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We all have personal brands whether or not we think of it that way. Much better to be deliberate and conscious about it instead of just hoping for the best. Good exercises here.
Whether you realize it or not, you have a brand image at work, and if you don't take charge of it, someone else will.
Your brand image is not only how people perceive you (your reputation), but also what differentiates you from everyone else in your company. When your colleagues think of you, what is it that comes to their minds? If you can't answer that question, then you have a problem. A brand image problem.
Tom Peters, the guru of personal branding, says, "If you are going to be a brand, you've got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value, what you're proud of, and most important, what you can shamelessly take credit for." Now, I'm not into shamelessly bragging about personal accomplishments, but I do think it's important, and possible, to tactfully and appropriately share your successes. It's part of what it takes to succeed in today's workplace.
Forget your job title. What is it about your performance that makes you memorable, distinct, or unique? What's the "buzz" on you? Forget about your job description too. What accomplishments are you most proud of? How have you gone above, beyond, or outside the scope of your job description to add value to your organization? Those are the elements that make up your brand.
If you're not quite sure what your personal brand is, or how to go about creating a brand, here are four steps to get you started.
1. Identify your core values – Your values guide your beliefs and actions. A brand is a trusted promise which requires clarity on what motivates you from the core of your being. Consider popular brands like Apple or Nike. Apple's brand conveys the values of being creative, passionate, and visionary. Nike's brand of "Just do it" reflects the values of excellence and dedication. What values reflect the way you "show up" in the workplace? Mine are trust, authenticity, and respect.
2. Identify your strengths/personal attributes – A personal brand combines what you value with what you do well. What is it that you're really good at? What unique personal attributes do you bring to the table? Maybe it's courage, decisiveness, enthusiasm, patience, perseverance, or trustworthiness, just to name a few. There are a number of surveys you can take to help you identify your character strengths and attributes.
3. Assess your current brand image – One of the best ways to understand your current brand is to ask those you work with to describe your brand image. In addition to asking others, you can use the following sentence starters to help you analyze your brand:
4. Develop your brand – What if there weren't career ladders, only great projects? What if you were your own brand manager? How could your career growth be different if the leaders you worked with were brand loyalists that backed you no matter what? What if you approached your performance review as a "portfolio" review where you highlighted your project accomplishments over the past year? If you viewed your job performance through these lenses, you would need to change the way you go about things. Set the following goals to develop your brand image:
By this time next year…
Gaining clarity on who you are, what you love, and what strengths you bring to the table will help you understand your brand identity, while continuing to master your craft and assembling a portfolio of successes will fulfill the promise of you being a trusted brand that others can rely upon.
Think of yourself as Brandme and then work it and work at it relentlessly being fully committed to being different and stand out in the me economy.
Branding is made important being the virtue selling the product. Cutting niche stands out in pursuit of excellence. Typical problems, like attitudinal, can not be better addressed outside the scope of branding. Branding puts in the class to which the entity is grouped as reward received. It summarily talks about packaging that attracts to draw on clients.
Love this post! Aim going to set time aside tomorrow to work on my Brand and make sure i am communicating my core strengths! Thanks Randy
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MDOT urges drivers to use caution on icy roads
Ice reported on some Mississippi bridges
The rain has turned to ice in some areas of Mississippi, creating treacherous driving conditions.
Ice from freezing rain and sleet had been reported on roads and bridges in about a dozen counties in Mississippi. Road crews were out Monday monitoring the weather and taking precautions as needed to keep the interstates safe, Mississippi Department of Transportation officials said.
"The safety of motorists is our utmost priority at MDOT," said the Mississippi Transportation Commission in a joint statement. "We ask that everyone use caution when driving in these wintry weather conditions and to limit your time on the roadway as much as possible."
MDOT offered the following safe-driving tips:
• Drive according to current road and weather conditions.
• Please pay close attention to the roadway and don't text while driving.
• Keep a safe distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.
• Avoid situations where you may have to brake suddenly on a slippery surface.
• Have tires and tire pressure checked. Tire pressure decreases in colder weather.
• Give yourself extra time for travel or wait until conditions improve. Also, log on to www.mdottraffic.com for real-time traffic information.
• Tune in to your local television station for local weather reports and always keep your weather radio handy.
• Make sure you travel with at least half a tank of gas and have sufficient windshield washer fluid in the reservoir.

subset: commoncrawl


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Geography Now! POLAND (ft. Art Napiontek & Commonwealth Realm)
- published: 30 Oct 2019
- views: 1121805
Get ready because this episode is going to be incredibly Slavic. Thanks Guest stars! Check out their Instagrams here: Art: https://bit.ly/2BTllon Kaleb: https://bit.ly/2sgielp Noah: https://bit.ly/2FkdNh8 Hannah: https://bit.ly/2VqculH Keith: https://bit.ly/2CXFSJI Ken: https://bit.ly/2VMRs1I Check out http://www.GeographyNow.com ! You asked for merch so we made it for you! We now have a Public mailbox too! Feel free to send anything via mail! Our public mailbox address is: 1905 N Wilcox ave, #432 Los Angeles CA, 90068 SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/1Os7W46 BTS info and tidbits? Check out the Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/GeographyNowFanpage/?fref=ts Twitter: https://twitter.com/geographynow Instagram: http://instagram.com/GeographyNow_Official Become a patron! Donate to help pay for production of GN including Ken\'s salary. You also get exclusive BTS footage, pics/ and access to other perks! Go to: http://patreon.com/GeographyNow WATCH MORE: Countries A to Z: http://bit.ly/1T8Z9JY Europe: http://bit.ly/1YoRaIB ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to Geography Now! This is the first and only Youtube Channel that actively attempts to cover profiles on every single country of the world. We are going to do them alphabetically so be patient if you are waiting for one that\'s down the road. CONTACT US if you are from a country that is coming up! Teach us! Email: firstname.lastname@example.com Stay cool Stay tuned and remember, this is Earth, your home. Learn about it. #Poland #Info #Trav...


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This week's pick comes from Belmondo, a skin care line that hand makes all of their products in small batches in British Columbia. The first Belmondo product that caught my eye was their No-Rinse Face Cleanser aka The Rain.
I've experienced the amazing cleansing and rejuvenating effects of using apple cider vinegar as a toner so I was happy to see ACV as one of the cleanser's main ingredients. In case you're concerned that you'll smell like a salad, don't worry – once you apply the liquid (with a cotton ball) and leave it on (remember – it's NO RINSE), the slight essence of vinegar quickly dissipates. The inclusion of rose essence and lavender oil also gives this cleanser a nice, light floral scent.
I love how the ingredients of this cleanser are so simple yet effective and I really love how clean and soft my skin feels after I use it. I also think their packaging is awesome.
This cleanser is excellent for all skin types. Belmondo tests all their products on willing two-legged friends, never on animals. You can order it online or check out some of their retailers here: Where to Buy.
p.s. I promise that pictures from my first visit to France are coming soon! :)


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|Cleanse and purify your body and mind while relaxing in peaceful natural surroundings. We offer juice fasting, healthy eating and yoga retreats at different stunning locations around the world.
Our tailored detox and yoga retreats will assist your body to eliminate toxins that have stored up in your cells from stress, poor diet and other unhealthy habits. You will leave feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and inspired to lead a healthier lifestyle!
Jiva Healing was voted one of top 5 exotic detox retreats by the Times Online - Click here to read the article. Click here for a review in the Guardian
We are recommended by www.queenofretreats.com
click here to see our review
contact us by email- firstname.lastname@example.com


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Woodruff wrote:Raskholnikov wrote:If each state will be represented by only one territorry, then "Asian States" (as opposed to Asian nations which is an entirely different thing) would seem to be most approrpiate and would not require renaming any other map, whilst keeping Asian maps together.
But that other map NEEDS to be renamed ANYWAY, so "not requiring renaming any other map" shouldn't be a significant consideration.
Lack would prefer not to rename the other map I think.


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WASHINGTON, DC – At the Inaugural Luncheon this afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) presented President Obama and Vice President Biden with flags that flew over the U.S. Capitol during today's ceremony. Following are Boehner's remarks, as prepared for delivery:
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Old Hall of the House. The people's representatives met in this chamber over the five decades prior to the Civil War.
"It's a wonder they made it here that long. See, the acoustics were terrible. You just couldn't hear anything. Or, in some spots, you could hear everything being said in the room. It was a mess. And that, of course, was a time when our leaders weren't hearing each other all that well to begin with.
"A century and a half – and many architectural improvements later – we gather in the Old Hall to better hear one another and renew the old appeal to better angels. We do so amid the rituals and symbols of unity, none more enduring than our flag.
"This year, Old Glory will mark a milestone of her own. It was in the spring of 1813 that the new commander at Fort McHenry ordered a flag to be flown over the entrance to Baltimore Harbor. 'It should be so large,' he said, 'that the British will have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance.'
"For such an enormous banner, a mother-and-daughter team had to stitch together overlapping strips of wool to make the product a complete whole. From many, one. So a grand old flag was born, and not long after, an anthem to go with it. Today, wherever we put out the flag, whenever he hear it snapping in the wind, it gives proof of the blessing we call democracy – this symphony of service and faithfulness in which we all play a part.
"So in the spirit of harmony, I am proud to present the flags that flew over this battalion of democracy today to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed."


