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Toronto 2018
Re: Toronto 2018
Here's what I know, rumour that interviews may start again in mid to late January. My guess is, these interviews will be for those who applied when the recruitment was open previously and received a doc review.mikejones228 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:09 pmWhere is Bigsmoke when you need him
My other guess is the recruitment should open around that time or before to prep more candidates for the April Class.
As always - time will tell all!
Merry Christmas Everyone!!
Re: Toronto 2018
Heard from a little birdy that interviews are starting the week of the 14th. Good luck to all of you
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Re: Toronto 2018
Also, the job posting is back open.
Re: Toronto 2018
Did anyone get an invite for an interview?
Re: Toronto 2018
Received an invite for interview this morning via email. It's for January 7 - not much notice. Good to you all!
Re: Toronto 2018
When did you apply?
Last edited by WannabFF on Fri Feb 08, 2019 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Toronto 2018
Around Aug 30th I think. I got the document request awhile back
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Re: Toronto 2018
Has anyone else heard anything?
Re: Toronto 2018
Is anyone else having trouble with the resume being formatted horribly when submitting it to your profile?
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Re: Toronto 2018
Yes also have interview next week, good luck to all !ChiefRed17 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:37 pmHas anyone else heard anything?
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Jet Set Radio is a 1st party Sega game in a time where the company was being creative and making a lot of new and original games. The visuals are stunning, the gameplay is addictive and the music is insanely superb.
Set in the mythical city of Tokyoto, you play as a skater gang known as the GGs.
It's your mission to defend your Shibuya-Cho home turf, as well as conquering new turf from rival gangs and the police.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bryan Cranston Compares Walter White to LBJ; Jonathan Banks Cast in New Movie
This week, Bryan Cranston compares his newest character, President Lyndon Johnson, with his most well-known, Walt and Jonathan Banks is cast in a new movie. Read on for more:
• According to The Wall Street Journal, Bryan Cranston, starring on Broadway as Lyndon Johnson, says the 36th president and Walt were "both very powerful, strong-willed, smart, damaged. In both cases, ego had a large part of what downfall they had."
• Jonathan Banks has been cast in Term Life, a crime thriller to be directed by Peter Billingsley, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
• Hypable taps Aaron Paul as a future Oscar nominee, calling him "one very busy man, jumping from project to project and covering almost every genre on the way."
• Talking about playing President Lyndon Johnson in All the Way, Bryan Cranston tells the Associated Press, "You only make your Broadway debut once and I'm encouraged that I hitched my wagon to a really well-written play."
• The Saturn Award nominations were announced and Breaking Bad has five nods: best TV presentation of a limited run series, best actor for Bryan Cranston, best actress for Anna Gunn, best supporting actor for Aaron Paul and best guest star for Robert Forster.
• Aaron Paul turned up on Top Gear in a Reasonably-Priced Car challenge — and broke the BBC Two show's speed record, according to Entertainment Weekly.
• Aaron Paul guest-hosted WWE Monday Night Raw and "looked as happy as he did at his wedding — which is why we love him," says Entertainment Weekly, which has some video of the event.
• Bill Burr tells the Ottawa Citizen, "I owe my acting career to [Vince] Gilligan and the writers and everybody else attached" to Breaking Bad.
• What Culture posts "a tribute to the under-appreciated, overlooked, and underrated episodes that helped make Breaking Bad a modern masterpiece."
• What Culture also highlights its take on Breaking Bad's 10 best musical moments.
• Describing his new movie, Need for Speed, to Ireland's Independent.ie, Aaron Paul says, "What's so great about this film is it's not just a car movie, but it's a throwback to the classic car culture films."
To stay up-to-date on the latest news about Breaking Bad, sign up for the weekly newsletter Breaking News.Read More


text: Pope Francis paid tribute to United Nations workers who died in the line of duty [Reuters] Pope Francis has strongly condemned the craving for material gains and power, telling world leaders gathered at the United Nations that greed is destroying the Earth's resources and aggravating poverty. "A selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged," he said in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday. The leader of the world's more than one billion Roman Catholics also appealed for world peace, while issuing his latest plea for the protection of both Muslims and Christians persecuted by armed groups in Syria and Iraq. Full Text: Pope Francis' speech to the United Nations The 78-year-old South American pontiff also condemned global drug trafficking, which he said also leads to money laundering and human trafficking. Francis was welcomed on Friday to the UN headquarters on New York's East River by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and dozens of waving children. Prior to his speech, the pope held a brief meeting with the UN chief and addressed an estimated 350 staff of the world body. He also paid tribute to UN workers who died in the line of duty. Catholic Church in US hopes for papal boost Francis was the fifth pope to visit the global body. Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from the United Nations, said that while the pope did not offer specific policy statements, his stand on poverty and inequality mirrored the issues the world body wanted to solve. Francis, who has built a wide global following for his reform-minded views, is on a visit to the United States and earlier enjoyed a rousing reception in the capital Washington DC. His agenda on Friday reflects both his global stature and his "of-the-people" approach, while taking him from the solemnity of ground zero to the struggles of East Harlem. It also includes a meeting with schoolchildren and immigrants, and a mass for thousands at the Madison Square Garden arena. In his speech in Washington DC on Thursday, Francis had earlier exhorted wealthy countries to "open doors" to migrants and refugees seeking better lives. Also on Thursday, following his arrival in New York, Francis also offered prayers to the more than 700 Muslim pilgrims who died during the Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Francis wraps up his US visit this weekend in Philadelphia, where he speaks in front of Independence Hall and celebrates Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to close out a big Catholic families rally. The pope's agenda in New York includes meeting immigrants and celebrating a mass at Madison Square Garden arena [Al Jazeera/Hida Fouladvand] Thousands of well-wishers greeted the pope on Friday as he made his way through the streets of New York [Al Jazeera/Hida Fouladvand] SOURCE: Al Jazeera and agencies Politics Religion United States Ban Ki-moon


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Arthur Chan founded Unimax Toys in 1975 and began a journey that has provided families worldwide with innovative, high-quality toys, hobbies and collectibles and retailers & other business associates an honest, trustworthy, partner they can rely upon to deliver on every promise.
In 1975, Hong Kong was emerging as the toy capital of the world. Customers from every country visited Unimax Toys in search of high value products. Arthur promised them they could rely on Unimax Toys to deliver innovative products of the highest quality. He knew that following through on this promise would insure long-term success for his customers and, in turn, for his young company. That promise of innovation, quality and on-time delivery is central to the values under which Unimax Toys has since operated for nearly forty years.
Unimax Toys has seen many changes in its business and products over the years. We have developed exciting brands in-house and partnered with creative licensors to offer products that delight children, collectors and families worldwide. Unimax Toys embraces change and we fully expect to see our brands and product categories evolve over the years. Through all the changes and all the years, the Unimax team will never outgrow nor forget its founder's core values. These values determine the way we work and the quality we offer and the unsurpassed treatment you can expect as a customer, partner and friend of Unimax Toys.


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Last week I was invited to a free screening at Peckham Multiplex. The film, called Consume Peckham, was a project by students from Chelsea Art College and included 18 short films about local businesses and the people behind them (part of the I Love Peckham 2009 Development Project). The aim was to explore the complex link between culture and commercialism. Apparently the students were pretty disappointed when they found out they were coming to Peckham (as one shopkeeper said to me just yesterday, "we just can't get away from Del Boy, and it wasn't even filmed here") but soon became smitten with the warmth of the people and addictive buzzing energy of Rye Lane.
The short films focused on businesses like the many food shops, the local radio station, The Bussey Building (full of churches and artists), and my personal favourite, Ozzie's Cafe. I've walked past the place nearly every day but never considered going in. The woman sat next to me in the cinema (Eileen Conn, the inspiring force behind Peckham Residents' Network), told me she eats there all the time (egg and chips), and when I paid a visit on Saturday morning, I found people from all walks of life: students, pensioners, and of course, the hardcore regulars. One such long timer was interviewed by the students and caused much mirth in the cinema with his poetry recitations. I couldn't help but feel that some of these people were lost souls, anchored to the community by a place like Ozzie's. The students describe how, "customers come to sit and enjoy the company of others without even speaking a word."
Peckham is often a place of division between the people. One of the most striking things about the film was how it so clearly portrayed the divide between the white, middle class residents and the large proportion of people (many Nigerian), who have moved here from other countries and who make up the majority of the population. Most of the well-to-do local art students for example will be found in Bar Story, Peckham's trendiest bar, with one lamenting, "there is nowhere else to go." We noted the same predominantly white audience in the screening and I commented that the same was apparent at Frank's pop-up bar.
Ozzie's is different. Ozzie's is the kind of place everyone feels comfortable. This is the role of the local caff: all-welcoming, no pretensions, no frills, no-one hurrying you to leave. All of human life is here. The food at Ozzie's is pretty rubbish to be honest – questionable mystery meat bangers, tinned mushrooms, cheap juice, you get the idea – but then that really isn't the point. Places like this are part of a routine, 'the poetic and mundane details of the everyday.' They remind us that the world keeps turning, the caff keeps opening and life goes on, no matter what happens in individual lives, and that can be a very comforting thought.


