text:
Women Who Write in Film
Hollywood, California 90068
Finish Line Script Competition
Edinburgh Screenwriting Competition
We are Women Who Write in Film and our goal is to be the world's foremost screenwriting competition for women. We want to support female writers and producers of all shapes and sizes, but we don't just want to support female writers. We want to be a springboard for your success. We want to forge a festival that will discover and recognize the best emerging female talent and the most original female voices from around the world. We will go to the ends of the Earth to find the best new female talent and then do whatever it takes to put the top new female screenwriters firmly on the entertainment industry's radar by designating them as finalists and winners in the Women Who Write in Film Screenwriting Competition.
We award winners with software, services, and industry exposure. We are committed to getting our winners scripts read by professionals who can help you achieve your goals.
2019's winner was given a one hour private consultation with Janet Jeffries the long time development executive for Lawrence Bender Productions. Next year's winner will also be awarded a one hour consultation with an industry executive that we feel can most inspire and help them get to the next level of their career and much of it will be determined by the writer's needs and the genre they write in. For example, if a writer already has a manager they love, there would be little advantage in arranging a consultation for them with another talent manager. Furthermore, if our winner writes a horror film, an action flick, or even a comedy our goal would be to pair them with an executive who specializes in that genre to help further our individual winner's goals.
However, please do note that only our Grand Prize Winner and top two Finalists will receive industry distribution and prizes. Semi-Finalists will only be rewarded with recognition like in most screenwriting competitions.
Writers retain all rights to their work.
We only accept submissions electronically.
There is no limit to the length of the scripts you submit and they can be in script or treatment form.
There is no limit to the number of projects you may submit.
Scripts must be written in English and can be in any film or television genre.
Entrants are prohibited from contacting the judges during the competition.
Entry fees are non refundable and contest is void where prohibited by law.
Employees and family members of the film festival are not eligible.
Entrants must be 18 years or older to enter the contest.
All fees are non-refundable
All submitted material must be original, and all rights must be wholly owned by the writer(s).
All entries must be the original, and unpublished, un-produced, un-optioned work of the entrant and entrant's writing partner. The entrant and or partnership ensures that he or she is the sole author of the work.
The competition, its judges, and its officers accept no liability whatsoever for any claims of damages, real or perceived, by any entrant(s) as a result of their participation in this contest.
All material submitted to other competitions or contests are eligible.
Professional writers, journalists, poets, and previous contest winners are eligible.
There are no requirements as to when the material was written.
Material must be your original work. And all work must be wholly owned by the writer(s). The material submitted must not be encumbered by any obligation to, or option held by, a third party prior to entering the competition.
By submitting your material you agree to be added to our email list, but can remove yourself by unsubscribing at anytime.
WWWiF reserves the right to revoke recognition status at any time with or without cause.
Only our Grand Prize Winner and top two Finalists will receive industry distribution and prizes. Semi-Finalists will only be rewarded by recognition like in most screenwriting competitions.
We do not provide feedback, notes, grades, or rankings of any kind. We assume you already know how to write at a professional level and that is why you are entering this contest.
Industry distribution should in no way be interpreted as a guarantee of future representation or success. Whether or not industry partners choose to work with finalists, or even contact finalists, is done so at the sole discretion of each and every individual company. We can not force our industry partners to option your property and or sign you as a client.
Past prizes listed in winner reviews should not be construed as current prizes. All current prizes are spelled out on our website. We also do not reveal the names of recipients on our industry distribution list.
Please note that Women Who Write in Film is in no way affiliated with any other film festival, screenwriting competition, writing group, networking group, film school, or film related enterprise or organization.
All judging is done at our sole discretion. We may have outside input, but all judging and all decisions are made at our sole discretion. To prevent tampering we do not reveal the identities of our judges.
We do not offer script notes and or script advice. We are looking to reward professional level writers that we can help get to the next level by recognizing their work. We get that services such as these can be considered valuable, if these are services that you desire, we recommend hiring a script consultant. Services such as these can be found via a simple google search.
By entering the competition you hereby accept these competition rules.
Lynne Ashe
I highly recommend submitting to this festival. The staff is excellent with communications and the personal attention was greatly appreciated. Within a few days of my screenplay Scuppernongs being announced as a finalist, WWWF distributed my script to industry professionals and followed up with emails and phone calls to see how everything was going. Very positive experience, and I'm filled with appreciation and gratitude.
Elaine Chekich
I enjoyed all interaction with the staff. The festival was on time with notifications and replied quickly to emails. Though I was a semi-finalist, I felt like a well-regarded winner. Thank you Women Who Write for the experience!
Catherine Fridey
I was very honored to be selected as a semifinalist, but since this is not an in person festival, I'm not sure about how much networking would come from it. However, overall I give the festival high ratings. The organizers have been wonderfully supportive of women-generated content and very communicative. I hope my placement brings attention to my script THE PATH TO VIRTUE.
Tonia Davidson
The Women Who Write in Film Festival works hard to connect its winners with industry professionals. This is evident with the prizes awarded to their winners. When I learned my screenplay, Word Over Word, was chosen to be their grand prize winner, I was thrilled to not only receive the prizes but also to be part of such a great festival that is dedicated to promoting women's voices. Thank you, Women Who Write in Film!
Linda Niccol
So thrilled to be a semi-finalist twice in a row for women Who Write In Film. Would love the opportunity to network if there is an event. All best, Linda
Extended Regular Deadline
Standard Deadline
Extended Standard
Extended Late Deadline
Final Deadline
Extended Final Deadline
Inspired Work by Women Who Write in Film!
Fantastic scripts by women or written about issues affecting women.
Submission plus 1.5 pages of notes
Standard: $125 USD
Gold Members: $110 USD
Submission plus 5 pages of notes


text:
Margarita Cadenas est une réalisatrice, productrice, scénariste et photographe franco-vénézuélienne, née à Caracas.

Biographie
Margarita Cadenas est diplômée en Communication Sociale à l'Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) de Caracas. Elle y commence très jeune une carrière de journaliste. Travaillant comme reporter pour la télévision, elle est appelée à présenter le journal de 20h30 de la télévision d'État. Cependant, sa passion pour le cinéma l'amène à partir en Grande-Bretagne afin d'entreprendre des études en production et réalisation audiovisuel au British Council, Londres et puis une spécialisation en réalisation auprès de la BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).

Elle s'installe ensuite à Paris en 1982.

De 1983 à 1987, elle fut assistante de réalisation à la SFP (Société Française de Production), où elle était l'assistante-réalisateur de Claude de Givray, Gabriel Axel, Philippe Monnier, Michel Boisrond et Jean-Jacques Goron. En 1986, elle participe à la création de la société de production Alta Mira où elle produit plusieurs courts-métrages.

De 1989 à 1995, elle a produit plus de 60 films publicitaires, tournés notamment en Afrique du Sud, en Argentine, au Venezuela, en Grande-Bretagne, au Danemark, en Espagne et en France, pour de grandes agences françaises de publicité tels que Saatchi & Saatchi, Young & Rubicam, Grey, RSCG, Léo Burnett UK, Mc Cann Erickson, entre autres. Elle était la productrice attitrée de réalisateurs tels que Peter Suschitzky, Eric de La Hosseraye, Costa Kekemenis, Christine Pascal, Jaime de la Peña et Roch Stefanik.

Avant de devenir réalisatrice de documentaires et long métrages cinéma ; entre 1996 et 2006 elle a été coscénariste et productrice pour la télévision française de « Barrage sur l'Orénoque » de Juan Luis Buñuel, coproduction franco-espagnole dont elle a écrit le scénario et les dialogues avec P. Meadeb et G. Desmouceaux. Au sein de MC², elle a coproduit avec RDV Productions « Marie et Tom » (2000) de Dominique Baron pour TF1, le long métrage « Touch of Spice » de Tassos Boulmetis pour Village Roadshow, et collaboré à la production du film « El año del diluvio » de Jaime Chavarri pour Gona.

Après plusieurs expéditions en Amazonie, elle écrit l'histoire originale « Cendres éternelles ». Elle produit également, pour Odyssée,: « Au-delà des apparences» (2006), documentaire sur l'ethnologue français Jacques Lizot et l'ethnie amazonienne Yanomami, puis pour Ushuaïa « Chuao, la vallée merveilleuse » (2006), documentaire de H. Becerra et G. Jacquemin.

