text:
Painting By The Numbers: Eight Steps To A Successful Painting Project
So you want to spiff up your place a little bit, maybe add some color to the walls, a few accents here and there? Painting is a great way to give a room a fresh look, so pick out your colors and get ready for a fun weekend project. But before you start, here's a list of tools and supplies you're going to need.
- Drop cloths. Paint looks great on the walls, not so good on the carpets. Pick up some clear plastic drop cloths to keep paint off things that don't need painting. Get a heavy enough gauge that you can walk on it without tearing it.
- Masking tape. Prep work is the most important part of the job. Get some wide (2 inches or wider) masking tape and use it to attach your drop cloths to baseboards and to mask off light fixtures, electrical outlets, etc.
- Spackle, putty knife, and sandpaper. You will need these for filling holes and cracks prior to painting. Sand the Spackle smooth when it dries.
- Tri-sodium phosphate (TSP) for washing down the walls before painting. This gets rid of oils, cigarette smoke residue, and other things that prevent paint from sticking well. Be sure to wear rubber gloves when you use this.
- Paint applicators. There are lots of different tools for applying paint; brushes, rollers, edgers, foam brushes, and more. Rollers are great for large wall and ceiling areas. Brushes are good for door casings, baseboards, and trim. Pick several good quality brushes in different sizes from 1 inch to 5 inches in width. And foam edgers and corner applicators work well for wall and ceiling intersections.
- Paint tray. You'll need one of these if you are using a roller. It's hard to get the roller into a paint can.
- Mixing paddles. If your paint sits for a while after you bring it home, you will need to stir it up. The paint store will probably give you a few of these for free.
- If you are overcome with ambition and decide to tackle your home's exterior, you may want to invest in an airless sprayer. For large outdoor areas, this will cut your painting time by a factor of ten.
When you are through, make sure you thoroughly clean all your brushes and other tools. If you are using water-based paint, cleanup is easy. Oil-based paints require the use of paint thinner for cleaning, and you should dispose of the residue in an environmentally safe manner.


text:
Pruksa signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the Metropolitan Electricity Authority
29 August 2012 10:50 PM
Mr. Thongma Vijitpongpun, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pruksa Real Estate PCL (second from right), signed the Memorandum of Understanding to jointly study and develop the electricity supply system service with Mr. Manop Pisesverayos, Assistant Governor, Metropolitan Electricity Authority (second from left), to streamline and develop electricity supply service in a comprehensive manner.
Mr. Thongma revealed, "Pruksa has determined to develop and streamline every step of operation to smooth the work flow and prepare for rapid business expansion. Therefore, the company signed the MoU to study and develop the service with Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) which is a state enterprise responsible for distributing the power and electricity to people in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan."
"The cooperation project between Pruksa and MEA is aimed at streamlining the MEA service to be comprehensive, most efficient and responsive to the customers' needs. For instance, the process to apply for an electricity meter is shortened. Pruksa's contractors have also been trained and certified by MET to install electric wiring and electricity meters. The cooperation includes the information technology system development to speed up the electronic transaction on the Web site of MET. The MoU marks a good start for the cooperation for the maximum benefit of the customers. If this project succeeds, it will contribute to an effort of all property developers to upgrade their services," Mr. Thongma said.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
by Amy Forliti via thegrio.com
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The mother of Philando Castile, the black motorist killed by a Minnesota police officer last July, has reached a nearly $3 million settlement with the city that employed the officer, avoiding a federal wrongful death lawsuit that attorneys said could have taken years to resolve. The settlement to be paid to Valerie Castile, who is the family's trustee, was announced Monday and comes less than two weeks after officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of manslaughter and other charges connected to her son's death.
Castile, a 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker, was shot five times by Yanez during a traffic stop after Castile told the officer he was armed. Castile had a permit for his gun. The shooting gained widespread attention after Castile's girlfriend, who was in the car with her then-4-year-old daughter, livestreamed its gruesome aftermath on Facebook. The acquittal of Yanez, who is Latino, prompted days of protests, including one in St. Paul that shut down Interstate 94 for hours and ended with 18 arrests.
The $2.995 million settlement for Valerie Castile will be paid by the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, which holds the insurance policy for the city of St. Anthony. The plan for distribution of funds requires approval by a state court, which could take several weeks. Robert Bennett, who along with attorney Glenda Hatchett is representing Valerie Castile, said a decision was made to move expeditiously rather than have the case drawn out in federal court, a process that would "exacerbate and reopen terrible wounds." The settlement will also allow the family, the city and community to work toward healing, Bennett said.
"No amount of money could ever replace Philando," a joint statement from the attorneys and city of St. Anthony said. "With resolution of the claims the family will continue to deal with their loss through the important work of the Philando Castile Relief Foundation." Bennett said the foundation's mission is to provide financial support, grief counseling, scholarships and other help to individuals and families affected by gun violence and police violence.
Bennett said Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, is not part of the settlement. Reynolds has also hired an attorney, but it's not clear if she is still planning a lawsuit or has any standing for a federal claim. Reynolds' attorney did not return messages Monday.
The settlement happened faster than others stemming from the killings of black men by police officers elsewhere. Last week, a $1.5 million settlement was reached in the case of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old who was killed by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri. That settlement came nearly three years after the death of Brown, whose parents sued the city.
Bennett said his decades-long relationship with Joe Flynn, the attorney who represented St. Anthony in Castile's case, helped bring a quick resolution. He also said the city of St. Anthony has a commitment to make positive changes to their police department. The city is undergoing a voluntary review by the Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, with the goal of improving trust between the police department and the communities it serves.
To read full article, go to: Philando Castile family reaches $3M settlement in death | theGrio


text:
Anthropology alum studies the big leagues
Kevin Kniffin (class of 1995, Anthropology) spoke at Cornell University's 2016 homecoming celebrations on September 24. After getting his undergraduate degree here, Kevin went on to get his PhD in anthropology at SUNY Binghamton. He is now affiliated with Cornell's Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. The title of his 2016 homecoming address, during which he presented principles of effective leadership, was "Ten Bottom-Line Lessons from the Big Leagues."


text: Since Donald Trump became POTUS, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has been attempting to sneak some facts into his daily news diet by running ads during his favorite shows featuring "The Catheter Cowboy," and during last night's show, Oliver revealed that this time, the show is hoping to run a new ad during The O'Reilly Factor to educate Trump about sexual harassment, not to mention give The O'Reilly Factor a new sponsor, which it desperately needs right now. "We have produced an ad to educate Donald Trump to air during The O'Reilly Factor in New York and DC. We submitted it to stations on Friday, but weirdly, we haven't heard back from them since," Oliver says. "Which is a little surprising, because we are one of the only advertisers offering to buy time on his show at the moment." Check out the new "Catheter Cowboy" ad above.


text:
The club uses Dutyman to manage the duties associated with dinghy racing and Saturday sailing. Please sign into Dutyman to see the latest amendments to the rosters and to confirm attendance of your duties.
You can log into Dutyman here.
If you have forgotten your user name or password you can click on "Click here for a login reminder" button below the Dutyman signon fields .
Click here to download a simple overview of Dutyman and how to use it.
If you are unable to do your duty please arrange a swap. This can be done in Dutyman. The instructions are on the righthand side of the Dutyman screen. Only swap with someone with the same qualifications. The office will only arrange a swap for you in an emergency.
The original roster data is also shown below. Any changes that relate to you will have been notified by Dutyman emails.


text:
PRX - Pieces for Tone: Engaging
Can't find it? Try Advanced Search
1 result
One quiet autumn morning the United States was suddenly attacked by a small band of determined men inspired by a charismatic religious fanatic. The...
Bought by KSVR Studios: Skagit Valley Radio
- Added: Sep 29, 2009
- Length: 59:01
- Purchases: 1


text:
A few weeks ago, I posted scrapbook layouts made with a retired CTMH kit called Fun-Tastic. If you missed that post, you can view it here. Today, I have the matching cards that I made from the same paper packet.
Here is a mini 3″ x 3″ card:
This 4″ x 4″ card features a metal-rimmed tag and brad:
This 4″ x 4″ card was stamped in layers:
Such a simple project, but high-impact cards if you like geometric shapes!


text:
What is Mergr?
Mergr (pronounced 'mer ger') is an interconnected Private Equity and M&A Database.
What does this mean?
Everyday, we research and identify change of control transactions and late stage financings, connect the Private Equity Firms and Companies involved, and publish the data in an easy-to-use database.
We help users quickly build lists based on M&A interests and events. For example, build a list of all Private Equity Firms with interest in the IT sector. Alternatively, build a list of all PE Firms that have actually invested in IT. There are lots of ways you can slice the data we collect and our goal is to quickly deliver answers to the M&A questions you seek.
What data do we have?
Mergr is a database of,
- Private Equity Firms
- Companies that have engaged in M&A (either as Buyer, Seller, or Target)
- M&A Advisors (Law Firms and Investment Banks)
- Transactions
- M&A Contacts (Professionals from PE Firms and Advisors)
If you're interested in any of the above - you've come to the right source.
Mergr is not a database of,
- Venture Capital Firms / Funds / Financings
- Limited Partners
- Private Equity Funds (or Fund Returns)
- Corporate Venture Arms
If you're interested in VC related info - check out CB Insights. Interested in LPs or Fund information - check out Preqin.
What makes Mergr different?
- We are only focused on researching and collecting established company financings and M&A. (As noted above, we do not research early stage companies or venture rounds.)
- We do all the research in-house manually. We do not license, scrape, or purchase our information. Records and transactions are individually researched and manually entered. While this requires significant work - it ensures that we can build a database that provides a unique experience and differentiated insight.
Overview of the Mergr Dashboard
The first thing you'll see when logging into the Mergr platform is the Dashboard. The left-side offers quick links to the primary search pages as well as recently added deals. The right-side displays the most active (in terms of M&A deal count) PE Firms, Corporates, Investment Banks, and Law Firms of the year.
The Recent Deals section helps outline how we connect data on Mergr. Transactions always consist of a Target, a Buyer, and/or a Seller.
With 90k transactions and counting, you can imagine the relationships and insights this approach helps us create.
Next Steps
If you've just signed-up - we recommend checking out each of the search pages.
Have additional questions or need help?
There are several easy ways to contact us should you need help.
- Send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com
- Give us a call at (844) 884-9649 (ext 2)
- Use the chat widget found in the bottom right corner of every page.