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Welcome to Happiness (2015)
★★★★ / ★★★★
A picture like "Welcome to Happiness," written and directed by Oliver Thompson, will likely fail to hold up under scrutiny, at least under the standards of what makes a film palatable for the mainstream audience. It is weird in just about every definition of the word, from its story, the structure of the plot, the way it is told, how it ends. It is not impressive when it comes to dialogue, how it is shot, or how it looks. And yet I loved how it made me feel.
The plot revolves around a writer named Woody (Kyle Gallner) who is having trouble continuing his current book about a cat that is not at all curious despite the common saying. But the storyteller is most curious. He is given the task to let strangers who have hit rock bottom into his apartment when they knock on the door, to ask them questions, and to eventually lead them to his closet. Inside the closet is a small door that opens—and can only be opened from the other side—when the stranger is finally alone. No matter how hard Woody tries, the door does not open for him. He wishes to know why this is the case. And this increasing curiosity leads him to desperation.
Notice that each room we visit almost always has two things: paintings and books. But they are just not any other painting or book—the type of paintings and books varies depending on the person who owns them. Also, their numbers differ based on their owner's income. Some of them are placed or hung near the floor, while others cannot be reached so easily without a stool or a ladder. Words and pictures dominate these characters' lives. The more we get to know them, we can choose to categorize them under either tribe. Some of us may ask ourselves where we fall in the spectrum, words on one extreme and pictures on the other.
The material is interested in how its characters define happiness. Is happiness being with another person? Being with one's most prized possessions? Being with oneself and his hobbies? Her passions? Is happiness creating something that the world can appreciate? Is happiness to forgive, to move on, to never look back? Or is happiness having the ability to fix or erase the unjust? I admired that the material asks big questions and more questions than any one movie can possibly handle. I think the point is neither to answer nor to probe deeply into them but rather to look inside ourselves and evaluate our priorities, our philosophies.
"Welcome to Happiness" will likely appeal to those with a taste for the bizarre. I can talk about well-written and well-executed scenes like the mysterious opening sequence or when Woody asks an amputee to go inside the closet so she can experience something that will change her life. I can talk about how vibrant colors are utilized as both metaphor or irony. I can talk about solid performances by Gallner as a tortured writer or by Brendan Sexton III as his character recalls his biggest regret. But I choose not to. And choice is, I think, the point of the film.
Categories: Film


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It is common knowledge that we own a flat back in our old city and we have made considerable progress in paying off the mortgage. However every now and then I am forced to rethink if we made the right choice. There are a lot of things we did right (and wrong) but was that the best thing we could have done with our money. Was Buying a house worth our hard earned money? This is the question we want to talk about today.
This post contains a lot of numbers and follows my twisted mathematical pattern. If you are averse to so many numbers you might want to jump to the end.
Without factoring in the ongoing interest, it cost us 25,34,641 for a two bedroom flat in a new township with a resident's association. This also includes 1 year of maintenance paid upfront to the builder.
This was at a time when most of the people around us were investing money into houses which started at twice the price. When we were deciding if a two bedroom house is a good deal for us we were driven by what we can afford today instead of what we will need down the line. Some might call us really short-sighted and maybe we were but with a job which moves us every few years it just made sense to us.
Buying a house: What IF??
We know if we go back to living in the city as a joint family we will need to either rent a bigger apartment or another apartment next to ours. That time is clearly not coming in next 5-6 years and none of us know what we will want at that time. Had we chosen to go for a bigger house almost 4 years ago when we booked the flat we would have put money in something which we would not need for another 10 years. It would have resulted in more loan which means more interest, longer loan term and reduced liquidity.
When we booked the flat the income(gross) to price ratio was a comfortable 1:2. Though we were driven by our desire to spend less then, this ratio in hindsight is something we are quite proud of.By the time construction was complete and we got the keys the ratio had gone down to 1:1.5.
Buying a House: The Math of it all
If we were to sell the house today the average market price would yield us 29,60,000; an approximate 16% gain total in over 4 years since we first put a dime in. for the sake of simplicity let's calculate how things stand today.
Home ownership cost= direct costs till date- tax rebates
Direct costs till date= Amount paid by us+ Loan EMI
Direct cost= 6,67,688 + 11,43,678 = 18,11,366
Tax rebates(assuming 20% tax bracket)= 70,411 + 20600= 90,411
Home ownership cost= 18,11,366 – 90,411 = 17,20,955
Loan remaining= 10,65,000
If we were to sell today our loan would be taken over by the buyer, therefore the amount we will be entitled to on selling is.
Amount earned= 29,60,000-10,65,000=18,95,000
Profit= 18,95,000-17,20,955= 1,74,045
% return= 10.1%
We currently rent out our flat and that has therefore resulted in both costs as well as returns. Let's take a look at that.
Land lording costs include furniture and fittings for the flat along with rent agreement costs and other fee. For us this came out to be – 35,315.
Rent earned till date:52,500
Net return= 17,185
Tax on profit from property= 3540.11
Actual profit= 13,644.89
Total profit including rent= 1,87,612
% return= 10.9%
Buying a house: Flip side of the money
When we started in 2013 nifty was at 6,000* and today it stands at 8,400. For the sake of easy calculations I have taken 1st April as the bench mark for every year. Currently we maximize our PPF account but that has sadly not been the case for any FY before this one.
Assuming the same distribution of money i.e. maxing our PPF and investing rest into NIFTY index funds would bring us to 23,45,267
If we were to invest everything into nifty index funds we would stand at 21,79,484.
We are not considering FD route because that is something we have never believed in.
Extra tax we would have paid: 70,411
Final standing
Scenario1: 23,45,267- 70,411= 22,74,856
Scenario2: 21,79,484 – 70,411=21,09,073
Scenario1: 22,54,856-17,20,955 = 5,33,901= 31%
Scenario2: 20,89,073-17,20,955 = 3,68,118= 21.4%
These numbers are quite sobering and definitely make us want to kick ourselves. It would not be wrong to say we lost a lot of money and tied ourselves to the bank for quite some time. In this calculation I have not included the money we put in the OD account to equate our loan. This money earns us no interest but we don't pay interest on principle amount equal to the money we put in the OD.
We have always lived on rent because we are posted in a different city than the city we own the flat in.
Talking rationally buying a house was not a good monetary decision and would have put us far ahead in our FI calculations. If we assume that we would have earned an average return of 7% and all the money we have either put in OD and house as well as what we will put in next few years would have resulted in 67,04,570 in 2026. That is over 20% of our FI amount.
We have in last few months discussed investing in real estate but the numbers as we stand today don't really look good. Not just that the prices have definitely climbed quite up since we last put money in the market. However we do believe that the equation will look quite different in a few years' time when we are done with the loan. In case we still have a tenant and the housing market continues to go up we can expect the house to maybe close the gap with the invested money.
There is however a fact which we cannot overlook which is how difficult it is to get the money out from this investment. We fully expect to not be able to sell the house at a fair price should we need to in an emergency. This is one of the major factors why I am skeptical if we will ever buy another property. That being said we can definitely not afford to buy a house right now.
I know of a few financial bloggers who have made their riches in the real estate world. Unfortunately I have not been able to find someone like Financial Samurai in the same market as us. We however need to understand the sector and actual return from it before we can think of putting our hard earned money into it.
- For those wondering if the figures above are actual, well they are pretty close if not accurate. However it doesn't matter much since the rate of return remains the same no matter how much we put in.
- If you know of any bloggers in India who have been writing about real estate strategies we would love to know of them.
How has buying a house been for you? Do you believe that it was a great decision?


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Phytomer is a pioneer in marine biotechnology, the newest technology to create innovative, 100 percent natural skin care ingredients. Using concentrates of marine biotechnology, Phytomer has developed a new generation of high-tech, natural products and treatments that provide scientifically-proven results, including anti-wrinkle and smoothing effects. Avendra and Phytomer have worked together to educate customers on Phytomer's innovative techniques. These advances help to set them apart from their competitors.
"We have appreciated our partnership with Avendra over the years and in their goal to bring quality products to Avendra customers at affordable prices. Their professional approach and high standards for quality and traceability go hand-in-hand with Phytomer's philosophy," stated Phytomer President, Lenette Casper.


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MoMath's gifted math program for students grade 9-12
Sundays, 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Program | Application Process | Schedule | Pricing | Policies
MoMath is delighted to announce that Expansions, the gifted program to engage and challenge New York City's brightest math students, is launching Icosahedron, a high school track taught by University of San Francisco Professor of Mathematics Paul Zeitz. Paul is also an International Math Olympiad participant and trainer, co-founder and Board Chairman of Proof School, co-founder of the San Francisco Math Circle, co-founder of the Bay Area Math Olympiad, and author of The Art and Craft of Problem Solving.
MoMath is currently accepting applications for limited spots in the fall 2019 semester.
MoMath's Expansions program offers a small class size approach, hands-on lessons, and a long-term, cohort model that builds dynamic groups of students who learn effectively together and return year after year.
Applications are considered on a rolling basis as spots become available. To apply, first take this self-assessment to determine if the level of content of Icosahedron is right for you. (Please note that no refund will be provided if the content level is not a match.) Then, please fill out this online form and follow the instructions provided upon submitting the form.
The Icosahedron fall 2019 semester will run from Sunday, September 29, through Sunday, December 15, from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm. Sessions will meet on these days:
September 29
October 13
October 20
October 27
November 3
November 10
November 17
November 24
December 8
December 15
Participation will require full semester enrollment. Early bird registration for the semester is $995; full year is $1,800 (current Museum members at the Membership Squared level or above receive a 10% discount). MoMath does not prorate fees for mid-term registrations, and refunds will not be given for absences or for any other reasons. Museum admission is not included in the registration.
No refund will be provided for withdrawal from Icosahedron for any reason, including issues related to content level.
Need-based scholarships are available. Scholarship applicants must meet the income guidelines of the federal Free and Reduced Lunch program and provide verification of household income. Scholarship applicants should complete the regular application form online and send a separate email to email@example.com with a request for scholarship application instructions. Please allow at least two weeks for the scholarship committee's review process.
MoMath will make every effort to run classes as scheduled, but occasionally severe inclement weather or other unusual circumstances beyond MoMath's control may require that a class be cancelled. If such a cancellation occurs, MoMath may, at its sole discretion, offer make-up sessions.
Note that grade-level sessions will run only if a minimum number of participants is reached before the start date of the full session. In the rare event that a grade-level series is cancelled, registrants will be notified and provided with a full refund.
MoMath does not provide make-up classes for absences. Each Expansions series accepts a limited enrollment in order to provide individualized attention to each student. While many reasons may cause a student to miss a class, a registered student holds a reserved seat while others may be turned away due to limited capacity. Additionally, the Museum provides staffing, materials, and other resources based on registration. For these reasons, the Museum has a strict no-refund and no make-up policy.
The Icosahedron class is scheduled to end at 5:30, after the Museum closes at 5:00 pm; adults may wait in Additions, the shop at MoMath, and students will be brought there for dismissal. Students may leave on their own, if permission is granted during registration in the "Authorized Pick-Up List."
All Expansions participants are expected to exhibit good behavior to ensure a positive experience for all participants. At its sole discretion, MoMath may remove a student from the Expansions program for behavioral reasons. If a student is removed for behavioral reasons, for either the day or the remainder of the program, no refund will be provided.