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Global perspective, human stories
Jericho Planning Commission 8-20-19
MP3•Episode home
Manage episode 240837799 series 2477010
By Mount Mansfield Community Television Inc. and Mount Mansfield Community Television. Discovered by Player FM and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Player FM, and audio is streamed directly from their servers. Hit the Subscribe button to track updates in Player FM, or paste the feed URL into other podcast apps.
Jericho Planning Commission 8-20-19
215 episodes


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Revisiting Pink Floyd's Last LP With Roger Waters, 'The Final Cut'
The Final Cut, Pink Floyd's 12th album, last record with Roger Waters and sorta sequel to The Wall, is many things.
It's a concept album, an abandoned soundtrack to The Wall movie and the last straw between the increasingly controlling Waters and his bandmates. It's also a mess of a record, a sprawling indictment of war that plays like fragments of frustration built over years by Waters and uncorked in a dizzying display of untethered emotions.
More than anything, though, The Final Cut is essentially Waters' first solo album.
But is it any good? Released on March 21, 1983, Waters' last Pink Floyd album sounds like the record Waters, who left the band not long after The Final Cut came out, needed to create to make his clean break. David Gilmour sings on only one track and keyboardist Richard Wright had already quit.
The story is Waters' and he's the one who tells it. The remaining members of Pink Floyd, plus various studio musicians, are just along for the ride.
Listen to Pink Floyd's 'Not Now John'
And as far as antiwar concept albums that bridge World War II and the Falklands Crisis of the early '80s go, The Final Cut has its moments, but all 12 songs must be consumed at once. A story develops about loyalty, betrayal and fallen World War II British soldiers, including Waters' father, who was killed in battle and whose ghost haunts every note of the record.
This isn't an album for best-of pillaging.
That's why it's so easily dismissed among Floyd fans. A handful of songs managed to receive some airplay in 1983: "Not Now John," "Your Possible Pasts" and "The Hero's Return." But these tracks make little sense outside of the album's concept and even less wedged between classic-rock staples. The melodies are thin; the music is complex.
Still, The Final Cut made it to No. 6 and eventually sold more than two million copies. But it's a complicated record with a thorny history. Is it Pink Floyd's worst album or Roger Waters' best solo LP? Probably yes on both counts.
Pink Floyd Albums Ranked


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Welcome to the official ScrewBox website! Here we begin by embarking on an evolutionary experience that will literally knock your socks off. ScrewBox allows our members to explore incredible never before seen exclusives and produces highly desirable fantasies including the hottest adult stars! We guarantee to cover a wide variety of styles; from our sincerest couple's friendly scenarios, to lesbian's passionate erotica, to even the most electrifying hardcore performances.
We aim to compliment all niches that our viewers may possess, and genuinely look forward to opening new doors through the glamorous world of ScrewBox.


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Layer-up with our super-soft and cozy long Cardigans.
The removable belt can be set to an ideal fit all throughout your pregnancy, while breastfeeding and beyond.
What if my order doesn't arrive?
It will, within 3-4 days (sometimes even sooner!), but if it doesn't, call Kim on 0215101637 or email email@example.com
How much is shipping?
Shipping is charged at a flat rate of R75 to anywhere in South Africa.
How long will I wait for my order?
Once you have placed your order, you can expect to receive your package within 3 - 5 working days. We promise to try our utmost to get it to you as soon as possible!
Can I track my order?
You will receive a tracking number from us once your package has been collected from our warehouse and on it's way to you. This should be within 48 hours of placing your order.
International Delivery?
At the moment we only ship locally within South Africa. We will be adding international shipping to our site soon. Watch this space!
What happens if I don't like what I've ordered or if the size is wrong?
You can return any or all of your items should you not be completely satisfied with your selection.
Click on the Exchanges / Returns link to find your order and select which item(s) you'd like to return.
Once submitted, we will contact you with further details on how to proceed, including a quote on the return shipping costs.
You can exchange/return your order at any time within 30 days of purchase. We accept returns/exchanges if the goods are unused, in a resalable condition and with all tags attached (not on sale items).
Have a look at our Sizing Guide to help you make the right choice in size - remember, we cater for your growth, so generally you should stick to your pre-pregnant size when choosing Cherry Melon :)
Can I return items I've purchased on Sale?
We unfortunately cannot offer returns or refunds on sale items.
Need more help?
If you have any queries please email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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So I plan on updating some data via an ASMX web service on a web server via .NET programs running elsewhere. The primary security concern is that this web service needs to spawn a process to handle the data. I'm utilizing the built in windows authentication system and restricting access to a local web server's windows group. I plan on spawning the process via impersonation of a user with only the necessary permissions to accomplish its tasks. The user will only be used to launch this program. Is this an ok design or do I have a glaring issue that I've overlooked?
Additional details:
Impersonation user is hard coded into program. If data is modified in transit, not particularly catastrophic, program runs nightly without any personal or secure data being sent. Would be an issue if data was always modified, but that seems to imply a permanent middle man attack.


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Patagonia Women's Micro D® 1/4-Zip Fleece
This ultrasoft microfleece quarter-zip pullover is made with 100% recycled polyester and features clean style lines and a stand-up collar. Fair Trade Certified™ sewn.
- Made of ultrasoft, quick-drying 100% recycled polyester microfleece
- Quarter-zip pullover with zip-through, stand-up double-fleece collar
- Set-in sleeves with raglan overlock stitch detail; clean finish on hem and cuffs
- Hip length
- Fair Trade Certified™ sewn
- 187 g (6.6 oz)
4.7-oz 100% recycled polyester microfleece.
Fair Trade Certified™ sewnView The Footprint Chronicles
Fair Trade Certified™
We pay a premium for every Fair Trade Certified item that carries our label. That extra money goes directly to the workers at the factory, and they decide how to spend it. The program also promotes worker health and safety and social and environmental compliance, and encourages dialog between workers and management.
Recycled Polyester
In 1993, we adopted fleece into our product line made from post consumer recycled (PCR) plastic soda bottles. We were the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to do so. PCR® clothing was a positive step towards a more sustainable system – one that uses fewer resources, discards less and better protects people's health.
Today, we're able to utilize more sources for recycled polyester and offer it on more garments such as Capilene® baselayers, shell jackets, board shorts, and fleece. We now recycle used soda bottles, unusable manufacturing waste, and worn out garments (including our own) into polyester fibers to produce many of our clothes.
Using recycled polyester lessens our dependence on petroleum as a raw material source, curbs discards and reduces toxic emissions from incinerators.


