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|Boyer Chute NWR
Crescent Lake NWR
North Platte NWR
Ft. Niobrara NWR
Valentine NWR
John W. and Louise Seier NWR
Rainwater Basin WMD
Nebraska has six National Wildlife Refuges and one Wetland Management District.
Boyer Chute NWR was established in 1995 to restore fish and wildlife habitat along the Missouri River and in the Missouri River floodplain to provide public recreation opportunities along the river corridor.
Crescent Lake NWR, located in the Nebraska panhandle, consists of 45,818 acres of rolling sandhills, the largest continuous dune area in America. The grasslands range from the densely vegetated meadows to the sparsely covered "choppies" and support a wide variety of wildlife.
North Platte NWR has the second oldest bald eagle nest in modern times in Nebraska. The pair has nested on the Refuge every year since 1993.
Although many kinds of wildlife inhabit Fort Niobrara NWR, the rolling sandhills and breaks along the Niobrara River Canyon are managed for upland species including buffalo and elk.
Valentine NWR lies in the heart of a vast area of undulating sand dunes which stretch across north-central Nebraska. The region, called the Sandhills, is the largest remaining tract of mid and tall grass prairie in North America. Numerous lakes, productive marshes, and tall grasses on hills and meadows provide habitat for many kinds of wildlife. During fall and spring migrations, sometimes as many as 150,000 ducks can be found on the Refuge, with peak numbers occurring in May and October.
Rainwater Basin WMD has been identified as a critical waterfowl habitat area during spring and fall migration. Millions of geese and ducks stop in the Rainwater Basin each spring to rest and feed before heading for northern breeding grounds.
Rainwater Basin Wetland Management District
2610 Avenue Q Box 1686
Kearney, NE 68848
Return to the National Wildlife Refuges
Home Page
Return to the FWS Mountain Prairie Region Home Page


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This video just posted on you tube demolishes any possible doubt that this is faked news.
It was a staged event and the videos, supposedly closed captioned security footage, prove that they used CGI to insert car crash victims into the footage.
full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5mntu9qaDY
I actually saw footage where a vicsim,., had both legs run over by the car at high speed and immediately stood up as if the car was made of Lego. Some how this video shows a guy following the path of the "runaway" car , passing numerous "victims" of the "carnage" but does not show a single drop of blood.
full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oFxadLx1J4
The person who posted the first video goes by the name of Anaconda Malt Liquor, and I've watched many of his videos exposing media fakery.
I would say, next to Simon, he is the best at breaking down videos that I've ever seen.
It would be disturbing if it was real, (why would someone mow down dozens of pedestrians in Times Square?) and is even more disturbing to know that someone actually went to the trouble to fake this type of depraved behaviour and try to pass it off as real. My brain hurts trying to figure out the possible motivations of those behind the fakery psyops.
Steve O.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Trouble With Great-Tailed Grackle Birds
I think I have made my stance on birds fairly clear. With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.
Now an invasive species called the great-tailed grackle ("called by some the devil bird," according to USA Today; by "some" now, by all soon) are swarming through farmlands and suburban supermarkets and ruining everything.
Grackles tend to congregate in large flocks and like shopping centers and fast-food store parking lots, where there's trash for food and trees or light posts for perching. Their droppings can spread disease, and they can damage citrus crops.
Add to that their frequent attacks on other birds, and they're simply not good neighbors.
Previously confined to Central America, the birds have surged north and west over the last few years, following herds of cattle and stealing grain from feedlots. Bird biologist Alan Clark calls grackles an "unstoppable machine" and gives three excellent reasons for fearing them:
1. They're "hard to kill"
2. Worse, they're "really hard to scare"
3. They are so numerous "even poison isn't particularly effective"
What we face, then, is an invasion of indestructible birds, which breed no cowards and regularly gulp down poison, with an eye for expansion.
For three years, these flying knives have made a Kroger grocery store in Texas their home base: the trees in the parking lot are constantly "black with birds" as they seethe from one branch to the next, murder in their hearts. Manager Jeff Bailey and his workers tried setting off a "bird cannon," which mimics the sound of mortar fire, to frighten the flocks away. The cannon brought the police and fire department down to the store. The birds did not move.
A town in New Mexico, groaning under the weight of the birds' waste, sets off Black Cat firecrackers into the trees every night at sunset in order to drive them away. Texas Bird Services uses "high-powered lasers" to confuse the flocks into abandoning their roosts; they even hire a falconer to send trained hawks after them to clear out the stragglers.
Does it work?
"New flocks arrive almost daily."
The worst part of the devil bird - worse than the "human health" risk posed by the number of their droppings, worse than their "annoying, almost mechanical call that begins at dawn" - is their dead, laser-pointer eyes, their artificially stiff movements, and eerily glossy feathers, like a horrible robot-bird designed to mimic the appearance of true birds. "Don't mind us," their buzzing calls seem to say. "Our feathers only cover normal bird meat, not an unholy alliance of smoking wires and foul intent."
Now they have landed in San Francisco: up to "six males" and "at least one female" have been spotted within city limits. There is nowhere left for them to go in their relentless push to the sea; the West has already been conquered.


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he landscape had changed. Over time, parts of the river had silted in; marsh grasses, purple loosestrife, and other vegetation tumbled over the watercourse where iron-laden vessels once sailed. But a slag pile remained, and the Saugus River continued its flow along a prescribed course. Written records suggested that some 300 years past, this place served as the location of a prosperous iron industry. In 1948 archeologists were given the opportunity to survey and excavate the site and concluded that the written records were correct. Now overgrown and urbanized, from 1646 until 1668, this was the site of the Saugus Iron Works. That discovery led to a careful, though partly conjectural, reconstruction of the first successful integrated ironmaking plant in colonial America.
The early Puritan settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony undeniably needed an ironmaking factory. For those colonists, the first order of business was to build houses and plant crops. Essential to those tasks were iron tools and utensils: axes, saws, hoes, nails, pots, and kettles. Most colonists brought some needed tools and utensils with them. As the population grew, however, so did the need for more iron products. For more than 20 years this need was met by the Saugus Iron Works.
Ironmasters recruited skilled and unskilled workers from the ironmaking regions in England. These men were well acquainted with the white-heat of the blast furnace, the clanging noise of the great hammer, the hard work, and the need for constant alertness in this dangerous workplace. They knew how to endure the grueling motions that tore at their muscles, the suffocating smell of the molten metal, and the deafening atmosphere. The reconstruction of the Saugus Iron Works helps us to imagine the daily life of these early European settlers.
About This Lesson
Getting Started: Inquiry Question
Setting the Stage: Historical Context
Locating the Site: Maps
Determining the Facts: Readings
Visual Evidence: Images
Putting It All Together: Activities
How the National Register
Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site
This lesson is based on Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, one of the thousands of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


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Alaska isn't called "The Last Frontier" for nothing—it is, after all, wild, remote, and certainly not for everyone. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was recorded in Alaska (80 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, in 1971). The highest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley, is here. There are thousands of acres of virtually uninhabited land—and, in the winter, very few hours of daylight.
It's also a little quirky here (as fans of the 1990s television series Northern Exposure can attest to). The official state sport is dog mushing—a sport in which dogs race through snow while dragging sleds or other heavy objects. And people here live and play by different rules, literally. At Muskeg Meadows, a well known nine-hole golf course in the town of Wrangell, players abide by the Raven Rule, which states that "a ball stolen by a raven may be replaced, with no penalty, provided there is a witness." And one of the biggest festivals of the year in Anchorage, the state's biggest city, involves reindeer running down its main drag.
But if you fancy yourself a rugged frontiersman, a diehard huntress or an earnest naturalist, Alaska offers an unparalleled retirement. (Just bring your coats!). It's breathtakingly beautiful with unmatched outdoor recreation. The state has more than three million lakes, of which thousands are accessible, as well as 3,000 rivers and hundreds of miles of ocean shoreline, which make Alaska a top spot for all kinds of fishing. The state also offers spectacular wildlife-watching with polar and grizzly bears, lynx, moose, humpbacked whales, and dozens of rare and even endangered species. Birdwatchers can see species like the bald eagle, goldeneye, loon and phalarope; hikers can choose from gleaming ice age glaciers, towering snow-capped mountains and lush forests bisected by fast-flowing streams.
Alaskan residents are "warm and gracious," says Randall S. Linde, an Ameriprise private wealth advisor who works at locations in Juneau and Ketchikan. On one of his first trips to Alaska from Seattle, he got a flat tire in the middle of a rainstorm and thought he might be sitting there for hours waiting for help. But "the first car that passed me stopped, they called the rental car company for me and drove me all the way to my hotel," he says. "That's how Alaskans are." Plus, Linde adds, "There aren't many malls or a lot of places to go spend a lot of money, so people here focus more on relationships."
Big tax bills can devastate your retirement savings. MarketWatch's Robert Powell and Andrea Coombes talk about strategies to employ before and during retirement to lower your taxes.
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Retire here, not there: California
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For retirees, there are other perks as well. The state doesn't levy income or sales tax, and many cities exempt seniors from some portion of their property taxes, says Linde. And permanent residents actually paid to live in the state, with proceeds from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which passes a percentage of royalties from oil and mineral revenues back to the community. (Annual checks range from roughly $1,000 to $2,000 per person, depending on the fund's performance.)
Of course, those perks are often offset by the expense and potential inconvenience of living so far from the "Lower 48." It costs nearly 34% above the national average to live here—utilities are nearly 50% above the U.S. average and food is 37% higher. That's largely due to the remoteness of the state – much of your food has to be shipped in from thousands of miles away, and utility lines are harder to build and maintain the wilderness. Furthermore, some communities in Alaska are downright remote (the population density is one person per square mile, compared to 87 per square mile on average in the U.S) and for folks in these towns, getting to a good hospital may mean a three-hour ride in a tiny plane.
Still, for those with the hardiness to retire in Alaska, there are plenty of compelling places to live. Here are three.


