text:
Plot Summary
This is the first issue of the sequel to "The Golden Age of the Sith". The
story takes place 1000 years before the original 'Tales of the Jedi', and 5000
years before ANH.
In this issue, Jori returns from the Sith Empire to the Replublic to warn them
of an impending attack. Once Jori arrives at Coruscant, no one believers her
or heeds her warnings and she is put into prision.
Of course, the Sith let Jori go so that they could follow her (in the TOTJ
tradition of using a few familiar film elements since they don't have actual
characters to use).
As the Sith follow, Naga Sadow their leader has brought along Jori's brother
Gav. In a scene which is likely reminiscent of Palpatine's corruption of
Vader, Sadow has Gav push a button to block an opposing ship's communication.
The button actually fires upon and destroys the ship.
While I enjoy the TOTJ stories, I must say that they don't hold my interest as
well as the other SW comic series. I attribute this less to the fact that
there aren't film characters than to the over use of the Sith. I know that
there's a need to create antagonists powerful enough to challenge multiple
Jedi masters, but I just haven't found them compelling.
I do give credit for coming up with interesting variations on common SW
themes. The characters are similar to ones we know from the films, but not
carbon copies.
I also appreciate the use of non-human characters (something I hope to see in
the prequels). Too many species use the 'Star Trek' cop-out of putting a funny
head of a human body, but that may be more of an art complaint.
My other complaint would be that this story moves a little too slowly. Very
little happens in each issue. TOTJ seems better read in a collected trade
I find the both the pencils and color to be only average.
On the other hand, the extensive design that's been done for this series is
impressive. They've taken a universe we know and extrapolated backwards 5000
years having to make things look different, but familiar. The costumes, ships,
buildings and weapons all sport impressive designs.
Again, the weak point here is the design of bilogical species... too human
Somewhat slow moving, but interesting technology. You'll feel much the same
way about this book as you did about other TOTJ books.
6.5/10. Recommended only if you liked previous TOTJ.
"EnsViews" are copyright ? 1997-8 by Paul Ens.
They are posted to rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc,
emailed to Dark Horse Comics
and archived on theForce.net.
With the exception of Dark Horse Comics Inc, they may not be reprinted without permission.
Titles, Cover images, Dark Horse Comics, and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics Inc. and its respective Licensors.
Titles, Cover images, Dark Horse Comics, and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics Inc. and its respective Licensors.


text:
The Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
DOI: 10.1115/1.4033806Manuscript received March 1, 2016; final manuscript received March 17, 2016; published online August 1, 2016. Editor: William Durfee.
Exploded view of Micron
Location (a) and structure (b) of the cancelation filter with velocity limiting included
Micron during a peeling task
Plot of tool tip velocity with time
Plot of tool tip x-coordinate with time
Plot of tool tip y-coordinate with time
Plot of tool tip z-coordinate with time
Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.
Download citation file:
Customize your page view by dragging and repositioning the boxes below.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Sorry! You do not have access to this content. For assistance or
to subscribe, please contact us:
Sign in or create your free personal ASME account. This will give you the ability to save search results, receive TOC alerts, RSS feeds, and more.
Sign into or create your free personal account

subset: commoncrawl


text:
There's memory. And then there's reminiscence. What's the difference? One is vitally important in assessing and discerning your faith journey. The other, well, not so much. Which is which and how do you make good use of it? Continue readingPlease visit Marge Fenelon to read the full post.
Home Uncategorized When Memory is More than Reminiscence on Relevant Radio's Morning Air Show


text:
Olivia Wilde: Peter O'Toole Was a Foxy & Wonderful Actor!
Olivia Wilde is cute and casual while grabbing lunch with a male pal at Cafe Gratitude on Monday (December 16) in Los Angeles.
"Peter O'toole was a great (foxy) man and wonderful actor. One great film to watch is The Ruling Class from 1972. Super weird and funny. RIP," the 29-year-old pregnant actress tweeted the day before.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Olivia Wilde
Last week, Olivia showed off her growing baby bump while attending the premiere for her new movie Her in L.A.
20+ pictures inside of Olivia Wilde satisfying her pregnancy cravings at Cafe Gratitude…


text:
Milwaukee Office Building Cleaning
Our Milwaukee office building cleaning teams may be just what you need to keep your commercial property clean, safe and presentable. And, our Milwaukee office building cleaning services are affordable and customizable, so you can get just what you want at just the right price.
At Spot Free Cleaning, we pride ourselves on being sanitation pros who go the extra mile to keep our customers' office buildings clean from top to bottom, inside and out. In fact, our Milwaukee office building cleaning programs include:
- Floor care and cleaning (including buffing and polishing)
- Carpet cleaning and shampooing
- Window washing and cleaning services
- Sanitization of bathrooms, kitchen surfaces, door handles and other high-contact areas
- Furniture cleaning
- Trash pickup and removal
The Benefits of Regular Milwaukee Office Building Cleaning
Being successful is all about making a good impression. And, if the first impression your customers and peers have of your business is a messy, dirty building, how long do you think your business will be around?
By scheduling regular visits from our Milwaukee office building teams you can be sure that your offices will be clean, tidy and presentable. Plus, our sanitation services will help keep you and your employees healthier year round because we sanitize restrooms and maintain general areas to limit the spread of germs through your facilities.
To learn more about our Milwaukee office building cleaning services, call us today. We offer convenient after-hours service, as well as comprehensive commercial cleaning services for nearly all types of office environments.
Want a free quote? Just call 866-SPOT-FREE anytime to discover how clean you can be with Spot Free!
Let us add you to our family of valued clients!


text:
"Nice sturdy well made cards and the photos came out beautifully."
"Folded Christmas cards look great!"
"They were just what I expected."
"I love the quality of these cards! I love the ease in making them!"
"Software was easy to use. Shipping was super fast. And we got our cards out early this year. That is why I use Shutterfly."
Whether you are dreaming of a white Christmas, looking to share photos of an amazing year or simply trying to keep in touch with a loved one, chances are this holiday season snuck up on you once again. This year, instead of sending boring holiday cards to your friends and family, turn your favorite picture memories into one-of-a-kind photo cards.
Designing Your Holiday Cards
Are you worried that you don't have a workshop to rival Santa? Fear not, because Shutterfly has everything you need to turn your best and brightest memories into beautifully printed holiday cards. Simply upload your favorite pictures into one of the templates. Shutterfly features an easy-to-use design assistant that will allow you to customize your text, design elements and messaging for cards that truly reflect your personality. Shutterfly offers tips and ideas on what to write on your Holiday card to make it special. Make sure to include personalized address labels. You can choose your preferred cardstock option and, before you know it, your cards will arrive at your door with a few clicks of a mouse.
Make the Most of the Season
The best part of the winter season is bringing everyone together. If you don't have the means to host a giant holiday party, consider inviting a few close friends or family members over to bake cookies or make festive decorations. If you live in a warmer climate, consider adding fun elements like paper snowflakes to your decorations. If it's colder where you live, use the season as an excuse to drink cocoa by the fire. If you need to wear the little ones out, consider challenging them to a snowman-building contest (where everyone wins their own unique award). The holidays are a wonderful excuse to see the people you love and to have a little fun.
Give Holiday Gifts with Style
This season, give those on your nice list thoughtful gifts that will show just how much you care. Shutterfly has dozens of unique options to turn your favorite memories into one-of-a-kind, personalized gifts. For the athletes on the go, there are water bottles and reusable tote bags. For the mindful and contemplative people in your life, you can create custom journals and notebooks. It is easier than ever to match the perfect gift to each unique personality on your list.
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukkah or simply want to send out a New Year's Card to those you love, Shutterfly has the perfect holiday card for you. This holiday season, it is easier than ever to share light and joy with thoughtful, elegant holiday cards.


text:
Yorkshire Carnegie RUFC has teamed up with Premiership Rugby and the RFU to launch new rugby coaching sessions at Pontefract.
The inclusive rugby programme will explore various formats of the game and will see expert coaches deliver fun, accessible and interactive games and activities to groups who traditionally may have been underrepresented in the sport.
The first stage of the programme will see the community team work in Pontefract, offering coaching sessions for girls to give them an introduction to playing rugby and creating a pathway to getting them involved with their local team.
Lisa McCann, Yorkshire Carnegie community manager, said: "We are excited to start this programme and are delighted to be linking up with Premiership Rugby and the RFU.
"The first delivery phase ties in with our aim to open up the door for more females to start playing rugby. We want to encourage women and girls to consider rugby as an option for fitness and social interaction.
"The long term aim is to provide a pathway to local clubs and we will be working closely with Pontefract RUFC, who already have a thriving girls section, to ensure that the players have somewhere to continue playing following their coaching sessions."
The coaching programme will be delivered at Carleton Community High on Mondays, 6-7pm, NEW College Pontefract, Wednesdays 4.30-5.30pm and Kings School, Pontefract, Thursdays 6-7pm. Attendees will receive a weekly coaching sessions which will begin with an introduction to the game and skills and building up to tag rugby games and culminating in a rugby festival in the final week.
Yorkshire Carnegie star Seb Stegmann will be supporting the initiative as an ambassador.
He said: "I am delighted to be a part of the new programme, it's incredibly important to ensure everybody has access to our great game and this programme will certainly go some way to achieve that.
"The women's and girls game is growing week by week. The England Women's team have achieved incredible success and will be inspiring more young women to pick up a rugby ball."
For more details on the rugby sessions, email email@example.com


text:
Delonghi Dehumidifiers
Delonghi dehumidifiers distinguish themselves by being ultra quiet, energy efficient, and being equipped with a built in pump so that you can turn this dehumidifier on and forget about emptying any buckets! The low temperature Delonghi dehumidifier operates down to 41 degrees is perfect for mildew, damp basements since the Delonghi continues to do its job even when the temperature gets cooler in fall and winter. If you want more options, see our complete selection of dehumidifiers or basement dehumidifiers.
If you want more options, see our complete selection of basement dehumidifiers.
Delonghi dehumidifiers were the first to bring built-in pumps to the market so they have had plenty of experience in finding out how to do them well. Additionally, Delonghi dehumidifiers' originate in Europe where they were designed to be ultra quiet in your general living areas. Delonghi dehumidifiers also use the new eco friendly refrigerant and operate down to 41 degrees. The only thing we would like to see added to these dehumidifiers is auto restart in case of power outages.


