text:
The PHOTON Projects
In 1994, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the first Advanced Technology Education (ATE) grants with the goal of improving technician education at two-year colleges and forming partnerships between academic institutions and industry. In 1995, the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) in Boston, Massachusetts received its first ATE grant, a project to prepare teachers to introduce fiber optic technology to secondary and postsecondary students in the six New England states. The work of the first grant was adapted and expanded by three subsequent ATE grants. The impact of these projects has grown in technical breadth and geographical extent to include all of photonics technology and teachers and faculty from Maine to Hawaii. Through our work with the optics/photonics societies OSA and SPIE, our impact has spread throughout the globe.
Fiber Optic Technology Education Project (FOTEP) 1995 – 1998
The first of the NEBHE photonics-related ATE projects increased the number of secondary schools and colleges (primarily two-year community colleges) prepared to introduce fiber optics technology to their students. Over a period of 30 months, FOTEP worked with teachers and faculty from more than 40 schools in a series of workshops, providing curriculum, materials, technical assistance and a unique opportunity to network with other educators and fiber optic industry personnel.
Key FOTEP Outcomes:
- Modules, courses and programs in fiber optic technology were developed at New England high schools and colleges
- Over 60% of FOTEP faculty participants built contacts and partnerships with local fiber optics businesses.
- Strong collaboration between high school and college level instructors promoted.
- A lab kit was developed for fiber optic laboratory experiments and a set of fiber optics instructional materials was developed.
PHOTON 2000 – 2003
PHOTON addressed photonics education on a number of fronts. Of primary importance was increasing the number of teachers who had the knowledge and skills to teach photonics technology. Although ATE programs are focused on two-year colleges, PHOTON recognized that the pipeline of college students starts well before college admission, perhaps even before secondary school. For this reason, project PHOTON included middle and high school teachers as well as college faculty. This cross-grades collaboration resulted in the development of educational pathways in science education to help students achieve as they progressed through the educational system. Project PHOTON also included guidance counselors in the professional development workshops. Counselors gained new knowledge on available career options and provided outreach to students interested in math, science and technology careers.
Key PHOTON Outcomes:
- 39 New England schools participated, with teachers from middle schools, high schools and community colleges.
- A mentored email Listserv was established that is still active today with more than 100 education and industry members.
- The FOTEP lab kit was expanded to include components for experiments with lasers and 25 laboratory experiments in basic & applied optics were developed and field-tested.
- A series of 13 optics-focused "Explorations" suitable for middle school science labs were developed.
- High schools, community colleges and local industry created stronger bonds leading to joint activities such as field trips, job
PHOTON2 Project (2003-2006)
PHOTON2 gave educators the necessary skills and resources to implement and teach photonics courses by producing an introductory textbook and other materials and a distance-learning program for educators. Like PHOTON, PHOTON2 established Alliances between local high schools and colleges to provide seamless integration between their STEM curricula. Educators from eight geographic locations were brought together to facilitate photonics technology education in their local institutions to develop educational pathways for students.
Key PHOTON2 Outcomes:
- Web-based professional development course, "Introduction to Photonics."
- Instructional materials, including a 15 chapter textbook, Light – Introduction to Optics and Photonics. _URL_
- A field-tested, industry-quality laboratory equipment kit, with 25 exercises and lab demo videos.
- Support by local industry for instructors and students.
Local,paid summer internships in the photonics industry during 2005 and 2006 for teachers and counselors.
- A capstone "Showcase" workshop in 2006 held in collaboration with SPIE.
This project developed materials for teaching optics/photonics through Problem-Based Learning, a student-centered pedagogy that teaches structured problem-solving at the same time as content.
Find out more about PHOTON PBL and Problem Based Learning here PHOTON PBL


Prashanth Jayaram
Create mongoDB external table
Data Virtualization with MongoDB using PolyBase in SQL Server 2019
October 9, 2020 by
In this article, you'll learn the approach to integrate MongoDB data source using data virtualization technique in SQL Server 2019. In this article, you can see how SQL Server 2019 provides a platform to create a modern enterprise data hub using data virtualization technology and the PolyBase technique.
 1. Discuss Data Virtualization
 2. Pre-requisite to setup MongoDB
 3. Set up MongoDB external connection in SQL Server 2019
 4. Many more…
The advent of Data virtualization in SQL Server 2019 allows us to solve modern and complex data challenges. Data virtualization with PolyBase in SQL Server 2019 is used as a data hub, and you can directly query the data from several heterogeneous data sources. These data sources include Azure Managed Instance, Oracle, Teradata, SAP HANA, MongoDB, Hadoop clusters, Cosmos DB, and SQL Server. We can query the data source using T-SQL and without separately installing driver software.
The data virtualization in SQL Server 2019 is an improvised solution to the ETL process. The other advantage of Data virtualization is that it allows the integration of data from different sources such as Azure MI, SQL Server, MongoDB, Oracle, DB2, Cosmos DB, and Hadoop-Distributed-File-System (HDFS) without the much data movement around the source and destination. This process is possible with the advent of PolyBase connectors.
 - Using T-SQL, we can query heterogeneous data sources using PolyBase connectors. This provides the bridge to query the data from external data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, MongoDB, and ODBC data sources with external tables
 - It also supports the UTF-8 encoding format
Get started:
In this section, you will learn how to create secure data access from the underlying data source.
In this case, PolyBase uses the security model of the MongoDB model to access the data. In most cases, we need permission to read the data. However, the credentials used to read the data and it is stored inside the PolyBase data hub.
To set-up data virtualization, follow the below steps:
 1. Setup database master key
 2. Create database-scoped credentials
 3. PolyBase external tables
 4. Configure External data sources
To configure database virtualization, select the database. Right-click the database and select Create External Table that starts the data virtualization wizard.
 1. Select a data source
 2. Create a database master key
In this section, we will see how to create a database master key. The master key is created inside the SQL Server database and it acts as a data hub.
The master key is providing a secure way to read data using the credentials in the external data source. It is always recommended to choose a complex password for the master key. In addition, use the BACKUP MASTER KEY command to back up the master key.
 1. You can have one master key in a database instance
 2. Use a secure location to backup the master key
 3. If you already have the master key created in your SQL instance—re-use it. The same master key is used to secure data access for data virtualization
 4. To see whether the master key is already created run the following query
 Display Sysmetric_keys details
Syntax to create a database master key is as follows:
Database scoped credentials
Database scoped credentials provide the abstraction layer to secure the model to access the data from the data source. SQL Server 2019 supports the following security models when using PolyBase for data virtualization:
 1. Proxy authentication
 2. Kerberos authentication
 3. Storage access key—shared secret key
The following syntax is used to provide SQL Server with the security context for a connection to a MongoDB external data source. In addition, you will see a shared secret key in use to create a database scoped credential.
 - Note: The identity refers to the username of the MongoDB external data source
To validate database scoped credentials in the datahub run the following T-SQL:
Display database scope credentials
Configure External data sources
External data sources provide a path to virtualize data from other data sources. It collects all the meta-data to access data from the single database object.
Each external data source provides the below options required to access the external source:
 - Location
 - port
 - credential
 - connectivity
The LOCATION parameter defines the communication protocol, server name and port for connectivity.
In this case, the communication protocol is mongodb and server is and port is 27017
The CREDENTIAL argument uses the database scoped credential MyMongoDBDemo2019. The external data source will use this database-scoped credential to query the target data sources
 - Note: The Connection_options and Pushdown parameters will be explained later in the article
 - To validate external data sources run the following T-SQL:
 Display external_data_sources
 How to map an external data table
 In this section, we will see how to create external views. On selecting the parent tables, the child tables are also referred by default. In addition, you have the mapping table where you modify the columns to match the target data types. This also gives you the option to modify the name of the external table.
 Let us look at the details of the MongoDB instance. Create the user using the following commands. I will not go in-depth on MongoDB concepts.
 how to connect mongoDB
 PolyBase external tables
 External tables provide SQL Server with the schema to reason over data in the external data source.
 Error Message:
 The T-SQL create external table statement errors out with the following details. You can see that the TLS handshake failed error reported. This can be handled in two ways. You can manage it at the Mongo DB startup parameters or you can turn off the SSL parameter or you can turn off the SSL=false in the T-SQL statement.
 "Msg 105082, Level 16, State 1, Line 16
 105082;Generic ODBC error: [Microsoft][MongoDBODBC] (110) Error from MongoDB Client:
 No suitable servers found (serverSelectionTryOnce set):
 [TLS handshake failed: error:00000000:lib(0):func(0):reason(0) calling ismaster on '']
 (Error Code: 13053) Additional error <2>:
 ErrorMsg: [Microsoft][MongoDBODBC] (110) Error from MongoDB Client: No suitable servers found (serverSelectionTryOnce set)
 (Error Code: 13053), SqlState: HY000, NativeError: 110 "
 You may receive this error due to the SSL issue. Now, the CONNECTION_OPTIONS parameter plays a role to connect MongoDB data source.
 In this case, set the connection_options to ssl=false and then run the create external statement.
 The CONNECTION_OPTION setting suppresses the connection over SSL, which is a default requirement for communicating with many other data sources. I will discuss more about it in the next article.
 Let us run create external table statement again:
 We can see in the below snippet, the external table created successfully.
 Create mongoDB external table
 Let us validate the external table using the following T-SQL:
 Display the external tables
 Now, Let us browse object explorer to validate the existence of the External Tables and External Data Sources.
 Display external employee table
 Finally, query the external table
 MongoDB data validation in SSMS and MongoDB console
 In this article, we discussed how to set up a PolyBase in SQL Server for MongoDB external data source.
 To summarize the steps real quick:
 The data virtualization framework provides a platform to eliminate the use of redundant data copies. To maintain the physical copy always requires additional storage and hardware resources. It incurs to increase an additional overhead on costs. Using the data virtualization technique, organizations can create an abstract layer to create a virtual data copy from a heterogeneous or homogeneous data repositories. The virtual copies define the soft external table links to the physical data repository. As I mentioned, the data virtualization technique not only avoids extra storage but it provides strong consistency between the source and the target in the data retrieval process. In addition, it addresses the data issues which in turn improves the data quality and improves the data query performance.
 That's all for now. I hope you like this article. Stay tuned for more updates…
 Prashanth Jayaram
PolyBase, SQL Server 2019
About Prashanth Jayaram


text:
Target visualisation is main goal of the practical radargram recovering procedure. There are a lot of visualisation algorithms (2D-filtering. migration. FFT etc.) that is mainly based on final images processing. Existent methods are not frequently allowed to get adequate results due to considerably complex properties of the surrounding target environment.
In this work an approach to target visualisation based on phased-array effect in antennas with transient excitation is proposed and discussed. This reconstruction method uses initial information about properties of the used for radargram getting antennas. Preliminary results of this approach, its applicability and sensitivity are presented.
An Approach of Target Visualisation
In contrast to antennas behaviour with sinusoidal or narrow frequency band excitation such one with transient excitation has some differences. As a matter of fact transient radiation of an antenna depends on its geometry. If pulse generator impedance and input antenna impedance is matched in the antenna is observed so-called double-passing excitation mode. hi this case temporary structure of the antenna radiation field consists of three impulses sequence. Note that time delays between neighbouring impulses are associated to antenna length and the second impulse polarity is inverse one to the first and third pulses.
Let's consider monopole linear antenna with impulse excitation in Cartesian coordinates as it is shown in Fig. 1. Assume that the antenna length is L and a target coordinates is (X0. Y0). Distances from target to excitation point and antenna edges are Rl and R2. accordingly.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
(PhysOrg.com) -- Because we're so smart compared to other species that live on this planet, people tend to ascribe certain abilities as innately human. One of these traits is the ability to lie or cheat. This is because doing so seems to imply a high order of intelligence. Unfortunately, as with many other traits that have once been thought uniquely human, lying, or bluffing appears to occur in other species as well, or at least in one, the lowly male crayfish. In a recent study, Michael Angilletta from Arizona State University and Robbie Wilson of the University of Queensland, found that male crayfish use claw size to bluff their way out of fights with other males. They have published their observations in the Royal Society journal, Biology Letters.
Crayfish, as most who have ever seen them can attest, are naturally aggressive. If you stick your hand in the water, rather than run or hide, a crayfish will grab your fingers with its sharp claws and try to defeat you. Thus, it should come as no surprise that they are just as nasty regarding one another. Upon two males meeting, their natural inclination is to start fighting. But then, sometimes, they don't. Evolution has added a layer of protection to keep them from completely wiping out their own species by endowing males with different sized claws. Oddly, instead of jumping into action, as might be expected, two males will first size one another up. They'll lift their claws to show the other how big they are, then lay them down so the other can poke and prod them a little. If one is satisfied that the other has bigger claws, he will leave the scene and a fight will be avoided, which is a good thing, because when they do fight, limbs can be severed and sometimes one or the other ends up dead.
But there is more to the story as Angilletta and Wilson found out, because all is not as it seems. They found after studying 97 of the males in action on North Stradbroke Island in Queensland, that claw size doesn't equate to strength. Some males with large claws had weak muscles, while some with smaller claws had strong muscles; and in crawfish, muscle is more important because it can mean the difference between causing an annoying pinch versus severing a limb or other important body part.
The research duo surmise that the crayfish are fully aware of the actual strength of their pinch and thus resort to bluffing if their muscles aren't up to snuff when they run into another male with smaller, but potentially stronger claws. And because the smaller clawed rival falls for it as much as 80% of the time, many unnecessary fights and the carnage they cause can be avoided.
Thus, clearly humans, are not the only species able to bluff their way out of fight.
Explore further: Front-row seats to climate change
More information: Cryptic asymmetry: unreliable signals mask asymmetric performance of crayfish weapons, Biology Letters, Published online before print March 14, 2012, doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0029
Animals commonly use their limbs as signals and weapons during territorial aggression. Asymmetries of limb performance that do not relate to asymmetries of limb size (cryptic asymmetry) could substantially affect disputes, but this phenomenon has not been considered beyond primates. We investigated cryptic asymmetry in male crayfish (Cherax dispar), which commonly use unreliable signals of strength during aggression. Although the strength of a chela can vary by an order of magnitude for a given size, we found repeatable asymmetries of strength that were only weakly related to asymmetries of size. Size-adjusted strength of chelae and the asymmetry of strength between chelae were highly repeatable between environmental conditions, suggesting that asymmetries of strength stemmed from variation in capacity rather than motivation. Cryptic asymmetry adds another dimension of uncertainty during conflict between animals, which could influence the evolution of unreliable signals and morphological asymmetry.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
The Work Health and Safety Approved Codes of Practice 2011 (WHS Codes of Practice) are critical to understanding the duties contained in the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth) (WHS Act) and WHS Regulations.
The WHS Codes of Practice provide practical guidance to support the WHS Act and WHS Regulations. Non-compliance with Codes of Practice does not necessarily constitute a non-compliance of WHS legislation.
WHS Codes of Practice are not mandatory and if the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) can find an equivalent means of providing the same level of health and safety—as provided for in the WHS Code of Practice - then that is an acceptable course of action. However, WHS Codes of Practice do have evidentiary status in court.
Codes of Practice in effect in the Commonwealth jurisdiction
Following the finalisation of the model Work Health Safey Act and Regulations, Comcare approved two compilation Codes of Practice: the Work Health and Safety Codes of Practice 2011 and Work Health and Safety Codes of Practice 2012.
On March 30, 2016, these were revoked and remade and commenced on March 31, 2016. While the content of most codes remained unchanged, 17 included technical amendments. These are:
- How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks
- Managing the Work Environment and Facilities
- Work Health and Safety Consultation, Co-operation and Co-ordination
- Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss
- Hazardous Manual Tasks
- Confined Spaces
- Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces
- Preparation of Safety Data Sheets for Hazardous Chemicals
- Labelling of Workplace Hazardous Chemicals
- How to Manage and Control Asbestos in the Workplace
- How to Safely Remove Asbestos
- First Aid in the Workplace
- Construction Work
- Preventing Falls in Housing Construction
- Managing Electrical Risks at the Workplace
- Managing Risks of Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace
- Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace
- Welding Processes
- Excavation Work
- Demolition Work
- Safe Design of Structures
- Spray Painting and Powder Coating
- Abrasive Blasting.
In addition to the codes, Comcare has a number of guidance documents, and fact sheets, all available on the Codes of Practice page.
Preventing and Managing Fatigue in the Workplace and Responding to Workplace Bullying draft Codes of Practice
In addition, the Preventing and Managing Fatigue in the Workplace and Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying draft model Codes of Practice are currently being revised based on public comment. They are expected to be finalised in the first half of 2013. (NOTE: these have not yet been finalised or enacted, April 2016)
Third and Fourth sets of WHS Codes of Practice
On 21 November 2012, Safe Work Australia endorsed 12 more model Codes of Practice, including those relating to workplace traffic management, industrial lift trucks, and the safe design, manufacture, import and supply of plant.
These model codes will take effect in the Commonwealth jurisdiction once they are passed as legislative instruments. When this has been completed, they will replace any applicable current chapters in the OHS Codes of Practice 2008.
The third set of model Codes of Practice cover:
- Safe Design, Manufacture, Import and Supply of Plant
- Working in the Vicinity of Overhead and Underground Electrical Lines
- Traffic Management in Workplaces
- Scaffolding Work
- Formwork and Falsework.
The fourth set cover:
- Managing Risks in Forestry Operations
- Industrial lift trucks
- Amusement devices
- Managing Risks of Plant used in Rural Workplaces
- Managing Security Risks in the Cash-in-transit Industry
- Tree Trimming and Removal Work – Crane Access Method
Last amended April 2016


text: Finite-difference time-domain method has gained increasing interest for room acoustic prediction use. A well-known limitation of the method is a frequencyand direction-dependent dispersion error. In this study, the audibility of dispersion error in the presence of a single surface reflection is measured. The threshold is measured for three different distance conditions with a fixed reflection arrival azimuth angle of 54.7 °. The error is placed either in the direct path, or in the reflection path. Additionally a qualitative follow-up experiment to evaluate how the measured thresholds reflect the audibility of error in short room responses is carried out. The results indicate that the threshold varies depending whether the error is in the direct path or in the reflection path. For transient signals the threshold is higher when the error is located in the direct path, whereas for speech signal, the threshold is higher when it is located in the reflection path. Evidence is found that the error is detectable in rendered room responses at the measured threshold levels.


text:
Microsoft® Visual Basic® Scripting Edition
Language Reference |
Is is also a comparison operator, but it is used exclusively for determining if one object reference is the same as another.
Const A = "MyString"
|Byte||0 to 255.|
|Boolean||True or False.|
|Integer||-32,768 to 32,767.|
|Long||-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.|
|Single||-3.402823E38 to -1.401298E-45 for negative values; 1.401298E-45 to 3.402823E38 for positive values.|
|Double||-1.79769313486232E308 to -4.94065645841247E-324 for negative values; 4.94065645841247E-324 to 1.79769313486232E308 for positive values.|
|Currency||-922,337,203,685,_PHONE_ to 922,337,203,685,_PHONE_.|
|Date||January 1, 100 to December 31, 9999, inclusive.|
|Object||Any Object reference.|
|String||Variable-length strings may range in length from 0 to approximately 2 billion characters.|
Dates are stored as part of a real number. Values to the left of the decimal represent the date; values to the right of the decimal represent the time. Negative numbers represent dates prior to December 30, 1899.
In VBScript, the only recognized format is US-ENGLISH, regardless of the actual locale of the user. That is, the interpreted format is mm/dd/yyyy.
Note that script-level code resides outside any procedure blocks.Sub MySub()'This statement declares a sub procedure block. Dim A'This statement starts the procedure block. A = "My variable"'Procedure-level code. Debug.Print A'Procedure-level code. End Sub'This statement ends a sub procedure block.


text:
The goal of this Bird Photography community forum is to promote good bird photography practices with an emphasis on learning, education, creative expression, composition and mastery but not at the expense of the subject. We want to give members the opportunity to express and share their work and by providing this guide as the operating parameter, our intent is to include photographers as a necessary and positive, artistic and documentary group within the scope of birding.
It is the desire of this website to ask members to act responsibly and ethically in the pursue of bird viewing and photography activities. Although it has been unstated and assumed until now, the following guide will now come into effect as the criteria for member participation. Principles of Ethical Field Practices
The following practices promotes the well-being of the location, subject and photographer. Every place, plant, and animal, whether above or below water, is unique, and cumulative impacts occur over time. Therefore, one must always exercise good individual judgment. It is this website's belief that these principles will encourage all who participate in the enjoyment of nature to do so in a way that best promotes good stewardship of the resource.Environmental: knowledge of subject and place
Social: knowledge of rules and laws
- Learn patterns of animal behavior--know when not to interfere with animals' life cycles.
- Respect the routine needs of animals--remember that others will attempt to photograph them, too.
- Use appropriate lenses to photograph wild animals--if an animal shows stress, move back and use a longer lens.
- Acquaint yourself with the fragility of the ecosystem--stay on trails that are intended to lessen impact.
Individual: expertise and responsibilities
- When appropriate, inform managers or other authorities of your presence and purpose--help minimize cumulative impacts and maintain safety.
- Learn the rules and laws of the location--if minimum distances exist for approaching wildlife, follow them.
- In the absence of management authority, use good judgement--treat the wildlife, plants and places as if you were their guest.
- Prepare yourself and your equipment for unexpected events--avoid exposing yourself and others to preventable mishaps.
- Treat others courteously--ask before joining others already shooting in an area.
- Tactfully inform others if you observe them engaging in inappropriate or harmful behavior--many people unknowingly endanger themselves and animals.
- Report inappropriate behavior to proper authorities--don't argue with those who don't care; report them.
- Be a good role model, both as a photographer and a citizen--educate others by your actions; enhance their understanding.
The Principles of Ethical Field Practices has been adopted in whole from the original published resource located at: _URL_


jarguna: Anatèxis (Name-your-price digital)
Name-your-price on Bandcamp
Product Description
1. Lithogensis 21:15
2. Compression (with Nathan Youngblood) 13:03
3. Lithification 25:55
4. Cooling (with Nathan Youngblood 04:40
5. Geodes 11:36
Projekt presents the digital release of the 16th album from Italian sound-explorer, ethnobotanist, ambient/drone artist jarguna (Marco Billi). Recorded in 2013 + 2014 — and featuring guest Nathan Youngblood on two tracks — the album takes its title from the Greek verb "anatèko," (ἀνάτηξις) meaning "liquefaction." It is a melting process taking place at great depth in the earth's crust that leads to the formation of new magma. In the same way, jarguna melts the quality of sound drone, via "geodrone," a term he coined as an interpretation of the sounds made up of over billions of years both within the planet and throughout the universe. There is a slow and steady transformation: silent, often impetuous and devastating happening beneath our feet. The illusion of the apparent stability gives us security, but for all intents and purposes there is nothing that is stationary.
Anatexis," jarguna reflects, "was the antithesis of my previous early 2010s work such as Waiting for a Call From the Unknown and Nebula, which were created at a time when I had turned my eyes to the sky and then the macrocosm. Dark redundant paths, sometimes absent, without alleys, wrinkled sounds from a multitude of effects, or pure and primitive. This is Anatexis. This is me. Ambient music has the great ability to make people think, or more often evoke deep emotional states. Anatexis is a sound diary of my explorations into the microcosm. Digging underground, observing the genesis of a stone, a mountain, a continent, and to be present while unknown events exist below."
Review from Matthew Gindling: With Anatexis jarguna, with the help of his connate spirit Nathan Youngblood, takes each devoted journeyer into unique shadowy wonders where all ancestral memories are amply awaken and excavated. Full, almost 77 minutes long immersion is guaranteed! While the music of Jarguna may fall into the category that people call dark ambient, there is much more going on here. Most of the albums revolve around different themes inspired by the various regions of the earth and other natural phenomena. The sounds themselves are a mixture of field recordings from extensive travels and studio synth recordings. Dealing with the inner workings of the earth, the internal formation of rock and minerals, the flow of magma and other elements that dwell beneath the Earth's crust. If you are a nature-centered person and enjoy the "experience" of that which we call reality and the natural world around us, then check this out. I highly recommend this!
Original Release: January 2015
Projekt release: March 12 2021
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Explore Projekt's Italian Grotto
Sam curates a Spotify playlist featuring Italian ambient/electronic artists on the Projekt label. Earthy, textural, enveloping soundtracks. Listen: Italian Grotto
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text:
This innovative, tactile board book is perfect for engaging preschool children in shapes, animals and the natural world, and developing their motor skills, allowing them to trace basic shapes in nature with their fingers.
While colourful birds perch in the trees, heart-shaped leaves flutter in the breeze.This innovative board book uses a series of colourful spreads with sliding discs to introduce young children to basic shapes. Young readers can look at the animals in each scene, listen to the gently rhyming text and trace their fingers over the nature-inspired shapes. The books are robust and fun, perfect for encouraging a lively, interactive reading experience for children and adults, and developing young childrens' motor skills, a key element in Montessori learning. In addition, the books encourage further learning with discussion of the habitat of each animal.
Camila Falsini is a painter and illustrator who lives and works in Rome, Italy. Her illustrations have appeared in books and magazines, and she has painted a series of large, striking murals across Italy, as well as exhibiting her work in numerous galleries.
Children's & educational
Words & Pictures
1 - 3
Early learning: rhyming & wordplay books


text:
This paper identifies and evaluates qualitative methods appropriate for use in conducting policy-relevant research on the experiences, motivations, agency and life histories of autonomous and semi-autonomous children and adolescents, including those who migrate independently of parents and adult guardians. It presents an overview of qualitative research practice and the potential for qualitative research to extend and deepen knowledge of children's varied and independently negotiated life circumstances. It argues that qualitative approaches are necessary to understand and meaningfully respond to the experiences of diverse physical, social and cultural environments. Research ethics are discussed from several points of view, highlighting both the importance of maintaining, and difficulty of defining, ethical engagement with subjects whose vulnerabilities and capabilities are manifest in ways that unsettle many traditional conceptions of children.
The longer section of the paper presents illustrative examples of qualitative research techniques. An illustrated inventory of research tools is presented with seven categories: surveys; interviews and focus groups; observation and participant observation; life histories and biographical methods; visual and textual methods; performance, play and arts-based methods; and virtual and computer-aided methods. Particular attention is given to practical details of field research, including subject recruitment/sampling, research setting, facilitation of interaction with subjects through intermediary contacts and organizations, and the specific steps taken to collect qualitative data. The concluding section synthesizes the information presented and provides guidance on how to incorporate qualitative methods, and qualitative methodologies, into research on children who live independently of parents and adult guardians or who exercise autonomy in more limited contexts.


cellular aromatic compound metabolic process pyridoxine metabolic process GO:_PHONE_ GO:_PHONE_ The chemical reactions and pathways involving pyridoxine, 2-methyl-3-hydroxy-4,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)pyridine, one of the vitamin B6 compounds. Pyridoxal, pyridoxamine and pyridoxine are collectively known as vitamin B6, and are efficiently converted to the biologically active form of vitamin B6, pyridoxal phosphate. biological_process pyridoxine metabolism vitamin B6 metabolic process organic hydroxy compound metabolic process


When Does a Lease Terminate Pre-Petition?
Published On: March 30th, 2015 | Author: Perry Law, P.C. | Category: Bankruptcy Florida
Two Florida bankruptcy courts have addressed a similar issue with different results. The scenario is common enough, a tenant and landlord enter into a lease which the tenant subsequently defaults under. The landlord brings a cause of action for eviction, obtains a judgment and eventually a writ of possession. But, before the writ of possession is executed the tenant files for bankruptcy. At that point is the lease one which can be assumed under the Bankruptcy Code 365?
In In re Key Largo Watersports, 377 BR 738, the court held no. There the court held that the judgment and writ of possession terminated the tenant's rights and thus there was no lease to assume. However, in In re 2408 W. Kennedy, 512 BR 708, the court held that until the writ was executed the tenant still had a right of possession and thus there was in fact a lease to assume.
These two cases stress the importance of properly entering into and terminating a lease before bankruptcy; and, understanding how a lawsuit and/or bankruptcy can impact your lease.


text:
How to Solve Nonograms
Objective: To arrange filled squares and empty squares to satisfy the count at the top and left. For example, if the counts at the top of a column are 1 1 1, and there are only five squares then that row must be: Filled, Empty, Filled, Empty, Filled.
Play: Left click on any square to alternate between a filled square and an unknown square. Right click on any square to alternate between an empty square and an unknown square
Copyright © 2007-2013 James Gilbert. All rights reserved.


Definitions for "PULLING"
To overexpose and underdevelop film to effectively reduce its speed.
method of underrating the normal ISO speed of a film to produce an overexposed latent image.
Keywords: horgan, clerkin, rebekah, staton, cavan
Pulling is a BBC Comedy show, produced by Silver River Productions, currently being broadcast on BBC Three. It was co-written by Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly and stars Horgan, Tanya Franks, Rebekah Staton and Cavan Clerkin.
Keywords: aggro'ing, eral, sev, monster, hone
This is a very important concept in Guild Wars. As you'll only want to deal with one mob at a time, pulling is a handy skill that you need to hone to a razor's edge. It refers to snagging one enemy and/or mob at a time when many are lurking about so that the player/team has an easier time rather than aggro'ing sevÂ¬eral mobs at once. However, there is no greater cause of death in an online RPG than a good pull gone bad.
Attacking a creature in order to make it go aggro on you. Often used in teams. One player is the "puller," and he or she "pulls" the monster around the team, while the rest of the team forms a circle of death and kills it off.
a term used to describe an offensive lineman who, instead of blocking the player in front of him, steps back and moves down the line("pulls") to block another player, usually in a "trap" or "sweep."
Keywords: anxious, horse, ridden, reins, jockey
Where a horse pulls heavily against the reins when being ridden.
Some horses get fired-up during a race and try to run faster than the tempo of the other runners. These horses are 'pulling'. Horses that pull will usually waste a lot of energy in the process, leaving little in reserve for the finish.
Occurs when a horse is anxious to run on early in a race and is restrained by the jockey
(handles) Plastic clay is stroked with water by hand to shape handles, either directly on the pot from a lump stuck on the side, or by pulling (shaping) a rudimentary handle which is completed later, once attached to the pot.
The technique of tapering a coil of clay. A wet coil of clay is held up and dangled from one hand. The fingers of other hand; draw or "pull" the coil to a taper by progressively tightening as they pass down the wet, slippery coil.
Leaving one's position to move elsewhere to block.
Keywords: rival, dragging, punch, foul, forward
Dragging a rival forward into a punch; a foul.
Resistance to the movement of a brush during the application of a material due to the viscous nature of the medium. Such a material is sometimes referred to as being sticky under the brush.
Keywords: braking, tendency, vehicle, side, one
Tendency of a vehicle to pull to one side under braking.
Keywords: die, proof, plate, printing, process
the process of printing a proof from a die or a plate
minor operations on oil wells due to maintenance or marginal replacements.


text: Ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) is a common complication, which is accompanied by myocardial infarction, causing heart failure and leading to poor prognosis. Although several surgical techniques have been reported, certain surgical methods have not been established for treating IMR. We report a successful case of left ventricular posterior wall plication through a left atriotomy over the mitral valve for IMR in a patient who experienced cardiac shock and could not be weaned off mechanical support. Posterior wall plication changed the left ventricle from a spherical to an oval shape, restored the position of papillary muscles and posterior wall, improved leaflet tethering, and prevented further remodeling of the left ventricle. This method may be useful for treating IMR and improve patients' prognosis.


text:
Donor–Acceptor Organic Molecule Resistor Switching Memory Devices
High Performance Polyimides for Resistive Switching Memory Devices
Nonconjugated Polymers with Electroactive Chromophore Pendants
Polymer Composites for Electrical Memory Device Applications
Non-Volatile Memory Properties of Donor–Acceptor Block Copolymers
Organic Floating Gate Transistor Memory Devices
About this book
Information technology is essential to our daily life, and the limitations of silicone based memory systems mean a growing amount of research is focussed on finding an inexpensive alternative to meet our needs and allow the continued development of the industry. Inorganic silicone based technology is increasingly costly and complex and is physically limited by the problems of scaling down. Organic electrical memory devices are comparatively low cost, offer flexibility in terms of chemical structure, are compatible with flexible substrates and allow easy processing. For these reasons polymeric memory nanoscale materials are considered by many to be a potential substitute for conventional semiconductor memory systems. This edited book focusses solely on organic memory devices, providing a full background and overview of the area before bringing the reader up to date with the current and ongoing research in this area. The broad appeal of this book will be applicable to a wide range of researchers and those working in industry, in particular those working in materials, electrical and chemical engineering.


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BAR 38:02, Mar/Apr 2012
Tales from Tombstones
Amid the desolate, rocky wasteland of Biblical Zoar, Konstantinos Politis and others have discovered hundreds of remarkable tombstones that preserve detailed portraits of life—and death—among the Christians and Jews who once dwelled there. The often brightly colored and intricately decorated stones are a treasure trove of information about these two communities during the fourth to sixth centuries C.E. when Zoar (then known as Zoara or Zoora) was the seat of a major Christian bishopric and also home to a significant Jewish population.
In the accompanying article, two scholars expert in interpreting the epitaphs and iconography of these burial markers—Professor Steven Fine of Yeshiva University in New York and Kalliope I. Kritikakou-Nikolaropoulou of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens, Greece—provide separate discussions of the Jewish and Christian tombstones of Zoar. Each examines the host of names, occupations and religious titles found within the communities, as well as the unique symbols and dating formulas that both groups used for their eternal memorials to the dead.


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Trends in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Contraceptives
CitationWu, Min. 2016. Trends in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Contraceptives. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Medical School.
AbstractObjective: Despite much speculation about the role of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in increasing demand for prescription contraceptives in the United States, there is little published research on this topic. We sought to quantify the prevalence and magnitude of DTCA for prescription contraceptives over the last decade.
Methods: Using cross-sectional data from January 2005 through December 2014, we performed descriptive analyses on trends in DTCA expenditure for prescription contraceptives. We quantified the amount of DTCA by contraceptive method category and individual brand.
Results: During the study period, pharmaceutical companies spent a total of $1.57 billion in the United States on DTCA of prescription contraceptives. Annual expenditure for contraceptive DTCA reached a peak of $260 million in 2008, with a progressive decline to a nadir of $69 million by 2013. Of the contraceptive methods, oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) have been the most heavily promoted, with Yaz – the most advertised brand – accounting for $347 million of DTCA expenditure. However, DTCA spending on OCPs peaked in 2007 and was overtaken in 2012 by the DTCA of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), the method now receiving the largest amount of DTCA promotion.
Conclusions: Direct-to-consumer advertising is a major form of promotion for prescription contraceptives. Recent trends in DTCA expenditure indicate a shift from promotion of the OCPs to the LARCs. Direct-to-consumer advertising's effect on provider and patient utilization of various contraceptive methods has yet to be determined.
Citable link to this pagehttp://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:40620273


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To find out if it has a solution, set it up in matrix form (column form) and reduce to row echelon form. So:
This is the matrix if column form with the augmented solutions. Now if you end up with some row where 0 = a number that isn't 0, there is no solution.
For the second problem:
In this case you know there is no solution since if you were to cancel out by multiplying the top row by and adding the two equations, you get:
Which we know is not true.


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Keywords: vehicular traffic, speed–density modelling, explicit model, traffic speed, traffic density, vehicle speeds, vehicle densities, simulation, traffic flow, urban roads, traffic congestion, congestion prediction, sparse data
A simple explicit model approximating the relationship between speed and density of vehicular traffic on urban roads
With the increase in simulation of urban environments for the purpose of planning, modelling vehicular traffic has become important. Since empirical evidence on traffic flow is relatively sparse, models are being increasingly used for planning urban roads and environments. In this paper, a simple, explicit model is proposed to approximate the speed versus density of vehicular traffic flow. The model, which uses two parameters derived from simple measurements of real–time traffic data, allows for a prediction of the approximate relationship for congested as well as uncongested vehicular traffic flow. The proposed model is especially useful in conditions where available data is sparse and can be invaluable for the modelling and simulation of urban environments.


Initials of a Signer Archives - Notary Blog - Signing Tips, Marketing Tips, General Notary Advice -
October 21, 2013
Can you notarize someone's initials?
Can you notarize someone's initials?
It is fun to read all of the various notary questions that people have. But, a notary may only legally notarize a signature of a living person who appears before the notary public.
However, it is common for signers to be required (not required by the notary, but required by the document custodian or lender or other entity) to initial all of the pages of a Deed of Trust, Power of Attorney or perhaps a Note. There are other documents that are often initialed as well. It is never a legal requirement to initial a document, but it might be a business requirement for certain financial or business entities just to make sure that pages are not swapped after the notarization.
Initialing pages of a longer document is more of a "best practice" to deter fraud. It is harder to swap a page if there is an initial on it. However, Title companies are known to forge the initials of a signer just to save time — if the signer forgot to. Imagine that documents went to a borrower's house, and the borrower signed the documents, and had them Fedexed back to the lender. If the borrower forgot an initial, it is a huge pain to bring those documents back. It is easier to commit forgery of an initial even though that is a serious crime!
Getting back to the main point of this article, no, a notary cannot notarize someone's initials.
You might also like:
The 30 point course's guide to initialing
Why do I have to sign with my middle initial?
Tutorial on initialing


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An estimate of the number of pioneer workers needed for initial church planting among unreached people groups by country. Estimates are calculated only for unreached people groups and are based on ratio of 1 worker for every 50,000 individuals living in an unreached people group by country. Some workers may already be onsite. Many more workers are needed beyond this initial estimate.
Only people groups speaking Senoufo, Djimini as primary language
are listed. Other groups may speak Senoufo, Djimini as a secondary language
|Language Alternate Names
|Dialect Alternate Names
||Year / Status


Are tweets more accurate than science papers?
John Myles White brings up an interesting question on Twitter:
7 thoughts on "Are tweets more accurate than science papers?
 1. I am sure I write many stupid things on my blog, but you can see evidence that people check my facts and even issue bug reports against the software I share.
 This does not happen with research papers. I cannot recall a single journal reviewer who went and tried my code and reviewed the code. (I don't expect them to do it anyhow.)
 Also, I don't have a strong incentive to tweak my experimental results when I present results on my blog. It is not like the blog post is going to appear on my c.v.
 2. I wonder how much that would improve if you restricted the journals? For example, I don't think 50% of chemistry papers I've read are wrong, but then I remember how many terrible journals are out there that I don't look at.
 Oddly enough, apparently there is a lot of wrong information published in the really good journals, since they tend to push the limits of science, and well, sometimes you are just plain wrong when you try and push things.
 3. Daniel: I agree. My blog has come under much closer scrutiny than anything I've published in an academic journal.
 Canageek: The harder sciences have a better accuracy rate than the soft sciences. Chemistry is much easier to quantify than psychology, fewer confounding effects, etc.
 By Bayes theorem, the probability that a result is true given that is it published depends on the probability that researchers pick true propositions to try to prove. In a difficult area of research, more researchers start by trying to prove something that isn't true, and so they get more false positives by chance. In the hard sciences, there is better theoretical guidance for selecting hypotheses to test and thus a higher prior probability that a result will be true.
 4. I a little dubious about classifying scientific papers as "right" or "wrong". These concepts have some accuracy, but they can also be misleading.
 The essence of science is testing usefully descriptive, falsifiable concepts, to find better abstractions describing some repeatable phenomena. But we know that these abstractions will always be approximations — they will never be the phenomena itself.
 And, to deal with scientific concepts we introduce further abstractions describing the contexts where the abstractions hold. And we also judge them based on criteria that may approximate testing, such as simplicity, popularity, authoritative approval, and so on…
 Anyways, from a scientific point of view, when we say a paper was wrong, we usually mean that we do not know what conditions are required to repeat the results, and when we say a paper was right we usually mean we have not found a better model yet and that the cases where the results do not hold are not immediately obvious.
 Anyways, my point is that the "right/wrong" model can sometimes be situational and/or temporary.
 Alternative classification systems include "useful/useless" and "relevant/irrelevant" or maybe even the classic "reproducible/not-reproducible" (which unfortunately suffer from some of the same situational constraints as "right/wrong" but typical use conveys their subjective character).
 That said, the "right/wrong" distinction can be both useful and relevant. Still, I suspect that we have better concepts for characterizing universal characteristics of large collections of scientific papers.
 5. Perhaps that is true overall. As Canagreek noted, in part it may depend on the journal. It also depends on the author. When I write something for publication, it is reviewed and revised – often for trivial details, in my opinion, but I am forced to justify every statement. While my blog does not include literature review and long discussions of theoretical justifications of my hypothesis, what it does usually include is the actual code to generate the results. Since some of my work involves open data, anyone who is fairly proficient with programming can replicate my results.
 In my case, unless I am convinced something is as true as can be determined and I have done numerous replications, I don't publish it – but then, I haven't needed to worry about tenure review for a great many years, since I left academia.
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What Does VR Mean on Nikon Lens?
What Does VR Mean on Nikon Lens?
If you are new to Nikon cameras, you must have come across the VR code and asked yourself, "What does VR mean on Nikon lenses?" A quick lookup on the Internet will tell you that it stands for Vibration Reduction. Simply put, it is an anti-camera shake technology that also goes by the name Image Stabilization (IS) in Canon cameras and Optical SteadyShot (OSS) in Sony cameras.
While that seems to tell you what VR is for sufficiently, we'd like to go further and explain just a little bit more of the anti-camera shake feature for Nikon lenses and what it truly means for you and your shots.
What Does VR Mean on Nikon Lenses?
Long before the invention of anti-camera shake features in cameras, blurred shots were a common problem for long lenses, handheld shooting, and dim lighting. While the use of a tripod, faster shutter speed, and higher ISO helped. Still, a good number of the shots were wasted.
In the year 2000, Nikon found a solution to this problem, making way for higher success in those conditions through its version of the camera shake correction mechanism, the Vibration Reduction (VR) technology.
The VR technology is an optical innovation that provides the equivalent of three to four stops compensation, which affords you sharper photos. Through built-in special motion sensors in the lens itself, it corrects lens, camera, and hand vibration when you're shooting at slow shutter speeds.
Because of the extra three to four stops it affords you, the VR technology also lets you play around with the aperture or exposure metering function of your camera. On an overcast day, for example, you can use an f/8 aperture instead of an f/2 for greater depth-of-field. Similarly, you can also use a lower ISO setting for higher image quality.
While VR doesn't solve all blurring problems, it greatly increases the percentage for getting crisp and more explicit pictures. Shooting in very slow shutter speeds, for example, will still result in overlapping images. Working with VR though, in such case, still brings an improvement.
The same is true when taking action shots or when you're working with moving objects since the science behind the tech only reduces your motion, not your subject's. There is something though that you can do as a workaround. If you couple VR technology with faster shutter speeds and higher ISO, you can up your chances of striking gold. Using a continuous shutter mode, too, will fetch you more clear shots to choose from.
How Does VR work?
The anti-shake technology of Nikon is different compared to other brands. Nikon's VR is integrated into the lens itself, whereas other brands have them in the camera body.
So, how does it work? Once the shutter-release button is pressed halfway, the built-in VR sensor and lens group are activated. Two angular velocity sensors send velocity data to the lens microcomputer that computes the compensation needed to correct the detected vertical (pitch) and horizontal (yaw) movements. Then, the data is sent to the voice coil motors (VCM) that move the VR lens unit according to the algorithm. And when the shutter-release button is fully pressed, another algorithm is used to maximize blur correction during exposure.
Nikon has two main reasons for integrating the VR technology into the lens. First is it to provide you a clear and stable image right from the viewfinder. This makes focusing on your subject and exposure metering smooth, comfortable, and precise. Second is that VR units are optimized for each lens. Micro, zoom, and telephoto lens don't get the same treatment but are fitted with VR units specific to its function. With other brands where the VR counterpart is in the camera body, it provides you a one-size-fits-all solution.
Whether it makes a significant difference if the image stabilization technology is in the lens or the body is a subject for another discussion. Still, you have to be wary of the phrase "anti-shake," which is being used loosely by other brands that get away with no real image stabilization mechanism. What they have is just a semblance of it, achieved by boosting the ISO that results in faster shutter speeds.
When Working on a Tripod, Do You Need to Turn Off VR?
If you are using a tripod, then turning on or off the VR will not have any effect on your shots. Remember, a camera shake correction technology like VR serves as a "tripod" or image stabilizer.
There are times though when you can still benefit from the VR mechanism even if you're already using a tripod. Windy conditions are one of them. Unstable footing for your tripod is another. Working with long lenses is another case, where mirror or shutter movement can cause vibration and affect your shot. In fact, Nikon's three super-telephoto lenses offer a tripod vibration reduction mode; whereas, with other Nikon lenses you can choose only between normal and active modes. Check out our article about top 3 best Tripod picks.
How Does VR and VR II Differ?
Obviously, VR II is an upgrade of the original VR technology. Besides that, here are the specific details you need to know:
 - VR II zoom lenses come with a lock switch on the side to prevent "creeping," which was an annoying problem for zoom lenses with the original VR technology. The lock translates to no unintentional lens adjustment when you have the camera slung over your shoulder or when you're shooting upwards.
 - The first VR technology fetches you three stops compensation; whereas, VR II gets you the equivalent of four stops.
 - VR II offers you better image stabilization and image quality than the older version.
 - VR II lenses also have the quieter operation than its predecessor.
So what does VR mean on Nikon lenses? It means convenient and precise focusing and exposure metering. With the need to use a tripod reduced, it also translates to more mobility. And most importantly, it means sharper and better quality images right from the viewfinder to the actual shots with the correction of the lens, camera, and hand movement.
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Steve - January 10, 2019 Reply
Many thanks for this excellent explanation.. Extremely helpful.
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A Revolutionary, Double Patented-Technology That Allows You To Wash Your Clothes Without Using A Single Drop Of Toxic Chemical Detergent
Do you love the mountain rain and spring blossom smell of your laundry detergent? Well, that wonderful scent is most likely carcinogenic and is there to cover the smell of petrochemicals.
According to the University of Washington, your laundry detergent releases banned cancer-causing chemicals that may be affecting the health of you and your family. On July 23rd, 2008, a study was performed. What they found is that 99% of laundry detergents release cancer-causing chemicals that are legally hazardous and toxic by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).
Most of them were NOT on the label. These chemicals are so toxic…
They are a major ingredient in pesticides. They are used to kill insects.
They are extremely harmful to your body because they imitate the hormone 'estrogen'
When these artificial hormone like chemicals get into your blood stream through your skin, they may start to cause serious damage to your body.
PLEASE STOP: Do not do another load of laundry until you watch our video above.
 1. Toxic chemicals found in common scented laundry products, air fresheners. Published by Hannah Hickey from University of Washington. [link]
 2. Nonyl phenol and related chemicals. Published by Caroline Cox from The Journal of Pesticide Reform. Spring 1996, Vol. 16, No.1. [link]
Discover How You Can Get Your Clothes Cleaned Without A Single Drop of Toxic Laundry Detergent…
Simply By Using This Patented Magnetic Technology
Saves you money from buying chemical laundry detergents for your entire life.
Cleans just as well as the laundry detergents and it lasts a LIFETIME with a 50 year manufacturer's warranty.
Spare yourself and your family from inhaling toxic scents by protecting your body from contact with the chemicals lurking in your clothes
Pay LESS on your hydro bills by skipping the rinse cycle and conserve water.
Prevent more toxic spills into the rivers that mess up with the hormones of aquatic lives
The Magnetic Laundry System consists of an independent lab testing report from one of the largest testing companies in the world, Shuster Laboratories (Changed name to UL Consumer Products). It verifies unequivocally that the Magnetic Laundry System does indeed clean garments and do not damage colors or the tensile strength of your fabrics. The technology is also protected and verified by two patents.
Over 38,799 Happy Customers!
See What Some Of Our Customers Are Saying…
We have done 5 loads of laundry with the Magnet Laundry System. I wasn't skeptical, but my husband sure was! My clothes are washed on cold, due to the work I do (office). My husband is a Welder/Machinist/Industrial Mechaniccan we say GRIME?! We wash his on warm or hot, depending on what is on them. His clothing is always washed separately and he was amazed they came out clean!!!
Lori Christie, Seabeck, WA
The word "miracle" is appropriate since the results were startling. Not only a successful wash with no detergent for the first time in my life but (did I imagine this?) I thought the results were cleaner than usual!…I have been rapturous in promoting your product to everyone I know. They are remarkable and very strongly appeal to my ecological nature.
K.H., Bristol, United Kingdom
I was leary at first, but I tried them for a week. My husband drives a dump truck and gets dirty and stinky. Lo and behold, no dirt and NO STINK!! And talk about savings on detergent. It will pay for itself in about 1 1/2 months.
D.C., Plumerville, AR
Absolutely incredible! We have not used, or plan on using laundry detergent ever again. The laundry seems, and is, cleaner than it has ever been.
T.B., Pleasantville, NY
Coffee stained pants came out clean. Pants made with spandex came out "not stiff". Horray!
G.B.B., Westport, ON
Surprised at no suds – Amazed at the clothes becoming clean. Love being able to leave the MLS in the washer. Thanks to you.
D.W., Chicago, IL
Washed blanket on which a dog had urinated. Came out beautifully clean and smelled great.
K.L., Fircrest, WA
I love the clean smell of the clothes and how it takes the left over soap out of the clothes!
M.B., Valley City, OH
I used it to wash a pair of my husband's work jeans and was delighted to see how clean they came.
C.S., Norwich, NY
I washed 2 large loads of sheets…GOOD RESULTS. No different than when I used detergents and detergent boosters.
H.R., Ontario, Canada
I'm cleaning soiled diapers & this works just as good as the environmentally friendly versions of detergent. It's nice not to have to worry about baby's skin.
M.L., Hanceville, AL
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does the Magnetic Laundry System work on front loading washers?
A: Yes. It works on front and top loading washers and it is completely safe in both. You can leave it there practically forever. We just recommend that if you have a front loader, you place the Magnetic Laundry System units in the pockets of a pair of pants or in a pair of thick socks before running the cycle (preferably pants pockets). This eliminates any noise the force of the horizontal axis may create.
Q: Does the Magnetic Laundry System ever have to be replaced? How long do they last?
A: No. That's the beauty of the Magnetic Laundry System. You only have to get it once and it lasts almost a life-time. The manufacturer's warranty is 50 years. Compared with normal detergent, this saves you thousands of dollars over the time to come.
Q: My washing machine has a plastic drum. Do the Magnetic Laundry System have to stick to the inside of the water drum to work properly?
A: The Magnetic Laundry System absolutely do not have to stick to the water drum to work properly. There are a variety of washing machines from front loaders to top loaders, and interior washing drums ranging across plastic, iron and stainless steel. The material the water drum is made of makes no difference. The Magnetic Laundry System works in all of them. The units may end up "sticking" to each other in the washing process. This is perfectly normal and does not diminish their effectiveness because they are still emitting the same level of magnetic force whether they are attracted together or not. The laundry units just need to be submerged and/or in close proximity to the water for maximum effectiveness.
Q: I have a newer front loading washing machine that has electronics on it. Can I use the Magnetic Laundry System with my machine?
A: Absolutely. We just recommend that if you have a front loader, you place the Magnetic Laundry System units in the pockets of a pair of pants or in a pair of thick socks before running the cycle (preferably pants pockets). This eliminates any noise the force of the horizontal axis may create. Although magnetic force should not be in direct contact with electronics, the Magnetic Laundry System is used in the water drum and is far enough away to have zero impact on the electronic controls if used properly. Just do not rest them on the electronic control panel. Also, the two Magnetic Laundry System units combined weigh just a fraction of one pair of wet jeans (12 ounces compared to 80 ounces respectively). So you don't need to be concerned with any significant added weight.
Q: Does the Magnetic Laundry System kill bacteria, etc. on my clothes?
A: The Magnetic Laundry System is a laundry detergent alternative only. Laundry detergent is not used to kill microorganisms, and neither is the Magnetic Laundry System, but the cleaning process itself washes away most bacteria. Moreover, hot water kills most microorganisms in the water, and a little bleach will do the same (although bleach works best at high temperature).
An extremely effective natural alternative is straight 5 percent solution of vinegar—such as the ones you can buy in the supermarket. Reports have proven that it kills 99% of bacteria, 82% of mold, and 80% of germs.
Q: Are there any other recommendations for whitening and controlling microorganisms in the wash without using bleach or other harsh chemicals?
A: Yes, here is an even MORE effective natural alternative.
Susan Sumner, a food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, developed a proven formulation for natural sanitization. You simply need 3% hydrogen peroxide (the same strength found at the drug store for gargling or disinfection), and plain white vinegar. You add these to new clean sprayer, which can be found in any big mass retailer like Wal-Mart or Target.
Spray it on areas that are usually loaded with bacteria like the armpits, the neckline, in sweaty areas, in underwear, etc. Make sure that you test the spray in an inconspicuous area of clothing to ensure colorfastness. The hydrogen peroxide is a very effective natural bleach and can bleed colors, so be careful.
In tests run at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, pairing the two ingredients killed virtually all Salmonella, Shigella, or E. coli bacteria on heavily contaminated surfaces. This formulation is more effective at killing these potentially deadly bacteria than any name brand cleaner, or even chlorine bleach.
As an extra bonus, this combined formulation works exceptionally well at sanitizing food preparation surfaces (like counter-tops and wood cutting boards), and other areas where harsh and toxic cleaners are predominantly used. The formulation is so safe that it can


text:
In the fall of 1982, after numerous studies into the reform of expropriation law in
British Columbia, the British Columbia Cabinet Committee on Legislation released a
draft Expropriation Act for public discussion. The report was printed with
a green cover, thereby ensuring it would be widely known as the "Green Paper".
The Green Paper did generate significant public response. However, it took another
five years of study and debate before the reform legislation came into force on
December 24, 1987. This statute was formally titled, Expropriation Act,
S.B.C. 1987, c. 23.
Although the Green Paper has long since served its original purpose, it still
retains some value by providing the historical context in which the present British
Columbia legislation was enacted. A copy of the report is available by here.


text:
Marcel-François Richard (_PHONE_)
Marcel-François Richard was born in Saint-Louis-de-Kent, New Brunswick. He was ordained priest in 1870 and played a key role in the development of Acadian identity. Early in his career, he was concerned with educating young Acadians in French. Richard was also interested in the agricultural aspect of colonization for Acadians in New Brunswick and was active in the colonization of the parishes of Acadieville and Rogersville in southeastern New Brunswick. He is considered the founder of these two parishes, where he also participated in the construction of schools and churches. Marcel-François Richard is responsible for many decisions regarding the national symbols that were chosen during the Acadian National Conventions of 1881 and 1884. He is behind the references to the Catholic religion in the symbols, such as the star on the tricolour flag and the national holiday (the feast of Our Lady of the Assumption on August 15). He also promoted Acadian newspapers and fought for the appointment of an Acadian bishop in New Brunswick.


text:
An excerpt from _URL_ archives copyright © 2000 - 2013
Where did the English lawemon family come from? What is the English lawemon family crest and coat of arms? When did the lawemon family first arrive in the United States? Where did the various branches of the family go? What is the lawemon family history?lawemon is a name that was formed by the Anglo-Saxon society of old Britain. The name was thought to have been used for someone who once worked as a person who worked as a lawyer. Occupational names that were derived from the common trades of the medieval era transcended European cultural and linguistic boundaries. The surnames of office, which include military, judicial, papal and other positions of authority, are widespread throughout Europe. Those who were involved in the military, or feudal armies, were given names such as the English surname Archer, the French name Chevalier and the German name Jeger, which means hunter. Names that were derived from judicial and papal titles, such as Bailiff, Squire and Abbott, are still commonly seen with the same surname spelling today.
Until the dictionary, an invention of only the last few hundred years, the English language lacked any comprehensive system of spelling rules. Consequently, spelling variations in names are frequently found in early Anglo-Saxon and later Anglo-Norman documents. One person's name was often spelled several different ways over a lifetime. The recorded variations of lawemon include Lawman, Laweman, Lawemon, Lawghman, Lagmann, Lageman, Lauman, Layamon and many more.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our lawemon research. Another 394 words(28 lines of text) covering the years 1066, 1210, 1214, 1246, 1273, 1279, 1379, and 1607 are included under the topic Early lawemon History in all our PDF Extended History products.
Another 25 words(2 lines of text) are included under the topic Early lawemon Notables in all our PDF Extended History products.
Thousands of English families boarded ships sailing to the New World in the hope of escaping the unrest found in England at this time. Although the search for opportunity and freedom from persecution abroad took the lives of many because of the cramped conditions and unsanitary nature of the vessels, the opportunity perceived in the growing colonies of North America beckoned. Many of the settlers who survived the journey went on to make important contributions to the transplanted cultures of their adopted countries. The lawemon were among these contributors, for they have been located in early North American records: Peter Lawman, who sailed to the West Indies in 1697; Stephen Lauman to Pennsylvania in 1733; and Martin Lauman to Pennsylvania in 1746.
The lawemon Family Crest was acquired from the Houseofnames.com archives. The lawemon Family Crest was drawn according to heraldic standards based on published blazons. We generally include the oldest published family crest once associated with each surname.
This page was last modified on 21 December 2010 at 15:34.
houseofnames.com is an internet property owned by Swyrich Corporation.


This Old Tubeworm
NOAA Ocean Explorer
Lesson Plan Overview:
Students will be able to explain the process of chemosynthesis; explain the relevance of chemosynthesis to biological communities in the vicinity of cold seeps; construct a graphic interpretation of age-specific growth, given data on incremental growth rates of different-sized individuals of the same species; and estimate the age of an individual of a specific size, given information on age-specific growth in individuals of the same species.
Life Science


text:
Be Responsible, Secure your Load and Stop Litter!
You can do your part to help prevent litter, accidents and pollution! When using any vehicle or trailer to haul material, take a few minutes to secure the load. You are responsible for it; and it is also the law!
Tips for Securing Loads:
- Tie down items with rope, bungee cords or adjustable straps. Tie large items directly to the vehicle or trailer.
- Cover your load with a sturdy reinforced plastic or canvas tarp.
- Make sure brush and debris are not overhanging vehicle/trailer or dragging on road.
- Put lighter weight items at the bottom of the load, such as empty cardboard boxes
- Don't overload. Keep material level with the top of truck bed or trailer.
- Always double check your load and be aware of it while driving!


text:
copyright © 2002, abouttajweed.com, all rights reserved
in verbs (continued)
the last tidbit lesson, we described the different types of verbs that hamzah
al-wasl enters as a first letter.
was stated last lesson that hamzah al-wasl may enter, as a first letter,
Vowel of the Hamzah Al-Wasl when beginning with it in verbs
The vowel of when beginning with it, in verbs, depends on the vowel on the
third letter of the
is considered a letter when counting the letters;
Starting verbs with a dhammah on the hamzah al-wasl
The hamzah-t al-wasl has a dhammah
on it when beginning the word starting with it
of this in past tense verbs are shown in the following aayaat:
we look at the verb:
from aayah 26 of surah Ibraheem, we see that
there is a hamzah wasl
of this in the command form of verbs are shown in the following aayaat:
Starting verbs with a kasrah on the hamzah al-wasl
begin hamzah al-wasl in a verb with a kasrah
when in the following cases:
If the third letter
of the verb has an original kasrah. This
is exemplified in the following aayaat:
When the third letter of the verb has a fat-h.
This is demonstrated in the following
When the third letter of the verb has a presented dhammah. It
is to be noticed that in these next six examples shown below the dhammah is a
presented one due to the plurality of the command form of the verb that has an
(either an alif, ya' or wow) as
the last letter in the essential make up of the verb.
When these verbs are the plural command form, there would have been a
ya' saakinah followed by a wow saakinah which is quite heavy for the tongue,
so the Arabs drop the ya' saakinah in these forms of the verb, and the third
letter acquires a presented dhammah. These
are the only five verbs in the Qur'an that have a presented dhammah in the
third letter, but it should be noted that some of these verbs occur in the
Qur'an in different forms of the same verb.
. As stated previously, when starting with one of these six
verbs, we start with a kasrah not a dhammah.
starting with the word
is read as ""
employing the rule of medd al-bedl which was previously discussed, which is:
whenever there are two hamzahs next to each other in one word, the first
voweled and the second non-voweled, the second hamzah is changed to a medd
letter from the same type as the vowel on the first hamzah.
Therefore, since the first hamzah now has a kasrah, the second hamzah,
which is saakinah, will change into a lengthened ya'.
another item to be noticed is that if the
means "and" precedes a verb that begins with a hamzah al-wasl, or another conjunctive
letter such a
we are beginning with this verb, we must begin with the
due to its
strong link to the verb. We
therefore read the wow with a fath, then continue reading the verb. We do not
apply the rules
in this case. An example of
this is in the following:


text:
Cows Will Sex Text Farmers When They're Feeling Frisky
Feb 23, 2012 12:23
Farming cows are tough because you'll need to keep track of their fertility. Its important because that will determine the quality of your meat, or the milk in your cereal. Mobile technology has made it possible for cows to drop their farmers an SMS when they're feeling its about time to get jiggy.
A new collar designed by researchers from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland uses the same sensor as a Wii to keep track of a cow's movement and activity, and based on that movement, scientists have been able to work out the characteristic behaviour of cows when they're read to get down. So when they do, farmers are going to get some Bovine Sexting.
The collar will notice how the cow is moving, in a particular way, and when it does it will drop the farmer a text message. From that point, the farmer will, lend a hand, which means there's probably going to be some artificial insemination going on here.


text:
In Greek the term 'ethos' means 'character'. It can be used to describe the character of an audience, nation or community. For example, one can speak of the 'American ethos' as the characteristics that define American culture. A US presidential candidate would have to speak to the ethos of this nation and culture in order to win votes.
Understanding ethos is important to understanding speech writing. As we study the rhetorical devices of speakers, we want to ask ourselves how the speaker appeals to the ethos of his or her audience. Texts often contain a sense of ethos in order to give the speaker more credit or authority on a matter.
In a sense, ethos answers the question: "What gives you a mandate to speak to me?" Examples of ethos can be found in the following text, 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' by Martin Luther King.


What is Soil Liquefaction?
The 1964 earthquake in Alaska experienced some of the most powerful soil liquefaction in US history.
Soil liquefaction describes soil that loses strength when immense stress is applied. Saturated soils, where liquefaction takes place, are soils with the spaces between the soil particles being filled with water. The water exerts limited pressure which is magnified by an earthquake. Liquefaction also puts pressure on retaining walls causing the soil particles to slide or tilt. Such movements usually cause considerable damage to structures.
Examples Of Soil Liquefaction Incidents
Niigata Earthquake (Honshu, Japan, 1964)
On June 16, 1964, an earthquake of magnitude between 7.5 and 7.6, hit the city of Niigata, Japan. The earthquake had a focal depth of 21 miles, with the coastal areas experiencing severe soil liquefaction of VIII on the Mercalli intensity scale. Reverse movements of the ground and poor sub-soil conditions are some of the factors that reactivated the fault. Most of Niigata stands on unconsolidated sand from deltaic deposits from the Agano and Shinano rivers. 15 minutes after the earthquake, Niigata received its first wave of the Tsunami. It flooded the Awa Island, Sado Island, and Oki Islands in Shimane Prefecture. Ryotsu Harbor recorded a 9 foot high wave, Shiotami 13 feet, and Naoetsu 3-6 feet. Sandy beaches recorded up to 20 feet. The ensuing waves had a 20 and 50 minute time interval.
Alaska earthquake (South-central Alaska, US, 1964)
March 27, 1964 brought with it a 9.2-moment magnitude earthquake to the Prince William Sound areas of Alaska. The earthquake started around 15.5 miles underground, with the epicenter about 74 miles east of Anchorage, 6 miles east of the Fiord College, and 55 miles west of Valdez. The rapture lasted for about 4.5 minutes making it the most powerful soil liquefaction in US history. The movements were felt as far as 1200 miles in Seattle, Washington. Rivers, lakes, and many waterways sloshed as far as Texas and Louisiana. Only the water recorders of Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island did not register the earthquake. Tsunamis from the earthquake caused considerable damage as far as California and Oregon. There were 129 fatalities and a property loss equivalent to $2.3 billion in 2013.
Loma Prieta earthquake (Northern California, US, 1989)
On October 17, 1989, an earthquake with an epicenter in Nisene Marks State Park hit Northern California for approximately 8-15 minutes. Loma Prieta earthquake had a 6.9-moment magnitude and IX maximum Mercalli intensity. 63 people died and 3,757 were injured. The region had undergone a four-year drought, thus limiting the potential of landslides. However, the terrain around the epicenter experienced much movement with up to 4,000 ground failures occurring in those 15 seconds. Extensive damages took place in Santa Cruz County as well as some considerable property destruction in Monterey County. However, effects extended to the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Oakland, where site amplification due to liquefaction occurred. A large number of ground effects such as downslope movement, ground cracks, and slumps occurred. Liquefaction caused severe damage in the Marina District of San Francisco, and a non-destructive tsunami hit Monterey Bay. The highest damage happened in the collapse of Cypress Street Viaduct Nimitz Freeway. The upper double-deck portion of the highway collapsed and crushed the cars on the lower levels while car crashed on the higher freeway. 49 feet of the bridge connecting San Francisco to Oakland Bay also collapsed.
Mitigating The Effects Of Soil Liquefactions
Soil liquefaction can cause extreme damage to the environment and buildings. Buildings with a sandy foundation experience an immediate loss of support resulting in drastic and irregular building arrangement and hence severe structural damage. The jerky ground movement may break underground utility lines. Thus, earthquake engineers have devised means of mitigating liquefactions in order to minimize these effects. Such methods include soil compaction methods like the Vibro compaction using depth vibrators, Vibro stone columns, and dynamic compaction. These techniques results in soil densification enabling structures to withstand soil liquefactions. Existing buildings could be injected with grout which stabilizes the soil layer susceptible to liquefaction.
What is Soil Liquefaction?
1Niigata earthquake Honshu, Japan1964
2Alaska earthquakeSouth-central Alaska1964
3Loma Prieta earthquakeNorthern California, United States1989
4Great Hanshin earthquakeHyogo Prefecture, Japan1995
5Chuetsu earthquakesNiigata Prefecture, Japan2004
6Canterbury earthquakeSouth Island, New Zealand2010
7Christchurch earthquakeChristchurch, New Zealand2011
More in Environment


Winter Burn
Winter Burn
Winter Burn
Here we are well into our spring and I am amazed at the wreckage that this past winter has left behind. I've never experienced such a wide array of damage. Winter burn on evergreens, die back on tender plants, deer damage, crushed and broken limbs, and even patches of dead lawn. It seems that every garden has been affected in one way or another. The gardens that faced south and had full exposure from winds or had lost snow cover for a short time, seemed to fare the worst. The following is what I've been seeing in and around Kalamazoo. Hopefully it will help you understand what to do to recover and prevent damage in the future.
Winter burn happens because plants are losing moisture faster than the roots can keep up with. Of course when the ground is frozen it makes it hard for the plant to get water to replace what is being used in transpiration.
What does winter burn look like?
Usually the outer parts of the evergreen shrub or tree will die back and turn an orange brown color. Beneath the dead foliage should be healthy green foliage that was protected all winter long. Typically it will be evident on the side of the plant exposed to the sun and wind. Winter burn can also occur on Roses, Japanese Maples, Lavender, and Butterfly Bushes, to name a few. See the following picture for an example of winter burn.
Most plants will survive winter burn, but it does depend on how severely they were damaged. Obviously if more than 40% of the plant is showing winter burn, then you may want to consider replacing the plant.
How can I help my plants recover from winter burn?
First, wait to trim in June. Trimming too soon, before they begin to harden up for change in weather, can cause further damage. Make sure to focus on maintaining the shape and not cutting out each little piece of deadwood. Fertilize with a 10-10-10 fertilizer to help encourage new growth and keep existing growth healthy. Evergreens pruned after August 1 show plenty of damage. Late season pruning may look smart, but it is an invitation to trouble. I would advise, if you have formally pruned yews, boxwood or arborvitae, quit cutting August 1. As for my roses, I quit dead heading them in mid August. In the interest that they might so better over the winter, intact. Finally, and most importantly water your evergreens and roses.
I will say the winter devastation to my roses is very tough to take. I know I need to prune every rose down hard. As for my shrub roses, I am warming up the idea that they will need to be replaced. And that I will need to start fresh, and design a new look. I won't do a new garden tomorrow-I am still in the shock stage
Deer & Rabbit Damage…
There has been significant damage to Arborvitae, Yews, Evergreen Euonymous, and many more varieties. The long & cold winter brought the wild life closer than I've ever seen this past winter. Below are some common site I'm sure we've all seen around town.
WinterBurn-2 & 3
What can we do to save our plants? Cut our losses and begin spraying to deter them. There are a lot of products available on the market. Some require to be sprayed directly on the plant, while others can be sprayed on the ground around the plant. One of our favorites here is Liquid Fence. It works great, if you don't mind the smell of rotten eggs. There's also Systemic Animal Repellents- A concentrated extract of hot chili peppers is absorbed through the roots. Not to be used on plants to be consumed of course. The other option is to replace the damaged plants with native varieties that are deer and rabbit resistant.


Friday, January 18, 2013
Independence, USA: What Does Glenn Beck Have in Common With the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors and Tama-Re?
Outsider communities are a rich and deep part of the American cultural and political tradition.
Glenn Beck is going to start his own John Galtian live action role playing amusing park living community called "Independence, USA." It is fitting that Glenn Beck is imitating Walt Disney. Both believe(d) in protecting the white nuclear family, and creating a fictive world of heterosexual, normalized whiteness, where no Others need to intrude.
Some of his fellow libertarians have played too many hours of the videogame Bioshock and are going to establish their own floating city in the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, these libertarian Otaku did not realize that Bioshock is a cautionary tale--as opposed to one that is inspirational.
Like Jim Jones, Beck and his libertarian Utopian-isolationists are as American as apple pie.
Although Glenn Beck is a reactionary white conservative who believes that Barack Obama hates white people, and wants to "oppress" them, fate is a trickster (as she always is). As such, Glenn Beck has a "brother from another mother" on the other side of the color line.
Dr. Malachi Z. York was a con man and black charismatic religious figure, who with hundreds of followers, established an amusement park and black separatist futurist religious community during the 1990s called Tama-re in Georgia.
Glenn Beck's "Independence, USA" will be a model of idealized John Galtian Ayn Randian libertarianism. There, untenable political theories as offered up in piss poor works of literature will become real for its visitors and residents:
Let's compare Glenn Beck's "Independence, USA" with Dr. York's Nuwaubian community Tama-re:
In 1993, York purchased a 476 acre game ranch in Eatonton, Georgia. Approximately 400 followers moved to Georgia with York. The group was once again renamed, The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. This group claimed to be part of a Native-American tribe from Georgia called the Yamassee.
The Nuwaubians claim that they are ancestors of Egyptians who migrated from the Nile Valley to the Georgia countryside prior to the continental drift that separated the continents. These Egyptian migrants came known to be the Yamassee Native Americans. The Nuwaubians have attempted to use their ancestoral lineage to the Yamassee as a basis for obtaining sovereignty from the United States government.
The name of the Nuwaubians home is Tama-re, or the "Egypt of the West." At the entrance of Tama-re there is a large sign that recognizes the Nuwaubians as a fraternity, Lodge 19 of the Ancient Mystic Order of Melchizedek. Armed guards stand at the entrance to Tama-re. Approximately 100 Nuwaubians live within 15 double-wide trailers within this complex...
At this current complex the Nuwaubians have constructed an Egytian-style village with two pyramids, obelisks, and statues of Egyptian leaders. The two pyramids are distinct in appearance and in usage. There is a gold pyramid that serves as a trade center. Within this pyramid one can find a bookstore and a clothing store. The other pyramid is painted black with colorful Egyptian symbols painted on the outside. This structure serves as a church. Within the church, loudspeakers play Egyptian chants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ultimately, are Dr. York's teachings and those of the Nuwaubians that different from those of Glenn Beck, if not in a resonance of details, but in fantastical thinking?
In fact, nearly every school of "alternative" information popular in the U.S. since the late 60s is represented in York's hefty output.
Paranoia is paranoia. Cults of personality are very similar across time, cultures, communities, religion, race, and gender. Glenn Beck is a former(?) drug addict, radio shock jock wannabe Howard Stern imitator, faux historian propagandist, snake oil salesman and carnival barker. Malachi York was playing the same game, just with different politics, all the while working towards the same end goal--personal enrichment and power.
The latter was/is far less dangerous and relatively harmless than the former.
Ultimately, who would think that a white populist conservative Mormon who believes in a herrenvolk America, one which is a Utopian playground for Whiteness, unfettered capitalism, and hyper-conservatism, would have so much in common with a black charismatic leader, futurist, and refined street hustler.
I guess a love of power and real estate makes for strange bedfellows. I do so very much love it when a plan comes together. Indeed, Crom mocks us all, and does so with one hell of a sense of humor.
Nebris said...
"Total paranoia is total awareness." ~Charles Manson
Anonymous said...
A friend and I had a discussion about how Bioshock was a rigged game. Did the philosophy of Rapture fail, or was it the readily available gene-altering superpower drugs?
SunKissed said...
I've read dozens of articles on this sight and have only been slightly tempted to comment. But, mention Bioshock and my geek senses go into a frenzy. Raptures philosophy is what failed. If it wasn't for Andrew Ryan's strict vision of a completely deregulated society Fontain Futuristics and there unethical scientific practices would have never existed. Rapture was doomed to fail from the beginning. By the time the main character enters whats left of Rapture Ryan had introduced several regulations that led to him becoming the very thing that he claimed to hate. Now would you kindly admit that it just got all types of geeky up in here.
Marc McKenzie said...
_USER_: "Now would you kindly admit that it just got all types of geeky up in here."
Yes, it did. Still have to finish BIOSHOCK 2, and itching to play the upcoming BIOSHOCK INFINITE. But I would also like to read the novel "Bioshock Rapture" which follows the development of the city and Ryan's initial plans for it.
_USER_: Are you sure that any of Beck's followers have played BIOSHOCK? I mean...they'd probably turn their noses up at videogames.....
(Joking here, of course. As you said, they probably have, and took the wrong message away from the game.)
And again, thank you for this. Very interesting reading....
Bruto Alto said...
Andrew Ryan's vision and Beck's vision aren't the same. Ryan only wanted unheld progress. Beck wants to get back to his "Good Old Days"
Anonymous said...
Them be some mighty fine STRAWMEN. Are they black, too?
"white nuclear family"
Anonymous said...
bioshock is more lametard leased online reality
when I BUY a game I DEMAND that I be able to plan in LAN only mode as an option: or no sale
chaunceydevega said...
_USER_. always. we need that on a t-shirt. I love Orwellian turns of phrase.
_USER_. I guess you are missing out on lots of great gaming then.
_USER_. That is the paradox. The past is the future for Beck and company.
_USER_. I need that book too. Didn't know about it. I doubt Beck or his clan have played that game. The folks building their own island. Now they may have.
_USER_. that is my read of the game too. I Bioshock Infinite is going to be all kinds of amazing. The writers of that game need to come up with a book/role-playing source book old school style. I would buy it in a minute.
Anonymous said...
Rounding up all the looney birds into one central location sounds like a grand idea to me.
Glen Beck lives in north Irving, which is pretty much as booshy as the Dallas metroplex gets, short of Highland Park or something. The chances of him actually moving to this little commune are about 0, is what i'm trying to say. He's just a classic carpet-bagger, and now that he's in good with the rest of the Dallas power structure, he's cashing in the classic Texas way; Capitalizing on low land prices (due to the neverending drought) to turn some of the acres & acres of fallow former-farmland that surround the metroplex like a giant unending ocean into.. you guessed it.. subdivisions that North Dallas bankers will jump over themselves to offer mortgages on. Thats how this town works. Dallas is just a centralized collection place for all the money that these carpet-baggers suck out of the honest (& desperate) people of the rest of the state. No wonder Mr. Beck has found such a faithful audience and friendly home here in North Dallas.
One pack of firecrackers tossed in the street and the whole place will erupt into a blaze of gunfire.
- Buddy H.
chaunceydevega said...
_USER_. how does such a con work? does he get the marks to buy into the subdivision and also cover maintenance while he actually holds the paper on the property so that he can flip it later? in essence, beck's followers come up with the majority of the money to live there, but he actually owns the property?
Michael Varian Daly said


text:
Making an agreement
Coming together to hear each other's pronouncement
Discussing toward merriment,
Striding away from a state of being recalcitrant,
Through sympathizing, we come to an agreement~
In debates of readings it is oftentimes said that once one reads a book, one feels more sympathy toward, and understanding of others than before having read the book. In everyday parlance, this is often situated as having had the opportunity to walk in someone else's shoes. This level of sympathy is not only important in a person's personal life, but also in general political and diplomatic life. If one country's diplomats cannot seem to come to terms of understanding with another nation's representatives, then agreements are difficult to make. For this reason, I argue that poetry relates to diplomacy in yet another way through its ways of conveying the importance and concept of sympathy to both its readers and listeners.


Recycled Wool Pants Panda
This recycled crafts sewing project shows you how to take an old pair of woolen pants (or jumper/pullover) and create an adorable plushie panda.
Recycled Wool Pants Panda
What you need
old woolen pants
needle and thread
button (for the nose)
step 1: cut one leg of the pant, sew along the straight line to get a bag open at both ends.
step 2: sew the lower narrow end by running stitch to tightly close it. (like making ruffles) .
Panda Step 1
Panda Steps 1a
step 3: make running stitches around the neck portion.
Panda Step 3
step 4: stitch the eyes, nose and ears on the head and fill it.
Stitch Panda Eyes
Stitch Panda Nose
step 5: slightly pull the running stitch thread to get a neck.
Make Panda Neck
step 6: stitch the arms and fill the body.
Stitch Arms
step 7: again to close the end make running stitches around.
Make Running Stitches
step 8: fold the remaining portion inside the toy.
Fold Inside Toy
step 9: fill the remaining body and pull the stitch thread to close the end.
Close The End
step 10: stitch the legs and tie a ribbon bow around the neck
Panda finished
 1. I would do it, but I can't sew.
 2. wow
What do you think of this project? Let us know!