Au Venezuela, avec la Société Inversiones Talento C.A., elle produit la série de courts-métrages « Mascaras » (2009) et les documentaires « Macondo » (2009), « Corro Caracas » (2012) ainsi que son long métrage « Cenizas Eternas », tiré de l'histoire de « Cendres éternelles » (Coproduction Venezuela- France).

Son dernier long métrage documentaire intitulé «Femmes du chaos vénézuélien» a été sélectionné, dans nombreux festivals à travers le monde. (Allemagne, Danemark, Irlande, Suisse, Pays-Bas, Angleterre, France, États-Unis, Canada, Brésil, Colombie, Belgique, Italie ...), obtenant de nombreux prix et salué par la presse.

Par ailleurs, ce documentaire a été présenté au Parlement Européen à Bruxelles, Belgique, à l'Assemblée Nationale Française à Paris, au Forum Mondiale de la Démocratie à Strasbourg et à l'OEA (Organisation d'États Américains à Washington, USA.

Distinctions

Récompenses
 Prix Best Short Film, Stafford Film Festival, Stafford, Angleterre, 2022 Pour le court-métrage Dévoilement / Unveiling
 Prix Du Public, Festival Documentaire L'Amérique par l'Image, Lyon, France 2019 pour le long métrage documentaire Femmes du chaos vénézuélien / Women of the Venezuelan Chaos / Mujeres del caos venezolano Prix de La Ligue des Droits de L'Homme Meilleur Documentaire du Festival International du Film des Droits Humains de Guadeloupe 2018 pour le long métrage documentaire '''Femmes du chaos vénézuélien / Women of the Venezuelan Chaos / Mujeres del caos venezolano
 Prix du Jury Mention honoriphique du Festival Internacional de Cine por Los Derechos Humanos, Bogotá Colombia 2018 pour le long métrage documentaire Femmes du chaos vénézuélien / Women of the Venezuelan Chaos / Mujeres del caos venezolano Price Winner Best Human Rights Feature Galway Film Fleadh, Galway, Ireland 2018 pour le long métrage documentaire '''Femmes du chaos vénézuélien / Women of the Venezuelan Chaos / Mujeres del caos venezolano
 Price Winner Audience Award Best Film Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International Frankfurt, Germany ; 2018 pour le long métrage documentaire 'Femmes du chaos vénézuélien / Women of the Venezuelan Chaos / Mujeres del caos venezolano
 Prix du Public Festival Dones en Art i Cinema, Valencia, Espagne 2012 pour le long métrage cinéma Cenizas eternas / Cendres éternelles / Eternal Ashes
 Prix Meilleure Bande Sonore au XXVII Festival Latino American Trieste, Italie 2012 pour le long métrage cinéma Cenizas eternas / Cendres éternelles / Eternal Ashes

Nominations
 Nomination au Golden Zenit du XXXV World Film Festival à Montréal, Canada 2011 pour le long métrage cinéma Cenizas eternas / Cendres éternelles / Eternal Ashes
 Nomination Meilleure Opera Prima au Festival Documenta Caracas, Venezuela 2007 pour le long métrage cinéma Cenizas eternas / Cendres éternelles / Eternal Ashes

Filmographie

Réalisatrice

Court métrage
 2021 : Dévoilement -Unveiling

Longs métrages
 2006 : Au-delà des apparences
 2009 : Macondo
 2009 : Mascaras- Masques
 2011 : Cenizas Eternas - Cendres Éternelles
 2017 : Femmes du chaos

Scénariste et productrice

Court métrage
 2021 : Dévoilement -Unveiling

Longs métrages
 2006 : Au-delà des apparences
 2009 : Macondo
 2009 : Mascaras- Masques
 2011 : Cenizas Eternas - Cendres Éternelles
 2016 : La Familia-Dementia de Giovanna Ribes
 2017 : Femmes du chaos

Productrice

Télévision
 1996 : Barrage sur l'Orénoque de Juan Luis Buñuel
 2000 : Marie et Tom de Dominique Baron
 2003 : Touch of Spice de Tassos Boulmetis
 2006 : Chuao, la vallée merveilleuse

Publications, articles et photos
 Le Café Latino, France, série d'articles sur divers Patrimoine Mondial de l'Unesco dans le monde, magazine culturel Bimensuel bilingue Français – Espagnol
 La fenêtre, anodine… ? Janvier-
 Petra, Fascinante ville de pierre. Novembre-
 L'Islande, la terre qui fascinait Jorge Luis Borges. Novembre-
 Panama Numéro Spécial Été 2016
 Les Femmes Massais, dans le massif du Ngorongoro  Mars-
 Inspiration artistique au pays des Berbères Janvier-
 L'énigmatique Stonehenge Novembre-
 Le Voyage des émigrants Juillet-
 Mystérieux Machu Picchu Mai-
 Les gratte-ciel de New York grattent le bleu du ciel Mars-
 Pour des siècles et des siècles – Sculpture, Mythologie et Alexandre Dumas Novembre-
 Le Jardin des Tarots – L'ésotérique dans l'art Septembre-
 Fascinant Zanzibar
 Cosmogonie Artistique dans le bassin du Caura
 Mystère dans la forêt vierge
 Une fois abandonnée la marginalité : Le tango est-il danse, musique ou poésie
 Chichicastenango, rencontre spirituelle et commerciale
 Sur les traces de Humboldt

Références

Liens externes

 ARTE 28 minutes Biographie en images
 MC2 Productions

Réalisatrice vénézuélienne
Naissance à Caracas
Date de naissance non renseignée (XXe siècle)
Réalisatrice française