text:
Greg Brunkalla
Joey Turman, aka "Knucklehead", takes us on his journey as he defines himself and his lasting mark within the world of popular dance culture. As he pushes through his past to get to his future, we get a revealing glimpse into the life and mind behind the creation of the Toe Tappy.
Director: Greg Brunkalla
Client: Coca-Cola Zero
Production Company: Stink Digital
Agency: Ogilvy Paris
Creative Directors: Adam Kennedy + Brandon Rochon
Agency Producer: Caroline Petruccelli
Executive Producer: Mark Pytlik
Producer: Jim Czarnecki
DP: Jason McCormick
Post Facility: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Aaron Tompkins
Post Supervisor: Melanie Gagliano
Composer: Jason Binnick
featuring violin by Miriam Eicher
Steadicam: Cedric Martin
Gaffer: Manny Tapia
Key Grip: Danny Stephens
1st AC: Paul Metcalf
DIT: Tony Saldago
Audio Facility (LA): Pop Sound
Audio Engineer (LA): Erin Reilly
Audio Engineer (NYC): Charles Newman
Subjects: Joey Turman, Anna Turnman, Tight Eyez, Michelle Paz, Zarius, Travis, B -Dash, Roland, LeVarr, Joe Joe


text:
Otherwise known and Mint: 0 and Wild Rose: 4
The saga continues...
I've been fighting an ongoing battle in a large planter with a wild rose. Finally it got too big and last year I ripped it out. I had to remove all the soil from the planter to get all the roots.
In it's place I planted a spearmint plant which totally took over crowding everything else out. Well almost.
This year there is no sign of the mint and there are 4 wild roses coming in.
For now, I'll let them be.
The chives are still going strong and I planted some oregano.
There's room for a few more herbs (basil and something else). My mini rabbit is still hiding in the chives.
It will be interesting to see what develops in the planter this summer.


text:
ICICI CEO to get Rs 7 lakh per month as allowance
ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, has revised allowances paid to its executive directors, including that of its managing director and CEO Chanda Kochhar.
The board of the bank has decided to pay Rs 7 lakh (Rs 700,000) per month as allowance to managing director and CEO Chanda Kochhar from April 1, 2011, ICICI Bank said in a filing on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The present cash allowance, consisting of leave travel allowance, house rent allowance and medical reimbursement, has been clubbed into supplementary allowance, it said.
Click NEXT to read on . . .
Image: ICICI Bank managing director and CEO Chanda Kochhar.
Photographs: Reuters
ICICI CEO to get Rs 7 lakh per month as allowance
Besides, executive director and chief finance officer N S Kannan and other executive director K Ramkumar would get Rs 4.8 lakh (Rs 480,000) per month as supplementary allowance.
At the same time, Rajiv Sabharwal another executive director would get Rs 4.65 lakh (Rs 465,000) per month as allowance.
The existing allowance of these directors is not in public domain as the bank has not published annual report for 2010-11.
Click NEXT to read on . . .
Photographs: Reuters
ICICI CEO to get Rs 7 lakh per month as allowance
However, as per the 2009-10 annual report, Chanda Kochhar was entitled to allowances and perquisites of about Rs 4.49 lakh (Rs 449,000) per month, while N S Kannan and K Ramkumar were paid Rs 2.92 lakh (Rs 292,000) and Rs 3.95 lakh (Rs 395,000), respectively.
At the time of Kochhar's appointment, the board had said that she would be appointed as its CEO and MD from May 1, 2009 till March 31, 2014, with a salary in the range of Rs 7-13.5 lakh (Rs 700,000-1.35 million) per month.
During 2009-10, Kochhar's basic salary was Rs 94.5 lakh (Rs 9.45 million).
Photographs: Reuters


text:
Malaysia: Students
Visiting students or business or technical apprentices from Malaysia are exempt from United Kingdom tax on payments from Malaysia for the purposes of their maintenance, education or training, on certain grants and awards and, in certain circumstances, on their earnings in United Kingdom.
The exemption does not extend to the remuneration of an articled clerk or to remuneration for services rendered to the person to whom the business or technical apprentices are apprenticed.
There is a further exemption for visitors from Malaysia employed by or under contract with the Malaysian government or a Malaysian enterprise who are here in order to acquire technical, professional or business experience. Refer to Article 22 of the agreement for full details of the exemptions and limitations on the reliefs and see also the guidance in DT1930 - DT1931.
Any case of difficulty can be referred to Employment income, Technical


text:
Cape Abilities
SMS messaging – a low cost and time saving communication tool
simpleNmobile from Cape Abilities provides you with state of the art SMS tool to communicate effectively with your patients and colleagues and increase sales to your customers.
The tool is easy to use, inexpensive to apply and enables you to communicate from a wide range of digital, communication platforms (Outlook, Web, Notes, Mail, your own IT systems) via SMS texting.
As part of your Medicon Valley membership, you can now save 20% on a simpleNmobile solution customized to your specific needs and demands.
SMS MVA to 1299 for further information, and you will be contacted shortly after, or alternatively contact Frans Avlund at firstname.lastname@example.com
Department Manager, Internet, Mobile & Social Business at Semler Services A/S has the following comment regarding simpleNmobile:
"Semler Group A/S (importing Audi, SEAT, SKODA, Volkswagen) use simpleNmobile for the following purposes:
- Campaigns relating to customer information about new car models, company cars, changes of tires etc.
- Customers promotions relating to competitions, where the can "Win a car for a week" if they sign up for company information or deals.
- Advertising in order to remind customers, that they have an appointment to have their car serviced.
- Customer dialogue in relation to general promotions. To keep customers informed and get feedback on a regular basis.
Semler Group A/S has used simpelNmobile since 2004, and we are very satisfied with the tool and particular the customer service provided by Cape Abilities. The tool – simpleNmobile – enables us to launch and manage multiple promotions and marketing campaigns using very limited work force".


text:
Scripture: Mark 4:10-12
Jesus walked among us as the ultimate truth! What we do with Jesus determines the level of Kingdom authority that we project! Jesus gave us seeds of truth. The seeds have to be planted. Some seeds take a lifetime to grow. Mark 4:11-12 states, "And He said to them, 'To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that, "Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, And their sins be forgiven them."'" Jesus even taught in parables in order to prove the individual kind of soil His hearers possessed. Those who were diligent and applied the Word, heard and cultivated the seed. Those who acted on it after hearing it by removing the stones made sure that there was a crop coming out of the good soil that was in them. Those are the ones who inherit the Kingdom. The people who say "yes" to the standard of truth that Jesus brought by affirming both the Old Covenant and the New inherit the Kingdom. The others do not and they have a far hotter future than those who say "yes" and engraft the Word into their lives. Jesus said this whole pattern of how we respond to the truth of what we do with the word we hear is the secret of the Kingdom. Mark 4:24 in the Amplified Bible says, "The measure of thought and study you give to the truth you hear is the measure of virtue and knowledge that will come back to you and more besides will be given you."


text:
Who is InDaHood?
The newest marketing and web design agency in Winnipeg!
We offer a comprehensive list of services to help grow your business. Whether you're interested in developing a new website, or constructing a new marketing campaign, we listen, brainstorm, educate, create, and then implement an effective marketing strategy custom tailored to suit your specific needs.
We provide creative solutions designed to effectively communicate your personality and brand across all mediums.
We are a home based company located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Which means we are able to provide quality services at very competitive rates. InDaHood's web design and marketing team is also mobile, which means we come to you and are very flexible to work around your busy schedules.
Take marketing and web design serious!
We do, and we are here to help you.
What is InDaHood?
InDahood provides solutions for all your marketing needs.
These are just some of the services we provide for our customers.
- Web Design _ Development
- Flash Design _ Development
- Internet, Musician and Aboriginal Marketing
- Graphic Design
- e-commerce
- Branding
- Logo Design
- Domain name registration
- Search Engine Optimization
- Silk Screen Printing
- Marketing Training
Clients can contact InDaHood Designs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to inquire about our services and view our pricing structure. We'd love to hear from you.


text:
|Project by Jeff Tobert
|posted 03-16-2013 04:23 PM
|6428 views
|7 times favorited
|17 comments
A while ago, I made a dining room table for a couple out of solid walnut shown here: http://lumberjocks.com/projects/77787
These are the chairs that I made to go with the table. They are made of solid walnut, and again this couple was not interested in eliminating the walnut sap wood, so they look a little rustic. Fairly simple design, curved back leg, curved back slats, wooden seats with contours. The first two pictures are of the whole set in the couple's dining room. The next 4 sort of detail the process at different stages. Making 6 chairs is quite a production. Lots of operations to do and lots of parts to make at each operation. The most challenging aspect of these chairs was the contours on the seats. I used a Lee Valley pull shave and an angle grinder with a 40 grit flap wheel to do most of the roughing out most of the waste. It was a messy and time consuming process, but worth it.
Here are some additional pictures:
Feel free to critique, comment and give feedback.
-- All in or give in.
17 comments so far
#1 posted 03-16-2013 04:53 PM
Nice solid, functional table and chairs. The beauty of solid walnut is more than enough. As for other comments, your shop sure is clean !
-- Dwight - "Free legal advice available - contact Dewey, Cheetam & Howe""
#2 posted 03-16-2013 04:59 PM
Man that walnut looks great. Is that a difficult wood to work with?
-- Joining two of my passions, beer and woodworking, https://www.halfyankeeworkshop.com
#3 posted 03-16-2013 05:23 PM
I'll keep my comment simple…. IMPRESSIVE!!!! From the table to the chairs! Great Job!
-- "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
#4 posted 03-16-2013 05:28 PM
Great job I have done a couple of tables that I am very pleased with but I have never built a chair that I was happy with you seem to have it down pat. Sure would like your plans if you went by one.
-- A tube of calk and a gallon of paint will make a carpenter what he ain't
#5 posted 03-16-2013 05:34 PM
Wow! I love the walnut and all the curves you used. Thanks for including pictures of the process.
-- It's very common for people to separate things they do from the things they need. - Jogge Sundqvist
#6 posted 03-16-2013 06:01 PM
Very nice ,impressive work.
-- https://www.artisticwoodstudio.com/videos wood crafting & woodworking classes
#7 posted 03-16-2013 06:25 PM
+2 on sprucegum,they all look excellent.
-- Marty.Athens,AL
#8 posted 03-16-2013 08:38 PM
very nice looks like a lot of work
#9 posted 03-16-2013 10:47 PM
This is very impressive. Good job.
#10 posted 03-16-2013 11:45 PM
Wow! Very beautiful build. Walnut is sure a beautiful wood to work with.
-- Roger from KY. Work/Play/Travel Safe. Keep your dust collector fed. firstname.lastname@example.com
#11 posted 03-17-2013 12:13 AM
really good job – thanks for sharing
-- Greg Simon
#12 posted 03-17-2013 12:59 AM
Those chairs turned out just super. And a perfect complement to the way cool table!
-- " I'll try to be nicer, if you'll try to be smarter" gfadvm
#13 posted 03-17-2013 02:31 AM
Jerbone, Walnut is a great wood to work with. It machines, planes, sands, glues just beautifully.
-- All in or give in.
#14 posted 03-17-2013 02:35 AM
Sprucegum, I make my own plans based on what my clients want. I use Sketchup to model the project in 3D and produce scale diagrams.
-- All in or give in.
#15 posted 03-17-2013 03:22 AM
showing 1 through 15 of 17 comments
Have your say...
You must be signed in to post the comments.


