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Miss Jane by Brad Watson review: Making strange in hardscrabble Mississippi
Brad Watson's novel of a young woman who never gives up shimmers with quiet humanity
Brad Watson: instinctive, tender and respectful feel for the natural world
Book Title:
Miss Jane
Brad Watson
Guideline Price:
A baby girl is born to a farming couple in early-20th-century Mississippi. The birth comes with no delight. For the mother it is an unwelcome fifth baby. She has already lost two, including her precious favourite, a toddler named William.
Ida is 39 and unhappy, weary of life. Her husband is 10 years older and slowly killing himself with whiskey. He can't recall having been intimate with his wife, so he reckons he must have been drunk. He was.
Ida has been furious for a long time. She believes that God has decided to further punish their loveless marriage and has chosen to do so through the baby. The parents suffer, but the heaviest burden is imposed on the little girl, whom they name Jane.
On the night of her birth Mr Chisolm sets off to fetch the doctor. Dr Thompson, kindly and astute yet wistful, and one of the most sympathetic characters to grace contemporary literature, soon notices that there is a problem. The infant appears to have a rare genital malformation. He monitors her early development and consults a friend who is a specialist in Baltimore.
Brad Watson, who is from Meridian, Mississippi, emerged as a literary stylist of deceptive power with his debut collection, Last Days of the Dog-Men (1996). His feel for the natural world is instinctive, tender and respectful. His sensuous prose eases its way through vivid, deliberate scenes, rich with profound meaning.
Watson's first novel, The Heaven of Mercury (2002), was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Ironically, Miss Jane, his second, only went as far as the same award's longlist. Yet is a finer work, that bit more convincing, occasionally shocking and often overwhelming.
The brutality of human existence and its random injustices are among Watson's themes. But the harshness and candour are countered by interludes of extraordinary beauty, invariably filtered through the thoughts, words and deeds of the remarkable Thompson. This gentle romantic mourns the loss of his wife's love long before she leaves him out of exasperation because he is dedicated to his patients. Her subsequent death causes him even greater despair.
At the centre of the narrative is Jane, who early in life senses that she is different – "strange", as she often says. And that word means many things and comes to be very important in the book.
Watson explains that Jane is based on his great-aunt, Mary Ellis "Jane" Clay. The narrative opens with a beautiful tribute to a brave, dignified woman whom he as a writer has retrieved from time: "You would not think someone so afflicted would or could be cheerful, not prone to melancholy or the miseries. Early on she acquired ways of dealing with her life, with life in general."
It is Jane's story. She grows up in a home inhabited by an angry mother and a remorseful father, whose medium is guilt and whose only methods of dealing with his ghosts are work and whiskey. Observing all this unhappiness is the sardonic older daughter, Grace, whose restless desires are assisted by the sexuality she knows how to use.
Tough as she is, Grace does her share of raising Jane, as well as directing her as to the practical realities of adult behaviour. Her condition causes her to be incontinent, so Jane continues to wear nappies long after she should have discarded them. Attending school would seem impossible. But Jane wants to try, and does for a while.
Initially, there is a tentative quality about the narrative. Daniel Woodrell or Ron Rash may have injected a sense of menace. The reader feels for Jane, but her problem is her body, not her mind, and she proves a capable person. In the childhood sequences it seems that Jane's sexual curiosity far exceeds her calendar years. It is also difficult not to feel outraged on her behalf; she has no privacy.
Any mother of a daughter will find some passages distressing. It is a novel that acquires immense stature as the narrative settles down into what it is: an extraordinary study of character, not just of Jane but also, more importantly and, perhaps, unexpectedly, of the people around her.
Jane's parents, at an age when their two surviving sons have already left home to begin their adult lives, are faced with science and the medical terms that Dr Thompson introduces. Ida has not only recoiled from her husband but also has no interest in either of her daughters. This ageing woman is a grim, sullen presence, and yet, late in the novel, her younger self is recalled lovingly by the broken man who once wooed her.
That same man, Chisolm, Jane's father, takes the time to teach the little girl about trees and to tell Jane about the brother she never knew: "He was just three years old, going on four . . . Kind of between being a baby and a little boy . . . It's when they seem like little angels." His distraction is very movingly described.
Watson consolidates the moment with sublime delicacy: "He patted her shoulder . . . leaving her feeling something she hadn't felt before. Only later would she identify it as grief. The gift of it given from her father, and her mother, too, to her."
Although the stricken Ida displays no understanding of Jane's interest in dancing, aside from cautioning her that it will lead to trouble, Chisholm escorts her to the local hall and attempts to protect her from hurt.
The beauty of rural Mississippi engages Jane; her response to it offers some consolation. Watson, through adroit dialogue and characterisation, is careful to avoid her appearing as a plaster saint; her resentment does surface. Years pass, and the family confronts the Depression.
A compelling essence of American social history is stitched into the narrative's fabric. It is a real human story touched by a respectful authorial grace combining fact, shared memory and imagination. Jane is a quiet hero, and in Dr Thompson Watson presents a visionary, possibly an eccentric, whose eloquent loneliness is countered by his joy in the beauty of birds, not least his elegant peacocks.
This proud, gentle novel shimmers with a subtle defiance, a near-physical need to celebrate a woman who lived against the odds.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent. Her debut novel , Teethmarks on my Tongue, is published by Dalkey Archive Press (€19.50)


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Modern Platform Bed With Lights – Platform beds are basically a box with keys that extend through the center to support the mattress. Due to the construction of box and reinforcement, the bed does not require a headboard, foot, side rails or a bed base. The clean construction is perfect if you want a modern and stylish look to your bedroom. Platform beds are available in several furniture stores, but you can keep spending by making your own marriage platform. Then connect the lights at the bottom to provide a room feel. Stand both 60-inch boards up on their sides 2 inches with a space of 78 inches between them.
Stand a 78-inch board on its 2-inch side and place it between the two 60-inch boards. Place the end of the plate flush 78 inches against each of the 60-inch plates, positioning the ends through the pilot holes. Apply the wood glue to the boards where they touch. Secure the board as the two shorter boards using a wood screw through each of the pilot holes. Place a second 78-inch plate between the two 60-inch plates on the opposite side to create a rectangle. Apply the wood glue to the joints modern platform bed with lights where they meet and place the longer board between the pilot holes in the two shorter boards. Add two more wood screws through the holes to secure the boards.
Wrap a string of Christmas lights around the outside of the wooden structure. Set a nail-in plastic Christmas light clip around the cable between each light on the chain. Nail a nail through the nail hole in the clip on the side of the base, placing them 1 inch below the top edge. Paint or stain two plywood sheets from 32 by 82 inches to match the base. Place the two wooden sheets on the top of the built frame. Set up your bed as usual by putting the mattress or mattress and box on the top of the table by 32 by 82 inches. Turn on the modern platform bed with lights when necessary or put them on a timer.

subset: commoncrawl


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3 Expert Tips To Hack Your Motivation And Keep Moving Forward
Posted on Mayooo 20, 2014
Theses are my 3 best tips help you keep moving forward
We all have good ideas. NO wait! We all have brilliant ideas and more often than we think!
So what usually happens to them? Usually they get trapped inside us and just as fast as they came, they vanish without a trace.
For example, you're in the subway on the way to work and you think, "I bet I could archive the files in half the time just changing the way we all jot down the date and case number."
WOW! You think it's amazing that no one has thought of it before. You start to fantasize about being the super hero/heroine of the office and that everyone is going to be eternally grateful and thank you for years and years. Not to mention the fatty bonus and promotion you get!
Aaaaaand then you wake up. You say to yourself, "we've been doing it the same old way for years, how am I going to change this? " or " there I go with my hair-brained ideas again, it'll never work!"
Why is this? and What can we do about it?
Well, there are thousand, maybe millions, of reasons but mainly it's because we fear something: Could adverse reactions, rejection, ridicule and on and on and on. Although, the worst isn't the fear itself but what the fear produces: Inaction or Mental Paralysis. Or to say it another way, to miss an opportunity simply by not acting.
So what we can do about it?
Use this simple, fast and effective method to blast you out of the inaction blackhole!
1. First we need to identify and evaluate if we're just being negative and what we are afraid of.
In both cases, what we are actually doing is asking ourselves a question or questions, unconsciously, of why we can NOT do what we would like to do and it's the responses (excuses) to those questions that limit us and actually prevent us from moving forward.
2. Knowing that, the second step is simply to ask better questions!
Once you've "answered" the "I CAN'T" questions, ask yourself the same questions in reverse: Why could I? Create a list of ALL the reasons why you CAN and most importantly, write them down!
3. Ok, This is the most important step! Once you have the list of reasons why you CAN, think of ONE action that could do right NOW to find out if you were right or not.
If you do not move you will stay in the same place forever. You have to do something right NOW.
Now, I'm convinced that if take that first action, you will go much, much farther than that and you will realize that your fears and/or negativity were quite insignificant compared to what you could achieve.
Remember that the questions we ask ourselves every day largely direct our behavior and therefore the quality of our life.
If you want to be more daring, want to achieve more than what you're achieving now, want to crush the fears that undermine you or just want to advance with your life plan, ask yourself better questions.
Related articles across the web
Eduardo Arellano
Nacido y criado en Chicago, en la actualidad Eduardo reside en España donde ha desarrollado sus métodos actuales de formación. Eduardo posee un MBA de la Universidad de Nebrija y un Master en Comercio Internacional de la EOI además del título de Formador de Formadores y varias certificaciones y cualificaciones.
Eduardo está muy solicitado tanto en España como en el resto del mundo, colabora con sus clientes para guiarlos en cómo realizar cambios personales o profesionales consiguiendo con rapidez que alcancen objetivos que nunca creyeron posibles. Sus métodos y técnicas permiten estimular el auto-conocimiento, ya sea con un pequeñ cambio en su forma de pensar o con un gran cambio en su carrera profesional o vida personal. Eduardo sirve de guía para conseguir el éxito.
Latest posts by Eduardo Arellano (see all)
- Organizational Change: The Key To Making It Work - Septiembre 28, 2015
- The Freelancer's Guide to Time Management - Mayo 28, 2015
- 6 estupendas razones por las que deberías empezar el día antes de las 6 de la mañana - Mayo 28, 2015