text:
Create an Account - Increase your productivity, customize your experience, and engage in information you care about.
One night Bunco tournament!
Don't know how to play? Learn the basics on Thursday, March 26th at 12:30 p.m. at Vesper Hall.
Prizes provided by cedarhurst and EMPOWERME WELLNESS.
Prizes for: Most Buncos, Most Mini Buncos, Most Wins, and Most Losses.
Drinks and snacks provided.
Schedule- One round, break for snacks, second round.
Register now!


text:
The Kanger EVOD clearomizer has the same bottom coil heating system, same ego threading and great performance as kanger MT3 clearomizer. This is one of the best clearomizers for Electronic Cigarettes Currently on the Market today!. The EVOD's bottom coil head and metal base is detachable, so it will be less expensive to replace a coil. When the coil head dies, you can keep the metal base and replace only the internal mini coil head. Each EVOD clearomizer can hold 1.6ml e liquid. EVOD battery is customized for the EVOD clearomizer, although EVOD clearomizer can work well with most eGo/eGo T/eGo C batteries, like MT3 does. Each EVOD battery has 3.7V constant output voltage, which gives consistant performance.
How to refill the Kanger EVOD:
1. Turn the clearomizer body upside down and fill with approximately 2.0 ml juice.
2. Carefully screw on the base connector (coil head loaded) and wipe away surplus liquid.
4. Allow 1-2 minutes for the juice to feed into the coil before you start to vaping.
5. Screw onto your electronic cigarette battery and start vaping.
How to Clean the Kanger EVOD:
1. unscrew the heating coil (head) from the base of the evod
2. Run the evod heating coil (head) under water for a few minutes then let it soak in a glass of hot water for about 5 – 10 minutes.
3. (optional) let the heating coil dry over night
4. Screw the heating coil back on to the base of the unit, fill up your EVOD with e-liquid and start to VAPE!
Kanger EVOD Specifications:
- One 2.5ohm (+/- 0.2) (Standard Resistance) replaceable Coil Head
- Single Coil
- Ego Skirt
- Aluminum/Clear Cylinder
- Holds up to 2.0ml