text:
This is ideally carried out prior to top of descent along with approach briefing preparation. In addition to briefing the specifics for the go-around procedure, it's an opportunity to touch upon the level of automation being used for the approach and the task sharing thereof.This will help increase the crew awareness level with respect to the various automation modes being used.
It is also recommended by airbus as deemed practical to briefly recall the main key points of go-around and missed approach when on the final approach or after completing landing checks. Crew also shall be go-around minded all along the final approach phase and landing and avoid falling into the trap of being indecisive and not asserting to go-around.
Operators could further specify a set of conditions/situations wherein it could be recommended to crew to initiate a go-around as a policy to help crew take a step forward to be more assertive and decisive.
Do you know of your operator or others who have gone down this path??? Kindly comment below and let us know what you think of this.


text:
|Never Skip Leg Day
Leg Day.
It isn't for the faint of heart.
But Dude, you can't spend your whole week doing bench presses and bicep curls in the mirror. You'll turn into a Macy's parade baloon. The above picture may be photoshopped, I don't know, but I've seen this boy's kin folk all over town. The guys who only work the pretty muscles, the mirror muscles, the ones that show up in selfies. It's kind of sad.
Real lifters do legs. Hard. Brutally hard. And the results can be amazingly beautiful. Maybe you find her sexy, maybe you find her creepy, but I promise you, Oksana Grishina didn't get legs like that without working hard at it. She earned every cut and curve. And definition like this does not come cheap.
A body builder's legs may be awe inspiring, but they are not really ideal for a distance runner... and they are not really attainable for a 53 year old man without the genes, the training, or the little bag full of steroids that make them happen.
Pushing deep squats till you puke may feel macho, and it will make you strong as a bull, but it won't get you to mile 26 without a lot of pain, fatigue, and, to be honest, chafing. That much bulk just isn't built for distance.
Consequently, runners don't train their legs like that. Lifting gigantic weights with the biggest muscles in your body takes a lot of strength, and runners kind of need their strength... you know... for running. You aren't going to get much training value from road miles if you've left the best of your legs in the weight room.
Still... Dude... you gotta work legs. Not for bulk, and not for brute strength, but for muscular endurance. And just a little vanity. Cause, I gotta tell you,.. my biceps may resemble sausages hanging from the ceiling of a Brooklyn Heights Deli, but when the light hits them right, and you look from just the right angle, the Fat Man can have some badass looking gams. Hey, it isn't much, I admit, but you play the cards life deals you.
So here's how I'm doing Leg Day, now that racing season is upon us.
The organizing principle here is "Do More with Less." Low weight, high reps. My goal is to execute each rep with perfect form, through a full range of motion.
After a quarter mile on the treadmill and some prisoner squats facing the wall to get the juices flowing, I hit the rack.
Supersets, 3 x 10, 30 sec rest
Barbell Squats, Barbell Split Squats
3 x 10, 30 sec rest
Romanian Dead Lifts with Barbell
Machine Leg Curls
Machine Leg Extension
2 sets, 30 seconds each, 30 sec rest
Plank (side, front, side)
Bird Dog
Dead Bug
It's a quick workout, and left me feeling pumped but not burned, so I thought I'd get a little creative with a finisher. Usually I'll finish with some vigorous cardio on the rowing machine or a bike, but since I knew I'd be running with the kids at the Y in a couple hours, I decided to finish with 20 minutes of kettlebell swings.
Better make that 15.
It's been a long time since I rang the Bell, and I forgot two things: what an intense workout it is; and how badly out of shape I still am. The good news was, I didn't drop the weight through the studio floor, or slip and fling it through a mirror. But it's going to take me a while to work back up to those 30 minute swing fests I was enjoying out in the sunshine, back when I was in racing shape.
Finally, I spent about 15 minutes on some yoga and stretching, hoping to diminish some of the soreness I'm sure I'll be feeling around 3:30 this morning.
Oh yeah. Then I went for a 2 miler with a 10 year old girl who kicked my butt every step of the way. She pushed me as hard as I could go. But she never dropped me. That's right. I'm bragging. I am as tough as a 10-year old girl. Maybe you aren't impressed by that? Maybe you've never met a Kentucky girl.
All in all, a pretty good workout that burned an absurd amount of calories. Might even make up for the pizza I ate yesterday...
And, Dude... even if I do say so myself... The old legs do still look pretty good when the light is right...


text:
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Of or pertaining to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or its derivatives
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Genetic information is programmed like a chemical code in deoxyribonucleic acid, better known by its abbreviated name of DNA.
These genes are now known to be molecules of a substance called deoxyribonucleic acid and each of these molecules has a little code of information on it that permits it to manufacture duplicates of itself to be handed on for example, to one's children, and also to manufacture special molecules such as the molecules of proteins, in which each atom is put in its right place in this product molecule.
In other words, DNA is a molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid that gives life its biological instructions.
Most people know that the instructions for producing a living organism are encoded in the sequence of four bases (A, T, G and C) in a long molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
This genetic material, also known as DNA deoxyribonucleic acid, is found in the genes, which together form the chromosomes—small threads in the nucleus of the cell.
Today, the most common is deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA.
Most of the information given to her revolved around gene sequences of a complexity that dwarfed the deoxyribonucleic acid found in most known life-forms.
Talking heads making conclusions about the content of un-named "kids" deoxyribonucleic acid.
Wonk Room » Morning Joe: The Time To Build A Green Economy Is Now
'Descended from', does not mean you have identical deoxyribonucleic acid.
'Rent A Mob' Attack Police At BBC TV Centre « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG
So what if idiot Mr. Bonetto was insulted that I corrected his mispronunciation of deoxyribonucleic yesterday?


text:
- It is common, chronic, disfiguring, inflammatory and proliferative condition of the skin, in which both genetic and environmental influences have a critical role.
The most characteristic lesions consist of red, scaly, sharply demarcated, indurated plaques, present particularly over extensor surfaces and scalp.
Variable in duration, periodicity of flares and extent.
May start at any age but is unusual before the age of 5 yrs.
In China, psoriasis is estimated to affect 0.3% of the population.
Two patterns:-
HLA unrelated- late onset and usually mild.
HLA associated (particularly HLA-Cw6)- early onset and more likely to be severe.
- Genetic
Psorias has large familial component.
Twin studies shows ~80% heritability.
In monozygotic twins- 1/3rd of pairs will be concordant for Psoriasis.
Mode of inheritance is genetically complex.
Susceptible chromosomal area:- HLA region.
- Environmental risk factors
Interactions between genes and the environment are important in disease causation. Many environmental factors have been linked to psoriasis, and have been implicated in, for example, initiation of the disease process and exacerbation of pre-existing disease.
a) Trauma
Psoriasis at the site of an injury is well known (Koebner phenomenon). A wide range of injurious local stimuli, including physical, chemical, electrical, surgical, infective and inflammatory insults, has been recognized to elicit psoriatic lesions.
b) Infection
Acute guttate psoriasis is strongly associated with preceding or concurrent streptococcal infection, particularly of the throat.
Acute episodes of guttate psoriasis are much more common in individuals
with a family history of plaque psoriasis and one-third of cases of guttate psoriasis progress to the chronic plaque form.
Guttate and chronic plaque psoriasis share strong HLA associations, particularly with HLA-Cw6.
HIV infection has also been associated with psoriasis.
c) Drugs
There are many drugs reported to be responsible for the onset or
exacerbation of psoriasis. Important ones are lithium salts, antimalarials, beta-adrenergic blocking agents, non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and the withdrawal of corticosteroids.
Patients with unstable psoriasis should receive appropriate advice before travelling to countries where antimalarial prophylaxis is required.
d) Sunlight
In minority of patients, psoriasis may be provoked by strong sunlight
and cause summer exacerbations in exposed skin.
Severely photosensitive psoriasis is predominantly female and
strongly associated with HLA-Cw6, family history and very early
age of onset . Photochemotherapy (PUVA) can be helpful in
these patients.
e) Metabolic factors
The early onset of psoriasis in women, with a peak around puberty,
changes during pregnancy and provocation of psoriasis by highdose
oestrogen therapy indicates a role for hormonal factors.
f) Psychogenic factors:- Stress
g) Alcohol and smoking
Alcohol exacerbate pre-existing disease but does not induce psoriasis. M>F. Heavy drinkers have more extensive and inflamed disease.
Smoking also associated with Psoriasis.
h) HIV and acquired Immune deficiency syndrome
Psoriasis, psoriatic arthropathy and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection are well associated.
The prognosis of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in patients with psoriasis is poor.
a) Keratinocytes hyperproliferation.
Grossly increased mitotic index.
Abnormal pattern of differentiation which involves the retention of nuclei in the stratum corneum.
b) Large inflammatory cell infiltrate comprising polymorphs, T cells and other inflammatory cells.
- Common sites:knees, elbows, and scalp
-Gross: well demarcated erythematousplaques with a silveryscale
- Auspitz sign: removal of scale results in pinpoint bleeding
- Nail beds show pitting and discoloration
- Dilated, tortuous papillary blood vessels almost touch the undersurface of the thinning epidermis and are surrounded by a mixed mononuclear and neutrophil infiltrate, as well as extravasated erythrocytes
- Epidermal hyperplasia
- Patchy hyperkeratinization with parakeratosis
- Uniform elongation and thickening of the rete ridges
- Thinning of the epidermis over the dermal papillae
- Munro microabscesses formation
- Stable plaque psoriasis:
Most common type.
Individual lesions: few mm to several cms in diameter which are red, dry, silvery white scale.
Common sites: Elbow, knee and lower back.
Other sites:
Scalp- It is commomly involved.
Lesion in the scalp shows well-demarcated easily palpable areas but occasionly shows diffuse, fine scaling making it difficult to distinguish from seborrhoeic dermatitis.
Subungal hyperkeratosis
Are not scaly but it is red, shiny and symmetrical.
e.g psoriasis found in submammary and axillary folds.
It is poorly demarcated and doesn't look erythaematous so difficult to recognise.
Guttate psoriasis:
This describes the presence of small lesions, appearing generally over the body, particularly in children and young adults, and after acute streptococcal infections.
In the early stages, there may be little scaling. The lesions are from 2 or 3 mm to 1 cm in diameter, round or slightly oval. They are scattered more or less evenly over the body, particularly on the trunk and proximal part of the limbs, rarely on the soles, not infrequently on the face, ears and scalp.
Guttate lesions are normally profuse, and in the early stages the colour is not specific.
The diagnosis is made chiefly on the nature of the scaling, the general distribution and evidence for preceding infection.
Erythrodermic psoriasis:
Skin becomes red or scaly; or occasionly red with little scale.
In some case case of erythoderma, hypo- or hyperthermia may develop d/t problem in temperature regulation.
Pustular psoriasis:
2 forms
Sudden onset with numerous small sterile pustules erupting on a red base.
Pt may rapidly deteriorate with pyrexia coinciding with appearance of new pustules.
2) Localised form
More common.
Affects pamls and soles.
Chronic eruption which comprises small sterile pustules on a red base and which resolve leaving brown macules or scaling.
Pustular psoriasis
Onset: 25-40 yrs
Chronic RF negative inflammatory arthropathy.
In pt with current or previous psoriasis
5 main clinical subtypes:
symmetrical polyarthritis
asymmetrical oligoarthritis (large joint)
severe mutilans
Explanation, reassurance and instructions.
Topical: - good for single isolated lesions
Tar - based preparations
Vitamin D-analogues
Steroids (rebound)
Dithranol (inhibits mitochondrial DNA)
UV and PUVA therapy:
For mild to moderate Psoriasis (UVB)
- PUVA = Psoralen + UV light
For chronic plaque Psoriasis
- Useful for multiple lesions, erythrodermic psoriasis, pustular psoriasis
- methotrexate (hepatic fibrosis, cirrhosis + myelosuppression)
- cyclosporin (hypertension, renal impairment, immunosuppression)
- retinoids (good for pustular psoriasis)