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Politico Playbook: NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, former DLC Chair Harold Ford Jr., CNBC's Jim Cramer and former RNC Chairman Michael Steele discuss the future of bipartisanship following the president's win. Politico's Mike Allen also delivers the post-Election Day Playbook.
New this update: Latest NBC News House projections on House; Mary Bono Mack and Fortney "Pete" Stark defeated in California; Allen West refuses to concede in Florida.
Updated at 1:08 p.m. ET, Nov. 7: Democrats continued to chip away at the Republican advantage in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, but the GOP was certain to retain a solid grip on the lower house of Congress.
At 1 p.m. ET, NBC News projected a 231-191 Republican advantage in the House, with 13 races still undecided. The projection indicated that the final balance was expected to be 237 seats for the Republicans vs. 198 for the Democrats.
If the projection hold, it would meant that Republicans would have a slightly diminished majority from the 240-190 edge that Republican enjoyed entering the election (five House seats were vacant -- two formerly GOP-held and three Democratic seats).
The House's Republican leaders saw the results as support from the electorate for their strong stance against increasing taxes, even for the wealthiest Americans.
Speaking at the RNC election night headquarters, House Speaker John Boehner says the renewing of House Republican majority shows "that there is no mandate for raising tax rates."
"The American people want solutions, and tonight they responded by renewing our House Republican majority," House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, who ran unopposed in his re-election bid, declared Tuesday night. "With this vote, the American people have also made clear that there's no mandate for raising tax rates. What Americans want are solutions that will ease the burdens on small businesses, bring jobs home and let our economy grow."
"Just as in 2010, our House Republican candidates listened to the American people and rejected the Democrats' tax-and-spend agenda that threatens the American Dream," added Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
In Wisconsin, Rep. Paul Ryan, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's running mate, won re-election to his seat. In a statement Wednesday, he said he would return to Congress after spending some time with his family.
"I am immensely proud of the campaign we ran, and I remain grateful to Gov. Romney for the honor of being his running mate," he said. "I look forward to spending some time with my family in the coming days and then continuing my responsibilities as chairman of the House Budget Committee and representative of Wisconsin's First Congressional District."
Also re-elected was Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in California.
President Barack Obama won re-election and Democrats were projected to retain control of the Senate, meaning that the president would have to confront a still-divided Congress in his second term.
Among the House races that were being closely watched either because they were in bellwether districts or because the candidates had instant name recognition:
6th District: Former GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann eked out a narrow victory over Democratic hotel businessman Jim Graves. Bachmann heavily outspent her opponent, and in her fundraising emails she has called the campaign the toughest of her life. The results backed that up. Final totals show she beat Graves by fewer than 4,000 votes out of more than 356,000 cast. See results
Tea party favorite Michelle Bachmann wins tight race in Minnesota
18th District: Freshman Republican Rep. Allen West, a former Army lieutenant colonel and prominent face of the tea party, apparently lost an extremely tight race to Democrat Patrick Murphy, a 29-year-old construction executive and political neophyte. West, who garnered headlines for insisting Obama is a Muslim and charging that scores of congressional Democrats are communists, finished about 2,500 votes behind Murphy with 100 percent of the precincts reporting. But his campaign manager, Tim Edson, said Wednesday the candidate was not conceding:
"This race is far from decided and there is no rush to declare an outcome," Politico quoted Edson as saying. "Ensuring a fair and accurate counting of all ballots is of the utmost importance. There are still tens of thousands of absentee ballots to be counted in Palm Beach County and potential provisional ballots across the district."
The contest was believed to be one of the most expensive House races in history: The two sides had raised nearly $21 million as of Oct. 17, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, and super PACs supporting the candidates poured in millions more. See results
Democrats projected to maintain control of Senate
12th District: In a high-spending race that helped solidify the GOP's control in the House, Republican Keith Rothfus, an attorney and a political newcomer, upset incumbent Democratic Rep. Mark Critz, by a 52-48 margin. Critz called Rothfus and conceded shortly before 11:30 p.m. Critz won this western Pennsylvania seat in a May 2010 special election after the death of longtime Democratic Congressman John Murtha, for whom Critz worked. The campaign has been flooded with $9.9 million in spending by outside groups, more than any other House race in the nation, according to The Associated Press. See results
Complete politics coverage from NBC News
4th District: Five-term incumbent and outspoken conservative Republican stalwart Rep. Steve King defeated Democrat Christie Vilsack, wife of former Iowa governor and current U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. King had never faced a serious challenge in the heavily Republican area, but the post-Census addition of Ames made the district less conservative. With 98 percent of the votes counted, King held a 53-45 advantage. See results
15th District: The dean of California's congressional delegation, Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, 80, was defeated by Republican Eric Swalwell, 31, a Dublin councilman and Alameda County prosecutor, 53 percent to 47 percent, in the redistricted 15th District. Stark was first elected to the House in 1973. See results
36th District: GOP Rep. Mary Bono Mack was an apparent loser to emergency room physician Raul Ruiz in the newly redistricted 36th, with 49 percent of the vote to Ruiz's 51 percent. Bono Mack has held the seat since 1998, when she won a special election to replace her late husband, Sonny Bono, half of the singing duo Sonny and Cher. Sonny Bono was killed in a skiing accident earlier that year in South Lake Tahoe. After redistricting, registered Democrats outnumbered Republican voters in the 36th, forcing Bono Mack to compete in a "blue" district for the first time. Bono Mack's husband, Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., also lost his Senate race in Florida to favored Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. See results
Joy and sorrow: Web reacts to President Obama's re-election
Also in the running
In one of the day's more unusual House races, Republican Kerry Bentivolio, a reindeer farmer and Santa Claus impersonator, handily beat Democrat Syed Taj, a physician, in Michigan's 11th District, according to NBC News projections. The race became wide open after Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, a five-term Republican, resigned in July after failing to produce enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Not faring as well was VoteForEddie.com, a 32-year-old college Florida student who legally changed his name. VoteForEddie.com, running as an Independent, finished a distant third in Florida's 25th District, garnering about 8 percent of the vote.
Behind the numbers
Republicans, running on a promise to shrink government and roll back unpopular federal policies and proposals, took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, picking up a whopping 63 seats in the midterm elections. Republicans said the landslide victory was a referendum on Obama's and the then-incumbent party's performance.
The 2012 elections were the first using new redistricting maps drawn up after the 2010 Census. Every 10 years, states redraw their congressional-seat boundaries, and redistricting favored Republicans in many areas this time around. Some moderate Democrats decided to retire rather than seek re-election in Republican-leaning districts.
"Democrats couldn't have picked a worse year to suffer horrific losses up and down the ballot than 2010," wrote David Wasserman in the Cook Political Report. "In effect, the GOP won the right to draw much of the political map for the next 10 years."
More election coverage from NBCNews.com:
- Obama wins re-election; Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin prove pivotal
- Democrats retain control of Senate with series of hard-fought wins
- Rape remarks sink two Republican Senate hopefuls
- In costliest-ever Senate race, Warren beats Brown for Mass. seat
- Maine's Harley-riding King vowed to 'shake up' D.C.
- Republicans easily maintain control of House
- Colorado, Washington approve recreational marijuana use
- Pence in as governor of Indiana; Hassan wins in N.H.
- Majority of voters see American on wrong track
Follow NBC Politics on Twitter and Facebook


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Create a Mini Photo Studio
Did you know you're just a few raw materials away from having your own photo box--a place to stage, light, and take stellar still shots (pictures of your scrapbook pages, your hobbies, your purchases, and more)? With a light box, you can ensure your pictures are well lit, and you can even create some cool reflective effects with these simple tips.
Before we get started, I'll warn you that this light box is a heavy and requires a significant amount of space. If this doesn't sound like it's for you, never fear. At the end of this article, we link to light boxes you can purchase online, including a small, fold-up option, great for smaller spaces.
Okay, let's build a mini photography studio. Here's what you'll need:
Step 1: Select sheet of glass or acrylic (also known as Plexiglas) to be used in base of box. Choose size that is big enough to support items you plan on photographing.
Step 2: Cut box base from melamine, measuring slightly larger than glass sheet in step 1. Cut three additional sheets of melamine for back and sides of box, and assemble (using drill and screws), leaving front and top of box open. Note: If you aren't comfortable cutting your own melamine, simply take your measurements to the hardware store and they should be able to cut it for you at time of purchase.
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MCTC provides on-site and mobile training of the highest quality at no cost to the student to all those involved in the fight against drug trafficking and substance abuse. In addition to our scheduled training courses, MCTC can provide classrooms, field training areas, equipment, and other support at no cost to training events for military, law enforcement, prevention, education and treatment. All training events must have a counterdrug nexus.
Click here to request Camp Dodge JMTC Logstical/Facility Support
For more information about conference support, please contact SFC Jeremy Fehr at firstname.lastname@example.com, 515-727-3600, or 800-803-6532


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I do not know if this section is correct for the problem or not
i have 1 problem
when i add new game and add url game ( swf ) he does not work ?!
see photo ► http://a.up-00.com/2018/01/151559576443522.png
And when i see the game that has been added
see photo ► http://a.up-00.com/2018/01/151559576412691.png
please help me !