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Carey Mulligan take note -- the next time Nick Hornby gives career advice, you'd best listen.
The actress' decision to take on the critically-acclaimed drama "An Education" might seem like simple arithmetic now. But there was a long period of time when it took a leap of faith to see if the project was even going to get off the ground.
Screenwriter Nick Hornby and the movie's producing team (wife Amanda Posey and Finola Dwyer) had the difficult task of finding the right funding to launch the project.
"We ran around the houses for a bit," Hornby told the "Creative Screenwriting" screening at the L.A. Film school on Sunday.
Even landing the backing of a big fish such as the BBC was only part of the battle. "They can't pay for a whole movie. They can pay for a quarter of it. They need co-producing partners."
In the meantime, Hornby had to keep his cast together. "Peter (Sarsgaard) was on board at quite an early stage and stuck around for a while. He was quite tenacious about it," says Hornby. "Emma (Thompson) had kindly agreed to do that turn to help us out."
But the key to the puzzle was the central role of the sheltered teenager who has the affair with the much older man.
"We'd seen Carey and a couple of other people. But we knew that she was the one," says Hornby.
"I was never worried about Carey. I said to her, you'll get much better parts than this, but you'll never get a bigger one. She has a speech on every page of a 120-page screenplay. Actresses like that."
Muligan stuck around, and it paid off. She received rave reviews and is now up for a Best Actress Oscar.


text:
The Christendom Review Volume 3, Issue 2
Paperback, 74 Pages
Price: $5.98
Prints in 3-5 business days
The print version of the online Christian Literary Journal hosted at http://www.christendomreview.com/
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Product Details
- Copyright
- Richard Barnett (Standard Copyright License)
- Edition
- Volume 3, Issue 1
- Publisher
- Todd McKimmey Studios
- Published
- December 15, 2011
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 74
- Binding
- Perfect-bound Paperback
- Interior Ink
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- Weight
- 0.35 lbs.
- Dimensions (inches)
- 6 wide x 9 tall
- Product ID
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Applyf are pleased to announce that the much anticipated YouTube client PrimeTube is now available on the Marketplace. We previously took the app for a spin in a preview of the client and immediately noticed the heavy Metro focus. So what's great about PrimeTube? Features include:
- Search for videos; filter and sort results.
- Like/Dislike videos, read and reply to comments.
- Pin videos, playlists and authors (featuring live tile support) for instant access.
- Share videos via social networks, email and SMS.
- Create playlists and manage your subscriptions.
- Complete music + video hub integration.
- Multi-region support.
- Supports Fast-App Switching.
Applyf states that the app adheres to the YouTube ToS and will be updated when API changes are published. The next version is already in the works, which will see video recording / direct uploading support, upload queue management (with background transfers and notifications), list of live events, as well as a number of minor bug fixes in the subscriptions section.
What's also interesting about PrimeTube is that the app is complete free, with no advertisements. Just 100% pure Metro enjoyment. Be sure to follow the team on Twitter, and download PrimeTube from the Marketplace.


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In New Orleans, they call it "the storm." Not just the hurricane named Katrina but the rolling disaster that lasted for days.
Author Sara Gran evacuated and returned. For two years, she watched the decline of one of the most vibrant and unique places on earth. And for two years, she watched the world ignore the real story of heartache and misery, much of it shoved deep into the minds of those whose city was lost.
Gran brings this grim, gritty, and unhappy New Orleans to life in her entrancing mystery novel "Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead," which is now out in paperback. In the well-reviewed book, Gran manages to expose the darkness in the Big Easy while still finding signs of life amid the ruins. I reached Gran last week and we talked about her mystical private-eye character, the reality of post-Katrina New Orleans and the next book in the Claire DeWitt series.
Q: For people who haven't read the book, who's Claire DeWitt?
A: Claire DeWitt is in her mid-30s and from Brooklyn. She's "the world's greatest detective," but no one believes her. We'll find out if it's true as the series goes on.
She's been been through a lot, had a really hard childhood, and a lot of personal losses. She doesn't get a lot of pleasure in her life, but she does get pleasure out of solving crimes.
She's a devotee of a French detective who has an unusual school of detective work based on intuition, omens, and psychology. It is not science-based, more like the alternative medicine of detective work.
Q: She seems pretty messed up as she tries to solve the case of a missing prosecutor. Is that fair to say?
A: She's in one of those phases in her life where she's in between things. She's not really depressed, she's not really happy. She doesn't have a future she's particularly looking forward to, but she's not in her past. She didn't want to go to New Orleans, but goes there to help solve this crime.
She does have this way of solving mysteries that's stable for her that she can fall back on. It provides her the routine and stability that most people take for granted in life.
Q: You're from Brooklyn, lived in New Orleans, and now live in Northern California, just like her. How much of Claire is you?
A: Forty-three percent.
I just made that up, but that may be right. Between 43 and 57 percent.
Q: What in her is not like you?
A: The stuff with the guns, and being very tough and strong. She's a lot smarter than me, she figures something out in a minute that takes me six months. She's more fun and more interesting.
Q: What's been the reaction among readers to her?
A: I hoped people who would see her as an inspiration, despite the darkness and the weirdness of the character and her own personal history, in the way she found a way to do something good despite the screwed-up things that have happened to them. People have responded to that exactly the way I hoped they would.
Q: Your portrait of New Orleans is grim, full of decrepit homes, desperate people, and thugs standing on street corners. What made you decide to look at that part of it?
A: I wanted to write a book that was more about my experiences after the storm. I was really depressed when I wrote the book. Being in New Orleans after the storm was really depressing. The rest of the country seemed to want the cheerful and upbeat stories, but there weren't a lot of them.
It's a great place, a wonderful place, but you read in The New York Times or Times-Picayune about the music and the food and the culture.
I love crawfish étouffée, but I don't think that's an appropriate topic in a discussion when thousands of people died and thousands are left homeless, and the people left behind are walking around zombies.
Q: What did you see happening in the city?
A: It was very divided. You'd meet people like me who lost no one and those who lost 15 to 20 family members and neighbors.
There was not an emotional public space to acknowledge the pain that people were going through. People are so terrified of dealing with their pain, but if you don't, you end up with permanent post-traumatic stress disorder.
Q: It sounds unrelentingly grim, doesn't it?
A: That's what it was like living in this city.
For some reason, nobody really came to help. Two years later, people are saying, "When the aid and the trucks come," and it's like, "Dude, there's no trucks coming." People say, "When we start the rebuilding effort," but there's been no WPA-type rebuilding effort.
Q: Did you worry about being fair to New Orleans?
A: I didn't worry about fair at all, I worried about being honest to my experience and the imaginary world of my characters' experience.
You can't write a book and be fair. You have to write a book and be honest.
There is more to New Orleans than what I pictured. There's a lot that's wonderful and beautiful. But there's enough talk about the music and the food.
Q: Your next Claire DeWitt book is due out in the spring of 2013. What's it about?
A: She's back at home in San Francisco, and a close friend of hers is murdered. The book also goes back to a murder in Brooklyn in the 1980s. It's two stories and alternates between them.
Q: Are you attracted to writing about the darker side of things?
A: I'm more interested in the dark side, in how the people of New Orleans were not perfect.
Everybody wants to talk about the innocent victims, but we're never really innocent victims. We're never really innocent, and it's sort of dehumanizing to say that they are. It's more interesting and respectful to get into these darker areas.
Still, in my previous three books I wrote exclusively about the dark side of things, and that got really boring. What's more interesting are these spaces of light and good deeds that come in these dark spaces.
Randy Dotinga is a Monitor contributor.


