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We'll drink to that
Dave Barry hereby calls his beer summit to order, in which he serves up the best, worst, and even worse of 2009.
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It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of "I feel hopeful!" and later in the sense of "I hope this year ends soon!" It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result, Washington, rejecting "business as usual," finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.
To be sure, 2009 was a year that saw plenty of bad news. But in almost every instance, there was offsetting good news.
Bad news: The economy remained critically weak, with rising unemployment, a severely depressed real estate market, the near-collapse of the domestic automobile industry, and the steep decline of the dollar.
Good news: Windows 7 sucked less than Vista.
Bad news: The downward spiral of the newspaper industry continued, resulting in the firings of thousands of experienced reporters and an apparently permanent deterioration in the quality of American journalism.
Good news: A lot more people were tweeting.
Bad news: Ominous problems loomed abroad as -- among other difficulties -- the Afghanistan war went sour and Iran threatened to plunge the Middle East and beyond into nuclear war.
Good news: They finally got Roman Polanski.
In short, it was a year that we will be happy to put behind us. But before we do, let's swallow our anti-nausea medication and take one last look back, starting with . . .
. . . during which history is made in Washington, D.C., where a crowd estimated by the Congressional Estimating Office at 217 billion people gathers to watch Barack Obama be inaugurated as the first American president ever to come after George W. Bush. There is a minor glitch in the ceremony when Chief Justice John Roberts, attempting to administer the oath of office, becomes confused and instead reads the side-effect warnings for his decongestant pills, causing the new president to swear that he will consult his physician if he experiences a sudden loss of sensation in his feet. President Obama then delivers an upbeat inaugural address, ushering in a new era of cooperation, civility, and bipartisanship in a galaxy far, far away. Here on Earth everything stays pretty much the same.
The No. 1 item on the agenda is fixing the economy, so the new administration immediately sets about the daunting task of trying to nominate somebody -- anybody -- to a high-level government post who actually remembered to pay his or her taxes. Among those who forgot this pesky chore is Obama's nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who sheepishly admits that he failed to pay $35,000 in federal self-employment taxes. He says that the error was a result of his using TurboTax, which he also blames for his involvement in an eight-state spree of bank robberies. He is confirmed after the Obama administration explains that it inherited the US Tax Code from the Bush administration.
Elsewhere in politics, a team of specially trained wildlife agents equipped with nets and tranquilizer darts manages, after a six-hour struggle, to remove Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich from office. He is transported to an undisclosed swamp, where he is released into the wild and quickly bonds with the native ferret population.
On a more upbeat note, the nation finds a new hero in
In entertainment news, an unemployed California mother of six uses in vitro fertilization to give birth to eight more children, an achievement that immediately catapults her to a celebrity status equivalent to that of a minor Kardashian sister. But even this joyous event is not enough to cheer up a nation worried about the worsening economy, which becomes so bad in . . .
. . . that Congress passes, without reading it, and without actually finishing writing it, a stimulus package totaling $787 billion. The money is immediately turned over to American taxpayers so they can use it to stimulate the economy.
No! What a crazy idea that would be! The money is to be doled out over the next decade or so by members of Congress for projects deemed vital by members of Congress, such as constructing buildings that will be named after members of Congress.
Despite this heroic effort, the economy continues to stumble. General Motors, which has sold only one car in the past year -- a Buick LaCrosse mistakenly purchased by an 87-year-old man who thought he was buying a power scooter -- announces a new four-part business plan, consisting of 1) dealership closings, 2) factory shutdowns, 3) worker layoffs, and 4) traveling backward through time to 1955.
The stock market hits its lowest level since 1997; this is hailed as a great investment opportunity by all the financial wizards who failed to let us know last year that the market was going to tank. California goes bankrupt and is forced to raise $800 million by pawning Angelina Jolie.
The Obama administration's confirmation woes continue as Tom Daschle is forced to withdraw as nominee for secretary of health and human services following the disclosure that he, too, failed to pay all of his federal taxes. He blames this oversight on the fact that his tax returns were prepared by Treasury Secretary Geithner.
In sports, the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl, defeating some team in a game that we have all completely forgotten. Michael Phelps is suspended from competitive swimming following publication of a photograph clearly showing that he has gills. Baseball star Alex Rodriguez admits that from 2001 through 2003 he used steroids, which he claims he got from Treasury Secretary Geithner.
And speaking of shocking disclosures, in . . .
. . . an angry nation learns that the giant insurance company AIG, which received $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts and posted a $61 billion loss, is paying executive bonuses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. This news shocks and outrages President Obama and members of Congress, who happen to be the very people who passed the legislation that authorized both the bailouts and the bonuses, but of course they did that during a crisis and thus had no time to find out what the hell they were voting for. To correct this situation, some congresspersons propose a 90 percent tax on the bonuses, followed by beheadings, followed by the passage of tough new financial legislation that nobody in Congress will read or understand.
In other economic news, the CEO of GM resigns under pressure from the White House, which notes that it inherited the automobile crisis from the Bush administration. GM is now essentially a subsidiary of the federal government, which promises to use its legendary business and marketing savvy to get the crippled auto giant back on its feet, starting with an exciting new lineup of cars such as the Chevrolet Consensus, a "green" car featuring a compressed-soybean chassis, the world's first engine powered entirely by dew, and a 14,500-page owner's manual, accompanied by nearly 6,000 pages of amendments.
Businessman Bernard Madoff pleads guilty to bilking investors out of $65 billion in a Ponzi scheme, forcing the Obama administration to withdraw his nomination for secretary of commerce.
In entertainment news, former NFL great Lawrence Taylor, appearing on Dancing With the Stars, accidentally rips off his partner's arms during the cha-cha competition. The judges award Taylor 453 points out of a possible 30, citing his "energy" and "proximity."
Abroad, North Korea, in what many observers view as a deliberate act of provocation, calls Domino's and, posing as the United States, orders 23 million pizzas delivered to Japan.
International problems continue to dominate in . . .
. . . as leaders of the world's powers, looking for a way out of the worsening world economic crisis, gather in London for the G-20 summit, which ends abruptly in a violent argument over the bill for the welcoming dinner. A short while later, in what many economists see as a troubling development, the International Monetary Fund moves into a refrigerator carton.
In other international bad news, North Korea launches a test missile that experts say is capable of hitting Hawaii, based on the fact that it actually hits Hawaii. The United States swiftly pledges to issue a strongly worded condemnation containing "even stronger words than last time."
On the domestic front, the struggling Chrysler Corp. declares bankruptcy, but its CEO confidently predicts that the company will come back "bigger, better, and stronger than ever" thanks to its 2010 product line, spearheaded by the all-new Dodge Despair.
The big health story in April is the rapid spread of swine flu, a dangerous new virus strain developed by the makers of Purell. Public anxiety over the flu increases when Vice President Joe Biden, demonstrating his gift for emitting statements, declares on the Today show that he would not recommend traveling by commercial airplane or subway. A short while later, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs assures reporters that he is "not aware of any 'Vice President Joe Biden.' "
On a more positive note, an American ship captain is dramatically rescued from Somali pirates by a team of Navy SEAL sharpshooters, who are immediately hired by Dancing With the Stars to assist with the judging of Lawrence Taylor.
Speaking of drama, in . . .
. . . the finale of American Idol produces a shocking outcome that sends shock waves of shock reverberating around the planet when the winner turns out to be -- incredibly -- that guy singer, whatshisname, despite the fact that the overwhelming favorite was that other guy singer. Congress vows to hold hearings after reports surface that, of the nearly 100 million votes, 73 million were phoned in by ACORN.
But the big political drama takes place in Washington, where David Souter announces that he is retiring from the Supreme Court because he is tired of getting noogies from Chief Justice Roberts. To replace Souter, President Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor, setting off the traditional Washington performance of Konfirmation Kabuki, in which the Democrats portray the nominee as basically a cross between Abraham Lincoln and the Virgin Mary, and the Republicans portray her more as Ursula the Sea Witch with a law degree. Sotomayor will eventually be confirmed, but only after undergoing the traditional Senate Judiciary Committee hazing ritual, during which she must talk for four straight days without expressing an opinion.
In crippled US auto giant news, General Motors announces a new business plan under which it will fire everybody but Howie Long, who will continue to make what GM calls "some of the most popular commercials on the market." Meanwhile, Chrysler, looking to the future, invests $114 million in an Amway distributorship.
On the international-tension front, a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss possible sanctions against North Korea is forced to adjourn hastily when the council chamber is penetrated by a missile.
In sports, Helio Castroneves wins the Indianapolis 500, although his victory is somewhat tainted by the fact that all 32 of the other cars were hijacked by Somali pirates. Major League Baseball suspends Dodger slugger Manny Ramirez for 50 games after his urine sample explodes.
But all of these stories suddenly seem unimportant in . . .
. . . when pop superstar Michael Jackson dies, setting off an orgy of frowny-face TV-newsperson fake somberness the likes of which has not been seen since the Princess Diana Grief-a-Palooza. At one point experts estimate that the major networks are using the word "icon" a combined total of 850 times per hour. Larry King devotes several weeks to in-depth coverage of this story, during which he conducts what is believed to be the first-ever in-casket interview; this triumph is marred only slightly by the fact that the venerable TV personality apparently believes he is talking to Bette Midler.
In political news, the Minnesota Supreme Court, clearly exhausted by months of legal wrangling, declares Al Franken the winner of American Idol. Meanwhile, the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, goes missing for six days; his spokesperson tells the press that the governor is "hiking the Appalachian Trail," which turns out to be a slang term meaning "engaging in acts of an explicitly non-gubernatorial nature with a woman in Argentina." The state Legislature ultimately considers impeaching Sanford, but changes its mind upon discovering that the lieutenant governor, who got into office through some slick legal maneuvering when nobody was paying attention, is Eliot Spitzer.
Political news continues to dominate in . . .
. . . when Sarah Palin unexpectedly announces that she will not complete her term as elected governor of Alaska, explaining, in a prepared statement, that she has a hair appointment. Asked by reporters if she plans to seek the Republican presidential nomination, she replies, "You leave my personal life out of this."
On Independence Day, the nation takes a break from its worries to celebrate in traditional fashion with barbecues, parades, and -- as night falls -- spectacular aerial North Korean missile detonations.
In government news, top Washington thinkers, looking for a way to goose the economy along, come up with the "Cash for Clunkers" program, under which the federal government provides a financial inducement for people to take functional cars, which are mostly American-made, to car dealers, who deliberately destroy these cars and sell the people new replacement cars, which are mostly foreign-made. This program, which was budgeted for $1 billion, ends up costing $3 billion and is halted after a month. The administration declares that it has been a huge success, which everybody understands to mean that it will never, ever be repeated. With this mission accomplished, the top Washington thinkers are free to train all of their brainpower on the nation's health care system.
President Obama becomes embroiled in controversy when, commenting on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, he states that the police "acted stupidly." This comment angers many in the law-enforcement community, as the president discovers the next day when his motorcade is cited for more than 3,000 moving violations. To resolve the situation, the president invites both Gates and Crowley to the White House for a "beer summit," which is described later by White House press secretary Gibbs as "very amicable" except for some "minor Tasering."
Speaking of conflict, in . . .
. . . President Obama, in the first serious test of his presidency, announces that he will send US troops to rescue Democratic members of Congress pinned down in town hall meetings by constituents firing hostile questions concerning the administration's health care plan, which turns out not to be wildly popular outside of the immediate Capitol Hill area. The president dismisses concerns that his health care agenda is in trouble, observing that "there's something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up." White House press secretary Gibbs explains that the "vast majority" of the wee-wee was inherited from the Bush administration.
In foreign affairs, former president Bill Clinton goes to North Korea to secure the release of two detained American journalists who purely by coincidence happen to be women.
California, in a move apparently intended to evade creditors, has its name legally changed to "South Oregon."
In an alarming technological development, hackers shut down Twitter, leaving a desperate and suddenly vulnerable America with no way to find out what the Kardashian sisters are having for lunch. The Federal Emergency Management Administration urges the nation to "remain calm" and "use Facebook if you can." Twitter service is eventually restored, but most of the estimated 875 million thoughts that went untweeted during the outage will never be recovered, making it the nation's worst social-networking disaster ever.
Speaking of disruptions, in . . .
. . . President Obama, talking about health care before a joint session of Congress, is rudely interrupted by Kanye West, who grabs the microphone and declares that Beyonce has a better health care plan. No, wait, sorry: The president is rudely interrupted by Republican congressman Joe Wilson, who shouts "You lie!" Wilson later apologizes for his breach of congressional etiquette, saying, "I should have just mooned him."
With public support for the administration's health care plan continuing to slip, the president orders US troops into Fox News, then goes on a media blitz, appearing, in a three-day span, on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Meet the Nation, Face the Press, Press Your Face Against the Nation, Letterman, Leno, Judge Judy, Iron Chef, and Dog the Bounty Hunter.
The president also delivers a back-to-school speech to the nation's students, telling them to work hard and get a good education. Fortunately, thanks to the vigilance of the talk-radio community, many parents realize that this is some kind of secret socialist code message and are able to prevent their children from being exposed to it.
In international news, Iran shocks the world by revealing the existence of a previously secret uranium enrichment facility. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists that the uranium will be used only for "parties." UN nuclear inspectors note, however, that "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" can be rearranged to spell "Had Jammed a Humanoid" and "Hounded a Jihad Mamma."
On the international finance front, leaders of the world's economic powers gather for the G-20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh, where, in a rare display of unity, they vote unanimously to fire whoever is responsible for selecting their meeting sites.
Speaking of questionable site selection, in . . .
. . . the International Olympic Committee meets in Copenhagen to choose whether Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, or Madrid will host the 2016 summer games. Chicago is considered a strong candidate, but despite personal appeals for the city from President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Richard Daley, Oprah Winfrey, and the late Al Capone, the committee -- in an unexpected decision -- votes to hold the games in Pyongyang, North Korea. The head of the IOC insists that the decision was "made freely and without coercion," adding, "For the love of God, please abort the launch."
On a happier note for the White House, President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, narrowly edging out Beyonce.
In the Middle East, hopes for peace soar when Iran announces that it will allow UN inspectors to visit its nuclear enrichment facility. Hopes plunge soon after when the inspectors report that they were taken to what appears to be a hastily abandoned kebab stand with a hand-painted sign that says NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT, as well as what the inspectors describe as "numerous health code violations."
On the celebrity front, a remorseful David Letterman confesses to his stunned audience that he has been hiking the Appalachian Trail with female staff members.
But the big story in October, the story that grips the nation the way a dog grips a rancid squirrel, is the mesmerizing drama of a silver balloon racing through the blue skies above central Colorado, desperately pursued by police, aviation, and rescue personnel who have been led to believe that the balloon contains O.J. Simpson. No, that would have been great, but the authorities in fact have been led to believe that the balloon contains 6-year-old Falcon Heene, the son of exactly the kind of parents you would expect to name a child "Falcon." It quickly becomes clear that the boy is not in the balloon and that the whole thing is a hoax perpetrated by attention-seeking reality-show-wannabe idiots. In other words, nothing really happened, so naturally the media go into a weeklong Category 5 frenzy so intensive that Larry King is forced to temporarily interrupt his ongoing postmortem coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral.
Speaking of attention-seeking reality-show-wannabe idiots, in . . .
. . . a Washington couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, penetrate heavy security and enter the White House, a feat that Joe Biden has yet to manage. As details of the incident emerge, an embarrassed Secret Service is forced to admit that not only did the couple crash a state dinner, but they also had met and shaken hands with the president, and they "may have served briefly in the Cabinet."
In other White House news, the president, in a much-debated post-Thanksgiving decision, announces that he is sending US troops into the electronics departments of 1,400
In sports, the New York Yankees, after an eight-year drought, purchase the World Series. But the month's big sports story involves Tiger Woods, who, plagued by tabloid reports that he has been hiking the Appalachian Trail with a nightclub hostess, is injured in a bizarre late-night incident near his Florida home when his SUV is attacked by golf-club-wielding Somali pirates.
In science news:
The Large Hadron Collider is restarted after a 14-month delay caused by squirrels stealing the particles.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard announce that they have sequenced the genome of a horse. They are arrested when police discover that "sequencing the genome" is the scientific slang equivalent of "hiking the Appalachian Trail."
Speaking of troubling, in . . .
. . . President Obama, after weeks of pondering what to do about the pesky war situation he inherited, announces a decision -- widely viewed as a compromise -- in which he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, but will name their mission Operation Gentle Butterfly.
On the economic front, the nation's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high as it becomes clear that the $787 billion stimulus package has created a total of only eight jobs, all in the field of highway construction flagperson. Looking for solutions, the president hosts a White House "jobs summit" attended by political, business, and labor leaders, as well as 23 Portuguese tourists who got lost while trying to visit the Washington Monument and somehow penetrated White House security.
Meanwhile, in what is believed to be the largest Craigslist transaction ever, California sells San Diego to Mexico.
On the environmental front, Copenhagen hosts a massive international conference aimed at halting man-made global warming and attended by thousands of delegates who fly to Denmark on magical carbon-free unicorns.
In the Middle East, UN nuclear inspectors become suspicious when Iran attempts to ship to Israel, via UPS, a large crate labeled HARMLESS ITEMS -- DELIVER BEFORE TIMER REACHES 00:00.
There are other troubling year-end developments:
The International Space Station is taken over by Somali pirates.
In sports, roughly 40 percent of the US bimbo population announces that it has at one time or another hiked the Appalachian Trail with Tiger Woods.
Also, as the year draws to a close, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases an urgent bulletin warning of a new, fast-spreading epidemic consisting of severe, and in some cases life-threatening, arm infections caused by "people constantly sneezing into their elbow pits."
But despite all the gloomy news, the holiday season brings at least temporary relief to a troubled nation -- especially the children, millions of whom go to sleep on Christmas Eve with visions of Santa in his reindeer-powered sleigh flying high overhead, spreading joy around the world. With a North Korean missile flying right behind.
Try not to think about it. And Happy New Year.
Dave Barry is a humor columnist for The Miami Herald. Send comments to firstname.lastname@example.com.