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BBC News
- St Paul's bomb plot: IS supporter Safiyya Shaikh pleads guilty
- Grace Millane's mum tells killer 'she died terrified'
- Baby and girl, 3, killed with parents in crash near Fort William
- Coronavirus: Repatriation flight for Britons on Diamond Princess delayed
- Wood burners: Most polluting fuels to be banned in the home
- UCL ban on staff-student relationships is 'a wake up call' - campaigners
- First class stamps to rise 6p to 76p
- Dot Cotton: Actress June Brown says she has left EastEnders 'for good'
- Essex lorry deaths: Vietnamese police charge seven people
- BBC to make Watchdog part of The One Show
- Drake's Island fortress to reopen to public after 30 years
- Lee Abbott jailed for murdering Widnes pub landlord over ban
- Storm Dennis: 'My business was flooded twice in two days'
- Twenty-stone Scots wrestler swapped ring for the runway
- Abandoned seafarers: Hungry, penniless and far from home
- How secure is Nicola Sturgeon's position as SNP leader?
- Grace Millane case: 'I went on a date with her killer after her murder'
- What are the rules on workplace surveillance?
- The artistic wizard who brought Oz to life
- No-fault evictions: 'Our lives are falling apart'
- Kerry Katona: I had to climb over my back gate to escape paparazzi
- The poster project spreading 'happiness and kindness' to NHS staff
- 'We're being punished for having a disabled daughter'
- Daniel Radcliffe on the 'genius' story he felt had to be told
- Todrick Hall: 'It was unheard of for a young, black boy to be dancing'
- Men tell of rescuing woman from submerged car roof
- Newspaper headlines: Coal fire crackdown and London mosque stabbing
- Bakerloo Line: Tube warning as drivers go on strike
- School pupils' exam performance falls by up to 10%
- Harry Gregg: Funeral of Man United and Northern Ireland goalkeeper taking place
- City high street investment 'won't trickle out' to towns
Our traditional ANY-Village websites can still be found at their original location:
Below we are listing some of the most popular UK property websites advertising homes for sale in the Boroughbridge area:
Nestoria (BOROUGHBRIDGE Map Search)
Vebra.com (BOROUGHBRIDGE Map Search)
Rightmove (BOROUGHBRIDGE Map Search)
Zoopla (Boroughbridge Map Search)
Homes for SALE / Flats for SALE in BOROUGHBRIDGE
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text: Paula - it would definately slow your TAT - here at MSU we used to house the Mid Michigan Dementia Network. We sectioned all of our well fixede routinely processed brains at the appropriate thickness for the stain to be applied and ALWAYS let them air dry completely overnight before placing in drying oven. This usually gave us about a 95% success rate for section retention. Hope this helps out. Amy Amy S. Porter, HT (ASCP) QIHC Investigative HistoPathology Laboratory - Supervisor 2201 Biomedical Physical Sciences Bldg. Rm #2133 East Lansing, MI 48824-3320 Phone: (517) 355-6475 ext 1480 Fax: (517) 432-1368 Email: portera <@t> msu.edu Web: www.humanpathology.msu.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: "Conlon, Paula F." <Paula.F.Conlon <@t> Lahey.org> To: <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 11:13 AM Subject: [Histonet] surgical brain specimens Hi Histonetters, We are receiving more surgical brain sections than we have in the past. We process the specimens on the Pathos Automatic Microwave Histoprocessor and we cut the sections at 5 microns. The sections sometimes do not stay on the slides even though we use Plus slides. The Neuropathologist is not happy and she has asked me to find out if there is some way to get better sections. Thank you in advance for your help. Paula Conlon Histology Supervisor Lahey Clinic 41 Mall Road Burlington, MA 01805 781-744-1345 See our web page at http://www.lahey.org for a full directory of Lahey sites, staff, services and career opportunities. THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED FOR THE USE OF THE PERSON TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED. IT MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, CONFIDENTIAL AND EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. If you are not the intended recipient, your use of this message for any purpose is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please delete the message and notify the sender so that we may correct our records. _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet


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The last couple of weeks I have been aroused with many ideas and reflections on Personal Digital Assets and on Digital Assets in general.
The journey started some weeks ago with my prezi talk at TEDxNewWallStreet and included my participation to the WEF "tiger team" on Personal Data, where a group of 30 experts are looking at what is needed to make realize the vision of Personal data as a new economic "asset class". Personal data created by and about people, touching all aspects of society. That group is stitching the pieces together for a framework of business, technical and legal elements that are needed to underpin this vision.
However, the following video from Kynetx was the big aha-moment during my 4-weeks tour on the subject.
I never thought of a Personal Data Store as a "Personal Event Network".
This changes everything ™
indeed as Phil Windley (@windley), CTO of Kynetx says.
One years ago, there was this beautiful video animation by David Siegel (@pullnews), a great vision of distributed nodes of personal data content talking to each other through API's.
In the meantime, there is a rich ecosystem of start-ups that are building something very similar as we speak.
Maybe not yet to its fullest grand vision, but definitely going way beyond the traditional concept of a "personal data store".
Check out leading start-ups such as Personal.com. Btw I dream of one day seeing an integration of Personal.com with an on-line bank. Anybody needing a brokering service here ? 😉
What Kynetx is adding to the mix are three important things:
- the "event" based thinking
- the prototol for the data-web
- Cloud Operating System
Event based thinking:
He really nailed it down for me last time I met him:
- In the past we had RPC (Remote Procedure Calls), in essence fire and forget
- Then came request/response: you ask for something, and you get it
- Now there is the "event-signal". It does not ask for something, it just says "something's happened", and any entity in the network can subscribe to the event and decide itself to do something with it.
Protocol for the data-web:
The other aha-moment was when Phil was doing his talk at the New Digital Economies conference on 27 March 2012.
For those who remember, in the past we had silo-d email systems. AOL, Compuserve, etc. They did not interoperate. We got rid of those silos when there was a standard protocol, allowing competing commercial and open source servers to talk to each other in SMTP.
We now see the same with data, personal data, social graphs. We have data-silos (Facebook, Google, Bank systems, Health systems, Government systems, etc). What we need is a "Data-Server" and a "Protocol" that allows these data servers to be interoperable.
Cloud Operating Systems:
Phil has explained all this beautifully in a series of blogs on www.windley.com and I get very inspired when he makes a call for thinking about personal clouds as "cloud operating systems"
All this, Phil calls "The Live Web" (Amazon Associates link). He is so excited about this that he has written a book about it.
In other words, start thinking about your "Personal Data Locker" become a "Personal Event Cloud": your personal data-server in the cloud that can talk and do things on your behalf, can make decisions, interpret rules, etc…
And it can talk to any entity, any node in the web (or at least nodes in any discoverable namespace). In real-time. In multiplexing mode (meaning the node can be both a server and a client).
It suddenly dawned to me that over the last years we have been hyping "The Programmable WEB", and that if we are serious about customer centric identity or "customer centric" or "personal" whatever, we may wish to start with the "me".
Suddenly it was flashing in my brain: "The Programmable Me"
"Me" is becoming a node in the grid. We are all nodes in the grid, sending and receiving signals. Like neurons passing an electrical or chemical signal to another cell. And start thinking "synapses" when you talk about the API's of your Programmable Me.
From Wikipedia:
"Synapses are essential to neuronal function: neurons are cells that are specialized to pass signals to individual target cells, and synapses are the means by which they do so"
The APIs of your "Programmable Me", of your Personal Event Cloud are indeed the means to make all these nodes interoperable.
Add to this the graph-thinking of Drummond Reed (@drummondreed), Co-Chair of the XDI/XRI Technical Committee of OASIS. Check-out http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xdi/XdiGraphModel and more specifically some of the Powerpoints out there:
Each circle in this drawing represents a node in the grid. I really encourage you to look at this as a graph – this ensemble of inter-connected nodes – as something 3-dimensional, possibly multi-dimensional.
We have all been trained to think hierarchical. Flat files with a root, that sort of thing.
We have to learn to think in graph-models.
You can start anywhere in the galaxy. Every point can be the center of the universe. There is no root. At least, not in absolute terms. Yes, in relative terms with respect to the other nodes in the universe…
A grand vision starts to develop when you realize that the nodes can be any type of entities:
- Humans (or their agents)
- Circles (like Google Circles) of humans (entities without legal form)
- Corporations, non-profits, governmental or educational institution (aka organizational constructs of humans with specific legal form)
- We should also include less traditional forms of organizational constructs such as co-operatives, P2P communities, Commons,…
- Programs (yes, software code), that perform tasks on behalf of the entities above or that operates as fully independent entities.
Each of these nodes/entities can participate in transactions – or better, "value dances". "Dance" because the protocol is multiplexing, not one-way request-response.
Of course all these entities will require identity, in the broadest sense, not only URI or ID number, but in the sense of a spectrum, a graph that can be shared in context with other nodes/entities.
Sharing the spectrum becomes the essence of trade
What we are witnessing is a 180° turn in the power balance between client and server, slave and master, buyer and supplier, consumer and merchant.
All entities are equal.
We are all equal
Doc Searls (@dsearls) has written a book about it. The Intention Economy. (Amazon Associates Link)
But look at the subtitle: "When Customers Take Charge".
I like Doc a lot, but his subtitle may suggest that somebody else is in charge: the empowered customer. I am afraid that we may end-up with another un-balance, where the pendulum has swung the other side: where the customer has an unfair data-advantage versus the merchant. But let their be no doubt that today the merchant has the unfair data-advantage, and I read Doc's book more like a plea for getting the balance right rather than a socialist rant against establishment represented by the "big boys", the vendors, the merchants, the silos like Facebook and Google.
In all the discussions about the Empowered Customers, we see classic commerce use cases like buying a book, buying flowers for grandma, etc
But I would like to make the jump to truly balanced financial transactions and what "dances between equals" would mean in that space. I invite you to think about your bank as the merchant, the merchant of financial services, and the consumer as the retail or wholesale customer of the bank.
In such scenario, the fundamental shift in thinking already happens at the Point of Sale (POS). We even have the question the term "Point of Sale". It stems from an old thinking where the merchant "owns" the customer.
YOU are the point of sale
YOU are the point of data integration!
In the past the POS was the master,
now it will be YOU who is in charge,
or your agent,
the "Programmable Me".
What if we start thinking about banking where YOU are the point of data-integration? What if your bank would offer you a service that enables you to manage your Personal Event Cloud?
I don't know how it would look like, but it probably would be something triggered from your mobile phone. It probably would look like one of the Next-Gen banks (Simple, Movenbank, Fidor) with a Personal Event Network out-of-the-box.
Some of these Next-Gen banks are already accepting the CRED of your Social Graph as a much richer (in all senses of the word) basis for "Know you Customer". Although we probably also have to inverse that: from the captive notion of "know your customer" to the user-centric meaning of "know your bank". Then we may come back to the "primitive" of the meaning of "bank": a bench where two people meet to build a relationship of value.
So, the discussion is NOT about the next coolest thing for doing a copy-cat of existing money-transactions through the latest greatest gadget like NFC or Bump, or whatever.
Some of all this already permeates in a recent Techcrunch article suggesting the "NFC is already out-moded"
"The thing to keep in mind here" says Crone, "is that NFC was developed more than 20 years ago. It was first deployed 10 years ago. 10 years ago, we didn't have ubiquitous access to data plans. We didn't have more smartphones in circulation than feature phones and we had to depend on an 'offline' connection for processing payments. But now, there are 124 million households that have more than one device connected to the internet. Typically, that's a smartphone, but very quickly it's becoming a tablet."
Also Christopher Carfi (@ccarfi) starts thinking in this direction in his recent post "Musings in Small Data". In there, he refers to a video of Jerry Michalski (@jerrymichalski) of the REXpedition doing a demo his "Personal Brain". (Disclosure: I am member of the REXpedition). The video is titled "Gardening My Brain" and the talk was given at Personal Digital Archiving on February 22, 2012 in San Francisco.
It's a pity that this talk is in the context of a personal digital archiving conference. Because, in my opinion, we have dramatically evolved from archiving to sharing.
Sharing of information and digital assets is becoming the new normal in this world of Abundance of information.
Christopher Carfi nails it when he says:
As these issues become more widely understood, more individuals will be tracking their own information. Perhaps it won't be to the level that Jerry has done it in the video above, but it will be happening. This means that we, while wearing our business hats, will need to be developing real relationships with our customers. We need to listen to what they are saying, what they are asking for, and working collaboratively with them in order to help them fulfill their needs. In the best cases, we'll have built up levels of trust with our customers and will have been given the explicit permission to access our customers' personal data stores. In doing so, we'll be able to actually take the guesswork out of the equation that was noted so clearly above in the Facebook example and will, instead, be able to connect directly with our customers' intentions and deliver value on their terms.
Creating an economy based on the principles of relations is of course at the heart of the REXpedition. It is probably the next territory for competitive advantage beyond the mundane money transaction.
All this is about creating "Relationship Channels", channels the vendor can tune into of the user has opened the channel.
All the above are of course very much related to our Innotribe incubation project "Digital Asset Grid" (DAG), which is about the sharing of any digital asset with any party.
All of the above is also very relevant to Mark Pesce's (@mpesce) thinking about "hypereconomics", described in one of my previous posts "The future rarely arrives when planned".
The real question is then: "Where will value be created when all the connections between nodes have become frictionless?" Mark has some ideas on this, and he describes them as "irreducibles"
"No matter how 'smooth' and frictionless hyperconnected commerce becomes, certain frictions in the business world will persist. These represent both speed humps and opportunities. The businesses of the 21st century will find leverage and differentiation by identifying and exploiting them."
What those "irreducibles" are, you will be able to discover at our upcoming Innotribe event in Bangkok on 26-27 April 2012, where together with Mark Pesce we will have some great interactive learning experiences. Be there, or read the report that we will make on this post-conference.
If you really want to take a meta-view on all this, I believe all the examples above illustrate our species being in search for a deeper meaning, a thicker value in everything we experience:
- We are in search for a higher level of consciousness, a further evolution in Spiral Dynamics, in search for a richer value system, much richer than the pure transaction world that is the narrow lens of today
- We start looking at companies being nodes in the grid, in fair-trade constellations of equals, trying to maximize the commons and contribution and giving back to society
- We want to go beyond the "advertising" thinking of "let's hit the target with an ad". We are in search for a better world with more Thick value and less Thin value
- We are starting to see the emergence of "The universe as a Computer" as wonderfully described by Nova Spivack (@novaspivack) in one of his milestone posts last month.
All the above is about defining, articulating, and living lives of greater meaning. With the "M" of meaning. Umair Hague (@umairh) already in 2009 called this "Generation-M", which in essence is anchored in "constructive capitalism"
Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century – or the 21st?
I would like to close with a reference to The Wellbeing Revolution (Amazon Associates Link) by James McWhinney (@JamesMcWhinney).
What I liked about this book is that it encourages you to look at where you are in your life, and to look at it through the "M" lens. The lens of meaning.
I then discover that what I am writing today, what job I am doing, who I am married to, was probably all meant to be this way. Not "meant" in a deterministic way. No, "meant" as everything I have done, the decisions I have made, my architecture studies, my infection by the identity virus, my journey in Leading By Being, etc… all these things have made me who I am.
What if I could capture all this richness about me, and have a tool and an infrastructure to share that on my terms and conditions, in context, and with the parties or nodes in the grid that I choose to? What if I could share my meaning in a programmable way?
I would end up with something called "the programmable me"
By @petervan from the SWIFT Innotribe team.