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This is what it's like when you haven't called a really good friend for far too long. You start thinking "well, I can't do it now. I don't have an hour to catch up," so you keep putting off. But each day you procrastinate you know the call is getting longer and longer. So sorry again for this long hiatus.
My friend Marcos was here two weeks ago and insisted I write something on the blog. I hope your are happy now mi mejor amigo.
Ok, now to what you've come here to see/read. For the majority of the summer I have been feeling well but in the last 6 weeks I have had quite a few falls, dizzy spells, weakness in the legs, severe headaches and lack of stamina. I can't walk by myself anywhere and I only have 1-2 hours of steam in the morning before I need my nap. The most frustrating part is the of lack of stamina and mobility. I had to give up public transportation, driving and now it's walking. I mean, if I didn't have my family and friends I'd be a candidate for meals on wheels.
Speaking of wheels and transportation, a bunch of my friends have suggested get a Jazzy type of vehicle. Since I can't drive, I don't trust that I wouldn't crash a small vehicle and especially one without airbags. A major part of the problem is balance which causes my falls. A cane has been suggested but it doesn't address the stamina issue, so I have solution. I need a walker that has a seat in it for when I get tired. I live in multi-generational neighborhood so they quite ubiquitous. But I want to be bold, dare I say, avant-garde. I'm gonna PIMP my walker. Oh, yeah! You heard me!! I'll spray paint it, add stickers, a bell and streamers like I had with my first banana bike. It'll be dope, yo! I'll post pictures.
So back to medical stuff. I was due for some scans anyway but now there was an additional intention to discover why I was having the aforementioned symptoms that only seemed to worsen. I had an EEG (to look for seizure activity), I hadn't passed out during any of my falls and results confirmed that. I had a Head CT, a Brain MRI and a PET scan. The head CT looked normal and the PET scan looked great. There was no sign of disease from my neck down including my spine. Woohoo! However, there was edema and progression of the LM lesions in the dura of my brain. So my new oncologist, Dr. Jhaveri, did I mention that I LOVE HER, decided on a plan she wants to start next week. She conferred with many of her neuro-colleagues some who specialize in neuro-breast cancer at a Tumor Board they have on Fridays. Brain lesions are incredibly small so in the body they would be considered steady and the rate they have grown since January but obviously in the compact space of the brain the ratio is very different. The consensus by the board was that it wasn't just edema but true progression. None of them had a clear cut answer on the next steps though. A case like mine rarely exists so there is no data. Again, I'm patient x, of course.
Dr. Jhaveri also reached out to different research facilities to see if I qualified for any of their current trials. At this point I do not fit the criteria of any of current ones because of the interventions I have had already but she said she is going to continue looking.
So here's the current plan:
No drugs intrathecally until they do a "slow study." Essentially a dye will be administered into my ommiya reservoir very, very slowly to see if there are any areas that might have caused the leakage back in April, or are causing any of these new symptoms. If all is clear, she may start the intrathecal again but with a different agent call thytiopia. This is at least a few weeks from now.
Wednesday I will receive, through my chest mediport, an all inclusive chemo call Gemcitabine. It's good for the whole body but it also crosses the brain blood barrier to attack the LM lesions in the brain.
Due to the leg weakness, stamina and balance issues, Jhaveri has prescribed a rather decent dosage of steroids. I have to be careful though. The last time I took an even lower dose of steroids, I thought I was Wonder Woman and cleaned all day. It felt amazing until the next. I was toast. It's a totally fake strength.
I am sure that a lot of this sounds bad but in spirit I feel fantastic. Sadie will be turning 14, uh, I mean, 4 in September. A funnier, sweeter, bolder, smarter, more stubborn, stronger, person, I have never met. Everyone believes she is what keeps me going and it's true but not for the reasons one might think. I love her, I like her, I am fascinated by her and I can become insanely frustrated with her. She constantly challenges me to be a better person. She is one of my greatest teachers.
Well, that's it for now. Please pray or mediate or whatever you do for the JOY I feel, not the pain. The JOY heals.
xo, E


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On Wednesday, the MetroStars will be traveling west to take on the Kansas City Wizards at 8:30 p.m. (TV: FSN-NY, Spanish Radio: WADO 1280 AM). In the first game between these two teams this season, a John Wolyniec goal was enough to secure a 1-0 win for the Metros on May 30.
The game against the Wizards will be the last match for the Metros prior to the Sierra Mist MLS All-Star Game on Saturday. MetroStars Eddie Gaven, Amado Guevara and Eddie Pope were all selected to appear as starters for the Eastern Conference squad and will travel to RFK Stadium this weekend for the 2 p.m. encounter (TV: ABC). The MetroStars' next home game is on August 8, when the "Red and Black" host the L.A. Galaxy (TV: MSG, Spanish Radio: WADO 1280 AM).
Tickets are available for all MetroStars home games at the Continental Airlines Arena box office and at all Ticketmaster outlets. Tickets will also be available through Ticketmaster by phone for callers in New Jersey (201-507-8900), New York (212-307-7171), and for Spanish-speaking customers throughout New York and New Jersey (212-307-4757).
MetroStars on TV:
Wednesday: MetroStars at Kansas City - FSN-NY, 8:30 p.m. ET
Thursday: Metro Soccer Report - MSG, 11 p.m. ET
Saturday: MLS All-Star Game - ABC, 2 p.m. ET
Bradley Earns 100 Wins:
With last Saturday's 2-1 win against Chicago, MetroStars head coach Bob Bradley reached 100 career wins. Bradley's all-time league record of 100 career regular season victories is 21 more than the closest active coach, Sigi Schmid as of the end of Saturday's game. Schmid needs four more to surpass Thomas Rongen (DC, NE, TB) for second place in career regular season victories.
It was ironic that Bradley earned his 100th win against the Fire, as 82 of his victories came when he was at the helm of the Windy City team. Bradley has earned 18 wins with the MetroStars since being named head coach on October 22, 2002, but has failed to defeat this former team in eight tries until tonight.
Opening up the league:
With their 2-1 win against the Chicago Fire on Saturday, coupled by stumbles by other division rivals, the MetroStars have retained the top spot in the Eastern Conference with 26 points. They are now five points ahead of D.C. United and the Columbus Crew. With their loss last weekend, the Fire, are further adrift with 19 points with no games in hand over the "Red and Black." The Crew has two games in hand over the MetroStars. The MetroStars are now riding a three game unbeaten streak. They are 7-6-5 on the season and are the only team in the Eastern Conference to have a winning record.
Guevara the beast:
MetroStars midfielder Amado Guevara has been on fire for the "Red and Black", slotting in his eighth goal of the season last Saturday. His strike from the penalty spot was also his fifth conversion of the year and third straight in league action. Guevara, who also has seven assists this season, has earned at least a point in seven consecutive league games, garnering five goals and five assists during that stretch (15 points), making it the longest streak of its kind this season. Guevara's 23 points puts him tied for first place on the MLS Budweiser Scoring list with San Jose Earthquakes forward Brian Ching. Both players are one point ahead of L.A. Galaxy striker Carlos Ruiz. Guevara now has eight points in seven games against the Fire.
In hitting his penalty kick, Guevara also has set an individual record for being the only player who has scored from the spot in three consecutive games. Many teams have successfully hit penalty kicks in three successive games but Guevara is the first individual to do so. No player or team has scored a penalty kick in four games straight.
Woly in the clutch:
MetroStars forward John Wolyniec's 57th minute goal last Saturday was his fifth tally of the season, and fourth game-winning goal he has scored this year. The Staten Island, N.Y. native is tied with Dallas Burn forward Eddie Johnson for the league in game winning goals and has appeared in each of the MetroStars' 18 games. Four of Wolyniec's five goals have been scored at Giants Stadium.
Closed and Shut:
The "Red and Black" are generally very solid in closing out games. When the MetroStars are ahead after the 75th minute, they are 6-1-0.
Eddie the quick:
MetroStars' midfielder Eddie Gaven notched his 14th point of the season with his sixth assist of the year on Saturday's 2-1 win over the Chicago Fire - helping to set up John Wolyniec's game winning goal. Gaven has been on a torrid stretch of late - in his last six games, Gaven has earned 10 points (four goals, two assists) as the starlet, who also recently made his first appearance for the senior U.S. national team on July 11, 2004 against Poland, is a starter in Saturday's MLS All-Star Game.
Gaven's Metros teammate, Mike Magee, also notched an assist on Wolyniec's goal. It was Magee's second assist of the year and sixth point this season.
Giant vibrations:
The MetroStars have a record of 5-2-2 in Giants Stadium. They have won five times (April 17, 2004 3-2 vs. D.C. United; May 30, 2004 1-0 vs. Kansas City Wizards; June 19, 2004 2-1 vs. L.A. Galaxy; July 10, 2004 2-0 vs. San Jose Earthquakes; July 24, 2004 2-1 vs. Chicago Fire), tied twice (April 25, 2004 1-1 vs. New England Revolution; May 15, 2004 1-1 vs. Chicago Fire) and lost twice (June 5, 2004 2-0 vs. Dallas Burn; June 30, 2004 3-2 vs. Colorado Rapids).
Red and black clovers: The MetroStars are 7-2-3 when wearing their red and black-striped jerseys, compared to 0-4-2 wearing their white kits. The team usually wears their all-white uniforms when traveling for away games. In comparison, the MetroStars were 6-6-5 in their red and black uniforms last year while 5-4-4 in their white kits during the 2003 season.
Blanketing the Fire:
The MetroStars broke their ten game winless streak against the Chicago Fire with their 2-1 win over their Eastern Conference rivals. The Fire now have not been able to win in their last eight league games.
Using those guns:
The MetroStars are not afraid of shooting the ball. The team leads the league for most shots overall with 291. Their nearest opponent is the Chicago Fire with 252. In addition, the MetroStars are leading the league in shots on goal with 119 strikes - four more than D.C. United.
Kicking it in the net:
The high-powered MetroStars offense has been productive this year, scoring 31 goals - second most in the league behind the L.A. Galaxy's 35.
The MetroStars are also not afraid of going for goal when they are playing away from Giants Stadium. The MetroStars lead the league in scoring away from home, earning 17 tallies in nine games. With an average of 1.89 goals per away game, the MetroStars are ahead of the L.A. Galaxy (1.60 average).
Time and TV changes:
The MetroStars' September 11, 2004 game time against the New England Revolution will be pushed back from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and will be shown on MSG rather than ESPN2. Additionally, the MetroStars' August 29, 2004 game against the Columbus Crew will no longer be televised.
Metros to host Copa Budweiser:
The MetroStars are hosting the Budweiser-sponsored 2004 Copa Budweiser Tournament, where sixteen of the best amateur teams from New York will be battling it out for $5,000 worth of prize money this August and September. The Copa Budweiser is an invitational 6 V. 6 tournament consisting of a qualifying tournament taking place at the Metropolitan Oval in Maspeth, Queens on Saturday, August 7. The top four finalists from New York will advance to face the top four qualifying teams from New Jersey and compete for the Copa Budweiser Metro Championship at Giants Stadium on September 11 after the MetroStars' 6 p.m. game against the New England Revolution.
The Copa Budweiser event will also feature a Budweiser Shootout to find New York's most highly skilled players. Using the MLS Shootout format, Budweiser wants to identify New York's best striker and goalkeeper in a one-on-one individual challenge with $750 in prize money up for grabs. The New York Budweiser Shootout Champion will then advance to face the New Jersey Budweiser Shootout Champion at Giants Stadium during halftime of the MetroStars' match in September.
The event in Maspeth will feature appearances by the MetroMobile and the Bud Light Hummer, complete with interactive games and give-a-ways. There will also be a soccer festival, complete with DJ's, food, as well as live radio call-in's to Latino Mix and WADO 1280 AM and MetroStars player appearances. In addition, the final will take place on Hispanic Heritage Day - an event which will feature a pre-game concert and festival starting at 3 p.m.
Metros celebrate Guatemala, the Caribbean:
The MetroStars are hosting Caribbean heritage day and Guatemalan heritage day at Giants Stadium on Sunday, August 8. These events will celebrate Caribbean and Guatemalan culture and include a series of activities throughout the day. The Caribbean day is being promoted in conjunction with CCB International while the Guatemalan day is promoted in conjunction with the Guatemalan Conuslate.
The featured event is the MetroStars game versus the Los Angeles Galaxy with kickoff set for 6 p.m. Prior to the MetroStars game, FREE Caribbean and Guatemalan festivals will take place outside of Giants Stadium. Both festivals will include entertainment from some of the area's top local talent, including Caribbean performers Casym, Cloud IX and DJ "D-Life". The festivals will also feature authentic Caribbean and Guatemalan food provided by some of the area's top restaurants. The Caribbean festival will begin at 1 p.m. and end at 6 p.m. while the Guatemalan event will take place between 2:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. - just before the MetroStars' kick-off. The festivals will include a series of fun, interactive activities for the whole family.