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I had a blow dry at the Hairdressers before Christmas and the lady in question (who did a so-so job) used this Keratase Nectar Thermique product on me.
I've never used Keratase before because its SO DAMN expensive. £20 for a conditioner! What?!
Still, I decided to try one of these out. It smells fantastic and it makes me look like a hair styling pro. I think.
They Say:
Nectar Thermique from Kerastase is ideal for dry to very dry hair. This new haircare treatment will become indispensable when heat-styling dry hair.
Nectar Thermique facilitates styling, resulting in a quicker and smoother blow-dry and leaving hair with supreme shine from root to tip, and feeling beautifully supple.
That's what I want! Frizz control and shine!
So this stuff smells amazing. I don't really heat style my hair that much but I wanted something to protect the hair. I hate crispy hair. I hate overly styled hair. I need my hair to be soft at all times if possible.
Here is the product itself – unfortunately not an orange jelly like I had fantasized:
This is nectar!
Anyway so this product is….well, its ok.
I followed the directions and rubbed it into my hair, especially the drier sections and blow dried. There was more shine but I didn't notice that much frizz control, in comparison to my beloved Bumble & Bumble Tonic, or Aveda Be Curly.
So I would have to say this was….alright. Smells great. Looks pro. Works….alright.
One thing I will say is that at £15 its not too expensive and its also not greasy so you won't overload if you use a little too much.

