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CEO: Is the gender gap a gender issue?
CEO of Cell Press writes about balancing science and life — and how people's choices affect their career potential
By Emilie Marcus, PhD Posted on 14 March 2013
People often ask how I "broke through the glass ceiling" to succeed in a field that is predominantly male and have overcome the barriers women face in science. They don't always like my answer, because it's not about gender. It's about learning how to be effective as a member of a minority in different contexts, understanding the peculiar structure of academic research, and accepting the choices and trade offs facing both women and men in balancing work and life in this field.
Inspiring and helpful mentors
From my initial interest in science in high school, I never felt held back, overlooked or under-appreciated because I'm female. Quite the opposite: Perhaps because people in science often are so passionate about their work, they may be gender-blinded by the thrill of sharing their fascination and wish to encourage anyone who is interested. And I was.
My thrall with science began with thoughts of becoming a physician. That goal changed after a year off after college when I worked in the Columbia University lab of the eminent neurobiologist Eric Kandel (who went on to share the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons).
Dr. Kandel and his colleagues were so encouraging that they inspired me to pursue a career in scientific research rather than medicine. That led to successful graduate and postdoctoral research work, including a PhD at Yale in biology/neuroscience (where I had an excellent mentor, Dr. Thomas Carew) and research positions at the Salk Institute and University of California at San Diego.
My path was set. And I had a lot of support from both men and women in science – and owe them a lot.
Career course change
But a funny thing happened along the way: Despite loving research in all its aspects, I became unsettled by the choices necessary to pursue a career in academic science. First and formost, you must select one specific area of focus. That requires a measure of healthy chauvinism, a conviction that your chosen question and approach are more interesting, valuable, compelling and likely to succeed than others.
But as much as the scientific problems I was working on were enjoyable and inspiring, equally (and sometimes more) engaging and exciting were the projects and results of other scientists. The need to choose a single focus area, in fact, panicked me. This culminated in a pivotal, life-changing experience when, as a post-doc, I received a phone call with good news about funding of my grant application and realized I was more depressed than elated.
If a research scientist is not ecstatic about the rare positive news about funding, it is most definitely a sign not to ignore.
After much soul-searching, I decided to leave research and began looking for career opportunities where my breadth of interest would be an asset. An ad for an editorial position at the scientific journal Neuron led me to publishing and eventually the position of editor-in-chief. Work as an editor satisfied every need to remain deeply engaged with science and scientists while indulging in broader scientific issues. My new path led to my leadership today of Cell and Cell Press. Again, all the while I was encouraged – or at least never discouraged – by male and female managers, mentors and colleagues.
'A minority of one'
All that said, throughout my professional experiences, from the lab to Cell Press, I have often found myself in the minority – sometimes a minority of one. The only woman. The only junior scientist or editor in a room of distinguished leaders. The only American in a room of Europeans. The only academic in a room of business people. More recently, the only business-minded person in a room of academics.
In all of these cases, effective discussion, successful collaboration, and recognition of the value of my contributions, always required a good deal of listening and asking questions, putting myself in others' shoes and cogently explaining my perspective and ideas. Closing a "gap," I've found – gender or otherwise – requires mutual respect, shared goals and a positive teamwork approach. Whether or not this attitude measurably contributed to my career success, it certainly made work more fun and rewarding.
Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation (US Department of Commerce)
Why the gender gap in science?
If my experience is illustrative, then it's fair to ask, why is there a gender gap in science, especially at the advanced levels? As a 2011 US Commerce Department report concludes, women remain vastly underrepresented in STEM-related jobs and among degree holders, and women with STEM degrees are less likely to work in STEM jobs, even though the gender wage gap is smaller than in non-STEM jobs. What's going on here?
Let me suggest a perhaps provocative factor, that the gap is driven by the unusually individualized and competitive nature of academic research. Science trains far more students and post-docs than the number of faculty positions that are available. Growth in government research funding in many countries is limited. Thus, the field is sharply competitive for grant dollars, faculty positions and stature, and it tends to reward individual over team achievement (no ambitious post-doc ever got a grant or job because they were a good team player or helped another scientist get a key publication). Moreover, no formalized structure tells a scientist what question to work on, approach to take, or how many hours to invest. No principal investigator I know ever told a post-doc that he or she really should take a vacation.
Little room for work-life balance
Right or wrong, these factors are the reality of academic science today and how scientists are rewarded and advance. Those who stand out and rise above tend to work long days, nights and weekends, often traveling and presenting constantly. It can be hard for someone who wants a diversified life to compete against someone who's willing to be in the lab 20 hours a day or on the road for months.
As a result, devotion to research science and pursuing the highest achievement makes seeking a work-life balance (e.g., family time) especially difficult, as is true in many competitive fields. The unique demands of research science exacerbate the challenge. The individualized nature makes it harder for parents and employers to distribute the workload when family duties call. What's more, in my experience – forgive me – men still tend to be more comfortable with forgoing family time for work. Because the field is so competitive and fast-moving, women who take time for family can lose ground quickly.
Science demands hard choices
So to me, the gender gap is not necessarily a gender issue. That is not to declare the field completely free of gender or other biases – overt or covert – that should be addressed as they occur. Some of my colleagues note other challenges and solutions, including the need for women scientists to serve as role models to inspire young women to follow in their footsteps or mentor young professionals.
On a separate front, many institutions are striving to retain talent by helping both women and men balance work and life. Policymakers and advocates are calling for more generous family leave measures in the United States that other countries have. And many women and men I know do already achieve the balance they seek, and happily thrive on both sides of the scale.
That's my point: Scientists, like everyone else, understand that life is about making choices, accepting tradeoffs and adjusting expectations. Plenty of research scientists I know who do not wish to shortchange family life (or other endeavors) for this uniquely demanding field are realistic – they understand they also may not be on the fast-track for a Nobel Prize or heading a major research institution. They accept that, and are happy to adjust their goals carving out a successful, productive research career with a comfortable sustainable position in the marathon, but not aiming to be the first to cross the finish line.
Dr. Curie warned us
I hate to say it – and some might chafe at this notion – but a person who chooses work over other life pursuits may, by definition, do better in that field. That may not be the standard we wish to set. Science might be served better by a system that favors diversity, team work, balance, broad intellectualism, civic responsibility and healthy work life balance. If so, then collectively we need to embrace and pursue that goal with measures for both men and women that foster and reward those attributes in gaining funding, jobs and status.
In the end, perhaps Women's History Month is really about choices – for women, men and the profession – about the system and life we want. It's fair to assume that Marie Curie and the other 2013 honorees this year made their own tradeoffs. As Dr. Curie once said, "I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy."
Update: A similar version of this article has been published in Issues in Science & Technology, a publication of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the University of Texas at Dallas.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Ever since Postmates become the fastest way to send anything from point A to point B, the on-demand delivery app like Postmates, Jinn, and Quiqup has begun to grow with crazy pace.
In one of our recent articles – The Best Go-To-Market Strategy To Build On Demand Services App For Multiple Industries And Make Millions! – we talked about how targeting multiple industries through an on-demand delivery app can get you ahead of competitors.
In fact, Jinn is doing the same thing, by letting its users in Europe order anything locally for delivery – not just food.
Founded in 2013, Jinn has successfully picked up $10 million in fundings recently, with the total funding of $20 million till now.
The on-demand business and startup are currently handling deliveries by hiring freelance couriers and generating revenue through the £5.95 flat delivery fee plus charging 10% of the purchase.
Similar to Jinn, another London-based on-demand delivery tracking app startup Quiqup has also raised £20 million in Series B funding.
Originally, the aim of Quiqup was to let customers order anything from its app for local same-hour delivery, with initial emphasis on food. However, with new fundings, the startup says it plans to use the capital to expand to other U.K. cities beyond London and also start the international expansion.
Another Malaysia based Food Delivery Startup – Dahmakan, has raised funding of $2.6M as it prepares to grow its business in Southeast Asia.
The food delivery startup differentiates itself from the industry giants FoodPanda and Deliveroo with an end-to-end access to food, saying that it cooks all of the dishes by itself and delivers to its end customers. Moreover, Dahmakan also considers its food as healthy comparatively with junk food.
2017 was a tremendous year for the Malaysia based food startup as it boosted around $1.3M in Feb and also became the first Malaysian startup to be included as a part of YC's summer 2017 program.
Jessica Li – One of the co-founders of Dahmakan, revealed that the fund will be utilized for expanding technology and searching for new opportunities to grow the business into Southeast Asia region.
The point of sharing this information is this: Today, time is a precious commodity for people. As customer expectations change, retailers of all sizes will be expected to offer flexible efficient and affordable delivery services or we can also say last mile delivery services.
Therefore, creating a platform that let users order anything locally with a same-hour delivery guarantee with your on-demand package delivery app can get you one step closer to launching a successful startup in the on-demand economy.
If you're still not convinced, take a look at UberRush, DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Stuart. All these startups are similar to Postmates, Jinn, and Quiqup, serving the same on-demand market.
In fact, we have personally developed a similar app called Ninja Delivery. It is an on-demand delivery app, serving in California, to send any kind of packages from point A to point B.
As you can see, there is clearly a need for these kinds of on-demand delivery apps, and food delivery startups like Postmates and UberRush are leading the industry at the moment.
So, What exactly made them successful and popular?
Or, What do these on-demand delivery app startups target?
Originally, Postmates food delivery app started out as a food delivery app startup, similar to UberEats. But, Postmates has identified the opportunity and widened their reach by offering to deliver anything, not just food.
In fact, Postmates, last mile delivery app, today get some orders that are really small: a dishwasher liquid or a bar of soap. But, these small orders are what keeps Postmates running, as they guarantee a constant supply of orders for their couriers.
How to Get Started With Your On-Demand Delivery App?
To build an on-demand delivery food apps like Postmates, you've to take care of certain things. They are as follow:
Partner with local stores and businesses:
As mentioned earlier that time is the precious commodity for today's consumers, you've to find and partner with local stores in your region to display products in your mobile app.
For example, you'll have to contact and make deals with restaurants, grocery stores, health & beauty businesses, cafes, etc in order to offer products in your app.
On top of this, you must also provide an option to let customers write down their desired product, if it's not available in the display, to order.
Decide – Whether to have couriers on payroll or contract with freelancers:
There are two primary ways that on-demand business and startups find couriers.
-They hire their own fleet of couriers.
-They contract with freelancers the way Uber and Ninja Delivery does.
The Uber-like method is much more common in most on-demand delivery startups, but depending on the size and location of the market, you've to decide this.
However, when starting out, working with freelancers is cheaper for on-demand delivery startups. And, for any recently launched delivery startup, having their own fleet of couriers often seems like too much expense and commitment, but it's recommended to hire a certain number of full-time couriers once the startup reaches a stable level of orders.
Choose the right scope of features:
The majority of on-demand delivery startups have separate apps for couriers/drivers and customers. We analyzed the most successful on-demand delivery startups on the market and created two templates that include essential features that a customer app and courier/driver app must have.
In fact, when the client of Ninja Delivery App approached us, he also wanted to build just one app for both users, at first. But, after understanding the downsides of that, he agreed with us and decided to create separate app for both its users.
The courier/driver version of the app is simpler and only has a handful of only essential features.
Now, of course, it will take time and effort, but focusing on the most essential features in your app will certainly put your app ahead of your competitors.
How Do On-Demand Apps Generate Revenue?
Postmates does it in three ways: courier fee, retailer program, and convenience fee.
Courier fee include a small reward for every order you make; convenience fee is extra price satisfied customers agree to pay (probably between 5-10% of the whole sum), and when it comes to retailer program, according to the agreement partners sign, they allow Postmates to take 15-30% of their revenue in return for noticeable placement in the app.
Other on-demand app services generate revenue in a similar way. For newly launched on-demand startups, it's best to charge 5% convenience fee and $5 courier fee that directly goes into the pocket of freelancers.
In a Nutshell…
- Start by defining your target audience, then hire mobile app development company to build your app around your target audience's needs. Customize your services to meet the needs of a certain community, offering options that local businesses don't provide.
- Invest in a good relationship with local stores and businesses. Don't underestimate the power of word of mouth. Remember, building a reputation takes time and partnering with local businesses and stores will earn you the additional promotion for free.
- Hire full-time couriers on payroll once your startup reaches a stable level of daily orders. This will give you on-demand delivery business enough flexibility while optimizing your expenditures.
So, if you are having an on-demand food delivery app idea, which you think that can grow your business, then you can cross-verify it with us as we are a leading mobile app development company and have already developed over 50 mobile apps on the on-demand solutions.
In case, if you still have any query or confusion regarding on-demand food delivery app development, how much does it cost to create on-demand app development or on-demand delivery app for alcohol, how much does it cost to develop an app, then you can get in touch with through our contact us form. One of our sales representatives will revert to you as soon as possible. The consultation is absolutely free of cost!
This page was last edited on May 21st, 2020, at 6:53.