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Is Michelle Obama Right about Teachers?
First Lady Michelle Obama wrote yesterday in US News and World Report that we face a teacher shortage. She laments that up to a third of current teachers could retire in the next four years. The solution, she says, is to embark on an aggressive and multifaceted teacher recruitment campaign.
But here's an interesting thought: What if a million teachers really did retire in the next four years, and we only replaced half of them?
Catastrophe? Millions of kids without teachers? Nope. In fact, we'd still have a lower pupil/teacher ratio than we did in 1970. Back then, we had 2 million teachers for 45.5 million students. Today, we have 3.2 million teachers for not quite 50 million students.
For the past 40 years, we've added teachers a lot faster than we've added students. In fact, we've added other staff even faster. As a result, the total staff to student ratio has gone up by nearly 75% since 1970.
There are plenty of critical problems with American education, but a looming crisis in the size of the teaching workforce is not one of them.


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Does anyone know where I can find a Suikoden Card Stories ROM for GBA on the internet that is in English? I would love it if someone could help me out.
P.S AM I ALLOWED TO ASK THIS??? If not PM me right away and delete this messege!! I don't know if I can ask about ROMS and stuff here.
Title specified by Oppenheimer


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Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide have done it again as 2012 was a success and the Tide will finish as the number one recruiting class in college football according to multiple sites.
The Crimson Tide held on to all recruits they were expected to and also stole a few four-star defensive tackles in their 26-man class.
Many recruiting experts have said this Alabama recruiting class rivals the 2008 Alabama recruiting class that brought in some names you might remember. Mark Barron, Terrence Cody, Marcell Dareus, Dont'a Hightower, Mark Ingram, Barrett Jones, Julio Jones, and Courtney Upshaw to name a few were apart of that 2008 class. Only time will tell if the 2012 class is able to have the same success as the 2008 class.
Here's a player-by-player breakdown of the Tide's 2012 signing class.
T.J. Yeldon (RB/Daphne, AL): Rivals: 5*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 5*
T.J. Yeldon was committed to Auburn for quite a while, but surprised everyone by switching his pledge to Alabama in December. Rivals rates Yeldon as the #2 ranked running back prospect in the country, and the #12 player overall. His teammate Ryan Anderson played a role in getting Yeldon to flip from Auburn.
Look for Yeldon to seriously push for playing time next season as he gets the advantage of going through spring football at Alabama. With Trent Richardson headed to the NFL, it is widely expected that Eddie Lacy will be the #1 running back for the 2012 season, but guys like Yeldon, Dee Hart, and Jalston Fowler should compete for carries.
It wouldn't be a surprise to me if Alabama went with an LSU-like approach to running the football in 2012 with four very capable runners.
Ryan Anderson (DE/OLB/Daphne, AL): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 5*
Anderson pledged to the Tide last April, and like I said before, he was in high school teammate T.J. Yeldon's ear the whole time about coming to Alabama. Anderson enrolled in January, and projects as a defensive end or outside linebacker on the next level.
He's a hybrid end/linebacker, and he reminds me of Courtney Upshaw. He's comfortable standing up or putting his hand in the dirt. He's already got great size to be as young as he is at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds.
He'll go through spring practice and the strength and conditioning program during the Summer, so Anderson has a shot at getting some early playing time during his freshman season in Tuscaloosa.
Chris Black (WR/Jacksonville, FL): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
Black is the 2nd highest rated wide receiver to sign with the Crimson Tide in 2012. He doesn't have ideal size at just 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, but with Alabama's top two receivers Darius Hanks and Marquis Maze graduating, Black will compete for early playing time.
Enrolling early will obviously help his cause. I don't think Black is going to be a big time difference making wide receiver, but I could see him making a Darius Hanks-like impact at Alabama.
Amari Cooper is one of many incoming Tide freshmen ready to compete for early playing time.
Amari Cooper (WR/Miami, FL): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
Rivals ranks Cooper as the top wide receiver in Alabama's 2012 class. Cooper is a 6-foot-1 175 pound wide receiver from Miami and chose the Tide over offers from Miami, Florida State, and Ohio State. He's rated as the 6th best wide receiver in the class according to Rivals.
I was extremely impressed with what I saw out of Cooper at the Under Armor All American game, and he showed game changing ability as a receiver and a return man. He scored a long receiving touchdown from Jameis Winston, and had a punt return for a touchdown later in the game.
With Cooper enrolling early, he's another guy that will seriously push for playing time in 2012.
Dillon Lee (LB/Buford, GA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
The 6-foot-4 220 pound linebacker from Georgia is another in the deep class of linebackers reeled in by the Crimson Tide in this recruiting class. Lee needs to put on a little weight, but he plays really hard, and is quick to the football.
Most experts expect Lee to redshirt his first year at Alabama. He needs to bulk up some, and he recently underwent shoulder surgery. Even if he does redshirt in 2012, I expect Lee to make a big impact at Alabama down the road.
Alphonse Taylor (DT/Mobile, AL): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
Taylor is a massive prospect at 6-foot-5 and 340 pounds. Alphonse Taylor was originally committed to Florida State, but switched his pledge to Alabama in December before enrolling in spring classes.
It's not yet known whether Taylor will play offensive tackle or nose guard in college, but I do know he was going to Florida State as an offensive tackle. He could play either side of the ball, but he could very well be headed for a redshirt season as well.
He has the size to play right now, but he is obviously a raw prospect at this point.
Travell Dixon (CB/Eastern Arizona CC): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: NR, 247: 4*
Travell Dixon was a huge pickup for the Crimson Tide from the JUCO ranks. Alabama lost two of its top three corners in Dre Kirkpatrick and DeQuan Menzie, and Dixon should seriously compete for early playing time next season.
Dixon was one of the top rated players from the junior college ranks, and was a two-year starter and All American. At 6-foot-2 200 pounds, Dixon has the ideal size you would want in a cornerback. Dixon could end up starting alongside Dee Milliner next season.
Deion Belue (CB/NE Mississippi CC): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: NR, 247: 4*
Belue originally signed with Alabama in 2010, but couldn't qualify so he went the community college route, and is now finally in Tuscaloosa. With the roster attrition at corner, Belue, like Dixon, should seriously push for playing time at corner.
Belue could also make an impact for the Crimson Tide in the return game. Belue was rated as the #7 overall JUCO prospect in the country. Saban does not bring in junior college transfers that he doesn't expect to make an immediate impact.
Dakota Ball (DT/Lindale, GA): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 3*
Ball is a 6-foot-2 292 pound defensive tackle who committed to Alabama all the way back in October of 2010, and officially signed with Alabama today. Ball plays hard and has a high motor, but he's not likely to make much of an impact right away.
Ball will have to develop further, and time spent in the Alabama strength and conditioning program will do him a lot of good. Ball is another redshirt candidate, and I'd say it is more than likely he'll get one.
After a dramatic recruitment, Landon Collins signed with Alabama on Wednesday.
Landon Collins (S/Geismar, LA): Rivals: 5*, Scout; 5*, ESPN: 5*, 247: 5*
Collins recruitment was a roller coaster ride with the backlash from his mother following his initial commitment to the Crimson Tide. Despite her objection to him playing for Alabama, Collins faxed in his letter of intent this afternoon.
Collins is widely regarded as the #1 overall safety in this class, and the top signee for the Crimson Tide. At 6-feet and 210 pounds, Collins is physically ready to play right away for Alabama, but as everyone knows, Nick Saban and Kirby Smart run a very complicated defensive system that will be tough for Collins to pick up when he enrolls at Alabama during the summer.
Collins plans to come in and compete for the star position in Alabama's secondary next season.
Denzel Devall (Bastrop, LA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