text:
With 2017 drawing to a close, year-end lookbacks litter media and the blogosphere like so many leaves on the ground. (Or piles of snow, depending on where you are.) Many tend to focus on pop culture, product/movie/music releases, or professional sports. However, given the focus of Oracle Dyn's Internet Intelligence team on monitoring and measuring the Internet, we're going to take a look back at significant Internet "events" of the past year, and how they have impacted connectivity for Internet users around the world.
In late August, and through September, an active Atlantic hurricane season spawned a number of destructive storms that wreaked havoc across the Caribbean, as well as Florida and Texas in the United States. On the Caribbean islands that were hardest hit by the storms, the resulting physical damage was immense, severely impacting last-mile Internet infrastructure across the whole country. This was also the case in Florida and Texas, though on a much more localized basis. On September 25, we looked at the impacts of these hurricanes on Internet connectivity in the affected areas, noting that while some "core" Internet components remained available during these storms thanks to hardened data center infrastructure, backup power generators, and comprehensive disaster planning, local infrastructure – the so-called "last mile" – often didn't fare as well.
Towards the end of August, Hurricane Harvey forced hundreds of network prefixes in Texas offline, while a few days later, Hurricane Irma caused similar problems in Florida and Puerto Rico. Sint Maarten was also hit extremely hard by Hurricane Irma, causing complete unavailability of network prefixes associated with the island nation.
Internet Impacts from #HurricaneHarvey and #HurricaneIrma in #Texas, #Florida and #PuertoRico pic.twitter.com/01ZWbqgTWz— InternetIntelligence (@InternetIntel) September 14, 2017
Nearly two weeks later, Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, causing problems for local Internet connectivity as it made landfall. The power outages resulting from the storm caused last-mile connectivity to deteriorate, as we observed through a near-complete loss of recursive DNS queries coming from the island. Connectivity continued to struggle a week after Maria, and a recent Internet Intelligence blog post examined the state of Puerto Rico's post-hurricane Internet connectivity.
Nationwide Internet shutdowns for political reasons arguably had their genesis in a January 2011 Internet disruption that occurred in Egypt, which was followed in short order by similar disruptions in Bahrain, Libya, and Syria. These outages took place during what became known as the Arab Spring, highlighting the role that the Internet had come to play in political protest, and heralding the wider use of national Internet shutdowns as a means of control. A November blog post noted that while these shutdowns took place in the Middle East and Northern Africa, they have shifted over the last several years to become more common in sub-Saharan Africa.
Such outages continued to be the case over this past year. In mid-November, Equatorial Guinea's government ordered a complete Internet blackout ahead of an election that was expected to keep the party of longtime President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in power. This blackout was in addition to blocking of access to opposition Web sites, which started in 2013. In September, the government in Togo blocked access to mobile Internet connectivity amid anti-government protests. Following months of protests, Cameroon's government ordered an Internet blackout in English-speaking regions of the country starting in mid-January. This outage lasted until April, and Internet connectivity in these regions was again disrupted in early October, apparently in relation to mass protests. As of late November, this latest disruption was still in place.
Students around the world have long attempted to get an advantage on standardized tests, by whatever means necessary. Of late, test-related information has been shared via the Internet, leading the governments of Syria and Iraq to sever Internet connectivity within their respective countries in an effort to prevent cheating on such tests. The Iraqi government employed such techniques in 2015 and 2016, while the Syrian government also did so several times in 2016.
In February 2017, the Iraqi government took down the country's Internet connectivity for multi-hour periods across multiple days. As we noted at the time, the duration of the Internet outages covers the period of time of the physical distribution of the exam materials to testing centers, which typically begins at 5:00 am on exam day. The outages are intended to prevent images of the questions from the exams, along with the answers, from being shared via social media. Similar outages were also observed in Iraq during the first half of June.
Earlier today: 4th internet blackout in #Iraq, 9th in #Syria to combat cheating on exams. https://t.co/LIutGoqjwL pic.twitter.com/8WuH6MMIEe— InternetIntelligence (@InternetIntel) June 13, 2017
In late May, Syria began a series of nationwide Internet disruptions designed to combat cheating on exams. The outages occurred nine times over the course of two weeks. The Syrian Internet also appeared to go completely offline on July 12, but we don't believe that outage was related to any academic testing taking place within the country.
Route leaks occur when a network provider inadvertently announces routes to prefixes other than the ones they are responsible for. Sometimes a provider will announce routes learned from a peer that were not supposed to be shared any further. In other cases, the leaking provider "masquerades" as the origin of the route, while more significant leaks occur when a provider announces a full routing table. Depending on the type of leak and how widely these leaks are propagated across upstream providers, the ultimate impact is that traffic to affected network prefixes is redirected, lost, or intercepted; the severity can range from unnoticed to catastrophic. Blog posts we published in 2015 and 2014 looked at several examples of route leaks and their impacts, while another 2015 post looked at the impact of a routing leak on the availability of Google services.
However, in late August 2017, Google turned the tables, leaking over 160,000 prefixes to Verizon, who accepted the routes and passed them on, severely impacting major Japanese telecommunications providers including KDDI, NTT's OCN, and IIJ, disrupting Internet connectivity for users across Japan. The leaked routes were "more specifics" of routes already in the global routing table -- these "more specific" routes cover smaller ranges of IP addresses, and are preferred to less-specific routes within the BGP route selection process. These "more specific" routes were believed to be used by Google for traffic shaping within their network, but when they were leaked to the world, they were selected by external network providers over existing less specific routes. This ultimately resulted in traffic between the impacted Japanese providers getting routed through Google's network (in Chicago!), causing much of it to be dropped because of high latency or limited bandwidth.
Just a few months later, a route leak from Level 3 (now CenturyLink) disrupted Internet connectivity for millions of Internet users across the United States and around the world. On November 6, Level 3 began globally announcing thousands of BGP routes that had been learned from customers and peers and that were intended to stay internal to Level 3. By doing so, Internet traffic to major subscriber networks like Comcast and Bell Canada, as well as major content providers like Netflix, was mistakenly sent through Level 3. Our analysis indicated that other impacted networks included RCN, Giga Provedor de Internet Ltda (Brazil), Cablevision S.A. (Argentina), and even the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. Based on our traceroute measurements, the leak ultimately resulted in increased latencies to reach the affected network prefixes, reportedly causing users to experience delays and problems in reaching some Web sites. A subsequent Tweet from Level 3's Network Operations Center took responsibility but downplayed the impact, stating "On Nov. 6, our network experienced a disruption affecting some IP customers due to a configuration error. All are restored."
Authoritarian governments have long attempted to censor content for a variety of reasons, using a number of techniques. As more content (of all types) has moved onto the Internet, governments have often resorted to filtering end user Web and DNS requests, but the effectiveness of doing so has been inconsistent. However, hijacking IP address space belonging to content and/or hosting providers can allow a state telecom to functionally block access to sites served from those IP addresses for users on downstream networks in the country. While the routing announcements that implement the hijack are likely intended to stay within the country's borders, sometimes they leak out. One example of this was Pakistan's attempted block of YouTube in 2008.
In January 2017, we observed TIC, the Iranian state telecommunications provider, attempt to do something similar, hijacking IP address space belonging to a provider that hosts numerous Web sites featuring adult content. Unfortunately, these routing announcements made their way to Omantel, which announced them to other network providers, meaning that users outside of Iran may have been unable to access Web sites hosted at the hijacked provider. However, rapid action by Oracle Dyn team members enabled the hosting provider to quickly regain control of their address space. A few days later, TIC announced BGP hijacks of address space belonging to another hosting provider that serves adult content, as well as of 20 individual IP addresses belonging to Apple's iTunes service.
Iranian state telecom hijacking IP space that is hosting adult websites. Censorship leaking out of Iran? #bgphijack pic.twitter.com/t4XTLnQhIS— InternetIntelligence (@InternetIntel) January 6, 2017
In May, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko enacted a ban on Russia's four most prominent Internet companies, reportedly in the name of national security. The ban included the two most widely used social media websites, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, as well as email service provider Mail.ru and search engine Yandex. In late July, Ukranian service provider UARNet began announcing new BGP routes that were hijacks of the IP address space belonging to these Russian companies, presumably as a means of implementing the previously announced ban. However, similar to what we have observed in the past, these hijacked routes escaped the country's borders.
Submarine cables span the globe like an ever-growing spider web, carrying Internet traffic between continents, and bringing international Internet connectivity to island nations. However, they are also prone to damage from errant ship anchors, as well as intentional sabotage. When cable breaks occur, observed latencies for Internet traffic to/from these countries generally increases as the traffic fails over to higher latency backup satellite connections. Conversely, when a new submarine cable connection is activated, observed latencies for Internet traffic in countries with these new connections generally drops. Over the course of 2017, we saw examples of both.
Starting at the end of December 2016, the Marshall Islands saw a nearly three-week period of reduced connectivity resulting from a submarine cable break -- likely the HANTRU1 cable. The break caused lnternet traffic from the islands to transit a backup satellite connection with latency over 2x higher than the submarine cable. In mid-January 2017, damage to the Asia-America Gateway Cable System (AAG) and the Tata TGN-Intra Asia (TGN-IA) cable impacted Internet connectivity in Vietnam, resulting in latencies approximately 50% higher than normal, although the impact lasted just a few days. In late January, the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) cable was cut, crippling Internet connectivity to Madagascar. Based on measurements to Telecom Malagasy (TELMA), a leading telecommunications company in Madagascar, connectivity was significantly reduced for approximately six hours before a backup link to satellite provider O3b was activated. In late June, the EASSy cable was again cut, significantly impacting connectivity to Somalia. Satellite connectivity through O3b was again used as a fall-back, resulting in latencies approximately one-third higher than normal. The SeaMeWe-3 (SMW3) cable connects a number of countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as landing in Perth, Australia. In late August, damage to the cable caused latencies to Perth to spike, with repairs estimated at the time to take until mid-October. In November, another cut to the AAG cable again impacted connectivity to Vietnam. However, in this case, we observed that the cable cut caused latencies along some paths to increase as expected, but that latencies along other paths actually dropped because they were now taking a more efficient route instead of "tromboning" through a more distant connection point.
Pacific island nation #Palau activated its 1st submarine cable yesterday. At 20:22 UTC on 21-Nov, PNCC completely switched from MEO satellite to subsea cable-based transit reducing latencies (see graphic). The new SEA-US spans the Pacific Ocean. https://t.co/apadBUFdGe pic.twitter.com/mGJspPH1q2— InternetIntelligence (@InternetIntel) November 22, 2017
The tiny Pacific island nation of Palau activated its first submarine cable in November. The country previously relied upon an O3b satellite connection for Internet connectivity, and was able to reduce latency by switching to the SEA-US cable.
Cuba and North Korea have historically been two of the least Internet connected countries in the world. However, during 2017, both saw improvements to their international Internet connectivity. (In-country connectivity for end users is still severely limited in both countries.)
In early January 2017, we observed C&W Networks start to provide transit for ETECSA, marking the first time that a U.S. telecommunications firm provided direct transit to the Cuban telecom provider. C&W joined international providers Tata, Telefonica, and Intelsat in providing transit to ETECSA. Our measurements indicated that the C&W transit is being served from Boca Raton, Florida, with a 35ms round trip time to Havana, making it the lowest-latency link to the United States.
North Korea has historically had a single Internet provider, Star JV, which has relied on China Unicom for international Internet connectivity. However, on October 1, we observed that North Korea had gained a new connection to the global Internet through Russian fixed-line provider Transtelecom (TTK). However, subsequent measurements appeared to indicate that the new transit relationship was somewhat unstable. While it is impossible to tell simply from our Internet measurement data how TTK's network connects into North Korea, it may be via the Friendship Bridge, a railway crossing over the Tumen River that connects Khasan in Russia with Tumangang in North Korea, as it is the only connection between the two countries.
North Korea activated first internet link via Russia as US steps up campaign against Pyongyang https://t.co/mmuTdilFSq pic.twitter.com/Zz62iMyfFP— InternetIntelligence (@InternetIntel) October 2, 2017
With just a couple of Internet providers at its international border, North Korea is at severe risk of Internet disconnection. As such, the country is susceptible to complete Internet outages, such as those observed on August 14 and July 31 -- the reasons for both are unknown. Cuba also saw a couple of unexplained outages on November 8, though both were brief, as our observations indicated that they lasted for approximately 10 minutes each.
On August 17th, 2017, multiple Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and content providers were subject to significant attacks from a botnet dubbed WireX, which was primarily comprised of Android devices running malicious applications and designed to generate DDoS traffic. Researchers from Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, Oracle Dyn, RiskIQ, Team Cymru, and other organizations cooperated to combat the botnet. Collaborative work across these companies included identification of associated Web traffic and the IP addresses originating the requests, identifying the applications that housed the malware and removing them from app stores, and understanding the underlying code and command & control workflow. While certainly not the first instance of cross-industry collaboration, it is an example of how informal sharing can have a dramatically positive impact for the potential victims and the Internet as a whole.
In addition to the events highlighted above, which were shared via blog posts and Tweets from Oracle Dyn's Internet Intelligence team, 2017 also saw:
Hopefully the rest of December is quiet, Internet-wise. But if it isn't, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @InternetIntel, and on the Internet Intelligence blog at https://internetintelligence.oracle.com/, for the latest information and analysis.


text:
Paige Kenton: Athlete Profile
February 1, 2018
When it comes to athletics, Padua has many students who take sports very seriously. Paige Kenton, a sophomore, is one of those students. Along with her impressive academic record, Paige plays both basketball and soccer for Padua, and has done so since her freshman year. "I like both sports," she says, "but I think I prefer soccer."
Padua is known for having team spirit, clearly demonstrated in Paige's experiences. "I like playing sports because you get to be part of a team and meet new people," she says. She also expresses how enjoyable it is to travel with her team, saying, "It was a great team-building event," as she recalls how the basketball team got to stay overnight in Washington, D. C. this year.
Along with presenting a chance to demonstrate physical capabilities, playing a sport successfully can make players feel more confident and proud of their achievements. "I remember scoring my first goal in a varsity soccer match," says Paige. "It was really fun and the team congratulated me. It is definitely something I won't forget."
Of course, joining a sport is no easy task. Students must balance a taxing academic schedule and regular practices, which can be a challenge for many. Paige, however, is no stranger to pressure, and manages her time by using flex to do homework or getting a snack so she has the energy she needs to get through the whole day. "The only thing I dislike sometimes," she says, "is when we have a really hard practice or conditioning." Despite their exhausting nature, Paige concedes that these practices are helpful during the season.
When asked whether she would like to continue her athletic career beyond Padua, Paige responds, "I think I might continue to play in college just for fun." Whether or not she decides to pursue sports in college, Paige is undoubtedly an athlete for life.
Stella White is a senior at Padua Academy. Born in Delaware, with a wonderful British accent, Stella has spent a lot of her life growing up in England....