subset: commoncrawl


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In the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of Brides Washington, DC, we announced the winners of our first-ever Editor's Choice Awards.
It's a way for the editorial staff and me to officially recognize the amazing, forward-thinking, art-creating, call-returning, trend-making wedding vendors who inspire and delight us every time we craft an issue of our magazine. And, most importantly, we're excited to share this winning list with all of you—it's a great place to start assembling your dream team. —Julie Raimondi
See the full list of winners after the jump.


text: Bio-Vet Introduces T-Spec for Applying QuadriCal Boluses April 23, 2014 11:04 AM Tweet TAGS: Marketing, Overseas December 18, 2014 By News Release Email Bio-Vet introduces the T-Spec 125, an oral speculum designed for applying QuadriCal calcium boluses. QuadriCal, an oral bolus containing high levels of calcium for dairy cows, was introduced at the 2013 World Dairy Expo. Bio-Vet began production of QuadriCal in late 2013 following completion of its new manufacturing and office facility in Barneveld, Wisc. The T-Spec has a 1.25 inch diameter, which is ideal for applying QuadriCal boluses. The T-Spec joins the MINI™ balling gun as application tools for QuadriCal boluses. The T-Spec, MINI and well-accepted '6' Shooter balling guns all are manufactured by Bio-Vet using durable PVC pipe material for long life and ease of use. Each 3-bolus application of QuadriCal contains a minimum 54 grams of calcium derived from four calcium sources: chloride, sulfate, propionate and lactate. These calcium types provide rapid, intermediate and sustained availability to the cow after calving, when her need for supplemental calcium is greatest. QuadriCal boluses also contain niacin to aid liver function, and vitamin D3, which is critical for calcium utilization in the body. QuadriCal boluses are tapered and rounded on one end for smooth, safe and easy administration. For details, contact your local Bio-Vet sales representative or distributor, or call 1-800-246-8381. Source: Bio-Vet Back to news


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Big Bend Conservancy
2019 BigBendChat Calendar on sale now!
elcome to the most complete online database of the entire Big Bend Region in Texas. Big Bend Chat offers the world all the insight to the Big Bend Region, including Big Bend National Park, by generous, friendly folks you expect from Texas. To gain full access and get the most out of Big Bend Chat, we recommend you register today. Registration is free and you will gain access to other areas of the site that aren't accessible to the general public. You will also enjoy uploading your own Big Bend images into the Big Bend Gallery.
You may also be interested in our premium "Golden Eagle" membership (see the "Become a Golden Eagle Subscriber" box below). "Golden Eagles" enjoy the forum without the ads! You can enjoy membership for a fee of $10 per month or sign up for a year at $50 and save over 50%!
BigBendChat.com is not affiliated with the National Park Service, the Big Bend Natural History Association, the Big Bend Conservatory, or any of the Big Bend Area Chambers of Commerce. We are an independently run website. My name is David and I am the site's founder and I also created Big Bend Chat's sister site, Virtual Big Bend. Please be cordial as I have no doubt everyone here will be cordial to you.
We are a fanatical bunch, but we welcome all current and future Benders. And like my Great Grandma Myrtle used to tell me, "David, there are three things you should never talk about with family: sex, religion and ESPECIALLY politics!" So, let's be a family, stay as long as you like and be sure to tell your friends!
David Locke
aka "Casa Grande"
BBC Username
All photographs and content posted by members are to be considered copyrighted by their respective owners and may not be used for any purposes, commercial or otherwise, without permission.


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Artistic Logo Design for Alex Nerst
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Oct. 17, 2009
ALBANY, NY-The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's cross country teams acquitted themselves well in their final tune-up for the Little East Conference championships.
The Corsair men finished 13th in a 30-team field, while the women were 20th of 30 teams at the Albany Invitational, which was held at the Great Danes' campus course Saturday.
The women scored 577 points. Middlebury finished first with 88 points. The men scored 377 points. Marist won the race with 47 points.
Junior Nick Santoro (Shrewsbury, MA/St. John's HS) was the top finisher for the men, finishing 42nd in the five mile race in 25:54. Sophomore Steve Burke (Norwell, MA/Norwell HS) was 78th in 26:21, freshman Jeremy Francisco (Dartmouth, MA/Darmouth HS) was 80th in 26:22, sophomore Kevin Gilmore (Hanson, MA/Whitman-Hanson HS) was 96th in 26:35, junior Eric Nygaard (Medway, MA/Medway HS) was 105th in 26:43, senior Tim Whelan (Abington, MA/Abington HS) was 135th in 27:25, sophomore Ryan Sechovicz (Kingston, MA/Silver Lake Regional HS) was 156th in 28:166, and senior David Buschini (Newburyport, MA/Newburyport HS) finished the race but had neither a time nor a place recorded.
For the women, sophomore Caitlin McGarigal (Shutesbury, MA/Amherst Regional HS) led the way, finishing the five kilometer race in 68th place with a time of 19:10. Sophomore Megan Oliveira (Somerset, MA/Somerset HS) was 118th in 20:20, sophomore Tessa McGrail (Shrewsbury, MA/Shrewsbury HS) was 150th in 21:14, sophomore Stacey Dybel (Littleton, MA/Notre Dame Academy) was 157th in 21:28, sophomore Meghan Bohigian (Barre, MA/Quabbin Regional HS) was 164th in 21:49, and senior Jess Carpenter (Rutland, MA/Wachusett Regional HS) was 167th in 21:49.
"I thought we did pretty well," said UMass Dartmouth Head Coach Jon Hird. "A lot of our people ran as fast as they've run all year, and they're excited about how fast they ran and what that might mean for the conference in two weeks. For the men, Steve Burke ran a great race, and Jeremy Francisco ran a great race for the second week in a row. Some people had a difficult time, but some others stepped up, and that's the sign of a team that really knows how to compete. Nick Santoro is as steady and as consistent a runner as you would want. Most of our women ran their fastest times of the year, and there were a lot of good teams in the field, which included Division I, II and III teams."
The Corsairs will return to action at the Little East Conference and New England Alliance Championships in two weeks.


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Bulletin, December 2010/January 2011
Student Column
Wheres Your Next Great Idea Coming From? Interdisciplinarity, Innovation and InfoCamp
by Cortney Leach
Autumn: time to head back to campus, to enjoy the finest weather the Pacific Northwest has to offer and to rev up for InfoCamp, Seattles favorite unconference for the information community. Okay, its not only Seattles favorite unconference; its my favorite unconference. Allow me to explain.
As a student, its my job to be a sponge. A contributing sponge, but a sponge nonetheless. And in my pursuit of sponging up good and useful insights Ive found nothing has been more good or useful than casting a wide net. Because where do ideas come from? The answer: everywhere but you. At least thats what one wise professor has told me, and Im convinced of its validity. Wheres your next great idea coming from? Probably from someone or something you have yet to consider.
As a student, following this edict means constantly finding new ways to feel uncomfortable. It means taking an HCI seminar when you have a background in comparative literature; it means taking advanced classification theory and programming if you want to be a stellar public librarian. It means getting outside of your comfort zone when while you simultaneously try to gain expertise in a particular academic niche.
This isnt easy. Its time consuming. And it requires playing the role of the neophyte over. . . and over, which isnt necessarily fun. And this effort is only in the context of graduate school the pressures that prevent us from exploring the rich and confusing landscape in which our concerns play out only increase in the professional world. But pushing at the borders of our subject niche will not only stave off dreaded mental decline; it makes us better at what we do. I recently read that adaptive challenges as simple as brushing our teeth with the non-dominant hand help mental acuity.
Most of the problems we confront as students and professionals are diffuse, messy and occasionally wicked. Of course they are! Otherwise wed have them in check by now, presumably. So if we choose to tackle global warming with multidisciplinary teams, why not do the same when it comes to choosing an ILS, developing metadata schemas or discerning how best to serve stakeholders? Maybe these potential teams are not in your office with you, but valuable outsiders are out there. And interacting with them may help, nay force, you to frame your questions differently. Voltaire asked us to judge a man by the content of his questions rather than his answers and if theres a way to form better questions its by sifting them through the mental filters of folks who are not the usual suspects.
It has been proven that having a diverse workforce isnt just the right thing to do; breadth of background and perspective is associated with increased profits. We know open source systems are deeply valuable because they facilitate exposure to the multi-faceted hive mind, leading to advances such as those weve seen recently in Alzheimers research [1]. So it follows that we, as individuals, would benefit from living (within reason dont stop using those Facebook filters!) a bit like an open source system.
And that brings me one prime example of how we can set the stage for innovation: the InfoCamp phenomenon. I choose to call it a phenomenon because I think InfoCamp isnt only an exhilarating event, but a framework for thinking about how innovation happens that we can carry beyond the conference walls. As you may know, InfoCamp is an unconference for the information community, featuring an egalitarian, community-driven format in which most presentations are designed and delivered by participants. Starting in Seattle, it has spread to Berlin and Berkeley with Boise and Portland currently in the works. And theres a reason folks get InfoCamp fever the format and community-driven nature promotes a rare level of cross-pollination and sector-bridging collaboration.
A sample of InfoCamp Seattle session topics since its inception in 2007:
- WTF is Content Strategy?
- Reality for the Library: What High Tech Looks Like in Public Library Practice
- How to Incentivize Knowledge Sharing when Culture Benefits Aren't Clear
- Geoinformatics: Why You Need the Science, Why the Scientists Need You
- Web of the Physical World: Impact of Worldwide Instrumentation of Devices in Everyday Life
- WikiLeaks: Information Between Legal Borders
- iPhone Dev and Design for Non-programmers
- Applying Permaculture Garden Design Principles to Social Applications & Interactive Sites
- Data as Journalism
Compelling, yes? The best part: these topics were discussed in rooms containing the active brains of folks from all corners of the information world: academics and practitioners, programmers and public librarians, private sector UX designers and public sector managers. Im not sure if this mix happens anywhere else.
I know that dabbling in HCI design theory has helped me come up with better public policy options; those ideating tools can be directly applied to the process of muddling through complex problems faced by governments and non-profit agencies. How will another sectors practices help you to tackle your challenges?
Please, the world needs you to get uncomfortable, share, question presumptions and ask your neighbor how her group approaches their top challenges. Go InfoCamping. And encourage your students and colleagues to do the same. You might just come up with your next great idea. Youll have to excuse me now I need to get back to using behavioral science research techniques to communicate the value of public library story times.
Resources Mentioned in the Column
[1] Kolata, Gina. (2010, August 12). Sharing of data leads to progress on Alzheimers. New York Times. Retrieved October 18, 2010, from www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/health/research/13alzheimer.html.
Cortney Leach is pursuing a dual masters degree in library and information science and public administration at the University of Washingtons Information School and Evans School of Public Affairs. She can be reached at cortney.leach<at>gmail.com
Editors Note: Cortney Leach was the 2010 student member of the
Bulletin Advisory Board. The chapter (or chapters) of the Student Chapter-of-the-Year award
winner(s) selects a student to serve on the board.
Articles in this Issue
ASIS&T 2010 Award of Merit Acceptance Speech
Information Architecture in Virtual Worlds
What's the Buzz about Content Strategy?
Understanding the Discipline of Web Content Strategy
Case Study: Developing a SharePoint 2010 Strategy... or How Setting It Up and "Getting It Out There" Is Not a Strategy
Developing a Content Maintenance and Governance Strategy
An Intelligent Content Strategy for the Enterprise
Student Column: Where's Your Next Great Idea Coming From: Interdisciplinarity, Innovation and InfoCamp
IA Column: Good News for U.S. Citizens


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♥Ditzy's TOU♥
All of the tutorials written by me are of my own Ditzy imagination. Do NOT copy or alter them in ANY way. Do NOT copy & paste the tutorials to any website, forum or group. Do NOT claim them as your own. If you would like to show or share my tutorial do so by using a link to bring your members to my blog. However if you do please send me a courtesy email so that I know my tutorials are being used according to my TOU. Also if you would please send me a link to where you will be posting my link. If you have done any of my tutorials I would LOVE to see the outcome of what you have made, so please email me OR you can leave me a link in my shout box so that I can see what you have made and display it on my blog for others to enjoy as well. Other than that please have fun,and I hope that you enjoy all my tutorials! Email me @ email@example.com
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
♥DitzyDezigns Is Back!! 2/22/2012♥
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Just wanted to let my followers know that I am BACK online! For good!!! So I will be redesigning my blog - then I will start posting some tutorials. I have also taken the time to read some of the comments in my chat box, and I will do my best to write some FTU tutorials as well as the PTU tutorials. :-) Hopefully this will be helpful to everyone!
I look forward to getting back into the swing of things! I have missed it greatly!
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- DitzyDezigns
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- Hiya Everyone! My name is Ronney, I have 3 wonderful teenagers, and have been married to my husband for 20 years. I LOVE to design signatures, tags & avatars, I design with PSP, and have been designing for over 2 1/2 years. I will be not only designing signatures, tags & avatars but will also be writing & posting tutorials as well. I will also be making some templates to share with you all as well. So I hope you enjoy and can use everything I have available on my blog :-) If you ever try any of my tutorials,please send me your completed designs and I would love to showcase it here on my blog!
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Hope College junior John Pelton is one of 32 players nationwide invited to compete in the singles tournament of the NCAA Division III championships to be held May 16-18 at Bates College in Lewiston, Me.
The selection of players for the tournament is based on won-lost record, strength of schedule and eligibility and availability of student athletes.
Pelton is a graduate of Midland High School. He transferred to Hope after playing at Division I Western Michigan University. His family currently resides in Rock Hill, S.C. He posted a 22-3 dual match record at #1 singles. He lost to only one Division III opponent.
Pelton was named the most valuable player in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA). He went undefeated in conference dual matches and at the conference tournament becoming the first non-Kalamazoo College player to go through league play undefeated at first flight singles. Kalamazoo is a perennial tennis power with an unprecedented 70 consecutive league titles. Hope is the only team to interrupt the streak, forcing co-championships in 1962 and 2003.
Pelton's 22 wins this season was a Hope record for victories in a season. The previous mark was 21 by Doug Barrow in 1969. Back then Division III did not exist so Barrow competed in the NCAA College Division tournament where he went unseeded, upset the number one seed in the semi-finals and lost in the finals, but received a standing ovation from the crowd. He also advanced to the University Division tournament the following week, but lost in the first round. He ended with a 21-8 record.
It has been 26 years since a Hope player was invited to the singles championship. In 1982, Tom DeWeert was defeated in the first round.
The Flying Dutchmen, coached by Steve Gorno, posted a 13-11 dual match record and finished fourth in the MIAA standings.


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McLaren's forthcoming million-dollar P1 supercar made its Los Angeles debut Thursday night. It was every bit the premiere you'd expect in Hollywood.
A crane dropped the P1 into place at the SLS Hotel. Jay Leno got an exclusive look at the interior. There was an open bar; there were cupcakes with the McLaren logo on them; and the crowd was dotted with statuesque women grasping the arms of shorter, older men.
But the real eye candy was in the center of the room, on a well-lit stage, wearing a brilliant shade of metallic orange.
Photos: McLaren's P1 supercar makes its L.A. debut
For those unfamiliar with McLaren's P1, it's an ultra-high-performance car headed to market at the end of 2013. It applies to a road car the company's considerable Formula 1 racing experience. McLaren doesn't even like to call the P1 a supercar; this is a hypercar. Rather, the automaker prefers to keep the "supercar" moniker for its only other product, the lesser MP4-12C. Which sells for $250,000.
The P1 will compete in a more elite segment that includes vehicles as rare as they are quick. Think Bugatti Veyron, Pagani Huayra and Koenigsegg Agera R. All have many hundreds of horsepower and top speeds north of 220 mph, and they cost more than $1 million.
McLaren is mum on powertrain details for the P1, choosing instead to reveal them, along with the car's interior, at the Geneva Motor Show in March. But it's likely that the car will draw between 800 and 1000 horsepower from a twin-turbocharged V-8 engine.
Like the P1's spiritual successor, the now-legendary F1 supercar from the 1990s, that engine will sit in a bay lined in gold foil to better deflect heat. All this will be in a vehicle that McLaren expects to weigh less than 2,900 pounds, or about the same as the average compact car.
McLaren probably will make just several hundred copies of the P1, and the car will cost about $1.2 million. It's one of several new additions to the hypercar club for 2013; Ferrari will soon introduce the successor to the Enzo, and Porsche is hard at work on the all-new 918 plug-in hybrid.
For now, all McLaren is making public is the car's strikingly unique exterior. The automaker says this model making the publicity rounds is 97% of what the production car will look like. The body panels are all carbon fiber, as is the central tub.
The man responsible for the P1's unique look is Frank Stephenson. He's been with McLaren since 2008, and though he had a hand in some of the design of the 12C, the P1 is the first McLaren he's shaped from a blank sheet of paper.
Stephenson said the car's aesthetics are very much form following function.
"A lot of the car has actually not being styled or designed to look good, it's been designed to function properly," Stephenson said at the unveiling. "It's almost as if you took a sheet and draped it over the hard points of the car and let it settle. This pretty much gave us the ultimate shape of the car."
"Hard points" refers to parts of the car whose position can't be changed or altered for the sake of aesthetics, like the suspension or the driver's position.
Also influencing the P1's look is an emphasis on generating as much downforce as possible. Downforce is created by the car's body, which uses air moving over and under the car to hold it to the road. This explains the many air vents, intakes, outlets and front and rear diffusers.
By maximizing the downforce, the car's grip of the road is improved, which gives drivers more control at higher speeds. Stephenson said the P1 was designed to exert immense amounts of downforce at lower speeds than is possible on other supercars. This McLaren can generate the downforce at 80 to 90 mph that other supercars might need 150 mph to produce, Stephenson said.
Because there are fewer roads where drivers can hit 150 mph than 80 mph, Stephenson says this broadens the appeal of the P1 and makes it more applicable in more situations.
Some of these principles gleaned from Formula 1 racing and the development of the P1 will trickle down to the next McLaren car, currently called the P13, Stephenson said.
The "entry-level" P13 is to be smaller and less expensive than the P1 and the 12C. It will target the upper end of the Porsche 911 range -- think Turbo or GT3 -- when it comes to market in the next several years. It will take design cues from the P1 but wrap them in a more practical package that includes things like an actual trunk.
For now, Stephenson is happy to show off the P1 halo car and the advancements in design and performance that it represents for McLaren.
"This car has to be the ultimate expression," Stephenson said, "the calling card of our technology."
Full coverage: 2013 Detroit Auto Show
Photos: McLaren's P1 supercar makes its L.A. debut
Photos: Sitting shotgun in Porsche's upcoming 918 hybrid supercar


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LOS ANGELES, May 1 (UPI) -- U.S. hip-hop recording artist Lil Wayne says he's "fine" after suffering another epileptic seizure and being briefly hospitalized in Los Angeles.
"I'm fine. Thank u," the "Lollipop" singer, who passed Elvis Presley in September as the male with the most entries on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
The performer was taken by his bodyguards to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Tuesday night and discharged Wednesday morning following treatment, the TMZ celebrity news website reported.
Tuesday's incident was the fourth health scare since October for Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.
He suffered a reported seizure on his private jet bound for Los Angeles Oct. 25 and the jet made an unscheduled landing at an undisclosed Texas location. He was treated at a hospital and released.
The plane made another unscheduled landing the next day while flying from Texas to Los Angeles -- this time it stopped in Louisiana -- after Wayne suffered a second seizure and required further hospitalization.
He was reported by TMZ to have suffered several serious seizures in March and was treated at Cedars-Sinai's intensive care unit.
In a March 28 interview with radio station KPWR, Los Angeles, Wayne said he suffers from epilepsy, a chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures.
"This isn't my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh seizure. I've had a bunch of seizures," he said. "Y'all just never hear about them. But this time, it got real bad because I had three of them in a row."