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Singer/Songwriter John Phillips Dies
uno1234
Thought everyone should know... the world lost quite a songwriter today.
By ANDREW BRIDGES
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Songwriter John Phillips, who as a member of the Mamas and the Papas penned ``California Dreamin''' and other hits by the 1960s pop group, died Sunday morning. He was 65.
Phillips died of heart failure at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, a spokesman for the hospital said.
``His personality is going to be sorely missed,'' said Harvey Goldberg, a longtime friend and producer. ``His music is going to be sorely missed.''
Phillips was the principal songwriter for the Mamas and the Papas, writing hits including ``I Saw Her Again Last Night'' and ``Creeque Alley.'' In 1966, the band won a Grammy for best contemporary group performance for the single ``Monday, Monday.''
He also helped organize 1967's seminal Monterey Pop Festival, which introduced Jimi Hendrix and The Who to American audiences.
Phillips also wrote for other groups, including the Grateful Dead, Beach Boys and Scott MacKenzie, who debuted his ``San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)'' at Monterey.
Goldberg said that just before entering the hospital, Phillips had completed work on a solo album, tentatively titled ``Slow Starter.'' An album he began work on 25 years ago with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards called ``Pay, Pack and Follow'' is set for release in May.
Phillips was born John Edmund Andrew Phillips on Aug. 30, 1935, in Parris Island, S.C. In high school, he played in several bands. He later moved to New York City, where he formed The Journeymen.
When Cass Elliot joined the group now known as the Mamas and the Papas, the band moved to Los Angeles, where they were signed in 1965.
``They were really the American band that ended the British Invasion,'' Goldberg said.
The Mamas and the Papas' debut single, ``California Dreamin','' was released in 1966. ``Monday, Monday'' and a string of other hits soon followed until the band broke up in 1968. Two decades later, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
``There was an intelligence to his lyrics but not to the point of highbrow,'' Goldberg said. ``It was something that everyone could relate to.''
The songwriter received a liver transplant in 1992 after years of abusing alcohol and illegal drugs had taken its toll.
``It's like having a new lease on life,'' Phillips said at the time of the transplant, which came six months after he stopped drinking. He had talked and written about his former drug addictions, saying he had weaned himself from drugs in a rehabilitation clinic after a 1980 arrest.
Phillips is survived by his wife, Farnaz, daughters Mackenzie, Chynna and Bijou, sons Jeffrey and Tamerlane and stepdaughters Atoosa and Sanaz.
Funeral arrangements were pending Sunday.
[This message has been edited by uno1234 (edited March 18, 2001).]
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text:
The History of Duke Nukem – Part Five: Journey to Forever
Matt Keller
3D Realms announced that they were working on a successor to Duke Nukem 3D in April 1997. The name of the game was Duke Nukem Forever. A month later at E3 1997, 3D Realms announced that they would be licensing the Quake II engine for the game, rather than producing their own technology. At this point in time, 3D Realms expected to ship the game in 1998. 3D Realms were financing the game themselves, with GT Interactive set to act as a distributor.
The US edition of PC Gamer got the scoop on the game for its August 1997 issue. George Broussard later revealed on the 3D Realms forums that these images were mock-ups done in the Quake I engine to keep the masses interested – they didn't get the final Quake II engine code until November 1997, right before Quake II was released. For the majority of 1997, most of the 3D Realms team was focused on completing Shadow Warrior – work on Duke Nukem Forever was being done ad-hoc while they waited on the engine code.
At E3 1998, 3D Realms revealed the first trailer for Duke Nukem Forever (see below). Critics were blown away by the trailer, but Broussard was unhappy with the progress they had made. While everyone focused on the explosive action in the trailer, Broussard felt that the game's visuals needed improvement.
After the positive reception to the trailer at E3, 3D Realms shocked everyone by announcing that they had licensed the Unreal engine, and were in the process of switching everything over. Some questioned whether the game they saw in the trailer was real or not. Broussard stated that it wouldn't take them more than a couple of weeks to be back on track for release in 1999. The switch to Unreal was rationalised by the fact that Epic's engine was better at rendering wide open spaces, which the team wanted in and around Forever's Las Vegas locales.
3D Realms went dark with Forever after the engine switch, until late in 1999, when they released the first media from the Unreal engine version of the game, announcing at the same time that they had switched up to a new version of the engine that had driven Unreal Tournament. A month later, the 3D Realms Christmas card indicated that they expected Forever to be released in 2000. History repeated itself a year later, when the Christmas 2000 card from the company indicated a 2001 release date.
Publishing Rights
Duke Nukem Forever was originally going to be published by GT Interactive. Flush with cash from the success of Duke Nukem 3D, 3D Realms accepted a meagre $400,000 advance from the publisher. GT Interactive ran into financial trouble and sold the publishing rights to Gathering of Developers for $12 million in 2000. Gathering ran into financial difficulties in 2001 and was absorbed by Take-Two Interactive, who wrote off the Duke Nukem Forever publishing rights as a loss in 2003.
The two companies had worked together on console based Duke Nukem projects without any dramas, but Duke Nukem Forever became a sore point for Take Two as development stretched out into the mid 2000s.
Duke Nukem Forever resurfaced in a new trailer (see below) that 3D Realms presented at E3 2001. The trailer was a huge success – the game looked brilliant, the level of interactivity was beyond anything else on the market and it had that all-important Duke Nukem feel to it. Everyone was blown away, but the new release date of "When it's done" raised many eyebrows.
That trailer would be the last time Duke Nukem Forever was seen for many years. In 2002, 3D Realms went on a hiring spree, bringing in fresh blood and throwing out an estimated 95% of the work they had done on the game. They switched over to an early version of Unreal Engine 2, though it is believed that 3D Realms had basically rewritten everything except UnrealScript and the net code. Broussard stated that they were never less than two years away from release on the Unreal Tournament engine.
The Original Game
At this point in time, little is known about the original incarnation of Duke Nukem Forever. The game that we'll be playing on the 10th/13th is said to be substantially different to what was being shown at E3 in 1998 and 2001. Some of the concepts from those versions still exist, but almost everything that 3D Realms had done was thrown out and started over a number of times.
An early glimpse of what was in store
As far as we know, Duke Nukem Forever was set in and around Las Vegas, where Duke Nukem had retired to after defeating the alien menace in Duke Nukem 3D. Aliens attack the city and gain control over the Earth Defence Force, a military team sent to counter the alien threat. Duke is coaxed out of retirement by the military to fight the alien threat.
Early talk about the game mentioned Dr Proton returning in the game, but he has never appeared in any trailer. The 1998 trailer shows an armed blonde woman accompanying Duke in some sequences, but she does not appear in the 2001 trailer. The enemies in the 1998 trailer are cockroach-like, whereas they are generally infected humans in the 2001 version.
Gearbox is said to be in possession of all of the work done to date on Duke Nukem Forever, and is considering their options with regards to revealing some of the material. Tidbits of things scrapped during development have come out – Randy Pitchford mentioned that 3D Realms had considered a "gay robot sidekick" for Duke at one point. Company representatives said that they are not sure if they can get any of the old code to run correctly on modern hardware and operating systems, however.
From this point, Duke Nukem Forever began its descent into development hell. It became the butt of all industry jokes, winning Wired Magazine's Vapourware award eleven times, having been removed from contention for a period (first, when it given the lifetime achievement award, and second when the project was thought to be dead in 2009) until it was added back by popular demand. Broussard got into public spats with publisher Take Two Interactive after CEO Jeffrey Lapin mentioned that he didn't expect the game to ship in 2003 or 2004.
Development on the game continued, but Broussard refused to show the game to the public, preferring to tease the denizens of the 3D Realms forums. By 2006, reality had begun to sink in – Miller and Broussard became aware of the ridiculousness that Duke Nukem Forever had become. Broussard admitted to journalist Tom Chick in 2006 that they had thrown everything out and started again. Eventually, members of the game's development team started to leave the project, fearing it would never be completed.
It wasn't until Brian Hook joined the development team that the project began to gain direction. Broussard went on a hiring spree in order to get the game done. Hook was the first person who pushed back when Broussard questioned adding new features. The size of the team doubled from 18 to 35 and the push toward finishing the game began. Footage of the game leaked at Christmas 2007 as part of a company Christmas card.
All was not rosy at 3D Realms, however. Years of continued development of Duke Nukem Forever had taken a toll on the company's finances – development of the game was estimated at about $20 million at this point, and they had little to show for it. Shadow Warrior was the last game the company had developed internally, and although they made money selling the Max Payne and Prey IPs, it was getting to be a long time since they had any injections of cash. In October 2007, they headed to New York to strike a funding agreement with Take Two. The deal with Take Two brought them an advance royalty payment of $2.5 million for the development of Duke Nukem Forever against sales of a new Duke Nukem game called Duke Begins, which would be developed by Gearbox Software and published by Take Two by mid 2010.
What sunk 3D Realms?
In 1996, 3D Realms was one of the main forces in PC development. In 2011, they exist as a shadow of their former selves. How did we get from point A to B? These are the factors we believe led to the downfall of 3D Realms.
The success of Duke Nukem 3D. All eyes were on 3D Realms, and expectations for the quality of the next Duke Nukem game were through the roof.
3D Realms became reactive rather than proactive in the design of the game. They were continually on the lookout for what the next big thing was, and implementing that into their game. Members of the development team were said to have joked about preventing Broussard from seeing new games.
Team size. 3D Realms was operated on what some called "a 1995 mentality". In an age where development teams number into the hundreds, Duke Nukem Forever's development team rarely topped 35.
Control. George Broussard was the emperor of the development team – what he says, goes. If George wanted something added or removed from the game, it was done.
No vision for the final product. It is said that until Brian Hook joined the team, the team didn't know exactly what they were working towards.
Independence. Most development companies have a publisher funding the project to keep them in check, and for whom they need to complete milestones for. 3D Realms was rich with cash and could fund the game themselves.
One project. Duke Nukem Forever was the only game being made at 3D Realms. They participated in the development of Max Payne and Prey in a producer role, but they were not making anything else that could bring in fresh cash.
The October 2007 deal was enough to keep development going for a short time, but not enough to get the job done. Between January and April 2009, they visited Take Two seeking an addition $6 million in funding to complete Duke Nukem Forever for the PC, and commence work on an Xbox 360 port. Work on the port had commenced after Take Two promised additional funding for said port. Take Two initially agreed to the same, then lowered it to $5 million, then slashed it in half to $2.5 million. 3D Realms walked away from the deal, and in early May of 2009, released all of their internal development teams.
Lawsuits were flung from both sides – Take Two claimed that they were owed the $12 million they paid to Infogrames to gain the publishing rights, and tried to wrestle the Duke Nukem IP away from 3D Realms as payment. 3D Realms countersued, claiming that Take Two had purposely scuttled development of Duke Begins in order to avoid having to pay further royalties to 3D Realms.
Despite having the development team having been laid off from 3D Realms, work on Duke Nukem Forever continued. Duke co-creator Allen Blum and eight other ex-3DR employees worked on the game from home.
The lawsuit between 3D Realms and Take Two was settled and dismissed in May 2010. 3D Realms approached Gearbox Software to see if they would be able to help Blum's team complete the game and port it to consoles. Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford had previously worked on Duke Nukem: Atomic Edition at 3D Realms, and briefly worked on Duke Nukem Forever before leaving the company. Pitchford picked up the project and provided offices for Blum's team, now called Triptych Games, to work in. He also approached Take Two label 2K Games with a plan for completing and releasing the game. Suddenly, Duke Nukem Forever was happening again.
The news was announced to the public at the Penny Arcade Expo in September 2010. The game was publicly playable for the first time ever, and received a riotous response. Gearbox heavily promoted the game in the following months, with a May 2011 release eventually revealed – though a slight delay caused a slip to June 2011. After 14 years in development, Duke Nukem Forever is now (finally) available.
Part One: Origins
Part Two: The Road to 3D
Part Three: Duke Nukem 3D
Part Four: Make it Your Way
Part Five: Journey to Forever
Part Six: Licensing the Duke
Part Seven: Not Quite There
This article originally appeared as part of
Retro Gaming Australia's Duke Nukem Week,
reprinted with permission.
Tags: 3D Realms, Allen H. Blum III, Apogee, Brian Hook, development hell, Duke Begins, Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem Forever, Duke Nukem Week, Duke Nukem: Atomic Edition, Epic Games, Gathering of Developers, Gearbox Software, George Broussard, GT Interactive, Jeffrey Lapin, Max Payne, PAX 2010, Prey, Quake, Quake II, Randy Pitchford, Scott Miller, Shadow Warrior, Take-Two Interactive, Triptych Games, Unreal Engine, Unreal Tournament, UnrealScript, vaporware, vapourware, When it's done, Wired Magazine