text: BUSINESS Traditionalist struts stuff 5:00 AM PDT 10/3/2007 by Carolyn Giardina , AP FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME Plympton previews 2-D ani pic Bill Plympton showed off some old-fashioned animation Tuesday at the Edit Filmmakers Festival.Plympton previewed selections from his upcoming feature "Idiots and Angels," a film that was made with traditional 2-D animation and music and no dialogue. It features about 30,000 of his drawings."If David Lynch had done animation, this would be it," said Plympton, who independently finances and makes all of his films. For "Idiots and Angels," he also wrote the story.He expects to bow "Idiots and Angels" on the festival circuit during 2008.The film takes place in a bar and centers on a lead character who is selfish and rude. "He grows wings, and he doesn't like it because it makes him do good things," Plympton said. "So he tries to get rid of them while other people try to steal them. It's his soul that they are fighting for."I think we are in the second golden age of animation, which started around 1987 with the Disney resurgence, MTV, 'The Simpsons' and Roger Rabbit," Plympton said. "There's a lot of different stuff coming out, but predominantly it's computer animation, which I frankly do not like. I do like Pixar. Pixar is great, but most computer animation is really bland. I like to see the mark of the hand. Imperfections are what makes something human, something special."Plympton was nominated for an Academy Award in 1987 for his animated short "Your Face." FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME Carolyn Giardina email@example.com CGinLA AP firstname.lastname@example.com @thr


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Algorithm, Apply Magic Sauce, Asher Peres, Brexit, Cambridge Analytica, Carl Brigham, Christopher Wylie, Crispin Wright, David Mermin, David Stillwell, Dr Hugh Morrison Queen's University Belfast, Dr Youyou Wu, Jerome Kagan, latent traits, ludwig Wittgenstein, Malcolm Gladwell, Michal Kosinski, microtargeting, Newsweek, Nina Burleigh, Observer, President Donald Trump, Ross & Nisbitt, Stanford University, Thore Graepel, University of Cambridge
Dr Hugh Morrison (The Queen's University of Belfast [retired])
Despite the fact that research carried out at the University of Cambridge's Psychometrics Centre is at the very heart of the Cambridge Analytica debate, this research seems to have been subject to little or no serious scrutiny. This is puzzling given that an analysis of the Apply Magic Sauce algorithm, developed at the University, could settle, once and for all, whether tools developed at Cambridge could have influenced the Brexit or Trump votes. The impression has been created that the Cambridge academics, armed only with an individual's Facebook "likes," could somehow use this Apply Magic Sauce algorithm to peer into the mind of that individual.
The Cambridge academics (erroneously) portray psychological constructs such as personality and intelligence as "inner", "private" traits, somehow hidden in mind. It is claimed, however, that provided one has access to an individual's Facebook likes, one can use the Apply Magic Sauce algorithm to represent numerically that individual's five-trait personality profile, together with his or her intelligence. It is easy to see how the title of a paper by Michal Kosinski, David Stillwell & Thore Graepel (2013)[1], published in PNAS – "Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behaviour" – gives the impression that tools developed at Cambridge can somehow "reveal" an individual's personality/intelligence, given his or her digital footprint. It will be argued in this essay that no scientific basis exists for this claim.
Nina Burleigh, writing in Newsweek (18.06.2017), paints a picture of a dystopian future in which algorithms can be used to infer psychological profiles by stealth: "Big Data, artificial intelligence and algorithms designed and manipulated by strategists like the folks at Cambridge have turned our world into a Panopticon, the 19th century circular prison designed so that guards, without moving, could observe every inmate every minute of every day." The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Cristopher Wylie, goes further in the Observer newspaper of 18.03.2018. According to Wylie, because "personality traits could be a precursor to political behaviour," (p. 10) then the tools developed at Cambridge could represent a "psychological warfare mind**** tool" (p. 9) capable of disrupting the democratic process itself.
This brief essay asks the important question, "is there a shred of scientific truth in the claim that one can exploit the link between inner mental states (personality traits, intelligence etc.) and voting intention, in order to nudge an individual's behaviour in the polling booth?" The unequivocal response is "No," because the Cambridge academics' claim to have developed an algorithm capable of inferring personality from Facebook likes has no scientific basis.
The Apply Magic Sauce algorithm claims to predict (and quantify) personality traits. This cannot be so for a very simple reason: such traits do not exist. This we know from the extensive rule-following literature (see, for example, Crispin Wright's 2001 book, "Rails to Infinity"[2]). Dynamic intrinsic attributes are the preserve of Newtonian mechanics, and are not available to psychologists. Personality is a property of the interaction between person and measuring tool rather than an intrinsic attribute of a person; it is a joint property of the individual and the instrument used to measure personality.
One of the towering figures of 20th century thought, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958, p. 143) dismissed unequivocally the notion of inner mental traits posited by the Cambridge team: "There is a kind of disease of thinking which always looks for (and finds) what would be called a mental state from which all our acts spring as from a reservoir."[3] One cannot capture an individual's personality in a number because personality isn't a property of the individual. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the Cambridge academics were not aware that their interpretation of personality as a quantifiable trait was entirely at odds with serious scholarship in their own discipline.
Ross and Nisbett's classic textbook The Person and the Situation[4] is a staple of undergraduate psychology. This book argues that personality is so entangled with the context in which it is expressed that it is meaningless to conceive of personality as some free-standing quantifiable inner state. One of psychology's most respected thinkers, Jerome Kagan, has identified this tendency for some psychologists to picture psychological attributes as traits hidden in mind as undermining their profession.
On page xvii of Psychology's Ghosts: The Crisis in the Profession and the Way Back[5], Kagan "concludes that 'agents in a context' should replace the current, restricted focus on stable properties of individuals that, like their eye colour, are presumably available for expression in all settings." Professor Kagan points out that measurement in psychology is not a matter of checking up on traits which already exist in mind. Kagan (1998, p. 16)[6] writes: "Most investigators who study 'anxiety' or 'fear' use answers on a standard questionnaire or responses to an interviewer to decide which of their subjects are anxious or fearful. A smaller number of scientists asks close friends or relatives of each subject to evaluate how anxious that person is. A still smaller group measures the heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin response, or salivary cortisol level of their subjects. Unfortunately, these three sources of information rarely agree."
Kagan is making the point that in order to communicate unambiguously (the hallmark of science) one cannot omit the measuring instrument. Psychological predicates only have definite properties relative to a specified measuring tool. One cannot attribute a definite value to a psychological attribute construed as a property of a person; this attribute only has definite properties relative to a particular instrument. Kagan (1998, p. 77) cautions: "Modern physicists appreciate that light can behave as a wave or a particle depending on the method of measurement. But some contemporary psychologists write as if that maxim did not apply to consciousness, intelligence or fear." This poses a fundamental problem for the Cambridge project because personalities predicted from Facebook likes involve no interaction with an appropriate measuring tool. In these circumstances ascribing a definite personality makes no sense.
In Malcolm Gladwell's popular text The Tipping Point,[7] he depicts the incoherence which is the consequence of divorcing psychological predicates from the contexts in which they are expressed, and treating them as traits. Indeed, psychology has a name for the error which afflicts the Cambridge algorithm: "The Fundamental Attribution Error." According to the Fundamental Attribution Error, behaviour is not determined by some theoretical mental trait within the individual; rather, behaviour can only be understood by examining the interaction between the individual and the measuring instrument. Finally, even if one were to accept that psychological predicates can be represented as latent traits, such models break down at the level of individual (see Borsboom, Mellenbergh & van Heerden, 2003, p. 217)[8], presenting intractable problems for any "personalisation machine" capable of "microtargeting."
Turning to the claim that one can measure intelligence from Facebook likes, one finds the Cambridge algorithm at odds with one of the central tenets of quantum mechanics (see below). The reader will be aware of the decades-old debate: do intelligence tests measure some inner, hidden mental state which psychologists call "intelligence", or do they merely measure the ability of the testee to answer a series of questions on something psychologists call an "intelligence test"?
Psychology was aware – as far back as the 1930s – of the profound difficulties associated with interpreting intelligence as a trait: "He [Carl Brigham] recognized that a test score could not be reified as an entity inside a person's head: Most psychologists working in the test field have been guilty of a naming fallacy which easily enables them to slide mysteriously from the score in the test to the hypothetical faculty suggested by the name of the test. Thus, they speak of sensory discrimination, perception, memory, intelligence, and the like while reference is to a certain objective test situation" (Gould, 1996, p. 262)[9].
The distinguished American physicist, David Mermin (1993, p. 1)[10] notes: "When you measure IQ are you learning something about an inherent quality of a person called "intelligence," or are you merely acquiring information about how the person responds to something you have fancifully called an IQ test? Until the advent of quantum theory in 1925 physicists were above such concerns. But since then, with the discovery that experiments at the atomic level necessarily disturb the objects of investigation, precisely such reservations have been built into the foundations of physics." In modern physics, momentum is not an intrinsic property of an electron; rather, it is a property of the electron's interaction with the measuring instrument.
The introduction to Werner Heisenberg's 1989 book[11] contains a single sentence with profound implications for the Apply Magic Sauce algorithm: "[T]he reality is in the observations [interactions], not in the electron." The lesson for Apply Magic Sauce is clear: one can only speak meaningfully about an individual's intelligence when that person interacts with an intelligence test. Intelligence is not an inner trait and the Cambridge algorithm can no more predict intelligence than it can predict personality.
The Cambridge academics' central claim for their algorithm is that it can predict an individual's personality without requiring that person to take a personality test. Alas, removing the measuring instrument actually deprives any references to personality or intelligence of their very meaning. Those who feared that academics at Cambridge had actually developed an algorithm which could derive an individual's intimate traits from his or her digital footprint, without requiring that person to take the relevant test, can take comfort from the words of the physicist Asher Peres: "Unperformed experiments have no results."[12] In summary, it seems inconceivable that an algorithm with the conceptual difficulties of Apply Magic Sauce could be deployed to nudge voting intention in any predetermined direction.
[1] Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., & Graepel, T. (2013). Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behaviour. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110 (15), 5802-5805.
[2] Wright, C. (2001). Rails to infinity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[3] Wittgenstein, L. (1958). The blue and brown books. Oxford: Blackwell.
[4] Ross, L, & Nisbett, R.E. (1991). The person and the situation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
[5] Kagan, J. (2012). Psychology's ghosts. New Haven: Yale University Press.
[6] Kagan, J. (1998). Three seductive ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[7] Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point. Boston: Little, Brown & Company.
[8] Borsboom, D., Mellenbergh, G.J., & van Heerden, J. (2003). The theoretical status of latent variables. Psychological Review, 110 (2), 203-219.
[9] Gould, S.J. (1996). The mismeasure of man. London: Penguin Books.
[10] Mermin, D. (1993). Lecture given at the British Association Annual Science Festival. London: British Association for the Advancement of Science.
[11] Heisenberg, W. (1989). Physics and philosophy. London: Penguin Books.
[12] Peres, A. (1978). Unperformed experiments have no results. American Journal of Physics, 46, 745-747.


