text:
England & Wales, You Have No Idea What You Have Set In Motion. Or What You Haven't – June 2016. Written in the days after the Brexit Referendum, this essay explains why the Leave vote will not achieve what its proponents imagine it will, while also pointing out all the undesired effects it will have.
Do Us A Favour, Red Tories; Of Course It's A Coup, Of Course It's Been Planned – June 2016. The use of the result of the 'Brexit' Referendum as a pretext to try and overthrow Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has been denied by MPs in a way that insults the intelligence of the public.
Words Are Changing Meaning Again; Now Democracy Means We Have To Shut Up – June 2016. Commentary on how Leave voters, who never stop banging on about 'democracy' when demanding Brexit be carried out, relentlessly demand silence when the negative implications of leaving the European Union are discussed.
Clearing up a little post-Brexit Myth – January 2017. Debunking a mythological quotation, wrongly-attributed to Martin Schulz, then-President of the EU Parliament, a quote that keeps going viral among Leave supporters on social media.
Brexitopia: A Short Play – January 2017. Parody skit, detailing why, despite foaming-at-the-mouth objections from Leave campaigners, the Supreme Court was absolutely correct to rule that Article 50 could not be activated under the Royal Prerogative, and required majority consent in Parliament.
Brexit begins – March 2017. Reflections on the difficult times ahead after the activation of Article 50.
"The Leave Campaigns didn't lie about £350 million for the NHS!" Of course they did – April 2017. Rebutting claims that Leave groups did not tell lies during the Referendum campaign.
Michael Howard, what on Earth do you think you're doing? – April 2017. A furious condemnation of Michael Howard and Michael Fallon, for making some idiotic and posturing threats against Spain over Gibraltar, at precisely the time when Britain needs to operate at its diplomatic best with its neighbours.
Theresa May is the laughing stock of Europe – June 2017. After the embarrassing backfire of the 2017 General Election resulting in a Hung Parliament, Theresa May becomes the most ridiculed politician in Europe, with almost no real power and less than two weeks to go until Brexit negotiations commence.
If you say David Davis should now resign, you are thinking too small – December 2017. Brexit Secretary, David Davis, admits to misleading Parliament when conceding that his previous assurances that he had carried out full 'impact assessments' of leaving the EU were untrue.
"RESIGN!" – December 2017. An historic defeat in the House of Commons for Theresa May deprives her of the power to force through a severance deal from the EU without Parliament's approval, and exposes just how frail her administration is.
The knives are out again for May… handed to her rivals by Trump – January 2018. Media attempts to talk up an apparent revival in the pound's value against the US dollar as a sign that Brexit may not do much harm after all overlook one major drawback; the 'revival' is more a reflection of the weakness of the dollar under Donald Trump's precarious leadership than of renewed strength in sterling.
Why 'Hard Brexit' threatens war – February 2018. Detailing why a No Deal Brexit would be incredibly dangerous to the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The folly of the DUP – March 2018. The Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland currently props up the Minority Government in Westminster. But worries over a possible sell-out of Unionist interests by the Tories to get a Brexit deal may well lead the DUP to wonder whether they are nourishing their own future executioners.
Rather than calling me a 'Remoaner', why not try setting a good 'Brexample'? – March 2018. Leave supporters often accuse Remainers of being "patronising", but it has to be said that the insulting behaviour between the two camps is far from one-way.
"The EU needs us more than we need them!" No, not even close – March 2018. Debunking a frequent platitude-claim from Leave supporters that the EU will somehow be harmed far more than the UK by Brexit.
Andrew Marr is USELESS – June 2018. Analysis of a prime example of how weak the BBC tends to be when interviewing Conservative politicians, in this case a cross-examination of Theresa May about Brexit.
It's October 2018; this is where appalling diplomatic failings may come back to haunt the UK – October 2018. Now could be the time when the idiotic British posturing over Gibraltar in April 2017 come back to bite Theresa May and her allies.
No sympathy for May from this direction – November 2018. The day when Brexit finally knocked Theresa May's Government off its feet has arrived. She at last let everyone know her real 'plan' for Brexit, and it has pleased no one, and turned everyone against her.
Spain is making Brexit trouble over Gibraltar. Well, Tories, we did warn you – November 2018. Spain threatens to veto any Brexit deal between the UK and the EU unless it gets extra concessions over the sovereignty of Gibraltar. The British cannot really complain about it, given their earlier behaviour.
Cheer up, Labour and other opposition parties – last night was PERFECT for you – December 2018. Theresa May survived a Motion Of No Confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party triggered by her own Brexit policy. But her pyrrhic victory happened in a way that only increased the paralysis of her own position.
What a clever move by Corbyn! – December 2018. A cleverly-timed call of a Motion Of No Confidence in the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, due to her refusal to hold a vote on her Brexit deal, leaves Theresa May cornered.
230 – wow – January 2019. 'Beware the Ides of January'? A truly historic moment in Parliament. Theresa May finally submits her deal with the EU to a Commons vote, and it is rejected by an unprecedented margin, for the biggest defeat of a sitting Government of all time.
Theresa May – the PriMINO – March 2019. After delivering an immensely patronising, blame-shifting speech, pinning the responsibility for her inability to deliver Brexit onto Parliament, MPs respond by voting to seize control of the process from her. She is now as powerless as a constitutional monarch.
Even when she no longer has a job to hold onto, May cannot resist lying to make herself sound good at it – May 2019. The Prime Minister finally accepts the inevitable and announces her departure from Downing Street, due to her constant mishandling of Brexit. But she cannot help but continue lying to the country as she speaks, even to the last.
Boris Johnson is different to Theresa May, but not too different to make the same mistakes – July 2019. The new Prime Minister is Boris Johnson, and he has already demonstrated consummate inability to deliver Brexit – as minimally skilled as Theresa May.
"Reversing Brexit will damage the credibility of democracy!" Folks, Brexit itself has already done that – September 2019. Essay highlighting how damaging Brexit has been to the notion of democracy, due to it lending equal weight to the views of people who know nothing about the EU as it lends to those who are experts.
Let's clear up something about BoJob's "new policy program" – September 2019. Boris Johnson announces an 'exciting new policy program', for which he claims he requires the suspension of Parliament for over a month. The program is actually an underwhelming fraud, and his real reason for the Prorogation is to sneak through a No Deal Brexit.
"The Night of the Even Longer Knives" – September 2019. Boris Johnson, losing his first vote in the House of Commons as Prime Minister, stirs memories of Harold MacMillan, as he reacts with sledgehammer aggression to a backbench rebellion against him over Prorogation and No Deal Brexit, by expelling over twenty of his own Parliamentary Party.
There is one reason, and one reason alone, to be grateful for Brexit – September 2019. Analysing how Brexit has arguably been the phenomenon that has kept Jeremy Corbyn in charge of the Labour Party.
The 'traitors' are not those who oppose a No Deal. The traitors are its supporters – September 2019. Brexiteers keep mindlessly accusing Remain supporters, and politicians who oppose Hard Brexit, of being 'traitors'. As this article notes, that tendency is more than a little ironic.
The Tories are trying to win by acting too stupid to understand the contrary argument – September 2019. The Conservative Party keep pretending not to understand Labour's policies on Brexit and a new General Election, and there is a danger that, instead of making Labour look indecisive, it will make the Tories themselves look stupid.
BoJob, what the hell do you think you're doing? – September 2019. Boris Johnson publishes the notorious 'Yellow Hammer' document, which outlines the predicted effect of a No Deal Brexit and what contingencies are in place to alleviate the harm. But the version published has very clearly been doctored. In the context of a time when his Prorogation of Parliament has been deemed illegal, such a flagrantly deceitful move is dangerously foolish.
Could the Queen fire Boris Johnson? – September 2019. With the Prorogation of Parliament sent for scrutiny to the highest court in the land, the Constitution of the UK is now in the throes its biggest crisis since the 1930s. Even if the Supreme Court judges against Boris Johnson, who has clearly suspended Parliament just to ease the path of Brexit, there are real worries he may just ignore the ruling. So what happens then? One possibility could be Royal intervention against him.
Tuesday was one of the great days for British democracy – September 2019. That the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled against the Government's Prorogation of Parliament is one of the most historic and vital developments of 21st Century Britain. The very authority of Parliament and the Constitution would have been endangered had the decision gone the other way, and had Brexit been allowed to continue without MP scrutiny.
Boris Johnson's proposal for the border in Ireland is either hazardous or hilarious – October 2019. Scrutinising an astonishingly silly proposal tabled by Boris Johnson to resolve the border anomaly in Ireland that would be created by Brexit, by effectively implementing two borders between Northern Ireland and Eire instead.
The most aggravating aspect of Brexit – October 2019. Detailing why Brexit will likely cause the very sovereignty shortfalls that its advocates imagine it will resolve.
Time for Remainers to face facts as well. Voting for Jo Swinson is NOT going to stop Brexit – November 2019. Explaining why Remainers who are siding with the Liberal Democrats during GE2019 are deluding themselves if they imagine there is any chance it will lead to the reversal of Brexit.
Britain: A country that cannot say those Three Little Words – July 2021. After 18 months officially out of the European Union, it is fair to assess the effect Brexit has had on the UK. Admittedly aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic, nonetheless, it has been uniformly bad news.