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Six Things Paul Ryan Didn't Mention In His Convention Speech
Jason Sattler
AP Photo/Mary Altar
Paul Ryan – who began his career in politics as a speechwriter for Congressman Jack Kemp – proudly penned his own convention speech. Taking on this responsibility saved him from having to discuss the touchy subjects he probably isn't comfortable mentioning.
But since Ryan is the ideological leader of the party who practically forced Mitt Romney to accept all of his ideas before he was even selected to be on the ticket, it's important that we get to the heart of who he really is.
No one expects Paul Ryan to be the only Republican to mention Osama bin Laden at the convention. But here are six things Paul Ryan won't tell you because he they don't quite fit with the image he's trying to project.
Social Security Paid For His College Education
Picture by Chris Light
Paul Ryan was born into a wealthy family, so when his father passed away, he could afford to save the Social Security survivor benefits the government sent him. He used the money to pay for college. How does he want to return the favor? He'd like to cut billions from the program and privatize Social Security. His plan would decimate the payments of survivor benefits that account for about a third of the program's expenses.
He Thinks Mitt Romney Should Pay Almost No Taxes
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Based on Ryan's budget plan, he'd like to eliminate nearly all taxes on any money earned as capital gains. This failed theory of rewarding investors more than workers supposedly encourages risk. However, Romney's income comes entirely from investment in a retirement fund from which he merely collects the proceeds. Even Mitt hasn't proposed giving himself this much of a tax break, yet.
President Obama Has Signed Bills That Cut Five Trillion From The Deficit
AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File
Paul Ryan's favorite attack is that we're facing the most predictable debt crisis in history. How does he propose dealing with it? Massive tax cuts, mostly benefiting the rich. He'd also increase defense spending. All of his cuts come from programs that benefit working people and their kids. He continually calls out the president for failing to deal with the nation's mounting debt – as he did last night again. Yet he knows that Obama pushed through actual savings in Medicare that extend the life of the program. The president also signed a debt agreement, which Ryan supported, that would cut four trillion dollars from the deficit. Of course Ryan now opposes that same deal.
Paul Ryan Voted For Virtually Everything George W. Bush Proposed
From the massive tax breaks that blew the surplus to the unfunded Medicare drug benefit to the Iraq war to the bank bailouts, Ryan reliably voted "Yea" That's why George W. Bush was one of the first to congratulate Mitt Romney for choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate. "This is a strong pick," said Bush. It's hard not to love someone who thinks you're perfect.
Paul Ryan Thinks of Rape As "A Method Of Conception"
Paul Ryan's views perfectly match the Republican platform, which opposes abortion in every circumstance. He recently referred to rape as "a method of conception" in an interview, revealing his belief that a woman should be forced to give birth to a rapist's baby. He didn't say whether he believes a woman's body has "a way of shutting that whole thing down."
Paul Ryan Thinks We're Living In An Ayn Rand Novel
Reconciling the selfish beliefs of Ayn Rand and the altruistic beliefs of Jesus Christ should make a human being bi-polar. Ryan has said that Rand was the reason he got into politics and reportedly had his interns read her novels. Since then, he's backed away from Rand – who was an avowed champion of abortion rights — and claimed he's more of a Thomas Aquinas guy. The sainted Aquinas said that "whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance." Which in the view of today's Republicans must make Aquinas — and by extension Ryan — socialist!


Daytona Beach, FL – 2018 seemed to be a banner year for real estate despite a sales slowdown at the end of the year.
According to data from the Daytona Beach Multiple Listing Service, detached single family home sales and median prices were both up for 2018, compared to 2017, which surpassed expectations of some real estate experts.
MLS Data shows that 5,132 homes were sold in the Daytona area in 2018, with a median sales price of $229,000. For comparison, 2017 saw 4,937 sales which garnered a median sales price of $215,000, leading to a 6.5% increase in median sales prices.
Overall, there were 8,846 real estate transactions recorded by the MLS in 2018, with a $200,000 median sales price.
Sales of all property types were up by 3.3% in 2018, and sales of existing single family homes were also up by 4%. It's not the 5.47% jump in sales that the experts at Realtor.com predicted, but the totals were strong nonetheless.
"I think the rising prices helped a lot of local homeowners breathe a big sigh of relief," said Ron Wysocarski, Broker and CEO of Wyse Home Team Realty in Port Orange. "Our home values really tanked during the recession, and many property owners had been waiting a long time to see those values fully recover.
However, while the majority of the year saw great figures, it would soon see a bit of a tarnishing when it came to the month of December.
MLS reported that 296 existing homes were sold in the greater Daytona Beach area with a median sales price of $224,900. That amounts to an almost 8% drop in sales compared to the same month last year, and just a meager 1% rise in median sales prices.
Compared to November, sales were up by 11% while median prices fell 6%.
"Home sales weren't as robust as we would have liked in December, but overall it was a good year for the local real estate market," said Wysocarski.
Inventory levels dropped notably for the second consecutive month in December, but the number of available homes for sale was up by 9.5% compared to the same month last year.
Overall, the number of homes to hit the market in 2018 was up by more than 6.7% over 2017 totals.


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Home: Reliance inks deals with Julia Roberts' Red Om Films and Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment
Reliance inks deals with Julia Roberts' Red Om Films and Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment
Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) today announced it had expanded its media invesments in Hollywood by signing two separate development deals with Julia Roberts' Red Om Films ad Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment.
RBE is the media and entertainment company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. It has so far established such creative partnerships with nine leading production entities.
The earlier seven deals, with Nicolas Cage's Saturn Productions, Jim Carrey's JC 23 Entertainment, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Columbus' 1492 Pictures, Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, and Jay Roach's Everyman Pictures were announced during the Cannes Film Festival 2008 by RBE Chairman Amit Khanna and President Rajesh Sawhney.
All nine deals provide for the creation of a development silo for each of the production entities and the possibility of RBE co-financing projects that emanate from these development deals. For any green lit projects utilizing RBE co-financing, the filmmakers will enjoy full creative and fiscal freedom, a statement by the company said.
Eight of the partnerships have had development projects approved and there is already a handpicked slate in excess of twenty projects and it is anticipated that most will generate content during 2009, it said.
In announcing the new partnerships, Khanna commented, "Our innovative foray into Hollywood has proven very productive on the development front and we are now looking forward to moving into the filmmaking stage over the coming months. We were immediately impressed by both Julia's and Brett's enthusiasm for our creative partnership plan."
Sawhney added, "These creative partnerships will lead to Reliance Big Entertainment co-financing with the majority of the major US Studios as we are totally respectful of the existing first-look deals that each of our partners enjoys. From the conversations to date, we know that the respective studios will welcome our development silos and our subsequent co-financing ability. We have broken completely new ground by empowering some of the best talent in the global industry."
For the U.S. studios, the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group provides a partner with expertise in India, which has one of the most successful domestic filmed entertainment businesses in the world but which remains a challenge for non indigenous product.
BIG Pictures, the division of RBE that will focus on media investments outside of India, sees the development deals as the first major building block in the creation of a virtual studio, or new-generation media company. They are part of RBE's long-term strategy for media investments in Hollywood, as it continues to build a fully integrated movie company with substantial holdings in production, distribution and exhibition.
The deals also secure Indian rights for the films which RBE co-finances. Additionally, RBE expects to attract suitable productions, with appropriate incentives, to India, where it is the largest film producer and owns physical studios and facility companies.