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Vendor Management
Inspection Depot has an independent network of credentialed adjusters and field service members in various locations throughout the US. The Inspection Depot platform monitors the credentialing process and applications, and proactively maintains the necessary credentialing and documentation with each network Vendor.
|The following is an overview of the credentialing process and benefits to our clients.
|Prescreening Process
|Each network member is prescreened in a number of ways. The prescreening process includes experience verifications, insurance and licensing verifications, coverage area confirmation, capacity verifications, and training/technical compliance. The Inspection Depot credentialing module provides tracking and reportable modules on an on demand/real-time basis.
|All on the Inspection Depot network are provided access to the Inspection Depot training platform, CIA Connect.com Inspection Depot utilizes this platform for the deployment of real-time training on an on demand and/or as needed basis. Testing and examination results are available for each network member.
|Inspection Depot is continually credentialing and maintaining the adjuster network. At the time of writing there are almost 1500 adjusters registered under the Inspection Depot network.
|Billing/Fee schedule
|Inspection Depot platform is programmed with automated fee tracking and payment scheduling. Invoicing and accounting reports are available to ensure fees are billed on an accurate basis.
If you are interested joining our network, click here and complete the registration process.


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The Birth Of A Eurasian Century
Russia And China Do Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar *
A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass -- at the expense of the United States.
And no wonder Washington is anxious. That alliance is already a done deal in a variety of ways: through the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa); at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian counterweight to NATO; inside the G20; and via the 120-member-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Trade and commerce are just part of the future bargain. Synergies in the development of new military technologies beckon as well. After Russia's Star Wars-style, ultra-sophisticated S-500 air defense anti-missile system comes online in 2018, Beijing is sure to want a version of it. Meanwhile, Russia is about to sell dozens of state-of-the-art Sukhoi Su-35 jet fighters to the Chinese as Beijing and Moscow move to seal an aviation-industrial partnership.
This week should provide the first real fireworks in the celebration of a new Eurasian century-in-the-making when Russian President Vladimir Putin drops in on Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. You remember "Pipelineistan," all those crucial oil and gas pipelines crisscrossing Eurasia that make up the true circulatory system for the life of the region. Now, it looks like the ultimate Pipelineistan deal, worth $1 trillion and 10 years in the making, will be inked as well. In it, the giant, state-controlled Russian energy giant Gazprom will agree to supply the giant state-controlled China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) with 3.75 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas a day for no less than 30 years, starting in 2018. That's the equivalent of a quarter of Russia's massive gas exports to all of Europe. China's current daily gas demand is around 16 billion cubic feet a day, and imports account for 31.6% of total consumption.
Gazprom may still collect the bulk of its profits from Europe, but Asia could turn out to be its Everest. The company will use this mega-deal to boost investment in Eastern Siberia and the whole region will be reconfigured as a privileged gas hub for Japan and South Korea as well. If you want to know why no key country in Asia has been willing to "isolate" Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis -- and in defiance of the Obama administration -- look no further than Pipelineistan.
Exit the Petrodollar, Enter the Gas-o-Yuan
And then, talking about anxiety in Washington, there's the fate of the petrodollar to consider, or rather the "thermonuclear" possibility that Moscow and Beijing will agree on payment for the Gazprom-CNPC deal not in petrodollars but in Chinese yuan. One can hardly imagine a more tectonic shift, with Pipelineistan intersecting with a growing Sino-Russian political-economic-energy partnership. Along with it goes the future possibility of a push, led again by China and Russia, toward a new international reserve currency -- actually a basket of currencies -- that would supersede the dollar (at least in the optimistic dreams of BRICS members).
Right after the potentially game-changing Sino-Russian summit comes a BRICS summit in Brazil in July. That's when a $100 billion BRICS development bank, announced in 2012, will officially be born as a potential alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as a source of project financing for the developing world.
More BRICS cooperation meant to bypass the dollar is reflected in the "Gas-o-yuan," as in natural gas bought and paid for in Chinese currency. Gazprom is even considering marketing bonds in yuan as part of the financial planning for its expansion. Yuan-backed bonds are already trading in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and most recently Frankfurt.
Nothing could be more sensible for the new Pipelineistan deal than to have it settled in yuan. Beijing would pay Gazprom in that currency (convertible into rubles); Gazprom would accumulate the yuan; and Russia would then buy myriad made-in-China goods and services in yuan convertible into rubles.
It's common knowledge that banks in Hong Kong, from Standard Chartered to HSBC -- as well as others closely linked to China via trade deals -- have been diversifying into the yuan, which implies that it could become one of the de facto global reserve currencies even before it's fully convertible. (Beijing is unofficially working for a fully convertible yuan by 2018.)
The Russia-China gas deal is inextricably tied up with the energy relationship between the European Union (EU) and Russia. After all, the bulk of Russia's gross domestic product comes from oil and gas sales, as does much of its leverage in the Ukraine crisis. In turn, Germany depends on Russia for a hefty 30% of its natural gas supplies. Yet Washington's geopolitical imperatives -- spiced up with Polish hysteria -- have meant pushing Brussels to find ways to "punish" Moscow in the future energy sphere (while not imperiling present day energy relationships).
There's a consistent rumble in Brussels these days about the possible cancellation of the projected 16 billion euro South Stream pipeline, whose construction is to start in June. On completion, it would pump yet more Russian natural gas to Europe -- in this case, underneath the Black Sea (bypassing Ukraine) to Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Italy, and Austria.
Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have already made it clear that they are firmly opposed to any cancellation. And cancellation is probably not in the cards. After all, the only obvious alternative is Caspian Sea gas from Azerbaijan, and that isn't likely to happen unless the EU can suddenly muster the will and funds for a crash schedule to construct the fabled Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, conceived during the Clinton years expressly to bypass Russia and Iran.
In any case, Azerbaijan doesn't have enough capacity to supply the levels of natural gas needed, and other actors like Kazakhstan, plagued with infrastructure problems, or unreliable Turkmenistan, which prefers to sell its gas to China, are already largely out of the picture. And don't forget that South Stream, coupled with subsidiary energy projects, will create a lot of jobs and investment in many of the most economically devastated EU nations.
Nonetheless, such EU threats, however unrealistic, only serve to accelerate Russia's increasing symbiosis with Asian markets. For Beijing especially, it's a win-win situation. After all, between energy supplied across seas policed and controlled by the U.S. Navy and steady, stable land routes out of Siberia, it's no contest.
Pick Your Own Silk Road
Of course, the U.S. dollar remains the top global reserve currency, involving 33% of global foreign exchange holdings at the end of 2013, according to the IMF. It was, however, at 55% in 2000. Nobody knows the percentage in yuan (and Beijing isn't talking), but the IMF notes that reserves in "other currencies" in emerging markets have been up 400% since 2003.
The Fed is arguably monetizing 70% of the U.S. government debt in an attempt to keep interest rates from heading skywards. Pentagon adviser Jim Rickards, as well as every Hong Kong-based banker, tends to believe that the Fed is bust (though they won't say it on the record). No one can even imagine the extent of the possible future deluge the U.S. dollar might experience amid a $1.4 trillion Mount Ararat of financial derivatives. Don't think that this is the death knell of Western capitalism, however, just the faltering of that reigning economic faith, neoliberalism, still the official ideology of the United States, the overwhelming majority of the European Union, and parts of Asia and South America.
As far as what might be called the "authoritarian neoliberalism" of the Middle Kingdom, what's not to like at the moment? China has proven that there is a result-oriented alternative to the Western "democratic" capitalist model for nations aiming to be successful. It's building not one, but myriad new Silk Roads, massive webs of high-speed railways, highways, pipelines, ports, and fiber optic networks across huge parts of Eurasia. These include a Southeast Asian road, a Central Asian road, an Indian Ocean "maritime highway" and even a high-speed rail line through Iran and Turkey reaching all the way to Germany.
In April, when President Xi Jinping visited the city of Duisburg on the Rhine River, with the largest inland harbor in the world and right in the heartland of Germany's Ruhr steel industry, he made an audacious proposal: a new "economic Silk Road" should be built between China and Europe, on the basis of the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe railway, which already runs from China to Kazakhstan, then through Russia, Belarus, Poland, and finally Germany. That's 15 days by train, 20 less than for cargo ships sailing from China's eastern seaboard. Now that would represent the ultimate geopolitical earthquake in terms of integrating economic growth across Eurasia.
Keep in mind that, if no bubbles burst, China is about to become -- and remain -- the number one global economic power, a position it enjoyed for 18 of the past 20 centuries. But don't tell London hagiographers; they still believe that U.S. hegemony will last, well, forever.
To be Concluded…
* Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT, and a TomDispatch regular. With a chapter on Iran, he is a contributing editor to The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 21st Century. Follow him on Facebook.
Copyright 2014 Pepe Escobar
[Source: Countercurrents.org]