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Language of the Small Folk is a series of posts telling the story of my warrior persona and her companion Nolan as she tries to recover a magic she's lost–the ability to communicate with the Small Folk.
You might think of Small Folk as fairies, sprites, or imps, but the Small Folk don't have to be small. Trolls, unicorns–even dragons–are all a part of the Small Folk. Any sort of creature in our world which spends most of its life unseen, hidden in forests and beneath cities, which can only be observed by those who pay attention to them, are classified as one of the Small Folk.
My quest is now to discover their world and learn their language once again. I want to know what they have to say. I want to see things from their perspective. Most of all, I want to let them be a part of my life. For once you've seen the Small Folk, you start to see the magic all around.
It's when you call out with a silent voice that those who do not speak will respond. It is then that you will see the life where once there was none.
It all started with a walk in the forest. There, within the shelter of the trees, did I meet the Small Folk for the first time. There, by returning to the childlike wonder I had years ago, by making the woods as comfortable as my home, I once more joined the magic I'd been missing. Now, this is my story.
The Language of the Small Folk story has been a journey for me already, as I've been learning to observe more of the world around me, to open my eyes to that which hides beneath the surface. And it's allowing me to look inside myself the way I would with any other character I write about–to find out what motivates me, what makes me smile. It's a journey of discovery, and I hope that, while reading it, you might also make discoveries about the Small Folk hiding all around you.
I'm now on the second part of LotSF. The first part, now named "Spring", was written through 2013 and 2014. The second part, "Winter", was started in 2015 and was in progress until Valourbörn ended in 2018.
LotSF: Spring (Read/Download the PDF)
- Asking Questions, Seeking Answers
- Wind Chimes and Confessions
- Feathered Ritual
- The Tip of my Tongue
- Gentle Roots (Mother's Day special)
- A Pulse of Thunder
- By the Fireplace
- Warrior's Dress
- The Banishment of Isolation
- The Training Yard (Father's Day special)
- Trouble in the Air
- Thorns
- A Tangling Taint
- Unpredictable Foes
- On the Inside
- The Name of the Threat
- Finding the Root
- Scared for Me
- Riding Faith
- Marching Out
- Seeing Red
- Flames
LotSF: Winter
The Lost Chapters (originally chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Winter)