text:
2014 Ford Fusion SE
2014 Ford Fusion SE, 77K miles, 4dr, 1.4 L 4cyl, FWD, automatic transmission, very clean, no rust, southern car. Exterior is ruby red metallic, interior is black cloth with red stitching. Loaded with power windows, power locks, power seats, power mirrors, power steering w/audio controls, AM/FM/CD/Bluetooth, AC, cruise control, sunroof, rear defrost, keyless entry, dual airbags, side curtain airbags, satellite radio compatible, tires like new, new brakes, rebuilt transmission w/warranty. Beautiful, clean and rust free car. 100% serviced. Stop by or call today!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Peter Gross
Nonprofit Technology Strategist
Serving the nonprofit technology community to improve how organizations approach technology and how technologists grow to become organizational leaders.
For Nonprofit Organizations
For Nonprofit
Leaders & Professionals
Coaching & Mentoring
Provide professional coaching and mentoring to nonprofit technologists and other professionals to help them combine their knowledge and experience with the skills and approach required to translate what they know into better service, greater levels of adoption, and transformative change.
For Vendors Serving Nonprofits
Nonprofit Vendor Consulting
Utilize decades of nonprofit and consulting experience to support nonprofit-oriented vendors to better understand and provide service to the sector. Includes professional services strategy and delivery, business & partnership development, and product strategy.
About Me
Peter Gross
I have spent my entire 30-year career working with and for nonprofit organizations with the last 22 years focused on technology. I started my consulting career working for Blackbaud doing dozens of implementations of the Raiser's Edge and leading some of the largest and most complex implementations to that point.
For the last 15 years I have partnered with some of the largest and most complex organizations to develop and implement technology roadmaps and to select and implement new systems. Just as important is my work to improve how my clients collaborate internally to govern, operate and implement their 2nd most valuable resource: the data they collect that drives fundraising, finance, operations and programmatic impact.
More recently, I have focused on the single most important nonprofit technology resource: the technologists who are responsible for implementing, managing and supporting the software, hardware, processes and vendor relationships that comprise the nonprofit's technology ecosystem.


text:
Cupcake Cook Off Champion
Another cook off completed with Cupcakes being the dish of choice! Jayden came on top with the highest votes on his cupcakes making him the winner!
Matt grew up in the South Eastern suburb of Berwick. He studied at the local Secondary College and once finished year 12 decided to accept an a apprenticeship in the field of landscaping. After a 2.5 year stint Matt was seeking a new challenge in life and once seeing the results that his brother, Paul, had achieved he made the plunge and entered into the real estate Industry.
Over the past 8 and a half years Matt has had the pleasure of being able to service the local BOTANIC RIDGE, CRANBOURNE, CRANBOURNE NORTH and CRANBOURNE WEST communities with their real estate needs from buying through to selling and anything in between, he is a true force to be reckoned with!
Matt understands how much Cranbourne is growing as a town and with its thriving development he sees this area as being the "Gateway to the South East". A big believer in the "1% things make a huge difference" Matt has seen firsthand the effects that going the extra mile can have. With a large, loyal client base and plenty of repeat/referral business Matt has made a huge impact at Ray White Cranbourne. His passion and enthusiasm for helping his customers move from Point A to Point B cannot be underestimated.
Some of Matt's biggest achievements in real estate include being nominated for Personal Assistant of the Year at the Ray White Annual Awards and being shortlisted for the Young Person in Real Estate award, an achievement recognised by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) for "up and coming" agents . He regularly transacts above 80 properties year in year out.
Outside of work Matt loves spending time with his wife, Eliza, whom he has the pleasure of partnering for the past 12 or so years and his daughter, Harper. A keen golfer he regularly hits the fairways and certainly doesn't mind a good night out with his family and friends!
If you are looking at breaking into the Cranbourne property market, are keen to upgrade/add to your investment portfolio or are considering selling you can be assured that Matt will take the time of day to make it a pleasurable experience for you and will definitely give you the right advice along the way!
For all of your real estate needs please contact Matt on 0430 574 159 for Immediate personal attention. Alternatively, you can send an e-mail to
Another cook off completed with Cupcakes being the dish of choice! Jayden came on top with the highest votes on his cupcakes making him the winner!
Today we welcome Jess to the Property Management team! We wish you all the best on your first day and looking forward to what the future holds for you!


text:
Ayotte camp defends vote for GOP alternative 'watch list' gun sales ban
Republican senator cites need for 'due process' for those wrongly placed on watch lists
MANCHESTER, N.H. —U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte agrees with President Barack Obama on at least one aspect of fighting terrorism – that those on the nation's "no fly" list should not be allowed to purchase firearms.
But Ayotte and her Democratic challenger, Gov. Maggie Hassan, disagree on how far the government should go to ban the sale of firearms to those on the much broader "terrorist watch list."
Ayotte last week opposed an amendment put forward by Democratic U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein that would have allowed the government to ban the sale of firearms to anyone on the terrorist watch list. Ayotte opposed it, along with three Republican senators who are running for president – Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Ayotte's office said Monday she opposed the Feinstein bill because it did not provide "due process" for those who feel that they are on wrongly on the list. Also, her office noted, the Feinstein bill would have gutted the underlying bill, which repealed several provisions of the Affordable Care Act and ended Medicaid expansion as of Jan. 1, 2018.
Ayotte instead joined with Republicans to vote in favor of an alternative bill put forward by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Cornyn's bill would have allowed the attorney general to delay firearms sales to suspected terrorists for up to 72 hours while authorities pursued a court order to block the sales permanently.
According to Ayotte's office, Cornyn's bill also would have left the underlying bill Affordable Care Act provisions intact.
While Republicans say Feinstein's bill would have provided no recourse or due process for those who feel they are wrongly on the list, Democrats disagree.
Feinstein has said that under her bill, those who are denied firearms "can take the Justice Department to court to overturn the decision."
Where the burden of proof lies is the key difference between the two bills.
"Kelly obviously opposes terrorists having guns, but the Feinstein amendment was a political stunt that would have eliminated the underlying Obamacare repeal bill, blocked critical funding for substance abuse and mental health, and lacked due process protections for American citizens," Ayotte spokeswoman Liz Johnson said.
"She instead voted for a measure that allows the Department of Justice to prevent known or suspected terrorists on the terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms while ensuring due process for American citizens who believe they are wrongfully on the list. Similarly, she supports ensuring that those who are on the no fly List, a narrower subset of the terrorist watch list, cannot purchase a firearm, provided there are due process protections for Americans."
But both bills failed, continuing the Washington gridlock on the gun issue even in the wake of the San Bernadino and Paris terrorist-related shootings.
On Sunday night, Obama said in his nationally televised speech:
"Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?"
After Obama's speech, Ayotte tweeted, in apparent agreement, but with a key caveat:
"We need to come together now and pass law (to) stop those on no-fly list from buying guns, with due process for Americans who are wrongfully on list."
Ayotte's tweet, following her votes last week in favor of the Cornyn bill and against the Feinstein bill, prompted criticism from Hassan's campaign and the state Democratic Party.
Hassan spokesman Aaron Jacobs said the governor "strongly supports" the Feinstein bill.
"Maggie Hassan believes it's common sense that a person who is too much of a threat to fly on an airplane should not be permitted to purchase firearms or explosives," he said "Kelly Ayotte's vote to continue allowing known or suspected terrorists to purchase guns and explosives undermines public safety, and it is extremely troubling that Ayotte would put Washington special interests ahead of the safety and security of the people of New Hampshire."
The Democratic Party questioned whether Ayotte was doing the bidding of the powerful National Rifle Association.
The party produced a 2010 NRA questionnaire in which the organization stated that it opposed "the use of secret lists to deny persons their Second Amendment rights" and asked candidates to state whether they agree or disagree with the NRA.
While Ayotte's position on the specific question is unclear, the NHDP pointed out that Ayotte in 2010 received an "A" rating from the NRA.
State Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley asked if her vote against the Feinstein amendment "was the result of a secret 2010 campaign pledge to the NRA."
"The legislation referenced in the NRA questionnaire is the same as what Feinstein proposed, which Kelly opposed," Ayotte spokeswoman Johnson said. "Kelly believes that Americans' constitutional rights should not be denied because of watch lists, which is why she voted to preserve due process protections for Americans who believe they are wrongfully on the terrorist watch list."
Democratic Party spokeswoman Melissa Miller said the Cornyn bill, backed by Ayotte, "is a sham Republican alternative that is backed by the strongest supporters of the NRA in Congress, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and would not actually block those on the terrorist watch list from purchasing weapons. Ayotte should be straightforward with Granite Staters about her true record of putting Washington special interests ahead of the safety of New Hampshire."
Ayotte's campaign responded by criticizing Hassan.
"When our country is facing serious and complex threats around the world, we need leaders who understand these challenges and can make informed decisions about national security. From Gov. Hassan's refusal to call out radical Islamist terrorism to her complete lack of understanding about all the acts of war ISIS has carried out against our country, it's clear that she is woefully ill-equipped to make decisions about keeping our country safe," campaign spokeswoman Chloe Rockow said.
In 2014, the Washington Post, citing the National Counterterrorism Center, a government agency, reported that there were 1.1 million people, many with multiple spelling variations, in the classified database as of December 2013. It also reported there were 47,000 people on the no-fly list, 800 of whom were Americans.