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One billion bottles a year on the wall
A glass manufacturer's new monitoring and control system has increased both the number and quality of bottles the company makes, while at the same time shattering its refining process production costs.
hen it comes to making all of the bottles for one of the largest winemaking operations in the world, production processes need to be as clear as the glass itself. At Gallo Glass Co. in Modesto, Calif., just-in-time delivery means the bottles are available when needed, to help keep the wine flowing through the bottling and labeling operations, out to distribution and into millions of homes each year.
The glass plant also has to support the companys commitments to quality, consumer safety and environmental protection. With one billion bottles being produced annually, a production system with monitoring and control software from GE, helps Gallo Glass shine.
A Toast to High Technology
The Gallo Glass plant is one of the worlds largest. It manufactures more than 100 different bottle types in various sizes, shapes and colors, and is the sole supplier to the E. & J. Gallo Winery. It serves a number of external customers, including other wineries, apple juice companies, and makers of specialty beverages such as espresso syrups.
E & J Gallo is unique for having its own glass plant which was built in 1958 on the companys main campus.
By owning a glass plant, the company reduces the freight costs associated with shipping heavy glass and eliminates the possibility of production delays caused by delivery problems from outside bottle suppliers. The primary goal of the glass plant is to maintain a reliable and high quality supply of bottles for the winery.
|Operating 24/7, Gallo's plant has 14 production lines and produces more than one billion bottles per year.
Shatters Waste and Maintenance Costs
With the SFIS in place, the plants operators have saved $5 million annually through improved quality (or Percent Pack); increased production by 5 %; reduced defects by 25%; and reduced plant downtime by 25%. It also decreased training time and helped to facilitate job changes/job sharing.
With these kinds of results, the plants vice president, John Gallo, has built upon his familys long-held strategy to provide for a reliable bottle supply chain. The vision is one of an information-centric management culture, Gallo explains, where every employee can combine trade craft and science in every bottle we make. Our process is complex with many interacting variables. This new technology has simplified the learning curve for new employees, making them more effective and proactive in their jobs. Ultimately we foresee use of the new technology fundamental in our journey toward Lean/Six Sigma manufacturing.
Breaking Bottlenecks
The glass plant operates 24/7 on 14 production lines. Each line starts with hot, molten glass and ends with inspection, followed by packing. The SFIS presents data collected from all devices on the lines, and at the beginning and end of each line is an iFIX node.
With its open architecture, the software is able to connect via Ethernet TCP/IP to the plants installed base of equipment, such as sensing and inspection devices, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), scales and timing systems. The plant uses a client-server database architecture and operates on a server-based computing model. The iClientTS terminal server version of iFIX runs on a CITRIX server farm and has dedicated Windows terminal devices as clients.
Automation technologies at the plant started with sensing and inspection devices. From there, Gallo Glass needed to have a way to collect production data to allow the plant to make more informed decisions. The team reviewed many software packages before selecting iFIX as the single HMI / SCADA system for the whole plant. It was critical to implement one interface package and have everyone in the plant operating from the same page and sharing information.
Bruce Williams, senior production manager at Gallo Glass, says, SFIS has brought all of my production managers together onto the playing field.
Troy Wells, director of maintenance & engineering at Gallo Glass, notes, The Gallo SFIS system has transformed us from a âmake and inspect mentality to a âmake, measure, and improve mentality. This change continually drives us back to the manufacturing process for root cause analysis and correction. SFIS drives us to make it right the first time, and this system never ceases to amaze me with its ability to constantly receive and update information that is vital to the production process.
Wells continues, Bottom line is that âWhat gets measured gets improved. SFIS is the catalyst to make this happen. From a maintenance and engineering perspective, SFIS is the first thing I look at each morning; I monitor it throughout the day, and it is the last thing I check at days end.
Conceptualized by Gallo, and designed and implemented by integrator Saber Engineering (Auburn, Calif.), the SFIS system includes over 20 HMI screens and generates 30 reports for the glass plant production team. It works with an Oracle database to consolidate the data from the plants devices, and then transform that real-time data into dynamic text, alarm, and graphic displays.
Production Snap Shot
Information is presented on the terminals located on the lines for a quick, easy-to-view snapshot of production. Operators and managers can view Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as Percent Pack, which displays the number of bottles successfully produced for every 100 attempts; defects, losses, and production quantities by line; and more. The system provides timely notification of defects, so that operators can correct production and boost quality.
|By analyzing data from plant floor processes, Gallo engineers were able to redesign the glass molds to prevent defects and decrease cracking.
By analyzing the data from the plant floor processes, the team was able to redesign the glass molds to engineer out defects and decrease cracking. This change has reduced scrap and improved yield. Additionally, the team has perfected wall thickness and distribution a long-term improvement that affects the amount of liquid that goes into the bottlesusing wall thickness run charts. Using the system as an engineering and planning tool, Gallo Glass has been able to make major improvements that have saved the company money and helped increase the quality of products to consumers.
Additionally, the team has made adjustments in the batching and furnace operations through root-cause analysis. A more efficient furnace design has helped the plant use less energy. At the furnace, Gallo Glass uses a special GASOXY firing process to burn pure oxygen and significantly reduce nitrous oxide output. The company is the first major user of the process, and makes its own oxygen with an on-site cryogenic oxygen plant.
At an electrostatic precipitator, or scrubber, iFIX software runs on a desktop computer for further operational analysis. This has helped the glass plant reduce emissions by 80%.
After the bottles are formed, automated bottle inspection has helped the plant become more agile if there is an error on a line. The team estimates a 25% decrease in defects through timely net inspection. On the lines, video cameras take pictures of the moving bottles, and the system analyzes for variances in shape or pattern, and light and dark spots. A defect could be a piece of unmelted sand, or could take the form of a bubble or blister, seen as a dark spot.
Another machine inserts a plastic dowel into each bottle to check for free, open and unobstructed bottle necks or, or in the parlance of the industry, a choked neck. Inspection also includes checks for cracks or chips at the top of threaded bottles. Another inspection ensures a clean sealing surface, to prevent leakage.
Defects can also make a bottle structurally weak, prone to breaks, chips or cracks. Gallo Glass automatically inspects 100% of the bottles, and follows that with automated random sampling inspection methods and manual inspection. When defects are found, the operator can use the system to adjust machines properly, check calibrations or perform additional tests.
Between production and inspection, Gallo Glass collects more than 2.5 million packets of data per day in the glass plant. The system provides an Internet portal dashboard with global visibility into the information. The thin client system works on dial up for remote connections, and users can also access via Virtual Private Network (VPN) and the Internet.
In addition to production improvements, the data helps the plant maintain its ISO certification and archive information as part of a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan under the FDAs Good Manufacturing Practices. Operators can document any issues by simply filling out an iFIX screen for a HACCP. Susan Anders, quality manager in charge of HACCP, says, We have automated the entire HACCP documentation process and can analyze cumulative trends and compliance easily and quickly.
Head of the Glass
Since implementing the system and refining processes, Gallo Glass has increased both the number and quality of bottles that the team makes. Gallo Glass has achieved industry-leading results worthy of a toast!


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Brand new ZL1 Camaros don't usually sell at a discount, but when a Virginia Chevrolet salesman crashed a red 2012 model that had already been sold, his colleague got down to brass tacks with a Camaro fan who wasn't too concerned about fixing a $10,000-plus repair bill.
According to a Friday afternoon post from a GTO fan site member, the dealership's sales manager was the one who did the car in.
sales manager was driving, claims he was going 65 and shifted 3-4 and all hell broke loose. went across the grassy median 3 times bouncing off the curb on either side. sounds like they were going a lot faster than 65 to me... they were gone no longer than 20 mins i think. funny thing (to me, anyways) is that the guy who had already bought it dropped by to see it since he knew it was there. got a pretty big surprise. management told him a "renegade lot porter" stole it. neither of them were fired. nothing happened as far as punishment. coslyn (sales manager) drives a yellow 2006 c6 w/o mufflers around and thinks he has the fastest car in the world. sales at that place takes out anything fast and dogs it before anyone can buy it.
Discussion, along with pictures of the damaged vehicle, continued on a Camaro forum, then — of all places — on LS1GTO.com, a Pontiac aficionado forum. One of the Camaro folks had posted photos of the car with flat tires, damaged wheels, and a banged up front clip at Lindsay Chevrolet in Woodbridge, Va.
Camaro forum posters pointed out that the ZL1 had arrived at the dealership shipshape in Bristol fashion, but the next morning, was in its current rough shape, despite there being only 11 miles on the clock. It's currently up for sale again, and Lindsay Chevrolet General Sales Manager Coslyn Ceballos assured me when I called Friday afternoon that "everything is 110 percent" on the abused ZL1, despite the damage. "We don't know if the car is totalled. We don't know what's wrong with the car." That's not what we heard.
Erstwhile, an interesting online conversation between goat fiend wlorton — the owner of a 2004 GTO interested in defecting to the halls of Chevrolet — and Lindsay salesman Billy Riggs popped up about what could become of the battered pony car.
Billy Riggs: Hello, How may I help you?
wlorton: Hello, I am curious to know if you still have the ZL1 with deployed airbags
Billy Riggs: are you interested in buying it?
wlorton: Depends on the pricing, I cannot see paying full price for something that has seen that type of damage. Does it appear on the carfax?
Billy Riggs: I am not sure if it shows or not. What would you be willing to pay?
Riggs went on to assure wlorton that the car does not have a salvage title, and that once the repairs are done, "most people wouldnt even now it had been wrecked."
After quite a bit of back and forth about whether or not the car is totaled (Riggs insisted it wasn't), Riggs offered to pull the ZL1 out of the repair shop and sell it as is for $50,000. Then wlorton got him to spit out a solid repair cost estimate: $10,251.
We're not quite sure what the current market demands for a 2012 ZL1, but Kelley Blue Book's MSRP figure is $58,065. That means that ol' wlorton would pay more than 60 grand for a less than perfect Camaro. Well, unless he felt comfortable doing his own repairs on a brand new car.
In response to Riggs' offer, wlorton tried to trade his "ultra Rare 2004 Silver GTO with Red interior and a few touches to make it appear as an 2006 GTO, which puts it in roughly 10-20 cars like it" for the ZL1.
wlorton: Would you be interested in a direct trade?
Billy Riggs: that i don't think will happen
wlorton: So after repairs what will the price of the vehicle be? I am just trying to consider all of my options.
Billy Riggs: I understand and that i do not know that answer too
wlorton: Ok, well let's do this.
Billy Riggs: im listening.
So wlorton asked for an itemized list of the repairs needed on the car, a request Riggs danced around like a Ceballos-manipulated marionette. The conversation fizzled from there, and the chat session eventually timed out. A few hours later on Friday morning, GTO owner paarman got in on the fun by shooting Lindsay's sales staff a message of his own.
Johnnan Johnson: Hello, How may I help you?
paarman: Hello, I am curious to know if you still have the ZL1 with deployed airbags.
(!) The Agent has left the conversation. You are no longer connected. Thank you for your interest.
Ceballos denied knowing anything about Riggs' conversation with wlorton, or how close the car may (or, in reality, may not) have come to being sold. When I asked him what exactly was wrong with the car, he said he wasn't sure, and that it could cost $10,000 or $20,000 to fix. He just didn't know. Ceballos said he was also unaware of what had happened to put the ZL1 in its current condition.
Regardless of whether or not someone said that Ceballos wrecked a fast car in short order and blamed it on bottom rung underlings, I find it curious that a dealership's sales manager doesn't know what happened to a brand new Camaro to put it in such a bad way. We hope he has the chutzpah to inform whoever finally ends up buying the car that it has been damaged, and how it got that way. Who knows, maybe someone will score a sweet deal on a bitchin' Camaro. Hat tip to Michael!)
Photo credit: MYFIRSTCAMARO/camaro5.com