text:
Today, my HT got to the bottom of the list and started overwriting stations, so it is time for me to post my results as recorded in my HT with only a rubber duck (14 inch one) listening on MIR 145.985 for about 4 days. List is oldest to newest. Last pass was 2041 EDT Monday 7 June 99. I will record for one more day... STATION ICON POSIT RANGE COMMENT -------- -------- ------ ------ ---- ----------------- N1NFC lost EM90?? 644mi lost WD9GVU-2 lost lost lost lost W4DJV House FM18ds 60mi west lost WD8LAQ-9 car FM18ow 15mi west listening 146.835 WB4NLD Kenwood EM61?? 804mi SW lost VE3FTA-7 Jeep lost lost lost KC8JDS-3 Tangle EN80QA 326mi West THD7A NP3C-7 Runner FM18SX 14mi SE HI! firstname.lastname@example.com K9GD-15 Kenwood EN52VA 640mi W QRP 5wts Chicago VA3SD-7 Truck FN04GN 402mi N Chuck mobile in Ont. KO4UU-7 Kenwood FM09PP 117mi west Cumb MD K9GD-7 CAR EN52VA 640mi W Mobile via MIR N6QAB-7 Runner FM18TI 56mi S Kevin at Pax Riv MD KC5DHE House EM13ob 1202mi west Tom in Plano, TX N8UR-7 Runner EM79WP 405mi west firstname.lastname@example.com AJ4Y-7 Runner WL97bw 829mi s Paul's D7 WB4APR House FM19qd 0mi e Bob's QTH KB8RWA none none KB8RWA/R RWA/D KA2BQE-7 Kenwood FN34nm 418mi NE firstname.lastname@example.com W4GV Dish EM7oef 802mi SE W4GV EM70ef BayCom KU4GY-7 Runner EL95TP 955mi S EL95 G3ZFJ-7 Runner FN30kr 216mi NE firstname.lastname@example.com WB4APR-9 Van FM18qx 13mi S Just commuting WB0WNX-5 Kenwood EN12TM 1063mi W none KS4XQ Dish EM84QS 448mi SW Wes in Easley, SC W1GTT-3 Runner FN31VJ 278mi NE Bill VE3XF-2 Runner EN94wk 406mi NW firstname.lastname@example.com KE9NA-1 Jeep EN51vt 640mi west JON IN HIS JEEP! W8XF-7 Pickup EM98ei 276mi west none N1QPR-7 Sailboat FN41IL 321mi NW firstname.lastname@example.com FN42 W3ADO-7 Tent FM18sx 13mi SE Hi! fm BOB K4EVH-7 Car FM18ix 38mi west THD7A KD4HTW House FM04ae 391mi SE APRS KD4HTW MAILBOX VE3KBL-7 Runner EO91qg 860mi N D7 WB8TDG-9 Runner EM79xs 400mi west RexBEAVERCREEK443675 N2NWZ-7 Runner FN30bx 193mi NW Anthony Yonkers NY N3UYI-7 Runner FM19qq 38mi N FM19qq THD7 N1QAG House FN34tx 457mi NE N.Troy VT. KC7ZRU-2 Dish DN71eh 1540mi west email@example.com -WYA KS4XN-14 Jeep EL89tq 731mi SW none KD5HAD Jeep EN63bb 648mi NW firstname.lastname@example.com N4ZQ Cloud EL88oa 845mi SW Keith from delightfu W4TWE-1 Kenwood EM84QS 448mi SW Tommy's D7 N4WYK-7 Runner EM95HR 352mi SW email@example.com KR4YL-7 Runner EL87ov 854mi SW D7A PAUL firstname.lastname@example.com WA4SSP-7 Boat EM95ml 349mi SW firstname.lastname@example.com Notice the last pass was to the South West. This is 46 stations, all with the Kenwood except for about 5 or so. Of course, the THD7 does not capture any non-APRS packets, so many more UI frame communicators may have been on also. de WB4APR, Bob ---- Via the sarex mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe sarex" to firstname.lastname@example.com
AMSAT Home


text:
The first nightstand I ever built was in carpentry school. Our class shared the shop with the cabinetmaking program, and working in that space really got me thinking about the direction I wanted my woodworking to go. When I built this version, I thought back on the past decade and all the nightstands I've built. Many of the lessons I've learned since those years in school are reflected in this design.
One lesson I've learned is about how I treat the back of furniture. I think it should look as nice as the front, even if only to extend the usefulness of the piece. (One person's nightstand is another's end table.) The purpose of a nightstand is to hold things such as a lamp, an alarm clock, books and a glass of water, so the piece should accommodate those sorts of things. And when it comes to design, less is often more. That's why an understated approach with simple lines like this one will match almost any bed.
Get started by dimensioning your rough stock if you didn't buy it pre-planed. I started with rough 8/4 stock for the legs (two inches thick), then jointed two adjoining faces flat and square. Rip the wood to width on your tablesaw and plane it to a final thickness of 1 5/8".
Next comes work with some rough 4/4 stock (one inch actual thickness). Lay out your boards and use a lumber crayon to mark oversized sections for the rails, drawer parts and panels. Mark around knots and defects, and think in terms of multiple pieces. The idea is to break long boards into manageable chunks that can be jointed and planed to final thickness. Rough-cut these pieces now, leaving an extra two inches at each end to allow for planer snipe and other defects. Plane the top, front rails and top drawer guides to 7/8". The remainder of the stock needs to be planed to 3/4"-thick for the door rails and drawer parts.
Rip all pieces to width now, then cut to length. It's especially important to cut the ends of the rails exactly square, since the tenon-cutting technique I recommend relies on this to give you square shoulders.
Mark locations for the front rails on the front legs, and cut mortises into the left and right inside faces. There are many ways to do this, and I usually opt for a plunge router technique. Clamp two legs into your bench vise, extending past the vise so the router fence is unimpeded. The leg closest to you becomes the guide for the fence while also creating a greater bearing surface for the router to slide on. The leg behind gets the mortise first. Fit your router with a 1/4" up-cutting spiral bit to remove the waste, then square the mortises with a chisel when you're done. Repeat the process to cut mortises in the neighbouring leg.
Like mortises, tenons can be cut in many ways. After marking tenon locations in pencil, I like to remove the bulk of the waste with a bandsaw, then finish up with a table-mounted router fitted with a straight bit. Orient the rails end down, with a square piece of plywood against the fence behind the rail, to boost safety and control.
The back rails and legs now need a 1/4" x 5/16"-deep grooves to receive stub tenons as well as the plywood panels. This can be done with a dado blade in the tablesaw or a router spinning a 1/4" straight bit. Centre the groove in the rails in the 3/4" stock. The grooves in the legs should stop three inches short of the bottom.
When you have the stiles and rails cut, assemble these parts without glue and measure for the size of veneered plywood panels you need to fit within them. Test-fit again with everything in place, then put these parts aside for now.
Next comes the drawer. Cut the required parts, including the solid pine drawer front. You can put a drawer together in countless ways; I chose something unusual. The drawer front joins to the sides with one large, half-blind dovetail at each corner. The drawer back fits into dado grooves set 1 5/16" from the back edge of the drawer. This keeps the drawer from tipping forward when fully open.
You can cut the big dovetails with a handsaw and chisel, or devise a simple router jig, as I did. This allows a dovetail bit to do the bulk of material removal, followed by some handwork with a chisel to square up the corners.
The drawer guides are made from hardwood. Glue together a 1/2" x 3/4" piece and a 1/4" x 1" side piece to form two L-shaped runners. Both get screwed or nailed to the inside of the legs. Also, two pieces of 7/8" x 3 1/4" x 11 1/8" pine need to be biscuited to the top front and back rails, slightly above the drawer opening. These parts have two jobs: they help prevent the drawer from tipping forward when fully opened, and they act as an anchor point to secure the top of the nightstand.
The door is as simple as frame-and-panel construction gets, with a solid wood frame surrounding a pine-veneered plywood panel. If you prefer not to prepare mortises and tenons at the corners, a pair of double #20 biscuits work perfectly on a door of this size. While you're making door parts, chisel out pockets to accept the butt hinges the door will swing on.
The bottom of the cabinet is made from solid pine, notched around the legs and attached to the front and back rails with biscuits. That said, the floor panel is only glued at the front rail, to allow for seasonal expansion and contraction. Just to be safe, make the floor panel with a 1/8" gap at the back, in case the wood expands during humid weather. Prepare the top now (with a chamfered edge all along the bottom edge), then get ready for assembly.
Dry-fit everything for a final test without glue. When it looks good, take the project apart, complete one more final sanding with #220-grit paper, then stop. You have a decision to make. It's always easiest to stain a project like this before the parts go together with glue. On the other hand, this also means you have to mask off joint areas that won't hold together strongly with glue if they aren't bare and dry. Regardless of whether you stain before or after assembly, final sealing comes last. My choice was easy since my nightstand was built to accompany the bed Jerry Weber made, so I just asked for his recipe and didn't lose any sleep over my choice.
|Size (T x W x L*)
|7/8" x 15" x 18"
|1 5/8" x 1 5/8" x 22 5/8"
|Side rails
|3/4" x 2" x 10 3/8"
|Front rails
|7/8" x 1 3/16" x 14"
|Back rails
|3/4" x 2" x 13 3/8"
|Door stiles
|3/4" x 2" x 12 1/4"
|Door rails
|3/4" x 2" x 9 3/8"
|Drawer front
|3/4" x 3 15/16" x 12 11/16"
|Drawer sides
|3/4" x 3 15/16" x 12 11/16"
|Drawer back
|3/4" x 3 9/16" x 11 7/8"
|Drawer guides
|1/2" x 3/4" x 11 3/8"
|drawer guide sides
|1/4" x 1" x 9 1/2"
|Top drawer guides
|7/8" x 3 1/4" x 11 1/8"
|Side panels
|pine plywood
|1/4" x 10 3/8 x 16 1/4"
|Back panel
|pine plywood
|1/4" x 13 5/16" x 16 1/4"
|Door panel
|pine plywood
|1/4" x 9 5/6" x 8 3/8"
|Drawer bottom
|pine plywood
|1/4" x 11 5/8" x 11 5/8"
|3/4" x 11 1/4" x 14 1/2"
|1" dia.
* Length indicates grain direction
Jan. 9, 2013
3:05 pm
I'm in the process of building this and the front dimensions don't add up. I'm 7/16" off. Guess I'll trim the door stiles. LOL
To leave a comment, please log in
You Might Also Like:


text:
Hi I am Stuart Selbst. This is my blog to where I can share my thoughts about life, business and just about anything I want to discuss.
A little about me professionally:
I attended the University of California at Los Angeles and hold multiple technical, engineering and security certifications. In 2013, I completed the initial level of Six Sigma certification, a proven strategy for process improvement. Can you believe that I have over 25 years of experience in IT? I have worked in large corporate enterprise IT departments. In 2002 I started, built and later sold my Managed Services business. During my tenure owning my MSP, I focused on technical business operations, network design, security and compliance. After selling my MSP in 2007, I began coaching and consulting with MSPs and many other technology businesses globally, that was Stuart Selbst Consulting.
I have been honored to be named to the MSP Mentor Top 250 Most Influential Industry Executives from 2009-2012, SMB Nation's SMB Top 150 from 2011- 2013 and served on the Channel Partners Advisory Board in 2012-14. I am asked to speak and offer my thoughts for many IT Channel associations and events.
I have now come full circle back into the Managed Service business as President / COO of Madison, WI based Infratactix.
My personal life is simple. I live in Mesa, AZ with his wife Loree and their 2 cats Cliff and Chloe. I enjoy riding my Harley Davidson Tri-Glide "Ruby", golfing, cooking (especially BBQ) and taking trips with Loree and seeing what the next great adventure will be.


text:
This is simply my blog where I post whatever I want. Most of the time that means illustrations I've made and stuff that's going on in my life.
Right now I'm posting daily stuff such as what I'm having for lunch/dinner, what my nails look like, what my drinks look like etc. on Instagram, there I am known as hanney. If you don't have instagram but are interested in that part of my life you can also subscribe to my flickr-stream, where all my instagrams are uploaded as well.
So who am I?
My name is Hannah and I am a creative young woman who loves advertising, clothes, shoes, drinks, most of my friends, the summer, internet, youtube, guys (yes I'm single and open for suggestions) and lots of other stuff. I am born and raised in Stockholm but right now I live in Gothenburg, spending my days as a designer at CP+B. How I spend my night varies a lot, from rockstar-ish to nerdy svennebanan-life (but you will never, ever, find me watching the eurovision songcontest or the finals of idol).
Safest way to get in touch:
and also:
This is a personal blog and statements here are my personal beliefs and opinions and are not reflective of my place of employment, the people I hang out with or my family.


text:
In the Kingdom of the Lonely GodBy: Rev. Robert Griffin (author), Michael Garvey (foreword_author)Hardback
Up to 2 WeeksUsually despatched within 2 weeks
DescriptionThis is a book of spiritual insights by the legendary Father Robert Griffin, culled from his experience as Chaplain at the University of Notre Dame and his summer ministry to the homeless in Greenwich Village. Known as 'the apostle of unanswered questions,' Father Griffin counseled, advised, and listened to students, the wounded, the afflicted, and the lonely. He never gave pat answers. In a writing style that captivates with its almost poetic insight and lustre, Griffin writes about life's toughest troubles and offers encouragement for fortitude, compassion, grace, and peace. In the Kingdom of the Lonely God provides genuine insights into the human condition. Father Griffin's faith shines on the questions we all wrestle with, but all too often leave unanswered. This book addresses the deepest issues we must face in life and it provides wisdom that, like a compass, points the way for those seeking hope.
About AuthorThe late Father Robert Griffin, C.S.C., spent 25 years as University Chaplain at the University of Notre Dame, where he ministered to students across campus and across generations. He spent his summers in Greenwich Village, N.Y., ministering to the homeless. He died in 1999 at the age of 74.
ContentsChapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Preface Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 The Presiding Christian Chapter 5 Urchins' Mass Chapter 6 A Prayer for Mending
Product Details
- publication date: 05/06/2003
- Format: Hardback
- Number Of Pages: 112
- weight: 227
Delivery Information
- Saver Delivery: Yes
- 1st Class Delivery: Yes
- Courier Delivery: Yes
- Store Delivery: Yes


text:
Saturday, March 18, 2006
blog, what blog!
Ok so I have totally forgot about my good intentions to post. But in my defense we did just move 2000 miles across the US. So the adventure continues. Missouri is beautiful. Our nearest neighbor is 3 1/2 miles away in one direction and 1 1/2 miles in the other direction.( really its a church :) ) So are still surrounded by boxes almost 2 months later. All the other times we have moved we have been unpacked a couple of days later. Not this time. This time we had 10 people and all of their stuff to pack and move. The office is in serious need of storage. This is where the majority of the boxes are. I thin to get them out of our way we will just store them in the basement for now. The other boxes, well they are my clothes. The master closet is tiny and Lance has hogged the whole thing. So as soon as the heating and air guy is done in the basement we have storage racks for my out of season stuff. Now comes the fun part. Remodeling. But that is for another day.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
I decided to join in too
Well I figure I might as well join in the whole blog thing. If anything it will be a great way to record the adventures of raising 8 children for posterity. Yes, I have 8 children. They are 12 and under. Ok my oldest will be 13 this year, but not yet ;) Everyday is an adventure. Enjoy the journey.


text:
This will help thousands of PhD holders affected by the new UGC guideline of 2009 which made NET and PhD a minimum eligibility criteria for applying for the post of assistant professor
The UGC will be granting certain relaxations to PhD holders registered before 2009. This move will provide relief to the many candidates applying for teaching jobs in universities across India. The UGC has decided to request the HRD Ministry to issue a notification in this regard after an examination of the matter at the full commission meeting on Monday. The relaxation will help in recognizing the PhDs on par with those done after 2009. PhD holders were affected by the new UGC guideline in 2009, which had made NET and PhD a minimum eligibility criteria for applying for assistant professor in colleges and universities.
The UGC had asked for the relaxation last year in May but the HRD ministry did not follow up on the proposal according to a commission member. The relaxation will give Ph.D holders registered before 2009 priority while offering jobs. Procedures like course work, external assessment and entrance test to recognise a Ph.D have been laid down in the guidelines.


text:
Terrorist Kasab's letter given to Pak High Commission
The letter, written by Ajmal Mohd Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist involved in the Mumbai strikes, was handed over to Pakistan's Acting High Commissioner Afrasiab after he was summoned by T C A Raghavan, Joint Secretary (Pakistan), External Affairs Ministry, Government of India
In his letter, addressed to the Pakistan High Commission, Kasab has stated that he and the other terrorists, killed in the attack, were from Pakistan. He has sought a meeting with the Pakistan High Commission officials for legal aid to him.
In the letter, Ajmal has asked the Pakistan High Commission to take custody of the body of fellow terrorist Ismail Khan, who was killed in an encounter in south Mumbai the same night.
This action assumes significance in the wake of Pakistan's denial that Pakistanis were not involved in the Mumbai attack.


text:
Important information!
Having operated the Village Day Camp™ since 1972, we regret to inform you that the camp will not run during the Summer of 2018.
If you planned to send your child to the Village Day Camp™ in 2018, we can only offer our sincere apologies.
You might like to consider one of our residential programmes in Leysin?
With over 46 years experience of working with young people, Village Camps provides a fun, caring and secure environment that guarantees the perfect first experience away from home for ages 7 to 9.
From our own centre in Leysin, Village Camps runs 14 specialist residential programmes, catering for children in the 10-18 age-range and offering a diverse choice of fun-packed outdoor adventures, sports, robotics and studies.
Please contact our office in Nyon where our dedicated camp advisors are waiting to take your call. They will be happy to answer your questions, and advise you on the camps available, dates, and prices.