text:
Financial Exploitation of Crime 1996
[17] The various options that are available to implement the purposes discussed above must be considered in light of the constitutional imperatives. In particular, legislation may have to be designed so that it can be justified under section 1 of the Charter. In order to do this, the legislation may have to be designed so that it does not:
1.provide that all of the money earned through the exploitation is taken from the criminal;
2.provide that money is taken from criminals of all types;
3.hold the criminal's money for a long period of time.
1. Who Should be Covered by the Legislation
[18] Who should be the subject of the legislation depends, at least in part, on the particular purposes for which legislation is enacted. If, for example, the purpose of the legislation is to prevent criminals from exploiting their crimes in order to make a profit, it may be sufficient to restrict the legislation "persons who have been convicted of a criminal offence". It should not be necessary, in the vast majority of cases, to make those who have only been accused of committing crimes the subject of the legislation, since most people are unlikely to sell their story about the crime while still maintaining their innocence in the criminal courts.
[19] Moreover, if the legislation is consistent with its purpose, the legislation should expressly state that if a person is acquitted of a crime by a court, or if the charges are otherwise dismissed or withdrawn, that person is not covered by the terms of the Act. The person may still be found liable in a civil action, because of the lower burden of proof, but that action should not be the concern of special legislation designed to hinder defendants merely because they have once been charged of the crime. Similarly, the legislation should not cover third parties who write about a crime since, not having committed the criminal offence, there is no possibility that that person could be civilly liable.
[20] The more difficult problem is with regard to those persons who have been found to be not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder or not fit to stand trial. The similarity between these two circumstances is that the person who is accused of committing a criminal offence avoids legal sanction because of a particular mental state. However, it is suggested that that mental state not be the determining factor. Since in arriving at the conclusion that a person is not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, the judge or jury actually make a finding that the accused has committed the act or made the omission, 22 there does not seem to be any reason why a civil court could not use that conclusion as determinative of civil liability. On the other hand, however, no such determination is made with regard to someone who has been found not to be fit to stand trial. In the absence of that finding, it is suggested that legislation be designed so that it does not cover persons in this situation. There are two reasons why this is so. First, in the absence of a finding that the criminal committed the act, that finding would have to be made in any event at a civil trial. Once the victim(s) has a civil judgment against the person found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, the normal execution procedures can be used to ensure that, to the extent of the judgment(s), the criminal does not profit from his or her crime. Second, given the mental state of those who are found not to be fit for trial, it is very unlikely that such persons would later seek to exploit the crime so as to profit from it.
[21] I f the legislation has a broader scope, that is to assist victims rather than merely to prevent criminals from profiting from the crime, then the types of persons covered by the legislation could be similarly broadened. Rather than merely preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes, the legislation could logically also include those who have been accused of a crime since whether or not they are found guilty in the criminal arena they may be later found to be liable in the civil sphere. However, if legislators were really interested in assisting victims, then they would also include those who have been accused or found to be guilty of provincial offences (so long as those offences have caused harm to a person) and people who have committed crimes and provincial offences but have not been charged. 23
[22] Whichever purpose a legislator adopts for its legislation, there does not appear to be any need to include, as the Ontario Victims' Right to Proceeds of Crime Act, 1994 24 (attached as Appendix A) did, a reference to spouses and other relatives. Clearly these references were included out of an abundance of caution to ensure that the criminal could not, as Clifford Olson did, assign to his spouse the rights to receive the financial benefit from Olson's recollection of his crime. The problem not only is that this type of provision is inconsistent both with preventing criminals from profiting and with helping victims, but that it could operate to work a grave injustice. For example, if a woman is the victim of spousal abuse and writes about it after her husband has been tried and convicted in a criminal court, the Ontario legislation will operate so as to keep all the earnings on her recollections for at least five years. If what the legislature really wants is to stop a criminal from trying to avoid the provisions of the legislation, all that is needed is a prohibition against assignment, with the penalty either being: (1) a provision that deems all money earned through the assignment to be the money of the criminal; (2) a fine, large enough to prevent most assignments; or, (3) the provision that the assignment is voidable on the application of an injured party or the Attorney General.
[23] It is recommended that:
1. only those people who have actually been convicted of a criminal offence, including those who have been found to be not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, be subjected to legislation preventing the exploitation of crimes.
2. people who have only been accused of crimes, people who have committed crimes but have not been charged, relatives, and persons found not fit to stand trial, not be subject to the legislation.
3. that a provision be included to ensure that those who are subject to the legislation cannot avoid it by assigning their profits to some third party.
2. What Offences Should be Covered
[24] If, as noted above, a decision is made that the purpose of the legislation is to assist victims, then it naturally follows that all offences that cause harm, whether they are criminal in nature or provincial offences, should be included within the legislation. However, if the purpose of the legislation is to prevent criminals from profiting from their crime, then a further decision may be made as to whether the legislation should seek to prevent criminals from profiting from crimes of all types.
[25] This issue arises because of a further examination of the purposes of this legislation. As was noted above, 25 legislation in the United States was adopted as a result of the outrage that occurred when the Son of Sam received money for relating the stories of his crimes. A similar outrage occurred in this country when Clifford Olson received money for telling the police where eleven bodies were buried. 26 Finally, anticipating the response of a salacious press and public, people have expressed alarm that Paul Bernardo and Karla Holmolka may financially benefit from the re-telling of their particularly gruesome crimes. 27 In short, the outrage that people have expressed when criminals have financially exploited their crimes has been reserved for those people who have committed particularly heinous crimes.
[26] This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that there have been a number of publications in Canada and in the United States where criminals have written about their crimes.none of which have been attended by public outrage. The following is a list of some of the most important Canadian publications.
1.Roger Caron, Go-Boy (McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd: Toronto, 1978). On this voyage of self-discovery, the author depicts a number of bank robberies that he committed.
2.Micky McArthur, I'd Rather Be Wanted Than Had (Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited: Toronto, 1990), depicting various robberies and assaults.
3.Victor Malarek, Hey, Malarek, (Macmillan: 1984). In the course of describing the difficulties of his childhood, the author also described how and why he robbed a grocery store.
4.P. Starr, Tempting fate: a cautionary tale of power and politics, (Stoddart: Toronto, 1993). The author describes how she came be convicted of fraud, breaches of trust, and breaches of the Election Finances Act.
5.Evelyn Lau, Runaway[:] Diary of a Street Kid (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.: Toronto, 1989). The author describes how she went from being an honour student to a prostitute and drug user.
6.Francis Simard, Bernard Lortie, Jacques Rose and Paul Rose, Pour en Finir avec Octobre (Stanké: Montréal). In addition to describing some of the motivations behind the formation of the F.L.Q., the authors describe how two people were kidnapped and one of them ended up being killed.
7.Julius Melnitzer, Maximum, Minimum, Medium: A Journey Through the Canadian Prisons (Key Porter Books, Toronto: 1995). The author alludes to his defrauding of various people, and banks, of millions of dollars.
Rather than being greeted by an outraged public, many of these authors have received public awards. In fact, because of Go-Boy, Roger Caron received the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction. Evelyn Lau's Runaway received numerous awards and was made into a movie by the C.B.C. Victor Malarek is now a respected investigative reporter on the C.B.C.
[27] The difference between these books and those forms of exploitation that outrage people is, it is submitted, in the types and numbers of crimes committed. Once that distinction is accepted, a choice has to be made as to whether all criminals have to be treated in the same manner or whether the legislation should be designed to prevent only those criminals that have committed the most egregious crimes from exploiting their crimes.
[28] Of course, it must be noted that by engaging in this type of distinction, legislative drafters must seek to define the difference between good literature, or literature that will not provoke an outrage, and bad literature; a task that those in the United States who sought to define pornography found to be impossible. Whatever distinction is accepted, it must be reiterated that the constitutional law of this country may demand that legislative drafters at least try to draw a workable distinction¾however hard it may be to apply in the end. Since the Charter requires that the section 2(b) rights of criminals be minimally impaired, that might mean, as noted above, 28 that the legislators are bound to prevent only those criminals whose crimes give rise to moral outrage from financially exploiting their crimes to make a profit.
[29] Using the distinctions that are found in the Criminal Code, there are a number of distinction that could be drawn between offences that should and should not be covered. For example, on decreasing scale of the number of criminals included, legislation could be limited to:
1.those who have been convicted of an offence that carries a penalty of five or more years imprisonment;
2.those who have been convicted of an offence and actually sentenced to five or more years imprisonment;
3.either of the two options above, limited to people who have committed violent crimes against a person;
4.those who have committed a serious personal injury offence, as that phrase is used in the dangerous offender provisions of the Criminal Code, including acts of high treason, treason, first degree murder or second degree murder, whether or not the offender is actually found by a court to be a dangerous offender;
5.those who have actually been found to be a dangerous offender.
[30] If legislation is going to include people who have been found to be not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, then that inclusion eliminates the second and fifth options since the Criminal Code does not provide a sentence for such people. Moreover, since the first option includes most of the authors referred to above, it is suggested that it is too wide.
[31] This leaves the third and the fourth option as acceptable ways to define the types of offences that should be covered by the legislation. Accordingly, it is recommended that, at the minimum, legislation be drafted to apply to who have committed a serious personal injury offence, as that phrase is used in the dangerous offender provisions of the Criminal Code, including acts of high treason, treason, first degree murder or second degree murder, whether or not the offender is actually found by a court to be a dangerous offender.
3. The Description of the Crime
[32] Just as it may be desirable or even necessary to limit the types of crimes that are covered by the legislation, it may also be desirable or necessary to take money only from authors who recall the particulars of the crime in an offensive way. A couple of examples will illustrate this point.
[33] When Roger Caron or Evelyn Lau wrote their book, it was written primarily for therapeutic reasons. Consequently, both of these writers were rewarded rather than punished by the public. However, one gets the impression from reading Micky McArthur's book that it was written primarily to gloat about his crimes.
[34] The obvious benefit of such a distinction is that it continues to encourage those who: (1) wish to explore their motives for committing crimes; (2) wish to show the world why they did certain things; or, (3) wish to make their argument to the world that they were wrongly convicted, to continue to write or talk about their crime.
[35] The difficulty with this approach, however, and it may be a fatal difficulty, is that it is very difficult to draft legislation so as to draw a distinction between "good" and "bad" criminal recollections and equally difficult to apply legislation that distinguishes between such concepts. 29 In the end, therefore, people who have to deal with any such legislation may be very uncertain as to what they can and cannot do, with the result being increased litigation . Moreover, if criminals are given a way out of the legislation, many will take this route. All of this litigation, which no doubt will involve victims in their effort to ensure that the profits earned by the criminal will be diverted by legislation to a government agency, will increase the emotional and financial costs for victims.
[36] It is recommended, therefore, that legislation not attempt to include or exclude criminals from the application of the legislation because of the particular way that their crimes are described.
4. Methods for Effecting Legislative Purpose
[37] Given the constitutional limits as discussed, there are five possible methods for preventing criminals from exploiting their crimes to obtain a financial benefit. Those within provincial legislature authority are: (1) preserving the funds; (2) the administrative re-distribution; and (3) the assisted legal action. Those within federal legislative authority are: (1) Penitentiary Gag Order and (2) Copyright Expropriation. Each of these, together with their respective benefits and detriments, will be discussed below.
a. Provincial Legislation
(i) Preserving the Funds
[38] All legislation existing in North America can be categorized under this heading. As can be seen from the attached review of the legislation in the United States (Appendix C) there are three different methods of preserving money that is payable to the criminal in a fund for the benefit of victims.
[39] The one that exists in the majority of the states, and which has been adopted by the Province of Ontario as its Victims' Right to Proceeds of Crime Act, 1994, 30 requires that the party to the contract which allows the criminal to profit from his or her crime pay the money to a governmental fund rather than to the criminal. The only modifications to this method are the ones that exist in California and New York. In California legislation merely imposes a trust upon proceeds accruing to the criminal while in New York the legislation merely requires that a state board be informed of contracts allowing criminals to profit from crime so that the Board, in turn, can notify the victims.
[40] The basis upon which all of these enactments operate is that once the money has been preserved (or once a victim has been notified that the criminal who caused him or her damage has assets), the victim can initiate legal proceedings against the criminal and obtain damages. There are two distinct advantages in relying upon victims to sue the criminal: it requires the victims to self-identify and it relies upon the courts to determine the extent of each victim's damages.
[41] While this may be a satisfactory basis upon which to operate legislation of this type in the United States, where awards for non-pecuniary damage claims may approach the astronomical amount of money that can be earned through, for example, book sales, it is a model that is far less suitable for Canada. This can be illustrated by the Bernardo case. In that case Bernardo was charged and convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering two young girls. Recent case law indicates that for the loss of their children's care, guidance and companionship the parents of the children may each receive in the neighbourhood of $15,000-$20,000. 31 Without any knowledge of the type of book that Mr. Bernardo may be capable of writing, it is expected, because of the notoriety of the case and because of its temporal proximity, that Mr. Bernardo would earn a great deal more money than that.
[42] Not only will notorious criminals be much more likely to financially benefit from legislative schemes that rely upon the victim's legal action, but in undergoing any such action the victim will have to expend financial resources and go through the trauma of an assessment of damages. In situations where the assessment is of the worth of a child, this process must be a very painful one indeed. The situation is exacerbated in Ontario where contingency fees are not presently allowed, S 32 and where the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act 33 gives the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund a right of subrogation to any action that the victim brings against the criminal to the extent of the value of the compensation awarded under the Act. 34
[43] That, however, is not the full extent of the problem. The purpose of preserving funds is to ensure that it is worth the victim's effort and money to bring the lawsuit. However, in order to give victims sufficient time to bring their lawsuit, legislation of this type typically provides for the retention of the money earned by the criminal for a long time.often up to six years. This means that for all of that time the criminal has been deprived of income. Not only is this risky from a Charter point of view, given that this delay in income may not be justifiable, but it also has some negative policy implications. These are:
1. although a five or six year delay would be hard on any person, it is particularly onerous on someone who is trying to earn a living as a writer. Both Roger Caron and Evelyn Lau are in this category;
2. it may mean that a person may get out of prison, with no income other than that earned by writing books, and be unable to use the income from his work to assist in his rehabilitation. Julius Melnitzer, except for the fact that he appears to be able to write about things other than his crime, would be within this category; and,
3. A government agency needs to look after this money until such time as a victim with a judgment can take it off its hands. This involves additional costs (which presumably may be taken out of the proceeds) and risks.
