Church Business Meeting – 9:30 AM
2830 18th Avenue NW, Rochester MN Program – 9:45 AM
Fall Luncheon – 11:00 AM
Energize Your Student Recitals!!!
Presenter: Melody Bober
Thursday, October 12 9:00 AM
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Host/Hostess: Zoe Abrahamson & Cindy Breederland
Musical Pathways of Love: Homage to la Danza
Presenter: Peggy Reich
Ms. Riech will present an intrinsic parallelism between the traditional European Romantic era of music and its Puerto Rican counterpart: la danza.
Thursday, November 9 9:00 AM
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Host/Hostess: Linda Seime & Sarah Carter-Sweatte
Schubert: Man of Melody & Mystery
Presenter: Janna Williamson, NCTM
Reflecting upon the well-loved, yet often mysterious and sometimes misunderstood Franz Schubert and his piano compositions, Janna Williamson will explore questions of meaning in the composer's music and how known biographical information and historical context can inform our understanding. Included will be an overview of pieces appropriate for pre-college teaching included on the MMTA Piano Examination Syllabus. The presenter will perform one of the Impromptus from Op.142 as part of the program.
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Host/Hostess: Karen Vinje & Jenna Popp
The Teacher Trap
Presenter: Chris Wolf, NCTM
Studio Policies, Teaching Philosophies, Stellar Opportunities: we want to be respected in the community and end up with respectable dollars in our pockets. We've studied the instrument and the repertoire, but there are so many other elements to an independent teacher's life and livelihood. We hope for wonderful students and meaningful lessons for them AND ourselves.
Are you ready to do more than hope? Many Independent Music Teacher "trials" are not taught in school. Set aside a little time to get some valuable ideas and continue the journey of making your studio SHINE within your community.
Thursday, February 14 9:00 AM
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Host/Hostess: SherrieBelle Brinkworth
Master Class
Presenter: Esther Wang
Today we will enjoy a master class for intermediate level students. If you have a student who would like to participate, please send information to SherrieBelle Brinkworth by January 24, 2019 (name, age, piece link, teacher). The time limit per piece is 3 minutes. Only 1 entrant per teacher; class is limited to 6 students.
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Host/Hostess: Carol Engel & Carla Sward
Presenter: Stella Branzburg Sick, DMA, NCTM
Bach's piano music and give useful practical advice and ideas to teachers.
Thursday, April 12 9:30 AM
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Spring Brunch and Humoresque:
Light-Hearted Ensembles of Members and Friends
We will be exploring the light-hearted and creative side of our club! We know there are hidden talents of many kinds within this group. "Ensembles" can mean many things and could include friends outside of Keyboard Club. Let your imagination take off. .
Please submit your contribution to the program to Melissa Dalley by March 9, 2019


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Baptism Party Ideas
To commemorate this special day, you don't need to spend a fortune. The goodwill generated by the ceremony itself tends to lend the party lots of energy, and it's usually a great time for family storytelling. Whatever your budget happens to be, consider these fun ways to celebrate:
- Choose a location relatively close to the church service. Your guests will spend more time celebrating and enjoying themselves and less time traveling.
- If you want to keep things simple, plan on having a brunch or tea. You can provide finger foods and refreshments instead of an entire meal.
- If the party is at a residence, make sure there'll be adequate parking.
- Arrange ahead of time for the baby's godfather to offer a toast. It's a good way to start the party on a festive note.
- Ask family members to bring their photo albums and scrapbooks. This is a great time to reminisce. Family history can be fascinating and help reinforce familial bonds for the next generation. If anyone in your family is active on ancestry.com, ask him to make a brief presentation about your collective heritage. You can also burn a CD of family photos to play a running slideshow during the celebrations.
- For spring or summer baptisms, hold the after-party outdoors. Natural settings are all about rebirth and renewal. Park, beach or backyard celebrations are fun and easy to plan. Some parks even have covered picnic areas available for rent with onsite electrical service and cooking equipment.
- Organize assigned seating and place photos of adult guests when they were children next to their respective seats. This one's a great crowd-pleaser.
- Since this is a family gathering, make sure to have entertainment for the kids, too. Outdoor sports like softball or lawn sports are fun, but you can also add a face painting booth manned by one of the young adults or even a crafting station where youngsters can color or make other paper crafts or projects.
- Arrange for a separate table for the younger kids, and decorate it with kid-friendly balloons and streamers. They'll entertain themselves (hopefully without too much squabbling) while the adults chat.
- And, as the guest of honor, your baby has the right cry if he wants to, but there are a few things you can do to keep him or her happy. If your baby is tired, let him sleep. If your baby is hungry, feed her. Follow your baby's lead on what he needs, and you may be able to keep the peace.
Related Articles
- American Catholic. "The Sacraments: Baptism." (3/6/12). http://www.americancatholic.org/features/special/default.aspx?id=30
- Mullen, Amy. "How To Plan a Baptism: Christening Ideas for Infant Baptism." How to Do Things. (3/6/12). http://www.howtodothings.com/family-and-relationships/a3365-how-to-plan-a-baptism.html
- Nap Time Productions. "Tips for Planning a Baby Baptism Party and Designing Baptism Invitations." (3/6/12). http://www.naptimecards.com/articles/art_baptism_planning.asp
- One Small Child. "How to Plan Your Christening, Baptism, Blessing in 9 Simple Steps." (3/6/12). http://www.onesmallchild.com/pages/How-to-Plan-Your-Christening.html
- Perfect Party Planning. "Christening Party." (3/6/12). http://www.perfect-party-planning.net/articles/christening-party.html
- Pretty Baby Gifts. "How To Plan For Baby Baptism Party." (3/6/12). http://www.prettybabygifts.com/baby-baptism-party-tips.html
- Sentimental Values. "Christening & Celebration Checklist." 3/28/06. (3/6/12). http://sentimentalvalues.com/christening_checklist.html
- Sugar Doodle. "Organizing Your Baptism." (3/6/12). http://www.sugardoodle.net/Primary/Leadership%20Helps/Baptism_Kit.pdf