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Medic-Call includes an embedded conference bridge which is ideal for bringing staff, partners and third parties together irrespective of where they might be geographically. The VCB enables time based or open conferences with pin access and caller joining notification. Conference Manager, provides a view of all attendees, with the ability to mute or drop individuals, and dial additional participants, allowing their direct inclusion into an existing conference.
Conference Manager, enables multiple staff with mixed skill levels to be conferenced and calls can then be made to the patient, or other third parties, who are then automatically entered in to the conference. Conference calls can be recorded as usual.


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praise Jesus
I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling
09/08/19 10:04
Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up. These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee? Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.


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There are many reasons why we need to deactivate our Hotmail account. You can visit hotmail.com. It might be because we are not using it anymore. It can also be that it has been hacked by someone that deleting it will be the best protection you can do for your other personal and confidential accounts such as credit card or bank accounts. But before you try deleting your account, it might help that you think of few things. All the emails in that account will also be deleted. If it is very important, you can send first the important emails on your new account. You also have to warn the people in your contact that your email address will no longer exist.
Now here are the steps on how to delete your Hotmail account:
- Click the browser you are using and then type the website of Hotmail which is www.hotmail.com. You will be on the Hotmail login page and sign in to your account that you wish to delete using your username and password. You will then be redirected to your mail inbox.
- Proceed to the top right part of the page. Just close to the "Sign Out" link, you will see your username. Just press your username and a dropdown menu will appear in it.
- On the menu select the "View Your Account" on the dropdown. This will navigate you on the page that will enable you to see more other settings and details of your Hotmail account.
- Just scroll down at the bottom of the page where you can see a button saying "Close Account" which is the last option that is available on the page. Just press the "Close Account" if you are ready to close it now. You will be on the page where you can read some of the consequences that will happen once you close your account.
- Just input your password on the page to ensure that you are the owner of the account to be closed. Do not forget to press again "Yes" to complete the process of deletion.
Here are the five steps if you decide to delete your Hotmail account. You can still register for a new one on their website. For those who do not have an account yet, go now to Hotmail sign up page.


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Hilo football's hallmark moment headlines Top-10 list
By KEVIN JAKAHI
Volcano Watch: Happy birthday, Pu'u 'O'o! A look back at what happened in 2017
On Jan. 3, 2018, Pu'u 'O'o on Kilauea Volcano's East Rift Zone reaches its 35th birthday.
Tropical Gardening: A New Year's resolution to focus on peace in the garden
In the 80 years I have lived, 2017 stands out as one of three personal trauma periods. The others were World War II and the Kennedy through Nixon era. For that reason, I plan to spend much more time in the garden. Many lessons can be learned by having quiet time in a garden or forest.
Cartoon for December 31
The Big Island as seen by Hawaii Tribune-Herald cartoonist Gary Hoff.
Celebrating a community champion
This month, we thank and bid a fond farewell to Chris Ridley, who has enriched so many of our lives during the past 30 years.
When judicial deference becomes dereliction of duty
WASHINGTON — Wisconsin's Supreme Court can soon right a flagrant wrong stemming from events set in motion in 2014 at Milwaukee's Marquette University by Cheryl Abbate. Although just a graduate student, she already had a precocious aptitude for academic nastiness.
The Supreme Court's chance to tame gerrymandering
The U.S. Supreme Court has long been reluctant to impose restrictions on gerrymandering, the practice of drawing election districts for partisan advantage. There's no accepted standard to say where justified redistricting stops and outright vote-rigging begins, and any ruling might arouse suspicions of partisanship. There are signs, however, that this hesitancy might be coming to an end — and not a moment too soon.
Obituaries for December 31
William "Blackie" Lani Abraham, 85, of Hilo died Nov. 27 at home. Born in Hilo, he was a retired pin setter for the former Hilo Lanes, butcher for Keaau Slaughterhouse and the former Miko Meats, roofer with Honolulu/Hilo Pacific Roofing and Flooring, Hawaii Protective Agency security guard, U.S. Army Korean War veteran and member of Hawaiian Bowling Club and other bowling leagues. Visitation 6-9 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 4) at Dodo Mortuary Chapel. Wake service at 7 p.m. Visitation again 10-11 a.m. Friday (Jan. 5) at Dodo Mortuary Chapel. Funeral service at 11 a.m. Burial to follow at Hawaii Veterans Cemetery No. 2. Aloha or casual attire. Survived by sons, Willoughby "Kewe" (Desiree Raymond) Abraham of Hilo, William "Black" (Rebecca) Abraham Jr. of Kawaihae and Robert "Hawaiian" (Dee Dee) Abraham of Hilo; daughters, Corrina Abraham of Hilo, Lydia (Daniel) Abrojena of Kona and Sandra Dee "Tini" (Robin) Young of Pahoa; hanai son, Thomas "Keo" (Rose) Abraham of Hilo; hanai daughter, Star (David) Henderson of Hilo; brother, Harry (Bobbie) Kim of Hilo; sister, Ruth Papalimu of Hilo; sisters-in-law, Kathy Papalimu and Lucy "Teri" "Luka" Keahi of Hilo; 54 grandchildren, 45 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews. Arrangements by Dodo Mortuary.
Coast Guard cites fishing boat for illegal foreign captain
HONOLULU — The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday it found a foreign worker acting as the captain of an American-flagged commercial fishing vessel in federal waters off Hawaii.
California man arrested after fatal Kansas police shooting
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police in Los Angeles have arrested a man they suspect made a hoax emergency call that resulted in a SWAT police officer fatally shooting a man at the door of his own home in Kansas, law enforcement officials said Saturday.
Australian diplomat's tip a factor in FBI's Russia probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Australian diplomat's tip appears to have helped persuade the FBI to investigate Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign, The New York Times reported Saturday.
New economic protests in Tehran challenge Iran's government
TEHRAN, Iran — A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran's weak economy swept into Tehran on Saturday, with college students and others chanting against the government just hours after hard-liners held their own rally in support of the Islamic Republic's clerical establishment.
Extreme cold to test New Year's revelers; some events iced
Dress in layers, lay off the booze and bring some hand warmers. Those are some of the tips offered for the huge crowd of revelers expected in Times Square for what could be one of the coldest New Year's Eve ball drops on record.
Police: 'We're coming to look' for aerial fireworks
The Hawaii Police Department is taking an aggressive stand against illegal fireworks violators who threaten to turn New Year's festivities into "war zones."
Aloha, 2017: Saddle Road completion, TMT saga among year's top Tribune-Herald stories
As we ring out 2017 and ring in 2018, it's likely the past year will be remembered for the phrases "fake news" and "me too."
From Malta to Minneapolis, a look at where to go in 2018
From Malta to Minneapolis, here's a look at some destinations around the world that will be making news in 2018. They include designated culture capitals, places hosting sporting events and even a couple of cities — San Antonio, Texas, and New Orleans — celebrating their 300th birthdays.
BIIF wrestling: With roadblock cleared, Konawaena's Bailey among candidates to break out
Konawaena junior Kapoina Bailey had a breakout season last year on the wrestling mat, but one obstacle always stood in the way.
Police seek kidnapping suspects
Big Island police are seeking the public's help in locating four suspects involved in an alleged kidnapping.
Mild weather expected for holiday weekend
The weather has been relatively mild to start the winter in East Hawaii, and on the cusp of the New Year's holiday, there doesn't appear to be any major changes on the horizon.
Oh, good, we're great again
Apparently, America is already great again.
Save a life in 2018
Start off the new year with an act of altruism or fulfill a resolution that makes you feel great by giving blood.
United in supporting community
Staff from the five branches of Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union raised $15,000 for Hawaii Island United Way during their annual employee campaign. All proceeds will go toward United Way's mission "to unite people, organizations and resources to build a healthier community." On hand for the check presentation were, front row from left, Ross Birch, Dennis Onishi, Tricia Buskirk, LeeAnn Healy, Nellie Medeiros and Wally Lau. Back row from left, Linda Meyer, Ryan McGrady, Dean Uemura and Mel Ventura.
Big Island briefs, Dec. 30
Elite Baseball Speed Training on Jan. 5
Police arrest 20 for DUI
During the week of Dec. 18-24, Hawaii Island police arrested 20 motorists for DUI. Four of the drivers were involved in a traffic accident. The numbers of arrests by district were: Kona, eight; South Hilo, six; Puna and Ka'u, three each.
Police: Autopsy findings on Puna body "inconclusive"
Preliminary findings of an autopsy performed on the body of a person found Monday in the burned-out shell of a truck are "inconclusive" as to the cause of death, according to police.