(ii) Administrative Re-distribution
[44] One way of avoiding the problems that are endemic to the fund preserving model is to have a government agency.presumably the one that is in charge of holding and accounting for the money that would otherwise have been paid to the criminal.find the victims and distribute the money to them. Rather than having a system where the damages that have been awarded are paid out of the monies available, with the risk that the criminal will still end up profiting from his or her crime, the enabling legislation can provide that victims are entitled to a percentage of the money paid to a government agency.irrespective of the amount of that money. The only task left to the government agency, therefore, would be to apportion to each victim the total money payable to the victims as a group.
[45] In addition to ensuring that the criminal does not in fact profit from his or her crime, this system has the advantage that victims will probably not have to undergo the same sort of examination of the worth of their damages (since an apportionment need be made only when there are multiple victims and, even then, the examination need not be so probing since the determination is as to relative worth rather than absolute worth) nor will they have to undergo the embarrassment of having the value of their family members set out in money terms. Finally, it is submitted that this administrative model suits the Canadian nature more than one which relies upon lawsuits.
[46] Despite these advantages, there are a number of possible disadvantages. Since the scheme would be a legislative invention, there are at least two constitutional issues that need be considered. These are that the scheme may be inconsistent with sections 96 and 91(23) of the Constitution Act, 1867. Each of these will be considered in turn.
(a) Section 96
[47] On its face, section 96 merely requires that the federal Parliament appoint judges of the Superior, District and County Courts in each province. As interpreted, however, this section protects the jurisdiction of those courts by preventing both the federal and provincial legislatures from establishing other courts with the jurisdiction that was, in 1867, exercised by the superior, district and county courts. In order to determine whether this section has been infringed, the courts have devised the following three part test:
1.whether the jurisdiction to be given is broadly conformable to powers exercised by superior, district or county courts at or after Confederation;
2.whether the jurisdiction to be exercised is a judicial power; and,
3.if the jurisdiction to be exercised is judicial in nature, whether the jurisdiction can nevertheless be justified as a necessary functional requirement within the institutional context. 35
[48] While it may be argued that an administrative agency under legislation preventing the exploitation of crime would be doing the same thing as a court in assessing and awarding damages, there are certain differences. First, the method of assessment would be different. Rather than attempting to quantify the victim's damages, an administrative officer would merely attempt to ascertain the victim's relative share of the money. In fact, if there is only one victim, there would not have to be any assessment at all (unless the percentage of money that the criminal is to be allowed to keep is to be determined by the governmental agency rather than by legislation). Second, the amount of money that a victim could receive under this legislation would not be limited to the extent of their damages at law. For example, even if a victim suffered relatively minimal damage, he or she would still be entitled to his or her share of the criminal's profits of a best selling book. Third, since courts take money away from the criminal and the administrative model would only distribute money among the victims, the method of determining the victim's share of the monies need not be the same nor as strict as a court's. Finally, the argument that the administrative model is not broadly conformable to the powers exercised by the provincial superiors courts may be enhanced by a legislative provision stating, as some U.S. state legislation does, that the rights contained in the legislation are in addition to and not a substitution for rights existing at common law (or under the Civil Code).
[49] These same points support the argument that the administrative officer that allocates money among victims is not exercising a judicial function. This argument would be enhanced if the legislation provided that the criminal is not a party to the proceedings and cannot appear to make representations. 36 Such a provision would be possible since under the legislation, so long as there are victims, the criminal must lose a certain percentage of his or her money in any event.
[50] If these arguments fail, it is unlikely that a court will find that the powers exercised by the administrative officer can be justified because they are necessary to the broader institutional context. The simple reason this is so is that the legislation as anticipated doesn't fit within a much broader purpose, such as labour relations, See footnote 37 education 38 or transportation. 39 Rather, this legislation, if implemented according to this model, would merely be an alternative to the fund preserving model which, as noted, is based upon the notion that victims will sue criminals in the superior courts.
(b) Section 91(23)
[51] The second issue is the extent of federal legislative authority under section 91(23) of the Constitution Act, 1867, the class of "copyright" and the effect that class might have on any provincial legislation. Although there has not been a lot of judicial interpretation of the limits of this class, using the principles that have been developed elsewhere it is possible to make a few observations.
[52] Generally, the law of copyright can be characterized as the method by which Parliament bestows negative rights: the right to prevent people from copying material that is protected and the right to prevent people from using copyrighted material without paying for it. 40 Given this description, there are two conclusions that can be drawn. The first of these conclusions will be dealt with immediately below, while the second conclusion (dealing with federal jurisdiction over copyright) will be dealt with later in this paper.41
[53] Given Parliament's legislative limitations under section 91(23), it would seem reasonable to conclude that legislation that leaves a copyright intact but which requires that the copyright holder give up a portion of the proceeds earned through the use of these negative rights must be characterized as being in relation to a matter of property and civil rights rather than to matters of copyright. This conclusion follows from the fact that the right to earn money from a copyright has neither been dealt with by federal legislation nor is it a negative right that, it is argued, can be dealt with by federal copyright.
[54] In other words, just as Parliament does not have jurisdiction under section 91(27) merely because a criminal is involved, Parliament should not have jurisdiction under section 91(23) merely because legislation may involve material over which copyright has been granted. Moreover, even if this were not the case
"such that a court might conclude that laws that impair the usefulness of a copyright are laws in relation to matters of copyright 42 it is also possible for the courts to conclude that such legislation also relates to matters of property and civil rights and that, until the federal Parliament has occupied the field, valid provincial legislation can still operate.
[55] Notwithstanding this last conclusion, it should be noted that there are those who are of the opinion that "it is not open to the Province to create a property right the consequence of which is to deprive the author of a portion of the ownership of the work that he or she has written."
[56] Whether this conclusion is correct or whether Parliament is in fact restricted under section 91(23) to bestowing negative rights only has yet to be determined by any court. Until that time, any final conclusions that can be made in this area must be speculative only.
(iii) Assisted Legal Action
[57] Assuming that it is not constitutionally possible to implement the administrative re-distribution model, the only option that is available is relying upon victims suing the criminal for damages. As noted above, however, there are some defects in that system. The final alternative, therefore, is one that continues to rely upon the benefits of that system while eliminating the defects. This can be done by legislatively providing assistance to victims in their lawsuits against the criminal.
[58] As the law now stands, courts will accept the existence of a conviction of a criminal charge as prima facie proof, in a civil context, that the criminal committed the act for which he or she was charged. 43 As a result, in actions by victims against criminals there is theoretically no difficulty in establishing liability. The primary problems, as noted above, are with the cost, the difficulty and the embarrassment in proving damages. If that situation were legislatively altered, most of the defects of that system would be eliminated.
[59] The proof of pecuniary damages is relatively easy, since the only proof that is needed are the receipts of out-of-pocket expenses or the direct testimony of income that has been lost. In order to prove non-pecuniary damages, a plaintiff must show how much a rape meant or how valuable a child was to a parent. In many of these cases experts are required to give testimony, and this involves a great deal of added expense to the litigation. In other circumstances, where the court is involved in valuing the life of a child, this process can be wrenching and embarrassing.
[60] This difficulty could be eliminated if victims could rely upon legislation that gives them, in certain circumstances, a fixed sum of money for a particular injury. This type of legislation already exists in Alberta, where the Fatal Accidents Act 44 gives certain close relatives the right to a statutory maximum amount of money for bereavement. Although that particular legislation suffers from the one defect that its monetary limits are set too low, that defect can easily be remedied by legislation that places the statutory limit in a regulation rather than in the legislation and that also includes a requirement that the limit be examined every few years to determine its suitability. 45
[61] Ironically, under this type of legislation the different legislative purposes merge into one. So long as the monetary amount is set high enough, a reasonable likelihood will exist that criminals will not be able to profit too much from their crimes. Moreover, because it will be easy to prove both liability and damages, victims will not only get a larger judgment but can expend less money and go through less emotional turmoil in getting that judgment. Finally, since there is no reason why legislation of this type needs to be restricted to victims of crime, legislation that fixes the damages for non-pecuniary harm can be of benefit to all victims and not just those who were harmed as a result of a criminal act.
[62] Unfortunately, the one weakness of this legislation is that it can apply to both victims of crime and victims of civil wrongs. Thus, while the legislature could conceivable raise the damages that are due to victims for non-pecuniary damages to such a level that criminals are not likely to profit, that may mean that tortfeasors will pay much larger damage claims merely to make sure that victims in the criminal context can take most of the criminal's money. While there is nothing theoretically wrong with this, it may be considered by many legislators to be an unattractive option either because it may not be seen as being directed toward the prevention of profits by criminals or because it may have repercussions for the insurance industry.
[63] While it is no doubt possible to draft such legislation in a way that it only applies to victims of a criminal act, even this possibility is not attractive. In order to limit the benefit of such legislation to victims of crime, it would be necessary to expressly exclude victims of civil wrongs. Given that crimes and torts do not necessarily result in different injuries, a distinction of this kind may not be politically sustainable.
[64] It is recommended:
1. that since the assisted legal action model does not meet the requirement that legislation be specifically directed toward preventing criminals making profit, that model not be implemented.
2.that both the fund preserving model and the administrative model have certain advantages and either model can be used in provincial legislation (draft legislation is included in appendices E and F respectively).
b. Federal Legislation
(i) Penitentiary Gag Order
[65] Clifford Olson, who was convicted in 1982 of the murder of eleven boys, has apparently written two books about those murders. 46 These are Profile of a Serial Killer.The Clifford Olson Case and Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer.A Profile. Those books, which apparently deal with the rape and murder of a number of young boys in graphic detail, have never been published. Despite attempts by Mr. Olson to send these books to members of the media, as described in a Statement of Claim (enclosed as Appendix D), such attempts have been thwarted by the Penitentiary in which he presently resides pursuant to sections 71, 96, and 98 of the Correction and Conditional Release Act. 47
[66] There are at least two advantages to such legislation. First, it can be used to only restrict the section 2(b) rights of those authors that really provoke outrage. Second, it actually prevents books from being published rather than merely taking the profits that the criminal author would earn from a published book.
[67] Unfortunately, this approach has two problems.
[68] First, it is susceptible to a Charter challenge. Although the reduction in people affected by the legislation may be seen to be a minimal impairment, from the point of view of the particular criminal author affected his or her section 2(b) rights are completely obliterated. Moreover, if Parliament wanted to minimally impair those rights it would allow the criminal to publish (all or part of his or her material) while taking a share of his or her profits.
[69] It is because of the particular and excessive impact on him that Clifford Olson has brought an action in the Federal Court challenging the authority of the warden to impose these restrictions. Although the federal Crown denies in its defence (Appendix D) that a Charter breach has occurred, the real defence seems to rely upon section 1 of the Charter. In that regard the Crown argues that the only way it can allow Mr. Olson to be transferred to reduced security, which will assist in his treatment and rehabilitation, is to reduce his notoriety within the prison population. Mr. Olson is, therefore, prevented by the Penitentiary from sending his books outside of the prison since any publication of those books would increase his notoriety.
[70] Although the Federal Court judge who heard the challenge decided that the infringement could be upheld under section 1 (Appendix D), that decision is now under appeal. If the legislation continues to be upheld on appeal, and if the suggestion above has been adopted such that any legislation designed to prevent criminal from exploiting their crimes is limited to those crimes that cause moral outrage, 48 legislation that gives wardens authority to determine if criminals are entitled to recall their criminal experiences may prove to be all the legislation that is needed.
[71] The second problem with this approach is that it may not provide a guarantee that people who have been convicted of a criminal offence will not be able to make a profit. Karla Holmolka provides the perfect illustration of this problem. As most people know, Ms. Holmolka has pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twelve years in jail for her part in the murder of two people. Because the sentence is so short, Ms. Holmolka can avoid any gag order by delaying her efforts to exploit her crime until such time as she is released from jail, safe in the knowledge that the notoriety of her crime will be such that she will still be able to make a profit from it at that time. The only thing that may stop her from doing this is the fact that, when she entered into her plea bargain with the Crown, she agreed that she would not attempt to profit from her crime. While this may or may not be effective to prevent Ms. Holmolka from seeking to exploit her crime, and it is unclear how such a promise can be enforced, 49 this type of provision is not always included in plea bargains.
[72] Since legislation allowing gag orders is already in place, preventing certain criminals from profiting from their crimes, no recommendation need be made about this option.
(ii) Copyright Expropriation
[73] Even if, as noted above, 50Parliament only has jurisdiction under section 91(23) of the Constitution Act, 1867 to confer rights of copyright that are negative in character, it is submitted that Parliament still has jurisdiction to prevent criminals from exploiting their crimes so as to earn a profit. This follows from the fact that just as it is within Parliament's jurisdiction to give a person these negative rights, it must be within Parliament's jurisdiction to deny particular persons the ability to acquire a copyright or to decree that it owns the copyright to certain works rather than the author of the work.
[74] This conclusion is particularly important in light of a proposed amendment to Copyright Act (Appendix B) that would give the Crown in right of Canada the copyright in works that have been "created, prepared or published by or in collaboration with the person who has been convicted of an offence under the Criminal Code that may be proceeded against by way of indictment" so long as the work "is principally based on the indictable offence or the circumstances of its commission". 51 Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with this proposed legislation.
[75] First, so long as a work comes within the terms of the legislation, copyright exploitation will be automatic. Consequently, there will be no way to prevent the legislation from applying to works that do not give rise to a sense of outrage. For example, books such as those written by Roger Caron and by Julius Melnitzer, depending upon how the relevant phrases of the legislation are interpreted, could come within the terms of the legislation.
[76] Second, the Charter will likely have some impact on the validity of the legislation. This is so despite the fact that the Charter does not protect property rights. Thus, while the expropriation itself may be allowed, the argument probably will be that if the Crown does nothing with the work once it has acquired the copyright, it is preventing the criminal from expressing him or herself. Moreover, once it is known that the Crown will refuse to exercise the rights of ownership once it has copyright, other criminals may be convinced not to write at all.which is probably a further infringement of section 2(b) rights.
[77] Third, the Charter argument will likely be reinforced by the existence of article 15(1)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 52 which recognizes the rights of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any...literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
[78] Finally, if the federal Crown does exercise its newly acquired copyright in a work, written by a criminal about his or her crime, it may be compelled by the Charter to attempt to make a profit on the work. In this instance the Crown would be put in the position of exploiting crime.an only slightly less offensive sight than criminals doing the same thing.
[79] It is recommended that the option giving the federal Parliament the ability to expropriate the copyright on the recollection of crime publications not be adopted.