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The Friday Cover
The Friday Cover is POLITICO Magazine's email of the week's best, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.
M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO
Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar and Right
And, my dear fellow Republicans, he's all your fault.
By TUCKER CARLSON
Tucker Carlson is editor in chief of the Daily Caller.
About 15 years ago, I said something nasty on CNN about Donald Trump's hair. I can't now remember the context, assuming there was one. In any case, Trump saw it and left a message the next day.
"It's true you have better hair than I do," Trump said matter-of-factly. "But I get more pussy than you do." Click.
At the time, I'd never met Trump and I remember feeling amused but also surprised he'd say something like that. Now the pattern seems entirely familiar. The message had all the hallmarks of a Trump attack: shocking, vulgar and indisputably true.
Not everyone finds it funny. On my street in Northwest Washington, D.C., there's never been anyone as unpopular as Trump. The Democrats assume he's a bigot, pandering to the morons out there in the great dark space between Georgetown and Brentwood. The Republicans (those relatively few who live here) fully agree with that assessment, and they hate him even more. They sense Trump is a threat to them personally, to their legitimacy and their livelihoods. Idi Amin would get a warmer reception in our dog park.
I understand it of course. And, except in those moments when the self-righteous silliness of rich people overwhelms me and I feel like moving to Maine, I can see their points, some of them anyway. Trump might not be my first choice for president. I'm not even convinced he really wants the job. He's smart enough to know it would be tough for him to govern.
But just because Trump is an imperfect candidate doesn't mean his candidacy can't be instructive. Trump could teach Republicans in Washington a lot if only they stopped posturing long enough to watch carefully. Here's some of what they might learn:
He Exists Because You Failed
American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat Bush, who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump. In the case of Trump, though, the GOP shares the blame, and not just because his fellow Republicans misdirected their ad buys or waited so long to criticize him. Trump is in part a reaction to the intellectual corruption of the Republican Party. That ought to be obvious to his critics, yet somehow it isn't.
Consider the conservative nonprofit establishment, which seems to employ most right-of-center adults in Washington. Over the past 40 years, how much donated money have all those think tanks and foundations consumed? Billions, certainly. (Someone better at math and less prone to melancholy should probably figure out the precise number.) Has America become more conservative over that same period? Come on. Most of that cash went to self-perpetuation: Salaries, bonuses, retirement funds, medical, dental, lunches, car services, leases on high-end office space, retreats in Mexico, more fundraising. Unless you were the direct beneficiary of any of that, you'd have to consider it wasted.
Pretty embarrassing. And yet they're not embarrassed. Many of those same overpaid, underperforming tax-exempt sinecure-holders are now demanding that Trump be stopped. Why? Because, as his critics have noted in a rising chorus of hysteria, Trump represents "an existential threat to conservatism."
Let that sink in. Conservative voters are being scolded for supporting a candidate they consider conservative because it would be bad for conservatism? And by the way, the people doing the scolding? They're the ones who've been advocating for open borders, and nation-building in countries whose populations hate us, and trade deals that eliminated jobs while enriching their donors, all while implicitly mocking the base for its worries about abortion and gay marriage and the pace of demographic change. Now they're telling their voters to shut up and obey, and if they don't, they're liberal.
It turns out the GOP wasn't simply out of touch with its voters; the party had no idea who its voters were or what they believed. For decades, party leaders and intellectuals imagined that most Republicans were broadly libertarian on economics and basically neoconservative on foreign policy. That may sound absurd now, after Trump has attacked nearly the entire Republican catechism (he savaged the Iraq War and hedge fund managers in the same debate) and been greatly rewarded for it, but that was the assumption the GOP brain trust operated under. They had no way of knowing otherwise. The only Republicans they talked to read the Wall Street Journal too.
On immigration policy, party elders were caught completely by surprise. Even canny operators like Ted Cruz didn't appreciate the depth of voter anger on the subject. And why would they? If you live in an affluent ZIP code, it's hard to see a downside to mass low-wage immigration. Your kids don't go to public school. You don't take the bus or use the emergency room for health care. No immigrant is competing for your job. (The day Hondurans start getting hired as green energy lobbyists is the day my neighbors become nativists.) Plus, you get cheap servants, and get to feel welcoming and virtuous while paying them less per hour than your kids make at a summer job on Nantucket. It's all good.
Apart from his line about Mexican rapists early in the campaign, Trump hasn't said anything especially shocking about immigration. Control the border, deport lawbreakers, try not to admit violent criminals — these are the ravings of a Nazi? This is the "ghost of George Wallace" that a Politico piece described last August? A lot of Republican leaders think so. No wonder their voters are rebelling.
Truth Is Not Only A Defense, It's Thrilling
When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for fear of being punished or criticized for saying it? If you live in America, it probably hasn't been long. That's not just a talking point about political correctness. It's the central problem with our national conversation, the main reason our debates are so stilted and useless. You can't fix a problem if you don't have the words to describe it. You can't even think about it clearly.
This depressing fact made Trump's political career. In a country where almost everyone in public life lies reflexively, it's thrilling to hear someone say what he really thinks, even if you believe he's wrong. It's especially exciting when you suspect he's right.
A temporary ban on Muslim immigration? That sounds a little extreme (meaning nobody else has said it recently in public). But is it? Millions of Muslims have moved to Western Europe over the past 50 years, and a sizable number of them still haven't assimilated. Instead, they remain hostile and sometimes dangerous to the cultures that welcomed them. By any measure, that experiment has failed. What's our strategy for not repeating it here, especially after San Bernardino—attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere? Invoke American exceptionalism and hope for the best? Before Trump, that was the plan.
Republican primary voters should be forgiven for wondering who exactly is on the reckless side of this debate. At the very least, Trump seems like he wants to protect the country.
Evangelicals understand this better than most. You read surveys that indicate the majority of Christian conservatives support Trump, and then you see the video: Trump on stage with pastors, looking pained as they pray over him, misidentifying key books in the New Testament, and in general doing a ludicrous imitation of a faithful Christian, the least holy roller ever. You wonder as you watch this: How could they be that dumb? He's so obviously faking it.
They know that already. I doubt there are many Christian voters who think Trump could recite the Nicene Creed, or even identify it. Evangelicals have given up trying to elect one of their own. What they're looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their freedom of speech and worship. Trump fits that role nicely, better in fact than many church-going Republicans. For eight years, there was a born-again in the White House. How'd that work out for Christians, here and in Iraq?
Washington Really Is Corrupt
Everyone beats up on Washington, but most of the people I know who live here love it. Of course they do. It's beautiful, the people are friendly, we've got good restaurants, not to mention full employment and construction cranes on virtually every corner. If you work on Capitol Hill or downtown, it's hard to walk back from lunch without seeing someone you know. It's a warm bath. Nobody wants to leave.
But let's pretend for a second this isn't Washington. Let's imagine it's the capital of an African country, say Burkina Faso, and we are doing a study on corruption. Probably the first question we'd ask: How many government officials have close relatives who make a living by influencing government spending? A huge percentage of them? OK. Case closed. Ouagadougou is obviously a very corrupt city.
That's how the rest of the country views D.C. Washington is probably the richest city in America because the people who live there have the closest proximity to power. That seems obvious to most voters. It's less obvious to us, because everyone here is so cheerful and familiar, and we're too close to it. Chairman so-and-so's son-in-law lobbies the committee? That doesn't seem corrupt. He's such a good guy.
All of which explains why almost nobody in Washington caught the significance of Trump's finest moment in the first debate. One of the moderators asked, in effect: if you're so opposed to Hillary Clinton, why did she come to your last wedding? It seemed like a revealing, even devastating question.