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Take a look at the fabulous Nikkie, who is well known on YouTube for her make up tutorials. She has (at this particular moment in time) 347,391 subscribers on YouTube, all who can't wait to learn her next trick of the trade. However, the following crash course probably shocked the majority of the 1,588,991 viewers…
Did you think it was a normal make up tutorial? So did I. Such a creative campaign from Volkswagen, the shock factor definitely grabs the audiences attention and gets the message across, in my opinion, of course.
"500,000 crashes are caused by women drivers applying make-up."
This was published in YouTube on 5th April 2012, so although it went viral at the time, it didn't manage to reach me. Instead I came across this video in a lecture at University and thought it was definitely worth a blog post, a clever advert that needed to be shared. However, I'm sure this goes without saying but the message is infact very serious and if failed to be taken seriously can result in a fatal disaster. Although the creativity of it deserves a lot of credit that doesn't take away from the seriousness of the message. I'm sure young women can learn a valuable lesson from this advert, and it may reveal to them the possibilities of what could happen by doing something which they may think is so minor, such as putting on lipstick whilst driving. Also by plotting the advert into social media, somewhere where people would least expect to see an advert makes it all the more effective. It also is aimed at the exact target audience. I wish I had seen this advert sooner!
Creativity and originality wins every time!


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Document Type
Publication Date
October 2010
Journal, Book or Conference Title
New Books Network
I imagine the guys who first faced Bill Russell felt like I did when I had to guard Antoine Carr in high school. I "held" Carr to 32 points. But no dunks! Russell's opponents in college and the NBA rarely faired any better. Sports talk is full of hyperbole, but in Russell's case most of it is true. In his time, he was far and away the best player to ever step on the court and, for most of his career, he completely owned every court he stepped on. He was so dominant that they changed the rules so less gifted players would have a chance.
Bill Russell, however, was not only a surpassingly great basketball player, he was also an African American star in an era in which being an African American star (or just being an African American) was very complicated. Today we are used to seeing outstandingly successful blacks in all (or almost all) spheres of life. In the mid-1950s that just wasn't true. The American ruling elite was lilly white, and that's the way most white Americans thought it should be. Bill Russell (and Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Willie Mays, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, among others) were anomalies: they were black, but they were both extraordinarily accomplished and remarkably famous. They couldn't just be athletes; they had to be symbols of some promising (or frightening) new world as well. That's quite a burden to bear.
In King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution (University of California Press, 2010), Aram Goudsouzian has done a great service by detailing the ways Russell bore this weight, and the ways in which he fought to throw it off. Aram makes clear that Russell was a conflicted soul. He lacked self-confidence, but he was brusk and even arrogant. He was friendly and gregarious to some, but often simply rude to others. He was hot tempered, but he affected a cool, distant demeanor. He believed he was a man of principle (and convinced others he was), but he periodically abandoned his family for a playboy lifestyle. If Russell couldn't be honest about himself, he insisted on being honest about everything and everyone around him. He meant what he said and said what he meant--about race, about sports, about anything that bothered him. He was a sort of athletic Socrates, always questioning and never fully accepting the way things were. And, like Socrates, Russell was willing to suffer for his beliefs. As Aram points out, he did in many ways. But in the process he gained the respect of almost everyone he encountered. He was a hard man to like, but he was an easy man to admire.
I should add that if you like white-hot game narratives, this book is full of them. Remember this?: "Greer is putting the ball in play. He gets it out deep and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones... Havlicek stole the ball! It's all over... It's all-l-l-l over!" Johnny Most, RIP.
Copyright © 2010 New Books In History