Nick Saban plucked Devall out of Louisiana as the four star inside linebacker prospect chose Alabama over LSU in December. Devall is a very versatile prospect, and could seemingly play three different linebacker spots in the Crimson Tide's 3-4 defensive set.
Devall was also being recruited as a 4-3 defensive end. He's just another in the long list of strong linebacker commits for Alabama in this class.
Kenyan Drake (RB/Powder Springs, GA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
The four star running back out of Georgia committed to Alabama last February, and held strong with his commitment to the Tide despite the addition of T.J. Yeldon to the class. Drake is an extremely versatile prospect, and it is not yet known what his role will be on the next level.
He could play running back, but he could also wind up as a slot receiver for the Crimson Tide. Drake is a great athlete with a good ability to run the ball, but he also catches the ball like a receiver. Comparing him to former Florida receiver Percy Harvin may be a bit much, but he could end up playing that kind of role in the Tide offense.
Kurt Freitag (TE/Buford, GA): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 3*
The 6-foot-3 245 Freitag committed to Alabama back in December over Florida. He joins high school teammate Dillon Lee in this class.
With Brad Smelley graduating, Freitag should get an opportunity to compete for the open H-Back role in the Alabama offense. He could very well win out and see some early playing time his freshman year, or he could redshirt to spend a year further developing.
Brandon Greene (OT/Ellerwood, GA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
ESPN rates Greene as the 6th ranked offensive tackle in this class, and he is an absolute mammoth at 6-foot-6 and close to 300 pounds. Greene committed to Alabama last March, but had a late flirtation with Georgia. He ultimately signed with the Tide.
With four returning starters on the Alabama offensive line, and strong depth all over the offensive line already, Brandon Greene will almost certainly redshirt in 2012. Greene could ultimately be the successor to D.J. Fluker at right tackle.
Adam Griffith (K/Calhoun, GA): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 3*
Alabama's kicking troubles on field goals longer than 40 yards may finally be over with the addition of Griffith in this class. Griffith is ranked as the #1 kicker in this recruiting class by Scout and 247sports.
You never know with kickers as Cade Foster came to Tuscaloosa with high expectations, but Griffith has a big leg, and has been said to have made a 69-yard field goal in practice. Griffith will have an opportunity to earn the starting duties for kickoffs and potentially longer field goals that are out of Jeremy Shelley's range.
Caleb Gulledge (OL/DL/Prattville, AL): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 3*
While Gulledge is listed as a guard on rivals, Gulledge is expected to at least start his Alabama career on the defensive line. He attended a camp at Alabama following his junior season of high school, and the coaching staff was impressed enough with his ability on defense to offer him.
At 6-foot-4 255 pounds, Gulledge projects as a defensive end on the next level. Look for him to redshirt this season though as he's given time to acclimate to the system and add some bulk.
At just 215 pounds, Hayes is likely headed for a redshirt this season at Alabama, but he projects very well down the road for Alabama as an outside linebacker. Hayes needs to add some bulk, and a redshirt season would obviously help him do so.
Hayes is another guy who is quick to the ball, and he has a ton of upside. He should make a big impact for Alabama in the future.
Brandon Hill (OT/Collierville, TN): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 3*
There was some late rumblings that Alabama may not accept Brandon Hill's letter of intent due to some worries about him qualifying, but the school announced his LOI earlier today. Hill is reportedly on the path to qualifying.
Hill is massive at 6-foot-6 and 352 pounds. Just like Brandon Greene, Hill is a likely redshirt during his first season at Alabama due to the current depth on the Alabama offensive line.
Cyrus Jones (ATH/Baltimore, MD): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 5*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
Jones, one of the top high school athletes in the nation, committed to Alabama at the Under Armor All American game. Jones is an extremely versatile athlete who could play slot receiver or cornerback on the next level.
Jones is likely to get a first look as a slot receiver for Alabama, and could make an immediate impact in the return game. Jones is a dynamic play maker in the open field so he'll definitely get a look at taking over for Marquis Maze in the return game.
Korren Kirven (DT/Lynchburg, VA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
As was reported yesterday, Alabama made a late charge for Korren Kirven, and earned his signature early this morning. Kirven chose Alabama over in-state Virginia Tech.
Kirven has good size already at 6-foot-4 and 272 pounds, and is also versatile enough to play defensive tackle or defensive end in college. Kirven is very quick off the ball, and is very good at rushing the passer. His technique needs work, but defensive line coach Chris Rumph will certainly help with that.
Darren Lake (DT/York, AL): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 3*
Darren Lake has great size for his position at 6-foot-3 330 pounds, but is another guy that is headed toward a redshirt season at Alabama. Lake is still an extremely raw prospect, and a year spent in the strength and conditioning program will do wonders for him moving forward in Tuscaloosa.
The additions of Kirven and Tomlinson this morning to go along with Alphonse Taylor, Dakota Ball, and Lake give Alabama a deep class at a position of need after Josh Chapman and Nick Gentry graduating.
Alec Morris (QB/Allen, TX): Rivals: 3*, Scout: 3*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 3*
Alec Morris was originally a Wake Forest commitment, but after Jameis Winston committed to Florida State, Alabama offered Morris a scholarship, and he flipped his commitment to the Crimson Tide. Morris' recruitment is eerily similar to that of Greg McElroy who flipped from Texas Tech to Alabama after the Tide missed out on Tim Tebow.
A lot of people compare Morris to McElroy in terms of his leadership ability, but Morris has a stronger arm. Morris will spend next season holding a clipboard as a redshirt behind A.J. McCarron, Phillip Sims, and Phillip Ely.
Reggie Ragland (LB/Madison, AL): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 5*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
At 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds, Ragland has the size to come in and play right away on the college level. Ragland is good enough to come in and make an early impact for the Crimson Tide. With as good as Trey DePriest played in the National Championship game when C.J. Mosley was injured, he obviously has the inside track to start alongside Nico Johnson next season.
But Ragland could come in and make a DePriest like impact next season as a special teams contributor, and situational player at linebacker, although I'm sure he will get a crack at starting during the summer. Ragland could be the eventual successor for Nico Johnson in 2013.
Geno Smith (CB/Atlanta, GA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 4*, 247: 4*
Geno Smith committed to Alabama in August, and despite some rumblings that Georgia was making a late run for him, remained solid with the Crimson Tide. At 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, Smith needs to bulk up a bit to play cornerback in the SEC.
ESPN has Smith rated as the #2 cornerback in the country, and while a redshirt year is possible, we could also see Smith come in and earn some early playing time when opposing offenses have four wide receivers on the field.
Dalvin Tomlinson (DT/McDonough, GA): Rivals: 4*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 3*, 247: 4*
Tomlinson signed with Alabama over Georgia Tech this morning as many came to expect over the last week. Tomlinson is a really good story having overcome so much adversity with losing his mother recently. Tomlinson is defending two state wrestling titles, and has a 3.9 core GPA.
Tomlinson is an extremely hard worker, and could earn some early playing time on the Crimson Tide defensive line.
Eddie Williams could solve Alabama's size issues at wide receiver in 2012.
Eddie Williams (ATH/Panama City, FL): Rivals: 5*, Scout: 4*, ESPN: 5*, 247: 5*
Rivals rates Eddie Williams as the #1 athlete in this recruiting class. From an athletic standpoint, Williams might be the best signee of the Crimson Tide this recruiting season. He's versatile enough to play wide receiver or safety in college, but he's likely to begin his college career at wide receiver.
At 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, Williams could easily solve the size issues Alabama had at wide receiver a year ago following Julio Jones' early departure to the NFL. Williams stands a good chance of getting some early playing time at receiver in 2012.


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Article: Finish Removal Using Solvents
In this article we will discuss using solvents in place of chemical strippers to remove the finish.
Sometimes (not always), a finishes solvent can be used as a remover instead of using a chemical stripper. It may be worth a try.
Can Solvents Be Used To Remove Old Finishes?
With shellac and lacquer finishes, which are the finishes used on almost all old furniture and woodwork, you can sometimes use their solvent for stripping instead of a chemical remover.
Depending on the object being stripped, this method can sometimes be easier in the sense of spending less total time. It's also less messy. With that being said though, I find that very seldom is it the best option. Often times, if the finish is easily removed by solvents, it may also sand off easily, and since many jobs require the sanding process anyway we can sometimes skip the chemical removal process all together.
For solvents, use denatured alcohol for shellac and lacquer thinner for lacquer. You can test the finish to find out which it is by dabbing a little of each solvent onto the finish. The alcohol will soften shellac and make it sticky or remove it. Lacquer thinner will do the same to lacquer.
Spread some paper towels (or cotton rags) over the surface and pour on the appropriate solvent to thoroughly wet the towels. Keep wet for 10 or 20 minutes, or until you can wipe off all the finish quickly and easily. If you have done a good job, a quick wipe with a towel or rag soaked with the solvent will clean up any remaining finish residue.
One advantage of using this method of stripping is that you don't have to mess with removing the wax that is included in many strippers to slow their evaporation. This wax causes many refinishing problems, because people often don't get enough of it removed.


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A copy-and-paste from this blog.
General Office Productivity Tips:
It comes down to inertia and momentum.
- Understand the problem. It is very easy to avoid work you do not understand well enough to solve.
- Break it down. Break the larger problem into smaller problems that conceptually you understand and can tackle.
- Review milestones. They are closer than you might think, and it can be a good kick in the pants to think "I have to get this feature done by Thursday" instead of "I have to get this all done in three months".
- Prioritization. Do not starve a high priority feature for lack of understanding to feed a low priority feature you know like the back of your hand.
- Just do it. Attack the problem, no matter how feeble the attempt. Even if you throw out the work, it increases your understanding. It is better try fail than to waste time on something unrelated. Like writing a blog post or checking the InterWeb. LIKE YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW.
- Go for a walk. Can't focus? Get away from your desk and stimulate the blood flow to your brain. A change of scenery can unplug a mental block.
What is of concern isn't the time lost servicing the interrupt, it is the time spent context switching back to the original problem. Interrupting someone in flow can take 15 minutes for them to get back to the point they were at before the interruption occurred.
- Net connectivity. Close email, web browser and any messenger programs.
- Answering machine. Forward phone to voice mail.
- Office hours. If you are in a partial support role, set up "office hours" during the day where you will answer questions.
- Meetings. Reduce the number of weekly meetings wherever possible.
- Maximize use of time. Know what time of day you are most effective and schedule the interruptions/meetings to the time when you are not.
The key is to create a work environment that is free of distractions so that when you've achieved flow you can maintain your focus on the problem at hand.
- Noise. Noise cancellation headsets or headphones with music can cut down on the distracting nature of open concept cube farm hell. Be kind to your co-workers and never use a portable radio or your computer speakers unless you are working late alone. If you're going to have an extended discussion with someone move to a break room or an empty conference room.
- Temperature. Have a portable fan to cool down and a portable heater/sweaters to warm up if your cube doesn't have ideal temperature conditions.
- Snacks. Have food around so that hunger can be satisfied without leaving the building. Don't let your belly be a source of distraction. Nothing that will rot should be left out of sight. Some good low-fat choices: apples, cans of tuna, microwave popcorn, turkey sandwiches (if you have access to a fridge).
- Hydration. Have a bottle/cup of water on your desk that you can sip from throughout the day. The short term gains made from drinking coffee isn't worth the long term loses on memory, dehydration, and the productivity lose from caffeine crashes. Non-caffeinated herbal teas such as peppermint can be useful for weaning yourself from coffee.
- Clutter. I am not hypocritically recommending clean desks, but file away any papers that aren't germane to the problem at hand. When it comes time to search the mountain of looseleaf, at least you will be looking at stuff related to what you are working on.
Manage Expectations.
The biggest secret to getting more work done is having less work to do.
- Give feedback. Do not tell management what they want to hear, tell them what you think will happen.
- Accurate Estimations. Develop your estimation skills so that when you say 'task X will take Y to do' they believe you.
- Under commit and over deliver. Realistic schedules give room to do a better job instead of fighting to keep your head above water.
Avoid Burnout.
This is the most important tip. Meet the deadline in a sane manner. Ever waste half an hour because you were looking at the wrong results? Ever make a minor two character typo that drastically changed results and was very insidious to find because it 'looked right"? If you were more alert that would not have happened.
- Relax. Find the balance between enough stress to motivate but not so much stress that you lose the ability to see the simplest solutions and recognize time sinks before you fall into them.
- Minimum overtime. An hour of overtime is less than a regular hour of work because you're reducing your overall ability to produce when you don't get proper rest. Find a balance between working hard and working smart.
- Sleep. Don't let thinking about work impact your sleeping. Sleep debt has to be paid off eventually. You don't want to be useless during the eight hours a day you have to be in front of the keyboard.
- Balance. Find a balance between work, health, activity, friends, family and hobbies. It will increase your overall work performance. You lose the ability to bounce back with age.
- Don't force alertness. Much like a sleep debt, forcing alertness with caffeine or other stimulates will eventually develop a dependency on them to achieve a baseline state.
Programming Specific Tips:
Don't create more work for yourself than is needed.
- Only code what is needed. If a feature 'might be useful' then code it later when it is necessary.
- Simplest solution is the best solution. K.I.S.S. Every line coded is a line that potentially has to be debugged. Focus your debugging effort on solving the problem, not on debugging bells and whistles that don't contribute to the deadline. More time is lost in debugging an unnecessarily complex feature then in designing it.
- Notes to yourself. Put comments in your code with standard identifiers such as "TODO" and "FIXME" that you can come back to later to add the improvements you didn't add the first time. Putting the date you added that comment is optional, but can help during a code cleanup (sorry, I mean "refactoring") five years later.
Multiple build / project directories.
"Hey, can you check out the latest version of this file to see if my changes work?" Except it's never just one file, and the changes never work the first time. Checking code out into your working copy is not just an interruption, but can lose an entire afternoon trying to re-achieve the state you were at before updating that "one file". Having multiple directory trees (hard drive space is cheap) can remove this problem.
- Working. What you currently have checked out any are working on. Only checkout code when you've already verified it works using the Stable/Branch directories.
- Stable. The latest valid snapshot/tag of code that is known to work.
- Branch/Current. The absolute latest checked in version of all code.
Problems seem more daunting when you can't see the trees for the forest. Breaking it up into smaller tasks not only reduces procrastination, but it also can increase performance time.
- Design assumptions. Create small unit proofs of any design assumption upfront so that you know the design will work before investing time and energy.
- Reduce dependencies. Debugging a rapid prototype can be much faster because you don't have as many sources of errors to look at.
- Smallest solution space. Reduce the unit testbench to only what is necessary to run your prototype. The goal is to reduce the time between starting a simulation run and getting results during development. Keep the inherent downtime in your job from interrupting your flow. You shouldn't have time to think about something other than the problem at hand (ie: Checking Slashdot. Checking this blog is okay).
- Symbolic links. Set up the file structure such that you can run your small unit testbench in parallel with the main design, ie: symbolically link to where any files will exist in the real design. It may still be useful down the road when you want to isolate a problem.
- Metrics. It is much easier to grab profiling/coverage metrics from a smaller testbench that you can iterate many, many times more often then the main design. The statistics might not be "real world", but they can still be helpful.
- Design for debug. Litter your code with error assertions when they receive unexpected values or hit unexpected states. If necessary add a debugging define so that these assertions can be turned off in the production code but turned on again when you encounter a problem. Assertions to test inputs and outputs for illegal values and raise a big red flag will save you a lot of time when integrating.
Strawman Integration. When rapidly prototyping a smaller subset of the design you are pushing the integration issues until the end. It is best to do an upfront integration of a strawman of your design to make sure there aren't any major gotchas and then continue with the prototyping.
If you have access to multiple CPUs or a server farm then use them!
- Pipeline. If the compile/simulate/debug flow has dead cycles where you are "waiting for results", then you can make use of those cycles by breaking the work down into distinct units that can be pipelined in parallel. This keeps you actively solving the problem instead of getting caught up in procrastination and servicing interrupts.
- Tracking. Keep a piece of paper (or use your engineering lab book) beside your desk to write down reminders of where you left off in the parallel problems.
- Don't fire and forget. When you switch to working on the next task in the pipeline, periodically check the status on the first task to make sure that it is running properly.
- Always run something. The goal is to always have something running in the background while you develop during the cycles where you would instead be waiting for results. It could be as simple as seeing if what you are working on compiles properly while you're working on something else.
- Organize. Use tools to keep the multiple tasks organized such as different workspaces for different tasks, tabbed terminal windows with different title bars, saved session views, etc.


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There are heaps of gadgets and apps on the market which track our lifestyles – everything from fitness to sleep. But if you've ever been curious about tracking your sexual performance this wearable technology promises to rate your pelvic performance in the bedroom. It's like a Fitbit but for your man bits.
The i.Con smart condom isn't actually a condom, it's a lightweight, adjustable ring which is worn at the base of the penis and is the newest form of wearable technology. The product took British Condoms 3 years to develop and is in its final stages of testing before market release early in 2018.
Using sensors and nano-chip technology the intimate gadget compiles data while the ring is worn during sex and then uploads the info via Bluetooth to a smart device. The performance reports reveal the total number of thrusts and the average velocity of the thrusts, as well as how often you have sex, the duration of your sessions and how many calories you burned during sex.
The i.Con website proudly declares "The future of your sex life starts here" but as the product doesn't improve pleasure or make you a better lover that's a bit of a stretch.
"Users will have the option to share their recent data with friends, or, indeed the world," the product description says because, apparently, the world needs to know our intimate statistics. Perhaps we should include this in profile information on Adult Match Maker?
And with an 8 hour battery life we're guessing it will outlast even your longest bedroom marathon.
Our advice, if you're a sex nerd and can't wait to see how you match up on the sex leader board then grab your credit card but if you want to get a rating on your performance in the bedroom, why not ask your partner.
14 Comments
PLAYMATE938More than a month ago
Obviously Dumb people will part with large amounts of cash for dumb products. What ever happened to intimacy and communication with you partner of choice??
robbie.matrixMore than a month ago
FitBit CockRing. What will they think of next?
Is it adjustable? Or One Size Fits All kind of deal?
MissThatTouchMore than a month ago
Does it have a targeted amount..like a pedometer aims you at 10,000 steps?? I can see it now..."OooOoOoh...cant stop yet...need to get in 200 more!"...lol
DarkstudMore than a month ago
Sex should be natural. I wouldn't want to take the enjoyable pleasure out of my sex life by wearing a gadget around my cock.
FuckenSMASHyaMore than a month ago
I would break that.
Bustymilf24More than a month ago
Average velocity of thrusts? I can imagine a man silly enough to wear this will feel compelled to ram his cock as hard and fast as possible to "increase" his sexual performance. Qualitative feedback is better than quantitative in this case.
IfuwannadomeMore than a month ago
wants2tongueMore than a month ago
This has to be a joke, no?
Everyone is different when getting down and dirty in the throws of passion.
Money would be better spent elsewhere.
MmooseknuckleMore than a month ago
More narcissistic twatwaffle invented to make someone with too much money even richer.
funguyatbyronMore than a month ago
what's next one for our tongue or fingers
SlimshaddyMore than a month ago
Seriously, thrust, verlosity? What ever..
Sex us not just that.. its play before and after, oral .. you use everything like your hands; tongue etc.. how does this device rate that.. wast of money i say
Leolady727More than a month ago
OMFG - would anyone really use this?


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Finally the spider has weaved its web in the telephony world. Yes finally we are able to access the web through our mobile phones. Are you in a hurry to redesign or at least design your site for the mobile platform? So what will you do when you are having such a plan with you? For all those who are in love with Mobile Web Development can take a look at some simplified points. Here we take you down some points written on the following lines.
- Don't be into too much of stylizing, that might just kill your website. If you are considering the WAP enabled devices then it would go well with XHTML contents. What you need to incorporate into your contents should be raw and not stylized.
- The mobile website is zeroed down to useful and efficient content leaving all those ornamentations behind; because of the constricted width of the screens. The contents are reorganized.
- Hand held style-sheets are rather mobile friendly. However in most cases they hardly offer much value though. They are primarily concerned with aesthetics.
So what do you think; how good is this mobile web development story?


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Which science?
As we now demonstrate, the concept "sub-Sahara Africa" is absurd, misleading, if not a meaningless classificatory schema. Its use defies the science of the fundamentals of geography but prioritises hackneyed, stereotypical, racist labelling. It is not obvious, on the face of it, which of the four possible meanings of the prefix, "sub", its users attach to the "sub-Sahara Africa" labelling. Is it "under" the Sahara Desert or "part of"/"partly" the Sahara Desert? Or, presumably, "partially"/"nearly" the Sahara Desert or even the very unlikely (hopefully!) application of "in the style of, but inferior to" the Sahara Desert, especially considering that there is an Arab people sandwiched between Morocco and Mauritania (northwest Africa) called Saharan?
The example of South Africa is appropriate here. Crucially, this is a reference underlined in the relevant literature of the era especially those emanating from the West, the United Nations (principally UNDP, FAO, WHO, UNCTAD), the World Bank and IMF, the so-called NGOs/"aid" groups, and some in academia who all are variously responsible for initiating and sustaining the operationalisation of this "sub-Sahara Africa" dogma. The point is that prior to the formal restoration of African majority government in 1994, South Africa was never designated "sub-Sahara Africa" by anyone in this portrait, unlike the rest of the 13 African-led states in southern Africa, which were also often referred to at the time as the "frontline states". South Africa then was either termed "white South Africa" or the "South Africa sub-continent" (as in the "India sub-continent" usage, for instance), meaning "almost"/"partially" a continent – quite clearly a usage of "admiration" or "compliment" employed by its subscribers to essentially project and valorise the perceived geostrategic potentials or capabilities of the erstwhile European minority occupation regime-led country.
But soon after the triumph of the African freedom movement there, South Africa became "sub-Sahara Africa" in the quickly adjusted schema of this representation! What happened suddenly to South Africa's geography to be so differently classified?! Is it African liberation/rule that renders an African state "sub-Sahara"?[1] Does this post-1994 West-inflected South Africa-changed classification make "sub-Sahara Africa" any more intelligible? Interestingly, just as in the South Africa "sub-continent" example, the application of the "almost"/"partially" or indeed "part of"/"partly" meaning of prefix "sub-" to "Sahara Africa" focuses unambiguously on the following countries of Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, each of which has 25-75 per cent of its territory (especially to the south) covered by the Sahara Desert. It also focuses on Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Sudan, which variously have 25-75 per cent of their territories (to the north) covered by the same desert. In effect, these ten states would make up sub-Sahara Africa.
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, the five Arab north Africa countries, do not, correctly, describe themselves as Africans even though they unquestionably habituate African geography, the African continent, since the Arab conquest and occupation of this north one-third of African territory in the 7th century CE. The West governments, press and the transnational bodies we referred to earlier (which are led predominantly by West personnel and interests) have consistently "conceded" to this Arab cultural insistence on racial identity. Presumably, this accounts for the West's non-designation of its "sub-Sahara Africa" dogma to these countries as well as the Sudan, whose successive Arab-minority regimes since January 1956 have claimed, but incorrectly, that the Sudan "belongs" to the Arab World. On this subject, the West does no doubt know that what it has been engaged in, all along, is blatant sophistry and not science. This, however, conveniently suits its current propaganda packaging on Africa, which we shall be elaborating on shortly.
It would appear that we still don't seem to be any closer at establishing, conclusively, what its users mean by "sub-Sahara Africa". Could it, perhaps, just be a benign reference to all the countries "under" the Sahara, whatever their distances from this desert, to interrogate our final, fourth probability? Presently, there are 54 so-called sovereign states in Africa. If the 5 north Africa Arab states are said to be located "above" the Sahara, then 49 are positioned "under". The latter would therefore include all the 5 countries mentioned above whose north frontiers incorporate the southern stretches of the desert (namely, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Sudan), countries in central Africa (the Congos, Rwanda, Burundi, etc., etc), for instance, despite being 2000-2500 miles away, and even the southern African states situated 3000-3500 miles away! In fact, all these 49 countries, except the Sudan (alas, not included for the plausible reason already cited!), which is clearly "under" the Sahara and situated within the same latitudes as Mali, Niger and Chad (i.e., between 10 and 20 degrees north of the equator), are all categorised by the "sub-Sahara Africa" users as "sub-Sahara Africa".
"Sub-"s of the world?
To replicate this obvious farce of a classification elsewhere in the world, the following random exercise is not such an indistinct scenario for universal, everyday, referencing:
1. Australia hence becomes "sub-Great Sandy Australia" after the hot deserts that cover much of west and central Australia
2. East Russia, east of the Urals, becomes "sub-Siberia Asia"
3. China, Japan and Indonesia are reclassified "sub-Gobi Asia"
4. Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam become "sub-Himalaya Asia"
5. All of Europe is "sub-Arctic Europe"
6. Most of England, central and southern counties, is renamed "sub-Pennines Europe"
7. East/southeast France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia are "sub-Alps Europe"
8. The Americas become "sub-Arctic Americas"
9. All of South America south of the Amazon is proclaimed "sub-Amazon South America"; Chile could be "sub-Atacama South America"
10. Most of New Zealand's South Island is renamed "sub-Southern Alps New Zealand"
11. Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama become "sub-Rocky North America"
12. The entire Caribbean becomes "sub-Appalachian Americas"
African-centred scholarship
So, rather than some benign construct, "sub-Sahara Africa" is, in the end, an outlandish nomenclatural code that its users employ to depict an African-led "sovereign" state – anywhere in Africa, as distinct from an Arab-led one. It is the users' non-inclusion of the Sudan in this grouping (despite its majority African population and geographical location) but its inclusion of South Africa only after the latter's 1994 liberation that gives the game away! More seriously to the point, "sub-Sahara Africa" is employed to create the stunning effect of a supposedly shrinking African geographical landmass in the popular imagination, coupled with the continent's supposedly attendant geostrategic global "irrelevance".
"Sub-Sahara Africa" is undoubtedly a racist geopolitical signature in which its users aim repeatedly to present the imagery of the desolation, aridity, and hopelessness of a desert environment. This is despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of 1 billion Africans do not live anywhere close to the Sahara, nor are their lives so affected by the implied impact of the very loaded meaning that this dogma intends to convey. Except this steadily pervasive use of "sub-Sahara Africa" is robustly challenged by rigorous African-centred scholarship and publicity work, its proponents will succeed, eventually, in substituting the name of the continent "Africa" with "sub Sahara Africa" and the name of its peoples, "Africans", with "sub-Sahara Africans" or, worse still, "sub-Saharans" in the realm of public memory and reckoning.
*This essay is a slightly updated version of a paper entitled "What is 'sub-Sahara Africa'"?, read at the IDeoGRAMS Conference: Contemporary Media, University of Leicester, 14 September 2007.
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
[1]Roger Tangri, Politics in Sub-Sahara Africa (London and Portsmouth, N. H.: James Currey, 1985), p. ix, passim.


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Pets dress up for Fiesta Fido event
Photo: JERRY LARA, San Antonio Express-News
It's mostly for fun, but also for a good cause. Dogs and owners competed for honors at the Fiesta Fidos and Fashion event at North Star Mall on Sunday, benefiting the San Antonio Humane Society. Eleven dogs and their owners were vying for Best Dressed Fiesta Fido, and the 2012 El Rey Fido and his court were informally presented. The 10th annual El Rey Fido Coronation is set for 10 a.m. on April 14 at the Grand Hyatt. The event is free and open to the public. Fiesta returns April 19-29.


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Read Guidebooks
- Guidebooks act as a travel advisor, help you understand the culture, and provide travel, lodging, and restaurant recommendations.
- Decide how you want to spend your time. Do you want to explore the region's history or spend time on the beach?
- Go to a bookstore and compare different guidebooks. Pick one of your destinations and compare what each guidebook says about that single location.
- Consider each guidebook's theme (budget travel, insider's view, or adventure travel).
- Look at the maps. Are they easy to read? How detailed are they?
- Be conscious of the size and weight of the book because you'll be traveling and taking this book with you.
- All guidebooks are at least one year old, so never assume that the prices are the same or the restaurants are still open.


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There's lots of news to share, so here's your regular Daily WRAG edition instead of the Friday roundup. Enjoy your weekend!
This winter has been so cold that the District has seen 66 days of hypothermia alerts. There are still seven weeks left in hypothermia season. With policies in place to house homeless families in private rooms during nights that turn brutally cold, the city has found itself in a difficult situation as the Bowser administration has filed a motion to begin placing the homeless in makeshift shelters. (WaPo, 2/6)
The development offered the latest sign of the depth of this year's homelessness crisis in the District, which has accepted an average of 12 new homeless families – often single mothers with young children – into shelter each night the temperature has dipped below freezing.
The District is one of the country's rare jurisdictions with a legal right to shelter on freezing nights. It is also among the most rapidly gentrifying urban cores in the nation, with an estimated 5,000 families teetering on the brink of homelessness amid rising living costs and escalating home prices.
The city on Thursday was within a day of running out of motel space for more families, and it has yet to find another operator willing to lease additional rooms for the homeless, the District argued in its motion. If no other option becomes apparent, D.C. is within days of having to resort to some lesser form of shelter, it said.
– Volunteers fan out in the wee hours to count homeless in Montgomery (Gazette, 2/2)
EDUCATION/DISTRICT | At-risk funding in the District: A-school-by-school breakdown (WaPo, 2/6)
NONPROFITS | Now that President Obama has laid out his proposed 2016 federal budget, Rick Cohen gives us a glimpse at what nonprofits can anticipate if the proposals pass through Congress. (NPQ, 2/4)
Related: WRAG CEOs are invited to a coffee and conversation session with Rick Cohen on February 18th at 9:00AM where he'll be discussing his 10 predictions for nonprofits and foundations in 2015. For more information, click here.
– The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia has released its 2013-2014 Annual Report, "A Year of Community Leadership," highlighting its work in the region. (CFNOVA, 2/5)
FOOD | Are Farmers Market Sales Peaking? That Might Be Good For Farmers (NPR, 2/5)
Healthy Communities Working Group: February Meeting (WRAG members)
Monday, February 9, 2015 12:00PM – 2:00PM
A Morning With The Mayor: A Funder Conversation With Mayor Muriel Bowser (WRAG members)
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Get on the Map: A How-To Webinar (WRAG members)
Thursday, February 12, 2015 2:00PM – 2:45PM
Valentine's Day is approaching. Which city in the region was named one of the "most romantic" cities in the nation?
– Ciara


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Prime Minister David Cameron's failure to condemn Israel's massacre in Gaza was attacked by MPs and other speakers at a mass rally in London's Hyde Park in support of the Palestinians. Speakers also called for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel.
More than 100,000 people marched from the BBC studios in Portland Place, past the US embassy in Grosvenor Square to Hyde Park, in a protest called by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organisations.
Tariq Ali, writer and journalist, criticised the BBC for its biased coverage: "There is a basic point that has to be made to our politicians. They have to understand that there is no equivalence betweeen the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation. When a country is occupied, resistance emerges. If you want no rockets being fired, no tunnels being dug, get out of Gaza," he siad
It was the third mass march through London in support of Gaza in three weeks. It was also the biggest, and formed part of a global Day of Rage, with people marching in cities across the globe to show solidarity with Gaza under attack. Coaches carried protesters to London from as far afield as Scotland, while other towns and cities in the UK also held their own protests and vigils for the Palestinians.
"We are here to send a message to our government that we are ashamed, we are sick and we are disgusted at the massacre in Gaza and the British government's complicity. There are people from different political parties and every section of society, people of all faiths and people of none, who say 'sanctions now, free Palestine'," Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
"I have a message for Mr Cameron. He has failed to show courage, he has failed to show leadership, he is a disgrace to our country. He is a disgrace because he has failed to speak up against injustice, because he has failed to do anything about the sale of arms that can be used, and are being used, by Israel to kill and suppress. Britian deserves a Prime Minister who speaks the truth and challenges injustice, not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank. Let's pledge today to keep up the pressure on this dreadful government to stop the violence," Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow (Labour) said.
Jane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Labour) said that British people of all colours and all political parties stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza. "This is the best demonstration yet in support of Gaza and David Cameron needs to know that we will keep up the pressure until he takes a stand that is morally defensible," Abbot said.
Seamus Milne, Guardian columnist and associate editor said that Israel is in illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. "Israel has no right to defend itself from territories it occupies. It only has an obligation to withdraw. The Palestinians are an occupied people. They have a right to defend themselves from the occupier."


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The Best Layered Peach Cobbler Ever
Between Peach Cobbler and Sweet Potato Pie, I really don't know which is the most requested during the holidays. BUT what I DO know is this layered peach cobbler is melt in your mouth buttery, perfect crust, sweet peaches heaven! It's so good I have to hide it from my guests until dinner is over, otherwise they'd fill up on peach cobbler, HA! Hope you enjoy!
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour
Servings: 8-10
1 package Krusteaz Pie Crust Mix
3 cans (29 oz each) sliced peaches, in liquid
1/2 cup peach flavored rum
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup reserved peach juice
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
4-6 tablespoons cold water
Preheat oven to 400°F. Drain 2 cans of peaches. Reserve 1/4 cup liquid from the third. Add all peaches and remaining liquid from the third can, rum, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg and lemon juice to a sauce pan over medium heat and cook for 5 minutes.
While peaches cook, mix together 1/4 cup reserved peach juice and 1 tablespoon corn starch. Pour corn starch mixture in sauce pan, cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and set aside.
Stir together Krusteaz Pie Crust Mix and cold water (for double crust), adding water 1 tablespoon at a time. Mix with a fork until moistened and dough forms.
Pour half of the cooked peaches into bottom of a 13x9-inch baking pan. Chop ½ stick of butter into pieces and place over peaches. Sprinkle half of the pie crust in pieces over entire pan of peaches and butter. Brush with 1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar.
Bake 20 minutes. Carefully remove pan from oven (it will be hot). Repeat above step and bake another 20–25 minutes, or until top is golden brown.
Related Products
Keep it real in the kitchen with these fun ideas


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QATAR Railways Company (Qatar Rail), the company overseeing the construction of Qatar's integrated railways network, has received four more tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for Phase One of the Doha Metro.
A CONSORTIUM including French industrial groups Vinci and Alstom has signed a €2-billion ($2.72 billion) contract with Qatar Railways Company to build a tram system for the city of Lusail.
HABTOOR Leighton Group (HLG) has been awarded a QR1.09-billion ($300 million) contract for the construction of two sections of the corridor pipeline (Main One – packages A and B) which forms part of Doha's mega reservoir project.
MSHEIREB Downtown Doha (MDD), the flagship development of Msheireb Properties, has been declared the best retail project at Cityscape Qatar 2014, a premier property expo held in Qatar.
CONSTRUCTION of the Mall of Qatar is on schedule and the mega project is expected to open in the last quarter of 2015 in the Al Rayyan district of Qatar according to its developer.
OMRAN, Oman's tourism development and investment agency, has invited bids from consultants to supervise the construction of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre (OCEC) project.
Work on Duqm port facility to begin THE construction of Oman Oil Marketing Company's bunkering facility at Duqm Port in Oman will begin soon, following the completion of the design phase.
INNOVATIVE shoring solutions from RMD Kwikform are being used to help keep Oman's new $64-million Sultan Qaboos Mosque in Nizwa, on track while accommodating a change in programme sequencing.
PREQUALIFICATION bids have been invited by Bahrain's Ministry of Housing from contractors and design and supervision consultants for further work on the second phase of the new Northern Town (Al Madina Al Shamaliya).
A 12-KM stretch of Bahrain's northern shore will be developed with a new BD100-million ($263.6 million) coastal highway, connecting the Seef District and the Northern Town being built on reclaimed land off the coast of Duraz.
PREMIER Composite Technologies (PCA), based in Dubai, UAE, has completed the installation of the concourse roof of one of the key stations on the Haramain Railway High Speed Railway in Saudi Arabia.
THE Hansgrohe Group reports an above-average performance, with emerging markets such as the Middle East, Asia and Latin America having strongly contributed to this positive trend.
UNITED Developers, a venture floated by local investors with expertise in retail and real estate, will build a Parisian-inspired QR5-billion ($1.37 billion) mixed-used development in Qatar's Lusail City.
AN AGREEMENT to develop codes and standards to promote sustainable construction has been signed in Doha, Qatar.
PREQUALIFICATION bids for the multibillion-dollar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) package for Oman's Duqm Refinery project are expected to be invited in the third quarter of this year.
BAHRAIN is set to issue tenders for infrastructure development projects worth $4.4 billion over the next three years, said a report.


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be.ENERGISED. offers you these functions
Get more out of your charging network.
- Charging processes
- Charging stations
- Asset management
- Identification media
Predictive Analytics
- High performance database
- Customer statistics
- Infrastructure statistics
- Graphic data analysis forecasts
- Understandable data interpretation
- Enterprise contacts
- Personal contacts
- Contract management
- Intelligent Helpdesk search
- Ticket management
- Caller documentation
- Cost control
- Charging station remote control
CO2 Certficate Compensation
- for Stations & Cards
- Charging power certificates
- Certification documentation
- Offers – NEW
- Outgoing invoices
- Credit notes
- Tariff management
- Prepaid accounts
- Transaction checking
Additional Tools
- Charging station finder
- White Lable Customer App
- White Lable Customer Portal CPO Maintenance App
User Management
- Client management
- Group management
- Enterprise management
- User management
Station Marketing
- Google Place Export
- GeoJSON Export
- Parkpocket.com
- e-Stations.de
- Going Electric
- SmartTanken.de
- Cirantic
- OpenChargeMap …
- Roaming Partner Management
- InterCharge Network
- be.ENERGISED Community
- Plugsurfing
- be.ENERGISED Hub
- upstream
- next level mobility
- sunhill technologies
OCPP Support
- Remote configuration
- Remote control
- Firmware update
- Reservations
- Load management
Your entire charging network at a glance!
In the infrastructure area, you monitor and manage the whole system – from the individual charging stations, to the log data and on to the identification media of your customers. All eventualities are taken into account in the backend. In addition, you get information about stations in real time and can control them via remote maintenance.
Predictive Analytics
Well-informed thanks to clever data evaluation
be.ENERGISED is equipped with a high-performance database and collects all relevant information on the daily use of your charging stations. This allows reliable predictions about power consumption, usage behaviour and much more. To help you find your way, be.ENERGISED provides graphical data analysis and understandable interpretations.
An overview of all customers
Your customer data is very valuable. All the more important is efficient data management – whether on individual customers or entire companies. be.ENERGISED allows you to link user profiles to the data from your charging infrastructure. In this way, be.ENERGISED manages your entire eMobility business and you don't need any additional CRM software. This reduces licensing costs and training expenses in your company.
Newsletter Registration
Stay up to date on the latest information and sign up for our newsletter.
Highly modern customer service
Via the Hotline, hotline staff get access to relevant information needed to solve problems at the charging station quickly and efficiently. Functions such as call documentation, ticket management, cost accounting and much more are also integrated into the Hotline.
CO2 Certificate Management
Innovative & sustainable
If you decide to use our CO2 Compensation Service, in the backend you will receive all the data on the CO2 certificates collected for your charging operations. The certificates can be registered on charging cards or charging stations. Thus, you always have a complete certification documentation.
All About Billing
In the finances area, you can find all the data relevant to billing. Here, you can manage offers, invoices and credit notes. With the tariff management, you define the prices at which end customers and roaming business users pay for charging at your stations. You can also manage your optional prepaid credit accounts and check all the transactions you have collected with the plausibility monitor.
User Management
Stay in control
Organise your users into any group to keep an overview and allocate different permissions as required. This allows you to group and manage entire companies or departments. Of course, a complete individual customer management is also possible.
Station Marketing
Become visible & make money
Here you will find all relevant information for the direct connection of your charging network to external portals. be.ENERGISED makes your charging stations visible on our partner platforms such as e-Stations.de, SmartTanken.de, Going Electric and many more. The use of GeoJSON data also allows you to export and transmit to navigation providers or services such as Google Places.
Get more out of your network
be.ENERGISED delivers direct interfaces for the most important roaming connections. This makes roaming networks such as Intercharge, Gireve or Ladenetzt available for you at any time. With the be.ENERGISED Hub Roaming, you can also allow your end customer access to other stations in the be.ENERGISED community or make your network available to other charging customers.
OCPP Support
Technical standards you can rely on
be.ENERGISED uses the communication standard OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocoll) to exchange information between the charging station and the backend. The following types are supported: OCPP 1.2, 1.5, 1.6 & in the future 2.0, in addition to SOAP/JSON.
Additional Tools
Flexible & directly integratable
On request, you can quickly and easily expand be.ENERGISED using additional functions. Our tools such as the eDriver.PORTAL, the eDriver.APP, the Community.APP or the CPO Maintenance App connect seamlessly to be.ENERGISED and can be designed to your company's corporate design on request.
Additional Products
with direct integration in be.ENERGISED
We create our products in your corporate design and remain invisible.
The Customer App for Electromobility providers – completely in your corporate design.
The online customer portal for Electromobility providers with direct connection to be.ENERGISED.
Unlimited charging – we open up your eMobility solution to as many customers as possible.
Make it easy for your customers to pay with PayPal or credit card. With no risk to you!
The Certified Partner Program guarantees the highest hardware compatibility with be.ENERGISED.
You define the selling price at your charging station and we take care of payment, roaming and marketing.
So that everyone can recharge at your charging stations. Become part of a global network.
Everything you need to operate your charging stations – SIM cards, routers, certificates, and more.


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Yesterday, I left the house in time to stop for gas and drive across town for a lunch meeting. The expressway entrance is on the same street as this particular gas station. I usually pay for gasoline inside the store but to save time, I decided to use a bank card and pay at the pump.
Well, the first card doesn't work. Next, I try a debit card. I rarely use it and can't remember the pin number. Frustration creeps in.
Obviously my "swiping" skills are deficient. All I get are error messages. No longer on schedule, I go inside the store where the clerk can help me. I just know she probably has a better machine and better swiping skills. She takes the bank card. Midway her transaction she realizes the other card in my hand is a "fuel perks" card. To get the discount, the "fuel perks" card has to be swiped first. Cancel transaction.
I wonder, "Why is this happening to me?"
I swipe the "fuel perks" card first and then the bank card. All is well.
I fuel my gas guzzler. As I reposition myself behind the steering wheel I check the time. If I continue on my journey, I estimate I will be at least 10 minutes late. That is, I will be 10 minutes late if nothing else goes wrong.
As I pull out, heading in the direction of the expressway entrance, an emergency traffic report interrupts my thought process. There is an accident at the entrance to the expressway. Yes, that entrance. As I drive down the hill, I see the police lights and a maze of cars five blocks ahead. I turn off the road, avoiding the inevitable traffic jam. Resigned to my fate, I return home.
Yesterday, it seemed obvious to me that God didn't want me to attend the meeting. Today, I realize, it wasn't about the meeting. If getting gas for my car had gone as easily as anticipated, I would have left the gas station after a few minutes and very possibly I could have been part of that accident.
I started remembering stories of people who fell ill or had car trouble and missed their airplane flights — flights that crashed. Most prominent in my memory are the stories of those who, for some reason, arrived late to work (or not at all) at the World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001.
My cousin worked at the World Trade Center. That morning, I knew it was next to impossible to get a long distance call through to New York City. I called my dad. He had recently given up city life for retirement in Virginia. Maybe someone had reached him with her status.
He answered the phone and replied to my concern rather nonchalantly. He said she didn't work there anymore. She had been laid off the month before.
I am sure, when the lay off happened, it was devastating. A month later, it became a blessing.
Things are not always as they seem. The Chinese proverb, "Maybe So, Maybe Not," illustrates this best.
One day, a farmer's horse ran away. His neighbors expressed sympathy, "What terrible luck that you lost your horse!" The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."
A few days later, the horse returned, leading several wild horses. The neighbors shouted, "Your horse has returned, and brought more with him. What great fortune!" The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."
Later that week, the farmer's son was trying to break one of the wild horses and got thrown to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, "Your son broke his leg, what a calamity!" The farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, conscripting all the able-bodied young men for the army. They did not take the farmer's son because of his broken leg. Friends shouted, "Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!" To which the farmer replied, "Maybe so, maybe not."
Photo: The Thinker, Musée Rodin


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Individuals with restless or unpleasant feelings in their legs at night or at rest, that are relieved by movement are needed. We are studying the possible benefits of yoga versus an educational film program for reducing symptoms of restless legs syndrome. Participants will attend up to two classes per week in Morgantown for 12 weeks. The study also involves two visits to WVU to complete questionnaires. Compensation is $150 upon completion of this research study. IRB approval on file (1505699758)
For additional information, contact:
- WVU School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology
- Caitlin Montgomery, MPH
- 304.293.2082, firstname.lastname@example.com