Trump's response, delivered without pause or embarrassment: Because I paid her to be there. As if she was the wedding singer, or in charge of the catering.
Even then, I'll confess, I didn't get it. (Why would you pay someone to come to your wedding?) But the audience did. Trump is the ideal candidate to fight Washington corruption not simply because he opposes it, but because he has personally participated in it. He's not just a reformer; like most effective populists, he's a whistleblower, a traitor to his class. Before he became the most ferocious enemy American business had ever known, Teddy Roosevelt was a rich guy. His privilege wasn't incidental; it was key to his appeal. Anyone can peer through the window in envy. It takes a real man to throw furniture through it from the inside.
If Trump is leading a populist movement, many of his Republican critics have joined an elitist one. Deriding Trump is an act of class solidarity, visible evidence of refinement and proof that you live nowhere near a Wal-Mart. Early last summer, in a piece that greeted Trump when he entered the race, National Review described the candidate as "a ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula." Virtually every other critique of Trump from the right has voiced similar aesthetic concerns.
Why is the Party of Ideas suddenly so fixated on fashion and hair? Maybe all dying institutions devolve this way, from an insistence on intellectual rigor to a flabby preoccupation with appearances. It happened in the Episcopal Church, once renowned for its liturgy, now a stop on architectural and garden tours. Only tourists go there anymore.
He Could Win
Of all the dumb things that have been said about Trump by people who were too slow to get finance jobs and therefore wound up in journalism, perhaps the stupidest of all is the one you hear most: He'll get killed in the general! This is a godsend for Democrats! Forty-state wipeout! And so it goes mindlessly on.
Actually — and this is no endorsement of Trump, just an interjection of reality — that's a crock. Of the Republicans now running, Trump likely has the best chance to beat Hillary Clinton, for two reasons:
First, he's the only Republican who can meaningfully expand the pie. Polls show a surprisingly large number of Democrats open to Trump. In one January survey by the polling form Mercury Analytics , almost 20 percent said they'd consider crossing over to him from Hillary. Even if that's double the actual number, it's still stunning. Could Ted Cruz expect to draw that many Democrats? Could Jeb?
It's an article of faith in Washington that Trump would tank the party's prospects with minority voters. Sounds logical, especially if you're a sensitive white liberal who considers the suggestion of a border wall a form of hate speech, but consider the baseline. In the last election, Romney got 6 percent of the black vote, and 27 percent of Hispanics. Trump, who's energetic, witty and successful, will do worse? I wouldn't bet on it.
But the main reason Trump could win is because he's the only candidate hard enough to call Hillary's bluff. Republicans will say almost anything about Hillary, but almost none challenge her basic competence. She may be evil, but she's tough and accomplished. This we know, all of us.
But do we? Or is this understanding of Hillary just another piety we repeat out of unthinking habit, the political equivalent of, "you can be whatever you want to be," or "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"? Trump doesn't think Hillary is impressive and strong. He sees her as brittle and afraid.
He may be right, based on his exchange with her just before Christmas. During a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump said Hillary had been "schlonged" by Obama in the 2008 race. In response, the Clinton campaign called Trump a sexist. It's a charge Hillary has leveled against virtually every opponent she's faced, but Trump responded differently. Instead of scrambling to donate to breast cancer research, he pointed out that Hillary spent years attacking the alleged victims of her husband's sexual assaults. That ended the conversation almost immediately.
It was the most effective possible response, though more obvious than brilliant. Why was Trump the only Republican to use it?
Republican primary voters may be wondering the same thing. Or maybe they already know. They seem to know a lot about Trump, more than the people who run their party. They know that he isn't a conventional ideological conservative. They seem relieved. They can see that he's emotionally incontinent. They find it exciting.
Washington Republicans look on at this in horror, their suspicions confirmed. Beneath the thin topsoil of rural conservatism, they see the seeds of proto-fascism beginning to sprout. But that's not quite right. Republicans in the states aren't dangerous. They've just evaluated the alternatives and decided those are worse.
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DON HERFORT: THE MAN WHO BUILT GOLF IN MINNESOTA
February 1, 2020 /in Golf, River Oaks Blog /by Teesnap Developer
An aerial view of the 8th hole green at River Oaks.
Whenever you play River Oaks, how often (if ever) do you consider the process that went into developing and designing each hole? You may have questioned the positioning of a specific bunker or the location of a water hazard and noticed it was placed there with intention, but you probably rarely stop to give it a second thought. If you are like me, you may find many aspects of a golf course's layout to be as unsystematic and random as the trees and brush that grow around them. However, every detail of the course's design, from the positioning of a tee box to the undulations of the greens and everything in between, were the intention of one man's vision and dream — Don Herfort.
Who was Don Herfort?
Don Herfort in his signature plaid ASCGA member jacket. Photo was taken from Golf Digest website.
According to the Star Tribune, Don Herfort was born in Green Bay, WI on February 6th, 1925. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1951, earning a degree in Business Administration. After graduation, Herfort accepted a position as an accountant at a large corporation in Saint Paul, MN known as 3M. He would later go on to become the most prolific and creative golf course architect in the history of Minnesota golf.
It was while working for 3M that the Tartan Park Golf Course (a 3M employee course) was in the process of being designed. Herfort watched the process closely and began to develop some strong opinions about the vision of its original designer.
"Right from the start, I didn't think the guy they had hired to build the course knew what he was doing," Herfort said in an October 2008 interview with Minnesota Golfer magazine. "The holes weren't laid out very well. The drainage was going to be a problem with the layout. It was like the whole thing was wrong."
American Society of Golf Course Architects official logo.
Herfort would go on to voice his concerns about the course to 3M's top executives. Despite having no experience or education in golf course architecture, Herfort was asked by 3M to design and develop its employee golf course. Confidently, Herfort took on the massive undertaking. Tartan Park was a success! It launched his career as an architect, leading Herfort to resign from 3M to establish his architect firm, Don Herfort Inc.
In 1970, Herfort would be elected into the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA), becoming the first Minnesota-based professional to pass the rigorous membership process. He would go on to have a successful career spanning for more than four decades!
During his 41-year career (1970-2011), Herfort designed more than 140 courses throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, with projects in the states of Iowa, Michigan, and South Dakota. You may even recognize his work since most of his courses can be found all over Minnesota. Some of Herfort's notable works include Dellwood Hills, Indian Hills, Como Park, Oak Glen, Pebble Creek, Superior National, and of course River Oaks.
"His large flashed-sand bunkers and undulating greens are still a trademark of his work," once said Kevin Norby, prodigy and partner of Herfort.
A view of the green on hole 12 at River Oaks.
According to the ASGCA, the main job of the architect is, "developing programs and facilities that attract and retain new players." Don Herfort was prolific at this! He appealed to the masses. He wanted golf to be a game for everyone. He wanted it to be fun.
Don Herfort would continue to design courses up until his death on June 27th, 2011. He passed away in his Lakeville home from a heart condition at the age of 86.
By transforming thousands of acres in the upper Midwest Herfort became an artist and left a legacy that stretched across an entire state. Every summer, thousands of people play his courses and yet most are unaware of his achievements. He left his mark on the history of golf in our wonderful state and became the man who built the game for much of Minnesota.
Tags: Don Herfort, Golf Architecture, History, Minnesota, Profile Piece, River Oaks, Twin Cities Golf
https://riveroaksmunigolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/DJI_0009_preview-1030x578-1-e1593021909659.jpeg 260 345 Teesnap Developer https://riveroaksmunigolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/RiverOaksLogo-1.png Teesnap Developer2020-02-01 14:04:482020-02-24 22:42:23DON HERFORT: THE MAN WHO BUILT GOLF IN MINNESOTA
KEEPING THE FLAGSTICK IN?
GOLF ETIQUETTE: THE HOW AND WHY OF REPAIRING YOUR BALL MARK
MEETING OUR EXECUTIVE CHEF JAMES WARRINGTON
WHAT IS SANTA BRUNCH?
SO YOU WANT TO GOLF? FIVE REASONS TO TAKE UP GOLF
RIVER OAKS 2020 NEW YEAR'S RENOVATIONS
IMPORTANT THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN LOOKING FOR A WEDDING VENUE RIVER OAKS 2020 NEW YEAR'S RENOVATIONS