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By: Andrew Smith - ATV Illustrated
When we are not out on the trails with our ATV's, we can often be found using them for other 'house-hold chores', even if that chore is plowing snow, working up the garden, a food plot or anything else. We know that, by all means, the correct tool for doing a large amount of soil tilling work is a tractor, but when doing so on a limited basis and a limited budget, using our ATV is the perfect solution. By simply latching on, our ATV becomes like a mini-tractor and we can toss the visor off our helmet and proudly affix a straw hat to the top of our helmet and work away.
When we got a chance to meet the guys from King Kutter over the winter, we had a chance to check out a couple of the many products that they produce for ATV's that compliment their vast line-up of products for the agricultural world. King Kutter's lineup ranges from different versions of discs, to kultipackers to spreaders, wagons and more. That sit-down conversation turned into the start of an evaluation of their newest ATV disc and kultipacker. The disc that we are testing is a new, 48" version of their original 33" model. Both models utilize 2 rows of coulters on opposing angles and can be raised and lowered via a simple hand crank jack. When in the raised position, the disc is easily transported behind your ATV or maneuvered around your shop on its wheels. When lowered, the wheels will act like a depth guage for how deep you want to till. The disc coulters are scalloped to allow easier penetration into the soil without requiring excessive amounts of weight. Attaching the disc to the ATV is simple and is done via mounting to a 1 7/8" ball using a standard trailer style coupler. The main framework of the disc is made of heavy-duty steel square tubing while the coulter assemblies are bolted onto the frame. One nice item on this unit is that the square, tubular design is also designed to act as a 2" receiver mount so that you can hook up a spreader or kultipacker behind the disc to use at the same time or just to transport multiple items at one time. The hitch of the disc is designed with a turnbuckle for adjustment which allows you to adjust how much down pressure that you will get on the front set of discs vs. the rear set of discs and also to accomodate the infinite amount of different hitch heights out there. Greaseable bearings round out the solid design of this unit and craftmanship of the overall package is top shelf.
The kultipacker is a very simple, functional tool. The purpose is to act like a roller and make soil come in contact with the seed which will in turn, aid in germination which will get the growth of the seed going. King Kutter's kultipacker is designed as a 'flip-over' unit so that you can have it in 'travel-mode' and pull it behind your AT\/ on 2 tires and when you get to your destination, you can flip it over and be ready to pack the ground. In order to flip the unit over, you willneed to pull one pin to flip the tongue orientation and then you can roll the unit over and reattach it to your quad. Much like the disc, the kultipacker uses a 1 7/8" ball and trailer-style coupler to connect to your ATV. The actual kultlpacking wheels are a solid steel design that have protrusions (serrated) that allow for seeds to be pressed into the soil deeper and offer better soil packing qualities. All wheels are individual units and mount to a solid axle that is greaseable at each end. The travel wheels are your standard pneumatic tires that offer a smooth ride when transporting the unit to the final location.
Once we got both units all greased up and ready to go, it was time to head out to the fields and woods to get testing. Our effort was to try to test this unit in as many different conditions and soils as possible to get a good review for you. After turning up more acres of soil than most people will turn in the time they own one of these units, here is what we came up with:
Raising and lowering the disc is a breeze and the jack works both smooth and effortlessly. We did find that if you kept cranking up the wheels that eventually, the tire would come into contact with the disc, but this was at a height well above the depth that you should be trying to disc at. One thing that we did not like really had no effect on the functionality of the disc, it was that one rim is offset the opposite of the other. This was done so that tire would miss one of the disc coulters, but just seemed odd because they could just as easily moved the mounting location of the wheel in slightly to accomplish the save effect. Flipping the disc over to get it into 'use position' is just as simple. Because most of the trailer receivers that we have around the office have a 2" ball on them, it would have been more convenient to have the disc and kultipacker in that size, but that's just because of what we have around. The receiver mount in the back of the disc is great for transporting multiple units at once, but we did have to remove a burr out of the tube before use so that we could get the receiver to slide in.
In doing research before testing, we found that many people say that they add weight to their discs in order to get them to work better, but what we found was that the disc actually works as well without weight as it does with weight with the exception of when you are trying to cut thru living sod. A live sod base is the toughest thing for any disc to cut thru, even on farm tractors, we found that if you kill off the plants before—hand, it cuts thru the soil and works much better. From sand to clay and everything in between, the disc worked great. It may take a few passes to get things broken up, but the end product is a nicely tilled soil. One of the greatest benefits is that you can access many places with this disc on your ATV that you could never get to with a tractor, not to mention you get to spend more time on your ATV! The worst that we ran into over the length of the test period is that we bent over a few of the teeth on the disc when hitting rocks. Make sure to clear the area before tilling to avoid this, and if you do, they can be bent back into place easily. After testing, I would like to see the coulter angle be made so that it is adjustable or at least made slightly greater to help turn over the soil better. The draw-back to this would be that it would require more horsepower from your ATV to use which would cut out some of the smaller ATV's from being able to use this disc. I believe that the current angle is a good compromise though that works well and doesn't require an obscene amount of horsepower to use. Outside of that, you'll need to go thru and re-tighten all of the nuts and bolts after the first use, much like your ATV after the initial break-in period and you'll need to make sure to keep an eye on your ATV's air filter and oil after use because you'll be stirring up quite a bit of dust in the process of working the soil.
After extensive testing, we came away elated with how well the disc and kultipacker both worked and how well they stood up to the durability testing. If cared for and stored inside, these implements will easily out—last your ATV and are great products for when you want to put your ATV to work!
See King Kutter's ATV Product line in action below:
Hunters everywhere are finding King Kutter's line of ATV Products to be the perfect solution for managing their food plots with ease. King Kutter provides ATV products for all aspects of wildlife food plot management ranging from ground preparation to getting those seeds in the ground. Our line of ATV Flip Over Discs, Compact Discs, Kulti-Packers, Seeder/Spreaders, Drag Harrows, and 1.5 Ton Dump Trailers will meet all your wildlife food plot management needs.
© 2010 King Kutter Inc.


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|2009-07-24, 18:18
|Link #2261
Adeptus Animus
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 31
'vanished civilization' does not mean a non-human race. Lost Logia are literally what the name indicates: Lost Logia. The knowledge of how to create and/or control them has been lost with the civilization that created it.
Case in point, the Book of Darkness. It was a milenia old creation of Ancient Belka, which is now a vanished civilization. Sure, there are still Belkan remaining, and there certainly is still a Belkan culture, but the Ancient Belkan civilization has vanished, and any powerful technologies they created of which the knowledge has been lost are labeled Lost Logia.
If your rifle is a new creation from a civilization that still lives, no matter its rarity it is not a Lost Logia.
|2009-07-24, 20:51
|Link #2263
blinded by blood
There seems to be an awful lot of unexplained relics of dead ancient civilizations in Nanohaverse. ^^;
Since the weapon's manufacturer does indeed still exist and do business, I suppose that would preclude it from being a Lost Logia. They can always make more, after all--they still have the engineering data, but the profit margins are terrible. They make more money putting beam cannons on cruisers, after all.
Apropos of the Lost Logia discussion, there's something of a plot hole when it comes to Reinforce II. Unison Devices are supposed to be Lost Logia--Agito is an example of that. But Hayate built Rein from the ground up. Remember, Reinforce I made it her dying request that Hayate not base her new Device on Reinforce I's remains.
Hayate didn't exactly follow this promise to the letter--her staff, Schwertzkreuz, is based on the "remnant" left behind by the original Reinforce.
So that makes Rein-chan an original creation. This should remove Unison Devices from the Lost Logia heap, and possibly lead to the creation of more Unison Devices.
|2009-07-24, 21:05
|Link #2264
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
Rein Zwei herself is still based on data from Reinforce 1 though, and without the Book of Darkness Rein Zwei could never have been created. AFAIK technically though, Rein is said to be a "reformatted" Reinforce rather a 100% totally new creation, thus Hayate and the TSAB still wasn't totally responsible for her creation (though they probably had a major hand in it).
|2009-07-25, 03:10
|Link #2267
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
It's not hard to posit a fuzzy category of things which were Lost Logia when they were first discovered, but where research into the effect managed to give Mid the ability to replicate the effect. (Maybe not as well. Maybe not as efficiently. Maybe in a different, but similar, way. Maybe not even usefully - anyone remember that big honkin' cannon thing Nanoha was using in the montage shot in the A's to Strikers manga?)
So you could probably get away with saying "reclusive group of enthusiasts/researchers/armorers found a Lost Logia weapon, and what this character has is the first working prototype they've managed to put together." You can dispose of the Lost Logia through TSAB action, character backstory, or even by its own actions ("This, Murray, is why Mom told us to go into a different fie-" Or you could have it hanging around - there's no end to the story usefulness of "someone who has the same kind of magic sword the protagonist does, except twice as shiny."
Remember that Mid's dating event was in the last century. They've got some records older than that, but things go quickly into story and myth; there weren't good records even from the time of the Saint King, which was what, 300 years ago? On the other hand, they DO have the Library...
|2009-07-25, 04:38
|Link #2268
Blazing General
Join Date: May 2006
Location: CA
Age: 33
|2009-07-25, 05:03
|Link #2269
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
From Strikers SS3. Reinforce Eins left a message for her successor in Hayate's Linker Core. It was downloaded to Rein Zwei when she was created, because part of the process was apparently giving part of Hayate's Linker Core to Rein Zwei.
|2009-07-25, 11:54
|Link #2270
Field Medic
Of course, that may then beg the questions:
1: How much of a Linker Core Donation is required to create a Unison Device?;
2: How many Mages can actually manage to donate that amount?
In the Case of Hayate, it's not so much of an issue, because we know she has a huge (possibly artificially boosted) Linker Core to break into, but if the requirement is sufficiently large, it may be the case that it's simply not possible (or not safe) for Mages under a certain Linker Core rank to Donate the required 'amount' of Linker Core...
We know form A's that removal of the Linker Core even in part can have severe physical effects...
Thus even if Unison Device creation is understood, they may remain rare because there's a production bottleneck: The number of Mages with strong enough Linker Cores that they can donate sufficiently of their Linker Core to create a Unison Device without falling short or it killing them...
|2009-07-25, 15:21
|Link #2272
blinded by blood
Which is true; we've seen that Rein-chan doesn't Unison particularly well with Vita or Signum, and Agito doesn't have a good connection to Zest. But Agito and Signum get along like fire and gasoline (almost literally!) and of course Hayate and Reinforce...
Hmm. Interesting thought--artificially created "universal" Linker Cores, like Type O blood, used to create Unison Devices that anyone can use effectively.
Kinda like a "Dummy Plug" Unison Device... and like the DPs of NGE, would be less effective than a true Meister/Unison Device.
... oh lawd, thanks to remembering the epilogue scene in which Rein refers to Hayate as "Meister..." now my brain's stuck on "Hayate Yagami, Gundam Meister of Celestial Being."
*has Gundam 00 on the brain*
|2009-07-25, 15:27
|Link #2273
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
Hayate: DOUBLE BAZOOKA! BURST MODDO!!!
*is blasted by Hyper Burst*
|2009-07-25, 15:31
|Link #2274
Adeptus Animus
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 31
Unison Devices are ancient technologies, but they are not Lost Logia. Key word, again, is the 'lost' part. Unless the technology to create them has been lost, they are not Lost Logia. It should be noted that Agito is not created by the Bureau or the mad scientists that had captured her, Agito is a genuine Belkan Unison Device, suggesting that Unison Devices can live far beyond a human lifespan.
Which has also raised the as of yet unanswered question of the link between Signum and Agito, or if any is present at all.
|2009-07-25, 15:37
|Link #2275
blinded by blood
Some guys on the WMG page at TVTropes suggests that the Wolkenritter were originally humans living in ancient Belkan times, absorbed by the Book of Darkness and turned into a defense program.
The logical conclusion to this is that Signum was originally a true Belkan Knight, and Agito was originally her Unison Device. ^^;
Completely, totally noncanon but nice to think about and good fanfiction fuel. These little threads of discussion certainly breed ideas.
Now I just have to resist the urge to write an AU where Nanoha, Fate and Hayate are fighting to eradicate war as members of Celestial Being...
|2009-07-25, 15:41
|Link #2276
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
Given that Signum really seems to have a very tangible link to Agito, it would be logical to assume that the Knights were once human, when Signum still had a human linker core (and not the one she currently has).
And yes, I command you to write that AU now
|2009-07-25, 17:03
|Link #2279
Beta by Accident
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Maine
Age: 47
|2009-07-25, 19:00
|Link #2280
blinded by blood
I've learned long ago to be very suspicious of coincidence in fantasy or sci-fi media. I always liked Agito, so I was glad to see her get with Signum after Zest died.
Zest dying made me sad; that dude was a badass motherfucker. I knew he'd die, he was on borrowed time anyway, and we got to see a lot of him doing very badass things before he died, but in that pink bishoujo ghetto that is the Nanohaverse, it's refreshingly awesome to see a tough manly man kick some ass. ^^;
Despite not being a man, Signum was the next best thing--she had badass to spare, and Agito only increased the output.
|Thread Tools