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Nokia has released Version 4.6 of its Qt cross-platform application and UI framework. Qt 4.6 includes support for the Symbian platform for the first time, and adds Windows 7, Apple Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and the upcoming Maemo 6 to the list of Qt-supported platforms. Also available is community support for real-time operating systems QNX and VxWorks.
Qt 4.6 also provides support for creating multi-touch and gesture-based applications via new input methods such as flicking and kinetic scrolling. Other key performance improvements include an optimized, re-written Qt GraphicsView rendering algorithm, a new OpenGL paint engine, WebKit, 2D vector graphic support using OpenVG, and DirectFB support.
Qt 4.6 enhances the graphical capabilities of 4.5 with the addition of new Animation Framework -- including intuitive state machine functionality -- plus new graphics effects like opacity, drop shadows, glow, and filtering. Complimenting the release of Qt 4.6 is an updated release of Qt Creator, a cross-platform IDE for Qt development.
In a related announcement, Nokia released a technology preview of new Qt APIs from the Qt Mobility project. These cross-platform APIs provide developers with functionality such as location for navigation-type devices, as well as messaging, contacts, and bearer management.


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So MJ (Mark Jacobs) and co are working hard at finally implementing stuff into the game engine they created for Camelot Unchained(www.camelotunchained.com). They've had some recent stress tests for high model count RvR and it seems to have gone well.
Beta 1 (total beta estimated to last a year+) is slated to begin July 4th. Anyone else watching this?
I keep talking myself out of buying the Beta 1 'buy-in' tier. And then occasionally I'll attempt to talk myself into the lifetime subscription package...
I want to believe.
I've actually been playing DAOC lately again, and have seen Boxy Brown around postcount.net


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high leverage network tag
17 result(s) displayed for high leverage network (1 - 17 of 17):
Innovation Allows Broadband to Get to Fast Faster
By Susan Campbell
Demands on broadband providers have been nothing short of intense the last few years. The predicted "data storm" has arrived and users now expect more flexibility, capability, quality performance, and access to rich applications and features. This can be a challenge for service providers trying to meet the need, but is also creating new opportunities and revenue streams when challenges are overcome to improve service delivery overall.
A recent Alcatel-Lucent blog, Connecting the World – from Innovation to Reality, highlights these opportunities. Author Dave Geary, President Alcatel-Lucent Wireline, points out the socio-economic benefits of broadband. And, while we're aware of the increase in mobility and growing demand for access, there are also a few other stats that may be surprising for some vendors, including that wirelines still mater.


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How Massage Therapy Works
The power of touch is not completely understood, even by massage therapists and researchers. Massage can affect the musculoskeletal, nervous, and circulatory-lymphatic systems, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine (NCCIH). Science isn't exactly sure what happens in the body during a massage, but if done by a trained professional and used appropriately, there are few serious risks.
What to Expect From the Different Types
Here are the most common types of massage, according to the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA):
- Swedish—Considered the most common type, this involves long strokes, kneading, and other techniques on the more superficial muscle layers, along with active and passive joint movement. This type of massage is intended to relax and energize you.
- Deep tissue—Designed to release tension through slow strokes and deep finger pressure. Deep tissue is so named because it focuses on the deeper layers of muscle tissue. The strokes and pressure either follow or go across the grain of muscles and tendons. It is commonly used for muscle damage from an injury, like whiplash or back strain.
- Chair—This is massage of the upper body. It is done through your clothes while you are seated upright in a portable chair.
- Sport therapy—Sports massage focuses on warming up an athlete to prevent athletic injury, keep the body flexible, or help rehabilitate injured muscles.
What Studies Have Found
Massage of pre-term infants has been shown to be beneficial by several scientific studies. Pre-term infants who received massage gained more weight in a 6-week period and were more improved in areas like sociability and soothability. Other studies have shown that massage can help improve babies' sleep and reduce sleep-disordered breathing in babies born with low birth weights.
Research has shown that massage can help with pain after surgery, relieve back and leg pain in pregnant women, and help children and adolescents with chronic pain. Other studies have suggested that massage helps relieve low back pain, neck pain, migraines, and fibromyalagia, among other conditions.
Of course, massage is not a total panacea. It can be inappropriate in some cases, warns the AMTA, such as in those with bleeding disorders or people taking blood-thinning medications. Massage should not be used in people with blood clots, fractures, open wounds, skin infections, or weakened bones. Anyone with these or other health problems should consult their doctor before having massage therapy. And although massage is safe overall, it may cause pain even when done correctly. Also, bone fractures and other injuries may occur if massage is done too forcefully on fragile people.
How to Find a Massage Therapist
Many states in the United States license massage therapists. Asking a therapist about licensure is a good first step to finding a competent practitioner. Here are additional questions worth asking:
- Where did you receive your training?
- Are you a member of the American Massage Therapy Association?
A licensed massage therapist will have been trained to provide massages in the safest way possible, thereby avoiding any injury or mishaps. To find a qualified massage therapist, you can ask your doctor for a referral or use the AMTA's locator service .
There are several common licenses for massage therapists, including:
- LMN—Licensed Massage Therapist
- LMP—Licensed Massage Practitioner
- CMT—Certified Massage Therapist
- NCTMB—has met requirements (including exam) of the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork for practicing therapeutic massage and bodywork
- NCTM—has met requirements (including exam) of the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork for practicing therapeutic massage
- Reviewer: EBSCO Medical Review Board Michael Woods, MD, FAAP
- Review Date: 11/2017 -
- Update Date: 12/23/2015 -


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Mathematics and art - perspective
|Alphabetical list of History Topics
|History Topics Index
This article looks at some of the interactions between mathematics and art in western culture. There are other topics which will look at the interaction between mathematics and art in other cultures. Before beginning the discussion of perspective in western art, we should mention the contribution by al-Haytham. It was al-Haytham around 1000 A.D. who gave the first correct explanation of vision, showing that light is reflected from an object into the eye. He studied the complete science of vision, called perspectiva in medieval times, and although he did not apply his ideas to painting, the Renaissance artists later made important use of al-Haytham's optics.
There is little doubt that a study of the development of ideas relating to perspective would be expected to begin with classical times, and in particular with the ancient Greeks who used some notion of perspective in their architecture and design of stage sets. However, although Hellenistic painters could create an illusion of depth in their works, there is no evidence that they understood the precise mathematical laws which govern correct representation. We chose to begin this article, therefore, with the developments in the understanding of perspective which took place during the Renaissance. First let us state the problem: how does one represent the three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional canvass? There are two aspects to the problem, namely how does one use mathematics to make realistic paintings and secondly what is the impact of the ideas for the study of geometry.
By the 13th Century Giotto was painting scenes in which he was able to create the impression of depth by using certain rules which he followed. He inclined lines above eye-level downwards as they moved away from the observer, lines below eye-level were inclined upwards as they moved away from the observer, and similarly lines to the left or right would be inclined towards the centre. Although not a precise mathematical formulation, Giotto clearly worked hard on how to represent depth in space and examining his pictures chronologically shows how his ideas developed. Some of his last works suggest that he may have come close to the correct understanding of linear perspective near the end of his life.
The person who is credited with the first correct formulation of linear perspective is Brunelleschi. He appears to have made the discovery in about 1413. He understood that there should be a single vanishing point to which all parallel lines in a plane, other than the plane of the canvas, converge. Also important was his understanding of scale, and he correctly computed the relation between the actual length of an object and its length in the picture depending on its distance behind the plane of the canvas. Using these mathematical principles, he drew two demonstration pictures of Florence on wooden panels with correct perspective. One was of the octagonal baptistery of St John, the other of the Palazzo de Signori. To give a more vivid demonstration of the accuracy of his painting, he bored a small hole in the panel with the baptistery painting at the vanishing point. A spectator was asked to look through the hole from behind the panel at a mirror which reflected the panel. In this way Brunelleschi controlled precisely the position of the spectator so that the geometry was guaranteed to be correct. These perspective paintings by Brunelleschi have since been lost but a "Trinity" fresco by Masaccio from this same period still exists which uses Brunelleschi's mathematical principles.
Here is a picture of Masaccio's Holy Trinity
It is reasonable to think about how Brunelleschi came to understand the geometry which underlies perspective. Certainly he was trained in the principles of geometry and surveying methods and, since he had a fascination with instruments, it is reasonable to suppose that he may have used instruments to help him survey buildings. He had made drawing of the ancient buildings of Rome before he came to understand perspective and this must have played an important role.
Now although it is clear that Brunelleschi understood the mathematical rules involving the vanishing point that we have described above, he did not write down an explanation of how the rules of perspective work. The first person to do that was Alberti in his treatise On painting. Now in fact Alberti wrote two treatises, the first was written in Latin in 1435 and entitled De pictura Ⓣ while the second, dedicated to Brunelleschi, was an Italian work written in the following year entitled Della pittura Ⓣ. Certainly these books are not simply the same work translated into two different languages. Rather Alberti addresses the books to different audiences, the Latin book is much more technical and addressed to scholars while his Italian version is aimed at a general audience.
De pictura Ⓣ is in three parts, the first of which gives the mathematical description of perspective which Alberti considers necessary to a proper understanding of painting. It is, Alberti writes:-
... completely mathematical, concerning the roots in nature from which arise this graceful and noble art.In fact he gives a definition of a painting which shows just how fundamental he considers the notion of perspective to be:-
A painting is the intersection of a visual pyramid at a given distance, with a fixed centre and a defined position of light, represented by art with lines and colours on a given surface.Alberti gives background on the principles of geometry, and on the science of optics. He then sets up a system of triangles between the eye and the object viewed which define the visual pyramid referred to above. He gives a precise concept of proportionality which determines the apparent size of an object in the picture relative to its actual size and distance from the observer.
One of the most famous examples used by Alberti in his text was that of a floor covered with square tiles. For simplicity we take the centric point, as Alberti calls it (today it is called the vanishing point), in the centre of the square picture.
Here is a Alberti's construction of perspective for a tiled floor
In our diagram the centric point is C. The square tiles are assumed to have one edge parallel to the bottom of the picture. The other edges which in reality are perpendicular to these edges, will appear in the picture to converge to the centric point C. The diagonals of the squares will all converge to a point D on a line through the centric point parallel to the bottom of the picture. The length of CD determines the correct viewing distance, that is the distance the observer has to be from the picture to obtain the correct perspective effect. Alberti chooses not to give mathematical proofs, however, writing:-
We have talked as much as seems necessary about the pyramid, the triangle, the intersection. I usually explain these things to my friends with certain tedious geometrical proofs, which in this commentary it seems to me better to omit for the sake of brevity.Pictures from this period which include a square tiled floor are called pavimento (Italian for floor) pictures. There are many examples of such pictures in the years following Alberti's book which had a huge influence on painting.
Of course the pavimento provides a type of Cartesian coordinate system. Alberti shows how to use the grid to obtain the correct shape for a circle. Place a circle on a square grid and mark where the squares cut the circle. Construct the perspective view of the square grid as above and reconstruct the circle by seeing the positions of the points of intersection in the projected view. The circle will project into an ellipse, but it would be a long time before the importance of projecting conic sections was realised.
Next we should mention Lorenzo Ghiberti who was born in Pelago, Italy around 1378. He is famed as a sculptor and his most famous work is the bronze doors on the east side of the baptistery in Florence. He created two sets of doors and before he designed the second set he had become familiar with the new ideas on perspective as set out by Alberti. The doors contain ten panels which, Ghiberti wrote, exhibit:-
... architectural settings in the relation with which the eye measures them, and real to such a degree that ... one sees the figures which are near appear larger, and those that are far off smaller, as reality shows it.Ghiberti is also important for his treatise I Commentarii, written around 1447, in three volumes. The work contains a history of art in ancient times, a history of thirteenth century artists, an autobiography, and a compilation of medieval texts on the theory of vision such as that by al-Haytham. This was important since, as we mentioned at the beginning of this article, al-Haytham and others had studied optics and vision without relating the ideas to painting, while now Ghiberti showed the relevance of the earlier ideas on optics to art.
The most mathematical of all the works on perspective written by the Italian Renaissance artists in the middle of the 15th century was by Piero della Francesca. In some sense this is not surprising since as well as being one of the leading artists of the period, he was also the leading mathematician writing some fine mathematical texts. In Trattato d'abaco Ⓣ which he probably wrote around 1450, Piero includes material on arithmetic and algebra and a long section on geometry which was very unusual for such texts at the time. It also contains original mathematical results which again is very unusual in a book written in the style of a teaching text (although in the introduction Piero does say that he wrote the book at the request of his patron and friends and not as a school book). Is there a connection with perspective? Yes there is, for Piero illustrates the text with diagrams of solid figures drawn in perspective.
Here is Piero's illustration of a dodecahedron
Continuing the theme of the regular solids, we note that a later text by Piero is Short book on the five regular solids. However, it is his three volume treatise On perspective for painting (some believe written in the mid 1470s, others believe written in the 1460s) which is of most interest to us in this article. His book begins with a description of painting:-
Painting has three principal parts, which we say are drawing, proportion and colouring. Drawing we understand as meaning outlines and contours contained in thing. Proportion we say is these outlines and contours positioned in proportion in their places. Colouring we mean as giving the colours as shown in the things, light and dark according as the light makes them vary. Of the three parts I intend to deal only with proportion, which we call perspective, mixing in with it some part of drawing, because without this perspective cannot be shown in action; colouring we shall leave out, and we shall deal with that part which can be shown by means of lines, angles and proportion, speaking of points, lines, surfaces and bodies.We see from this introduction that Piero intends to concentrate on the mathematical principles. Perhaps it is most accurate to say that he is studying the geometry of vision which he later makes clearer:-
First is sight, that is to say the eye; second is the form of the thing seen; third is the distance from the eye to the thing seen; fourth are the lines which leave the boundaries of the object and come to the eye; fifth is the intersection, which comes between the eye and the thing seen, and on which it is intended to record the object.Piero begins by establishing geometric theorems in the style of Euclid but, unlike Euclid, he also gives numerical examples to illustrate them. He then goes on to give theorems which relate to the perspective of plane figures. In the second of the three volumes Piero examines how to draw prisms in perspective. Although less interesting mathematically than the first volume, the examples he chooses to examine in the volume are clearly important to him since they appear frequently in his own paintings. The third volume deals with more complicated objects such as the human head, the decoration on the top of columns, and other "more difficult shapes". For this Piero uses a method which involves a very large amount of tedious calculation. He uses two rulers, one to determine width, the other to determine height. In fact he is using a coordinate system and computing the correct perspective position of many points of the "difficult shape" from which the correct perspective of the whole can be filled in.
Piero della Francesca's works were heavily relied on by Luca Pacioli for his own publications. In fact the third book of Pacioli's Divina proportioneⓉ is an Italian translation of Piero's Short book on the five regular solids. The illustrations in Pacioli's work were by Leonardo da Vinci and include some fine perspective drawings of regular solids.
Here is a Leonardo's illustration
Now in Leonardo's early writings we find him echoing the precise theory of perspective as set out by Alberti and Piero. He writes:-
... Perspective is a rational demonstration by which experience confirms that the images of all things are transmitted to the eye by pyramidal lines. Those bodies of equal size will make greater or lesser angles in their pyramids according to the different distances between the one and the other. by a pyramid of lines I mean those which depart from the superficial edges of bodies and converge over a distance to be drawn together in a single point.He developed mathematical formulas to compute the relationship between the distance from the eye to the object and its size on the intersecting plane, that is the canvas on which the picture will be painted:-
If you place the intersection one metre from the eye, the first object, being four metres from the eye, will diminish by three-quarters of its height on the intersection; and if it is eight metres from the eye it will diminish by seven-eighths and if it is sixteen metres away it will diminish by fifteen-sixteenths, and so on. As the distance doubles so the diminution will double.Not only did Leonardo study the geometry of perspective but he also studied the optical principles of the eye in his attempts to create reality as seen by the eye. By around 1490 Leonardo had moved forward in his thinking about perspective. He was one of the first people to study the converse problem of perspective: given a picture drawn in correct linear perspective compute where the eye must be placed to see this correct perspective. Now he was led to realise that a picture painted in correct linear perspective only looked right if viewed from one exact location. Brunelleschi had been well aware of this when he arranged his demonstration of perspective through a hole. However for a painting on a wall, say, many people would not view it from the correct position, indeed for many paintings it would be impossible for someone viewing them to have their eye in this correct point, as it may have been well above their heads.
Leonardo distinguished two different types of perspective: artificial perspective which was the way that the painter projects onto a plane which itself may be seen foreshortened by an observer viewing at an angle; and natural perspective which reproduces faithfully the relative size of objects depending on their distance. In natural perspective, Leonardo correctly claims, objects will be the same size if they lie on a circle centred on the observer. Then Leonardo looked at compound perspective where the natural perspective is combined with a perspective produced by viewing at an angle. Perhaps in Leonardo, more than any other person we mention in this article, mathematics and art were fused in a single concept.
The story we have told up to this point has been very much an understanding of perspective in Italy by artists and mathematicians learning personally from each other. By 1500, however, Dürer took the development of the topic into Germany. He did so only after learning much from trips to Italy where he learned at first hand from mathematicians such as Pacioli. He published Unterweisung der Messung mit dem Zirkel und Richtscheit Ⓣ in 1525, the fourth book of which contains his theory of shadows and perspective. Geometrically his theory is similar to that of Piero but he made an important addition stressing the importance of light and shade in depicting correct perspective. An excellent example of this is in the geometrical shape he sketched in 1524.
Here is a Dürer's shaded geometrical design
Another contribution to perspective made by Dürer in his 1525 treatise was the description of a variety of mechanical aids which could be used to draw images in correct perspective.
Let us consider a number of other contributions to the study of perspective over the following 200 years. We mention first Federico Commandino who published Commentarius in planisphaerium Ptolemaei Ⓣ in 1558. In this work he gave an account of Ptolemy's stereographic projection of the celestial sphere, but its importance for perspective is that he broadened the study of that topic which had up until then been concerned almost exclusively with painting. Commandino was more interested in the use of perspective in the making of stage scenery principally because his main interest was in classic texts and, unlike many earlier treatises he was writing for mathematicians rather than artists.
Wentzel Jamnitzer wrote a beautiful book on the Platonic solids in 1568 called Perspectiva corporum regularium Ⓣ. This is not a book designed to teach perspective drawing but, nevertheless, contains many illustrations superbly drawn in perspective. He is clear in his intention:-
All superfluity will be avoided and, in contrast to the old fashioned way of teaching, no line or point will be drawn needlessly.Daniele Barbaro's La Practica della perspectiva Ⓣ published in 1569, the year after Jamnitzer's treatise, complained that painters had stopped using perspective. Taken at face value this is not true, but what he undoubtedly meant was that painters were not painting architectural scenes. Barbaro was interested in perspective in stage sets mainly because he had published an Italian translation of Vitruvius's De architectura Ⓣ in 1556 and his interest had been aroused by this work. His 1569 treatise shows that he had studied the work of Piero and Dürer carefully and the methods he gave for perspective constructions were variations on their methods.
Egnatio Danti, like so many of the others we have mentioned in this article, was both an excellent mathematician and artist. His preface to Le due regole della prospettiva pratica di M Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola Ⓣ was published in 1583, three years before his death. In his introduction to this work Danti wrote a brief history of perspective:-
... we know of no book or written document which has come down to us from ancient practitioners, although they were mot excellent, as is convincingly shown by the descriptions of the stage scenery they made, which was much prized both in Athens among the Greeks and in Rome among the Latins. But in our own time, among those who have left something of note in this art, the earliest, and one who wrote with best method and form, was Messer Pietro della Francesca dal Borgo Sansepolcro, from whom we have today three books in manuscript, most excellently illustrated; and whoever wants to know how excellent they are should look to Daniele Barbaro, who has transcribed a great part of them in his book on Perspective.Not only did Danti write an introduction to his edition of Vignola's treatise, but he also added considerably to its content by giving mathematical justification where Vignola simply states a rule to be applied.
The next contributor we mention is Giovanni Battista Benedetti who was a pupil of Tartaglia. He produced a work entitled A book containing various studies of mathematics and physics in 1585 which contains a treatise on arithmetic, some other short works and letters on various scientific topics, as well as a short treatise on perspective De rationibus operationum perspectivae Ⓣ. In his perspective treatise Benedetti was concerned not just with rules for artists working in two dimensions but with the underlying three-dimensional reasons for the rules.
We mentioned Commandino above and the next person who we want to note for his contribution to perspective, Guidobaldo del Monte, was a pupil of Commandino. Del Monte's six books on perspective Perspectivae libri sex Ⓣ (1600) contain theorems which he deduces with frequent references to Euclid's Elements. The most important result in del Monte's treatise is that any set of parallel lines, not parallel to the plane of the picture, will converge to a vanishing point. This treatise represents a major step forward in understanding the geometry of perspective and it was a major contribution towards the development of projective geometry.
In 1636 Desargues published the short treatise La perspective Ⓣ which only contains 12 pages. In this treatise, which consists of a single worked example, Desargues sets out a method for constructing a perspective image without using any point lying outside the picture field. He considers the representation in the picture plane of lines which meet at a point and also of lines which are parallel to each another. In the last paragraph of the work he considered the problem of finding the perspective image of a conic section.
Three years later, in 1639, Desargues wrote his treatise on projective geometry Brouillon project d'une atteinte aux evenemens des rencontres du cone avec un plan Ⓣ. One can see the influence of the work from three years earlier, but Desargues himself gives no motivation for the ideas he introduced. The first part of this treatise deals with the properties of sets of straight lines meeting at a point and ranges of points lying on a straight line. In the second part, the properties of conics are investigated in terms of properties of ranges of points on straight lines. The modern term "point at infinity" appears for the first time in this treatise and pencils of lines are introduced, although that name is not used. In this treatise Desargues shows that he had completely understood the connection between conics and perspective; in fact he treats the fact that any conic can be projected into any other conic as obvious. Although a "cone of vision" had been considered by earlier authors, the significance of this and the way that a study of conics could thus be unified had not been appreciated before.
Following Desargues' innovative work it may be surprising that the subject was not developed rapidly in the following years. That it was not may in part have been due to mathematicians failing to recognise the power in what had been put forward. On the other hand the algebraic approach to geometry put forward by Descartes at almost exactly the same time (1637) may have diverted attention from Desargues' projective methods. The first person to really carry forward Desargues' ideas was Philippe de la Hire. He had written a work on conics in 1673 before he discovered Desargues' Brouillon project. In 1679 he made a copy of Desargues' book writing:-
In the month of July of the year 1679, I first read this little book by M. Desargues, and copied it out so as to get to know it better. This was more than six years after I had published my first work on conic sections. And I do not doubt that, if I had known anything of this treatise, I should not have discovered the method that I used, for I should never have believed it possible to find any simpler procedure which was also general in application.In fact la Hire had treated conics from a projective point of view in his 1673 treatise New method of geometry for sections of conics and cylindrical surfaces and there he had introduced the cross ratio of four points before meeting Desargues' approach. In 1685 la Hire published Conic sections which is a projective approach to conics which combines the best of the ideas from his earlier work and also those of Desargues.
Before discussing the work of Brook Taylor, with which we will end our article, let us mention that of Humphry Ditton who wrote A treatise on perspective, demonstrative and practical in 1712. This is relevant to Taylor's work since it influenced him. Ditton's book is not particularly original but he did present a geometrical approach to perspective which is carefully constructed and well written. In many ways Brook Taylor's Linear perspective: or a new method of representing justly all manners of objects which appeared three years later in 1715, is similar to Ditton's work in its quality. One notable aspect of Taylor's work was that he stated the incidence properties as axioms, making him the first to do so.
In 1719 Taylor published a much modified second edition New principles of linear perspective. The work gives the first general treatment of vanishing points. Taylor had a highly mathematical approach to the subject and, despite being an accomplished amateur artist himself, made no concessions to artists who should have found the ideas of fundamental importance to them. At times this highly condensed work is very difficult for even a mathematician to understand, and Taylor makes it clear that he is interested in the underlying principles rather than their application. The phrase "linear perspective" was invented by Taylor in this work and he defined the vanishing point of a line, not parallel to the plane of the picture, as the point where a line through the eye parallel to the given line intersects the plane of the picture. He also defined the vanishing line to a given plane, not parallel to the plane of the picture, as the intersection of the plane through the eye parallel to the given plane. As we have shown above the term vanishing point was invented long before Taylor's time, but he was one of the first to stress the mathematical importance of the vanishing point and vanishing line. The main theorem in Taylor's theory of linear perspective is that the projection of a straight line not parallel to the plane of the picture passes through its intersection and its vanishing point.
There is also the interesting inverse problem which is to find the position of the eye in order to see the picture from the viewpoint that the artist intended. Taylor was not the first to discuss this inverse problem as we saw above, one of the first to examining it had been Leonardo nearly 250 years earlier, but Taylor did make innovative contributions to the theory of such perspective problems. One could certainly consider this work as being an important step towards the theory of descriptive and projective geometry as developed by Monge, Chasles and Poncelet.
Let us end by giving examples of artists having fun with the deliberate misuse of perspective. The first is by the famous English artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) whose Perspective absurdities formed the frontispiece to J J Kirby's book Dr Brook Taylor's method of perspective made easy in both theory and practice (1754).
Here is Hogarth's Perspective absurdities
The second examples are by Maurits Escher who is famous for producing impossible pictures using perspective tricks.
Here are Waterfall and Up and down
[All M C Escher works � 2001 Cordon Art - Baarn - Holland. All rights reserved. Used by permission.]
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson


text:
We can't say enough good things about our co-workers in the field! They are often the first face of CFCA that our sponsored children and aging friends see.
We especially wanted to share Jenny's story. She started working for CFCA-El Salvador in March 2003.
This is what her colleague, Naresli Calito, says about her: "All families in the sponsorship program and CFCA staff members know her name. She is very responsible and an honest leader in her work area. She knows her potential and she gives her best at work."
When did you first hear about CFCA?
A [CFCA] social worker came to my house and said, "We want to find sponsors for these two children," and they were my brother Melvin and my sister Alba.
After they were sponsored, [CFCA] offered me a scholarship in 2001. I remained a scholar until my high school graduation.
How was the experience as a CFCA scholar?
It was a learning experience. Through my community service at the project, I learned everything about the social workers' job and thanks to that, after I graduated from high school, CFCA offered me a part-time job.
I worked side by side with social workers. They told me, "A number of mothers and their sponsored children will come; you will supervise their letter writing."
Almost 100 children would make a line for me to review their letters!
We would also go and work with other communities. We filled out profiles of children and elderly waiting to be sponsored.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a community in Santa Ana. I lived there for 26 years.
Can you describe your home?
It looks the same as when I was 16. My house was made of adobe covered with cement and metal sheets. There was a living room and one bedroom.
Now the house has an extra bedroom, made with the help of my brother's sponsors, and another bedroom that I built with my salary.
I didn't have a playful childhood; it was more about helping my family. All my four siblings were younger than me, so I helped take care of them.
I also helped sell different things on the streets. I used to help selling pastelitos (fried corn pastries) because my mom made them.
Whom did you live with while little?
I lived with my mom and siblings. My grandmother also took care of me, and sometimes an aunt.
My siblings' names are Melvin, Mauricio, Alba, and Judith.
Can you tell us more about your younger brother, Melvin?
He is attending school in San Salvador. He is a young athlete. He plays basketball in a wheelchair.
Melvin was born with a condition in which the spinal cord doesn't completely close before birth.
There is an opening between the bones of the spine, which makes the spinal cord bulge out, and that caused paralysis in his legs. When he was 3 days old, he received surgery to try to close the opening.
He can move from the waist up.
Was it hard for your mother to care for Melvin?
Yes, since he was a child my mom took him to hospitals and rehabilitation centers. The school is a block from our house, so she and sometimes his friends took him to school in a wheelchair.
It was complicated for my mother, but she always was there for him. Thanks to my mother, he felt like a normal kid.
Now Melvin takes care of himself. He lives with other teenagers. That helps him be more independent.
How has CFCA helped you achieve your goals?
Thanks to the scholarship and job, I was able to pay for college. I study business administration and will graduate in March 2013.
I recently defended my thesis, which was about communications in non-governmental organizations, and CFCA was one of my examples.
You are the first in your family to have a college degree?
I have 12 cousins, and I was the first to attend college. Another cousin is now studying. Out of 12 cousins, just the two of us have college education.
What were the obstacles you had working and studying?
My main obstacle was the time. I would attend classes after work. I didn't have transportation to take me directly to the university and had to take a bus, so I arrived at classes 30 minutes late.
Are there any words from your mother that served as motivation?
I remember clearly when I started to study at college, she said to me, "If I have to sell everything I have, I will, but you're going to study."
I'll always remember her words.
How did you realize you wanted to work for CFCA?
As a scholar, I would offer my social service, but I would try to do more than required. I discovered that serving people and working with others made me desire to work here.
What do you like about working at CFCA?
The variety of things we do. We're not always working in one place, doing the same thing every day, but every day there is something different, new and interesting.
How does it feel to help other families through CFCA?
There is plenty of personal growth every time we help someone. Helping a family gives us satisfaction; we try to cover families in need.
I feel that CFCA is also a work that helps us to be a better person with God. It is a rewarding job.
|CFCA scholars in El Salvador
What are your challenges?
I think one challenge is to be better every day in serving our families and communities, through good plans and organization. To work my best every day so they know we are giving the best of ourselves.
What are your goals?
Next year I'll graduate. Get married at the end of this year and perhaps continue studying English.
Could you tell us more about getting married?
[She laughs] Yes, I have plans to get married in December. [She laughs again.] That's all.
It is a challenge, too. I want to get married and have two children, but will wait about two years before our first baby.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
My mom's passing has been something I'm trying to overcome. It has been difficult, but thanks to work I don't think too much about it.
I always keep busy and see more difficult situations in other families. Here [in CFCA] you learn that sometimes your problems look smaller compared to others.
I believe that [CFCA] has been a mainstay for my family and me. Thanks to CFCA I have a job and we are in a better situation.
My sister is not sponsored anymore, but now she has her own family. My younger brother is sponsored and lives in San Salvador. He is trying to reach his goals.
Each of us is trying to move forward, although my mom couldn't be with us.