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Q: HTML5 live video Apple iOS So as far as I understand it, there is no way (yet) to play live video streams using HTML5 video on your Apple device and have 1-1.5 second latency or less.
The only streaming protocol Apple seems to support is HLS and it involves dividing video to chunks, downloading them one by one, and having downloaded enough pieces (3 by default) start playing it. If each of these pieces is 3 seconds long, then you are looking at 9-10 second latency. Reducing the length of the piece causes constant disruption when streaming and reducing bitrate of the video doesn't seem to reduce the said marker.
Is there any other viable solution for streaming truly live video using HTML5 on Apple mobile devices?

A: If anybody's wondering - there still is a hacky workaround to avoid using HLS at all.
You can convert your video stream into sequence of images in mpeg1 format (using ffmpeg for example) and download them at client side using javascript library and use canvas element to display them.  This can be achieved using jsmpeg and its streaming-server code than runs on node.js
I was able to get 30 fps for 540x320 resolution with 150ms latency on Safari iOS.
For a precise walk-through see this blog .
Pros:

*

*improved latency (with adequate bitrate and resolution)

*HTML5 compatibility with pretty much cross-platform support

Cons:

*

*No audio feed.

*increased cpu usage on most handheld devices

A: No, at the time of this post there is no solution other than HLS. Plus if you want to make your own app using another protocol and publish it on the App Store it may be rejected because of the arbitrary rule 9.4:

9.4 Video streaming content over a cellular network longer than 10 minutes must use HTTP Live Streaming and include a baseline 192 kbps or lower HTTP Live stream

There's currently a push for DASH which supports low-latency live streaming but Apple is not supporting it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Very spacious one bedroom apartment. Within walking distance to Plaza Mayor. Metro station just a block away from the apartment. Jose was very helpful with directions and met us at the metro station. Beautiful views of the city from this apartment. - Great location and decor very stylish close to city park.
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The area was very central and right beside the metro. All the information that was provided really helped to navigate our way their. The accommodation was really well priced and the area was fine. Everything worked and it was very comfortable. I would definitely stay here again. - This is a nice option if you are in madrid with family; a nice cos... 别人怎么说 » y, simple, clean appartment with all you need, pretty central as well. The description here as if in a dangerous neighbourhood is nonsense and the pictures are correct.
Friendly and knowledgable staff always willing to help and give advice,excellent breakfast bar and great restaurant. - Very helpful staff, excellent breakfast included in price, convenientlysituated with good access to metro.


Come celebrate the South Pacific with delectable desserts, drinks and fabulous entertainment! Mingle with fellow attendees and speakers while enjoying the warm Florida winter weather. Settle down under the stars to enjoy a delicious dessert buffet, complete with cocktails, and an authentic Polynesian performance including dancers and fire throwers.


text:
Garth Johnstone
Agriculture, Features, Rosetta
Seven-day weeks key to small business success
Vincent Mgwaba and his mother, Clementine Ndlovu, on the smallholding where they produce fresh veg. Pictures by Garth Johnstone
By Nerissa Card
Seven is a number with which Vincent Mgwaba is very familiar. He has been working seven days a week since he was seven years old.
From Mondays to Fridays you will find him tending his smallholding in Rosetta. At weekends he spends his time taking care of people's gardens.
"You have to work hard to make it," says the man who is passionate about food security.
Upgraded matric
Born in Kamberg, Vincent grew up in Rosetta. He went to school at Nottingham Road Combined School, now Shea O'Connor Combined School.
Thereafter he attended Midlands Community College to upgrade his matric subjects to enable him to enrol at university, where he studied land surveying.
After qualifying, Vincent worked on mines in Upington, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape. This was followed by a four-year stint at Group 5, after which he joined the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.
You have to work hard to make it, says Vincent Mgwaba. Vincent, with his trusty bakkie and the baling machine he built.
"I left the department when my contract expired to go into farming because I had more experience in farming."
Vincent explains that when he was seven years old, a farmer in the area took him under his wing and started training him.
"I worked on the farm at weekends. The farmer taught me about compost, soil, seedlings and how to plant. I worked on the farm until matric. He wanted me to be a farmer, but I didn't see the potential at the time, so I went into surveying."
Crops and chickens
Vincent started renting the property he now lives on from Transnet in 2014. He began farming the land in 2015, and his crops including spinach, cabbages, carrots, beetroot, green beans, peas and butternuts.
When I visited him, he was in the process of building a shed for chickens.
"I did chickens when we were living at Dr and Mrs Davies' home, but when we moved to Mooi River, the property was too small."
You can contact Vincent directly to place an order for his veggies. See contact details at end of story.
Vincent's mother, Clementine Ndlovu, started working for the Davies family after Vincent's father died. He was just two weeks old at the time.
He was living with his grandparents in Kamberg, but was taken in by the Davies family, who assisted with his school fees and first year at university. Thereafter, Vincent was sponsored.
Explaining his garden service business, Vincent says: "I started the garden service in 2014 as well. Because I had no farming equipment, I had to work weekends so I could buy tractors and ploughs. I still work hard at that side of the business. There is no time to rest."
Innovation sets young Eston farmers on growth path
Vincent's 12-hour days start at 7am. At harvest time, he and his mother work until 11pm packaging vegetables in her garage in Mooi River. Clementine also helps with seedlings, as does his niece, Azenhle Mgwaba.
Vincent supplies Spar in Nottingham Road, Shea O'Connor School and the surrounding community. He also supplied CT Organics.
Mgwaba Veggies is also open for the public to buy direct from the farm.
And what about his plans for the future?
"We want to have a small shop where we can display our goods and serve tea when people come to buy direct from us."
Working seven days a week, between his smallholding where he grows vegetables (above) and his gardening service, is the way Vincent says he will achieve his goals.
Vincent is looking for assistance to help him grow his business.
On his wish-list are a container for the shop and vegetable tunnels so he can extend his growing season. In fact, anything to do with farming.
"We try not to buy things, for financial reasons, so, for example, we make and treat our own poles for fencing. I have also made my own baling machine out of wood because I couldn't afford to buy one."
The Meander Chronicle: Dabbling in the 'dark art' of veggie gardening
Absolutely nothing goes to waste, with Vincent also collecting all the grass and leaves from his garden service jobs for compost.
And when he's driving on the N3? "I collect discarded tyres for the garden, so I am cleaning the N3 as well," he laughs.
In need of some inspiration from a man who seems to have no time for those who don't get out there and just do it?
Pay Mgwaba Veggies a visit. You can contact Vincent on 072 878 9078.
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Parts 51 and 52 are the hilt of the Master Sword: part 51 is the top piece, that goes "horizontal" and part 52 is the bottom part that makes the sides/bottom.
So maybe it's easiest if you assemble part 52 first; it has quite a few folds, so make sure you score and fold them all and don't forget any! Check with the PDF file because it's difficult to see on the printed versions sometimes. Almost all of them are mountain folds, only the one in the middle is a valley fold.
Once you folded part 52, look closely at the arrows on the template. If you follow them correctly, the part will find the correct shape as the bottom part of the hilt: it's a symmetrical piece, with the valley fold in the middle, and two "wings" with an open top on either side.
I'm sorry that I can't help you better than this, I hope that you can figure it with a few tries: try folding the part and shaping it without glue first so you can see if it looks like it does in the pictures and the two parts fit together, so you know it's correct. I hope this helps!


text:
Mastixis dukinfieldi är en fjärilsart som beskrevs av William Schaus 1916. Mastixis dukinfieldi ingår i släktet Mastixis och familjen nattflyn. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Nattflyn
dukinfieldi