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Image: New York Public Library Digital Gallery
My suburban tale of debauchery, "Blind Tasting," appears in the newly-released eBook and paperback, Coming Together: Against the Odds, a short story anthology edited by the altruistic Alessia Brio as part of her Coming Together series published by Phaze Books. All proceeds will benefit the charity Autism Speaks. (The profits are highest when books are ordered directly from the publisher). The Kindle version is available from Amazon. The print edition can also be purchased from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
The singular, inimitable noir/erotica writer and editor, Maxim Jakubowski, has penned the introduction. Behold! Here is the stellar lineup of contributors:
Introduction Maxim Jakubowski
Will She Kiss Me? Giselle Renarde
Under a Moving Star Angela Caperton
Blind Tasting EllaRegina
Undercover Angel Alessia Brio
Always a Bridesmaid Andrea Dale
Choke Gregory L. Norris
The Booty Call Caper Kathleen Bradean
Sen-Sen Alicia Night Orchid
It Had To Be You GS Wiley
Missing Pieces Jasmine Black
Claim Mate Brenna Lyons
Sixth Sense Teresa Noelle Roberts
No Boundaries Moondancer Drake
The Arch Eva Batonne
When I first read the submission call, soliciting "mystery-themed erotic fiction," I wasn't sure I had anything that fit the bill, though the accompanying description gave food for thought:
All behavior is communication. The trick is to figure out just what it's saying. No behavior communicates as clearly or on as many levels as sex. All the physical and emotional senses are engaged. Add the element of intrigue, and the intellect is engaged as well.
Then I heard Alessia Brio interviewed on Gracie Passette's Cult of Gracie internet radio program. Towards the end of the hour-long discussion, Ms. Brio talked about the anthology, providing the exact words I needed to hear. She said the story could be "any sort of mystery -- it doesn't have to be a crime-drama type of mystery -- it could be a 'which one of these party guests is licking your backside while you're blindfolded?' type of mystery." Ms. Passette laughed and said she'd much prefer that to "the dead dinner guest" while I practically screamed into my computer's loudspeaker holes, "Alessia, have I got a story for you!"
In fact, "Blind Tasting" does involve -- among other things -- dinner guests (though none are killed off), and it's closer to what Ms. Brio proposed: not exactly a whodunnit, but rather a "who done it to whom?"
I find it particularly ironic and poignant, given my story's scenario, that the profits from Coming Together: Against the Odds go to Autism Speaks. The majority of autistic people do speak -- contrary to popular misconception. "Blind Tasting" offers an interpersonal counterpoint: four couples who, at a strategic point in the narrative, are not permitted to communicate with speech or sound or even by using physical/body language, if doing so causes the "message transmitter" to be identified by the recipient.
Image: New York Public Library Digital Gallery
To whet your proverbial whistle,* here is an excerpt -- a wee taste of "Blind Tasting." I shall begin as most mystery stories do: at the beginning...
Blind Tasting
by EllaRegina
They called themselves The Montridge Eight, after the metropolitan area suburb in which they lived, a thirty-nine-minute commute to the City, and though the name sounded like an underground terrorist group from the 1960s, their most incendiary efforts had involved turning on a Viking stove or lighting a Weber grill. A four-couple gourmet cooking club, The Montridge Eight met once a month, their homes revolving as venue, to travel the world gastronomically, one country and cuisine at a time. Creative professionals all, they were detail-oriented: an evening's theme would extend well beyond the food, to the decor, the wine, the music, sometimes even to the furniture.
The Greens, the Blacks, the Grays, the Whites: a box of crayons -- an odd one since the Blacks were not, the Whites were light brown and the Greens and Grays beige variations. They were the epitome of sophistication and urbane modern living. The men had long been vasectomized, completely relieving their marriages of pregnancy scares and latex fluid barriers. The couples were close and getting closer. The Montridge Eight gatherings elicited flirtatious behavior that grew stronger over the years. It began with one foot finding another under the table, or venturing further, toes slowly massaging a crotch. Hands would sneak inside waistbands from behind. Soon, parlor games were incorporated: first dirty Mad Libs -- "Name of Person in Room" particularly revealing -- then adult Charades, followed sequentially by Twister, strip tease, Strip Poker and Spin-the-Bottle. The Blacks, who lived in a former firehouse, offered their pole for dancing when they hosted, a mirrored ball on the high ceiling throwing sparkles over the dimmed space as each woman spun around the shiny brass upright, inspired by the thumping disco groans of Donna Summer and company. With each installment of the cooking club The Montridge Eight became increasingly daring and experimental. Perhaps it was the Cabernet, or the Pinot Grigio, or the Riesling, or the Rioja.
Although beyond familiar, the Greens, Blacks, Grays, and Whites -- a living version of the board game Clue -- decided from the onset that during these occasions they would refer to each other, including their own spouses, as Monsieur or Madame, evoking old black and white movies where the husband called the wife "Mother," lending the evenings a certain frisson of staged formality -- an interesting counterpoint to the sub-table footsie and miscellaneous lusty doings -- often inspiring unscripted postprandial role-playing once the couples were back in their own bedrooms:
"Would you do it to me in the Library with The Lead Pipe, Monsieur Gray?"
"Most assuredly, Madame Gray. My very large one. Where shall I put it?"
Across Montridge's verdant tree-lined streets, a parallel scene was unfolding at the Green house:
"In the Billiard Room, on the table, with The Rope, Madame Green?"
"Of course, Monsieur Green. A hog-tie is definitely in order," she replied, spreading her excited legs as Monsieur Green undid his perfectly slip-knotted neckwear, anxious to truss Madame's limbs, rigid cock pointed towards her from an unbuttoned fly.
To be continued, dot dot dot. Buy the book, dot dot dot!
Copyright 2009 EllaRegina. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without prior written permission from the author.
A clue relating to a key scene in "Blind Tasting."
One of my inspirations for the story.
"Blind Tasting" was initially featured on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in their February 2009 Erotica Fiction Gallery. Kisses to Rose and Adrienne! And a special hug to Donna George Storey for plugging "Blind Tasting" so nicely at the time on her blog.
*A big thank you to phantaglyph of thefreesoundproject for the 2-second wolf whistle recording.


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This afternoon I attended a Faculty Senate panel discussion on the future of on-line courses at UCSC. A couple of the panelists had already taught on-line courses, and their presentations were particularly interesting.
One had taught a hybrid course where half the students attended live lectures and the other half watched videos of the lectures. Both halves had required weekly hands-on discussion sections, so the course wouldn't scale to MOOC sizes. The bottom line was that there was no significant difference in performance between the on-line and live-class halves of the class, and that students spent a lot less time looking at the videos than predicted. (The class has been offered 4 times to about 300 students each time, so this was not a small sample.)
The other professor is currently teaching a tiny boutique class (14 students, I think he said), using software that lets him lecture from his office, with a whiteboard window, a little web-cam video feed, and a chat window. I've used similar software in conversations with the Global Physics Department (whose meeting tonight I missed, because of the panel discussion, but they were just discussing the College Board's plan to split AP Physics B into two courses, which I'm not all that interested in). When I gave a presentation to the GPD, I found it very difficult to present material on the whiteboard, talk, and watch the chat box all at the same time. I asked the professor about this problem at the reception afterwards, and he said that with a small, quiet class, he can usually keep up, but if everyone chats at once, stuff scrolls off screen before he can read it. He thinks that the technology might scale up to 60 students with a very non-interactive lecture style and sleeping students (I exaggerate his description), but not beyond that.
Another professor presented a course that is going to be offered soon that takes the form of a self-paced e-book (on calculus). He showed a couple of features of the e-book, and I think that it has many of the bells and whistles that math bloggers have expressed an interest in seeing in math e-books. Personally, I did not find the examples he showed very appealing, but I'm not part of the target audience. (He also loves math history, which I have always found to be a tedious addition to math books, so I'm really not part of the target audience.)
Some of the panelists just raised questions for us to think about, though they went by so fast that I don't think anyone in the audience will remember more than one or two of them—the questions they were thinking about before coming to the meeting. I hope that the Committee on Teaching or the Committee on Educational Policy will send out the list of questions as e-mail.
One thing that disturbed me about this meeting was the average age of the attendees. I think I was well below the median age there, and I'm turning 58 this week. If we are talking about the future of online education at the university, then we absolutely need to be talking with the people who will be the faculty in that future. It can't be only us old farts who will retire in the next decade (and the professors emeriti, who have already retired)—where were the assistant and associate professors? I'd be very surprised if there were more than 4 assistant or 6 associate professors there.
My personal feeling is that UCSC should not invest large amounts of money in online education. It does not seem to be much cheaper than conventional teaching methods, and UC does not have a good track record for providing infrastructure cheaply, nor for running businesses. I think that UCSC should be concentrating its shrinking resources on the things where there is enormous value added by being a UC: on lab courses and small seminar courses where students get direct hands-on experience and interact with faculty. If this means outsourcing the teaching of the 1000 students a year taking precalculus, well, that's too bad, but high schools and community colleges can teach those courses ok. I don't believe that UC should be teaching precalc—certainly not to a quarter of each incoming cohort!
Unfortunately, the budgetary pressure in recent years has been towards eliminating small grad courses and expensive-to-teach lab courses, and creating more and more mega-lecture courses. These mega-lecture courses are relatively easy to replace with MOOCs, since the teaching in mega-lectures has already been degraded almost to the level of video lectures, with no interaction for most students. Once you start moving to a factory model of education, it starts becoming "obvious" to outsource the production to cheaper labor elsewhere, or to look for "economies of scale" that allow you to mass-produce a course. I'm not convinced that there are economies of scale in education—I don't think that it is really more cost-effective to teach 1000 students at once than 20 students at once. You can make the course cheaper per student, but the cost in quality is pretty high.
The calculus e-book looks like a promising alternative to big lecture courses, though I suspect that not that many students will slog through it without someone holding their hands and cheering them on. Even my son, who is very interested in math and quite good at it, finds it much easier to learn in the context of a class with regular meetings and feedback from the teachers than in a self-paced course with the same content—lack of time-management skills ruins self-paced courses for most students. Of course, there is no reason that e-book has to be used in a self-paced course, but adding math coaches or teaching assistants to the course raises the cost of offering it to nearly the levels of a conventional course. Furthermore, the time, money, and effort involved in creating such an e-book means it is unlikely that UCSC will create many such resources.
The chair of the Committee on Educational Policy suggested that there would be a market for on-line courses in bioinformatics from UCSC, since UCSC is an acknowledged world leader in bioinformatics. And it is true that there might be a market, but as the teacher for our core graduate bioinformatics course, I don't think that our quality of education would survive a transfer to on-line format.
My "lectures" are very interactive—I try to get students to derive things like the Smith-Waterman algorithm and the forward-backward algorithm for HMMs from reasoning about how to break problems into sub-problems for dynamic programing. I could present the algorithms in a textbook-like way in a quarter the time, eliminating the long waits for students to digest and idea and suggest a next step, eliminating the cold calls, eliminating the checks for understanding at every key point, … . I can teach a group of 20 students in the same room with me, but I'd lose most of the useful feedback in an online setting. I'd also lose the chats with students between classes—e-mail and forums do not bring up the same issues that come up when I stop by the grad office to get more hot water for my tea. Even recording my extemporaneous presentations would flatten them—I'm likely to be just enough nervous about making mistakes on camera that I'd play it safer, doing pre-canned examples, rather than riskier live-action math and algorithms that show how I think about problems, rather than just showing "the solution".
Just Monday, when I was presenting a numeric example of computing HMM probabilities, I made a serious mistake that amounted to multiplying by two transition probabilities instead of just one in the first step. It was caught by one of the students, and I could correct it and go on. Today, after we together derived the more general recurrence relation for the forward algorithm, one student suggested an optimization that wouldn't quite work, and I could point out that it was exactly the same as the mistake I had made near the end of Monday's lecture. With an online course, either the mistake wouldn't have happened in the first place (if I polished my examples before presenting them, following a script rather than extemporizing), or the students would not have had the involvement to correct me or to propose optimizations that didn't quite work. Having a small class that has been encouraged to present ideas, to challenge me when I may be making a mistake, and to ask questions when they don't understand is crucial to my teaching style, and having a record of the class is likely to ruin that.
I sometimes deliberately make mistakes and hope for the students to catch them—if they don't, I have to spend more time stepping them through the pitfall, so that they can see it and avoid making the same mistake themselves. At the beginning of the quarter, the students were pretty shy about saying anything, but I now have over half the class participating on a regular basis, and even the weaker students are willing to ask about potential errors, though they ask more timidly than the stronger students, since there is a bigger chance that they are misunderstanding something, rather than pointing out my error. Encouraging the students to correct my mistakes does get me more feedback about misunderstandings, when their attempts to correct something that is actually already correct highlights where they did not quite grasp a concept.
Even if we could somehow magically provide online all the visual cues and social interaction of the face-to-face classroom, I don't think that we could scale up other aspects of the course: I'm already spending almost all my weekends providing detailed feedback on programs and papers for a class of around 16 students. If we scaled the class up by even a factor of 2, we'd lose that detailed feedback, which I see as an essential part of the homework. For many of the seniors and grad students, my reading of their programs and papers is the first time any professor has read any of their work closely—and they desperately need to hear how to fix their in-program documentation or how to reorganize their sentences to avoid flow problems.
Incidentally, in my other class (which includes many of the same first-year grad students), the students just finished doing 10-minute presentations on techniques from Teach Like a Champion. Tomorrow, before we start reviewing the video recordings of their presentations, I think I'll have them try to think about which of the techniques they presented that they have seen me use in the bioinformatics core course. This year they presented Circulate, Ratio, Cold Call, the Hook, Pepper, Warm/Strict, Wait Time, No Warnings, Check for Understanding, Stretch It, Positive Framing, No Opt Out, Board=Paper, Call and Response, and Begin at the End. I think that they'll find that I use about half of those on a regular basis. (I leave it to my readers to guess which of these I don't use much—those who had me as an instructor a decade or more ago might make different guesses than those who've had me recently, as I've gotten better about some things.) Note that most of the teaching techniques in Teach Like a Champion are difficult to apply in an online course.
I'm not planning to teach any on-line courses in the near future, and I'll be putting my efforts into creating more of the interactive, lab-style courses that are difficult to replicate on-line (like the Applied Circuits course I've been designing for the past 5 months). I think that the future of the university is in these high-interaction-level courses—artisanal education, not mass-produced factory education. There will undoubtedly be a huge market for the Wal-marts of education, but that's not where I want to work, nor where I want my son to be a student.


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While some celebrities might take on "Dancing with the Stars" for exposure – or a paycheck – Shannen Doherty's ballroom motivation is much different – and much more personal.
On Christmas Day 2009, Shannen's father, Tom, suffered a massive stroke that left him immobile and able to say little more than "Yes" or "No." But when the former "90210" star told him she was offered a spot on "Dancing," her dad perked up.
"He got really excited and was like, 'Yeah! Yeah!'" Shannen told Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos during her recent "DWTS" rehearsal.
"And I was like, 'No! No! No!'" the actress laughed.
During her visit to Shannen's rehearsal with partner Mark Ballas, Maria also played the actress a clip from a 2007 Access interview where Shannen said she'd never do "Dancing with the Stars."
"I watch 'Dancing with the Stars' and I love it," she told Access at the time.
"Would you ever consider doing that show?" Access asked.
"No! I'd be way too nervous. I couldn't handle it," she said in 2007.
Fast-forward to 2010 and Shannen's newfound motivation.
"I have a fear of live audiences – a huge, huge fear. It's really bad. I get hives all over. I hyperventilate," the actress revealed to Maria. "That's why I'm saying it's only for my dad that I'm here and facing my fear."
And Shannen is hoping that it might motivate her dad to confront his fear.
"There are days when I think anybody in that position with health problems like he's had forever, you know you give up. And on those days, my mom calls me and I rush over there and I'm like, "OK, I'm in dance clothes — but I could be in street clothes any second now,'" she grinned. "Because of it, he's gotten a lot better."
But make no mistake, Shannen is in it to win it. However, as far as the typically revealing "DWTS" outfits the contestants wear – Shannen said she's not about to go toe-to-toe with Pamela Anderson.
"She can have that domain as far as I'm concerned. I'm not an exhibitionist at all. I'm a little bit conservative," she admitted. "And my grandmother is watching this from Mississippi and would kill me if showed too much skin!"
Catch Shannen's "Dancing" debut, along with the rest of ABC's new cast of "Stars," when the new season of "DWTS" kicks off on March 22.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Dancing With The Stars' Season 10 Cast Revealed
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Dancing With The Stars' All-Stars!
PLAY IT NOW: Access Exclusive: Inside Shannen Doherty's 'Dancing' Rehearsal
PLAY IT NOW: Shannen Doherty's Touching 'Dancing' Cause
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Dancing With the Stars - Shannen Doherty - Mark Ballas - 90210 - ABC


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dmjanis necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 142 diseños de 28 diseñadores freelance.
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USPS to end Saturday mail delivery
The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays in early August in an effort to cut costs for the financially struggling government agency.
As USPS continues to struggle to get its financial house in order, they say they'll save $2 billion annually — this following its default last summer on an estimated $11 billion debt.
Story Continued Below
( Also on POLITICO: The end of Saturday magazines)
While mail will delivery will shorten its delivery schedule to the five-day work week, package delivery will continue delivery six days per week, Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe announced at a press conference in Washington.
That's because while USPS had originally looked at shortening package deliveries, recent growth and forecasts have kept Saturday package delivery alive. There was a 14 percent volume increase in package deliveries since 2010 and USPS projects continued package growth for the next decade, per a USPS release.
Post offices that are currently open on Saturdays will remain open. And mail that is addressed to P.O. Boxes will still be delivered on Saturdays.
It's just the beginning of more changes. USPS Washington, D.C.-area spokesman George Maffett told POLITICO that USPS will issue a five-year financial plan in early March.
"The Postal Service plans to issue a revised comprehensive five-year financial plan in early March. This plan will identify important cost reduction activities and steps to restore the Postal Service to long-term financial stability," Maffett said.
As has been widely reported, USPS has struggled as the popularity of e-mail surged. Since 2006, USPS says it has made $15 billion cuts, consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations and shrunk its workforce by 193,000 people — or 28 percent.
Maffett said that the agency must re-evaluate its fiscal path forward in order to survive.
"The Postal Service is currently on an unsustainable financial path and must move forward with actions that are responsible and necessary," Maffett said.
He added: "We continue to seek legislation to provide the Postal Service with greater flexibility to control costs and generate new revenue."
Sen Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the subcommittee that overseas USPS, commended the decision and said that it will help "keep the lights on."
"Despite my disappointment, it's hard to condemn the Postmaster General for moving aggressively to do what he believes he can and must do to keep the lights on at the Postal Service, which may be only months away from insolvency," Carper said in a statement.


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Indie Film: How It Started & Where It Is Headed/
I was on the radio in New Zealand in support of Big Screen Symposium a couple of weeks back. It was a very good interview, if I do say so myself. The interviewer knew his stuff and I had enough coffee to be pretty sharp. Check it out:
I start at around the 12:20 mark. And dig the deep tones of my nasal honk...


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Passed days carry Moody Blues into the future
Forty years ago, the Moody Blues sang about being "just a singer in a rock 'n' roll band."
But it's been so much more than that for the long-lived British group.
Formed in 1964, the Moodys have sold more than 70 million albums and notched hit singles across four decades -- including enduring tracks such as "Nights in White Satin," "Tuesday Afternoon," "The Voice," "Your Wildest Dreams" and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere."
The Moody Blues perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, at the Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Tickets are $48.50-$78.50. Call 313-471-6611 or visit www.olympiaentertainment.com.
The band is a member of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, while a sustained fan lobby continues for consideration in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- though singer-guitarist Justin Hayward says that prospect "doesn't impact me at all."
What does resonate for him, however, is the Moodys' continuing popularity, regardless of whether the group has any new music to offer its fans.
"The three of us really want to celebrate the music and enjoy the experience and share what it means to a lot of people," explains Hayward, 66, who joined the Moodys in 1966 with singer-bassist John Lodge, who remains in the lineup along with original drummer Graeme Edge.
"That's a kind of drug in itself, really, particularly since there's been such a large body of work. The great success we had in the '80s with hit singles, that particular group of (fans) still represents the major part of our touring audience. I think a lot of people joined us then, and then in the '90s.
"So it continues. And I think this is the best sort of incarnation of the band that I've ever been in, this most recent one with the musicians we have now. It's great."
Like any band with such a long and extensive history, however, Hayward and company regularly encounter their share of anniversaries. And 2012 includes three notable landmarks, which the guitarist -- who's recorded a new solo album for release in 2013 -- is happy to address:
The Moodys' sophomore set, the best-known and most highly regarded of its 16 studio albums -- and home of the timeless "Nights in White Satin" -- turned 45 last month and is being commemorated during the band's current tour, Hayward says.
"We're doing a few more songs from that album and using it as something to talk about and remind people about," he says.
But even this far along, Hayward adds that he and his bandmates remain surprised at the impact of the album, one of the first to combine a rock band with a full orchestra -- in this case the London Festival Orchestra, whose parts were added to the songs separately.
"I thought we were making kind of an arty album that would appeal to a few people and I might get invited to some cocktail parties -- that's about as far as I thought," explains Hayward, who made his Moodys debut with Lodge on "Days."
He credits its success to timing -- the growing ranks of FM radio stations that were willing to play longer songs and more experimental material -- and to "people suddenly buying stereo systems, wanting to listen to music ... on headphones and in stereo."
In fact, he adds, the latter was Decca Records' marketing hook when "Days" was released.
"It was a demonstration record to try to sell their consumer division's products," Hayward recalls. "It was recorded so beautifully that it was just perfect for all these new formats which a lot of pop things weren't. They didn't sound that great in stereo ... whereas we had a classical engineer and it was beautifully mastered. It was lovely."
And "Days" paid dividends for the band besides going platinum. "The greatest thing that ever happened to us was that after 'Days of Future Passed,' the chairman of Decca called us to have lunch with him," Hayward says. "I was sitting next to him at the end of the table, and he said, 'I don't know what you boys are doing, but people seem to love it, so just go ahead and you can have the studio whenever you want.'
"And, of course, that was like being let loose in a candy store. That's what we wanted, to be in the studio making records, and he did us the greatest favor in those days when record companies did have big recording studios and these amazing staffs and well-trained engineers. It was just fantastic."
A stark counterpoint to "Days" bonhomie, 1972's "Seventh Sojourn" is not one of Hayward's favorites in the Moodys' ouvre.
"It was an excellent album, but it was an album made by a group that was going to split up, and I knew that when we were making it," he relates. "We'd developed lives outside of the band. Everybody had wives and they were having their say. It wasn't just the five guys in a transit van going up the motorways. It had gotten much larger than that -- managers and everything.
"I listen to it, but it's kind of a painful album and it evokes something in me I don't really want to be reminded of."
The 40-year-old "Seventh Sojourn" did reach No. 5 on the Billboard charts, was certified gold and spawned the singles "Isn't Life Strange" and "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)." But even a cursory look at other song titles -- "When You're a Free Man," "Lost in a Lost World," "New Horizons" -- indicate where the group members' heads were at that time.
"It's in just about every song on the record, definitely," Hayward notes. "Mike (Pinder) wasn't comfortable in the band. He didn't feel it anymore. And the other guys didn't want to work on the road and it all became very difficult. I knew there was a kind of car crash coming."
The Moodys did, in fact, split up in 1974, although it turned into more of a hiatus during which Hayward and Lodge launched their Blue Jays project and also released solo albums, as did keyboardist Pinder. Drummer Edge recorded a pair of albums with guitarist Adrian Gruvitz, while flutist Ray Thomas released two collaborations with Nicky James.
The Moodys came back together in 1977, releasing the "Octave" album the following year. Pinder quit for good after that, while Thomas remained with the band until 2002.
This curio came out in 1977 and was perhaps a catalyst for the Moodys' reunion later that year. "It gave us a reason to go into the office and see each other, and I was quite glad about that," Hayward says.
The two-disc set features a concert recorded Dec. 12, 1969, at London's Royal Albert Hall, with the addition -- as the title indicates -- of five studio tracks from the era that never appeared on previous albums.
"I thought the live recording was lousy -- and still do," Hayward says with a laugh. "Royal Albert Hall is a wonderful venue, but terrible sound and very difficult to manage. And the + 5 were done in a sort of vain, stoned attempt to kind of follow up 'Nights in White Satin.' They could have been released at the time, but we got too insecure about them!"
Hayward, in fact, wrote three of the five "new" songs, which he says reflects the way the Moodys worked at the time.
"The other guys were always looking for me to come up with something, to always be the first one to put a couple songs into the album -- 'Oh well, Justin will have a couple of things," he recalls. "Otherwise we'd be sitting there twiddling our thumbs and saying, 'What about you? What about this? What about that?'
"I was a bit of a conscientious kid about it, always doing my 'homework.' If there was a recording date, I'd always have two or three songs ready, and that gave the other guys a bit of confidence to get something going. Once I'd made an ass of myself out there, then they could have a go.
"And it's still like that now, I think."


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Hope College Mathematicians Find Pattern in "Arab Spring" | News
HOLLAND – Mathematical researchers at Hope College aren't suggesting that they've found a formula for revolutionary success, but in studying the events of the "Arab Spring" they have developed a model that shows what happens when societies reach the tipping point.
Based on the recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, the faculty-student research team assigned values to a range of variables, such as the use of social media like Facebook, the degree of corruption and unemployment, how authoritarian the response to unrest, and the role of the military. They then reflected on how the data related, crafting a differential equation that sets total power as a constant and weighs how changes among the populace and the leadership can shift control from one to the other.
Hope mathematics professor Dr. Timothy Pennings developed the research idea as he noticed several characteristics common to the uprisings, a pattern that he thought could be modeled and evaluated using techniques from his discipline.
"Oppressed populations organize rallies using Facebook and other modern communications to wrestle power away from the rulers, and the dictators counter either with intimidating force or by acquiescing to the demands in order to retain control. What is the best strategy for each? Can compromises and shared power result, or is it a 'zero-one game' of winner take all?" said Pennings, who did the research with Hope junior Morgan Smith and Baylor University junior Syd Condie.
After identifying significant variables, they determined how those variables related to one another in a formula, and setting numeric values to them. The team based some of the variables on its analysis of the uprisings; others came from sources such as the World Bank and Transparency International.
As they ran the resulting equation through a computer, and as they compared the uprisings with the conditions of stability which preceded them, the researchers found a variety of ways in which circumstances and choices made a major difference in the outcome.
Equilibrium, they noted, was fragile, as exemplified by the experience in Tunisia in December, when a protestor's self-immolation set off the revolt. "If you move just a little off that stable point, you're going to see a dramatic shift in power," Smith said.
The team was also struck by the ability to measure the powerful role played on the people's behalf by Facebook, social media in general and cell phones. "The model showed that social media gives the people a significant new advantage," Pennings said. "It's easy to oppress 50 people when they show up in a square to protest, but not 5,000 or 20,000."
Their calculation of power also suggests that leaders would do well to consider carefully before responding. The formula reflects that a military reaction directed by the leader can offset the people's increase of power—but so, too, the researchers found, can reducing the unrest by addressing the people's concerns. "The model indicates that the ruler may retain more power by giving in to the people's demands than by trying to fight it," Pennings said.
Condie and Smith presented the team's results as "The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back: Modeling Power Dynamics of The Arab Spring" during the "Summer Undergraduate Michigan Mathematics Research" (SUMMR) Conference held at Hope on Monday, July 25. The conference was attended by approximately 70 researchers from Hope, Central Michigan University, Grand Valley State University and Michigan State University who, like Pennings, Condie and Smith, conducted research this summer supported in part by the National Science Foundation's "Research Experiences for Undergraduates" (REU) program. The Hope team is also preparing a paper to submit for potential publication.
Pennings noted that the research is a work in progress—the team recognizes that more variables could be added, such as the impact of religion, state-run communication or the influence of previous revolutions in sparking others. "It's a foundation on which other people can build," he said.
He also admitted that unlike planetary motion that can be reliably determined for thousands of years, or even weather that can be predicted fairly accurately for a week, human behavior is complicated and complex—as any economist knows.
What then is gained from such a model? "It shows how the disciplines are interwoven," Pennings said. "In this case mathematics is being used to provide glimpses into the world of politics."


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Japanese peripheral maker Hori has revamped its Xbox 360 dual joysticks. Again.
Last month, Hori showed the tweaked US$300 plus sticks with re-modeled the grip and layout.
The sticks were designed so players could play SEGA's Xbox LIVE Arcade game Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram. Above is the latest and final redesign, which looks even closer to the Dreamcast dual sticks.
Hori, however, has once again to redesign something very important — that hefty price tag.
A Brief History Of Virtual On Twin Stick Controllers [Siliconera]


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Space Derby
From MeritBadgeDotOrg
(→The race)
Current revision (20:24, September 30, 2012) (edit) (undo)
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==External Links==
==External Links==
Current revision
The space derby is a racing event for Cub Scouts that is similar to the Pinewood Derby except Cub Scouts race miniature rockets that are propelled by a rubber band and propeller.
The space derby kit consists of a balsa wood block, propeller assembly, rubber bands, plastic sheet (for fins), and a mounting bracket. The wood block comes out of the box with a drilled out center hole. The block is carved into the desired shape, sanded and painted. The mounting bracket and fins can be added either before or after painting. The rubber band is inserted through the center hole with one end on the propeller and the other held in a cross-piece at the rear.
The Race
The completed rockets are wound up (by hand or automatic winder) on the propeller and suspended on a string from a separate bracket with the propeller held in place. Two, three or four string lanes can be used. The rockets are held in place and launched when the mechanism releases the propeller.
Official space derby rules are included in the kit and include:
- Only basic materials supplied in the kit may be used.
- The rocket body may be no longer than 7 inches, not including the propeller and fins.
- There are no restrictions on the weight or design of the rocket.
Lighter is better No glue on the propeller


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The secret to successful advertising is creating a campaign that affects people emotionally and intellectually. Now you can add physically.
There's a new type of advertising technology you may have seen Samsung use—tap one of the company's Galaxy smartphones to a poster and it transfers a song to the handset.
It's an impressive trick that could reasonably engage consumers and contribute to an effective marketing campaign. However, before you set out to create your own posters that will reach out and touch some prospects, there are a few things to consider.
The posters use near field communications (NFC)—a technology more often associated with enabling smartphones to make payments in stores. The concept isn't absolutely new. The first interactive posters appeared in the U.S. a little more than a year ago.
But the technology is spreading in new ways. For example, earlier this year, Lexus ran an NFC ad in Wired by embedding a chip in the page, like running a QR 2-D bar code that didn't require readers to snap a picture with their phones. It isn't hard to imagine other uses, like NFC-enabled point of sale displays, business cards, flyers, or even matchbook covers.
When you consider any new approach to marketing to see if it might make sense for your business, ask yourself:
Can you afford it?
Clearly, adding small chips to advertising materials will cost more. There are actually NFC poster do-it-yourself instructions already available, so it isn't out of the realm of possibilities, although using it in a national campaign has to cost a fair amount at the moment.
Is it effective?
That is a complicated question because it assumes that you have the right offer to make consumers want to take action. If all you can offer is a view of a product website, then chances are the uptake will be low. But if you provide something of real use or interest, the number will probably be higher.
How many people will be able to take advantage?
Depending on the technology, one big hurdle to practical use is knowing what portion of your audience has the ability to interact. According to an estimate by market research firm Forrester, 25% of U.S. consumers will have NFC-enabled phones by 2016.
That last number may be the clincher for many entrepreneurs. Putting marketing funds into campaigns that would miss far more than three-quarters of your potential audience is too big a risk.


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According to the findings of a recent study, more than half of computers users admit to using pirate software. Factor-in the people too ashamed or embarrassed to fess up and you're looking at even higher levels of guilt.
The study was undertaken by The Business Software Alliance. It involved a survey questioning 15,000 computer-using folk from 33 different countries. They were asked "how often do you acquire pirated software or software that is not fully licensed?" and 57 per cent of them responded suggesting they used pirate or "not-fully-licensed" software. This is up 15 per cent from 2011, and the BSA says that younger users pirate more software, and are also the "the most voracious software users."
The BSA reports that piracy costs the software industry $63.4 billion annually, which is more than the GDP of Croatia. As with any study, though, it's important to remember who is running the show. The Business Software Alliance is a lobbyist group for the software industry, with the aim of combating digital piracy, and we're not sure what positive gems the survey may also have unearthed.
On the doom and gloom side, the survey report finds that "frequent pirates in emerging economies install nearly four times as many programs of all sorts per new PC as do frequent pirates in mature markets." The BSA wants new US legislation to bring about greater fines for software pirates, and make jailing pirates easier. Members of the BSA include Intel, Apple, Autodesk and Adobe Systems.


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Determine the correct Cathy Nichols you are seeking immediately with the help of our comprehensive tools. USA-People-Search.com offers you a plethora of details and records that allow you to pinpoint anyone named Cathy living in MI based on data like previous residences, relatives, and more.
It's necessary to key in all the additional information you have when you want to pinpoint the correct Cathy Nichols immediately. You will also be privy to a wide selection of personal data including details like phone numbers and past addresses in our database. If you're not completely sure about the Cathy you have spotted, just browse through the list of people named Cathy Nichols who are currently living in MI.
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'Secret Sandy' Brings Christmas Presents to Hurricane Victims
(NEW YORK) -- Superstorm Sandy came just before the holidays destroying mostly everything in her path.
But she hasn't destroyed the Christmas spirit for those affected by her wrath.
Thanks to Secret Sandy, two women are making holiday wish lists a reality for families affected by the historic storm.
Co-founders Joy Huang and Kimberley Berdy created Secret Sandy, an online gift-giving exchange where donors can give anonymously by accessing the wish lists and needs of families through Amazon.
The concept was born days after the storm when Huang volunteered at St. Francis de Sales parish in Belle Harbor, one of the wrecked New York City neighborhoods on the Rockaway peninsula.
"After seeing the devastation, there were piles of cars just dead or in the middle of the street," said Huang. "I started asking myself how can I help? How can I help just one person? Two people? And then it spread."
Huang noticed inside the church there were donations of diapers, bleach, batteries and other bare necessities to clean up homes and take care of immediate emergencies.
"People just gave and gave and gave," said Huang. "We wanted to make sure that generosity extended though to the holidays."
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Huang and Berdy teamed up with City Harvest to brainstorm a gift-giving idea. Huang realized that many families did need the essentials, but said "kids still need to be kids."
Together, with their friends, Berdy and Huang created the website for Secret Sandy and launched the site the day before Thanksgiving. So far, the site has 2,100 registered volunteers and over 850 children and families who have asked for post-Sandy help this holiday season. Donations have come as far as the Netherlands.
"It's a new twist on an old theme," said Huang. "It's a modern take on something very traditional."
The way the site works is affected families that need Christmas help can download and mail in or fill out a letter to their Secret Sandy. Letters ask kids to answer questions like 'The thing that I miss most is...' and 'I hope that I'm soon able to...'
"I've read letters where a kid watched his Lego set float away," said Huang. "Another said he misses school and another simply wrote, 'I hope I will feel normal again.'"
"Every spare minute of my day is dedicated to making this happen, so when I'm up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and I read a letter from some family and their son or daughter at age 4 or 5 says all they want is "normalcy" - the least I can do is try to help give them that for a few minutes because no child should have to want things to be normal at that age," said Berdy.
Also in the letter are four areas for kids to list items on their wish list with links to "moderately priced" items found on Amazon. Those letters are then distributed to donors and the wish list is shared among several donors.
"We ask that people are putting moderately priced items on their wish list because we want to be respectful to people who have open hearts," said Huang. "We can't assume they have open pockets."
Because Secret Sandy has a surplus of donors, many donors are asking if they can help without waiting for a wish list. Huang and Berdy are encouraging donors to purchase and send gift cards to the address found on the website.
"You get these very sad people who are just broken from this who say, 'I didn't have insurance,' 'FEMA denied us,' 'We lost our car,'" said Huang. "We're asking people to send in gift cards to Target, Home Depot and Loews so people can get necessities." This isn't the first instance where anonymous giving is helping those in need for the holidays. In Oregon, one secret angel paid off the lay away accounts of five individuals at a Toys 'R Us including a single mother of two. Earlier this week, the store saw another angel pay off the lay away balances of unsuspecting families.
"It's nice to see people are so generous and so kind and supportive to help people they don't know," said Huang.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio


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Twitter fans of the Australian @CallOfDuty_ANZ handle have the opportunity to win one of three Turtle Beach Tango Headsets. Simply follow the @CallofDuty_ANZ twitter handle and Re-tweet the @CallofDuty_ANZ tweet and hashtag #BlackOps2Tango for the chance to win. The sweepstake will commence at 9:00am (AEST) 27th August 2013 and will close 4:00pm (AEST) 30th August 2013. The three (3) winners will be chosen at random. All winners will be notified by Twitter DM (Direct Message) to confirm eligibility. Winners must respond within 24hours or another winner may be chosen.
Terms and Conditions
1. Information on how to enter & prizes form part of these terms & conditions. Any entry not complying with these terms and conditions is invalid.
2. Entry is open to residents of Australia who are following the @CallofDuty_ANZ twitter handle. Employees of the Promoter, the Promoter's associated companies, the Promoter's agencies associated with this competition and their immediate families are ineligible to enter.
Entry is open to residents of Australia who are 15 years of age and over ("Eligible Entrant"). Employees of the Promoter, the Promoter's associated companies, the Promoter's agencies associated with this competition and their immediate families are ineligible to enter.
3. The sweepstake commences at 9:00am Australian Eastern Standard Time ("AEST") on 27th August 2013 & closes on 30th August 2013 at 4.00pm (AEST) ("Sweepstake Period").
4. To enter the sweepstake, participants must follow the following instructions:
I. Follow @CallOfDuty_ANZ on twitter
II. Retweet the @CallOfDuty_ANZ tweet which will include a clear call to action for followers to re-tweet the message and include the hashtag #BlackOps2Tango
III. Followers are limited to only one entry throughout competition period
5. The Promoter reserves the right to require an entrant to provide proof of entry in order to claim a prize.
6. The Promoter reserves the right to verify the validity of all entries and reserves the right to disqualify any entrant for tampering with the entry process or for submitting an entry that is not otherwise in accordance with these terms and conditions. Any breach of any one or more of these terms or condition of the Competition will lead to disqualification and ineligibility to be awarded any prize or prizes.
7. Entrants will be responsible for all content posted by them in their entries and must not post, and will be fully liable for, any illegal, inappropriate, obscene or offensive content.
8. Users must not make multiple accounts in order to enter the sweepstakes more than once. Anyone found to be using multiple accounts will be ineligible to win the prize.
9. Prizes. The following prizes will be awarded:
a) 3 x Turtle Beach Tango Headsets valued at AUD$369.95 incl. GST.
b) Total value of giveaway approximately $1,109.85
10. This sweepstake is a game of chance and skill plays no part in determining the identity of the winners. All valid entries received during the Sweepstake Period will be randomly chosen where winners will be drawn.
11. The Sweepstake will be completed at Level 2, 72 Christie Street, St Leonards, 2065, NSW by 5pm 2nd September 2013 (AEST). The winners will be notified by DM by 12pm 3rd September 2013 (AEST) via Twitter. Winners have 24hrs to verify their details (date of birth, full name, postal address) otherwise they will forfeit their prize.
12. An unclaimed prize draw will be conducted on the 3rd December 2013 at 3:00pm (AEST) for any unclaimed prize. Those winners who are drawn in the re-draw will have the same conditions imposed whereas they need to verify their details within 24hrs via Direct Message on twitter.
13. Prizes are not transferable & cannot be taken as cash, unless otherwise stipulated.
14. Prize values are correct at time of printing but no responsibility is accepted for any variation in the value of the prizes.
15. The Promoter is not liable for any loss or damage whatsoever which is suffered, including but not limited to indirect or consequential loss, or for personal injury suffered or sustained during the course of accepting or using the prize, except for any liability which cannot be excluded by law.
16. Each entry becomes the property of the Promoter.
17. The Promoter's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
18. In the event that any prize item is unavailable despite the Promoter's reasonable endeavours to procure within Australia, the Promoter reserves the right to substitute a different prize item of equal or greater value.
19. The Promoter reserves the right to refuse to allow a winner (and companions) to take part in any or all aspects of a prize, if the Promoter determines, in its absolute discretion, that a winner (and/or companions) are not in the mental or physical condition necessary to be able to safely participate.
20. By entering the competition, the prize winner agrees to the use of their name, image and photograph/s for publicity and promotion purposes, without compensation, and agrees that the Promoter will own copyright in any such images and photograph/s and in all material incorporating the photograph/s.
21. By entering the competition, each entrant agrees to the use of their entry and photograph for printing, broadcast, publicity and promotional purposes, including but not limited to Activision and the Promoter's website/s without compensation, and agrees that the Promoter will own all intellectual property rights, including copyright, in any such material. It is a condition of accepting any prize that the winner acknowledges that the Promoter acquires the word statement and any photographs for use for its commercial purposes and agrees not to object to any such use on the basis of any moral right.
22. Prizes will be delivered via Registered Post and each winner should allow 14 working days approximately from confirming entry until delivery of their prize.
23. If for any reason this Competition is not capable of running as planned, whether caused by infection by computer virus, mobile phone failure, line drop out, bugs, tampering, unauthorised intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other cause beyond the control of the Promoter which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness or integrity of the Competition, the Promoter reserves the right in its sole discretion, (subject to any written direction given by a relevant Regulatory Authority), to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Competition. The Promoter may in its sole discretion disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process.
24. Entries are deemed to be received at the time of receipt into the Promoter's database. The Promoter is not responsible for receipt of incorrect, inaccurate or incomplete information caused by an entrant or occurring during transmission. The Promoter is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone, telephone or computer network, or lines, servers, or telephone or internet providers, traffic congestion on any phone or computer network, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to participants or any other person's handset or computer related to or resulting from participation or sending or receiving of any communication or of any materials in this Competition.
25. Permit numbers ACT Only: ACT TP 13/01731
26. The Promoter is Activision Blizzard, Wharf 10, Suite 2, Level 2, 50-52 Pyrmont Road, Pyrmont, NSW, 2009 Australia ABN
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