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Windows 8 Notifications: Periodic Notifications
Previously I took a look at incorporating Local and Scheduled Notifications into a Windows 8 application, and with this post I'll move on to the first of what I consider 'external notification' mechanisms – periodic notifications.
Bookmark-worthy References
for Periodic Notifications
Periodic notification overview
Badge guidelines and checklist
Sample: Push and periodic notifications
Decoupled Notifications
My loose description of periodic (and push) notifications as 'external' or 'decoupled' is rooted in the observation that content delivered via periodic and push notifications is not typically initiated or provided by the Windows 8 application itself.
With periodic notifications, the Windows 8 application is a subscriber to content hosted at a URI that specifies the XML template for the tile or badge notification (toast is not supported for periodic notifications). Whatever content is at that URI at the regularly recurring time (from 30 minutes to daily) is what the Windows 8 application will use. It's up to some 3rd party service or application to update that URI's content at the appropriate interval - providing information on the daily special at a given restaurant, for example.
Design Considerations for Periodic Notifications
Special Delivery
When designing your application's notification strategy, be aware of a few "what if's" impacting the delivery of periodic notifications:
- The actual notification request will be issued within 15 minutes of the specified interval; therefore, you can't rely on precise scenarios like a notification being triggered every hour on the hour.
- Content for a periodic notification is delivered only if the client device is connected to the network. If there is no connectivity or there is a problem accessing the URI, that polling iteration attempt is skipped, and the URI won't be requested again until the next regularly scheduled interval.
- The first periodic notification poll occurs immediately when the registration is set up (via the startPeriodicUpdate methods discussed a bit later ), so be sure the URI endpoint is ready. If it is not, the notification will fail - albeit silently.
Out with the Old
By default, tile and badge content expires three days after it is received, at which point the notification will no longer be shown to the user. You can tailor the expiry to your application's unique needs by having the endpoint that serves the notification template include the HTTP response header
X-WNS-Expires, with a value set to the date (in UTC) at which point the tile (or badge) should no longer be shown.
Remember that if the device is disconnected when a notification is set to occur, that loop of the notification interval is skipped. Consider, for instance, a scenario where a application has registered for hourly notification updates, but the computer hasn't been connected to the internet for two days. Without an explicit expiration policy for that notification, the user will continue to see the last received "hourly" notification, which is now 48 or more hours old and may contain stale or even invalid information. It follows that in cases where a generic or default tile is preferred over specific - but stale - content, utilizing the
X-WNS-Expires header appropriately can result in a better user experience.
Notification Queue: Five Times the Fun!
The notification queue can be utilized with periodic notifications as well. To recap, you can enable the notification queue (an action required only once during an application's lifetime) to permit up to five distinct tile notifications to be in play at any given time. Those notifications will cycle at a pace and order that is managed by the Windows runtime; however, the application can subscribe to different URIs (up to five) as the sources of those notifications. Each of the URIs will polled at the same discrete interval (from 30 minutes to daily), but the content can expire individually at different times since the HTTP response for each URI can include a distinct
X-WNS-Expires header.
When using the notification queue – with any type of notification delivery mechanism – the notification template can specify a tag value (a string of up to 16 characters) that differentiates the notifications in the queue. If a new notification arrives with the same tag as an existing one, the new notification replaces the current one with that tag; otherwise, the new notification simply pushes the oldest notification out of the queue.
You might leverage tags, for instance, for an application that displays stock quotes in the tile. If each notification includes a tag corresponding to the ticker symbol, then up to five different ticker symbols can cycle within in the tile. As new quotes come in, that content replaces the previous notification instance for the same ticker (tag). With periodic notifications, the tag value is passed in as an HTTP header,
The APIs
Constructing the Notification
Unlike the case with local and scheduled notifications, the Windows 8 application doesn't have any involvement in constructing the notification, so it's incumbent on the notification provider to ensure the XML being hosted – wherever it's hosted – is UTF-8 encoded and complies with the tile or badge schema. Note that toast notifications cannot be used with the periodic delivery mechanism.
Registering the Notification
Periodic notifications are handled primarily by the Windows runtime; the Windows 8 application merely opts in by calling one of three APIs, two for tiles and one for badges:
- TileUpdater.startPeriodicUpdate accepts a single URL location for the tile template XML and the frequency of updates (ranging in discrete intervals from every half-hour to every day).
- TileUpdater.startPeriodicUpdateBatch integrates the periodic tile notification capability with the notification queue. The method accepts a list of up to five URIs (containing tile templates) that are independently polled at the same specified periodicity.
- BadgeUpdater.startPeriodicUpdate accepts a single URL for the badge template XML along with the frequency of updates
There is an optional startTime parameter for each of the three methods above. That parameter specifies when the recurring cycle of polling for new notification content begins; however, there is always an initial poll for content right when the method is invoked, regardless of how far in the future the startTime parameter is set.
By the way, it's a best practice to refresh the registration for periodic updates whenever your application launches or activates; each call to start a periodic update replaces the current registration.
Unsubscribing to the Notification
As you might expect, there are stopPeriodicUpdate methods on both the TileUpdater and BadgeUpdater classes to discontinue the updates; however, the current tile (or badge) will persist until it expires. If you want to clear the tile (or badge) immediately, you can use the clear methods available on the updater classes and/or send a local notification to replace the content.
Also, note that if you want to immediately start subscribing to a different URI endpoint, you can call startPeriodicUpdate (or startPeriodicBatchUpdate) without calling stopPeriodicUpdate explicitly. The new registration will supplant the existing one.
Sample Code
The Push and periodic notifications client-side sample in the Windows Dev Center is a good reference for your own implementation, but in order to run it successfully you'll need to host your template content on some HTTP or HTTPS URI endpoint.
And guess what – there's a cloud for that! In much the same way as I showed how you can use Windows Azure storage to serve images, you can use it to house the tile or badge template content – and that's what I'll take a look at in my next blog post.


text: Circus arts in Calgary have really grown in the last few years. A few days ago I put up this hub website to bring some of the lesser known local treasures into the light. It's a little thing but I hope it will help illustrate now much there is for the circus community in Calgary.


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Dark Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies are decadent, thin cookies with a chewy center and crispy edges!
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We are most definitely on a dark chocolate kick in this house lately! I've made Dark Chocolate No Bake Cookies, Dark Chocolate Mint Cupcakes, and now these Dark Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies. No one around here is complaining about how rich and decadent dark chocolate goodies are, but if you don't love dark chocolate as much as we do, just use regular cocoa powder and milk chocolate chips instead. Easy enough, right?
This recipe, as written, is going to give you a flatter, thinner cookie with a soft, chewy center and crispy edges. My favorite type of cookie is definitely a chewy cookie, thick or thin! You can go ahead and mix the dark chocolate chips and walnuts into the batter or you can press them into tops of the the raw cookies before baking, like I did, to make them a little more visually appealing…they will be plenty taste-appealing as is, I can guarantee you that!
I took around 100 pictures the day I made these cookies, yet had only a few variations of this exact shot for this recipe! Crazzzy! I thought for sure I had way too many of each recipe I made that day! Lesson learned!
The most important thing with thinner, chewy cookies is to let them cool fully before removing them from the baking sheet! My impatience always gets the best of me and I may or may not have broken a few while trying to remove them from the baking sheet while they were still hot. No worries though, none of them went to waste! When I slowed down and let them cool, they were much easier to remove and stayed in one piece!
I was told repeatedly how good these Dark Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies are, so I'm pretty sure you might love them too! If you try them, please let me know what you think!
I'm definitely curious now to start playing around with some of the different ingredients in this recipe to attempt to make different variations of cookie types! While I prefer a chewy cookie, thick or thin, I know lots of people like crunchy cookies too! What's your favorite type of cookie?
If you like this recipe, you may also like my:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Crispy Treats
Dark Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies
- 1 1/4 Cups butter softened
- 2 Cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 Cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 Cups dark cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 Cup chocolate chips
- 1/2 Cup walnuts chopped
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixer on medium speed. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
- In a separate medium sized bowl, mix together the flour, dark cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the mixture to the wet ingredients in the mixer until well combined.
- You can either mix in the chocolate chips and walnut now, then roll the dough into 1 inch balls, or roll the dough into one inch balls and press some chips and walnuts into the top (like I did for the cookies in the photo). Place dough balls 2 inches apart, as cookies will spread while baking.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes. LET COOL before removing from the baking sheet.


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After my brides and grooms have chosen a date and confirmed their venue we take the next step in confirming hotel room blocks for guests. While my team and I do this almost every day, the process for those who don't have the pleasure of a planner can be a bit confusing.
Today I'm going to give you a few tips and tricks to securing rooms for your wedding guests.
The first thing you need to do is determine how many guests will need accommodations. Remember, if you're expecting 100 guests it would generally mean about 50 rooms. However, keep in mind, unless your wedding is a destination you most likely can cut that number to 25. And if your wedding is a destination, you want to make sure you have enough rooms for all your guests.
Once you know the number of rooms I recommend making a list of all the hotels in and around your wedding venue. Start with calling the larger hotels and work your way down to the boutique hotels. When calling the hotel ask to speak with the person in charge of room blocks.
Keep in mind there are several ways hotels will set aside rooms for your wedding. There's a thing called "the courtesy block" and one called a "financial guarantee". We always recommend staying away from the latter. We prefer a courtesy block allows you to set aside a certain number of rooms (usually 10 on the outset without putting any money down) at a reduced, fixed rate. The hotel will require you to sign a "contract" but that contract usually states that within 30 days of your wedding they will release any un-booked rooms into the general population. The latter (the financial guarantee) will ask you to sign a contract and either put a deposit down on each room. If all rooms are not booked you will have to pay a percentage regardless of whether or not the room was booked. Now I don't know about you, but I certainly do not want to pay for something I didn't use. So that's why we always shy away from that option.
The great thing about a courtesy block is that as the rooms fill up you can often ask the hotel to add more to the block, of course subject to availability.
We always tell our clients to keep a few things in mind. You can certainly go onto Hotels.com or other sites and find the same rooms and sometimes they may be at a reduced rate. And sometimes the hotel will match that rate, but often they do not and in reality they have no control how a site like that buys up their inventory. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you have someone with say, an AARP discount, they may not be able to get both the room block rate and their discount. So if they want the bigger discount they may not be part of your block.
We also recommend giving your guests a choice of hotels with different rates. Let's face it, everyone's budget is different so it's nice to help your guests out.
Another thing to keep in mind is that while you may want all your rooms to be together, the hotels can't guarantee it no matter how often you beg and plead for the rooms to be together. So if your uncle is upset that your grandmother can't be next to him you know why.
And finally, while it's great to give gift bags or boxes as guests arrive to the hotel, keep in mind there may be an additional cost. Most hotels will charge to distribute at the front desk and most dread when you want each to be placed or delivered to the room. The reason, guests don't show, they change rooms and then the hotel staff has to chase down where each guest is staying.
So while it may be a bit of work, I hope this helps you as you set forth and help to make your wedding guests stay a bit more comfortable.
Until next time…


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WASHINGTON – Right-wing federal lawmakers, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., are backing up state government attacks on state and local workers' pensions through a measure that, if passed, would make the pensions virtually unaffordable.
The attacks, all in the GOP-run tea party-dominated House would, in the name of "transparency," drastically change assumptions that governments and unions must now make when figuring out whether a pension plan is solvent.
The combined impact of the changes, if approved, would be to force the pension plans to stop benefits, or worse, Fire Fighters' Legislative Director Barry Kasinitz told his union's legislative conference delegates, meeting in D.C. in mid-March.
The issue is important to millions of workers and their families. Federal data show state and local governments combined employ 16.4 million workers. Another speaker at the IAFF legislative conference calculated that Social Security does not cover some 70 percent of those workers. Originally, all were excluded.
That means millions of state and local workers and their families depend on the workers' pensions for their retirement income. Unions negotiate the pensions in contracts over the years. Non-unionists are at the mercy of employing governments.
The federal attack comes as states ranging from New York to Illinois to New Jersey and cities from Baltimore to San Diego to Little Rock use budget troubles and red ink to cut public workers' pensions. Often those governments haven't made their required payments to workers' pension funds, while the workers have, speakers said.
Kasinitz said Nunes' bill would virtually make a public pension plan not financially viable, by definition. And it would really penalize governments who go ahead, anyway.
Nunes and other Tea Partyites first attacked pensions frontally in 2011, but IAFF and other unions led a belated education campaign that killed the scheme. Now Nunes, his 49 GOP co-sponsors and lone Democrat Mike Quigley of Illinois want to attach their anti-pension bill to another piece of legislation, behind closed doors, Kasinitz said.
Nunes' bill says any public pension plan must be absolutely "risk free" and orders it to report its rate of return on its investments to the federal government. It now reports, publicly, to state and local officials. The bill also orders a plan to assume it can earn two percent yearly, at most, on its investments – regardless of how well the plan actually performs.
"There's not a pension plan in America that would qualify" as risk free "under that two percent standard," Kasinitz said.
"And if you don't meet that standard, the legislation says that we (the feds) take away your tax exemption for state and local bonds," which the governments issue – anticipating tax revenues – to finance everything from workers' pay to snow plows.
"They want to create a false report" about a pension plan's vulnerability "to create a crisis," Kasinitz told delegates, urging them to lobby against the legislation.
Another piece of GOP pension legislation would ban the feds from "bailing out" any state and local government – such as the city of Detroit, whose pension funds are severely underfunded – that declares bankruptcy.
That same measure, Kasinitz said, would also "call on every state to abolish its defined benefits pension plans for public employees." Those "traditional" pensions, with their guaranteed monthly retirement payouts, could be replaced with alternatives that pay less, either the public pension version of 401(k) plans, or "cash balance" plans.
Meanwhile, some half a dozen states will be the top battlegrounds in this year's fights over public workers' pensions, Jordan Marks of the National Public Pension Coalition told the IAFF members.
Illinois tops the list, he said. It has a $91 billion difference between available current state – not local – pension money and estimated future obligations. Gov. Pat Quinn, D-Ill., elected in 2010 with strong union support, is touring the state, Marks said, posing a choice of pensions or roads. Illinois has not made its required contributions. Members of state worker unions are offering to contribute 2 percent more in salary yearly.
The other states are Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Louisiana. But workers have some weapons to fight back with, Marks said. They include educating state lawmakers that public workers don't get Social Security and studies that show converting traditional state pensions to 401(k)s with state matches costs a state more money and takes pension payments out of workers' pockets.
His group, which includes the AFL-CIO, the Fire Fighters, AFSCME, SEIU and both U.S. teachers unions, can provide more data for education, Marks added.
"Florida's pensions are 87 percent funded," in one example he gave. "But the state House speaker and state Senate majority leader," both Republicans, "want to move all the workers to a defined contribution plan," like a 401(k). "It's an ideological crusade."
Photo: Workers protest efforts to slash public worker pensions. John Bachtell/PW


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Public transport
Public transport information
There are lots of sources for public transport information, some of which can help you plan your journey. These include:
- Nottinghamshire County Council's public transport website
- Traveline, an independent information provider. Visit www.traveline.info or call 0871 200 22 33 (call charges apply)
- Bus and train stations, and bus, train and coach operator travel offices.
- Libraries and tourist information centres.
Save money on public transport
If you use public transport a lot, you can save money by choosing from a range of different ticket types to suit the type and frequency of your travel. Some tickets can be bought on the day, whilst others must be purchased in advance. As well as tickets for use with a single operator (e.g. Nottingham City Transport), you can also buy tickets that can be used with multiple bus and train companies, and on the tram. Please visit individual operator websites and www.robinhoodnetwork.co.uk to find out more.
For information on concessionary travel passes and how to apply, please visit the Nottinghamshire Country Council website
Buses in Ruddington
We have frequent buses into Nottingham and other services to Clifton, Loughborough and nearby villages.
- Service 3 to Nottingham and Clifton. Operated by Nottingham City Transport.
- Kinchbus 9 between Nottingham and Loughborough. Operated by Trent Barton.
- Service 10 to Nottingham. Operated by Nottingham City Transport.
- Service 863 connects Keyworth with Ruddington via East Leake and several other villages. Operated by Nottinghamshire County Council.
- Local Link L22 & L23 connects Clifton, Silverdale, West Bridgford and Gamston with Ruddington on a circular route. Operated by Nottingham Community Transport.
- Service N48 runs from Nottingham to Ruddington via Silverdale and Clifton on Friday and Saturday nights only. Operated by Nottingham City Transport.
Follow the links above to view or download bus times online. Bus timetables are also available from the library and are displayed on relevant bus stops in the village.
Community bus
There is a free Community Bus funded by the Parish Council which operates in the village on Wednesdays. This very popular service is run with the help of volunteer drivers and escorts who supervise the bus on its weekly run. Contact the Parish Council for further details, or if you'd like to volunteer to help with this valuable service.
Ruddington doesn't have its own tram stop. The nearest stop is Ruddington Lane in Wilford, which is around a mile from the village centre. There are also several stops in Clifton. The NCT 3 bus goes past the Ruddington Lane stop and both the NCT 3 and the L22/23 go past some of the Clifton stops, so it's fairly easy to connect with the tram. You can find timetables and route details at the NET website.
There are three train stations in the local area.
- Nottingham Station is on Carrington Street. The number 3 and number 10 bus, and the Kinchbus 9, all stop outside.
- East Midlands Parkway Station is on the A453 near to Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station. It has a large car park and is close to both the M1 and East Midlands Airport.
- Loughborough Station is on the A60 on the way into Loughborough. The Kinchbus 9 will drop you nearby.
The official source of UK train times and timetables is www.nationalrail.co.uk, or you can call National Rail Enquiries on 0845 748 4950.
The nearest airport is East Midlands Airport, which is close to the M1 at junctions 23a/24. The airport is about 11 miles from Ruddington. Call 08712 710 711 for general enquiries or visit www.eastmidlandsairport.com for flight information.


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text: As part of the summary script I use the following code to get the SharePoint 2010 version. This identifies which CU or Service Pack has been installed. There are a couple of ways for getting the build version: 1. Using Central Administration It is of course possible to get the build version using central administration … Read More


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10 Skills A Digital Marketing Pro Needs To Succeed
Jeff Bullas is a Master Marketer who also happens to be a world famous blogger, author, and speaker. He's one of Inc. magazine's 20 Digital Marketing Experts to Follow on Twitter, was ranked #8 on Forbes' The World's Top 40 Social Marketing Talent, and runs a blog currently ranked in the top 100 in global marketing blogs (according to Adage.com's Power 150 Ranking).
We're ecstatic (as we hope you are!) he's given us permission to share his essential read for anyone looking to crush it as a digital marketing pro.
Being a digital marketer means understanding the nuances of the new web paradigms and how they interact. It's about knowing about how each of the social and digital channels operate and interact with each other and the synergies that creates.
It raises questions. How different should my Facebook post be to my Twitter or Instagram tactics? What priority should I put on email marketing? How does my content marketing help build my search engine optimisation?
So, what are the skills a digital marketing professional needs to succeed?
1. Data analysis
The term "big data" is tossed around like confetti and vodka glasses at a Russian wedding.
But it's not about big data, but about what you DO with the data. That is the work of the analyst. The analytical scientist is invading the art of marketing, with access to technology tools and platforms.
It makes many digital marketers' eyes glaze over. It requires a new breed of team member, a'numbers person' (the data analyst). The digital disruption has happened so fast that they are a rare breed and hard to find. But that is what the new marketing paradigm requires.
The days of marketing being left to the "Marketing Madmen" of Wall Street are over. The creative marketer needs a new partner.
2. Paid social media advertising
What social media promised when it started to be used as a marketing tool, was free global earned reach. Then Facebook changed the game. The Facebook 'likes' gold rush was over. Now it's time to pay the Piper who has collected your data and now wants to sell it back to you.
To put some perspective on how that looks, it is predicted that by 2016 there will be $25 billion spent on social advertising in 2016, with Facebook earning the majority of that pie.
But despite early cynicism, Facebook advertising done well can be very effective. So what are some of the topics and skills you will need to start to get a grip on?
- How to use Facebook's analytics tool "Facebook Insights"
- Using "Power Editor" well
- What can be done with "Lookalike" audiences
- The granular targeting of "Custom audiences"
- What is oCPM bidding and how to do it well
- How to experiment and test creative images
- And that is just the tip of the iceberg…
3. Email marketing
Email was simple in the past, however now it is about niche targeting and analysing bounce rates, open rates and conversions. Its power as a marketing tool is often underestimated.
Even the big end of town hasn't been doing it well. A recent report released by the New York Times, revealed that despite it having over 6 million emails in their database they didn't even have a proper email marketing platform. The email list had to be manually pulled from their other systems.
Social is great for brand awareness but your most loyal and committed prospects, customers, and advocates will want to keep in close touch via email. Many top performing marketing campaigns and sales results happen from nurturing your customers through email.
4. Search engine marketing
There are two parts to the equation here.
- Optimising your content, website, and blog for organic earned search.
- Paying for clicks using Google's AdWords.
Building earned authority to rank high on search engines takes time and it is no quick fix. But don't neglect doing this, as it ends up driving the majority of your traffic over time. It will take years of content creation and constant tactical activity.
5. Develop skills with technology tools and platforms
The marketer's job in the past was often about managing the advertising agency. But now they need to understand technology. What do some of these technologies look like?
Free tools
There are a vast arrange of free tools. Some of these include:
- Hootsuite
- Tweetdeck
- Canva
- Buffer
- Facebook Insights
- Twitter analytics
- Google analytics
Many of these offer premium versions that add other features and functions.
These include digital marketing, email marketing, and specialist social media marketing platforms that allow you to scale your marketing efforts.
1. Digital marketing platforms
There are many now available.
One is Teradata's Marketing Operations product, which includes Planning & Spend Manager,Workflow & Collaboration Manager, and Marketing Asset Manager,
2. Email marketing & marketing automation platforms
There are hundreds of platforms but here are a few.
- MailChimp
- Aweber
- iContact
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- Silverpop
- Marketo
6. Social media marketing
Social media marketing involves many moving parts. It is complex and you need to understand the various social networks and social media marketing tools that allow you to leverage your efforts.
Questions need to be asked such as which ones are you going to focus on? Then there is the range of tactics to achieve the right goals. Then you need to design the creative and the content for those.
7. Content marketing
Content is the foundation for all marketing. You need images, blog posts, infographics, free eBooks, and the list goes on.
When done well, the benefits of content marketing include increased engagement, improved SEO, and leads and sales.
8. Mobile marketing
The mobile explosion and the rise of smart phones has caught many marketers unprepared. Many brands have a website that is not mobile ready and have no apps to make it easy for customers to engage with you while out and about. This marketing skill needs to be learnt — fast!
9. Viral marketing
Getting content to move fast is something that the likes of Buzzfeed, Upworthy and ViralNova have taken to a new level. It doesn't mean that you should focus on it but getting the occasional video, blog post, or image to go viral is worth it just from a brand awareness perspective.
You should look at how those publishers do it and weave some of those tactics into your marketing campaigns.
10. Visual marketing
Most marketers know that you can get increased engagement and sharing if you use visuals. This is well understood on Facebook and a range of studies shows that up to 100% more engagement is driven by a visual post over text.
But this is not just a tactic that works on Facebook. With Twitter allowing visual in the stream the use of images is very effective. I did a little test on my Twitter stream and these were the results when I used visuals.
Impressions: The percentage increase in "impressions" of a tweet with an image over a tweet without is a substantial 197%.
Engagement: The increased percentage for "engagement" of a tweet with an image over a tweet without one is a staggering 581%
Engagement rate: Increased percentage for "engagement rate" of a tweet with image over a tweet without one is a significant 111%.
The visual marketing skill is worth mastering.


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Poppy Seed Potato Salad
I have found that packing a picnic for children in two age groups can be challenging. Just finding something they can agree on at home can be challenging, but when you need to make it portable, it's a whole new ball game. Still, we love picnics, and I plan to do as many of them as possible this summer. That will require an arsenal of go-to picnic foods. This one was a bit of a last-minute throw together, but it turned out wonderful! The baby might not have been able to enjoy it, but I like to think that she would have if she could have.
Poppy Seed Potato Salad
- 5-6 small russet potatoes
- 1 cup of mayonnaise
- 1-2 tsp red wine vinegar
- 1-2 tsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1-2 tbsp poppy seeds
- Cut potatoes into cubes and cook until tender. Drain and place them in the refrigerator to cool.
- In a medium mixing bowl, mix together mayonnaise, red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and poppy seeds.
- Dice red pepper and add to the mayonnaise mixture.
- When cool, add potatoes.
Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes


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We had a big product goal in 2017: Ensure that FANDOM is a modern digital experience that provides the right content at the right time, is easy to navigate, and delivers a better experience for users and advertisers. We called this project Wiki Modernization, which saw the introduction of Featured Videos, the redesign of the page and article headers, and a 30% reduction in advertisements across all wikis.
We're excited to share the results of those efforts and introduce one of our first modernization efforts of 2018!
Page load time decrease
As a result of video and design changes, we introduced a new ad layout that achieved a pretty significant reduction in page load times! Check out this graph, which shows the change in average page load times on desktop worldwide from January 2015 through December 2017:
The significant drop began in July 2017, when we began rolling out the new ad layout. By October, the layout was live throughout the world. All told, load times dropped 46% from the beginning to the end of 2017. This is a significant improvement that will have long-lasting benefits for your communities as people are able to more easily engage with your content!
There is always more work to do of course, and 2018 is shaping up to be another big year for modernization. So what's next?
A focus on mobile web
Modernization in 2017 mostly focused on desktop, and now we're ready to turn a lot of attention toward Mobile Modernization. Given that mobile web users made up more than 60% of our total traffic in the last three months of 2017, it's more important than ever to bring the same level of effort and coordination to enhance our mobile web experience.
Like with last year's Wiki Modernization, our aim is to improve page load time and properly balance the impact of ads. We've already studied how Mobile Modernization will impact SEO and our underlying site architecture. We also took a hard look at the types of mobile ad providers that we work with. A better mobile experience means we have more opportunities to work directly with advertisers rather than third party networks, which will allow us to reduce the low-performing and often low quality ads that display on mobile web.
Will there be design changes to the mobile experience? It's quite possible, but the initial work in 2018 will remain very focused on site performance. This can result in some minor changes to the user experience. For example, we recently set all sections on a mobile article page to be collapsed by default, a quick way to improve loading time for the page. This also serves to give readers a quick way to, essentially, view the Table of Contents for a long page. This is an overall better experience for longer wiki pages.
This is the direction we're headed in for 2018 Mobile Modernization, and we're hard at work at putting these ideas into more concrete plans. We'll continue to update you as we have more information, so keep checking back on Community Central for more updates!
Click here to follow the Fandom staff blog.
Interested in learning more about community management on Fandom?
Click here to view our community management blog.
Read through our Best Practices guides for keeping your community growing and healthy.
Join our Official Discord server for registered editors!


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YouTube video streaming issues can be caused by many factors. By troubleshooting your internet or device connection, you may be able to play your videos again.
You may be experiencing a video streaming issue if you've seen one of these notifications:
- An error has occurred.
- Playback error. Tap to retry.
- Connection to server lost.
- This video is unavailable.
- Something went wrong. Tap to Retry.
Troubleshoot internet and device connection
You may be able to play your YouTube videos again by following the steps below for internet and device connections.
Internet speed
Video Resolution
|Recommended sustained speed
|20 Mbps
|HD 1080p
|5 Mbps
|HD 720p
|2.5 Mbps
|SD 480p
|1.1 Mbps
|SD 360p
|0.7 Mbps
To find out if your Internet Service Provider is HD Verified, visit the Video Quality Report.
If you're interested in seeing more information on how your videos are streaming, check out Stats for Nerds.
Smart TVs, Chromecast, and game consoles
- Restart the YouTube app.
- Restart your device: hard reboot (disconnect power and reconnect).
- Open youtube.com/tv in Chrome and attempt the same action(s).
- For game consoles: Uninstall and reinstall the YouTube app.
- Update your device's firmware/system software.
Follow the instructions below for the YouTube app or mobile site.
YouTube app
- Restart the YouTube app.
- Restart your device.
- Uninstall and reinstall the YouTube app.
- Update to the newest available version of the YouTube app.
- Update to the newest available version of iOS.
Check your data usage
Make sure data usage for YouTube is enabled on your device.
- Go to your device Settings.
- Tap Cellular.
- Under the "Use cellular data for" section, go to YouTube.
- Next to YouTube, tap the button so it's on.
Mobile site
- Restart your mobile browser.
- Restart your device.


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Love is weird.
It's not a fairytale and sometimes it's not even that romantic.
In most cases, true love equals funny feelings, sweaty palms and butterflies in the stomach. To celebrate all those awkward feelings, we've compiled a list of the strangest and arguably most fun Valentine's events happening around Vancouver. They're perfect for couples, new friends and individuals looking to celebrate love in all its inexplicable glory.
Romance Week at Vancouver TheatreSports
Love, is a lot like improv. Both are thrilling, both put a smile on your face, and both are completely unscripted. Vancouver TheatreSports (VTSL) knows this, and to celebrate they've come up with a week of shows – and a special Valentine's Day event. So bring your Bae (or your BFWB) to Romance Week from February 6-14.
Speed dating with adorable kittens
Find the love of your life at Vancouver's premier cat café, Catfé! They'll be hosting two events: a speed dating event on February 14th for straight singles, and a rainbow mixer for LGBTQ+ folks on February 21st. If you don't fall in love with a human, all of Catfé's resident kittens are available for adoption. All proceeds will be donated to the BCSPCA.
Vancouver Mystery Games Couples Competition
Detective, spy or superhero? Choose a partner in crime and sign up to compete against other couples in a Vancouver Mysteries game on February 14th. Three different games are played simultaneously during this Mega Mystery that sells out every year. Find clues, complete challenges, solve the mystery, win prizes and fall in love!
Bonding at the Vancouver Gun Range
Whether you've just met online or have been in-love for years, your dates should be exciting, engaging and most of all, fun! So, if you're tired of the same old, same old, give DVC Indoor Shooting Centre a shot.
Saint Clementine's Love Bites Torture House
Hmm so this might actually be perfect for those that hate February 14th. Saint Clementine's Love Bites Torture House is transforming Riverview Hospital into an all-out scare zone based on a local urban legend about a murdered nun (how romantic). Proceeds from the event will be donated to East Van Youth Soccer.


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isopod(redirected from isopodan)
Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia.
Any of numerous marine, freshwater, and terrestrial crustaceans of the order Isopoda, characterized by a flattened segmented body usually bearing seven pairs of legs and including the woodlice and gribbles.
[From New Latin Īsopoda, order name : iso- + New Latin -poda, -pod.]
i′so·pod′ adj.
(Animals) any crustacean of the order Isopoda, including woodlice and pill bugs, in which the body is flattened dorsoventrally
(Animals) of, relating to, or belonging to the Isopoda
isopodan, iˈsopodous adj
i•so•pod(ˈaɪ səˌpɒd)
1. any flattened crustacean of the order Isopoda, having seven pairs of similar legs, as wood lice and various aquatic forms.adj.
2. of or pertaining to the Isopoda.
i•sop•o•dan (aɪˈsɒp ə dn) adj., n.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Switch to new thesaurus
|isopod - any of various small terrestrial or aquatic crustaceans with seven pairs of legs adapted for crawling
malacostracan crustacean - a major subclass of crustaceans
Isopoda, order Isopoda - woodlice
slater, woodlouse - any of various small terrestrial isopods having a flat elliptical segmented body; found in damp habitats
sea louse, sea slater - marine isopod crustacean


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Star Trek: Discovery, the latest TV series of the ever popular Star Trek franchise, has officially started this week. The question for most, even perhaps after watching the first two episodes, will it be a good show? Is it worth the subscription to CBS All Access or Netflix?
Here's my take but be warned, there will be spoilers.
The Star Trek franchise was always produced in the TV format by Paramount but this time for Star Trek: Discovery, CBS is producing it directly themselves. One can say that CBS is promoting their streaming site CBS All Access. But does it have any bearing on Star Trek? I'd say there is. The production is different. The budget is obviously different. The changes are also different.
Discovery looks to have been set 50 years after Star Trek: Voyager despite the fact that the in-story timeline is ten (10) years before The Original Series (the Captain James T. Kirk era). TOS, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, were consistent as far as what technology are available and are in use. Even in Voyager, a series after DS9, it was clearly a ship during the TNG era, not after DS9, in-universe timeline, although they had a choice to make it modern-ish.
Discovery? I raised my left eyebrow, like vulcans do, when they showed how they communicate over subspace — holograms! To most, they were probably awed or wow'ed by it, but the timeline in me was screaming the rest of the two episodes and will probably keep on screaming until I can fully establish this is N-O-T set in the Prime Timeline no matter what CBS claims.
Even Enterprise, a series made after Voyager and is set in 2151-2155 in-universe, did not go overboard with their technological changes. Yes, there were questionable tech in it but it wasn't something that will make you raise your eyebrow like in Discovery (set in the year 2256, 101 years after the founding of the Coalition of Planets; 100 years after the start of the Earth-Romulan War; and 95 years after the founding of the Federation).
The production is good. Discovery looks modern. It showcases what we are dreaming about for the next few real-world decades. Holographic communications, holographic viewing instead of looking into monitors, a spacesuit with an excellent navigation system and hand-gesture controls. These are things that looks "modern" to us in 2017 and so they incorporated these in the series.
Even the klingons look modern and scarier though funny that their heads look very shiny, we can probably collect their heads as thropies.
The two pilot episodes has clearly set the plot or plots of the first season. First, the season plot, will revolve around the new war between the United Federation of Planets and revitalised Klingon Empire. The opening salvo to the Federation-Klingon War of 2256.
Second, it focuses on the lead female character, Michael Burnham, an orphaned human taken under care by Sarek, Spock's father (as reference, Sarek cut ties with Spock in 2250 when his son chose to enlist in Starfleet instead of joining the Vulcan Science Academy). The season focuses on her character, her adventures, decisions, and conflicts. She was also the first human to ever attend the Vulcan Learning Center and the Vulcan Science Academy.
The war is interesting even though it has nothing to do with the wars we've known in "history" from the previous series. This is something to look forward to especially that the Federation is only 95 years in existence and the Klingon Houses are trying to look for a reason to reunite and reestablish themselves.
While the focus on Michael Burnham, at least to me, is not that interesting because it feels like reading a young-adult novel with a character-level focus instead of multiple characters and their immediate surroundings. It feels and looks more first-person than an observer third-person.
Overall, it remains to be seen how well they can pull this off.
A promising new Star Trek TV series. The production is good, apt for today's expectations and potential new fans. The effects, at least for the first two episodes, were well executed. For now, the subscription to Netflix or CBS All Access is worth it.
Last but not the least, I really have to say this, Discovery is set in an alternate timeline. Possibly the result of the changes we've seen in Enterprise due to the Temporal (Cold) War. Or, stretching this, CBS can even later claim that this series is set in the Kelvin Universe (not Timeline), a timeline where the planet Vulcan was not destroyed… because it's Star Trek.
Post header, Star Trek: Discovery title logo, used under Fair Use. It's owned by CBS Corporation.
Is a bibliophile and technophile other than being an early adopter, an avid gamer, anime otaku, trekker, and photographer. He is an advocate of "Free Culture", "Open Knowledge", "Creative Commons", "Free/Libre Open-Source Software", and the "Fediverse" (federated social-network).
His first online project was in 1998 when he launched the unofficial website for Ansalon MUD (a text-based online game) and his own community forums Laibcoms.Community. Today, he owns a variety of online properties and help others establish their online presence.
Confirm his identity through Keybase, and learn more by reading his central bio. Yuki's hubsite, Tomes of Knowledge, is located at jcsesecuneta.com.
Star Trek: Discovery Goes to Warp by ᜌᜓᜃᜒ (Yuki|雪亮) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal Notice.


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About Our Social Media Agency
It all starts with a perfect recipe, passion and a little bit of love from our social media agency…
We are not your average social media agency, we believe every brand deserves its own unique social recipe.
Recipes that work well are tried and tested over time and deliver outstanding results that linger in ones memory long after all is said and done. This is exactly what a true social media agency is all about.
12 years of experience in global markets have helped us understand that modern day consumers find comfort in supporting a brand that's active on social media. Why you ask? Simply put, any company willing to give their consumer a "public voice" is a company that believes in its product. There is no greater litmus test for brand confidence than this!
As a niche social media agency we only work with the best ingredients, having learnt that the finest recipes are made up of few components. This means our team is small by design, a key ingredient needed to drive personal relationships and focussed intuition as our key differentiator.
Relationship + intuition = the power to change any normal recipe into something truly extraordinary. Combined, they create an experience that tells your story in an authentic "Sweet Social" kind of way delivering on all fronts from customer engagement through to brand awareness and alignment to your business and marketing goals.
Other agencies may offer social services, but the bulk of their revenue (and therefore their focus) is nearly always elsewhere. We do one thing, and we do it very well – we are a 100% pure South African social media agency.
"Business owners tend to think that they can do facebook and social media marketing on their own because it's easy and because it is cheaper.
You can't. Or maybe you can but the result will not be optimal. Social media is extremely powerful and way more complex than what we think.
Sweet Social assisted me recently with a Facebook campaign for a workshop I presented. They asked good questions to clarify my needs, prior to setting up the campaign. They have a wealth of knowledge and I learned quite a bit from them while they guided me through the process. I constantly received updates so felt like I was informed and involved all the time. They are very professional in their conduct, and also brings a unique warmth that made this whole experience very pleasant.
I strongly recommend Sweet Social to anyone who want to market their business successfully!"
Annemarie Ross-Vivier
"We run an online baby and toddler clothing company and contracted with Sweet Social to manage our Facebook page and Instagram posts. As a start-up and a retail business likes is extremely important for us. We have gone from 1 like to 2,600 within two months. Sweet Social run our campaigns, competitions and normal posts. They are very responsive and creative and our posts look very professional and modern. Their understanding of social media is impressive and they interact seamlessly on all required platforms and with our intended customer base."
Carien van Stade


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Veteran interviewer Charlie Rose features legendary bond trader Michael Milken (of the 80s junk bond era) and economist and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus who founded Grameen Bank which pushed micro-credit in Bangladesh.
These two distinguished individuals share fantastic insights on the Bangladesh micro-credit experience and how lessons from self-employment are relevant to the global financial crisis and credit crunch of 2008.
A taste of some topics covered on the interview:
- The problem caused by credit rating agencies.
- How leverage and margin have contributed to the crisis. Also the problem with loans higher than collateral.
- How micro-credit experience in Bangladesh translates to insights on where the global financial system went wrong.
- What are ways forward to restore confidence in the financial system and avoiding future repeats of the crisis.
- And much much more.


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Blog Archives
an imbolc prayer
for all the times you have been silenced:
may you take pride in voicing your opinions without fear
for all the times you have felt alone, left out, unworthy, unwanted:
may those deep wounds be healed; may you find yourself surrounded by love & support
for the years you felt trapped by gender roles:
may you be freed daily from oppression
for the times you have been quiet, meek, timid, and worried about other's opinions:
may you find a willingness to share yourself with others; to know your true value & worth
for the times you feel self-doubt:
may you see what i see in you and recognize your inner strength. may you know that you reside in the Divine, and She resides in you.
blessed be.
nuggets of wisdom: women in praise of the sacred
there are many books i turn to in times when i need uplifting, peace, encouragement, or inspiration. one of these is Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women { edited by jane hirschfield }. i was raised Christian, and still consider my self so–though very far liberal/left-leaning, and find comfort/ solace/ understanding outside of the "traditional" church setting.
i want to share 2 VERY different poems, the authors separated by over 500 years, from totally differing faith traditions, yet both bring me such a sense of joy and peace.


text: If golf is your style, then there is no better place than the 18th Hole Cabin! Nestled off the 18th hole of the Traditional Golf Course, this two-bedroom unit is furnished with three double beds, one twin bed and a hide-a-bed. It is also equipped with a full kitchen, 1 ¼ bath, gas fireplace and a microwave.


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Chris Walden of Japanator writes:
"I have a confession to make. I haven't actually watched Bodacious Space Pirates before.
Yes, that's right, which is kinda odd even for me as it looks like just the right kind of dumb that I'd be into. It might just be me, but all I see in this trailer is a great advert for an animated Gokaiger movie. Am I wrong?"


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Have you heard about a new event coming up? Fit For A Princess starts on April 1st and that's no foolin'! Let's check out a couple of things that you will be able to get!
From Alouette, The Princess's Tower is sure to make all your Rapunzel dreams come true.
For this photo, I sunk the little "hill" that it is on into the ground, but you can still see a bit of it. Inside, there's a long winding staircase that leads up to the tower room. It's just so cute! We have a hill with a look out on our island, I'm thinking of replacing the building we have there with this so we can be even higher up!
If you need something to put in your tower, might I suggest the Sweet Pea bed from Positure Poses?
Aww, poor princess. It's hard to sleep with a pea under one of the mattresses! This is a pose prop with two poses, but both poses are similar, just changed for if you're wearing a poofy dress or not. I think it's pretty awesome and would make a lovely addition to any princess's bedroom.
I'm going on a vacation with my SL family tonight, so any post I do in the next week will be from the beach! Have a great weekend, everyone!
In This Post:
Skin: Harley by Pink Fuel
Hair: Lagertha by Truth [New today!]
Mesh hands, feet, and eyelids by SLink
Dress: Gwen by Rebel Hope
Sweet Pea bed by Positure Poses [Fit For A Princess]
The Princess's Tower by Alouette [Fit For A Princess]


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American Legal Studies
About American Legal Studies
Earn an LLM studying in San Diego, CA
America's Finest City
The American Legal Studies LLM is exclusively for foreign attorney's (LLB or equivalent).
* Specialization in
- Intellectual Property
- International Trade & Investment
- Sports & Entertainment Law
- General American Law
* Eligibility to take American Bar Exam in some jurisdiction
- (E.g. California, New York, Texas, Georgia, Washington D.C.)
* Practice Skills Oriented Classes
* Expert Bar Preparation
* Work Directly with Your Own Faculty Advisor to Plan Your Program of Study
* Enjoy Beautiful San Diego


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Michelle's Egyptian Adventure – Part 2 ~ Pictures 1 ~ Pictures 2
Cairo – Aswan
October 12 – 14, 2008
Woke up nice and early on the 12th, had a nice chat with my roomie Sarah and headed down for breakfast (the usual Egyptian fare of bread, bread, bread and overcooked eggs) and a tour meeting. Met the rest of the people on the tour, and tour leader Dave, then it was off to the pyramids with our guide for the day, Sahar.
The pyramids are now on the outskirts of Cairo instead of being in the middle of the desert like in times past. The urban sprawl of Cairo is now such that they have started having to create cities in the desert on the other side of the pyramids just to house and hold everyone who calls Cairo and the surrounding area home. The pyramids are pretty impressive. They are HUGE, MASSIVE – nearly impossible to get good pictures of, they are that big. When we arrived, those on the tour who opted to go down into the tomb of the Second Pyramid headed off. The ramp goes from ground level, down about 40 feet into the pyramid via a small, cramped, hot, sticky sauna-esque tunnel to a small chamber, from which you go about 60 feet up into the pyramid via a smaller, more cramped, hotter, more sticky, more sauna-esque tunnel to reach the actual burial chamber, which was an average sized room with a vaulted ceiling and was hot, sticky and sauna-esque. There were no decorations inside, but I could see where the sarcophagus would have been. Totally worth it!! Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures inside, but basically imagine small, cramped and hot – the Egyptian sun felt like a cool spring day compared to the inside of that pyramid!
Then it was time to take pictures, soooo many pictures! Here, there, everywhere! All around the Great Pyramid (Khufu's pyramid) and the Second Pyramid (Cheop's pyramid), and the surrounding little temples. We saw the hole in the ground where they had excavated the boat that Khufu wanted to take with him to the afterlife, and were harassed by all of the Egyptian guys wanting to sell us random touristy things and camel rides. I did end up riding a camel at the pyramids, on the plain overlooking the three pyramids. I bargained hard for Fred, Laura and I to each ride a camel for 15 Egyptian Pounds (about $3 Canadian) – the key to getting the price you want is to be totally stubborn and pit them against each other: "Did you know he (motion to other camel guy) wants 20EGP to ride that camel??" Ahh the joys of bargaining :o) It was really fun, we had a total blast. About 10 minutes on the camels, took a quick walk around on them, took some pictures and tried not to get thrown off of one when they stand up and sit down again – leaning WAY back is the key.
Next up was the Sphinx. It's actually not as big as I thought it would be, but totally as impressive. I liked how you could still see where the tail wrapped around the body. Got a few good pictures and took a walk through the temple where they found an Aswan black granite statue of Ramses II that is now in the Egyptian Museum. After the Sphinx we stopped quickly to get a shwarma (basically the Egyptian version of a giros) and headed off to the Egyptian Museum.
Ahh the Egyptian Museum. Now, I have been in a significant number of museums in my time. Various museums in Vancouver forced on me by school field trips, museums in the Maritimes I went to with Mom and Dad, museums I've seen in Canada and the States by choice because I'm a dork, and the museums in practically every city I've ever been in over my four trips to Europe (sometimes more than one per city) . . . a lot of museums. I can quite honestly say that of all those museums, the Egyptian Museum is the WORST museum I've ever been in. Seriously. Although it houses the best collection of Egyptian artefacts anywhere in the world, the whole thing is over crowded, poorly lit, poorly organized, poorly signed and HOT because there is no air conditioning for the poor pilgrims of Egyptology that flock to its doors. I saw someone faint right beside me on the second floor. Crazy. However, all those horrible things said about the museum, it was still pretty incredible to see all of King Tut's grave goods (SO much gold! And he was only a minor pharaoh, who did practically nothing for Egypt and only reigned for 10 years ~ mind boggling to think what other royal tombs might have held), the Royal Mummies from numerous different dynasties (including Ramses II and Hatshepsut), Hatshepsut's face carved in Aswan black granite, the only statue of Khufu ever found (it's about an inch high), rows of carved sphinxes, sarcophagi, and endless other tidbits of fantastic-ness. Lots of people I've spoken to who have taken tours of museums complain about the lack of freedom to see what you want to see, I have to say that for this museum, I would have been utterly lost without Sahar, because in addition to being the worst museum ever, there are also no maps of the building or displays *sigh*. She was great and very knowledgeable and took us around to all the good stuff.
It was a pretty packed day of seeing lots of incredible things. As far as days of travelling and seeing stuff go, I think that one might have to top them all. We got back to our hotel at about 4 in the afternoon and had a couple of day rooms to freshen up in and chill out before dinner and our overnight train to Aswan that left at 12:45 am. Trains in Egypt, as my previous experience with the train back from Alexandria had taught me, are pretty much anything goes. Tour leader Dave was telling us a horror story of a previous tour of his that caught the overnight train and did not get into Aswan until 10:30 pm the next night!!! We arrived at about 3:30, so we figured we were 7 hours early!
Once at the hotel in Aswan we had time to freshen up and stretch our legs before heading out to see the Light and Sound Show at Philae Temple – totally cheesy touristy show, but really cool to see the temple all lit up at night. It's also located on an island, so we got to take our first of many little ferry rides on the Nile! A great way to spend the evening, I would recommend checking out at least one light and sound show if you ever travel to Egypt. Most of the temples offer them, and it's really interesting to see them by night. The temples are also HUGE. Giant complexes, bigger than most Grecian sanctuaries and often (perhaps strangely) more complete in terms of columns etc. Hit the sack nice and early for two reasons: 1) I was totally wrecked from the night on the train 2) we had a 2:45 am wake up call to get on the bus by 3:15 to go to Abu Simbel in the middle of the desert to see the temples there!!
By the way, our hotel in Aswan was a dry hotel – no alcohol – I know for some of you this might come as a shock, but alcohol can be difficult to come by sometimes in Egypt, however, it seems to be the unofficial duty of the tour leader to always have a source of libation: well played Dave, well played.
I digress. Abu Simbel, Oct 14th. Up way before the crack of dawn to get on a bus, where we all promptly fell asleep until Dave woke us up to see the sun rise somewhere in the desert. Very cool. Had a great time at Abu Simbel, took another million or so pictures and went inside both the 'Great' (Ramses II's temple, built for himself) and the 'Small' (Ramses II built it for his Nubian princess wife, Nefertari) temples. No pictures allowed inside, but really got a hint of what all future temples would be like – COVERED in hieroglyphs from floor to ceiling. The temples still had some paint left in them, which was great to see as well. Interesting fact: both Abu Simbel and Philae Temple are no longer in their original positions. With the damming of the Nile in the late 19th century and again in the 1950's the waters rose so much that they covered Philae completely and nearly covered Abu Simbel. The Egyptian government and UNESCO along with a whole bunch of other nations got together to save both sites, and painstakingly cut them apart into thousands upon thousands of pieces, numbered them, moved them, and put back together the world's largest jigsaw puzzles to preserve the temples. When you see them in person, it's almost impossible to believe that they were actually moved.
Three hour bus ride back into Aswan, then onto Philae Temple by day – so impressive! And very interesting as you can see how it was constructed in the Grecian times (Alexander the Great), added to in the Roman times (I think it was Hadrian who has an unfinished temple there), and then used as a Christian Church later on. Next was an ancient Aswan pink granite quarry, where the Unfinished Obelisk of Hatshepsut is still hanging around. Hatshepsut was the only woman pharaoh, and wanted to have the largest obelisk in all of Egypt. They started to quarry the granite and were working on the shape of the obelisk (which was supposed to be 42m high) when they discovered a flaw in the granite halfway up the shaft and just abandoned it in the quarry – and its been there for the last 3000 years or so! Hatshepsut eventually got her obelisks at Karnak Temple, and they were the highest, at 39m.
That night we took a sunset camel ride in the Sahara Desert to an 8th century monastery and then had a traditional dinner at a Nubian village on the Nile. I kid you not – amazing evening! Got our first taste of night on the Nile as we had to take ferries to and from the Nubian village . . . we all enjoyed it very much and were pretty excited to start our felucca journey the next day!!
Next up – felucca sailing down the Nile, Nubian bonfires and two more temples!


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Earlier this week the U.S Department of Agriculture released its biannual report of farm incomes which paints a very bleak picture for the American farmer. In its first forecast for 2017, the USDA sees real farm cash receipts down 14% versus 2015 and 36% from the previous high set in 2012 as farm debt continues to soar and leverage surges to all-time highs.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, the deadly combination of rising input costs, lower grain prices, a strong dollar and excessive leverage will likely force many of America's Midwest farmers out of business in 2017.
Costs for seeds, fertilizer and equipment climbed so high and grain prices dropped so low that he still lost more than $120 an acre. Afraid to come up short again, Mr. Scott decided last fall not to plant 170 acres of winter wheat, close to a third of the usual amount. U.S. farmers sowed the fewest acres of winter wheat this season in more than a century.
"No one just grain farms anymore," said Deb Stout, whose sons Mason and Spencer farm the family's 2,000 acres in Sterling, Kan., 120 miles east of Ransom. Spencer also works as a mechanic, and Mason is a substitute mailman. "Having a side job seems like the only way to make it work," she said.
She and her husband have declared bankruptcy before. Farmers around Sterling lost $6,400 on average in 2015, the latest available data, after profits of $80,800 a year earlier, according to the Kansas Farm Management Association.
Meanwhile, America's share of the global grain trade has been cut in half since the 1970's giving domestic farmers less control over pricing which has grown increasingly volatile over the past decade.
The U.S. share of the global grain market is less than half what it was in the 1970s. American farmers' incomes will drop 9% in 2017, the Agriculture Department estimates, extending the steepest slide since the Great Depression into a fourth year.
"You keep pinching and pinching and pretty soon there's nothing left to pinch," said Craig Scott, a fifth-generation farmer in this Western Kansas town.
American farmers' share of the global grain trade has fallen from 65% in the mid-1970s to 30% today, giving them less sway over prices. More producers and more buyers around the world also mean more potential disruptions from bad weather, famine or political crisis.
Corn prices once varied year-to-year by less than $1 a bushel. Since 2006 they have shot up and dropped more than $4 a bushel.
So where does that leave the American farmer? Real farm incomes in 2017 are expected to sink below 2010 levels which represents a 36% decline from the recent peak and a 14% decline since 2015.
Meanwhile farm debt continues to rise at an astonishing rate...
While farmer leverage has spiked to the highest level since at least 1960.
And of course, lower incomes means less money to spend on shiny new John Deere tractors with equipment capex expected to decline 35% compared to 2015.
And finally, farmer returns have crashed to the lowest levels ever. We're not sure about you but a 2.1% ROIC seems a "little low" even in our current rigged interest rate environment. So, there's only a couple of ways to fix that problem...either commodity prices have to recover quickly or farmland prices need to come down substantially. Which do you think will happen first?