text:
2012 hype or fact?
2012 is almost upon us. You hear, read, and watch all kind of media concerning this upcoming event. Reminds me of when the year 2000 came upon us and everyone was freaking out about the havoc it would ruin! Y2K came and went without even a whisper.
2012 is a little different. Of course Hollywood has made it seem much more dramatic and biblical in the way the subject was treated. The ancient peoples of this world have all described in their written texts of this coming age. The Mayans with their celestial calendar, knowledge of astronomy and building of stone temples that even today perplex our scientists!
The Mayans calculations of our solar system and galaxy are off by hundredths of a degree compared to our own computerized and high tech calculations! How could such ancient peoples have knowledge to the same information as we? They didn't even own a telescope or computer.or did they have help? I'm more for the "help" aspect.
The ancient Egyptians, Incans and Mayans, with their building of the pyramids and their knowledge of astronomy have raised many questions throughout the century. World renowned engineers and master stone masons have measured and tried to duplicate the massive cutting and placement of the stones that the Mayans, Incans and Egyptians used to build their pyramids and temples. Only recently, has a world renowned engineer who specializes in the building of ancient structures, discovered a deep saw cut into hard granite on the Giza plateau in Egypt. This type of cut, thousands of years old, can only be done by a mechanized tool, a massive circular saw used to cut the huge blocks of stone that make up the pyramids. These saws, he theorizes, were placed on the plateau, two of them, where Egyptologists think that ships were held instead. With the technology of the ancient peoples, their tools could not have cut precisely those massive blocks. Even the lifting and transport are practically impossible and time consuming. Ancient hieroglyphics have been found of workers following behind massive blocks of stone, not pulling or pushing as the stones seemed to levitate a few inches of the ground, similar to a hovercraft. The same engineer has measured the stones placement in the pyramid with engineering tools; find the precisions of the placed stones so precise, even today we can hardly duplicate their perfection!
Same situation with the Incan temple at Machu Pichu in the Andean mountains of Peru. The Incan texts describe the building of their temples by "softening" the stones as they were put into place. Engineers and master stone masons have studied the large stones to find that they actually seem "melted" into place, forming perfect sealing joints!! The heat to create the softening of the stone has to be so immense, how did they do it and with what? There are also structures with complicate "boxes" cut into the stone in intricate patterns that only a CNC machining tool can do. A master stone cutter has studied and tried to duplicate the stonework, even with our computerized stone cutting machines today, it is almost impossible to obtain the same perfection that the Incans did with their stonework. I don't think their simple tools could do that.
There are places in the world where massive stones have been cut, moved and placed. Coming from hundreds of miles away to a different location. There is a place in the Middle East where the largest cut piece of stone that has ever been cut and shaped lies. There is no known crane or cranes or modern machinery that can even lift this thousand ton plus piece of rock. If we can't do it, there was a technology that could.
Many scientists theorize that our ancient peoples had help from and extraterrestrial civilization, who taught the ancient peoples how to understand and use the technology, yet when they left, they took their technology with them. The ancient peoples carved their knowledge into the stone, an eternal record for the people today to use, understand and one day accomplish similar feats. I feel personally that 2012 will be an awakening for those who are open to it, to shift our energies and move into the dimension of those who came here thousands of years ago. It is the end of our era as we know it, the pain, suffering, war, intolerance for a new era of love, peace and acceptance of all that is. Those who fear it the most will most likely not move forward. Sometimes I have flashes of us living in harmony with beings from another world (I dream this often), but the technology we had is gone, replaced by a purer technology that exists through our thoughts, pure, non polluting, in harmony with nature.
© 2010 K D Martel
Dec 21st 2012..... a new beginning. Well done hub with some good facts and pics. We don't have long to wait now... Big hug sent via vibes - hope you get it. :-)
What started out as an interesting read and good hub, ended in disappointment with a bunch of UFO hogwash.
fantastic beautiful hub work sorry have been sick thanks much


text:
Security Compliance: OSSEC for PCI DSS v3.2
OSSEC for PCI DSS GuideTake a lookCheck this list that describes how OSSEC helps with the specific requirements for PCI DSS compliance.
Get in compliance
WAZUH implements best-of-breed technical solutions to help companies comply with PCI DSS security controls. It uses a custom IDS ruleset (both for OSSEC and Snort) to detect attacks that could compromise credit card-related data. As well, WAZUH implements best of breed File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) and log management systems.
Ensuring that you are compliant with PCI DSS avoids costly security breaches that can include 100% of responsibility for cardholder losses, brand fines and forensic investigations expenses.
Security controls overview
|Security Control
|Build and Maintain a Secure Network and Systems
|Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data
Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters
|IDS + Vulnerability Scanner
Policy Enforcement
|Protect Cardholder Data
|Protect stored cardholder data
Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks
|SIEM + Vulnerability Scanner
|Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program
|Protect all systems against malware and regularly update anti-virus software or programs
Develop and maintain secure systems and applications
|Antivirus + HIDS
Policy Enforcement + Vulnerability Scanner
|Implement Strong Access Control Measures
|Restrict access to cardholder data by business need to know
Identify and authenticate access to system components
Restrict physical access to cardholder data
|File Integrity Monitoring
Policy Enforcement
SIEM + Log Management
|Regularly Monitor and Test Networks
|Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
Regularly test security systems and processes
|File Integrity Monitoring + Log Management
Vulnerability Scanner
|Maintain an Information Security Policy
|Maintain a policy that addresses information security for all personnel
|Policy Enforcement
PCI DSS use case: OSSEC HIDS
Using OSSEC HIDS to become PCI DSS compliant
Some other interesting perks of using OSSEC HIDS are:
- Integrates well with other solutions like SIEMs or Log Management systems.
- Highly customizable, easy to add or modify functionality.
- Can be deployed using software management systems like Chef, Puppet or CFEngine.
As well, OSSEC is easy to deploy in cloud environments (e.g. Amazon AWS) and virtualization platforms. It is a great complement to other security technologies such as Antivirus or NIDS systems, helping detect attacks that otherwise would have been not noticed.
OSSEC helps with the following PCI DSS 3.0 requirements
- 6.4 Follow change control processes and procedures for all changes to system components.
- 10.5 Secure audit trails so they cannot be altered. Use file-integrity monitoring or change-detection software on logs to ensure that existing log data cannot be changed without generating alerts.
- 10.6 Review logs and security events for all system components to identify anomalies or suspicious activity.
- 11.4 Use intrusion-detection and/or intrusion-prevention techniques to detect and/or prevent intrusions into the network.
- 11.5 Deploy a change-detection mechanism (for example, file-integrity monitoring tools) to alert personnel to unauthorized modification of critical system files, configuration files, or content files; and configure the software to perform critical file comparisons at least weekly.
- 12.10 Implement an incident response plan. Be prepared to respond immediately to a system breach.


text:
The Fun Guys would love to hear from you. If you have a suggestion for the website, an idea for the station, you want to send a song request or just to say "Hi", this is the place to do that. Please complete the form on this page. Please select the Fun Guy's name from the drop-down list and complete the rest of the details in the form. When your message is sent, you should receive an email acknowledging this.
Thank you for contacting Mushroom FM!


text:
Be careful what you wish for.
Ever since the first Superman film directed by Richard Donner and iconically acted by Christopher Reeve came out in 1978, people–especially hardcore comic book fans–have yearned for a "proper" Superman movie. Not to say that all previous films about the guy in the blue and red suit were total failures;the two Donner films (one uncredited), in particular, are still loved by many. But Superman's story is mighty ambitious and epic in scale even by comic book standards. And so while the live-action movies and TV series throughout the years got some of the story's basics right, fans have still been left longing for more–more of the sci-fi that makes Krypton Krypton, more of the godly strength of Kryptonians, more of the thrill of flying when a man really denies the laws of physics, more of the mythos of Superman. Man of Steel, the latest reboot of the Superman hollywood franchise, aimed to do just that.
So why is it getting mixed reviews? Why does Superman Returns–a film sorely lacking in spectacle in comparison and so campy as to be mistaken from the '90s–have a higher score on Rotten Tomatoes? Why the flak from more serious publications when most geeky sites, especially IGN, are praising the film as one of the finest superhero movies ever?
I set out to propose an argument. Continue reading


text:
Chiang Mai University International College Scanned Documents Guidelines
When submitting an application online or providing documents electronically, please follow the guidelines below to upload scanned documents.
• Documents must be scanned from the original documents in colour.
• Documents must be scanned with a flatbed scanner.
• Digital photographs and scans from smartphone applications will not be accepted.
• Scans from a photocopied, faxed and / or previously certified true document will not be accepted.
• Scans that are cropped, tilted or incomplete will not be accepted.
• Documents must be scanned at the original size. If the document is larger than A4 then the document should be scanned in A4 sized portions without size reduction.
• If a document has more than one page, all pages must be scanned, please ensure that you provide the complete set of the statements. Incomplete documents will not be accepted.
• If any document has markings or text on both sides of the document e.g. a registration number on the back page, both sides must be scanned.
• Scanned Documents are only accepted in the following formats: .jpg .jpeg .pdf
Documents that are not saved in the above file types will not be accepted.
• The resolution of the scans must enable the text; in particular fine or small size text, punctuation, and decimal points to be legible.
• File size of any single document should not exceed 1 MB.
• Scans must be named to reflect the type of document e.g. An Academic Transcript scanned in .pdf format should be named as "Youname_transcript.pdf"; a Passport scanned in .jpg format should be named as "Yourname_passport.jpg".


text:
It's one week till Christmas and I have just started to bake cookies. Mostly to give away as presents. Our family is in Europe and the US so it's only four of us to cook and bake for at Christmas. For us I usually make summer pudding.
This year I made soft gingerbread cookies as edible ornaments and we've put some on the Christmas tree. Let see how long they'll last there :-). I was looking for this type of gingerbread for a while and found the recipe in Richard Bertinet's book "Crust". These cookies are softer and thicker than traditional gingerbread. Typically, they are baked in continental Europe – this recipe is of Czech origin.
Soft Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
- 425g plain flour
- 100g icing sugar
- 125g softened butter
- 100g honey
- 1 large egg (55g shelled weight)
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon mixed spices
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- pinch of salt
Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with a pinch of salt
- Prepare the egg wash one hour before you'll glaze the cookies so the foam settles.
- Put flour, icing sugar, bicarb soda, spices and salt into a bowl and mix well. Add wet ingredients and knead into soft dough. Cover and let it rest at room temperature for about 15-20 minutes.
- Tip the dough onto a floured surface and roll out 5 mil thick. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes.
- Glaze the cookies with the egg wash prepared earlier and let them dry. Then repeat the glazing once again. It's important to leave the cookies to dry between glazing as it produces shinier look. On the top picture I've glazed rounds twice, but other shapes once thickly to save on time. The round cookies look nicer and shinier!
- If using cookies as edible tree ornaments or gift tags, make a hole with a skewer or piping tip (see photo).
- Once dry after second glazing, decorate the cookies by dragging lines across using fork or skewer. You can also use dry fruit or nuts to decorate gingerbread.
- Bake cookies on greased and floured baking trays for about 18 minutes in moderately hot oven (160 C)
- Cool on a wire rack before storing or threading ribbon.
Wishing you a happy Festive Season and a prosperous New Year 2012!