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SAO PAULO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Brazil's corn exports in 2013 have surpassed last year's record as the agricultural superpower gained international market share with U.S. stocks still low, but the United States is set to make a huge comeback in 2014.
Brazil exported 20.8 million tonnes of corn between January and Nov. 10, according to trade data, passing the 19.77 million tonnes shipped abroad in all of 2012 when drought crimped production in the United States, the top producer and exporter of the grain.
For the 2012/13 crop year, Brazil exported 22 mln tonnes of corn while the U.S. exported 18.58 mln tonnes, according to USDA.
But Brazil's exports will likely fall off in December and January, analysts said, and the United States should reclaim its spot as the top corn exporter, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
Brazilian corn exports usually start trailing off at the end of the year, when logistics make the U.S. crop more accessible, but last season was atypical, analysts said.
"Last year, with the damage in the United States, prices jumped to $7.50 (per bushel) and the whole world bought from Brazil at any price," said Paulo Molinari of Brazil-based Safras & Mercado consultancy.
Now, prices on the Chicago Board of Trade are around $4.30 per bushel on promises of an abundant supply from the Northern Hemisphere as the U.S. harvests a record crop.
Brazil's corn production has increased 60 percent in the past 10 years, culminating in a record 80 million-tonne crop in the 2012/13 season that left the country with far more corn than it can use domestically.
Most analysts believe the next corn crop will be smaller with farmers preferring to plant soybeans and cotton. The USDA expects Brazil to produce 72 million tonnes of corn in the 2013/14 season and export 20 million tonnes for that crop year.
The United States is forecast to export 35.6 million tonnes in 2013/14 marketing year.
Molinari said an agreement for Brazil to export corn to China inked last week is not likely to increase exports by much.
Brazil's agriculture ministry believes China could eventually take up to 10 million tonnes of Brazil's corn as pork and poultry consumption rises, but it will take time for Brazil to gain a share of the market which is dominated by the United States. (Reporting by Roberto Samora; Additional reporting and writing by Caroline Stauffer; editing by Jim Marshall)


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I have always been interested in the guitar and believe that this is the right time for me to take guitar lessons. However, since I am busy most of the time, I am considering taking online classes when I am free so that I can kill several birds with one stone. However, I understand the challenges of learning online, as the internet will never replace the physical classroom. Indeed, though studying online is the norm these days, several measures must be put in place for it to be successful.
Fortunately, the number of sites offering online guitar lessons is overwhelming and thus looking for online guitar lessons will be a bed of roses for me. Perhaps my only concern will be the ability to grasp everything that I learn and put it to practice. However, look forward to the challenge. First of all, I expect to enjoy the convenience of taking the lessons from wherever I am, and the fact that I do not have to travel in order to take my lessons is the icing on the cake. I only need to have access to the internet and my lesson kicks off. However, I have to be honest: I know I will miss the experience of a real-life or conventional instructor.
I expect to spend a few coins for my lessons. I understand that there are several sites offering free online guitar training but I also understand that if I envision getting quality training, enrolling in a paid site is the way to go. Indeed, if you get poor services on a free site you have no reason to complain, after all you have nothing to lose. However, the operators of paid sites ensure that their training is worth the fee they charge. For instance, scheduling of the lessons is done in an order that accentuates understanding. Precisely, learning begins from known to the unknown. The lessons are also carried out using modern online learning technology and aids. The learner also gets to interact with professional guitarists closely.
Obviously, I expect the theoretical and practical aspects of guitar training with intranet software to be incorporate in each lesson. For instance, when talking about various types of guitars, a display of the photos of the various types is a step in the right direction. In a lesson about the various styles of playing various guitars, demonstrations are unavoidable. In short, in my opinion, a good online guitar course should have the right interplay of theory and practical lessons. This will have a long lasting impact to the learner's level of understanding.
Indeed, the man that hath no music in himself, nor is not move with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils (William Shakespeare). I do not want to be one. This underscores my need to take online guitar lessons. Gone are the days when computers and the internet connectivity would make most of us feel like Jurassic fossils, and in this regard, taking online lessons more convenient and pleasurable, if my perspective counts.


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Education programs
Years K–6
Art Adventure Tour: made in Japan
Identify recurring motifs in Japanese art including cranes, irises, waves and pine trees and learn their relevance to Japanese society and culture. Discover how the natural world has been portrayed in art and daily life.
1 hour, Tuesday – Friday
10am, 11am, 12 noon and 1pm
Max 75 students per hour
Free with exhibition entry
Years 7–12
Discussion tour
Gallery educators provide in-depth information and stimulate responses in small group tours tailored to your subject area:
- Visual Arts How did Kamisaka Sekka reinterpret traditional Japanese motifs and combine both eastern and western concepts in his artmaking? What further innovations have contemporary artists added?
- Technology and Applied Studies (TAS) How have Japanese artists adapted traditional designs to a range of media including lacquerware boxes, folding screens, fans, ceramic bowls, textile prints, pattern books and costumes
- Japanese Language What can a comparison of traditional and contemporary Japanese art tell us about Japanese cultural identity?
1 hour, Monday – Friday
$165 per group of 15 or less
Includes exhibition entry
Years 3–12
Workshop tour Japanese tea ceremony
Be a guest of a Japanese tea master in the Gallery's own tea room and discover the influence of tea culture on Japanese art.
1 hour, Thursdays
Max 30 students per hour
$225 per group of 15 or less
Includes exhibition entry
Years 7–12, tertiary students and educators
Art After Class: Sekka
Wednesdays 1, 8, 15, 22 August, 4.30pm
Having trouble bringing your students to the Gallery for a day excursion? Plan a visit on Wednesday after class when they can join a talk led by a Gallery educator and reap the benefits of the Art After Hours events program.
Free with exhibition entry
Showcase: 18th Biennale of Sydney: all our relations
Saturday 30 June 9am–12pm
Education kit
This online education kit provides questions and activities for K–12, organised around themes.