text:
Rebecca Mall is joining WME as a senior marketing executive.
In her newly created role, Mall will oversee marketing and distribution strategy services for WME clients across all platforms including film, television, and digital. Mall's objective will be to help the agency's client base maximize their marketing plans, release strategies and awards campaigns for their upcoming projects.
Mall most recently served as co-president of domestic marketing at Paramount Pictures, where she handled digital, media, brand strategy, analytics and public relations for the studio's releases. During her tenure, she was instrumental in leading marketing efforts for hit films including "Arrival," "Fences," "Daddy's Home 2," "Book Club," "A Quiet Place," "What Men Want," "Bumblebee," "Mission Impossible," and "Rocketman."
Prior to Paramount Pictures, Mall spent more than six years with Google/YouTube, focusing on the company's digital partnerships with film studios and television networks.
She holds an MBA from UCLA and a BA from University of Michigan. Prior to business school, she was in drama development at ABC and NBC Universal.
Mall will be based in the agency's Beverly Hills office.
Source: Read Full Article


text:
I am a storyteller. My inspiration to illustrate grows from my love of stories.
I search for forgotten things… rusty metal, driftwood, objects carried to land by the ocean, old photographs; antique doll parts... items with no purpose.
Then a story comes.
In my studio, I bring these items together until they take shape either in sculpture or on wood panel.
I try to take items that are ugly...and flawed and make them beautiful.
I am self-taught. I try to allow myself to be guided in my art, by my love for history, mythology, religion and folklore.
My sculptures are made with found objects and antique items, shaped together until they take form and gain a sense of personality.
My paintings are made on wood panel with layers of mixed media elements. The process is intuitive. I follow where the painting leads me.
In the process, I hope to make art that conveys depth and humor, darkness and light, humanity and divinity.


text:
One of the things that make celebrities stand out is the nerve to be controversial. One Pierre- Aubameyang, who has been termed one of the quickest strikers, certainly does not lack confidence.
In fact, the Borussia Dortmund player went ahead and compared himself to Jamaican Sprinter Usain Bolt to German paparazzi last summer following reports that he was the fastest soccer player in the pitch.
The 24 year old Gabon striker claims he clocked 3.9 secs on sprinting for 30 metres while he was with the Milan Youth teams and that Bolt only needed 3.78 secs to get to 30 metres when he set the world record in 2009.
The Gunners and Newcastle United were one of the clubs reportedly chasing Aubameyang last summer but the young striker opted for the Champions league finalists since he was their ardent fan.
But there is more to Aubameyang than goals and speed (on and off the pitch). Recently the supersonic striker was clocked doing 74kmh in a 30kmh zone in Germany, although, remarkably, he is only expected to pay a fine of €200 (£169) and lose his driving license for a month.
He has had a number of stunning cars, the worst, arguably, being an acid green Aston Martin DB9 and his latest being a pimped up Porsche Panamera nicknamed the Batmobile in the German press. There is, in fact, a comic-strip theme running through the forward's career.


text:
A big thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane for an ARC of The Woods are Waiting by Katherine Greene. This was my introduction to the author, and the premise was incredibly intriguing. Read on to find out how this thriller fares.
Thriller, Mystery
Cheyenne Ashby has lived under the shadow of her mother's eccentricities all her life. Constance Ashby is the protector of the small town of Blue Cliff, keeping at bay the evil entity that haunts the surrounding forest. When three children are found dead in the forest, out-of-towner Jasper Clinton is convicted. But Cheyenne, unable to bear the weight of her family traditions, superstitions, and responsibilities, leaves her town and turns her back on her mother and on the two people who matter the most to her – Natalie and Jackson.
Five years later, another child goes missing. The event leaves Constance Ashby a wreck. Cheyenne returns to fulfill her duty and take care of her mother. She faces her past once again and tries to rebuild the broken relationships with those that she still loves. But, as Cheyenne and Natalie realize, there's only one way to bury that past and resolve the events that have pushed the town into an increasing frenzy of fear and anger – face the evil that lives in the woods.
Overall Rating:
8 out of 10 stars
9 out of 10 stars
10 out of 10 stars
Primary Element:
10 out of 10 stars for its mystery; 7 out of 10 stars for its thrill
Writing Style:
10 out of 10 stars
Part of a Series:
Highlighted Takeaway:
A great mix of mystery, creepiness, and the emotional struggles that come with life's tough decisions, The Woods Are Waiting is an excellent debut by Katherine Greene, making her an author to watch.
What I Liked:
The Woods Are Waiting does justice to a not-uncommon theme – a small town set in its ways and beliefs, plagued by hauntings of an unknown being, and rife with unrest in the aftermath of tragedy. What it gets right is:
- the characterization of the two protagonists and multiple supporting persons, each holding their own, with their own voice, and their own growth,
- the emotional conflicts that accompany the tough decisions you have to make sometimes and their aftermath,
- the vulnerability and strength in relationships of all kinds,
- the setting, especially that of the forest, and its impact on the people and the events they experience,
- a mystery that keeps you guessing right till the end
What I Didn't Like:
While there was little to specifically dislike in Katherine Greene's debut thriller, the only thing that would have made it better was a little more creepiness. There was significant focus on the 'creature within the woods', but there was just something lacking in the effect the narrative had; it left you curious more than unsettled, which is what I was expecting given the setting and theme.
It also moves steadily, but at a slow(ish) pace, picking up in intensity after the 70% mark. That doesn't in any way affect the outcome, but I definitely found the 'face the evil' aspect to be introduced much later than the blurb had me believe.
Who Should Read It:
You'll enjoy Katherine Greene's work if you like thrillers with emotion and mysteries with supernatural elements. It's perfect for fans of Tim Weaver's David Raker series (because of their similar settings, especially The Dead Tracks) or Mark Edwards (because of their similar themes, especially The Retreat).
Who Should Avoid:
Trigger Warning: The Woods Are Waiting does involve crimes against children, although it is non-violently handled. However, if that's a particularly sensitive topic for you, I'd definitely recommend avoiding this one.
You could also skip this if thrillers with supernatural themes aren't a favorite.
Read It For:
A story that excellently combines a creepy mystery and the complexities of relationships and emotions.
I really enjoyed The Woods Are Waiting and finished it within a couple of days. It's definitely a book that keeps you turning the pages. If you're looking to try a new author with immense potential, you can pre-order your copy of Katherine Greene's debut here. It goes on sale in July 2023.
Share recommendations of your favorite thrillers in the comments below. And, as always, thank you for stopping at The Book Review Station!
This post contains affiliate links. The Book Review Station may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you use these links to purchase books. Thanks!
– Rishika


text:
A Report on Flyboys: a true story of courage Essay
A Report on Flyboys: a true story of courageThe flyboys themselves are only part of this work. Bradley actually discusses not just the flyboy's stories, but all the major events leading to their fateful capture.One major flaw in his work is that he tackles the issue of morality regarding the wartime horrors that occurred; he makes judgements on things that he does not have experience in; his mind could not possibly recreate the proper context in which to make such judgements.
Bradley, it seems, tries to and becomes too sensitive in parts of his work.In his accounts, the author tries mostly to be unbiased; in some areas he succeeds, while in others his work is marred by his attempts to be "nice". Bradley insists on an equivalence in the justifiability of Japanese and American atrocities during World War II, and implies the injustice of the American atrocities committed on the Japanese. The Americans were seen as devils by the Japanese, and Bradley implies that this sentiment of the Japanese is justifiable, in spite of the also great atrocities of the Japanese themselves—the rape, torture, cannibalism, etc.
We Will Write a Custom Essay Specifically
For You For Only $13.90/page!
order now
Bradley's assertion that the United States was ultimately the cause of Japan's atrocities are mere conjecture presented as fact. He tries to justify Japanese behavior during the war, instead of merely presenting it. The author is merely trying to be "fair" in his treatment of the Americans and Japanese, but in doing so he becomes misdirected. Such judgments should be beyond the scope of Bradley's work (and experience).The Japanese atrocities were brought about by official directives, compared to the American atrocities, which were more of the spontaneous kind, a reaction to the Japanese inhumanity. Bradley's comparisons seem out of context, as these seem to imply justifiability as a result of equivalence. It is probably more correct to say that Americans and Japanese do not bear equal guilt; if it is a matter of casualty count, the Japanese are clearly the more horrendous.
The horrors committed by the Japanese are candidly presented, however, and it is clarified once and for all that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justifiable to some extent, as it was likely the only way to put and end to very costly war.Despite all that, his attempts to be unbiased is commendable, a refreshing change from the usual patriotic pro-American diatribe. Bradley is able to demonstrate the human aspect of warfare; the Americans and Japanese are shown in almost equally appalling situations. At the same time, one is also driven to sympathize, at some points, with the Americans and Japanese. This kind of treatment, rather than the hackneyed approach of history textbooks, makes for a fuller appreciation of war's more complex points.Bradley is able to provide a good explanation of Japanese and American behavior, where the Japanese are shown to have patterned their behavior upon Americans, to some extent, regarding colonization and all its finer aspects.
Bradley affirms that it is normal to regard the enemy as "bad," while one's own atrocities are justified.I feel that some things were overemphasized, but in the end, Flyboys is a worthwhile read. The reader is presented with examples of atrocities of war committed by all sides, and it turns out that no side can claim to be in the absolute right. A lesson from the book, or at least a reminder of something everyone knows, is that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."


text:
Read more HEREAttend an online OTF coaching clinic HERE.
This year, grants are focussed on programing that can be delivered remotely or virtually. The grants will help develop programs for older adults and people of all abilities that focus on:
Read more HERE.
Watch the webinar HERE.
25 Simple Ways to Participate in #GivingTuesdayCA - GivingTuesday Canada
Thank you to all of the participants and Course Directors of this year's Certificate in Museum Studies courses for your flexibility as we worked to take our courses online. We are happy that we have been able to deliver six of nine courses online this year.
Three confirmed course cancellations for 2020-2021 are:
Please keep an eye out in December for the release of the 2021-2022 CMS course calendar.
Find out more about the Certificate in Museum Studies Program HERE.
Questions? Email firstname.lastname@example.com
Featuring: Brian Meehan - Executive Director, Museum London Victoria Stasiuk - Owner, Arts and Culture Consulting Mike Baker - Curator, Elgin County Museum
Read more and register HERE.