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For all of today's news and lineup notes, all with a Canadian/Arizonian accent (if that's such a thing, I'm assuming it is unless they already deported it) here's Nick the
Podcast Radio Host with today's HotSheet!
To be fair, Johnny Cueto is good, but that's not the name of the song. Pitching a complete game, three hit shut-out with eight strikeouts is quite an impressive start, until you realize it was against the Padres. You gave up three hits against them? What is this? Kevin Correia hour? Even though those nine innings struck me as quite pedestrian, his last 63.0 IP have been quite impressive. And seeing as how he's one of the eighteen pitchers who has survived so far without a tendon exploding, he could be well on his way for a Cy Young caliber year. And while the red flags are few and far between, I would be remiss not to mention them. First, his LOB% is insane at 99.5%. Yes, he's really great at holding runners, but the league average is 72.8% and his career average 76.6%. Second, his BB% is unchanged, but his K/9 is 9.71, compared to a career number of 7.19, and there's really no reason why. The velocity has remained the same. There's been an uptick of two-seamers with less sliders and change-ups… but if it was sequencing, we'd need a bigger sample. If it's a case of getting called third strikes at a higher rate, that would demand regression. And, of course, there's always injury-risk. But in the year of the Tommy John, I'll feel relieved if someone's arm doesn't literally just fall off during a game this season. But hey, pitchers have career years. And when good pitchers have career years, well, ahem, they have career years? Uhh… I was in trouble like six words in…
Here's what else I saw on Thursday (besides yo momma):
**BREAKING** Joey Votto — Thanks to commentator Malicious Phenom, it's being reported by that one goofy guy who wears bow-ties (NOT Bill Nye, which is the only person allowed to wear bow-ties… which seems obvious), that this morning Votto will be getting an MRI on his knee and a DL-stint is likely. Apparenlty, he felt left out from all of his baseball buddies visiting the DL, and he wanted to check it out and see for himself what kind of party it is. Trust me bro, it's not a party, it's a slaughter house.
Yonder Alonso — 2-for-7, 1 R, 1 HR (1), 2 RBI (9). Yonder Alonso's number of home runs in the last calender year: 1. Yasmani Grandal's number of games started: 120 in three years. Yup, this trade has totally worked out… Sarcasm alert: RED LIKE THE BLOOD OF ALL THAT IS UNHOLY.
Grant Balfour — 0.0 IP, 1 H, 0-2 K/BB, 3 ER. I'm looking at the box score and can't figure out which is more perplexing. Balfour being a closer with a 6.46 ERA, or that he's only blown two saves so far. Both seem equally astounding. Well, in this case, Balfourian.
Kyle Blanks — Kyle got blanked by the Padres (it makes sense, shut up) and traded to Oakland for something called Goebbert, which I'm pretty sure is a Harry Potter character. As the resident Padres homer, I always believed that if he stayed healthy, Blanks could have had a "Lucus Duda" type of impact, which is to say, no impact at all. But whatever they are drinking down in Oakland (besides bail bonds and stabbings) seems to be working… So I'll change my previous ceiling of Lucus Duda to Mike Trout.
Emilio Bonifacio — 0-for-5. He might have gone 0-5 in baseball, but in our hearts, he went EmiliOOOOH for five. Just a reminder, this is free content.
Zach Britton — 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0-0 K/BB, 0 ER, S (1). The money was on Darren O'day, or Ryan Webb, or on Troy Patton even, or, in fact, pretty much anyone else but Zach Britton to get the next save opportunity. So who gets it? Yep… and he's a must-add right now, seeing as how he actually could be effective in that role. CRAZY, I know.
Clay Buchholz — 6.0 IP, 10 H, 6-3 K/BB, 3 ER, (ND). Doing very Clay Buchholz things! Or, as translated into the BAWHSTON dialect: "DAT FACKIN' BUCHHOLZ, HE SOUNDS QUEAH! YOU FREELOADIN' FACK!"
Matt Cain — 7.2 IP, 6 H, 7-3 K/BB, 4 ER, W (1-3). More like Matt Lame… yup, took me like seven seconds. High-five on that one. (Although, I did consider Mattiocre Cain, but that sounds like some kind of pudding.)
Mike Carp — 2-for-4, 1 RBI (3). Ah, yes, the other fish. Quite the shadow you're living in, almost as if you really shouldn't be called a Carp, more like a anoplogaster cornuta… HAHA. Oh yeah, I got ichthyologist jokes bro.
Matt Carpenter — 1-for-4, 1 RBI (15). Hey, cool story, his OBP is .356 while his SLG is .319. Well, pretty cool story for non-Matt Carpenter owners at least.
Starlin Castro — 3-for-4, 1 R, 1 HR (6), 2 RBI (21). Trust is like a mirror. You can fix it if it's broken, but you can still see the cracks in the reflection. See that crack right there, yeah, the one the size of Neptune? That's 2013…
Bruce Chen — Because of a bulging disk, Chen has been limited to playing catch. There's still no timetable for his return, devastating no one but me, I guess.
Chris Colabello — 0-for-5. The downward spiral continues. Really, this is terrible news for all the cheese fans out there. What are we supposed to do here? Hang our crackers on Justin Ruggiano?
Nelson Cruz — 1-for-4, 1 R, 1 HR (12), 2 RBI (35). Bless his heart, still able to be a productive fantasy outfielder at the ripe old age of 83.
Khris Davis — 1-for-4, 2 RBI (12). Coincidence that both Davis' are struggling this year? Probably! Is this the point where I get to say that I've always thought Khris Davis is a fourth outfielder? And the part where you never mention what I've said about R.A. Dickey?
Jacob deGrom — 7.0 IP, 4 H, 6-2 K/BB, 1 ER, L (0-1). Jacob sure deGrom'd the Yankees, amiright? In a game that featured two no-names, one has to ask, since, you know, this is his blurb, who is Jacob deGrom? IMDB had nothing on him, so I was forced to actually do my own research. Apparently, he has an amazing head of hair. That, in-of-itself, would have been enough to convince me of impending stardom, until I learned that he's a groundball, strike-throwing pitcher with good control. These guys are underrated to an extent. Look at Doug Fister. I mean, not now, the DL will blind you with tears and the burnt embers of our dreams… but as a general statement. While he could have trouble against lefties, it's not like the Mets have anything to lose, besides plenty of games. If you are in a similar situation, maybe keep an eye on him?
Edwin Encarnacion — 3-for-4, 2 R, 2 HR (8), 3 RBI (30). Yeah, move along. Nothing to see here. Everything's just fine and dandy…
Nate Eovaldi — 4.1 IP, 9 H, 2-2 K/BB, 6 ER, L (2-2). I'll admit, could have gone better. But hey, at least he gave a (Brad) Hand job (0.2 IP) to end his night. That's a winner right there.
Juan Francisco — 1-for-3, 1 R, 1 HR (7), 1 RBI (18). If you've seen Juan, you've seen them all. What? This might be my last chance to use that…
Yovani Gallardo — 6.1 IP, 5 H, 6-2 K/BB, 3 ER, (ND). Going into this season, I had thought that both Gallardo and Sabathia represented some great buy-low opportunities. Moral of the story? Don't include a guy that could eat the other one whole.
Jedd Gyorko — 0-7. Chase Headley found a way not to get over-hyped… (probably because he's not very good), but nope. Not Gyorko. I couldn't nab him in any league this year. So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is… thanks everyone!
J.A. Happ — 6.0 IP, 6 H, 4-2 K/BB, 1 ER, W (2-1). I had this adding a 'y' to his last name joke, but it never really came to fruition. Probably because the real joke is that I'm typing something about J.A. Happ.
Aaron Hicks — 1-for-4, 1 R, 1 RBI (8). "If anyone needed a game-winning hit in extra innings, it was Aaron Hicks." Really? I'll just take a hit at this point…
Phil Hughes — 6.0 IP, 5 H, 8-0 K/BB, 1 ER, (ND). Was very un-Phil Hughes like with more strikeouts than innings pitched. The Twins promptly fined him.
Casey Janssen — 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0-0 K/BB, 0 ER, S (2). "Oh, not giving up a sh*t-ton of runs is how you get saves. Who woulda thunk it?" – Sergio Santos
Reed Johnson — 2-for-4, 1 R. Yes, I was as surprised at you that Reed Johnson still plays baseball.
Ian Kennedy — 6.0 IP, 11 H, 4-1 K/BB, 5 ER, L (2-5). The line looks worse than he pitched… but not really. You know things are going bad for you when you give up one hit to Billy Hamilton. ICE BURN.
Mat Latos — Was transferred to the 60-day disabled list and is still at least three week away. In other news, I've started a petition for Latos to correctly place the 'T's' in his full name. So far, I have one signature including me. So it's a start.
Nick Markakis — 3-for-4. For an unlimited time only, straight to your fantasy roster, free over-night delivery for the most amazing empty stats ever!
Mark Melancon — 0.0 IP, 2 H, 0-2 K/BB, 2 ER, BS (2). Meh, I prefer honeydew anyways.
Yadier Molina — 2-for-3, 1 R, 1 RBI (20). Probably an overall number one pick in the all-Molina fantasy league, which is saying a lot. There's like 400 of those guys.
Mike Morse — 3-for-4, 1 R, 1 HR (10), 3 RBI (28). Probably the main beneficiary of Brandon Belt's injury, if only because you can't really chase down balls in the outfield by carrying around 245 lbs. of injury prone material. That's my point of view at least.
Mike Moustakas — Ned Yost and Dayton Moore both stated that the Moose would remain the teams starter at third base, leading me to suspect some kind of blackmail is going on. And why would you even want a Moose at third base? At least choose an animal that has opposable thumbs…
Wil Myers — 2-for-4, 1 R, 1 RBI. Some pointed to two weeks ago as the last chance to buy-low on Myers. The point is to not tell Myers…
Chris Parmelee — 1-for-5, 1 R, 1 HR (2), 2 RBI (4). Hitting .350 the last seven days, and does have some pop, but is really only deep league relevant. Though, I could see a possible Jack's Hit of the Week appearance, hint-hint, wink-wink. No, stop looking at me like that J-FOH. I'm not hitting on you…
Glen Perkins — 1.0 IP, 4 H, 3-0 K/BB, 2 ER, BS (2). Blew his second save of the season, because even closers who have some how managed to keep their jobs admist Closermageddon can't have nice things.
Gregory Polanco — I just put him here so I could pretend he was in the major leagues. Can you blame me?
Anthony Rizzo — 2-for-3, 2 R. Finally made the change to Wu-Tang Financial and taking the their advice to heart.
Trevor Rosenthal — 1.2 IP, 0 H, 1-1 K/BB, 0 ER, S (11). Kevin Siegrist went a third of an inning, immediately walking two batters along with giving up a hit and earned run, cementing the fact that no one cares about closing for the Cardinals. With a 4.74 ERA, I doubt Rosenthal cares either.
Tyson Ross — 7.0 IP, 3 H, 8-5 K/BB, 1 ER, W (5-3). The WHIP ain't pretty, but the ERA, do you love it? I love it. I got it at Ross. (Sorry.)
CC Sabathia — Dr. James Andrews, really antsy to do something to Sabathia (when does dieting enter into the conversation?), found a "degenerative change" in his right knee. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure high cholesterol is degenerative. Sabathia will receive a cortisone and stem cell shot to aid the tissue, as his previous regime of injecting brown gravy gave mixed results with a side of diabetes.
Danny Salazar — 4.0 IP, 5 H, 3-2 K/BB, 2 ER, L (1-4). Welp, Salazar appears to be taking the two steps forward, three steps back, one step forward, nine steps back, half-step forward, stand still for a while, and then just lay down approach. Not really a winning strategy, but hey, to each his own. If a pitcher can't pitch past the fifth inning, they have for a name that in baseball. Gah, what it is it, right on the tip of my tongue… Right fielder? No, that's not it. Rumpelstiltskin? GAH, KILL IT WITH FIRE. Rheumatoid arthritis? Eh…, that doesn't sound right. Oh! I know! Relievers! That's it, relievers…
Jonathan Singleton — Astros GM Jeff Lunhow said yesterday that Singleton is "on deck". Uh, yeah, no he isn't. I checked. Since the Astros didn't even play yesterday, all I saw were several grounds-keeper's and a whole bunch of empty. Also, in totally unrelated news, Jonathan Singleton seems close to being called up. I'd recommend him as a pick-up for your starting line-up, except when playing away games in Seattle or Denver.
Kurt Suzuki — 3-for-5, 2 R. Hitting .312/.386/.404 with 25 RBI's so far this season. I just… I don't know anymore.
Mike Trout — 1-for-4, 1 R, 1 HR (8), 3 RBI (27). What did Trout say when he hit a concrete wall? "Dam!". HUURRRRRRR.
Will Venable — 1-for-3. Venable didn't start taking off last season until I filled-in for the Saturday Round-Up and starting talking him up, so let's just say that today's hit and walk might be the start of something. It better be, since the alternative at this point might be defenstration.
Yordano Ventura — 6.1 IP, 7 H, 9-1 K/BB, 2 ER, L (2-3) He's not Yordano Ventura with the season he's had so far, nope. He's Mydano Ventura. Get it? Get it? You'll get there. Just be patient.
Michael Wacha — 7.0 IP, 7 H, 5-0 K/BB, 2 ER, W (3-3). Writing a Michael Wacha blurb is probably the hardest thing known to man, because all that you hear in your head when trying to think of something clever is WACHA-WACHA-WACHA. Try it out for yourself. Seriously. Tell me I'm wrong. I just snapped out of a thirty minute WACHA-fest because my nose started to bleed.
Rickie Weeks — 3-for-4, 1 R, 1 HR (1), 1 RBI (5). Whoa, slow down there buddy. You might pull something… trying to be fantasy relevant and all.
Chase Whitley — 4.2 IP, 2 H, 4-2 K/BB, (ND). In the epic showdown between two players no one has ever heard of, only one earned run was shed between Whitley and the opposing pitcher, Jacob deGrom. Which begs the question: Can we haz PEDs back?
Asher Wojciechowski — About 1-2 weeks away from beginning a rehab assignment. Not that it's a forgone conclusion he gets added to the big league roster, or that anyone should care, but I wanted to include him in the notes because I've gotten so good at spelling Samardzija, that I'm looking for the next challenge.
Kolten Wong — Was hitting .344 with 5 steals before getting promoted, and then promptly gets the flu and goes straight to the bench. You're doing it Wong bro.
Want more of the Jay? Don't we all folks? Don't. We. All. Well, you, in fact, can have more. AMAZING. I know. You can find Jay enjoying his new dig's running the Football side of Razz.