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Free Cells
May 28, 2013
Why are we footing this too?
Citing rampant fraud and abuse by telephone service providers, GOP Senator from Louisiana David Vitter called on the U.S. Senate last Tuesday to end the welfare subsidy for cellular phone service in the federal Lifeline Program that cost Americans nearly $2 billion in 2012.
Created in 1984, Lifeline was designed to expand landline telephone service to low-income households through the Universal Service Fund. In 2008, however, the program was extended to wireless service providers who, according to Sen. Vitter, have used fraudulent means to increase the cost of this component of the program from $143 million in 2008 to $2 billion last year.
"I think the whole program is an entitlement mentality gone wild … There has been widespread fraud and abuse in this program and I'm convinced it is at the core of this program and can't be scrubbed out," charged Vitter in a recorded video of his presentation to the Senate posted on YouTube where he explained why cellular phones should be cut from Lifeline.
"The FCC is in charge of the program, it itself estimates that about 270,000 of these beneficiaries have more than one of these free government cell phones. That's interesting, that's important because that's completely against the law and against the rules," said Vitter. "The FCC also says that the top five companies that benefit from the program, couldn't confirm the eligibility of 41 percent of the folks they signed up."
"The cell phone welfare program has expanded far beyond its original intent, and as so many middle class Americans struggle underneath this economy, it is really offensive for Washington to make folks pay for free cell phones for others," he added in a release.
Vitter who made the recommendation as an amendment to the Farm Bill had earlier introduced the idea as a standalone bill. He pointed out that while defenders of the program have argued that improvements are being made to increase efficiency and cut fraud, a lot more was being said than done in this regard.
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He provided evidence showing how a friend, Clarence, who did not qualify to receive a phone under Lifeline's eligibility criteria was able to acquire a phone under the program anyhow just over a week ago.
"Now it's paid for by you and by me, it's paid for by our land lines and cell phone bills. We all get a charge on our bill, if you actually pay your phone bill, land line or cell phone, you get a charge and you pay that charge and that's what funds this program," explained Vitter.
"There are tents popping up on every other street corner handing out these free government cell phones like candy. And why is that happening? Because the people handing out the phones have a vested interest in doing that, have a vested interest in not worrying about whether eligibility criteria are met because every time they hand out a phone they get $9.25 per phone per month as long as they can sustain that gravy train," added Vitter.
TracFone, a company owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, is the largest recipient of Lifeline funding and collected $440 million last year to subsidize service for 3.9 million low-income households, according to one report.
The report noted that the company has been running ads in Beltway publications defending the program, and registered to lobby on the program in March. It also went on the attack last week with an advertisement in the New Orleans Times-Picayune featuring an aerial picture of a flooded New Orleans under the headline: "Lifeline's wireless benefit was born out of Katrina."
"Senator David Vitter must have forgotten. Today, this vital benefit helps seniors, veterans and low-income families stay connected to their communities, first responders and employers," noted the ad while warning that Vitter's bill would "hurt a lot of families in Louisiana who struggle each day to make ends meet."
But in his response in the Senate last week, Vitter charged right back.
"They're the biggest welfare abusers of this. Rich owners of companies who milk the system to get richer who I would call government welfare kings. This abuse needs to stop … and my amendment would help do that," he said.


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Celebrated as the "happiest city in America," San Luis Obispo is an unforgettable destination for business and leisure travel. Get to know this brilliantly beautiful locale – among the Golden State's most captivating – by booking a room at the Sands Inn & Suites, the premier value in San Luis Obispo hotels.
Located within walking distance of California Polytechnic University and downtown San Luis Obispo, our AAA 3-Diamond property features a soothing Spanish-inspired décor complete with a tranquil pool and fountain area. Unwind in one of our 70 rooms and suites. Our San Luis Obispo hotel offers comforting amenities like fast, free WiFi, complimentary breakfast buffet with hot items, and a heated outdoor pool and spa. Business guests will appreciate our flexible meeting space, which can accommodate up to 150 people for corporate or social functions. Traveling with your four-legged buddy? We love animals and are pet-friendly in every way.
Once you've unpacked and settled in, spend some time exploring the area. You're sure to love our beaches, wineries, golf courses, restaurants, shopping, and historical and cultural attractions. Boasting ruggedly inspiring landscapes, a pleasant climate, and stunning vistas, San Luis Obispo – affectionately called "SLO" by the locals – is one of California's beloved treasures.


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Summer Recruitment Consultant Academy
- Recruiter
- Location
- City of London
- Salary
- Up to £22,000.00 per annum + commission and benefits
- Posted
- 22 May 2018
- Closing date
- 22 Jun 2018
- Ref
- Contact
- Chloe Parmenter
- Job function
- Sales
- Job level
- Graduate
- Hours
- Full time
- Contract
- Permanent
- Listing type
- Job vacancy
To save you some time, if you are a bright, outgoing individual who has an entrepreneurial nature and can see yourself running your own business one day then read on.
At Twenty we are developing the business leaders of the future and we have the desire and opportunities for talented people to fly through the ranks. Check us out and you will realise that this is not an empty statement.
If you are looking for a large corporate environment, where you are just a number running with the rest of the herd, where time spent matters, then apply to one of the old established boring big boys!
Twenty is a privately owned recruitment business employing over 70 Consultants across London, New York and Austin (soon to be Berlin!). Having previously built and sold one of the UK's most successful recruitment businesses, the founders started Twenty to bring a fresh approach to the industry. Launched in 2009 the business has attracted top talent from a variety of firms including listed companies and SMEs, as well as through our own Consultant Academy. As a result, the business has a very good balance between youth and experience.
Our number one priority is focused on our assets - namely our people. Whilst the interview process can be quite thorough, it does ensure that we only extend offers to people who will live the values of the firm.
Unlike most firms, the CEO and MD hot desk on the sales floor with the rest of the business and are integral in the business development and staff training with employees of all levels.
In London we are based in a state of the art open plan office in the heart of the City (right by Bank Station). In New York we have just moved into a brand new 7000 square foot office in mid-town Manhattan, opposite the Chrysler Building. (2 minute's walk from Grand Central Station).
Twenty offers a market leading commission scheme. In addition, there are a number of incentives including annual ski trip, summer trip, lunch club and an all employee monthly social event paid for by the business. After one year you will be eligible to join (for free) the company's shareholder scheme.
Each year we choose a charity and hold a number of events including auctions, skydives, bake-offs and barbecues. Last year we raised several thousand pounds towards Teenage Cancer Trust.
We have already been recipients of awards such as the National Start-Ups (Best Service Company), previously won by household names like Innocent Smoothies. Twenty takes pride in our ability to develop our staff, promote through the ranks and provide a high level of support and patience to Consultants who show the desire to succeed. We have relocated several of our top performers internationally and fully intend to continue to do this, particularly as we open further overseas offices (California is currently under consideration!).
Both teams and individual Consultants are given budgets to run networking events which have proved extremely useful in developing new Clients and the Consultant's market knowledge. Guest speakers have included attendees from HM Treasury, Investment Management Association and Financial Conduct Authority.
In London we are looking for both "rookie" Graduate entry point level candidates as well as those who have spent some time working in a sales environment.
To be considered for our New York office, you will either need some pre-existing recruitment experience, or you will need to join us in London, spend a minimum one year working for us in which you will have demonstrated your capabilities as a recruiter and have a real desire to live and work in the US.
Most importantly, Twenty is a great place to work, with a strong management team who treat everyone equally. So if you are ambitious, would like to be a part of a great success story whilst acquiring the skills and knowledge to one day be a business leader, then please get in touch.
For more information on our Consultant Programme head over to our website via the apply button.
We are constantly reviewing CV's so to avoid disappointment apply early.
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Smallpox Strikes!
Barbour Pub Incorporated, 1998 - Juvenile Fiction - 144 pages
Rob Allerton has problems. His stepfather, Josiah Foy, is determined to make a shipping clerk out of him, but Rob hates everything about the family business. And when he isn't getting into trouble at work, Rob and his half-sister Rachel are being set up for trouble at home by their stepbrother, Thomas. Then, on top of everything else, smallpox breaks out. Rob's friend, Dr. Boylston, has a radical new treatment that may save people from smallpox, but Josiah Foy refuses to even consider letting his family be inoculated. How can Rob convince his stepfather to risk Dr. Boylston's treatment before his family contracts the deadly disease?
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Abrecan afternoon apothecary arrived Aunt Beth back room Boston Boylston boys brother called Campbell carriage close Cotton Mather counting house counting room desk doctor door eyes face father fire Foy Shipping Lines Freegrace gave Rob grabbed hand heard horse race hot cider hurried Indians inoculation Josiah Foy jumped kitchen kitten Kitty Lankford leave Long Wharf looked Marcus Master Robert meeting house morning Moseley Mother and Rachel musket Neponset never night Noah Patuckson prayer pulled pumpkin bread Punkapaog quickly quiet Reverend Checkley Reverend Mather ride Rob asked Rob felt Rob nodded Rob took Rob wanted Rob wondered Robert Allerton saddle Sam's smallpox smile stairs stepfather stepped stop supper sure talk tell Thank There's thing Thomas Thomas lay Thomas's thought Tommy Uncle Nathan Vetch village voice waiting walked window young Robert Zabdiel Boylston


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Ahhhh. My hair and scalp could do with some TLC and in these situations I always reach for my trusty jar of Virgin Coconut Oil. (Jar from Ikea, Coconut oil from eBay – of course!)
This has lasted me ages as I buy it 1kg at a time. Virgin Coconut oil is antibacterial and a lot of people using for cooking although I personally associate it with soapmaking and skincare too much to eat it!
Anyway this is just a bit of a ramble. Virgin Coconut Oil is one of the nicest treatments I use on my hair – it melts down as it gets warm and I slather it over my hair and scalp, clip it up and wrap it in cling film them leave it.
It has a tendency to drip after a while so have a towel around your shoulders.
Just remember there's two kinds of Coconut Oil, refined and virgin. Virgin costs more, but it smells amazing – I mean amazing – and retains all of its goodness.
The stuff you see in some supermarkets that sell you 1kg for £3?…Probably not virgin. I paid about £16 for 1kg of Virgin Coconut oil but that's pretty cheap. You can be paying about £9 for 250g of Virgin Coconut oil in some cases so do your research!
In my hair…the cats sniff at it enthusiastically…and I have to say No, little cat. You may not eat my hair.
My brush glides through my hair after a coconut treatment.
Messy, but good! I mean, great!
Here are some other oils you can use to beautify!