text:
One of the most often-neglected rooms in the world of interior design and your bathroom needn't be humbled by thoughtless decor decisions. A guest bathroom can speak volumes about your taste and style when you have visitors and your En-suite should be a place of bliss: this is where you bathe away ... » Learn More about How Create a Classy Look In Your Bathroom With Waterfall Taps
Home Improvement
How a New Boiler Can Help To Save Your Money
It's a common occurrence, battling through age-old manuals belonging to an increasingly spluttering and ailing boiler that is stubbornly refusing to do its job. This normally happens at the most inopportune times, such as a Monday morning, desperately trying to get to work, just as a cold snap hits ... » Learn More about How a New Boiler Can Help To Save Your Money
Home Improvement- Is It Safe To Live?
We all know windows and gates are the first range of protection against robbery, still we are not always giving special emphasize on it. There are various kinds of protection gates available, even you can personalize your entrance in accordance to your priority. Most people are unaware of the many ... » Learn More about Home Improvement- Is It Safe To Live?


text:
I'm a sucker for cookies coated in powdered sugar. It adds the best texture and tastes so amazing! This recipe is a favorite, as well as chocolate crinkle cookies, red velvet gooey butter cookies and pistachio cherry meltaways.
When it comes to classic Christmas cookies, these Mexican wedding cookies are at the top of the list. They're the perfect bite size cookie and will literally melt in your mouth. Seriously so delicious!
I love that they're dusted with powdered sugar, resembling mini snowballs. This festive look makes them a great addition to your holiday goodie plates. Everyone always goes crazy over them!
What do you call these cookies?
I polled you guys to see what you call them and I was shocked at how many different variations there were. Here were some of the other names. I'm curious…what do you call them?
- Italian wedding cookies
- Snowball cookies
- Russian tea cakes
- Pecan balls
- Polvorones
How to make mexican wedding cookies
Step 1: Mix butter and powdered sugar
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter for about 1 minute on medium speed. Then mix in 3/4 cup powdered sugar and beat until creamy and smooth. Stir in the vanilla and scrape the sides down.
Step 2: Add flour and pecans
Mix in the flour on low speed until just combined. Then mix in the chopped pecans until combined.
Step 3: Roll and bake
Using a small cookie scoop, scoop the dough into balls. Then place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350°F for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the bottoms are a light brown color. Then let cool on pan for about 5 minutes.
Step 4: Roll in powdered sugar
Place remaining powdered sugar in a bowl. Then roll the warm cookies into the powdered sugar and place on a rack to cool completely. Once cooled, roll again or use a sifter to coat the cookies in the remainder of powdered sugar.
Baking tips
- You don't want the butter to be too soft or else your cookies will spread. I let mine sit out for about 10 minutes prior to beating.
- Use a small cookie scoop (or a Tablespoon) to scoop out the dough. Each cookie sheet will fit about 24 cookies.
- Make sure to roll the cookies in the powdered sugar while they are still warm. The sugar will melt and that's perfectly okay. That's why dipping a second time is important.
- Sift the powdered sugar if it begins to become clumpy.
Storing + Freezing
Room temperature: Store in an airtight container or zip top bag for up to 3 days.
Freezer: Place in a freezer bag or container and store in the freezer for up to 2 months.
More Christmas cookies:
Mexican Wedding Cookie Recipe
These Mexican wedding cookies are so simple and take only 5 ingredients to make! The perfect bite-sized cookie recipe that will literally melt in your mouth.
- 1 cup salted butter (2 sticks)
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole pecans , chopped
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Beat the butter on medium speed for 1 minute. You don't want the butter to be too soft. I usually just set it out for 10 minutes beforehand. Then mix in 3/4 cup powdered sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.
- Then mix in the vanilla. Scrape down the sides.
- Add the flour and mix on low speed just until combined. Then add the chopped pecans and mix until combined.
- Scoop dough using a small cookie scoop or Tablespoon and roll into balls. You can fit 24 per sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until the bottoms are lightly brown. Allow to cool on pan for 5 minutes.
- Place the remaining 3/4 cup powdered sugar in a bowl. Then roll the cookies while they are still warm into the powdered sugar. Then place on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. Once cooled, roll again or use a sifter to sift the remainder of the powdered sugar over top.
- Store in an air tight container for up to 3 days or freeze up to 2 months.
This recipe makes about 40 cookies, will vary depending on size they are rolled.
Calories: 96kcal | Carbohydrates: 9g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 12mg | Sodium: 41mg | Potassium: 17mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 143IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 4mg | Iron: 1mg


text:
- Partnering of
- Phase 1 APN01 to
- €207,000,000
Deal Landscape
- Apeiron Biologics is a biotech company with a focus on biological and immunological approaches to treating life-threatening diseases
- The Company has a broad product portfolio of late- and mid-stage development candidates. One of these products is APN01, a recombinant human Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (rhACE2) therapeutic that was in Phase I development for the treatment of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)
JSB's Role
- Apeiron selected JSB to aid in the identification and selection of a partner for APN01
- JSB orchestrated a competitive auction process in order to drive competition for the product
- GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) emerged as the leading potential partner for the development asset
Successful Close
- JSB's efforts ultimately resulted in a licensing agreement with GSK for £11 million in upfront cash and equity investments, plus milestone payments that could reach £207. million . The agreement also includes royalties on future net sales
- GSK has initiated a Phase IIa study of APN01 in Acute Lung Injury and development work continues to progress


text: This is very nostalgic to me; coz I have been there sitting in a chair listening to people talk. For me to be given this honour to address some young minds is a boon. I noticed they are all very eager to get out in the world as fellow engineer. And we have to guide them in all means necessary. After all they are our little brothers and sister. I am addressing this to any of our alumni who is reading this. Call up your HOD, come back here, meet the young ones and guide them. I bet you you'll have a wonderful time.


text:
It's been more than four months since our first peek at the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog — and those legs — and now comes the time to process the movie's take on Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. Thanks to what appears to be a leak on the eve of the Sonic movie's first trailer, we have a glimpse of Jim Carrey's role as the hedgehog's longtime nemesis.
The image was posted by the Segabits Twitter account, though it doesn't specify the source of the leak. And it's pretty basic: Jim Carrey in a red jacket, sporting a thick mustache, sitting in the cockpit of a ship, and wearing a pair of goggles. It's a simple, straightforward interpretation of the cartoonish Robotnik.
Rumor: First look at Robotnik in the #SonicMovie, trailer releases tomorrow pic.twitter.com/IMf4pjQX6U— SEGAbits (@SEGAbits) April 29, 2019
But there's no rumor about it. Polygon can confirm that that's Robotnik as seen in footage from previously screened trailers for Sonic the Hedgehog. It's legit. Reportedly, Robotnik's look will change over the course of the film, with the leaked image representing the villain at his most normal.
We also expect the first official trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog on Tuesday, April 30, a day of reckoning for Sonic fans.
Sonic the Hedgehog is slated to hit movie theaters on Nov. 8, 2019.


text:
Common Chinese Name (pinyin): 豌豆 (wān dòu)
TCM Five Flavors: Sweet
TCM Energetics: Neutral
Meridian Affinity: Spleen, stomach
Nutritional Science: 成分
- Nutrients: Amino acids, plant lectins, organic acids, vitamin C, thiamin vitamin B1, riboflavin vitamin B2, tocopherol vitamin E, carotene, calcium, and magnesium.
- Function: Improve immune function, anti-carcinogenic, antibacterial, anti-inflammation, increase metabolism, rich in fiber which promotes bowel movement.
TCM Benefits: 功效
- Regulate the Middle and descend Qi
- Promote lactation
- Diuresis and detoxification
- Calm discomfort in spleen and stomach
- Help with nausea and vomiting
- Reduce water retention
Cooking Suggestions: 使用方法
- Made dal, soup, rice.
- We recommend Sigure of Chen Pi and Pea | 陈皮豌豆雪茄
Generally, it is very safe if consumed in moderation.


text:
OBA young lawyers division Event | 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Uniting tomorrow's leaders.
Join us on May 16th at the Gardiner Museum as the OBA's Young Lawyers Division hosts its second annual Young Lawyers Gala - a unique social event designed to bring together the next generation of legal leaders and influencers in the practice and business of law in Ontario. Use this exciting event as an opportunity to make the connections that you will carry with you throughout your career.
Jagmeet Singh, Leader of The New Democratic Party of Canada
CBA Member: $75* | CBA Student Member: $50* | Non-Member: $95*
*plus applicable taxes
Ontario Bar Association
Tele: (416) 869-1047
Toll-free in Ontario
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Web: www.oba.org


text:
This morning I've just been looking through old interiour design magazines, cutting out pages or images that I like and maybe can use as inspiration in the future. Then I glue it on to pages in my big scrap book.
You see, I don't like keeping magazines in piles nor as a decorative detail. It takes up space and also it's much easier to have all your ideas, tips and inspiration gathered in one place/book. So instead I recycle the paper when I'm done reading and cutting in them. It's almost like meditation or therapy for me.