text:
Board video games have a incredibly extended record, having been all over for generations however, they have become a well known earlier time amid the middle course someday throughout the 20th Century. Numerous of the far more classic video games on the marketplace currently received their get started throughout Planet War II.
There are several of present-day board video games offered that have become just one of the several fascinating video games offered in laptop or computer structure. Pc video games can be performed in solitary or multiplayer versions. In solitary participant video games, you will obtain that your opponent is the laptop or computer. For Multiplayer video games, you will participate in the game in opposition to other gamers who love to participate in the game. Numerous laptop or computer video games received their get started as a incredibly complex board game. The cause several board game designers have built laptop or computer video games offered, is simply because it is less complicated to discover the regulations, simply because the game will level them out as you go, and it is also will save the participant in set up time.
Numerous board video games use other factors, in addition to its normal items, these types of as, CD's and DVD's. The video games performed on these factors are conveniently transferable and interactive. You can participate in on your laptop or computer, and in some instances you can participate in the game on your tv set. It is interactive, as the game has may perhaps attributes that let you to respond to issue and make selections. By means of these factors, a new participant will discover the regulations faster simply because they get hands on practical experience in taking part in the game.
The board game field has made several thousands of board video games. These gamers can be performed by solitary gamers who participate in in opposition to them selves they can also participate in in multiplayer and participate in in opposition to yet another human being and even workforce participate in where just one workforce of participant is pitted in opposition to yet another workforce of gamers, these types of as trivia kind video games and some of the several acting video games and drawing video games. There are also children's video games, teen video games, and video games for younger older people. In addition some of the video games are geared in direction of the boys and there are some just for the girls. Board Video games supply several variants for the people today who participate in them.
You will also obtain that a great offer of creativeness was place into producing these board video games. Video games these types of as Monopoly, Go, Threat, and Scrabble have been made with intricate regulations and methods to maintain any participant fortunately taking part in the game. Chess brings with it incredibly complex depth and complex go patterns that make a human being have to use all of their psychological procedures. Monopoly teaches its gamers vital serious estate and banking methods that will educate its participant how to finances for the investments they want to make although taking part in the game. Each individual game comes with its possess idea and its possess regulations but all of them supply gamers and fascinating gaming practical experience.
Some video games depend totally on your ability to occur up with methods, create on your past method, and create far more sophisticated methods. Chess video games have to have you to consider on your toes, and to modify your method just about every time your opponent will make a go. There are some board video games that have to have no selection creating expertise, these depend on luck, and are generally children's video games these types of as chutes and Ladders or Sorry. Adult players want video games that make them make a decision on anything and want video games where the company models the game to depend on both equally luck and method, these types of as Monopoly and Threat. Though there are several other concerns, when choosing your board game, but each and every game was built to maintain you entertained so you can participate in any video games.


text:
Published March 9, 2015
This week's publishing is a request. A reader asked that I publish a description of a lap around Sears Point that I wrote in the 1977-1978 time frame. The description appeared in a number of places including some of the AFM racing programs as well as the Second Annual SONOMA MOTORCYCLE CLASSIC Souvenir Program. This version is from the 1978 AMA National program because that's the version I found first while rummaging through my musty old newspapers and magazines and stuff. This is how it appeared, word for word (except I fixed some typos). Uh, remember as you read this I was 20-something and not a practiced writer. If I were writing it now it would be better.
A Fast Lap by Paul Ritter, Defending Sears Point Production Champion.
A lap around Sears Point Raceway has been compared to a roller coaster ride, and that's not off by much. Sears Point is a hill circuit. Of its total length of 2.5 miles only a little more that one half mile is level — the rest is up one side and down the other.
Pulling out of the pits you run through the Start/Finish straight, which is on the flat part of the track but isn't really straight. The track is very wide at this spot, as it is also part of the layout's drag strip. For motorcycle road racing this spot is usually taken as a sweeping left turn. Just past the Start/Finish line is the fastest section of the track, with the quickest machines topping 130 mph.
The circuit narrows and the left turn gets tighter as you reach turn one and start the first of the hillclimbs. You rocket through turn one, shoot up a short, steep straight, stab the brakes for an instant, drop a gear (or two if need be) and pitch the bike hard right for turn two. At the apex of this turn the gradient changes from a steep climb to more of a gentle rise. This can make the bike light on its toes. A short straight, very bumpy for motorcycles, connects turns two and three. After the rise to turn two the track falls into a dip at the entrance to turn three.
Three is really two turns, a quick left-right S-bend that must be taken in combination. It is complicated by the terrain. At the entrance the track is uphill turning left and gets steeper as you flick the machine from hard left to hard right. Then, just after apexing the right hand section the track falls steeply downhill. It is easy to get the front wheel in the air as you accelerate out of this turn and drop down the hill.
You'd better get the front wheel back to earth quickly, because you have to brake hard for turn four, a tight right-hander. Not only is turn four tight but it is decidedly off-camber and a little slick as well, adding to the excitement. The turn opens and you accelerate hard. You are about to blast through five, a fast right hand sweeper that continues the downhill drop then begins another climb as you approach turn six — the infamous Carousel.
Roaring out turn five you dash up a short hill featuring some bumps at the top, and as you crest the rise you discover that the track has gone away.
The Carousel is always a thrill the first time through as the entry is completely blind. You come over the crest and discover that the track has gone left and drops steeply. You turn, and turn, and turn some more, all the time losing altitude as though you've just ridden right off the end of the world.
You bottom out — finally — and at this point the track gets really fast. You start another climb and it is nearly a quarter of a mile from turn six to turn seven. It will be you first opportunity to visit top gear since downshifting for turn one.
The track is nearly straight now, although there is a flat-out dog-leg to the left just before you get into seven. Once again it is time to get on the brakes in a big way. Turn seven is a second-gear hairpin, which leads you into the Esses. This speedy little section is a series of left-right combinations, which slope gradually downhill until you exit the right-hand eight-A. Here the track drops steeply and you pick up a lot of speed which carries you through the left-hand turn nine. This is probably the second-fastest section of the track.
After nine you work your way to the left of the track to set up for turn ten. This corner is a fast right hander and you are finally on level ground again. You can take turn ten at 100 miles an hour – if you hit just right. If you don't it's a trip to the tire wall for certain.
Turn ten leads you onto the longest level straight of the road racing circuit – all of 1,100 feet.You have to use about a third of this straight for more "white knuckle" braking as you grind it down from flat out in top gear to a crawl in second. Turn 11, you see, is a hairpin right hander, good for maybe 30 miles per hour. Coming out of this turn is literally a blast. You turn it on and run through the gearbox rapidly to be back up to top speed as you flash under the starter's stand.
That's once around Sears Point. With the Ducati, and it's five-speed gearbox coupled to a notoriously torquey engine it works out to 22 gear changes per lap. I go from second to fifth and back three times, with some other changes thrown in for good measure. A friend on a Yamaha TZ350 with six speeds in the gearcase counts 36 cog changes per lap with the light-switch type power curve. Sears Point is a working man's circuit — fast times are earned by the sweat on your brow.
That ends the original post. Sears Point Raceway, now Sonoma Raceway, has changed in several spots since this was written. Turn seven has been widened and is now a double-apex corner. The start/finish straight is really a straight since a new wall has been constructed between the raceway section and the drag-strip section, and the bikes can't drift out wide like they used to. Turn one has been tightened so the run up to turn two is slower.
The entire section from turn eight-A to turn one is different, changed mainly for safety. The old turn ten was really fast with very little run-off room and the original turn eleven had a solid concrete wall on the outside. As the bikes got faster that area became too dangerous.
However, the basic nature of the track hasn't changed. There are no long straights where the rider can relax a little and let the bike do the work. In spite of the changes it is still hard work.


text:
Check out our Community Events Scrapbook
Monday, October 29, 2018 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: The Durham Art Gallery
A unique technique of learning watercolour painting developed by Anna Gruda. Develop your skills and visual perception while having a healing colour experience. Anna has worked with children, adults and seniors with this method of exploring the qualities of colour and their gestures. The results show an inner landscape of figures, symbols and mental projections.Contact: Lindsey Glazier


text:
NAEP Board Adopts Blueprint for 1992 Reading Test
Washington--Saying that shifts in reading instruction demand changes in assessment, the governing board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress has adopted, in principle, a dramatic new blueprint for its 1992 reading test.
Acting at its quarterly meeting this month, the board approved a revised version of a proposal drawn up by a panel led by the Council of Chief State School Officers. It is expected to be further refined before it is sent next month to the Educational Testing Service, naep's contractor.
"The tide is shifting," said Phyllis W. Aldrich, chairman of the board's reading committee. "Since 1971,4reading has changed in definition. How we test it has got to change."
The closely watched plan, which will provide the framework for the first state-by-state comparisons of student-achievement data in the subject, calls for substantially increasing the proportion of open-ended items that ask students to write their own responses, rather than choose from among multiple-choice responses.
It would also use longer passages of authentic text material, and measure performance on three types of reading.
In addition, it would add an unusual special study of students' oral fluency, as well as a pilot assessment to collect portfolios of students' classroom work in the subject.
The proposal represents a substantial shift from past assessments, but Ms. Aldrich said naep would conduct a "bridge study" to link performance in 1992 with the results from previous reading tests.
The plan would also cost considerably more to administer than past tests, which relied primarily on multiple-choice questions, acknowledged Chester E. Finn Jr., the board's chairman. But, he said, "at some point, this board has to say to the Administration and Congress, 'If you want a proper assessment, this is the way to do it, and this is what it costs."'
'Everything We Can'
The blueprint adopted this month represents a slight modification from the plan unveiled last month by the ccsso consensus-planning committee. (See Education Week, Feb. 14, 1990.)
Based on consultations with officials from the National Center for Education Statistics and the ets, the committee agreed to cut back some proposals the officials said might be unfeasible given cost constraints and the one-hour time period allotted for testing.
For example, the panel agreed to reduce from 60 percent to 40 percent the amount of testing time students would spend on open-ended questions, and to cut out many questions aimed at discerning students' reading strategies and backgrounds.
The panel also agreed to report a single composite score, in addition to scores on the three reading scales.
Ms. Aldrich said the innovations could be expanded in future naep tests.
"We want to do everything we can," she said. "We may not be able to do it all at one time."
National Goals
In other action, the board agreed to modify its plan to establish national goals for student performance in the subject areas it tests.
Under the new version, which is expected to receive final approval in May, the board would set at least two standards for performance in each grade level, instead of the single standard proposed in the original plan.
The revised plan is "very close" to what President Bush and the nation's governors envisioned in the national performance goals announced last month, according to Michael Cohen, director of education programs for the National Governors' Association.
"When there are goals set, whoever does it," he told the governing board, "it should have the effect of moving the entire level and distribution of performance."
"What the governors did not want to do," he added, "is to have the effect of moving those just below the standard, and ignoring those well below or well above it."
Herbert J. Walberg, chairman of the naep board's technical-methodology committee noted that the board and the governors continue to differ over how to set standards for performance.
In their statement, the governors and President Bush said that student performance "will increase significantly in every quartile." The board's plan, on the other hand, would establish standards for "essential" or "advanced" performance, as well as a possible third standard for "proficient" performance.
"What the governors are proposing is easy to do," said Mr. Walberg, professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "It's a statistical procedure. What we are proposing requires human judgment."
"I don't see why we can't do both," he added.
Timetable for Expansion
Mr. Cohen also said he agreed with board members that the current naep timetable may be inadequate to measure progress toward national student-achievement goals.
Unless the Congress acts soon to expand the assessment, noted Mark D. Musick, president of the Southern Regional Education Board, naep will be unable to present a full state-by-state "report card" until at least 1997.
Under legislation passed in 1988, naep is authorized to conduct a pilot state-level assessment in 8th-grade mathematics in 1990, and in 4th- and 8th-grade math and 4th-grade reading in 1992.
"There is a general recognition we have a long way to go before we have state-by-state achievement data," Mr. Cohen said. "I don't think any of them would be happy waiting that long."
Vol. 09, Issue 25
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.


text:
Native New Yorker, elementary school teacher and licensed artist, Lisa Katharina creates decorative and colorful artwork with the intention of propagating happiness and inspiration. Lisa Katharina has exhibited in juried shows at the historic Philadelphia Sketch Club and staff shows at The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her artwork adorns the walls of Philadelphia's fine dining restaurant, Jake's and Cooper's Wine bar, in Philadelphia's National Historic District, Manayunk.
Percentages of sales from select botanical artwork on this site are donated to Living Beyond Breast Cancer. All abstract artwork and abstract phone cases sold on this site help raise funds for Neurology Research and Education at Jefferson Hospital.


text:
General, Vascular, and Thoracic /Advanced Laparoscopic / Bariatric Surgeon. International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity / American Society for Bariatric Surgery Member.
General, Vascular, and Thoracic / Advanced Laparoscopic / Bariatric Surgeon. International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity / American Society for Bariatric Surgery Member
Doctor Schwab completed undergraduate in Pre-Med Biology at Nicholls State University in 1992. He then went on to medical school at LSUNO and graduated in 1996. He completed two years residency at LSU followed by residency at Greenville Memorial Hospital in Greenville South Carolina.
Dr. David Rau completed undergraduate studies at Nicholls State University and went on to post graduate studies in medicine at LSU. He finished in 1984 and continued his residency at LSU affiliate hospital caring for patients through the LSU system. He gained vast experience in trauma and general surgery.
The sleeve gastrectomy is a restrictive procedure that works by converting the stomach into a long, thin tube by stapling it along its length and removing the excess stomach. The size of your stomach is reduced by about 75%. It is divided vertically from top to bottom, leaving a banana (or sleeve) shaped stomach along the inside curve. The pyloric valve remains intact at the bottom of the stomach. This means that although smaller, the stomach works in the same way as before. Some advantages of the sleeve gastrectomy include:
Welcome to our practice! Our surgeons are the most experienced bariatric surgeons in the Louisiana Tri-parish area. We offer a comprehensive & healthy approach to surgical weight loss management. The physicians and staff of Surgical Weight Management Associates are excited to help in your journey to a happier and healthier future with weight loss surgery!
All of our surgeries are performed exclusively at Physicians Medical Center. It is a physician-owned, multi-specialty hospital located in Houma, LA, the heart of Louisiana's bayou country. Our patients prefer us for our outstanding success rate and quality of care.
We are the only program in tri-parish area that is an accredited center by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program.
This accreditation is awarded to centers that meet the highest standards and stringent criteria established by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
I had the Lapband surgery in July of 2008. I had a few health issues like high blood pressure, Sleep Acmia, Reflux, Arthritis, and high cholesterol. One year after surgery I was on no medicine at all, and seven years on, I'm still medicine free. I lost a total of 265 pounds and I feel great. I can do things now that I thought I would never be able to do again, and I encourage everybody to get this surgery that has weight problems.
*These are individual results. No outcome is guaranteed.
Having weight loss surgery saved my life. It gave me the tool I needed to get back on track to eating right and exercising. I have my life back so that I can enjoy the time I have with my daughter and family and friends. And most importantly I've learned to love myself again and enjoy life.
*These are individual results. No outcome is guaranteed.
I weighed 406 pounds and had a 54 inch waist when I started my weight loss journey with the gastric sleeve surgery. I am currently at 253 with a waist of 36". I went from a 4x shirt to now a 1x. This journey has been a life saver. This surgery has given me the tools to be able to keep up with my life and kids. I used to have serious multiple health problems and now I am 100% healthy with no meds. Doctor Schwab and his staff has been so wonderful to me from the beginning. They treated me like I was family. I would do this surgery all over again if I had to. It was the best decision I have ever made.
*These are individual results. No outcome is guaranteed.
For years I battled obesity. The lapband helped me learn how to "eat to live and not live to eat ." I never dreamed I would lose over a 175 pounds, more importantly I never thought it was possible to not be on a diet and maintain a healthy weight. But I did it ! With the help of my doctor, medical staff, and lap band I lost the weight and somewhere in between 309 and 124 I found myself. Stop reading my story and come write your own!
*These are individual results. No outcome is guaranteed.
I have struggled with my weight since my early teens, but I never realized how out of control it had gotten until my daughter started school and I saw pictures of myself. That's when I decided that if I wanted to see her grow up I had to do something! Seven years and 140 lbs later I would recommend to anyone considering bariatric surgery to do it…don't wait another minute!
*These are individual results. No outcome is guaranteed.
Surgical Weight Management
5619 Highway 311, Suite B
Houma, LA 70360
Phone: 985.868.2206
Fax: 985.868.2232
Surgeries performed exclusively
Physicians Medical Center
218 Corporate Drive
Houma, LA 70360


text:
As much as I LOOOOOOVED exhibiting at craft shows for the past five (six?) years, I am finally hitting a wall.
This is not good for someone who makes the majority of their money via craft shows.
I used to do between 15-20 shows a year from Virginia to Connecticut. Most were outdoors, and that's where the proverbial "tough nut" came into play.
Outdoor shows can be awesomely cool or miserably hellish. Depending upon the time of year, they can be balmy and gorgeous (April into May) up to heat-stroke-inducing hell-on-the-blacktop productions (June to September). I remember one show in Pennsylvania where I had my feet in my ice cooler, a wet towel around my neck (OOOOH so lovely) and came thisclose to heat stroke. Vinyl tent tops hold heat, the show was on blacktop, in August, and it got to 110 degrees under that tent.
The good part of the day was I sold almost all of my things by noon. The bad part is I had to stay until 5pm, and most people by lunch realized they were frying like eggs and left.
|My outdoor show booth, at a beach.
|Polymer clay gingko bead by Courtney Breul.
|My lampwork studio, and some of my early beads. I LOVE that orange!
|Two of my pieces -- metal smithing and stamping.
4). I want to WRITE. I have an article coming out in BeadTrends in May and I'm trying (trying!) to find other venues who'll like my style. Along with that, I'm going to dig through the memoir how-to books and the story prompts I have collected.
5) And, I want to learn to juggle.
Yep. You heard it here first. It has NOTHING to do with business, unless you consider I'm constantly juggling projects, so why not learn to do it for real?
Why? It's freaking cool! You're NEVER too old to learn things! And I'll leave you with one of my favorite juggling videos. And if you don't take five minutes out to watch, you'll really miss out on something amazing (and the song is a sort of anthem for me).