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HOUSTON (AP) Rockets first-round pick Royce White says on Twitter that properly treating his mental-health condition is more important than his NBA career.
White, the 16th overall pick in the 2012 draft, has been absent from Houston's practices for almost a week and called the team ``inconsistent' for how it was helping him deal with his anxiety issues and obsessive compulsive disorder.
ESPN first reported that White was prepared to walk away from the NBA. According to the ESPN report, he will meet with the Rockets on Monday to discuss his future.
White posted on Twitter: ``I'm not PLANNING to quit, but if its between my HEALTH and BASKETBALL, health takes precedence.'' The team has not commented beyond White is ``not available'' and the Rockets will continue to support him.


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When you first visit a website that requires the Java web plug-in, Safari presents a prompt similar to this one but containing the specific website:
Once you have chosen to block or allow the Java web plug-in on a website, you can manage Java settings for that website in the Security pane of Safari Preferences. To do so, follow these steps:
- Choose Safari > Preferences.
- Click the "Security" tab, then click the "Manage Website Settings…" button.
- For each website you have visited that uses the Java web plug-in, you can choose one of four settings:
- Ask Before Using: Safari presents the option to Block or Allow the Java web plug-in. If an update is available for Java, Safari directs you to download the latest version.
- Block Always: Safari presents "Blocked Plug-in" text in the place of the Java web plug-in content. Clicking "Blocked Plug-in" will bring up the option to Block or Allow the Java web plug-in for that website.
- Allow: Websites set to "Allow" can run the Java web plug-in as long as the installed version of Java has no known critical security issues. If an update is available for Java, Safari directs you to download the latest version.
- Allow Always: The Java web plug-in will run without prompts from Safari. This setting is only recommended for trusted websites that require the Java web plug-in, such as websites that are only accessible on your company's intranet.


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Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Keynote (The Software) Considered Harmful
The first presentation was awesome, and the second presentation stank. Nobody really cared during the second one. People responded sluggishly, if at all. The first presentation had more questions, more ideas; there was tons of actual code on the whiteboard, and a lot of it came from the other people in the room. I think everybody in the room spoke more than once. In fact, by the end of it, I wasn't even the only person at the whiteboard.
More recently I gave presentations at OSCON and Ruby East. Exactly the same thing happened. My OSCON presentation was full of funny pictures that nobody laughed at and clever comparisons that nobody was interested in. At Ruby East, I didn't even bring any presentation materials at all. No slides, no transitions, nothing. Just code. People loved the presentation; a couple guys who were saying afterwards that conference presentations needed to raise the bar in general actually went on to say "like your presentation," which was a huge compliment.
At OSCON, although people were into what I was talking about, I felt nervous the whole time, and I still feel I could have done a much better job. At Ruby East, I was calm, confident, and having fun.
The Keynote-less presentation at Bitscribe, we came up with an idea for a new twist on Rails, discarding its templating system in favor of a Seaside-like components system. We fleshed out actual code in the process, although we didn't go so far as to actually make it work. At Ruby East, we did go that far. An audience question which was basically a feature request led to a gigantic but very quick group hacking session, which resulted in new, useful code.
The secret sauce: before Ruby East, I read some blog posts by Kathy Sierra, which reminded me of the two presentations at Bitscribe. The posts were all about how to get people interested in your presentation. One tip: don't introduce yourself. Don't even bother. She said that presenters who start out giving you their credentials are way off base, because people don't need to know you're qualified. They assume you're qualified, or they wouldn't be at your talk. To quote:
Trying to establish credibility is backwards. Don't try to get the reader to respect YOU... the reader wants to know that you respect HIM!
You can take that one step further. Don't try to get the people in your presentation to imagine that what you're talking about probably works. Just show them it working. It was good enough for DHH when he first demoed Rails at RubyConf, and it's good enough for you too.
I still dig Keynote for screencasts, but I think I'll probably never use it at a conference ever again.
5 comments:
Trying to establish credibility is backwards. Don't try to get the reader to respect YOU... the reader wants to know that you respect HIM!ReplyDelete
Exactly. The most important thing a presenter can do is ask how familiar the audience is with the subject matter ("How many of you are Rails newbies? How many of you have used it a little? How many of you consider themselves experts?") and adjust accordingly.
I was happy to see this done more than once at Ruby-East.
It can go both ways -- I presented at DrupalCon Barcelona last month and used Keynote to good effect. With an hour to educate ~200 developers on important API changes and new capabilities on one of our core components, open-mic whiteboarding would've been very difficult.ReplyDelete
In a subsequent presentation -- geared more towards group brainstorming -- I used Keynote for a 5-minute introduction, then moved to your approach: lots of questions, lots of dialog, and lots of scribbling notes. I think it's about understanding what the purpose of each session is, and using slides/presentations to help whenever possible.
Yesterday I did a talk about basic CSS for a relative small group of people.ReplyDelete
A few days before I went through my Keynote with some people and they all laughed about me having just 5 slides.
Most of the time (my talk was about 30 mins) I just wrote code and refreshed the browser to show what it did.
People actually laughed when I showed them a *really* big header. It worked. People told me they liked it afterwards.
Now, before I went 'on stage' there was another guy. He did a keynote about PHP. It sucked.
He had way too many slides, showed some code, but didn't actually write new code etc.
In other words: I fully agree with you, Keynote should be considered harmful.
When you are talking about code, write code! Don't talk about it, write it. That's the most important thing in my opinion.
@joe - that was the biggest shock. I don't think anybody but the presenters knew this, but the two rooms were supposed to be the beginner and expert tracks. I was in the beginner room, and my audience was way more qualified than that. they'd told me "you're in the beginner room" but the majority of my audience were pretty skilled.ReplyDelete
@jeff - I think that's true, but just for the hell of it, I'll play devil's advocate. getting lots of questions is always valuable, and it doesn't have to be open-mike whiteboarding. you can demo code rather than explaining it. (profiling code live is also very effective, because there's an element of suspense.)
just abusing my privelege to challenge people. ;-) I bet if you took a presentation you were absolutely happy with, and challenged yourself to make it Keynote-free, you'd end up with a better presentation.
@martijn - I think the show and tell factor of writing some code to do something silly (e.g., big header) and then seeing it happen is what makes this approach successful. there's more of a feeling of being involved, because a Keynote presentation is kind of static, whereas code which produces results based on what somebody does is more dynamic.
I know during DHH's keynote at RailsConf people were most engaged when he was writing code in the console. He got some Rails code wrong when he was demoing it, and got a big laugh. Part of the reason it got such a big laugh is because more people were paying attention at that part of the presentation than at any other.
Your advice is much appreciated, believe me. How to make a presentation work is gold if you can get the right advice - and I think you are giving it.ReplyDelete
There is far too much emphasis now on the hi-tech approach, using your laptop. Take that to the extreme and you don't really need the lecturer/ presenter/ coach at all - just press a button at the start and stand back. In fact, why not just show a video?
A presentation - if designed to instruct and engage - has to be an interactive process with the audience. In fact, I would like to be able to take that a stage further, and allow them to input their own contributions via laptops perhaps. How do you think that might work out?


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Contributor Carol Venolia's essay "Camping Brings Me Home," in our current May/June 2007 issue, extols the love of living in balance with nature. Her words got me reminiscing about my myriad camping experiences.
A list of my family vacations reads like a guidebook to the National Park system: Acadia, Yellowstone, Cape Hatteras, Mesa Verde, the Everglades, Valley Forge, Grand Canyon, the Redwoods, Isle Royale, Bryce Canyon, Craters of the Moon, Yosemite. We camped everywhere, either in a tent or wedged into our tiny, 8-by-15-foot aluminum trailer.
For spring break when I was a kid, we packed up the tent and headed to destinations closer to our Kentucky home: Daniel Boone National Forest, Mammoth Cave, Cumberland Gap. We'd search for wildflowers—jack-in-the-pulpet, lady's slipper, Dutchman's breeches, trillium and ghostly Indian pipe—that popped their heads through the soggy leaves each rainy, chilly spring.
My roots in those lush, mossy forests and rocky hills run deep: I was named for the clusters of pink laurel blossoms that light the forest in early spring—and for a pretty cascade called Laurel Falls in the Smoky Mountains.
Camping isn't just about taking a vacation—it's about connecting to nature, and I have to say that all those childhood camping trips taught me more about ecosystems, meteorology, botany, astronomy, geology and wild beauty than book learning.
As an adult, I don't camp often, but I'm still amazed at how quickly I adapt to getting back to nature. In fact, my favorite trips lately tend to be places in which cell phones, TVs, the Internet and even electricity don't play a role whatsoever.
And, although spending the night on the ground in a sleeping bag has lost a great deal of charm, I'm still a sucker for outdoor beds. My current favorite? A hanging bed in a palapa—an open-sided, thatched-roof shelter in the Mayan tradition.
I've been lucky enough to discover Yelapa, a village on Mexico's Pacific coast where it's common to stay in a palapa in the jungle or overlooking the beach. I love climbing under the filmy web of mosquito netting that covers the platform equipped with a comfy mattress.
The whole bed is suspended by ropes. Inside this swaying nest I can read by flashlight or just lie and listen to the night sounds of the jungle or strains of salsa music wafting from town.
It's cozy and snuggly—but I'm constantly aware of nature, especially the scorpions, which are plentiful, poisonous and demand respect. Especially the cries of unknown predators far up the mountains. Or the sound of fruit bats nibbling the local berries.
Despite these somewhat unsettling factors, I sleep well, and all the unnecessary stuff in life peels away until I'm back to the essential me—the same me who at 2 years old discovered a laurel flower.
When I'm sleeping in a bed in a palapa under the stars in the jungle beside the ocean, I feel like I've found my own little "natural home."