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Apr 25, 2018
10:25 am - 11:10 am
Rob Palmer
Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
ShorePoint Inc.
Navin Vembar
Chief Technology Officer
General Services Administration
Charles Worthington
Veterans Affairs
Troy K. Schneider, Editor-in-Chief, FCW and GCN
Government CTOs wear several hats: IT and emerging tech guru, departmentwide visionary, budget hawk, and change agent are just a few. Just as the technical landscape is constantly changing, so too is the role of the CTO. In this session, our panelists will explore how CTOs and their fellow change agents can shape their roles to align modernization with mission and pave a path to progress that is enterprisewide.


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a small but perceptible shift
By Diogenes (articles ) | Jan 22, 2008
Now this is a change-up: an even-handed and non-sneering story, in the Washington Post, about pro-life college students assembling for the annual March. The paper's ideological style-sheet still makes itself felt (it's an "anti-abortion" gathering), but the usual edge is missing:
Ellie Baum, a student at Purdue University who rode 14 hours in a bus to attend the conference at the Catholic University of America, said she was inspired to join the antiabortion movement after witnessing the birth of her sister's child three years ago.
"From that experience, I realized there was no difference between a child after it's born and when it's in the mother's womb. It made me really passionate about this issue," said Baum, 20, an engineering major from Wisconsin. "Every day, as many people die from abortion as the number who died in 9/11. We have to stop it."
Remarkably, the students interviewed for the story are taken seriously, not discussed with patronizing amusement or ridicule, not depicted as cultists. There's even an effort to hear what they're saying about themselves instead of what their adversaries say about them:
A common theme was the need to focus on the challenges of being a mother. Several participants said the antiabortion movement has evolved in that direction, partly to counter criticism that it was indifferent to the hardships of raising a child in poverty or alone.
That kind of objectivity may seem a modest accomplishment, but it would have been unthinkable in a mainstream media organ ten years ago. [Tip to Amy]
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
Posted by: -
Jan. 22, 2008 7:40 PM ET USA
We need to pray that Jesus will send Our Lady of Guadalupe to save us from this horrible sin called murder. She visited Mexico and stopped the sacrifices on the temples in short order. She can do the same here, if God directs her to come to our rescue. When we think of 30,000,000 killed for no reason but for materialism, we shudder with fear. How can we celebrate motherhood in a nation that honors those who kill their innocent children in the womb? How can we celebrate life in any way?


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Two men charged with break-ins
Two men are facing multiple charges after they were arrested this week by investigators of the Troup County Sheriff's Department in connection with the break-in of three commercial vehicles at M&M Electric, 114 Corporate Park East, LaGrange.
Seth L. Olson, 18, of 44 Valley Brook Drive, Hogansville, and Douglas Michael Dittman, 20, of 19 Carey St., LaGrange, were first charged with those break-ins, said Lt. Rick Massie. Investigators then learned that they had burglarized Wehadkee Baptist Church and that Olson had burglarized a residence on Hines Road.
They were both charged with three counts of entering an auto and burglary, and Olson faces an additional burglary charge for the Hines Road incident.