text:
Bug #7531closed
Assign correct flags to prefetched buffers
As discussed (same subject) on developer[at]lists.open-zfs.org :
I found that some buffers that could be L2ARC eligible are not flagged such, leading to some performance impact.
As a test I ran the same IO workload 10 times in a raw.
It is a metadata only workload (files listing).
Here is the activity of my pool disks during this test :
the first scale is in %, not in ms
We can see that the first files' listing takes about 3 hours, during which the SSD cache is fed.
The other runs take about 35 minutes each, read IOs are made from SSD cache but also from HDD disks, cache is no more fed.
After some debugging, I found that the buffers which are not L2-backed are metadata buffers, as the ones which are in the cache, but are not ARC_FLAG_L2CACHE flagged.
I then quickly modified ZFS code to add ARC_FLAG_L2CACHE to each header, and here is the result :
the first scale is in %, not in ms
All IOs now come from the cache, leading to a nice performance improvement. Perfect.
A PR will be proposed soon to correct this issue.
Thank you,
Updated by Ben RUBSON over 6 years ago
Updated by Ben RUBSON almost 6 years ago
Initial mailing list discussion :
Updated by Prakash Surya over 5 years ago
- Subject changed from Buffers not L2 flagged, performance impact to Assign correct flags to prefetched buffers
Updated by Electric Monk over 5 years ago
- Status changed from New to Closed
- % Done changed from 0 to 100
git commit 272952165423c254ad7708f1b3fe2ff0a6ce408b
commit 272952165423c254ad7708f1b3fe2ff0a6ce408b Author: benrubson <email@example.com> Date: 2017-11-09T15:09:45.000Z 7531 Assign correct flags to prefetched buffers Reviewed by: Matthew Ahrens <firstname.lastname@example.com> Reviewed by: Prakash Surya <email@example.com> Approved by: Dan McDonald <email@example.com>


text:
As this month starts winding down we have one more piece of content from our excellent guest editor, Talia Hibbert. In this exclusive interview with She Writes, she talks about her writing routine, her career as an indie author turned traditional and her advice to fellow writers pursuing their dreams while managing chronic illness. This is one you won't want to miss!
My routine is rather boring. It's basically the old faithful: Butt in chair. I get up, deal with the necessities, then sit down at my desk and write until lunch. Any other tasks, work-based or personal, are secondary, so they come after lunch. Unless I'm on a tight deadline—then I write all day!
At school, we had to write a poem about our parental figures for Mother's Day. I wrote one comparing my mum to a lemon, because she cleaned the house with lemon-scented projects. Cleaning is very important to her. She framed it and put it on the wall.
I love the challenges and flexibility of indie publishing. When I started, I balanced my analysis of the market with the time and budget I had available (both of which were quite small) to find a path that would work for me. On top of that, I was developing my craft as a writer. Everything I did was experimental, and I was constantly learning. I'm able to apply each lesson to the next project, and my business has grown in line with my experience. Plus, the indie author community is so tight-knit and great at sharing advice. My journey can best be described as a rollercoaster shared with an amazing group of friends.
I believe I only got a traditional deal because of my indie career. I signed with my agent (Courtney Miller-Callihan at Handspun Literary) as a result of my self-published book A Girl Like Her, and she got my work in front of publishers. Before Courtney, I didn't believe traditional publishers would be interested in the stories I write. Or rather, I thought they'd only be interested in diverse stories from the existing, successful authors who've been doing this for years. But building my platform as an indie gave me a bit of a boost—plus, the industry is becoming slightly more inclusive.
As for the differences—things are way more casual and low-pressure when I'm self-publishing. I'm my own boss, I'm in charge of the schedule, and no-one else is relying on my books to sell.
However, the process of traditional publishing is a breeze compared to indie publishing. I don't have to design my own cover, I don't have to plan my own marketing campaign, I don't have to read reviews to find promo quotes—I can just focus on writing. Plus, my publishing house has so much more knowledge and experience. It's nice to collaborate with people like that instead of making all the key decisions alone. I'm really enjoying myself and learning a lot.
Thank you so much! I'm not a visual person, so this time last year, Instagram was my nemesis. I decided I had to master it to eliminate my personal weak spot—and in the process, I discovered an amazing bookish community on there! With Instagram, you can find tons of content tips and advice online, but what really matters is 1. Choosing a cohesive theme, 2. Making sure everything you post shows readers what you're about and 3. Interacting! Follow bookstagrammers, enjoy and support their content, and chat with everyone who's kind enough to comment on your pictures.
When you have a chronic illness, no matter what your dreams, the first thing you have to do is prioritise yourself and your health. I say this because no-one else will. They won't understand, or they won't want to, so it's 100% up to you. Guard yourself fiercely.
If you're an author, I would say—remember that the magic is in your mind and it's up to you what you do with it. If anyone, including a big-name publisher, demands things you simply can't provide, they're washed. You don't need them, they need you. There are many paths in publishing, which means there'll always be one that fits your needs—and they all lead to success. Never forget that.


text:
by Ralph Nader
Congressional Backbone Needed – The Nader Page
Wednesday, September 24. 2008
Congress needs to show some backbone before the federal government pours more money on the financial bonfire started by the arsonists on Wall Street.
1. Congress should hold a series of hearings and invite broad public comment on any proposed bailout. Congress is supposed to be a co-equal branch of our federal government. It needs to stop the stampede to give Bush a $700 billion check. Public hearings should be held to determine what alternatives might exist to the four-page proposal advanced by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson.
2. Whatever is ultimately done, the bailout plan should not be insulated from judicial review. Remember there is a third co-equal branch of government – the judiciary. The judiciary does not need to review each buy-and-sell decision by the Treasury Department, but there should be some boundaries established to the Treasury Department's discretion, and judicial review is needed to ensure that unbridled discretion is not abused.
3. Sunlight is a good disinfectant. The bailout that is ultimately approved must provide for full and timely disclosure of all bailout details. This will discourage conflicts of interest and limit the potential of sweetheart deals.
4. Firms that accept government bailout monies must agree to disclose their transactions and be more honest in their accounting. They should agree to end off-the-books accounting maneuvers, for example.
5. Taxpayers must be protected by having a stake in any recovery. The bailout plan should provide opportunities for taxpayers to recoup funds that are made available to problem financial institutions or to benefit from the financial institutions' rising stock price and increased profitability after being bailed out.
6. The current so-called "regulators" cannot be trusted. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog," must regularly review the bailout. We cannot trust the financial "regulators," who allowed the slide into financial disaster, to manage the bailout without outside monitoring.
7. It is time to put the federal cop back on the financial services beat. Strong financial regulations and independent regulators are necessary to rebuild trust in our financial institutions and to prevent further squandering of our tax dollars. The Justice Department and the SEC also need to scrutinize the expanding mess with an eye to uncovering corporate crime and misdeeds. Major news outlets are reporting that the FBI is investigating American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers.
8. Cap executive compensation and stop giving the Wall Street gamblers golden parachutes. The CEOs who have created the financial disaster should not be allowed to leave with millions in hand when so many pensioners and small shareholders are seeing their investments evaporate. The taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street so that the financial system continues to function, not to further enrich the CEOs and executives who created this mess.
9. Congress should pass the Financial Consumers' Information and Representation Act, to permit citizens to form a federally-chartered nonprofit membership organization to strengthen consumer representation in government proceedings that concern the financial services industry. As the savings and loan disasters of the 1980s and the Wall Street debacles of the last few years have demonstrated, there is an overriding need for consumers and taxpayers to have the organized means to enhance their influence on financial issues.
10. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, separating traditional banks from investment banks, helped pave the way for the current disaster. It is time to re-regulate the financial sector. The current crisis is also leading to even further conglomeration and concentration in the financial sector. We must revive and apply antitrust principles, so that banking consumers can benefit from competition and taxpayers are less vulnerable to too-big-to-fail institutions, merging with each other to further concentration.
11. Congress should impose a securities and derivatives speculation tax. A tax on financial trading would slow down the churning of stocks and financial instruments, and could raise substantial monies to pay for the bailout.
12. Regulators should impose greater margin requirements, making speculators use more of their own money and diminishing reckless casino capitalism.
Ask your representative a few questions: "What should be done to limit banking institutions from investing in high-risk activities? What should be done to ensure banks are meeting proper capital standards given the financial quicksand that has spread as a result of the former Senator Phil Gramm's deregulation efforts? And, "What is being done to protect small investors?"
P.S. Shareholders also have some work to do. They should have listened when Warren Buffett called securities derivatives a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction." The Wall Street crooks and unscrupulous speculators use and draining of "other people's money" out of pension funds and mutual funds should motivate painfully passive shareholders to organize to gain greater authority to control the companies they own. Where is the shareholder uprising?
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Nader Calls McCain's Move To Postpone Debate 'Political Stunt' Says McCain To Blame For Financial Crisis
Tell Congress: No to Bailout! (Action alerts)
The Economy Sucks and or Collapse
Has Deregulation Sired Fascism? By Paul Craig Roberts
Marc Faber: Let the crisis burn itself out
Three Way Presidential Debate – Obama, McCain, and Nader
"Mortgage Fraud": The Paulson Bail-Out Plan by Richard C. Cook


text:
I was going to include my quick review of Aeronautical Imperialis in this post, but I thought it was long and detailed enough to make its own blog post. So two posts in one week, which is a little unusual for me. The workouts this week are fairly light for the most part. I was feeling a little ground down plus I knew that Saturday was going to be a heavy labor day so I didn't want to be sore or tired going into that.
The pro wrestling referee training continues to go well and as I progress it is becoming a bit more involved and interesting. I still have a lot to learn though and I am developing a new appreciation for referees. I never really thought of them too much 20 years ago when I was wrestling, but like most things the good ones make it look easy.
I've also been active in helping with setup and teardown at shows, as well as working event security, which are all things I've done plenty of in the 90s and early 2000s when I was involved in wrestling before. The picture below is from the main event match at a show I helped out at on April 9th in San Francisco, California.
Sun, April 3rd
Had a nice rest day with my husband.
Calories: 1920, Protein: 135 g.
Mon, April 4th
- (Wake-Up Workout) We followed along to The Jack Lalane Show, DVD 3, Episode 1.
- (Morning) Recumbent Bike: 30 Minutes, Hill Program, Level 10, RPMs: 80+. I stretched a little afterward.
- In the evening I went to referee class for 2 hours.
Calories: 2000, Protein: 152 g.
Tues, April 5th
- (Wake-up) Recumbent Bike: 30 Minutes, Aerobic Program, Level 7, RPMs: 70+. Afterward, I did one minute on the balance board.
- Afternoon (Physical Therapy Exercise Giant Set at Home)
- Monster Walks (blue band): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Lateral Band Walks (green band): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Squats with Resisted Hip Abduction (green band): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Step Up With Knee Raise (alternating legs, 2-ct): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Standing Hip Abduction (cable): 7.5 lbs. x 2 sets x 10 reps
- Standing Hip Extension (cable): 7.5 lbs. x 2 sets x 10 reps
- I stretched for an hour, which included my PT stretches/foam roller work for my leg and back, as well as the "Back/Shoulder Flexibility for Beginners" video by Dylan Werner on Alomoves.
- In the evening, we went for a short walk in the forest for about 30 minutes.
Calories: 1919, Protein: 138 g.
Another picture from the April 9th show — this time the women's tag team match. This is a return grudge match from the previous February show in San Jose, CA where the wrestler in the orange skirt and the one in black, choking her opponent on the ropes, had a major disagreement. In general, I've noticed that they don't like each other very much.
Wed, April 6th
I didn't work out at all today and also slept in a bit. Instead, I stretched a little and spent an hour in our massage chair.
Calories: 1899, Protein: 134 g.
Thur, April 7th
I did some stretching in the morning and again in the evening. I wanted to do the weight circuit today but my body was still a bit sore and tired so I listened to it. I did do a little gripper training though.
- (Afternoon) CoC Gripper (Trainer, 100 lbs.):
- (Left Hand) 2mm x 1+4 reps x 2 sets, 2+3 reps, 1+4 reps, 0 + 5 reps
- (Right Hand) Closed x 3+2 reps, 2+3 reps, 3+2 reps, 2+3 reps, 1+4 reps
Did some more stretching in the evening.
Calories: 1896, Protein: 111 g.
Fri, April 8th
I'm keeping things easy today because I'm going to be putting in a lot of labor tomorrow at the wrestling show. With the stuff going on with my knee and back I have to be especially careful to pick when I'm going to grind these days.
- (Wake-up) We followed along to the Jack Lalane Show, DVD 3, Episode 5.
- (Morning) Recumbent Bike: 30 Minutes, Manual Program, Level 5, RPMs: 70+.
- Afterward, I did one minute on the balance board, then a quick, one-set complex of Dead Bugs (2-ct) x 20 reps, One-Leg Up Crunches* x 20 reps, High Block Drill (2-ct) x 20 reps, Low Block Drill (2-ct) x 20 reps, Elbow Plank for 30 seconds.
- (Afternoon at the Physical Therapy Office) Started by getting some massage around the knee and some ultrasound therapy. Warmed up with the recumbent bike. Then I did two sets of each exercise, with no rest between exercises, before moving on to the next.
- Step Up With Knee Raise (alternating legs, 2-ct): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Monster Walks (blue band): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Lateral Band Walks (blue band, both directions): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Squats with Resisted Hip Abduction (blue band): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Standing Hip Extension (green band, each leg): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Seated Leg Press: 335 lbs. x 2 sets x 10 reps
- Bird Dips** (each leg): 2 sets x 10 reps
- Finished with some stretches, ice, and the muscle electric stimulation machine.
- Stretched again in the evening and used the new high-density foam roller that came in the mail today.
Calories: 1957, Protein: 120 g.
Sat, April 9th
Today was a heavy day of labor since I helped with set up and tear down for a wrestling show in San Francisco. I also worked security at the event. It is always a challenge to eat properly working away from home for the day when I'm concentrating on weight loss. What I do is pre-plan what I'm going to eat the day before, prepare it, and carry everything with me so my food choices don't fall to chance or I also bring along some extra "emergency supplies" in case I'm hungrier than expected, which today I was with all of the labor I put in.
Calories: 2458, Protein: 174 g.
I lost 1.25 lbs. this week. My total loss is 13.625 lbs. over eight weeks for an average of 1.7 lbs/week. My calorie intake for the week was 14,049.
* The one-leg crunches are a variation I learned some years ago when I was taking Tae Kwon Do locally in-person. It is like a normal crunch except you extend one leg straight up into the air and keep the other foot planted on the ground.
** This looks a lot like a One-Legged Dead Lift but without the weights.


text:
Yes, it's the holidays and these reds are the bomb and will make you look like a bombshell! Get one, give one!
Next up is the Nude pallet from Maskara Beauty! This is literally for everyone you know that wears lipstick! These are everyday all day! Both of these bundles can be used on eyes, lips and cheeks! I promise they don't disappoint!
Another treat for yourself or someone on your list is this Bella Bundle. I have shared this bronzer before and I will again. This is the best I have ever used and trust me I've used them all! It's natural-looking and beautiful! This brush comes too and it's perfection 🙂
Looking for more makeup inspiration or maybe gifts to give to friends and family? Make sure you like and follow our Facebook page here, follow us on Instagram, or follow the blog. We only post 2 – 3 times a week and don't use your information for anything other than our blog posts. C'mon – join in on the fun this holiday season!


text:
This paper describes the user interface to Direction Assistance, a program which provides high quality directions for driving between two points in the Boston area. The interface employs synthetic speech and touch tone input to provide access to telephone callers. The interface is able to diagnose common user errors and explain itself to the user. This paper also discusses some of the problems of synthetic speech for this type of interface. The most significant limitation of presently available speech synthesizers is the lack of ability to specify prosodic features.[*1].
Direction Assistance [3] is an program that provides directions for automobile travel within the Boston area. The program has a detailed street map covering about 11 square miles, with about 279 miles of streets, including bridges, tunnels, and one way streets. A routing algorithm produces routes that are both short and simple. A text generation program provides natural language descriptions of these routes. A graphics interface displays routes on a map. The task of the voice interface is to make this power available to naive users through the telephone, by using synthetic speech and and touch tone keypad.
The overall structure of Direction Assistance is shown in figure 1.
The Location Finder obtains the locations of the start and destination, the Route Finder produces a route which is both direct and easily followed. The Describer produces a tour, a description of the route, and the Narrator recites the tour to the user in manageable chunks. The Location Finder and Narrator are the modules that communicate with the user. Both use a common set of interface routines to provide for a uniform interface.
The Location Finder and the Narrator differ in their behavior, because the Location Finder is input oriented, while the Narrator is output oriented. The Location Finder needs to obtain two locations, and it does this by asking questions and soliciting input. The user can specify location by giving either a street number and name, or by giving a telephone number (the program's data base includes an inverted phone book). It needs to get several different types of input - answers to yes or no questions, telephone numbers, street numbers and names. It has little to say, other than to guide the user through the input process.
The Narrator, on the other hand, has a lot to say, and needs no input from the user. Its main concern is flow control, making sure that it is going as fast as the user can write, but no faster. Both of these modules also have the secondary goals of keeping the user oriented within the interaction and recovering from errors
Direction Assistance is designed to be used by people with no experience with computers or synthetic speech. Almost every American is at least familiar with the concept that computers might talk, but they are not experienced with interfaces built with present day technology. There are lots of ways to go wrong. The interface tries to forestall some of them with its initial message:
This is Direction Assistance. I can speak to you, but I can not hear your voice. To tell me anything, you must use the keypad on your telephone. If you get confused any time while you're using me, hit the key with the star or asterisk,
The initial message conveys two important ideas. First it tells users how to communicate. Until recently, people expected to use the telephone to talk with people. Nowadays, people are beginning to get used to having "conversations" with answering machines, which speak, and then listen. Very few people know how to interact with a program that speaks often, but listens only for button pushes.
The second idea is that there is always help available, and always in the same way, by hitting the "star" key. This is a surprisingly difficult concept to convey. Examination of the log shows that many of users never used the help key, and this was even true for people who daily used computer systems that had "Help" keys. There are several reasons this might be so. First, this initial message is unexpected, and may have caught people by surprise. Second, the message has no direct relevance to the task at hand, and people may have been too impatient to listen to it. Much of the testing was done with a much longer message (nearly one minute) and this surely taxed people's concentration. Finally, people may not have understood what "star" meant. It is hard to find names for the keys without numbers. Some people prefer "asterisk". The "number sign" key is even worse, being called "pound sign", "sharp sign", "hash" or even "tic tac toe" by different people.
There are four types of input Direction Assistance needs from the user: answers to yes or no questions, selection from a small list of items, numbers, and names. We now consider each in turn.
The interface poses a yes or no question by stating a possibility and requesting the user to hit any key if it is true, thus for example "If you want to enter a different address, please hit any key now." If the user takes no action within a sage always includes the consequence of the "no" if it is not obvious. This protocol is easier to use than one that requires an explicit action for either "yes" or "no", but can be slower, since the user has to wait for the full duration allowed if the answer is no. This duration must be long enough for the user to make a decision.
Selection means choosing one of a small list of items. There are two types of selection. In a sequential selection the system slowly reads a list of choices, pausing briefly after each, until the user designates one by striking a key. This is effectively a yes or no question ("Do you want this one?") for each element of the list. In an enumerated selection the system reads the entire list, assigning each item a number, then asks the user to hit the key for the number of the desired item. Each type of selection has its advantages and disadvantages,
Sequential selection is simple to use but can be very slow, since the user may have to listen to several undesired choices before hearing the one wanted. A second problem is that the user may not know which choice is the best without hearing them all. For this reason, if the user makes no selection, the selection routine offers to repeat the list,
Enumerated selection is harder to use than sequential selection because the user must remember and enter a number. The compensation for this complexity is that it can be faster than sequential selection. There are two reasons for this. First, the list is read faster, since the system need not pause to await a user action while reading. More importantly, if the user already knows the order of the options she can enter the number immediately, without waiting for the list to be read. An enumerated selection is appropriate when the same list of choices will be presented more than once.
There are two types of numbers in this application, phone numbers and street address numbers. Phone numbers are entered in the familiar manner. The system simply collects the next seven button pushes. Street numbers require a delimiter, since the number of digits is not predictable. The delimiter is the number sign, since the only other key is the help key. Both phone numbers and street numbers require some additional checking, described below.
The user selects street names by spelling them with the letters on the keypad. There are three reasons this is difficult: First, people are not familiar with the layout of the letters - they have to "hunt and peck" for letters. Second, the letters Q and Z, and the space character are missing. These are assigned to the 1 key, which bears no letters[*2]
The third problem is that each of the keys has three different letters, and there is no obvious way for the user to designate which of the three is intended. Other systems have resolved this problem by using more than one button push per character, either with a shift sequence (e.g using keys *, 0, and # to select one of the letters.) or by hitting a key N times to select the N'th letter upon it. Direction Assistance is able to bypass this problem because the set of all street names in Boston is much smaller than the set of all digit sequences. A given digit sequence will almost always specify only one street name. If it does not (e.g. "MILL" and "MILK") the system asks the user to make a sequential selection among them. Witten [13] found 8% collisions in a 24,500 word dictionary when using this approach. In this application there are much smaller number of collisions, just eight out of 1000 names. This is both because of the smaller size of the set and because street names are longer than dictionary words. The mean length of a street name is seven characters.
A telephone interface is harder to use than a graphics interface (such as a form filling environment or a menu) because there is no context present while the user is entering data. The interface always prompts for input, but the user may not understand the prompt because of noise, inarticulate speech, or inattention. Even if the prompt is correctly heard, it must also be remembered, for it is not present during the time the user is entering the data. In a graphics environment the prompt remains visible.
The problems, then, are that the user may not know what to enter or how to delimit it. Neither of these are explicitly indicated, other than in the prompt.[*3] If a closing delimiter is expected, and none arrives after a fixed delay, a timeout occurs, and the interface reminds the user that a delimiter is required.
The interface is more complicated than it needs to be, because there is no way to detect whether the caller has hung up the phone. A user might hangup through frustration, or to recover from an error, or by accident. The only sign of a hangup is that no input is received. This means that every routine that expects input must have a timeout, such that if no input occurs, the user is deemed to have hung up. This timeout adds a further complication, since the system should not hang up if the user is merely slow, so in every case where a timeout occurs, the system first asks the user to indicate her presence by striking any key. This is described by [5] as a channel checking dialogue. This dialogue can be a problem, too, since it introduces a timing condition in input: when the dialogue occurs the user may be uncertain which keystrokes count as part of the channel checking dialogue and which are considered to be part of the numeric input.
The task of the Location Finder is to get the locations of the origin and destination of the traveler. Logically, the task is as shown in Figure 2. The actual interaction can be more complicated than this. Interaction complications arise from deficiencies in the program's database, inherent ambiguities in input, and user errors. This section discusses these problems, and concludes with an annotated transcript of the Location Finder, showing error recovery.
The first source of complication is that Direction Assistance is not omniscient. The database covers only a limited area of Boston, and is not complete even within that area. The user may enter an address outside the known area, or a phone number that is not in the phone book. In the former case, the user will probably hang up, since the program can't give directions to a place it doesn't know, but in the latter the user may be able to supply an address. So the first complication is the need to recover from a failure to comprehend a location,
The program has a few special case checks for phone numbers that are outside the local area. If the first digit of the number is 1, the program informs the user that the 1 is superfluous. The first three digits of a phone number specify the local office, and are sufficient to tell whether the number is outside the area covered. If the first three digits are not recognized, the program informs the user that the number isn't known, suggests the possibility that the user was entering an area code, and asks for the number again. This is useless, of course, if the user really intended a distant number, but helpful for typing errors.
The second problem is that a street address may not be unique. The interface accepts only the name of a street, and not the type (e.g. "Street", "Avenue", "Place", etc.), so an entry such as "10 Beacon" is not unique. This problem can can also occur when the user enters a phone number, if the phone book entry does not include a street type. This situation is an example of partial incomprehensibility as described in [5]. The system informs the user of the problem, and asks for a sequential selection from the alternatives.
A street address can be made precise either by asking for the town or neighborhood (by place) or by asking for the type of the street. Some ambiguities are better resolves by place, and others by type. If there are three instances of a street, with two in one city, and the third in a second city, then asking for the city is not enough to resolve the reference fully. If the three streets are all of different type, it is better to ask for the type. The interface uses whichever will yield the most information, A sequential selection is employed,
Places can be named by city or by neighborhood. When resolving by place, the system always uses the least specific name for a locale that suffices distinguishes the street from others. Thus if two streets are different cities, the city name is used, but if both are in the same city, the neighborhood name is used. The neighborhood of a street is obtained by using the sip codes of the street as an index into a database of neighborhoods, organized as a tree.
The interface could have been designed to always collect this additional information, but that would have unposed a cost on every user. In addition, this method is faster, since the clarification dialog requires at most two sequential selections, instead of spelling both street type and city name.
The most troublesome part of the Location Finder is the selection of the type of location to be entered (phone or street address). A user might forget this step, or might enter to wrong value. The interface handles all these cases. If the user skips the selection, then the next keystroke will be part of either a phone number or a street address number. If the number doesn't begin with 1 or 2, the selection routine will detect the error. If it does, than it will appear to be a valid selection, and the system will then prompt the user for one of these two things. The prompt itself may be enough to inform the user of the error. II not, there are four cases:
The user is entering a phone number, and the first digit is 1. The system is expecting a phone number, because the user hit 1. The user begin to enter the phone number. After three digits have been read, the interface checks that the exchange is known to the system. If it isn't, an error message is issued, and the user must begin again.
The user is entering a phone number, and the first digit is 2. The system is now expecting an address number. The address number input routine assumes that street numbers in Boston never exceed four digits, so when the fifth digit is entered, an error message is issued,
The user is entering a street address number, and the first digit is 1. The system is expecting a phone number. When the user strikes number-sign to delimit the number, the phone number routine complains with the message "I thought you were entering a phone number, but you just entered a number sign, which you use only for addresses. If it was an accident, you can continue with the phone number, otherwise, enter number-sign again, and then you can enter the address.".
The user is entering a street address number, and the first digit is 2. Effectively, the first digit of the street address number is lost. The system does not detect this error. When the user strikes number sign, the system repeats the number. The user has a chance to abort the entry during the spelling of the street name, as described below.
This error checking is only possible because phone numbers and street address numbers have different syntax. A phone number is always seven digits, and the first three are chosen from a limited set. A street address number is always less than five digits, and is always delimited by a number-sign.
The user may detect an error while still entering data. The most frequently detected error is to find oneself in the wrong mode, that is, the user intends to enter an address, but the system expects a phone number, or vice versa. It is difficult to allow the user to correct mistakes, because there is no spare key to use for corrections. Star is reserved for help, and number-sign is sometimes is used for a delimiter (for numbers and names). The best solution is to use different abort conventions for the different types of input. The number sign key is always an abort key for phone numbers, and the zero is always an abort for names. For street numbers one aborts by entering star twice. This complication seems to be only way to provide the needed features.
Since the error correction mechanisms are not elegant, the initial prompts do not describe them. Instead, they are described by the "help" routines. If the user does not know how to correct an error, she will either hit "help", or will pause long enough for a timeout to occur, and this in turn will remind her to hit "help".
If the user makes a mistake that is not syntactically invalid (enters the wrong phone number, spells a differ- ent street) there is no way for the system to detect the error. Nor does the system confirm the location with the user. It was felt that adding a confirmation step (a yes o no question) would be too troublesome for the user. (In retrospect, this was a mistake.)
What follows is an annotated transcript of a dialog with the Location Finder. This dialog shows a few of the error recovery mechanisms in the interface. Audio output is shown in this font, keypad input like this, and comments are in italics
|Tell me where you are now. You can give me either a telephone number or an address. If you know the number of your phone, and it is not a payphone. then enter 1. Otherwise enter 2 and I'll give you further instructions
|This is an example of an enumerated selection
|Enter the phone number
|The user realizes she's made a mistake, but doesn't know what to do. A long pause ensues, and the input times out.
|For help enter *
|The first layer timeout handler simply reminds the user how to get help.
|You are entering a phone number for your origin. So far you've entered 867. If you make a mistake, or if you don't want to enter a phone number, enter number sign.
|This restarts the Location Finder.
|Enter 1 for a phone number, 2 for an address.
|The system uses a shorter prompt the second time. This prompt also serves as implicit confirmation of the abort from entering a phone number.
|Enter the phone number
|876-1111. 245 First Street, Cambridge.
|Confirms the entry and gives the location.
|Tell me where you want to go. Enter 1 for a phone number, 2 for an address.
|Shorter prompt.
|The user intends to enter an address but forgets to preface it with 2.
|Wait! If you want to enter a phone number, you must first dial 1. If you want to enter an address, you must dial 2.
|The enumerated selection routine detects this error, unless the number begins 1 or 8, in which case other handlers detect the error.
|Enter the number of the address, followed by number sign.
|The user forgets to enter a closing delimiter. Pause and timeout.
|So far the number is 33. If you're through, enter number sign. Otherwise, please continue. If you make a mistake enter star.
|Echoes the street number
|Spell the name of the street, followed by another number-sign. Spell the entire name, but don't include words like Avenue or Street.
|33 Edinboro St, Boston.
|Only one name is "spelled" that way, and only street in the area is named `Edinboro". No disambiguation is required.
Recall that the output of the Describer is a tour, a sequence of actions to make to get from start to finish along the route. The task of the Narrator is to read the lines of the tour, one at a time, while the user writes them down. It is necessary that the system be able to repeat lines and to go back to the beginning of the directions. After each line, the user makes an enumerated selection for one of three actions: repeat the line, move to the next, or start over. This is the most important use of enumerated selection in the interface, since this selection is made many times per session.
Synthesis of speech by rule is essential for this application, because the text to be spoken is not known ahead of time, But synthesis by rule has drawbacks. Synthetic speech is harder to understand than recorded natural speech, and understand synthetic speech imposes extra more cognitive load on the listener [7,8]. Text to speech rules mispronounce some words. This section examines these problems and the solutions used here. This interface used a Digital Equipment Corporation Dectalk, but all available synthesizers have similar problems.
The problem of intelligibility is most acute when reading directions. Names must be decoded on an acoustic phonetic basis alone. Neither syntax, semantics, nor pragmatics provide any constraint on names. The names of streets are usually unfamiliar to the user. Distances are similarly unconstrained. The Narrator copes with this by spelling all names in a line whenever the user asks the line to be repeated.
The Dectalk's pronunciation rules are good but not infallible for ordinary English. Perhaps a dozen words required either explicit phonetic pronunciations or explicit stress. For example, in this application, the word "address" is a noun, not a verb. A more annoying problem is that the rules are quite poor on proper names. Spiegel found that about 29% of surnames were pronounced incorrectly 112]. 1 found a similar result: The Dectalk's pronunciation was unacceptable for 220 of the approximately 1000 names. For these words, the interface uses the Dectalk's exceptional pronunciation dictionary facility. Ken Church has suggested that pronunciation of proper nouns might be improved by attention to etymology [1].
Prosodics refers to variations in pitch and timing of words. It can be difficult to obtain natural prosody with the Dectalk. Errors of prosody may simply sound unnatural, though comprehendable, or they may introduce great confusion into the interaction. Prosodics affect both the lexical content and the state of the entire interaction.
It is a fact of English intonation that the final word in a compound street name is stressed (e.g. First `Avenue, First `Boulevard) unless the word is "Street". Lists of letters also require special care. Since isolated letters are easily confused, they must be read slowly. Pitch is adjusted up at the beginning of the list, and downward just before the last element of the list.
Rhetorical constructions also required extra work on their prosodics. The error message given above ("If you want to enter a phone number, you must first dial 1. If you want to enter an address, you must dial 2.") uses a parallel construction. To be most easily understood, it should be spoken with accent on the digits.
Prosodics are also used to indicate the state of the discourse. The error message just mentioned is prefaced by an exclamatory "Wait!". This message is an interruption, not a response, so the emphatic tone produced by the exclamation mark tells the user that something unusual has happened, that something is wrong. In this case the Dectalk's prosodics were just what was needed.
A second discourse function of prosodics is the marking of turn endings. In this application, the interface is the only party speaking, so the issue of turn endings reduces to informing the user when input is required and also when input is not required. In natural conversation people use a mixture of cues from syntax, pragmatics, and prosodics to recognize the end of a speaker's turn, and the opportunity or obligation to reply [9] [10]. The limited prosodics of synthetic speech deprive the interface of one powerful method of indicating the state of the conversation. This leads to a problem most obvious when the system asks a yes or no question. A typical question, e.g. "If you want to enter a different address, hit any key now. Otherwise I'll ask for a new street name." is best expressed as two sentences, one for each alternative, but users often answer as soon as the first sentence is complete, lacking any cue that indicates that the turn is not finished.
Turn taking is even more of a problem for the Narrator. The interface requires the user to hit a key in order to hear the next set of instructions. Since an instruction may be several sentences long, the user has no syntactic clue as to when a chunk has ended. As a result, users do not always understand that the system is waiting for them instead of the other way around.
Prosodic tuning is not difficult. The Dectalk provides a variety of means to affect the pitch and timing of utterances, including inserting explicit pauses between words or inserting stress or de-emphasis markers, or by altering the comma pause duration, or using the `pitch change" characters. The difficulty is simply that so much of it is required, and the means are not very powerful. The Dectalk does allow the programmer to explicitly designate duration and pitch for a phoneme, but this facility is impractical, since any attempt to do so imposes a monotone pitch on all unlabeled phonemes. It is not possible to supply a pitch contour for only a portion of the utterance
It is not surprising that the Dectalk's rules fail to provide natural prosody, since its production would require full comprehension of the matter to be synthesized, and this is clearly not to be expected. What would be a reasonable next step for products like the Dectalk, or systems that use them, would be to allow the programmer to explicitly mark the utterance for, e.g. rhetorical construction, and to employ intonational rules to synthesize the correct pitch contours for the desired effect. Research is required to discover both useful representations for this information and rules for synthesizing the correct intonation given the required marking. Such work is underway here at the Media Lab and also at Bell Labs [6,2].
A second main area of research is to provide a more natural method for listener control of speaker output. When people listen to spoken directions they typically use much more subtle means to let the speaker know how fast to go, or when to pause - they make inarticulate noises which we usually notate as "uh-huh" or "mm-hmm", sounds we call paraverbals or back channels 114]. A program capable of recognizing and responding to listener's paraverbals would be much more natural than one which used keypad presses. This is now a subject for research at the Media Lab[11]
Synthetic speech and key pad input are sufficient for construction of a robust and easy to use interface that can gather a wide range of types of data input. Research into synthesis of prosody by rule will make programming interactive systems easier. Until such systems are available, speech synthesizers should allow programmers to specify prosody explicitly. Recognition of listener paraverbals will make more natural interfaces possible.
Direction Assistance was written by the author and Thomas Trobaugh during the summer of 1985. I am grateful to those who tested the interface and made useful suggestions, and to Thinking Machines Corporation for supporting this work. Further development has occurred at the Speech Research Group at the Media Lab. At this writing, one version of Direction Assistance is part of the `Age of Intelligent Machines" exhibit touring science museums across the United States, and another is installed at the Computer Museum in Boston. These installations differ from the one described in this paper in that they do not have a telephone number to address database.
*1 This is a revised and expanded version of a paper that appeared in the Proceedings of the American Voice I/O Society conference of September 1986. The interface has changed, hopefully for the better, since the time this paper was written. This memo also supercedes an earlier memo titled "Giving Directions". The principle changes have been to add references to newer work.
*2 In newer versions of the program, Q is on the 7 key, with PRS, and Z on the 9 key, with WXY.
*3 One possible solution is to employ acoustic icons, as discussed in [4] The system might play a faint dial tone to indicate that a phone number was expected, and ambient street noise to indicate that an address was expected.
[1] Ken Church. Stress assignment in letter to sound rules for speech synthesis. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pages 246-253, July 1985.
[2] James R. Davis and Julia Hirschberg. Automatic generation of prosodic support for discourse structure. In Proceedings of the Association for Computational Linguistics , page (submitted), 1988.
[3] James R. Davis and Thomas F. Trobaugh. Direction Assistance Technical Report 1, MIT Media Laboratory Speech Group, Dec 1986.
[4] William W. Gayer. Auditory icons: using sound in computer interfaces. Human Computer Interaction 2(2):168-177, 1986.
[5] Phillip J. Hayes and Raj Reddy. Steps towards graceful interaction in spoken and written man-machine communication. Int I. Man-Machine Studies, 19:231-284, 1983.
[6] Julia Hirschberg and Janet Pierrehumbert. The intonational structure of discourse. In Proceedings of the Association for Computational Linguistics pages 136-144, July 1986.
[7] Paul A. Luce, Timothy C. Feustel, and David B. Pisoni. Capacity demands in short-term memory for synthetic and natural speech. Human Factors, 25(1):17-32, 1983.
[8] David B. Pisoni, Howard C. Nusbaum, and Beth 0. Greene. Perception of synthetic speech generated by rule. Proceedings of the IEEE, 73(11):1665-1676, Nov 1985.
[9] Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4):696-735, 1974. Reprinted in Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, J. Schenken, ed., Academic Press 1978.
[10] Deborah Schaffer. The role of intonation as a cue to turn taking in conversation. Journal of Phonetics, 11:243-257, 1983.
[11] Chris Schmandt. Employing voice back channels to facilitate audio document retrieval. In Proceedings ACM Conference on Office Information Systems, 1988. (to appear)
[12] Murray F. Spiegel. Pronouncing surnames automatically. In Proceedings of 1985 Conference, American Voice I/O Society, Sept 1985.
[13] Ian H. Witten. Principles of Computer Speech. Academic Press, 1982.
[14] Victor H. Yngve. On getting a word in edgewise. In Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting, pages 567- 578, Chicago Linguistics Society, 1970.