text:
E.ON Climate & Renewables surpasses 2.5 GW milestone
Three projects, 292 turbines, 500 MW completed in 2012
Jan 09, 2013, 11:00 ET
CHICAGO, Jan. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- E.ON Climate & Renewables (EC&R) North America announced today it has more than 2,700 megawatts (MW) of nameplate capacity in operation across its 18 wind farms located in 5 states.
The company completed construction on three projects in Texas and Indiana in 2012, totaling approximately 500 MW:
--Magic Valley Wind Farm, located approximately 5 miles east of Raymondville, Texas, and the first wind energy project in Willacy County, is powered by 112 Vestas 1.8 MW turbines providing more than 200 MW of power. Magic Valley Wind Farm began commercial operation in September.
--Anacacho Wind Farm, located in Kinney County, Texas, is located approximately 14 miles southeast of Brackettville and consists of 55 Vestas 1.8 MW turbines providing 100 MW of power. Anacacho Wind Farm began commercial operation in December.
--Wildcat I Wind Farm, located in Tipton and Madison counties, is EC&R's first wind energy project in Indiana. One hundred twenty-five GE 1.6 MW turbines provide more than 200 MW of power. Wildcat Wind Farm began commercial operation in December.
Combined these three projects generate enough clean power to provide electricity to more than 150,000 households.
"We could not have accomplished this milestone without a great deal of support from our construction and turbine supply partners, as well as our landowners and local officials who have been very supportive over the last few years," said Steve Trenholm, CEO, EC&R North America. "Their help, along with our outstanding EC&R team, has allowed us to install more than 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of clean, affordable, homegrown energy in just over five years."
About EC&R
E.ON Climate & Renewables (EC&R) is responsible for the E.ON group's large-scale renewable energy activities around the world. Tapping renewable energy sources offers enormous alternatives, both from a business perspective and for the environment. E.ON Climate & Renewables has already invested €8 billion in renewable energy projects and will continue to expand the share of renewable energy in E.ON's power generation portfolio. E.ON has thus taken a leading role in developing renewable energy sources worldwide. For more information, please visit www.eon.com/renewables.
Matt Tulis, Communications Manager, EC&R North America
512.423.1840 email@example.com
SOURCE E.ON Climate & Renewables


text:
"Greg was very professional and patiently answered all my questions. He was able to replace my water heater on short notice and took great care to keep the work area as clean as possible. Although not the cheapest, Greg provides overall value in his services, definitely recommend." -- Tinton Falls, NJ Read More
© 2010 All Rights Reserved - Sitemap
FS Plumbing Heating and General Contracting
205 Hwy 9 North, Suite 23
Freehold, New Jersey 07728
Phone: 732.409.6734
Home Improvement Contractor, 13VH00674900, 03-31-2016; NJ
Plumbing Contractor 36B101253200 06-30-2015; NJ
Plumbing Repairs - Drain Cleaning | Water Heaters | Vanguard Water Systems
Indoor Air Quality - Humidifiers | Air Cleaners
Refund Policy - All Sales Final, No Refunds.
Monmouth County Plumbers -
Ocean County Plumbers - Middlesex County Plumber


text:
How To Sell Inherited Vintage Furniture?
Q: Hi! My husband and I recently inherited several vintage furniture pieces, periods ranging from the 1900s to mid 60s furniture. We cannot keep all of it, but we are not sure about how to sell it.
Do you recommend having it appraised at an antique dealer? Are there any online resources for pricing antiques? What is the best way to sell antique furniture? Some of the pieces include a 1900s "nanny bed", a post-civil war piano, a player piano, as well as several bedroom furniture pieces and antique glass lamps. I'd really appreciate your help!
Sent by Gaby
Editor: Leave your suggestions for Gaby in the comments - thanks!
• Got a question? Email yours with pic attachments here (those with pics get answered first)


text:
Last week, I talked about the under-loved Little White Dress. But this week, I found a new all-white look that changed the game the second I saw it. In general, I love jumpsuits – they're simply impossibly chic. When a woman walks into a room wearing a jumpsuit, she looks nothing short of confident, mature, and playful all at once.
This white jumpsuit is perfect for making a statement this summer. When you've grown tired of reaching for the same sundress or summertime blouse to put on for an event, a look like this is the perfect departure. Wear it on an extra special date night, to a party, or a summer soiree.
This jumpsuit is so stunning, you'll be a vision in white not matter how you decide to wear it.
Jumpsuit: Shopbop | Heels: Similar & Similar | Handbag: Chloe (similar) | Sunglasses: Karen Walker c/o | Watch: Larsson & Jennings | Bracelet: Similar
Photos: Beckley & Co


text:
March 2016: Funding ran out
Entry posted by slayemin ·
3282 views
Well, I've officially run out of money. (long pause for reflection)
This seems to be a common struggle and problem with indie game developers, and I'm not any different... Do I blame myself? Who else and what else is there to blame other than myself? Of course it's my fault.
I had about $500,000 at my high point. Today, I have no more than $1,200. What happened? Well, about five years ago (has it been that long?!) I went to Afghanistan as a military contractor working for the US Army as a senior software developer at the headquarters. I was initially paid $61,000 per year to work for General Dynamics as a junior field technician, but my project manager knew I was a developer so he sent me out to fill a much needed gap. I worked for GD in Afghanistan for about six months. One of my co workers worked for another contracting company called "Trace Systems". He was paid very well and his manager worked in the building and came by every week to check up on him and make sure he was well taken care of. My manager on the other hand, had no idea who I was or what I was doing. I never, ever heard from him. My initial contract was going to be six months and I had no intention of staying there, but the officers liked my work and saw my value, so they wanted to keep me on staff if possible. I told them I'd stay on for a year if I can get paid better. So, they made it happen. I quit General Dynamics and switched to Trace Systems, who paid me $240,000 per year to work in Afghanistan. For that kind of money, I can do that for another year. Afghanistan sucks. The mountains are brown, the air is dirty, the ground is brown, there are very few trees, it's just brown dirt and rocks everywhere you look. And the sky is filled with brown smog. I lived in a plywood shack with a quarter inch of wood between myself and the elements. We got shot at by rockets and mortars. The closest one landed no more than 200 feet away from me one night. You're never safe. My day to day life was pretty much, eat, sleep, work. I worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day. I oversaw three unit rotations. Winters were freezing, summers were roasting hot.
Towards the end of my 18 months, I was very burned out. I was tired of it all and became pretty useless. Even though my contract said I had to work 12 hours a day, I effectively only got about 2 hours of work done at best because I was so spent. It depressed me. I honestly wanted to keep working hard and pushing myself to fulfill my contractual obligations, but I felt like I was at the end of a marathon and I was trying to sprint for another mile. Nothing but a long break would fix that. It was time to go home. The whole time though, I was taking all of the money I earned and I put it into an investment account. I invested ALL of my money into Tesla Motors when they were at $55 / share. A few weeks later, they jumped to $92/share and I had made a couple hundred thousand dollars for doing nothing. I thought to myself, "Why do I work so hard to make a few thousand dollars a month when I can invest and make a couple hundred thousand?". Well, it turns out that I just got lucky with that particular stock pick. I invested all of my money into a solar power company and saw myself losing and gaining tens of thousands of dollars. It became an obsession to track the stock ticker symbols and read the news about these companies to try to figure out why the stock price went up or down.
My intention was to leave Afghanistan with $200,000 in the bank which I could use to fund my game development company. Instead, I left with about $350,000. That was a stroke of luck. I continued investing when I got home, and gradually raised my capital up to $550,000 at the highest point. I believed that, based off of the money my stocks were earning, I could afford to hire an artist to work for me. I was generous with his pay because I could afford to be. The plan was going to be to continue growing my financial portfolio and use a portion of the proceeds to pay my artist. Some days, I'd make a couple thousand dollars and think to myself, "Well, I just raised the money to pay his wages for a month." Ideally, that would have been great if it worked that way forever. However, all it takes is for one or two bad stock picks to demolish your savings. That happened. I invested in Fannie Mae, thinking they'd bottomed out at around $3.50/share. They went all the way up to $6/share and then crashed to around $2/share. I lost over a hundred thousand dollars in one day. Damn. But I can make that back, right?
The expenses of running a business with zero income will eventually drain all of your money. Every month, I had to spend about $8,000 to keep things running. My artists monthly wages were in the range of $4,000 per month. My office rent is $800 per month. My own apartment rent is about $2,000 per month. Then I've got bills, food, insurance, and a few other costs. I also spent money on computer hardware and computer software. I wanted to do everything right and legally, so I paid for all the software we use. Zero piracy. Everything is licensed. Zero risk of lawsuits in that regard. So, my stock portfolio would go up and down over the years, but it trended downward more often than it trended upward. I realize now that my investment strategy was very shitty and I should have invested in an index fund. On top of that, my investment portfolio had to give up $8,000 per month in order to keep my business afloat. Some days, I would see a months worth of savings evaporate. Those were bad days and I experienced a spike of adrenaline as my anxiety rose. Doubts became more frequent. What if I can't make it? My business focus was to keep my burn rate as low as possible and make my money last as long as possible. I saw my business as another investment vehicle. Unlike with stocks, where the value goes up or down at random, I myself can directly control the value of my business. That, combined with my belief in myself and my abilities as a developer, make it a pretty good investment, right? Maybe.
At about the $175,000 mark, I started looking for other investors who would be interested in sponsoring our game company. That turned out to be a huge waste of time and money because nobody was interested in investing. Nobody gives a shit about us or what we're doing. Investing in a game company is like playing roulette. No wallets opened up. I would spend several days creating and refining a pitch, practicing it, and looking at our financials. Most of it is just speculative bullshit, as with any other start up company trying to raise funds. Why would anyone believe in us? Or in me? It's not enough that I believe in it or have put all of my own money into it. Generally, nobody touches game companies. I kind of gave up on investors. But that's okay, right? I don't know, maybe I'm just an idiot. Maybe I should have spent 80% of my effort trying to court stingy investors instead of trying to build our product? One thing I have kind of learned though is that investors don't want to hear the cold hard truth. I have a really hard time lying or sugar coating things. I think everyone has a right to know the truth, whatever it is, so that they can react the best way they can.
Anyways, I initially worked on a real time strategy game where you controlled a wizard who could cast spells on a battle field. Think of Total War meets Magic the Gathering. I think the concept is great, and with a lot of work, it could be really fun. I had planned to build the game in XNA using my own game engine. A month after I returned from Afghanistan, I began working on my own game engine. I poured about 12 months of effort into it. It was HARD. But I got a rough 3D engine working with moving troops, AI, spells, and a decent user interface system. My software engineer instincts were throwing up red flags all over the place though. The biggest one was saying, "You're a victim of the 'not invented here' syndrome." and "You can never ship with this." and "Want a new feature? That's gonna cost a month of engine development time! That's $8,000. Is it worth it if you can't ship it?". Yes folks, I spent 12 months on this. I'll be the first to officially say that I'm an idiot and I should have realized my mistake a lot faster. Eventually, I was convinced by the following argument: You are ONE man. No matter how talented you are as a programmer, you will NEVER create an engine which is anywhere near the quality of the existing engines. They've got engineering teams with dozens, if not hundreds of talented engineers putting in effort to build the underlying infrastructure for making games. Stop reinventing the wheel unnecessarily and use an engine. Any engine is better than your own -- it makes sense from a business perspective. Divorce your baby and do the right thing. So I did. I picked up Unreal Engine 4. At the time, using it costed $20/month. That is SO cheap compared to spending $8,000 / month in operations costs creating my shitty XNA engine, which should never be shipped. At this point, I had about $275,000 in the bank, so not all was lost.
A little over a year ago, Virtual Reality started becoming a thing. I went to a UE4 meetup and I tried out an Oculus DK2 for the first time. I played an early version of "Technolust", where you just walk around a spaceship room with an android who is constantly looking at you. I did this in the back of a noisy bar, but once I put on the headphones and head set, I almost forgot I was still in a bar. My critical side looked at the experience and art assets. Undoubtedly, it was pretty well done. But I thought I could do WAY better, if I tried. I decided to think about it long and hard before diving in. I don't necessarily want to just abandon a project I'd been working on and spending money on for over a year simply because something new and shiny comes out. I wasn't keen on repeating my mistake with the game engines again. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but Facebook bought out Oculus for $2 billion. The hardware was workable. A big company just made a big bet on it. The hardware and experience was transformational. It changes things. I decided that I would just buy an Oculus DK2 for myself and try it out and see for myself whether it's worth developing anything for. I mean, it only costs $450. Compared to my monthly expenses of $8,000, that's a drop in the bucket, so why not? I figured that if VR is going to be done right, it also needs to use hands. I had learned about the Leap Motion device when I was in Afghanistan. I put in a request to get the early developer kit version sent out to me out there, but that was totally ignored. I was a nobody (still am). But, VR done properly needs hands, so I bought a leap motion to go with my VR headset. I'd figure out how to make it work, no matter what it takes. If I can build my own fucking engine from scratch, surely I can figure out how to make hands work. In comparison, it should be trivial.
So, the DK2 came in March 2015. I hooked it up. I tried out some demos over the week. They were all mostly "meh...not impressed". Someone posted online that they spent a weekend making a VR game using leap motion, where you can throw fireballs at barrels, and it was the most fun they ever had.. That intrigued me. I couldn't find it anywhere online. I figured that I'd spend a weekend and build my own. No problem, right? And hey, throwing fireballs at barrels is kinda interesting, but also would get boring kinda fast. What if... there was something that moved towards you slowly and you had to destroy it with the fireball before it got to you? It would create a bit more tension and keep things interesting, right? And what creature behaves like this? A zombie! So I bought a zombie asset from the UE4 online asset store and created my fireball throwing game in a weekend. It was pretty cool! I showed it to my artist, and he was disappointed that I didn't include him in it. I wanted to ship it, but it was rough. I decided that I could afford to spend a week polishing the game and then shipping it, and I could include my artist to make it look pretty. But... the game needed more work. More than a weeks worth of work. Maybe two weeks? Maybe three at most? We could afford to waste a few weeks on a fun side project, right? And if we released it, we'd kinda be more important. Well, that was the initial plan anyways. Enter, feature creep!
We were looking at a month. Then it turned to three months. The game progressively got better and better. We borrowed a lot of assets from our other game. We went to a VR meetup group here in Seattle put on my "Chronos VR", and gave our first public demo. The game play worked, but it was still shitty. It needed more work. But seeing the player responses to a working VR game which I hatched out of my own imagination was super encouraging. People fucking loved it. But I could do better. So, we put in another three months worth of work into the game. Then PAX came to Seattle. I really wanted to have a booth at PAX to show our indie game to people, but alas, I missed the deadline to submit a build in May (I was in Las Vegas with my girlfriend visiting her family). But hey, we're like... three blocks away from the PAX convention center, and right across the street from Benaroya hall, so why not put a bunch of sandwich boards on the sidewalks to advertise our game to PAX players walking by? VR was becoming HOT, and people were willing to stand in line for hours to try it out, so I imagined we'd have a line out the door too. Well, that was a very wrong assumption to make. I had built three sandwich boards out of plywood and created a bunch of laminated posters to glue onto the wood. The total cost was $300 for three signs, and quotes from professional sign builders were double that. I also pulled in my girlfriend to help with the logistics and marketing of all this. She is really good at sales. She can sell ice to an eskimo. She stood out on the street and pulled people to come up to our office. When she was working, she'd bring in about 10-15 people at a time. When she stopped, we'd get about 1-2 per hour. Obviously, the sandwich boards failed to do their job. Nobody gives a shit about what is written on a sandwich board. They just ignore it and walk right by. Interesting. Over the course of the weekend, we had 150 people try out our latest build of the game. It was still kind of shitty by my standards, but the response was great and showed me a lot of problem areas I needed to focus on and improve. Watching people play your game is the best user feedback you can get. I wrote a bunch of stuff down and spent another few months refining and improving the game. Money is getting more tight. We were getting below $100,000 in savings now. It's time to either shit or get off the pot. Ship this damned game or fail.
As you know, we're still not ready to ship and we're broke.
A few months ago, we ran a steam greenlight campaign for our game. We were greenlit in ten days. While a big part of that is due to the novelty of being a VR game, the rest of the appeal was from the game concept itself and our high production values. We accelerated through the ranks and hit #31. We were on track to hit rank 15. That was a very encouraging indicator of our chances in the market, once we released. Still, no funding. Valve was kind enough to finally send us an HTC Vive Pre for free. The moment it came, I hooked it up and started developing support for it. Room scale support is an entirely new can of worms to develop for. There are problems I faced in design and concept I've never had to deal with before. Like, measuring the height of the player suddenly becomes game play relevant. Figuring out how to prevent players from physically walking through obstacles in VR was tough, but I got it. Then there's the whole locomotion problem. If your world is large and expansive, but the play space is the size of a living room, how do players move around in a large open world by walking around in their living room? Without teleporting! I solved that too. If I can write a game engine from scratch, solving these problems shouldn't be any harder. Still, nobody cares. The proof is in the pudding. You can talk about this stuff till you're blue in the face, but what really, really matters is shipping a product. Show, don't tell.
Adding room scale support and solving these really tough problems has caused us to take a few steps back in order to take a step forward. Why support the Vive? Why not just launch for the Oculus and add Vive support later? I wonder that myself, but really... the answer is simple: because hurling fireballs from behind your back in a room scale environment is fucking cool. And if the VR market is going to be 50% Vive and 50% Rift, then we would want to support both. Why turn away potential sales? Well, that has also costed me about a month ($8,000). The game doesn't work yet. Now I have no money. Damn.
This week I had to have a hard conversation with my artist. I told him I'm broke and it would be hard for me to pay him going forward, but that I'd make every effort to pay him for his work. How? My dear gracious girlfriend is going to be helping with the finances. She is bending over backwards to raise money to fund our development by going to fairs around the pacific northwest and selling hair products. We're also watching a half dozen dogs in my apartment every day (piss, shit, barking, everywhere... ugh). And we co-operate a ranch bed and breakfast which barely breaks even. We also moved in together to cut costs by sharing them. She tells me she's not going to let me give up on my dream simply because I ran out of money. That's a fixable problem, right?
Currently, as it stands now, the game still needs about 3-5 months of development work. Maybe more? It's impossible to accurately predict these things. We have to finish this thing and ship it. If we sell it for $25 per unit, we need to sell 61,150 units to break even. That seems like an impossible number to reach. We've recently come up with a long term plan for the game as well. I decided that our "game" is more of a story telling platform and that there would be many different stories being told on it. Each story is released as a series of three chapters, and we release one chapter at a time. The proceeds from sales would fund the production of the next chapter. And each series is sold separately. $25 for first game, maybe $15 per additional story? or maybe a bundle deal? Each of the stories would be very different, but seen from the vantage point of a different character. And they would be intertwined. VR is beyond just a head set, beyond just adding hands and input, beyond just telling a single story, it is a way to experience first hand, the amazing stories and lives of interesting characters. This is part of our vision for the future of VR -- we just have to shut up and finish building it. Right now, nothing is more important than shipping a quality product I'd be proud to put my name to. We'll get there.
I had a bit of mentorship from another CEO a while back. He told me that I should expect to "waste" 50% of my funds. It's not avoidable and it doesn't mean I'm a bad manager of money, it happens to everyone starting a company. You waste money going down dead ends in order to find out that they're dead ends. I didn't really believe him, though looking back now I admit that he was right. We spent a lot of time and money finding our way to the final product we're going to ship. In that process, I built a game engine from scratch. Mistake. I invested money I now realize I couldn't afford to lose. Mistake? I started building a game, which we then abandoned. Failure. Now we're finally building the product which we believe will work. There will be more mistakes and failures in the future. But that's okay. These are all a part of the required process to move forward.
Anyways, just because I ran out of money doesn't mean the adventure is over yet. The show must go on! Once we ship and start making sales, I'm going to be very wary about growing. You don't want to outgrow your earnings, no matter how financially safe you think you feel. I need to learn how to make our business financially self sustaining. We have to survive before we can thrive.
I know its a long shot, but if you know any rich saudi prince who wants to invest or sponsor us, let me know.