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sitting right behind one of the projectors in the main room. head guy (whose name escapes me) talking about the first webvisions in '01, right after the bubble crash. which iirc hit really damn hard in pdx.
fun, casual, creative, inspiring. which is why I love it.
I have 1 hr ~11 mins left according to my battery clock.
party afterwards…should I invite Tom et al, or just continue with my original plans?
intro blather. 🙂
sensory overload with david pescovitz (make magazine, boing boing, etc.)
institute for the future is a rand spinoff. huh.
weird stuff with screen res. aw. happy baby.
::sigh:: oh, the silliness. is THIS distributed intelligence?
VUCA: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous (term from army war college, apparently)
they don't make predictions! don't believe predictions, when you hear them. instead, narrow the cone of uncertainty.
sensing the problems, getting insights, and acting.
methodologies (which reminds me much of the research discussed in previous sessions)
cabinet of curiosities, weak signals, wunderkammer. sense making.
208 unread emails. (ack!) "suffocation" and that's what it feels like. (Bit Literacy book?!) and we're only scratching the surface.
so this is his collection of "weak signals" of ways that people are finding to deal with this.
15 thousand terabytes. (my barely organized photo collection. MP3s I ripped from CD in 1999. 6 years worth of blog posts.) 800 mb of data created by each person every year, and that's before the rise of blogs.
waves of technology (pretty graph) computing -> communicating -> sensing
stuff that connects to the human body. (like the pedometer I'm wearing right now!) when things start to blog? when every single action is a piece of data, everywhere, anywhere. (Everyware?)
smart dust. weird shit.
geoweb. which gives me that freaky feeling of awe and dismay. (what does location awareness do to people fooling around? or playing hooky? or? or?) and also skin crawling.
how do you deal with the data?
next curve: sensemaking?
a personal digression, if I may: I'm tracking four things in my life right now, all of them collected electronically in one way or another. focusing on those particulars helps, with one thing or another, because I can see the trends, or get excited by the highpoints (27.4 mph!), or look back and remind myself of one thing or another. all of which helps me to be more of the person who I would really like to be.
and the rise of infographics. cabspotting (weren't they @ sxsw last year?) by stamen design.
and then ambient info devices. glowing threat level? fountain reflecting the movement of xerox stock price.
art & technology, using the old saw about hemlines & the stock market.
people want to replace the old clock radio with something smarter. chumby? (open source, coming out later this year.) actually this is how I use my cellphone, when my alarm clock last year.
the ambient devices thingamabob. I put their google gadget on my google homepage, and it sucked.
and then the bacon-cooking alarm clock. some coffee makers work this way.
my battery notice is in the red zone, 43 mins remaining. dunno if I'll make it all the way to the end.
"imakeprojects" 6th sense, vibrations, for wireless networks. (oh, hey, wasn't that in wired 2 mos ago?) I loved the idea of the guy who could sense direction.
ew. magnet in finger. but he can feel where the wires are in the wall. at this stage, that seems freaking useful.
delicious! yay! also digg, which I've never gotten into. and mefi. 🙂 mathowie right over there. and ask mefi, which I've found useful a few times. (how I decided not to wear makeup for my job interviews.)
messages at places.
wtf? making sense of nonverbal cues. (ah, the aspergers people, which kicks back to a previous discussion about geeks and depression. would something like that be a reasonable treatment addition in cognitive behavioral therapy?)
BS detector?! I missed the details.
task switching tracking, and remembering what the hell you were doing. program to download: onlife (for mac)
mmmmm…lifehacker. although I never seem to catch up with all the useful things I see there.
continuous partial attention, which can be tiring. oh, hey, that's why conferences can be so exhausting. "if you drink too much coffee, it gets much worse"
(every so often C tries to get me to monotask for a while, which I find harder than seems appropriate.)
I think I used to have a Firefox extension that did that. (anti-procrastination alert)
mind-hacking. medications. law students using ritalin to study better?! not using it for fun (ala acid, pot, etc) but to be more productive. (freaky.) what happens to the people who aren't? the anti-narcolepsy drug, not being used by narcoleptics. CX717, people doing better than people who had slept.
(and how does this connect to my experiences with depression & medication?)
memory-enhancing drugs. (which book was that? breakpoint?)
goofball military names/acronyms. machine sensing your sense of anxiety, distraction, and reducing input appropriately.
magnetic thingamabob. (isn't that also showing promise in treating depression? again, that book by…richard clarke, iirc.)
and then of course the implant, dude controlling robotic arm with his mind. cyberkinetics neurotechnology. (name of co.)
again moving into the realm of the exceptionally wiggy.
Q re ADHD & sensory overload. As evolutionarily advanced. ::rolls eyes:: obviously didn't live w/Raul.
Q: ethics? esp. w/military involvement? the social/economic divide. but he has faith in the DIY culture. what about [missed the question]?
mac says she has 21 mins. I'm going to turn off.


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Starting with "feminine", "elegant" and "luxurious" as the design direction, while maintaining ARTIFACTS' brand language of chic and modern, the designer, Michelle Wei has played with various materials to create a space that is soft with a contemperary touch.
Solidity of four different types of marble at the shop window, cashier and flooring areas matching with softness of grayish purple curtain in velvet as a background, have created a balance between masculine and feminine in the space.
Geometric pattern made with marble on the floor is another important design factor. There are three floor paths going from the hexagon table in the middle toward three different directions throughout the space; the marble veins on the star pattern have added an exquisite touch to the store.


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Bluebeard Coffee Roasters
Bluebeard Coffee Roasters Single-Origin Coffee and Blends
Tacoma-based Bluebeard Coffee Roasters is a self-described '253rd wave' roaster that's big on creating high-quality coffee from ethical sources. From Bluebeard's 6th Avenue café and roaster, they're able to create and serve their signature medium-roast coffee to Tacoma locals. With the help of Seattle Coffee Gear, you can get freshly brewed Bluebeard coffee whenever the craving strikes, no matter where you live! We offer a broad selection of Bluebeard single-origin coffee beans from Ethiopia and Guatemala as well as several popular Bluebeard blends.
Learn More
So, what makes their world-class coffee beans, well… world-class? It all comes down to their sourcing process. Team Bluebeard meticulously samples and buys the best beans they can source, often finding unique beans in Latin America, Indonesia and East Africa. Of course, it's the roasting process that makes the coffee. Bluebeard stands by their slow, perfecting approach that's designed to bring out the best flavors from every bean. Bluebeard coffee beans are roasted in a 12-kilo Probat roaster to exacting standards.
Coffee by Bluebeard: What to Try
If you're new to Bluebeard—good choice, by the way—the team here at Seattle Coffee Gear is on hand to guide you toward must-try beans and blends. Of course, we're always big fans of the rich, smooth flavor of Bluebeard's single-origin Ethiopian coffee beans, and there's something great about the intriguing flavor of their Guatemalan coffee, too. For a signature Bluebeard flavor, try Bluebeard El Capitan or The Narrows Espresso Blend.


text: The typically high-spending end-of-year US Christmas season is predicted to be a second consecutive low for retailers this year, providing scant optimism for the economy. Black Friday, the day after Thursday's national Thanksgiving holiday, is known as the busiest annual shopping day, but this year many shops offered greater than usual discounts to lure consumers. "The deals are actually better than last year, more than 50 per cent off," Varere Jordan, a 42-year-old conductor on New York City's subway trains, said. Jordan rose at 5am to be an early arrival at stores and bought a flat-screen TV. The National Retail Federation predicted that about 57 million people would shop on Black Friday, with another 77 million poised to venture out if they heard that there were good deals. The health of the retail sector is seen as a crucial indicator for America's still shaky economy, which is based in the main on consumer spending. Early signs from Black Friday show that consumers spent only half a percentage point more this year than in 2008. Last year was the worst holiday shopping season in nearly four decades. Added to that unemployment is up to 10.2 per cent this year from 6.6 per cent last year, further harming the chances of the period bolstering annual consumer sales. Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane reports. SOURCE: Al Jazeera and agencies Business & Economy


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Object Silliness.
Happy Wednesday! (I still don't spell that right on the first try. One day ...)
I'm packing. Washington awaits me. We're finally going to church this weekend. We have our own services here every week, but it'll be so nice to get to see everyone again, and worship in our own church, in a building, with fellow believers.
So after that first Object Silliness post, we've managed to find a few more.
I was half asleep in the car on our way back from Washington a few weeks ago, when I opened my eyes and saw a face staring out at me from the darkness. The lights on the truck ahead .... Do you see it?
Victor was watching his class when he called me from the living room. I walked over to him and he turned over the remote control. Smiley!
Last but not least, the shower caddy always has a big grin. Freaks me out at times...especially when the eyes start increasing and I start seeing...
That's when I know shower time is over.
P.S. In case my drawing abilities aren't um ... quite clear, it's a spider. (: