Solid waste is often seen as an environmental problem to be solved through change of behaviour and recycling. Political ecology can sharpen our analysis of the politics involved in the way materials move through the economy. Prospects for reducing the amount of solid waste generated and ambitions for a "circular economy" will entail qualitative transformations in patterns of material flows and organisation of labour. Deciphering the shape of these changes necessarily begins in the present conditions and struggles of waste workers.
January 27, 2017 – A man carries a load of PET bottles for recycling, at Olusosun landfill, Lagos, Nigeria. Photo and caption: Kadir van Lohuizen, 'Wasteland', 2018 World Press Photo Awards.
The photographs accompanying this article are from 'Wasteland' by Kadir van Lohuizen, a winning series in the 2018 World Press Photo Awards. The photographs were published along with videos and a written story in the Washington Post with the title 'Drowning in Garbage' on 21st November 2017.
Kadir van Lohuizen's Wasteland photos draw attention to the growing volume of solid waste and, through visits to six cities across the world, explore "how different societies manage—or mismanage—their waste". The photos provide a vantage point from which to glimpse the world metabolism – the relation of humans to nature through production – the circulations of extraction, use and disposal of materials. These photos can easily conjure catastrophic visions of swelling numbers of people producing growing piles of garbage, despoiling Nature and threatening to inundate us. "I honestly feel if we don't do anything we are going to drown in our own waste", says van Lohuizen in the accompanying video for The Washington Post.
Political ecology can substantially sharpen our analysis of the politics of waste, the uneven distribution of benefits and burdens, the already ongoing conflicts over the valorization of waste as a resource, as well as the political effects of waste as a mobile category, which casts people, places and practices as wasteful, feckless, residual. By overcoming being revulsed by our own waste and wishing it would go away, and instead engaging with waste as an important expression of the way production and livelihood is organised, we can better focus on how more just socio-metabolic configurations of humans and matter might be assembled.
4000 people salvage a livelihood from the Olusosun landfill (pictured above and below) in a complex informal economy. Globally an estimated 1% of the world population are informal waste workers. West African scholars trace informal waste work in Nigeria to the structural adjustment programme imposed in 1986, after which rates of poverty and unemployment roughly doubled by the mid 2000's. Waste work emerges as marginal livelihood strategy for the 'relative surplus population' who are excluded from formal wage labour but nevertheless form an important part of the labouring population. Indeed, many studies have drawn attention to the significant contributions of informal waste work to urban sanitation, providing survival and livelihoods, as well as recycling large quantities of revalorised materials back into national and international industries. For example, 95% of materials in the reuse chain in Accra, Ghana, are delivered through the labour of informal waste workers.
January 21, 2017- People wait to sort through waste for recyclable and saleable material, as a garbage truck arrives at the Olusosun landfill, in Lagos, Nigeria. Photo and caption: Kadir van Lohuizen, 'Wasteland', 2018 World Press Photo Awards.
The asymmetry between the work performed by informal waste workers and the poor compensation and indifference of public policies towards the welfare of the workers, appears to be maintained in large part through stigmas attached to waste work as 'lowly' and 'degrading' and where the sector is seen as inefficient and tainted by dysfunctionality and criminality. Nwosu, Nzeadibe, and Mbah, in their study of informal waste management and public policy in West Africa, blame the negative connotations harboured by institutional stakeholders for this neglect in politics and policy. But it is only capitalism that has formally cast waste workers as surplus (and even then it happily receives their products through the backdoor); waste workers themselves, through labouring with materials, see the value they create: "I give new life to things that are unwanted, that people have thrown away", a Delhi waste worker tells Vinay Gidwani.
In multiple countries, waste workers have formed associations through which to negotiate with state organs governing waste management – securing recognition and formal rights to carry out waste collection – and thereby have built political power. In 2008, 6'000 waste workers organised in the union Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP), made an agreement with the Pune Municipal Corporation to provide door-to-door collection. Waste pickers' cooperatives have been included in solid waste management strategies and governance in Belo Horizonte, Brazil since 1993, as well as in Colombia. In both countries, movements of informal workers resulted in legal frameworks that recognize waste pickers' legitimate right to collect waste as common property. .
December 5, 2016 – Ponte Pequena, one of three waste-transfer stations in São Paulo, Brazil. Enhanced recycling awareness in São Paulo has led to the city producing one third less waste per person than sister metropolis Rio de Janeiro. Photo and caption: Kadir van Lohuizen, 'Wasteland', 2018 World Press Photo Awards.
Studies of informal waste workers from the Global South have moved from a focus on global relations of ecologically unequal exchange via toxic dumping, towards waste workers' struggles to protect and improve their livelihoods. The salvaged 'waste commons' which form the basis of waste-pickers work are vulnerable to enclosure where new technologies, material scarcities or environmental priorities revalorize waste and/or the need to control it more totally.
Federico Demaria & Seth Schindler describe a conflict in Delhi, where the changing composition of waste has increased its value, making it a profitable flow to control. The new (privatized) waste management system threatens to seal off the waste collection system and funnel high-calorie materials to waste-to-energy plants, competing with the city's 200,000 informal waste workers for recyclables like paper and plastic. These authors argue waste-to-energy solutions, in addition to dispossessing workers of their livelihoods, may embed institutional interests in sustaining a high waste throughput and recommend that the informal sector should be more inclusively incorporated into an efficient, distributed and labour-intensive waste management system – without incineration.
July 9, 2017 Garbage is collected in the center of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Photo and caption: Kadir van Lohuizen, 'Wasteland', 2018 World Press Photo Awards.
The integration of informal waste workers into waste management systems is thus emerging as a popular policy proposal. Studies from West Africa argue foreign based capital-intensive waste management systems have largely been inappropriate for the local development trajectories of Ghanaian cities, and that recognition and integration of informal solid waste management practices should be pursued. Sonia Maria Dias sketches a tentative model of "inclusive solid waste management" based on rights to 'waste commons', engagement with informal waste worker organizations and participatory governance. But the formalizing informal waste work can be difficult. In South Africa, a 90 per cent failure rate for waste cooperative initiatives has been reported. Formalization initiatives also involve complex relationships of power: movements to formalize may come from worker self-organization to improve livelihoods, or encouraged by NGO's, state and private actors as part of global attempts to control and profit from waste.
Waste commons and salvaged livelihoods then appear as what Vinay Gidwani calls a "permanent border area of primitive accumulation", subject to inclusion/exclusion from expanded reproduction depending on the prevailing conditions of profitability. Whilst "capitalism must perpetually have something outside of itself" to maintain stability according to David Harvey, this outside simultaneously propagates alternatives where salvaged commons generate common practices and produce new types of worker subjects and political forces. Gidwani emphasises that waste workers' 'infra-structural labour' is simultaneously invisible and essential; in many cities it "repairs and renews the city, continuously re-creating the conditions of possibility for urban life and capitalist enterprise".
May 19, 2016 – Waste piles up in Manhattan, New York, USA. Photo and caption: Kadir van Lohuizen, 'Wasteland', 2018 World Press Photo Awards.
Zero waste strategies, fluctuations in raw materials prices, emerging materials constraints and new recovery technologies have in their crosshairs a 'waste commodity frontier' within cities. Instability of materials prices and materials constraints and new recovery technologies mean that cities' waste-streams are targets for materials sourcing. New research into the politics of waste is exploring the consequences of these developments for contestations over the global metabolism, with particular attention to the way that the materiality of waste and waste infrastructures – or the 'infra-structural' nature of waste work – may "enable and constrain waste workers' ability to garner benefits from waste flows". Beyond a minor recalibration of costs and benefits, this will necessarily entail qualitative transformations in metabolic flows and organisations of labour.
Political ecology should go beyond identifying environmental inequalities to ask what happens when surplus labour and surplus materials demand to be included, compensated and dealt with. Can capitalism afford to pay its bills? As Marxist environmental historian Jason Moore has emphasised in his agenda-setting Capitalism in the Web of Life, the de-valued work-energy of human and extra-human natures is central to the continued expansion of historical capitalism, but it is now rapidly running out of free lunches. The profligate wastefulness of capitalism comes into view and we should consider what type of socio-metabolic profiles, what types of economies, are both feasible and just when both humans and matter refuse to be disposable.
July 3, 2017 – A ship in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is loaded with scrap metal bound for recycling in Turkey. Photo and caption: Kadir van Lohuizen, 'Wasteland', 2018 World Press Photo Awards.
Benjamin Irvine is a Masters student in Ecological Economics at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has a bachelor's degree (2011) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from The University of Manchester.
This is part of a series of four blog posts written by master students of the political ecology course, part of the UAB-ICTA's Master's Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability. The essays were inspired by prize winning photos of the World Press Photography Awards 2018.


text:
Hakea preissii, commonly known as the needle tree, needle bush and Christmas hakea, is a shrub or tree of the genus Hakea native to Western Australia. The Noongar name for the plant is Tanjinn.

Description
Hakea preissii is a shrub or tree which typically grows to a height of . It has branchlets that are moderately to densely appressed-pubescent on new growth, quickly glabrescent, and glaucous in their second year. The rigid, simple leaves are rarely divided apically into 2 or 3 segments,  in length and  in width.
Inflorescence are axillary with 4–28 yellow-green flowers with persistent pedicels  long. Smooth grey to black fruit that are obliquely ovate or elliptic, dilated apically and approximately  long and  wide. It blooms from August to December.

Taxonomy
Hakea preissii was first formally described by the botanist Carl Meissner in 1845 from a specimen collected in a forest near York. The description was published in Johann Georg Christian Lehmann's work Plantae Preissianae. The specific epithet (preissii) honours Ludwig Preiss who collected plant specimens in Western Australia between 1838 and 1842.

Distribution and habitat
Needle tree is endemic to an area in the Pilbara, Wheatbelt, Mid West and Goldfields-Esperance  regions of Western Australia. It has a scattered distribution and is found as far north as Tom Price and south as Gnowangerup. It is found along the west coast and a little farther east than Kalgoorlie. The plant is found on plains and around the margins of salt marshes growing in sand, loam and sandy-clay soils. It sometimes invades semi-arid pastoral land in Western Australia.

Conservation
This species is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.

References

preissii
Eudicots of Western Australia
Plants described in 1845
Taxa named by Carl Meissner

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: How to solve race condition? Value of Global variable var in main() function sometimes comes -1 and sometimes 1 .How to write a robust code without using sleep function so that thread get time to get started and running .
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <pthread.h>

int var = -1; // GLobal Variable

void *myThreadFun(void *vargp)
{
    var = 1;
    return NULL;
}

int main()
{
    pthread_t thread_id;
    printf("Before Thread\n");
    pthread_create(&thread_id, NULL, myThreadFun, NULL);

    printf("var=%d",var);

    pthread_join(thread_id, NULL);
    printf("After Thread\n");
    exit(0);
}

A:
Value of Global variable var in main() function sometimes comes -1 and
sometimes 1 .How to write a robust code without using sleep function
so that thread get time to get started and running .

It is a distressingly common misconception among those new to multithreaded programming that problems such as yours are a matter of timing.  That is not the case, at least not from the perspective of the threading and memory models of most modern high-level programming languages.  No amount of delay alone ensures that one thread will see the effects on memory produced by another, therefore robust code does not use timing functions such as sleep() for that purpose.
Rather, the issue is one of synchronization.  This is the area that contains rules about what writes to memory by one thread must be visible to other threads.  It also covers special kinds of objects and functions that serve to enable threads to affect the execution of other threads, generally by temporarily blocking them from proceeding.  These two facets are closely linked.
The pthread_create() and pthread_join() functions have synchronization effects.  Among other things, all writes to memory by a thread T1 before it calls pthread_create() to start a thread T2 are visible to T2 (modulo subsequent rewrites of the same memory).  All writes to memory by T2 are visible to T1 after it successfully joins T2 via pthread_join().  Therefore, one solution to the question as posed is to wait until after joining the second thread before attempting to read var, as @Robert's answer suggests.
If that is undesirable, then you'll need to engage some other kind of synchronization mechanism to make the main thread wait for the second to update var.  Such a wait on a synchronization object will also have the effect of making the second thread's write visible to the main thread.
The most general-purpose synchronization technique offered by pthreads is the condition variable which must be used in conjunction with a mutex.  You will find many explanations here on SO and elsewhere about how properly to use a CV.
For your particular case, however, you might find a semaphore easier to set up and use.  Semaphores are technically separate from the pthreads library proper, but they have suitable synchronization semantics, both for making threads wait and for making memory operations of one thread visible to another.  That might look like this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <semaphore.h>

int var = -1; // GLobal Variable
sem_t semaphore;

void *myThreadFun(void *vargp)
{
    var = 1;

    // increment the semaphore's value
    sem_post(&semaphore);

    return NULL;
}

int main()
{
    pthread_t thread_id;

    // initialize the semaphore with value 0
    sem_init(&semaphore, 0, 0);

    printf("Before Thread\n");
    pthread_create(&thread_id, NULL, myThreadFun, NULL);

    // Wait until the semaphore's value can be decremented by one without
    // it becoming negative (and then perform the decrement before proceeding).
    sem_wait(&semaphore);

    printf("var=%d",var);

    pthread_join(thread_id, NULL);
    printf("After Thread\n");
    exit(0);
}

A: I think your code is robust, it's just where you print the result which is incorrect. You need to ensure your thread has finished his work before printing the result.
If you print the result before calling pthread_join, there are two possibilities:

*

*myThreadFun has already changed var, in such case var will contain the value 1

*myThreadFun hasn't been completely executed, in such case, var will have its initial value -1.

If you print the result after calling pthread_join, the function myThreadFun will be fully executed and it will print 1.
int main()
{
    pthread_t thread_id;
    printf("Before Thread\n");
    pthread_create(&thread_id, NULL, myThreadFun, NULL);

    pthread_join(thread_id, NULL);
    printf("After Thread\n");

    printf("var=%d",var); /* Here, the thread has completed */

    exit(0);
}

A: Robert's solution is sensible, but I believe you don't actually want to wait for the thread to complete.
If you want the main thread to wait for the variable to be set by the thread without waiting for the thread to end, you will need some kind of synchronization. I'll use a semaphore, but there are a number of other solutions.
#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

static sem_t started_threads_sem;
static int var;

static void *myThreadFun(void *vargp) {
    sleep(3);  // This is the thread doing some initialization.

    var = 1;
    sem_post(&started_threads_sem);

    sleep(3);  // This is the thread doing stuff.

    return NULL;
}

int main() {
    printf("Before Thread\n");
    sem_init(&started_threads_sem, 0, 0);

    pthread_t thread_id;
    pthread_create(&thread_id, NULL, myThreadFun, NULL);

    // Wait for the thread to have started.
    sem_wait(&started_threads_sem);
    printf("var=%d\n", var);

    pthread_join(thread_id, NULL);
    printf("After Thread\n");
    exit(0);
}

Before Thread
<3 s pause>
var=1
<3 s pause>
After Thread

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
KDnuggets Home » News » 2015 » Jun » Opinions, Interviews, Reports » Interview: Joseph Babcock, Netflix on Discovery and Personalization from Big Data ( 15:n19 )
Interview: Joseph Babcock, Netflix on Discovery and Personalization from Big Data
Tags: Experimentation, Insights, Interview, Joseph Babcock, Knowledge Discovery, Netflix, Personalization
We discuss the steps involved in Discovery process at Netflix, impact due to multitude of devices, system generated logs, and surprising insights.
Twitter Handle: @hey_anmol
Joseph Babcock is currently a Senior Data Scientist working on Discovery & Personalization algorithms and data processing at Netflix.
Before Netflix, he studied computational biology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where his PhD research in the Department of Neuroscience employed machine learning models to predict adverse side-effects of drugs.
He also previously worked at Chicago-based Accretive Health as a Data Scientist, focusing on data related to patient billing and referrals.
Here is first part of my interview with him:
Anmol Rajpurohit: Q1. What are the typical steps involved in the Discovery process at Netflix, i.e. in helping users find the right content for their taste?
Joseph Babcock: Optimizing user discovery of content on Netflix, like many machine learning problems, has two major elements: trying to understand the patterns in the customer's historical activities, and generalizing those patterns to future behavior.
The first part is where 'Big Data' processing, aggregation, and analysis are involved. By logging what content customers play, browse, and search for, we construct a profile of their interests, and perform exploratory analyses to examine which signals are more predictive than others for engagement (e.g., choosing to stream a program). We use promising signals from this analysis to prototype models offline and compare their performance against our current systems in an effort to identify potential hypotheses for improvement.
The second step involves experimentation: taking these hypotheses and testing if they successfully generalize in a head-to-head comparison with our existing algorithms by randomly assigning a subset of users to receive these alternative recommendations. Once we've evaluated whether a statistically significant difference exists between the performance of the old and new models (after controlling for potential confounding variables and looking for multiple points of evidence to support our conclusions), the cycle begins anew in a continuous process of innovation.
AR: Q2. Netflix is being watched today over a wide multitude of devices. How does this impact your task of Discovery and Personalization?
JB: While the diversity of platforms affords our customers great flexibility in how they enjoy our product, it presents special challenges for our personalization efforts. For example, the website features an 'instant search' feature that generates results in real-time as users type queries, while Smart TV and mobile devices require you to explicitly input a search term; our algorithms need to accommodate both scenarios.
Similarly, our predictive models and the UIs that utilize them need to work on a mobile phone that can display only a few titles in a screen, as well as the large-screen TV in your living room. On the back end, this involves a lot of careful work to design flexible data schema in our warehouse that can accommodate inputs from multiple client platforms without obscuring important differences between them in user behavior.
AR: Q3. A great amount of Analytics at Netflix is based on the system generated logs. What are the main benefits and challenges of dealing with log data?
JB: A major benefit of our system logging is that our investment in cloud infrastructure makes it possible to scalably incorporate new devices, platforms and geographic regions as we continue our global expansion. Because this data is usually supplied in the form of Javascript Object Notation (JSON), it is flexible for recording many kinds of data, and for changing what we are logging in an agile way.
This flexibility can also be a challenge, as the first step in most of our algorithmic data preparation is taking this unstructured data and transforming it into a more conventional row-column dataframe used for predictive modeling, which with nested data structures can require a lot of custom logic during Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) jobs.
AR: Q4. What have been some of the most unexpected, surprising insights that you have obtained through analyzing log data at Netflix?
JB: I think we're frequently surprised by the differences between data derived from user feedback (such as ratings or taste preference selections) and what interests are revealed by their actual behavior on the service. Many of our users claim to enjoy foreign films and documentaries; practical experience tells us that, come movie night, they might watch Family Guy instead.
Second part of the interview will be published soon.
Cliff Lyon, Stubhub on Mastering Recommendation & Personalization Analytics
Amit Sheth, Kno.e.sis on Deriving Actionable Insights from Social Data
Mario Vinasco, Facebook on Advancing Marketing Analytics through Rigorous Experimentation

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The History of Internet Snowboarding: Part One | The full story of YOBEAT w/ Brooke Geery
"Hanging with my teen hero Peter Line at his 25th Birthday party. There were porn stars and in the backgound are G. Trevor Phillips, Chris Saydah and some dude who might be the bass player for No Doubt."
In the grand scheme of things snowboarding is a VERY young sport. We're still seeing our first generation of pro's out there riding, we're still dealing with basic issues like how many spins are too many, are contests cool, are tight or baggy pants more cool, etc. We're still getting used to the minor up and down cycle of the industry that doesn't mean snowboarding is dead and we're still trying to hold onto our original DIY identity that corporations, big contests, mainstream owned snow media, and others try to strip away. One of the original websites to really tap into this feeling (and also really one of the original snowboard websites period!) was started by a then young teenager named Brooke Geery in 1997 on 2MB's and a prayer. It was called YOBEAT. Brooke was a spunky little brat from the Ice Coast not afraid to tell it as she saw it. As the Internet grew from it's rudimentary beginnings, so did the website. Once the mid-late 00's hit Yobeat was putting out hilarious content that sometimes pissed off pro snowboarders and helped to push the corporate snow websites to step up their original content and daily update game.
Yobeat was taking over. Pro's were writing the articles. They released a print magazine. They made a video. They released merch. They broke stories like 'The Burton Letter' that other websites wouldn't touch.
Then after SNOWBOARDER MAG and TWSnow merged into one corporate monster, and large contests and started gaining ground as the underground started to submerge, right when we needed the renegade voice of Yobeat most, the site seemed to disappear. The daily unique content was replaced with heaps of uninspired web edits and a social media program. Then articles started popping up that were years old. What the hell was going on?
So I hit up Yobeat's founder Brooke Geery to find out what the deal was.
Turns out she's been off it for ages and makes a living through driving uber and lyft and AirBnB rentals. What happened? Where did her legendary daily drive go? Is snowboarding dead? Did she become a reclusive Portland cat lady? Did JP Walker smash her kneecaps out? We had to find out!!!
So we talked. We talked for hours and hours and all these questions were answered. But not just about Yobeat's recent activities. We started back in 1997 when the Internet and snowboarding were just getting touchy feely. Interestingly enough, Brooke's career path mirrored much of its growth and more. SNOWBOARDER on-line, X-Games and Grenade in their heydays, Burton scandals, TWSnow: Brooke had poked a finger into all of it, crossing paths with nearly every pro snowboarder, media personality, and industry bigwig in the process. The interview we ended up with basically covers the history of the Internet in snowboarding. And love it or hate it, don't deny that Yobeat played a huge part in it.
Now that the $$$ pressure is relieved through uber'ing and lyft'ing, Brooke is looking at bringing Yobeat back! Look out
So grab a drink, put on some music, and settle in for a ride through the history of snowboarding on the Internet and the history of YoBeat through the lens of its founder Brooke Geery. This one's a two-parter and strictly for the snowboard nerds. Look for the second piece tomorrow…..
YOBEAT Interview Part 1
Board Rap: So let's start near the beginning. Most know the basics. Around 1997, AOL, small scale, etc. But how did Yobeat really get its foot into the industry's ass?
Brooke Geery: Yeah, AOL came on disks and cost $3 an hour. It also came with 2mb of free web space, which I, along with my friend Rachel, who I'd met in the AOL chatroom "Snowboarding Online," used to start the zine that would inevitably become the YoBeat people know and love to hate. It's a long story so hold on tight.
No rush. Let's hear it all.
SOL was one of the earliest snowboard resources online and in 1996, it was a pretty small circle. Accordingly, my media prowess caught the eye of Lee Crane and Shanti Sosienski and before I knew it they were hiring me to write stories about snowboarding for their web portal. Later SOL was taken over by Transworld's then-parent company, and all that content became what is now TWSnow.com. So just like that, I wrote for Transworld.
I grew up Rutland, Vermont and it was easy to travel around to all the events, which in the mid-90s there were a ton of. I was also competing and riding for Original Sin, so I sort of just wound up in the mix. I would post things on the Internet for fun, and occasionally make some waves on message boards or however people communicated back then.
Right, the glory days of the 90's.
When I was 17 I had graduated from high school a year early to "be a pro snowboarder," but I tore my ACL doing two big air contests in one day, and then broke my ankle on the other leg skateboarding right before I was supposed to have surgery, and realized maybe my energy was better suited towards writing about snowboarding than doing it.
"Me at the Best burton party ever. Dude unknown."
Damn I wonder what percentage of the snowboard industry got there because of injuries and not being able to 'go pro.' So many.
Most, probably. Instead of hucking myself off jumps, I worked at a video store in Killington, did various projects for the mountain marketing, wrote some stuff for TWSnow and it was awesome. In the spring of 1999, Rob Campbell, then editor of Snowboarder Magazine called me up and said, "Hey, we need a web editor. Your name came up."
I was planning on going to college and didn't really want to live in SoCal, but I've never been one to turn down an opportunity. I talked them into letting me intern and got them to pay me, making me the first paid intern at Snowboarder, ever. That was a crazy summer that I could spend three hours telling stories about, but just imagine an 18-year-old me living in a condo with a recently-divorced Mark Sullivan, a dude I referred to as the "gay Canadian" and Ethan Stone Fortier who literally ran Tech Nine out of a cave thing in our living room. I also got to go on a dream date with JJ Thomas for journalistic purposes.
When my internship was over, I moved back east, went to college at Plymouth State, which happened to coincide with the first of two years that the Blue Lodge was a thing, (although not the better of the two.) However, there was a really strong snowboard scene and I'd argue one of the best crews to come out of NH while I was there. I won't name drop unless you make me, but it was a great group of dudes and dudettes, many of whom are still actively involved in snowboarding. That said, I've never really been a fan of being right in the middle of "the scene" and I actually wanted to move to Mt. Baker and snowboard my way through college at Western Washington University. I transferred after my freshman year.
That next summer, my old pal Shanti had scored a gig at Bluetorch TV, which was essentially the precursor to FuelTV, and she offered me another, much better paying internship and I moved back to So Cal that summer.
So you went from TWSnow to Snowboarder, which was totally separate?
TWS and Snowboarder were totally different than they are now, in competition not owned by the same mega-corp. Snowboarder was part of Surfer Pubs and was definitely more my vibe. TWS has always been the more corpo mag and I think Times Mirror or AOL or someone owned them at that point.
Lee Crane, who ran TWS online for years, and really built them to be the snowboard web behemoth they became, was always bummed because I was, "working for the competition."
But then like now, it's a small world and everyone who works at the mags were friends. Things were a lot more interconnected than anyone wanted to admit. Definitely different times. I don't want to say the good old days but….I also used to get paid $.25 per word for snowboard web content.
Vanity Fair prices! Before we move onto your story. What were snowboard websites like in the late -90s? They must have been basic compared to now.
Well, there were only a couple and they were pretty rudimentary. I mean, all the old issues of Yobeat are still online. There was a lot of bright colored text on bright colored backgrounds.It's honestly hard to remember, but in general it was words and photos, not videos, because there wasn't enough bandwidth. All of the discussion was done in chat rooms or message boards, there were no comments and no social media. Not even Myspace.
Yeah I guess you couldn't be dropping 5-min long edits every hour throughout the day back then. And also the snowboard industry wasn't doing that itself yet, still on the annual video release schedule.
You couldn't even host animated gifs at this point.
I remember making my first animated gifs at Bluetorch, which I was just about to tell you about.
So they were like actual web magazines.
Initially, Yobeat came out in issues, but we transitioned to a mag-style layout after I was done with high school/snowboard bumming. Things changed really quickly. I would have been Snowboarder's first web editor. I honestly don't remember who they ended up hiring – I feel like it still took a couple years at that point. The web wasn't important or a consideration for snowboarding yet because not enough people were on it, ya know?
"The web wasn't important or a consideration for snowboarding yet because not enough people were on it, ya know?"
Totally. Still print mags and September video releases.
When I interned at Snowboarder I didn't even have Internet on my computer – which was a laptop that I brought from home. All I did was play asteroids all day. haha.
Let's drop some names to put reference to the time period. Are we talking early Grenade days? Pat Moore? Bridges still in the East Coast scene?
Ok, At Snowboarder, Pat Bridges showed up on his way to go to New Zealand and asked me if he could borrow my computer for his trip. This is the computer I used for work. He used to borrow it when we both lived in Rutland (I was 16) to write his assignments.
Ross Powers won his first Olympic medal (a bronze) the year before I interned at Snowboarder. I remember because they made him a fake Wheaties box cover and we answered angry letters about it.
Grenade was just getting going – I remember Matt Kass rolling through the next summer ranting about it.
Pat Moore was basically a fetus. Lucas Magoon was like 9 years old and following us around Killington.
"Myself, Ross Powers, and Shanti at SIA in 1999."
That Matt Kass Hump Day interview you guys did was wild.
lol thanks. A classic.
Ok. so you'd transferred to Baker, then back to SoCal.
So yeah I transferred to Western, but made another pitstop in SoCal to work for Bluetorch.
And this whole time slowly building up Yobeat?
Yobeat was sort of like my personal blog, and I happened to be into snowboarding. I would update when I was inspired or something interesting happened around me. It honestly depended on where I was living and who I was hanging out with how often I updated etc. I was basically working as a freelance writer so Yobeat kinda became the home for the stuff no one else wanted, and I just kept at it while I went through college.
I mean, I remember pissing people off at Plymouth because I posted that I didn't like getting vibed out at the mountain (a belief I still hold) and then posted a bunch of responses. That was actually one of the points in time Yobeat was on fire. We'd just switched from "issues" to the "magazine-style" layout where you have a bunch of fixed links on the page. So I could post whenever I wanted. I was still hand coding HTML, but it was easier than before.
I also ran the PSC snowboard club website. Basically if it had to do with snowboarding and the Internet I ended up doing it. But I was always more focused on my life and these other jobs than Yobeat. It was 100% a passion project and I didn't really think anyone cared.
"It was 100% a passion project and I didn't really think anyone cared."
So once it went more 'web' style it started taking off more. Where are we now like mid-00's? And there was never any talk about working for Snowboarder or TWS again?
No. It didn't take off until 2008. You're skipping ahead too much.
Got it, but you never did go back to work at traditional snowboard media right?
This was 2000, and the beginning of the first dot com boom. Bluetorch was some tech company with way too much money and it was an awesome gig. I ended up being more of an editor than an intern, and Mike Artz and I had a blast spending some random corporation's money all summer. We got to go to Brohm Ridge, which was this amazing Canadian halfpipe camp way up in the middle of nowhere and I remember getting to hang out with Victoria Jealouse there! We did Hood right, stayed at the Burton demo center, partied with a 9-year-old Shaun White and his mom, and hiked the halfpipe (it was pre rope tows.) That was also the summer I pissed off the Wildcats cause I called them a "snowboard frat." But let's be real – rich kids with nice clothes who loved to party and snowboard – sounds like a frat to me! I actually love all those guys though, and aside from some colorful emails, but I'm actually industry bros with most of the guys to this day. At the end of that summer I had managed to convince Bluetorch to keep paying me to run their snowboard site with Mike while I finished school, but unfortunately they were bleeding money and laid off pretty much the entire web staff the day before I was supposed to leave.
Whatever though, I moved to Bellingham, went to western, got a Baker pass and a journalism degree. I was still doing some stuff for Snowboarder and TWS here and there. Snowboarder had me write the token girl column the "you know what in a ski town" for like two issues until they decided they didn't like it and gave it to Susie Floros.
Then I started writing Tiny Type for Transworld and did that for two seasons, I think.
"That was also the summer I pissed off the Wildcats cause I called them a "snowboard frat.""
Shit I remember all those. Tiny Type was almost like a printed version of the Internet in a way.
Andy Blumberg was the TWS editor and he's always been a fan of mine so he gave me lots of opportunities. I interviewed Nate Bozung pre face tats and almost got to go to Morocco but it didn't snow there that year. I remember it cost me $40 in long distance calls to find that out.
When I graduated I moved to Portland, with intentions to move to NYC at the end of the summer and be a real writer for an actual mag, but after a month or two I got over that idea and decided to hang in Portland. My first job out of college was selling snowboard gear at US Outdoor store and it lasted two months. Sales is not my strong suit.
After spending two summers in SoCal I knew I didn't want to live there, so getting an editor job at one of the mags was never really on my list. But I was talking to people and Andy Blumberg actually connected me with the X Games and I got hired on to do snowboard research.
It was a sweet gig 'cause I could do it from anywhere. The pay was terrible but my rent in Portland was $250 a month and I got to travel a little bit. I basically just called all the Boardercross athletes and interviewed them, and then wrote reports for the producers.
I would go to the X Games and try to help the on-air talent not fuck up info. They all loved me because I actually knew what I was talking about!
This is good break time if you have questions cause shit is about to get weird.
What year are we looking at now?
I graduated from college in 2003. Cable internet was a thing, and we stole wifi from our neighbors. I worked for ESPN from 2004-2006, I think.
"My boy Gabe Taylor and I at some So Cal party in 1999."
And how well known is Yobeat within the industry at this point? Did people know you as Brooke from Yobeat as you were doing all these freelance gigs?
Yeah, I've always been Brooke from Yobeat, but Yobeat was pretty low key at this point. Like people beyond the core industry didn't even know about it. Actually, shit I need to tell you the only notable Yobeat story from when I was at Western. It's important later
Let's hear it.
I don't really remember the details, but some dude from Colorado emailed me asking if he could cover the Winter X Games for Yobeat. I said sure, and got him a badge. So Yobeat was at least big enough to get credentials at events and free lift tickets and stuff. So this dude goes to Aspen and goes to the media dinner and gets in a fight. Apparently in this scuffle, a door handle gets broken and I get a call that night from the Aspen police who are in hot pursuit of this dude I've never met. I literally didn't even have his phone number. So whatever, I laughed, he sends me his terrible coverage, I don't even post it and I go on with my life.
A few weeks later I get a call from someone at ESPN trying to charge me for this broken door handle. I apologized and was like, "I'm a college student, I don't have $400 to give you, lady."
I think it was Melissa Guilotti who is still around doing PR stuff. She handled it reasonably and was like, "we're not coming after you, but understand no one from Yobeat will ever get credentials to the X Games again."
Which brings us back to my job at the X Games. It wasn't an issue until the first actual event, but then some list went out with my name on it and Melissa, who still worked there called my boss (who was a real hard-ass bitch) all pissed. Miraculously, I didn't get fired, and when Summer X Games rolled around my boss was like, what do you know about wakeboarding?
Obviously I knew nothing, but I did know Bill Mccaffray from Bluetorch and he had since started Alliance Wake, so I gave him a call and figured it out. And that's how I got into the wakeboard industry…
Aw yeah. Wakeboarding and wakeskating.
Yeah. So after a year in Portland I decided to move to Chicago with my friend who was going there for school. It was kind of on a whim, but I ended up falling through a roof and getting TBI a week before I was supposed to leave.
I missed the X Games (and still managed to not get fired!) and had to go back to Vermont for a couple months to recover.
I had a spot rented in Chicago though, so as soon as I was up to it, I moved there.
I still had my job at X Games but it was seasonal, basically four months on four months off, so you could live on it, but it was tough. I also didn't love it so I was looking for other jobs obviously and Chicago seemed like it had a lot of media going on.
Long story short, I hated it there and ended up moving back to Vermont, this time to the sprawling metropolis of Burlington. I actually loved living in Burlington and this was another point that Yobeat really started to take off. I was roommates with Kevin Peckham and Chip Bleakney; Sarah Morrison also lived in town, and together we made magic. Sarah started writing Best Week Ever and posting it on her Myspace account (she had 27k followers which was a lot in those days) and I would post it on Yobeat too. Kevin wrote some of the funniest shit that's ever been on the site, and we had an intern named Tessa who posted our stories for us.
Of course, living in Burlington and being involved in snowboarding, it wasn't long before a job at Burton came up.
One of Burton's longest standing employees, Chaka, was my upstairs neighbor and when they decided to hire a women's team manager he suggested I apply. I got pretty far in the interviews – I believe I was in the top 3 candidates, but they ended up hiring Susie Floros. I was pretty over working for the X Games and I remember really wanting the job because then I could quit. But my boss at ESPN needed an answer sooner than Burton was willing to give me one, so I just quit with no other plan.
Would of been real interesting seeing you at Burton.
I think it would have done great for two years, but I wouldn't have been able to handle it much longer than that. Every time I saw Susie I remember she looked so frazzled chasing around Hannah Teeter and Kelly Clark at halfpipe comps. I ended up doing a bunch of stuff for another AOL content-creation attempt, Lat34, and was a senior contributor for SG mag. Remember that? That was my bread and butter.
SG? Whats that again?
Snow/skate/surf girl. It was short-lived, but Melissa Larsen had been hired to make it cool and she always gave me awesome assignments like going skateboarding in Tijuana. Was a bummer when they pulled the plug.
"Hanging at the best backyard bowl ever, in Virginia, on an SG trip."
I'm sure I saw it. But yeah babysitting for Burton athletes would take it out of anyone.
Totally, I just wanted the free travel, but I managed to work my way into some good stuff and actually ended up working at Grenade for a year too.
That was a crazy time that someday Schiff and I will write a book about but it was during this time period that I called Bill Mccaffray again and was like, "Hey, you know how you always wanted me to write about wake for you? Well, I know about wakeboarding now…"
Through ESPN, I had actually gone to a couple wake events and met a bunch of wakeskaters – more specifically the Cassette Team – who were fucking awesome. It was 2004/5ish and the economy was good. Magazines still made money, they web was blossoming etc.
So Bill was like, why don't you do something with wakeskating? I suggested a webzine and that basically turned into my full time job.
On Grenade: "That was a crazy time that someday Schiff and I will write a book about."
I was at Red Bull during this time and they were sinking so much money into wake, and I was like, 'what the fuck is going on here?' haha.
Haha, totally. It was absurd but awesome and I really loved going to warm places for a change! I rode that wake for a solid six years. Pun intended.
That brings us to the fateful 2008.
Alright let's go. So this is Yobeat full time?
Yeah, wakeboarding tanked along with the rest of the economy and I ended up running all of alliancewake.com to remain a viable expense. I was also still freelancing and doing a ton of stuff for Future Snowboarding. I was at Mt. Hood Meadows opening day putting together a web story, and I took a picture of Nick Lipton jumping over Alex Burton. Nick was maybe 18 and was like, "What are you shooting for?" I told him and he asked, "Cool, can I intern for you?" At this point I was living in Portland again, and had an office above a Vegan bakery with my partner Jared Souney. I seemed like a professional so I said sure, and figured I'd never see him again. I don't remember exactly how long it was, maybe a couple weeks, but one Monday morning, Nick just showed up.
He was disappointed to learn that I mostly did wake stuff and very little snowboarding and after burning his way through all 30 wakeskaters he asked, why don't you do Yobeat anymore?
I said, "I don't know. Write something and I'll update it."
So he did.
I still had to hand code HTML to update at this point, but luckily Jared is smart and was like, let's put the site on WordPress. He designed it and built it and Nick and I started to update.
Nick always thought way bigger than me – he was like, there's no reason this can't compete with TWS and Snowboarder.
When he sold our first at to Evan Rose at Forum for $250 a month, I started to take it seriously. It didn't hurt that Future went out of business so I didn't have another snowboard outlet anymore. I basically used what I learned at Alliance and took some inspiration from what Future had been doing and ran with it. It was crazy – people were actually really excited.
…, there's no reason this can't compete with TWS and Snowboarder.
To be continued in PART TWO tomorrow for the rise, flat-line, and re-birth of YOBEAT.
"Not a pro snowboarder but here I am at the San Diego Warped Tour in 1999 with Mark Hoppus from Blink 182."


text:
Co-operation agreement between A.N. Municipality and University of Nicosia
Yiannis Karousos Team
Ayia Napa, News
Αctions of innovation from the Municipality, for one more time.
In order to become a protagonist and becoming the first Municipality of Pancypria to apply new innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, intelligent cities and the electronic trading platform of Blockchain for the benefit of the Municipality, the citizens and the visitors, the Municipality of Agia Napa signed the Municipal Museum "Sea" cooperation agreement with the University of Nicosia, which today is considered to be the world's leading university in the promotion of such technologies, mainly in Blockchain, a technology on which the bills of exchange such as Bitcoin. Read More
Reconstruction works of Ayia Napa beach front continue
With constant, efficient and timely work rhythms, the construction work of the 1st Phase of the project "Improvement / Upgrading of the Ayia Napa Beach Front", which started immediately after the deposit of the foundation stone on 21 November 2016, continues without any particular problems. It is expected to be completed by the end of May 2018. Read More
2018 is expected to end with a record of arrivals for tourists
2017 has been a very good year in terms of arrivals of tourists for Famagusta, as – according to statistics – more than one million visitors came to the area and we hope that 2018 it will be even better. This was stated in the newspaper "Agia Napa" by Mr. Lakis Avraamidis, Director of the Famagusta Tourism Development and Families Promotion Company. Read More
Revenue of more than 3.5 million euros from beaches in 2017
The Municipality of Ayia Napa holds a record on its income from the beaches, (known as cots), the umbrellas and the water sports for 2017, reaching € 3,526,000 (including VAT) and recording an increase of 12%, compared to 2016, when revenue amounted to € 3,149,000 million euros.
Commenting on the new financial achievement of the Municipality, Mayor Mr. Yannis Karousos said that the result confirms the correctness of the decision of the Municipal Council in 2015 that the Municipality should manage the beaches, as it has proved that it serves Public Interest in a much better way. Read More
Ayia Napa (2)
About Monte Carlo and Strategy Change!
Ayia Napa (6188)
Co-operation agreement between A.N. Municipality and University of Nicosia (4480)
About Monte Carlo and Strategy Change! (4417)
Revenue of more than 3.5 million euros from beaches in 2017 (3531)
Reconstruction works of Ayia Napa beach front continue (3442)
Yiannis Karousos
The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works is a highly developed Ministry with a huge range of responsibilities that has a major impact on the Cypriot economy as well as the daily life of the citizen. I want to assure the President of the Republic but also the citizens that we will achieve our goals methodically with hard work.
info@yianniskarousos.com
Ayia Napa 2020
Co-operation agreement between A.N. Municipality and University…
Άνοιγμα Αεροδρομίων: Επανεκκίνηση πτήσεων για την Κύπρο (15)
Εγκρίθηκε το Σχέδιο Κινήτρων για Αγορά Καινούριου Ποδηλάτου για την περίοδο 2021-2023 (9)
Γ.Καρούσος: Ενθαρρυντικά τα στοιχεία της επιβατικής κίνησης. (6)
Η Αγία Νάπα του μέλλοντος (5)
Επανέναρξη πτήσεων και επαναλειτουργία των αερολιμένων από 1η Μαρτίου με επιπρόσθετα μέτρα (3)
Copyright © 2018 Yiannis Karousos. All Rights Reserved.


Infrastructure is an essential component of a functioning economy and a modern industrial society. We all interact with some form of the infrastructure system on a daily basis whether we are travelling to work, surfing the web or turning on the kettle. However, with significant demographic and environmental change on the horizon, ageing UK infrastructure, and increasing complexity and interdependence between networks of infrastructure, research focusing on UK National Infrastructure (NI) as a system is of paramount importance. Such research is necessary in order to improve our understanding of the costs and benefits of alternative NI strategies and the long-term implications for the UK with respect to infrastructure provision, resilience and economic growth.
The InfrastructureTransitions Research Consortium (ITRC) has been funded by a £4.5 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) to develop and demonstrate a new generation of system simulation tools to inform the analysis, planning and design of NI. University support for the research programme is worth another £1 million and the programme also benefits from £1.6 million of support from industry and government departments and agencies. Led by Jim Hall of the University of Oxford, the research programme deals with energy, transport, water, waste and ICT systems at both the nation and local scale, and will develop new methods for analysing their performance, risks and interdependencies. Led by Professor Peter Tyler, the University of Cambridge plays a key role in the Consortium's research, across the programme's work streams.
The five-year ITRC research programme began in January 2011. In its first year the ITRC produced a Fast Track Analysis using existing tools and models, to demonstrate a 'proof-of-concept' approach to integrated NI analysis that will be continued in later years through the development of a new generation of system simulation models for NI assessment that will be ready for pilot application in 2013. The project is divided into five work streams, as shown in Figure below.
A micro-simulation model for generation of high resolution demographic and demand scenarios.
A regional economic model that will generate regional multi-sectoral projections of industrial demand for infrastructure services.
A model of the UK electricity and gas networks and a new disaggregated energy demand module.
A national strategic model of trunk road, rail, port and airport infrastructure.
A national water resources system model, coupled with a model of wastewater treatment systems.
A national solid waste assessment model.
Professor Peter Tyler is working on WS1, alongside Chris Thoung from Cambridge Econometrics (CE) to provide the regional multi-sectoral projections from CE's MDM-E3 model of the UK economy.
What is the risk of NI failure in present and future climates?
What are the potential consequences of major infrastructure failures for people and the economy?
What are the costs of mitigating these risks on the economy?
In WS2 there will be particular focus on climate-related hazards and their implications for infrastructure reliability. WS2 will therefore provide a basis for planning for infrastructure adaptation to climate change.
Scott Kelly from the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research (4CMR) will be leading the economic input for WS2. The Cambridge team will be developing an input-output model for the UK economy that aims to quantify the physical and economic impact of natural and climate related hazards on national infrastructure and the economy. A key strength of input-output based methods is that flows through the economy can be quantified through inter-linkages between industry sectors. Thus cumulative flow on effects of a natural disaster in the economy may be much greater than the direct impact caused by the initial shock. Indirect effects can be significant and using Leontief-based input-output methods it is possible to identify those parts of the economic system that are most vulnerable to disruption.
On Work Stream 3 (WS3) the Universities of Cambridge, Southampton and Leeds are exploring a variety of complex systems approaches to simulate and interpret the long term interactions between infrastructure, society and economy. These simulations will examine a variety of infrastructure transitions – the shifting of an infrastructure system from one state to another - to inform us on how the NI adjusts over time. Edward Oughton from the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, is researching the inter-relationships between different levels of infrastructure provision and the long term development of local economies, from an evolutionary economic perspective.
Edward intends to focus on the role of infrastructure in the mechanisms of evolutionary economic growth and how these processes influence the spatial distribution of economic activity. Infrastructure plays an important part in this process as the NI closely affects the geographies of production, distribution and consumption. The quality and quantity of NI is therefore viewed as an important variable in local, regional and national productivity, with the NI providing the necessary building blocks for development. Economic agents are heterogeneous in the way in which they utilise elements of the NI, and over time hereditary information is built up which influences the competitive market process and leads to path dependent outcomes. This results in the NI having both direct and indirect economic consequences on local economies.
This evolutionary perspective acknowledges that over time the NI system and society co-evolve together as a result of innovation, leading to the shaping and reshaping of the physical (infrastructural) landscape, which may lead to different trajectories of economic development, in spatial terms. This co-evolution takes place through a series of transitions in routines, technologies, legislation, policy, networks, institutions and most importantly, infrastructures.
The application of this evolutionary approach to an examination of infrastructure supply has the potential to provide new insights into how the NI system encourages economic development on the demand side. An essential element of the Consortium's research is the concept of transition and an empirical examination of past infrastructural transitions will help to inform the analysis, planning and design of NI. Conclusions will be drawn on the spatial implications of infrastructure provision and will be fed into the other Work Streams. These results will help to develop the ITRC's overall aim of developing integrated strategies for transitions in NI systems.


text:
module Mimsy
  module ControllerDSL
    module ACL
      extend ActiveSupport::Concern

      def current_acl
        @current_acl ||= Mimsy::application.acl_class.new(request)
      end

      module ClassMethods
        def authorize_resource
          before_action do
            unless current_acl.can?(action_name, self.class.controller_name)
              raise InterruptExecution.new(:forbidden)
            end
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Solarbotics.net news -- what's changed of late:
September, 2003 -- Solarbotics.net is now hosted on Linux!
Courtesy of Darcy Dueck, Solarbotics.net is now hosted by a P3-700 running Linux (should be much more solid than the old Windows system).
Solarbotics.net now has a gallery -- if you don't have your own web site, post your BEAM-related images here!
November, 2002 - March, 2003 -- A winter surge in 'bot building
A whole herd of robots by a number of BEAMers have been added to the BEAM Reference Library's Bestiary lately.
June - October, 2002 -- Lots of site tweaks
I've cleaned up lots of broken internal links, and a few broken ones to other sites as well
A new Starting Block article has been uploaded
The site's previous provider of statistics no longer does this for free. I couldn't find another provider to replace them (most places either want a fistfull of money, or else a banner ad on each page in return for statistics), so Solarbotics.net will now be stat-gathering-bug free. The bad news is that this means everyone can't see how many folks are looking at what material. The good news is that this should speed up page loading.
I've updated some of the BEAM Reference Library's index graphics, in an attempt to give the library a more-consistent "look."
March & April, 2002 -- Yet more site updates
A few more robots have been added to the BEAM Reference Library's Bestiary
A few more circuits have been added to the BEAM Reference Library's circuits collection
I made some really big changes to Solarbotics.net's graphical layout in an attempt to make life easier for those using small monitors.
February, 2002 -- Miscellaneous site updates
A fistfull of robots have been added to the BEAM Reference Library's Bestiary
Quite a few new circuits have been added to the BEAM Reference Library's circuits collection
A whole bunch of datasheets have been added to the BEAM Reference Library's datasheets collection
A whole bunch of B.I.O. Bug information has been added -- some updates have been added to Dave's B.I.O. Bug Vivisection pages, and two Bug gearmotors have been dissected.
B.I.O.Bug hacks are being added, and links to other hack sites have been introduced.
January, 2002 -- More site tweaking to improve the "user experience"
Links to external sites now open in a new window (rather than the main frame); the only exceptions to this new policy are the links to sites hosted on Solarbotics.net (the majority of which still open in the page's main frame).
Working on JavaScript to improve the appearance and usefulness of windows opened for "glossary" terms (i.e., how links to entries in the EncycloBEAMia are handled).
October through December, 2001 -- Site tweaking
Lots of little site updates performed -- fixed some busted links, added some 'bots to the Bestiary, etc.
September, 2001 -- Massive site rework
There's now easier navigation between the different parts of the site. The material here falls pretty neatly into five categories -- each now has a tab at the top of the page.
There's lots more material for you to browse through -- in particular, Solarbotics.net now hosts the BEAM Reference Library.
Solarbotics.net now hosts two (roughly-) monthly columns -- one for BEAM beginners, and one written by the esteemed Wilf Rigter. This part of the site also hosts documents of BEAM historical interest, a list of BEAM-oriented books, tips for BEAMers, and links to other reading material elsewhere.
Two things haven't changed -- Solarbotics.net still plays host to a number of interesting BEAM robotics sites (see the "Hosted Sites" tab), as well as a public FTP area.


North Shore Looper/Steelhead Report | sausageheavenoutdoors Enjoy making homemade sausage, Tasty way's to BBQ, smoking meats and poultry. See how northern Minnesota was settled and the life early homesteader's lived their lives and more!!
On normal years, the steelhead and Looper spawning run would be in full swing by now. Because of the colder than normal winter, the spawning run is just getting started but according to my brother, none have been caught according to what he has seen. He was out over the weekend fishing some streams from the Lester River north to Silver Creek. All the rivers are running but the mouth's of the streams are blocked with Ice that has been blown in from the main lake [Lake Superior].
The water in all the streams are still dirty from the spring runoff. Lot's of snow still in the woods up there and along the streams including some ice. So be very careful when walking along the stream edges. The water is still icy cold. I'm sure there are some fish in the streams but they are just not biting at this time. I would wait till next week for better results. Fish early in the day when the water level is lower. During the day the snow will melt at a better pace resulting in a higher water level but lower ability to get the bait to the fish. I hope to be there next week when conditions should be better.


We hope you can find what you need here. We always effort to show a picture with HD resolution or at least with perfect images. Minus Rechnung Free Automated Malware Analysis Service Powered by Falcon Sandbox can be beneficial inspiration for those who seek an image according specific categories; you can find it in this site. Finally all pictures we have been displayed in this site will inspire you all..


text:
Adapting to…
a changing need for nature
a changing climate
a changing future
Credit Valley Conservation protects, restores and manages the water, land and natural habitats of the Credit Valley Watershed. A watershed is the area of land that drains (sheds) rain or snow melt into a river; in our case, the almost 90-km long Credit River. A healthy watershed is vitally important. It protects water quality, supports biodiversity in wildlife and counteracts the effects of climate change, like erosion and flooding. And it connects people to nature, something the pandemic showed we all need more than ever.
Karen Ras
Chair, Credit Valley Conservation
The work of conservation authorities has never been more important than it is today.
The pandemic highlighted the public's need for access to nature, especially when other forms of recreation weren't available. In 2020, residents had fresh reason to seek the health benefits of nature.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it's that we can work differently and quickly adapt to change. Although we had to change how we operate, we were able to continue our important work on behalf of the communities we serve, including environmental monitoring and restoration, landowner and community engagement, flood forecasting, planning and permitting, and operating our conservation areas.
The challenge of adapting to the pandemic underscores the need for investment in parks and trails. Green space is critical to our communities. As our watershed communities grow, the time is right to build more trails, install more green infrastructure and give residents more chances to enjoy a healthy environment.
In 2020, we showed our ability to adapt to change. We're ready for whatever changes the future has in store.
From the CAO
Deborah Martin-Downs
CAO, Credit Valley Conservation
Our world, like yours, was turned upside down by COVID-19 in 2020. While this meant business was anything but usual, our vision remained the same: A thriving environment that protects, connects and sustains us.
The pandemic made it even more obvious that our work is vitally important to the communities in the Credit River Watershed. I'm so proud of our parks, Warwick and head office staff for rising to the challenge. You helped us change how we operate to adapt to changing restrictions, continue our work and safely welcome visitors to our parks when we could.
Ours is a passionate and dedicated team with a driving commitment to the local environment. I'm proud and grateful that your work helped CVC receive recognition as one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers and one of Canada's Greenest Employers. The latter recognizes our many green initiatives, including a green procurement policy that ensures suppliers reflect CVC's commitment to the environment.
I'm also grateful to our funding partners for rallying behind our work during these uncertain times. You joined us in continuing to protect, restore and enhance the natural resources in the Credit River Watershed.
Business may not have been as usual in 2020, but it reinforced our critical role in planning for an environmentally sustainable future. Change? Bring it on. We know how to adapt.
Adapting to a changing world
CVC joined the world in acting swiftly when the pandemic hit. By remarkable coincidence and perfect timing, we had completed a digital transformation in 2019 that outfitted all 202 staff members with laptops. When we closed our offices March 24 to comply with the mandatory closure of non-essential workplaces, this allowed our staff to continue to serve our watershed communities from home.
Changes at our parks
On March 24, we made the decision to close our conservation areas to keep our visitors and staff safe. We appreciated the support from Public Health officials in guiding our actions and helping us interpret the rules. The result was that most parks were only closed from 50 to 67 days, depending on the park.
Engaging residents in new ways
During the shutdown, we continued environmental education, multicultural outreach and landowner outreach with programs delivered online rather than in person. Our education staff developed curriculum-connected digital resources for teachers and students from kindergarten to grade 12, including video and outdoor education activity packages. Eleven virtual events reached 650 residents.
To further connect with and support families at home, we provided online training to help residents safely carry out a citizen science "butterfly blitz" in their own backyards. This was both a great distraction and produced useful data on butterflies in the Credit River Watershed.
Continuing to plant for the future
With new safety protocols in place, staff at our Warwick Nursery were able to safely and effectively prepare native trees and shrubs for planting. Over two and a half weeks in May, they potted about 40,000 trees and shrubs, which are critical to environmental restoration efforts throughout the watershed. Our Direct Sale Day was a success. This year sold over 1,000 plants to 22 landowners across the watershed.
#DYK
We worked with 1,000 dedicated volunteers who planted more than 3,000 trees, shrubs and wildflowers, helped with community clean-ups and removed invasive species.
Adapting to a changing need for nature
By May 13, we were able to reopen many of our conservation areas. Visits to our conservation areas had already increased 200% over the past decade. With more people working from home due to the pandemic and seeking the restorative effects of nature, visits from May to December increased 70% over the same period the previous year. That's even without events like the Maple Syrup Festival, which we unfortunately had to cancel.
Our parks staff came back to work wanting to provide opportunities for our residents to have somewhere to go to recreate safely and locally. They worked hard all summer and even extending our season into mid-November to provide more opportunities. They've been our front-line workers, making sure watershed residents had somewhere to safety recreate and connect with nature.
To ensure visitor and staff safety, we introduced park capacity limits and installed fencing and signs marking one-way trails and encouraging physical distancing. We were able to reopen Belfountain and the Cheltenham Badlands in time for viewing the fall colours, with a new reservation system and timed visits to control crowds. Both areas were closed for the winter, and Belfountain remains closed in 2021 while we safely complete Phase 1 of our restoration projects.
The need for nature
people visited our conservation areas between May and December 2019
people visited between May and December 2020
70% increase
in visitors compared to the same period in 2019
Over 1,000,000
visitors in 2020
Over 200% increase
in visitors from 2010 to 2020
New green space: Jim Tovey Lakeview Conservation Area
Having places to spend time in nature is more important now than ever.
In 2020, we made great progress toward our vision of a beautiful 26 hectares waterfront conservation area in the heart of Mississauga. Our staff planted 9,600+ trees and shrubs, naturalizing nine hectares of new land. We continue to shape and refine the landform, design public amenities and create new habitats. The conservation area will transform a once industrialized shoreline, increase wildlife habitat and access to green space. When complete, it will also add a missing piece of the Waterfront Trail. Learn more at jimtoveylakeview.ca.
Natural Playground at Island Lake
We also opened a new natural playground at Island Lake Conservation Area. This playground lets kids lose themselves in unstructured play that encourages discovery and new experiences. The playground offers outdoor musical instruments, climbing trees, a play structure and 300-meter accessible trail that is flooded for skating during the winter.
Adapting to a changing climate
The pandemic cut back some of our usual watershed monitoring activities, so our staff turned their attention to analyzing over 25 years' worth of data. Collecting this data allows us to look at trends and assess the health of the watershed, and ensures data drives our decisions.
Data relating to our forests tells a troubling story of damage due to climate change, disease and invasive species. Trends point to continued droughts, intense storms and warmer winters, all of which will damage our existing forests. Over time, these changing conditions will affect which species can grow and may prevent forests from replenishing.
Knowing the importance of our forests to managing water and dealing with climate change, we completed a Sustainable Forest Management Plan in 2020. This will guide us in protecting the ecology of forested properties. We also updated our Invasive Species Strategy, which was approved by the Board in December.
Invasive species are a problem
documented invasive species in the Credit watershed
yearly cost to Ontario municipalities to address invasive species
of our forests are dominated by trees vulnerable to forest pests
ash trees removed to manage the emerald ash borer infestation
Keeping communities safe
In 2020, we received 899 development permit applications, planning applications, property inquiries, and environmental assessments for review. This critical function protects wetlands and watercourses, and helps ensure watershed residents are protected from natural hazards.
Intense storms and heavy rains can cause rivers to overflow. In July, we introduced a flood warning tool called Alertable to communicate directly with residents in flood vulnerable areas throughout the watershed. More than 2,600 residents had subscribed to this free public emergency alert system by November 2020.
In 2020, we issued 23 watershed safety, flood outlook, flood watch and warning statements alerting municipal emergency managers and the public of dangerous ice and flood conditions.
Working with watershed residents to address climate change
In 2020, work continued on our Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plans (SNAP). The SNAP model targets outreach and restoration in a priority areas to address local environmental concerns. We're proud to work with the Town of Halton Hills on the Hungry Hollow SNAP and the City of Brampton on the Fletchers Creek SNAP.
We work with partners and neighbours to help our environment adapt to climate change. Our Landowner Action Fund supports naturalization, reforestation and habitat enhancement projects that help rural landowners protect water sources and improve habitat for fish and wildlife. In 2020, we supported five of these projects in Peel Region and approved funding for 11 new projects.
Working with farmers to protect threatened grassland birds
We work closely with watershed farmers to protect threatened grassland birds with our Bird Friendly Certified Hay program. This connects hay producers with consumers looking for a sustainably farmed product that doesn't affect the grassland birds that nest in hay fields. The program proves that agriculture and wildlife can coexist and even thrive with a slight shift in farm practices. Using agricultural best management practices also reduces drinking water threats, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, improves water quality and soil health.
Greening Corporate Grounds
Our Greening Corporate Grounds helps companies protect our water supply and build climate resilience by changing how they landscape their properties. In 2020, the Town of Erin joined the program, introducing sustainable landscaping for the municipal office grounds. Three other landscaping projects are underway at the Headwaters Health Care Centre. We are proud to work with CRH Canada in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada to develop a large-scale migratory bird habitat restoration project in Mississauga. Together, we are adapting to the changing world we live in.
Want to become a member of Greening Corporate Grounds? Connect with us to learn more.
Adapting to a changing future
With the wrap-up of a five-year strategic plan at the end of 2019, we're set to continue our focus on the future with an ambitious new plan for 2020–2022. Our target is to complete or make significant progress on the numerous projects and activities started under the previous plan.
Engaging donors
During a challenging time for the philanthropic sector, CVC Foundation adapted by shifting from its much-loved Conservation Gala to an online auction and holiday giving campaign sponsored by Canon Canada and Imperial. They closed out 2020 on a high note receiving an exceptional level of support from the donor community, which went toward connecting the Credit Valley Trail (CVT) and conservation initiatives across the Credit River Watershed.
The CVT gained its first stake in the ground on Tuesday, November 3, as project partners officially unveiled the trail's first wayfinding signage at Upper Credit Conservation Area in Alton. The Credit Valley Conservation Foundation (CVCF) also announced the launch of a major $10 million fundraising campaign to help connect the full 100-kilometre trail. In attendance were representatives from the Credit Valley Trail Leadership Council, Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) Board of Directors, CVCF Board of Directors, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation Community, Greenbelt Foundation and 407 ETR.
In 2020, CVC Foundation was generously supported by
event guests
contributed to CVC
2020 Financial Highlights
Total contributions from municipal levy
BUDGET: $26,239,113
ACTUAL: $25,437,488
Total raised through other sources (grants, etc.)
BUDGET: $1,380,362
ACTUAL: $3,211,367
Total revenue generated by CVC (parks, planning fees, etc.)
Total budget to actual
ACTUAL: $32,281,916*
*Actuals recognized based on the accrual method of accounting.
For more information please see our Audited Financial Statements.
Thank you to our member municipalities for your support and valued partnerships!
The Credit River Watershed is the area of land that drains runoff from rain and snow into the tributaries of the Credit River. In addition, smaller adjacent watersheds that drain directly into Lake Ontario and a section of the Lake Ontario shoreline make up CVC's jurisdiction. From north to south this area includes sections of Amaranth, Mono, all of Orangeville, East Garafraxa, Caledon, Erin, Halton Hills, Brampton, Mississauga and Oakville.
Honouring the land and water
As we work to further our mission we acknowledge the rich history and enduring presence of Indigenous peoples as stewards of the land and water of the Credit River Watershed.
We acknowledge that the Credit River Watershed is part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. The Credit River Watershed is also part of the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee, and home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples today.
Treaties made with Indigenous Peoples are enduring and include responsibilities for both parties. We affirm that this land and water is our common source of life and we must all share responsibility for its care and stewardship for now and future generations.
Region of Peel
All City of Mississauga councillors are also Region of Peel councillors.
CVC Chair
Councillor Ward 2,
300 City Centre Dr.
L5B 3C1
Stephen Dasko
Mississauga ON
Matt Mahoney
Johanna Downey
Regional Councillor Ward 2,
Town of Caledon
6311 Old Church Rd.
Caledon, ON
L7C 1J6
Martin Medeiros
Regional Councillor
Wards 3 & 4,
City of Brampton
Ph: 905- 874-2634
2 Wellington St. W.
L6Y 4R2
Michael Palleschi
Brampton ON
Region of Halton
CVC Vice Chair
1225 Trafalgar Rd.
Oakville ON
L6J 5A6
Ann Lawlor
Councillor Ward 4
Town of Halton Hills
1 Halton Hills Drive
Halton Hills, ON L7G 5G2
Town Councillor,
Town of Erin
Corp. of the Town of Erin
Hillsburgh,
ON N0B 1Z0
Tom Nevills
Township of East Garafraxa
374028 6th Line
Amaranth, ON L9W 0M6
Resigned from the CVC Board August 2020
John Stirk
Joined the CVC Board September 2020
Grant Peters
Town Councillor
Town of Orangeville
Orangeville ON L9W 1K1
Jeff Payne
Deputy CAO and Director, Corporate Services
Director, Planning and Development Services
Tim Mereu
Technical Director, Watershed Management
John Sinnige
Associate Director, Watershed Management
Gayle Soo-Chan
Director, Watershed Knowledge
cvc.ca
Credit Valley Conservation
1255 Old Derry Road
L5N 6R4
Copyright © Credit Valley Conservation, 2017.


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Get a car loan in Cambridge
Find a Car in Cambridge Today!
Formed in 1973 by the tan amalgamation of Preston, Hespeler, and Galt, Cambridge is situated at the confluence of the Speed and Grand rivers and is a part of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo. Despite the unification, the cities continue to be hostile to each other mainly due to their unique history that is documented in historical archives.
The history of Cambridge can only be viewed through the prism of the history of each city. Galt was founded in 1816 when a wealthy Scottish immigrant William Dickson bought land along the Grand River and by 1840, it became the largest town in the region due to a large industrial base. In 1915 Galt was incorporated as a city. The second biggest city, Preston, was founded in 1805, after John Erb, a Mennonite from Lancaster County, bought 7,500 acres of land. In 1853 Preston was incorporated as a village and experienced a growth in the late 1800s after the new electric railway system was opened. Hespeler and Blair were established in 1798 and 1800, respectively.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada is now the largest employer in Cambridge after it was opened in 1988. Among other large companies, it is worth to mention Frito-Lay, Loblaw Companies Limited, Rimowa, ATS Automation Tooling Systems and COM DEV International as being other major employers.
Cambridge features humid continental climates with a moderate winter and hot and humid summers with temperatures above 20 C degrees.
Through the northern part of the city passes Highway 401, which connects Cambridge with Woodstock and Toronto. Along Grand River, you can find Highway 24, which goes south to Brentford and north to Guelph.
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Luxurious appearance and even more luxurious sound headphones Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2 – heirs magnificent P5 – charmed us from the first minute. Releasing Series 2, the company B & W hit the bull's-eye: it's fantastic headphones that you do not want to shoot. We are delighted with their accuracy and legibility. If the sound P5 can be considered too rich, the Series 2 inherent crystal clear and flawless rhythm.
Epic work of Hans Zimmer served convincingly demonstrate subtle elaboration of dynamics; aggressive "gash" electric guitar in the group Master Of Puppets Metallica – fast, powerful and honed.
Despite the closed structure in Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2 incredibly open sound, each instrument is insufficient space. Weighty sound amazing detail; deep and powerful bass to the same elastic and mobile. RF inherent sharpness and strong attack sounds enough air to in a rapid crescendo.
Ear pads worn easily replaced by new; You can also easily replaced and budget 3.5mm cable, instead of buying a new pair of headphones.
Voices are written exclusively in detail. Heart, breathy vocals Harriet Wheeler in the song Wild Horses The Sundays groups freely floats, every nuance clearly audible.
Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2 is not as forgiving as overhead Sennheiser Momentum with soft and rich sound, but they do not stick out the shortcomings of MP3-files with a low bitrate. For all the precision and control of B & W never forget the pleasure of listening; song Carry On Wayward Son Kansas group certainly make you sway from side to side.
But even if the sound quality is not impressed us, we would have admired appearance P5. Dramatic, black with metal finish migrated from a previous version. Headphone market is saturated with plastic construction, but stylish P5 throughout different from the rest.
Flawless workmanship; aluminum base – a strong, yet flexible, have become a little more dense ear cushions and headband lambskin not only luxurious, but also very comfortable. Closed design provides some sound insulation, but it does not overheat the ears. And yet, they are unlikely to hold out on the head, if you start to shake her last album under the AC / DC. Compact and lightweight, Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2 are ideal to carry out; first landing tugovat, but over time becomes less rigid.
Modernization has touched the inner filling. Removing the ear pads, magnetic snap, you can find a whole new dynamic. On the model of its flagship model, the company has equipped P7 40-mm full-range speakers with diaphragm suspension – in this way they are arranged in conventional speakers. B & W believed that as a result of the sound is more open and accurate. Judging by how much better play new headphones, we tend to agree with that.
As with the first version of the Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2, complete with two cables, one with built-in microphone and remote control, the second – without them. Owners of Apple devices use all the features playback control, users Android – only "start" and "pause".
Competition in this price range is very high; winner of the award, Beyerdynamic T51i, will be the most serious contenders for P5. We look forward to the group test to compare the two models and our favorite Sennheiser Momentum.
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Review LG G3 s or LG G3 Beat. Can we call it a mini-flagship?


Because of the folds that designer Robert Bronwasser has created in the design, the Gispen Contour magazine holder has an origami-like shape. The unfolded shape ensures that your favorite magazines are always easily within reach. The magazine holder is made of steel that is 2 mm thick - finished with a frosted white powder coating.
The magazine holder Contour was designed by Robert Bronwasser for the Gispen brand. Contour is a magazine holder with an origami-like shape created by folding the steel that the Contour was made of. The unfolded asymmetrical shape ensures that your favorite magazines are always easily within reach. The most striking detail is the sloping bottom that prevents magazines from slipping away.
Working with classic materials such as steel means playing with the well-known Gispen design tradition – minimalist and functional. This is how Robert Bronwasser has brought a simple, ordinary product back to its essence, with a twist. Delightful to the eye and functional.
Contour is made of folded steel with a thickness of 2 mm. The magazine holder is finished with a frosted white powder coating. Dutch design made in Holland. The Contour magazine holders were designed by Robert Bronwasser and made in the Co2-neutral factory of Gispen in Culemborg. The Contour bowl combines excellently with the matching Contour dish created by the same designer.


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359th Transportation Company
Reunions of the 359th
Men of the 359th
STEVE CAMPBELL'S THOUGHT'S FROM THE BRUTUS DEDICATION 10/1/2016
I feel that a large part of my life has come full circle today.
My Vietnam experience as I attended the induction of my Gun Truck Brutus in the Military Veterans Museum and Education Center in Oshkosh Wi. I call it my Gun Truck because I was the last N.C.O.I.C (Non Commissioned Officer in Charge) of Brutus.
Brutus is still to this day one of the, if not the most recognized and famous Gun Truck Legends from the Vietnam War from the story's of North Vietnam Army and Viet Cong reward's to destroy it to the number of confirmed or unconfirmed kills are as on going today 44 years later as it was the day I first arrived in Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam in 1971 when a Green Beret leaving Country heard me say I was assigned to the 359th Transportation company. He looked me in the eyes and said that company has a gun truck named Brutus. What ever you do don't be a crew member on that truck. I just came in from the bush in that area and the V.C. have a Bounty on it, they call it the ghost truck, they keep killing it and it keeps coming back. Then he said it was just hit again and one of the guys was killed. (He was talking about Larry Dahl (MOH) who jumped on a grenade that was tossed into the Gun Box and saved the rest of the crew from certain death. Earning him the Medal of Honor.) He was the second man to die on Brutus the first was Jimmy Callison 3 month's before. His story seemed true when I arrived in the 359th and started hauling 5 thousand gallon tankers of jet fuel, gas and diesel and saw Brutus lined up in the convoy. It seemed pretty real with it's 2 50 cal front gun's, mini gun's and twin 50 cal in the gun box and ready to kick out with us protecting the convoy. Having no clue that before long I would indeed be asked to join the crew and become the N.C.O.I.C. Brutus and me saying yes as it's better to be able to shoot back than just be a target. What a true Honor that was to serve on such a legend.
Sitting here today in this Museum at this with so many of my Brother's next to the man that asked me to join him and the crew, with my Son's and all the Brave Crews from other Gun trucks that came from all across the country to see Brutus inducted into this Great Museum to Honor all the Hero's who died or wounded who served on Brutus and the other Gun Truck's, Truck driver's and all Veterans. I realize now as we all reach our final end of this convoy called life we have delivered our part of this history.
Steve Campbell 10/1/16
23 FEBRUARY 1971, "A DAY I'LL NEVER FORGET", BY WILLIAM F. CARTER
Emil Mitchell on THE KNUCKLEHEAD!!!! BY JAMES LYLES
Richard Clinton on Reunions of the 359th
Philip Iacolino on Reunions of the 359th
Donald Barnard on STORY BY STEVE LINDSAY 70
Donald Barnard on THE LIGHTER SIDE BY GEORGE ELLIS 1971-2


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Lindsay Lohan to Oprah: I'm an Addict [VIDEOS]
Lindsay Lohan's public contrition tour began Sunday night when her much ballyhooed interview with Oprah aired on the media mogul's cable network. And during the sit-down, taped just four days after LiLo's most recent stint in rehab, the actress finally admitted to being an addict.
Oprah Winfrey Speaks Out on Paula Deen's Use of the N-Word
Racism isn't one of Oprah Winfrey's favorite things, but it's something she has to deal with every day -- and the last person she thought she'd deal with it from was her one-time pal, Paula Deen. The talk show queen is finally speaking out on Deen's use of the N-word, and Winfrey's reaction, predictably, is rational, sane and just gracious enough to make the rest of us feel like terrible people. R
Lindsay Lohan Nixes Booze + Earns Laughs on 'Chelsea Lately'
Lindsay Lohan's first post-rehab gig before her sitdown with Oprah airs? Sitting in for Chelsea Handler on 'Chelsea Lately.' And she's actually pretty hilarious, charming and self-aware.
Mommie Dearest
Lindsay Lohan and Oprah Winfrey will be working together soon -- on both a post-rehab interview and docuseries -- and Dina Lohan couldn't be happier because really, this is all about her. Since the news broke, Dina has gushed that Oprah will be LiLo's new mentor. Which, family trees being what they are, makes Dina Lohan Oprah's grand-mentor. Or something.
Seems like both Oprah Winfrey and Lindsay Lohan have good news today -- Oprah because her network gets the first LiLo interview following her stint in rehab and a docuseries to go with it, and La Lohan because, well, she gets to talk to Oprah. YOU get a coup! And YOU get a coup! And YOU get a coup!
She spent the past two years in the paltry No. 2 slot, but Oprah Winfrey is back -- she's been named Forbes' Most Powerful Celebrity of 2013.
Dumb Celebrity Quotes – Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey's simile comparing duct tape to the force is pretty apt, minus that bit about it holding the universe together. The dinosaurs did just fine without duct tape! Oh, wait ...
Sofia + Medea
No matter how you feel about Oprah, it's tough to deny she's always had mad acting chops -- something she proves pretty adorably in this promo for her OWN cable network, wherein she adeptly revives her character Sofia from the iconic 1985 film 'The Color Purple' and pits her opposite Tyler Perry's famous (or rather, infamous) character Medea.
Kathy Landin
Oprah + Terrence
Oprah's co-star in the upcoming film 'The Butler,' Terrence Howard, recently had a few choice words to say about his sex scene with her, and most of those words involved her giant rack and how much he loved it. Some people found his comments crass and insulting -- but Oprah wasn't one of them.
Toil and Trouble
Crafty domestic goddess Martha Stewart has inked a deal with JCPenney that will basically give her a monopoly on the major retailer and simultaneously ban Oprah and Rosie O'Donnell from doing business with the chain -- and that's just for starters. Do not pass the crocheted tea-cozy replica of Go. Do not collect 200 Michael's coupons.
What Does Oprah Winfrey Fear?
Suffers From: Chiclephobia (fear of gum) Oprah Winfrey's grandmother used to stick used chewing gum under her own furniture, which would certainly explain why the media mogul doesn't like the stuff now.
Michael's Confession
Whitney Houston's mother Cissy Houston is making the rounds to promote her lip-twitching memoir about her daughter -- this time on 'Oprah's Next Chapter,' where she brought along her son Michael Houston to divest himself of a secret. In the episode, Michael admits to Oprah Winfrey that he (and not Bobby Brown) was the first person to introduce his baby sister to drugs.
Foreskinny Dip
How does Oprah Winfrey keep her skin looking so great? She rubs human foreskin on it, of course. No, that isn't the punchline to a joke and her boyfriend Stedman doesn't get an emergency call when she spots a wrinkle. Winfrey's favorite anti-aging skin cream is SkinMedica, which apparently contains actual discarded manparts. As if that weren't weird enough, her love of the product has caused some
While we were drinking and live-tweeting the first part of his interview on Jan. 17, Lance Armstrong was sharing what he assumed was his deep dark secret with Oprah Winfrey and the world: He used performance-enhancing drugs during his record-setting seven Tour de France wins.
Twitter Reacts as Lance Armstrong Confesses at the Altar of Oprah
It didn't take long after Lance Armstrong told Oprah those words everyone had been waiting years to hear -- yes, he doped during his illustrious cycling career -- before Twitter lit up with reactions. When we weren't taking shots or playing bingo, we complied some of the better tweets we saw.
Raise a Glass
Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong's much-anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey will finally air on Thursday and Friday night, during which he's expected to admit that performance-enhancing drugs were a big part of his storied career. In response, humanity has decided to create drinking games inspired by his shameful ways. It's what we as a species do best.
Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong will finally open up about those allegations of performance-enhancing drug use which saw him stripped of his seven Tour de France titles last year, cost him several lucrative endorsement deals and made him step down as chairman of his Livestrong charitable organization. And who better to discuss the complete and utter destruction of his life with than Oprah Winfre
David Letterman to Oprah: 'Jay Leno Is the Most Insecure Person I Have Ever Known' [VIDEO]
David Letterman went on 'Oprah: The Next Chapter' (because her final chapters will never be final) to talk about his affair scandal and his rivalry with fellow late-night talk show host Jay Leno.
Marketing Genius Oprah Gives Props to Microsoft Surface – Using Her iPad
Anyone who has anything they're trying to peddle to the American people is truly blessed when Oprah Winfrey gives them a shout out. Being one of Oprah's "Favorite Things" is the retail equivalent of having Jesus himself turn your paltry water into the finest of wines. So we can understand why Microsoft happily let Oprah push their new Surface tablet. But chances are good they didn't want her doing


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