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Lord British is Going Into Space
by The Doctor on Apr.14, 2008, under Near Earth, People
Richard Garriott, the 46-year-old creator of the Ultima series of computer games, will become the world's sixth space tourist in Oct. 2008. It has cost him a cool US$30 million to join that select few.
Garriott was born in Cambridge, England on Jul. 4, 1961. His father was astronaut Owen, would later fly aboard Skylab and the Space Shuttle.
Raised in Nassau Bay, Texas, Garriott attended Clear Creek High School. He acquired the nickname "Lord British" there, from students who though he spoke with a British accent.
Whilst at Clear Creek, Garriott developed an interest in computers and programming computer games. He gave away his early efforts free to friends. He published his first game "Akalabeth" in the summer of 1980. This paid for his college fess at the University of Texas at Austin, which he joined later that year.
During the early 80s, Garriott developed the hugely successful Ultima series of games under the pseudonym Lord British. At first, California Pacific Computers then Sierra On-Line, published the Ultima games. For the third instalment, Garriott set up Origin Systems with his father, brother and others to publish and distribute the game. He sold Origin to Electronic Arts in Sep. 1992.
Garriott is currently living in Austin, Texas at the Ultima inspired, Britannia Manor. Features include secret passages, a dungeon and an observatory. Garriott keeps his many collections of rare artefacts here.
As well as a successful programmer and entrepreneur, Garriott is a keen explorer, being a member of Explorer's Club. He has dived on the Titanic and collected meteorites in the Antarctic.
Garriott acted as corner man for friend, professional boxer, Jesus Chavez. He is also a keen amateur magician, having appeared on the cover of MUM, the magazine of the Society of American Magicians in Jan. 2008. Garriott is vice-chairman of the board of directors of Space Adventures.
In Oct. 2008, Garriott is scheduled to fly aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-13 to the International Space Station. His web site quotes him as follows:
"I am dedicating my spaceflight to science and enterprise. We need to be adventurous in mind and stimulate our intellects to answer today's most daunting scientific questions and to invent tomorrow's technological marvels. We need more than great ideas – we need to make them happen."
*Picture by Hachimaki posted under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license to Flickr
Sir Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90
by The Doctor on Mar.23, 2008, under People, Science Fiction
I pestered my father to take me to see "2001: A Space Odyssey." He thought I was too young and would not understand it. He was right. The film is a vision of a near future, in which humans make contact with technologically superior aliens. It is a recurring theme in Clarke's work. Along with the Apollo Moon landings, this vision inspired and enthralled me.
Arthur Charles Clarke was born in Minehead, England, on Dec. 16, 1917. The son of a farmer, he was educated at the local state grammar school then joined the British civil service. Volunteering for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II, he worked on radar development. After the war he gained a first class degree in math and physics at King's College, London, before going on to became a full-time writer.
Clarke married in 1953, but the couple split after 6 months. They divorced in 1964 with no children. He immigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956 and become a dual Sri Lankan-British citizen. He was a keen scuba diver and for a while ran a diving school outside of the capital Colombo.
Clarke Orbits
While still in the RAF, Clarke circulated a paper suggesting the use of satellites in geo-synchronous orbits 22,000 miles above the Earth's equator to bounce electronic signals around the world. This idea was soon implemented, giving rise to the world of global communications we know today. In recognition of this, such geo-synchronous orbits are sometimes known as Clarke Orbits.
An All-Time Science Fiction Great
Clarke published several stories in fanzines between 1937 and 1945. He sold his first story professionally to Astounding Science Fiction in April 1946. Clarke wrote his first three novels for children. He briefly worked as assistant editor of Science Abstracts in 1949 and become a full-time writer in 1951, eventually writing over 100 books.
His most famous work started as an entry called "The Sentinel" to a BBC short story contest. He developed the story with director Stanley Kubrick into "2001: A Space Odyssey," which was released in 1968. The Odyssey series along with the similarly themed Rama series provided the backbone of Clarke's later work.
Clarke was a noted futurist, making many insightful and intriguing predictions. He famously formulated Clarke's Law that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Receiving many awards throughout his life, including a British knighthood in 2000 and a Sri Lankabhimanya (The Pride of Sri Lanka) in 2005, Clarke has an asteroid and a dinosaur named after him.
Three Wishes
In a farewell message to fans posted on YouTube on Dec. 2007, Clarke said he wanted to be remembered as a writer.
He made three wishes: that the existence of extra-terrestrial life be proven, that the world would wean itself off oil and that the civil war in Sri Lanka should find a peaceful resolution.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke died of heart failure and breathing problems on March 19, 2008, "having completed 90 orbits around the Sun." He left written instruction that "Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral."


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Tactica Online, in their continuing series discussing skills, has released a number of new abilities that serve as counterpoints to other skills.
Today we have several skills that provide a counterpart to other skills. They may be part of a cycle, or may be just a counter, but either way, it's their relationship to other skills that define them. Remove Trap is the counter to all those trap skills, known and yet to come; Command and Ranged Commander comprise a small cycle of their own; Armor of Grace is the complement to all those spiritual damage skills there's little defense against; and Immolation is the mage's answer to Lightning.
For more information on Tactica Online, click here.