text:
April 18, 2018 8:03 AM - Subscribe
A young group of monster fanatics attempt to save their hometown from Count Dracula and his monsters.
NYTimes: The comedy is cheerless. The performances are either inept or unlovably coy. Though the previous film credits (''Star Wars,'' ''Aliens,'' among others) of the special-effects people are impressive, ''The Monster Squad'' looks like a feature-length commercial for a joke store that sells not-great, rubber monster masks.
The movie also has a certain amount of nerve in introducing a Holocaust survivor as the one fellow in town who recognizes Dracula and his pals for what they are.
Empire: One of the reasons this failed to find its audience is that it was ludicrously stuck with a 15 certificate. There are some great monster effects—a mummy gets a bandage caught and unravels like an old cardigan, and the Wolf Man is literally blown to bloody fragments—but the certification was for one (very funny) joke about the teenage heroine's virginity which will go over younger children's heads.
Otherwise, this is full of moments you'll relish: the Fat Kid blasting away at the Creature, Wolf Man getting kicked in the nards, Dr Van Helsing giving a ghostly thumbs-up to the teenage hero, and the final appearance of the bewildered army to deal with the crisis. Also, in a few very sharp semi-throwaway scenes, the film effectively contrasts the innocent wonder of the monster squad as they take on the creatures of the night with the less simplistic troubles their adult friends and relatives have to deal with. Spot on.
AV Club: Squad joins The Lost Boys, Fright Night, Gremlins, and Poltergeist in a winning '80s subgenre dedicated to ghoulies invading the suburbs. Like its more commercially successful peers, Squad oozes geek-love for its subject matter; it's clear the filmmakers are just as enamored of things that go bump in the night as their fearless kiddie vampire-slayers. That ingratiating affection for classic horror permeates every facet of the film, from the way monster-maker Stan Winston takes on ubiquitous horror icons to Black and Dekker's snappy banter to the fine performances of monsters Tom Noonan (as Frankenstein), Jon Gries (as a tormented werewolf), and the elegantly understated Regehr. Squad's gleeful monster mash anticipates bloated CGI orgies like Van Helsing, which likely cost a hundred times as much, yet boasts a hundredth of Squad's scrappy, ramshackle charm. At a lean 82 minutes, the film also boasts a virtue increasingly lost to the past: brevity.
Slant: I liked The Monster Squad better when I first saw it. Unlike Dekker's masterpiece, Night of the Creeps (which I covered here last year) its allure must have worn off as I aged. Still, I was engaged during this viewing, and there are nostalgic touches I still enjoyed: Frankenstein's first encounter with Phoebe pays homage to the tragic little girl scene from the 1931 classic. A candle designed to "ward off monsters" conveniently goes out just before the climactic attack. A drinking game can be made from the blatant product placement of Burger King and Pepsi. The closing credits rap song is even worse than the one in Dragnet. And Fat Kid does what no one else ever considered in a werewolf movie: He kicks the monster in the nuts. As the monster stoops in pain, the late Chalem utters the film's most quoted line:
"Wolfman's got nards!"
So does The Monster Squad, though they're not as big as I remembered.
The Lasting Legacy of 'The Monster Squad'
The Monster Squad Is the Only Dark Universe We Ever Needed
30 Things We Learned From 'The Monster Squad' Commentary
The Monster Squad at 30: The Cast on First Impressions and Rudy's Smoking
Looking back at The Monster Squad
posted by MoonOrb (4 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
I always order garlic on my pizza because of this movie.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 10:09 PM on April 18, 2018
Monster Squad is one of the greatest movies of all time... full stop. Some thoughts in no particular order:
- I was wearing my "Wolfman's Got Nards" t-shirt last night. It's my favorite shirt but I wear it rarely to keep it from falling apart too quickly.
- The powers that Dracula displays are just wild. Besides some normal ones that you'd expect, like turning into a bat, he has the ability to: light fuses at will, deflect bullets, summon lightning, and turn a car intangible and ghostly. In fact Dracula's main method of attack seems to be dynamite based.
- Mummy and Gill-man are hilariously ineffective and never present a real obstacle or threat to the kids.
- Wolf-man too is barely a threat despite his ability to reform from his constituent pieces. Once a bad guy has been taken out with a nut shot it's hard to take them seriously.
- I too did not understand the virgin jokes when I saw this movie the first time.
- That link is right and Monster Squad is better than all the "Dark Universe" movies combined (is Dracula Untold part of the Dark Universe?)
posted by runcibleshaw at 1:56 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have never seen this film but I know the virginity joke — I remember it being discussed at lunch in junior high.
Also I recently found out that a woman I work with did one of the intl movie posters for this, which is pretty cool.
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:13 PM on April 19, 2018
I understand the 80s were a different time. But the amount of homophobic slurs casually thrown around by children in this movie is jarring.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:23 PM on June 23
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text:
Guide to Retail Analytics, Use Cases and Success Stories
Post category:big data analytics
What Is Retail Analytics?
Types of Retail Analytics
1. Descriptive Analytics
2. Diagnostic Analytics
3. Predictive Analytics
4. Prescriptive Analytics
How Can Retailers Use Data Analytics?
1. Inventory Management
3. Fraud Detection
4. Recommendation Engines
5. Price Optimization
6. Customer Sentiment Analysis
7. Customer Lifetime Value Prediction
8. Location of New Stores
Importance of Retail Analytics
1. It Optimizes Entire Operations
2. It Helps in Finding the Most Valuable Customers
3. It Helps With Waste Reduction
4. Identify Profitable Product Ranges
5. Employee Performance Evaluation
Retail Analytics Use Cases
1. ALDO Group
2. BaubleBar
3. Zookies Cookies
4. Demand Forecasting
Personalized Recommendation System
Anticipatory Shipping Model
Book Recommendations From Kindle Highlighting
In this competitive retail landscape, retailers can't rely on just a single strategy to succeed. Of course, marketing their products and selling online are excellent means to expand their customer base – but that's just the tip of what's possible.
62% of retailers reported that the use of retail analytics gave them a competitive advantage in their industry. And if you thought that retail analytics is limited to only analysing the supply and demand of products, you're mistaken.
It extends towards understanding your customers' needs, ensuring that your marketing and sales strategies are in the best interest of your clients and the company and helping you stay ahead of any competition.
Retail analytics is the use of analytical data and tools that help businesses analyse trends, performance and patterns to make data-driven decisions regarding marketing, supply chain management or any critical operation.
Retail analytics help businesses gain a broader understanding of their overall performance and health and to make better choices to run the business more efficiently. Generally, retail analytics collects information from the following sources:
POS systems (date and time of purchase, item sold, and credit / debit card or check details)
Sensors (collect customer footfall, dwell time, and store heatmap)
RFID tags (prevent burglary and track frequently moved items)
Wi-Fi infrastructure (sends out promotional messages and collects approximate location data)
Mobile GPS (sends out promotional messages and collects precise location data)
Video cameras (formulate store heatmap and prevents burglary)
Weather reports (forecast supply and demand to optimize inventory)
People counter systems (counts the footfall or number of customer visits)
Staff attendance tracking system (tracks the log time of employees)
Descriptive analytics answers the "what happened?" aspect of business activities. For example, when running a promotional campaign, descriptive analytics can be used to determine the overall ROI of it.
Descriptive analytics can also be used to view daily / monthly / weekly sales transactions or for preparing financial reports such as profit and loss statements. This type of analytics collects historical data such as transactional history, inventory changes, or promotional success metrics to give a detailed summary of the business activity in question.
Diagnostic analytics answers the "why did it happen?" aspect of your business activities. For example, suppose you A/B test a social media promo campaign and saw that one went unnoticed, while the other brought in new customers. Then diagnostic analytics will compare the datasets of the two campaigns and determine why one failed and the other succeeded.
Predictive analytics answers the "what will happen?" aspect of business activities. It doesn't predict any event per se but forecasts the probability of an event to taking place. It allows retailers to predict consumer behaviour, and determine the upcoming trends, aiding them to modify their supply chain processes accordingly.
Predictive analytics can also help brands reduce churn rates. By identifying customers who are about to churn, retailers can offer specialised discounts to retain them.
Prescriptive analytics answers the "how to make it happen?" aspect of business activities. It looks into "what happened, why it happened, and what will happen" elements of an operation to determine the best actions to perform.
For example, prescriptive analytics can help retailers with price optimization by determining the optimum price ranges that users are willing to pay.
Price optimization is performed by taking into account and modeling data points such as production cost, supply and demand, historical sales data, competitors' pricing, customer survey data, and demographics.
In short, retail analytics can be used in inventory management to keep the shelves full, but not too full as in the US alone, 10% of the grocery store food items are wasted. By tapping into multiple data sets such as changing consumer preferences, weather patterns, and upcoming trends, retailers can foresee demands and stock up accordingly.
With predictive analytics, retailers can fine-tune their promotional campaigns and use historical data to predict the outcome of each campaign.
For example, while running a paid social media campaign, marketers can use predictive analytics to define the target groups that are more likely to engage and convert, thereby reducing its costs.
Online stores are known for their liberal return policy – which is often used by consumers to scam the retailers. E-commerce giants like Amazon and Best Buy now use big data analytics to differentiate genuine customers from scammers who are wrongfully benefiting from such loopholes.
Companies look into the return history of a particular customer, their purchase habits and the review and ratings of a product (along with many other parameters) to identify these scammers. Retailers also use analytics to minimize payment frauds.
Retailers use recommendation engines to recommend the most relevant items to customers. A combination of purchase history, consumer demographic and behaviour, and search history is used for this. If customers are entirely new to a website, best selling or trending products will be recommended to start with.
As previously mentioned, price optimization allows retailers to offer competitive pricing. But lowering the price thoughtlessly will reduce the profit per unit. The key is to find a sweet spot that maintains appreciable profitability against the customers' willingness to pay – hence the use of analytics.
By gathering and analysing multiple data sets, analytics tools suggest the best pricing strategy for each product. And the data collected may include,
Historical sales data
Inventories (supply and demand)
Customer survey and behaviour data
Macroeconomic variables
Demographic and psychographic data
However, price optimization may not always mean lowering the price. Depending on the product or service uniqueness, availability, and demographics of customers, prices can be increased too.
Customer sentiment analysis is the use of analytics to detect the polarity (positive, negative or neutral) within texts, images or any visual medium. It is especially useful in social media marketing to understand customers' emotions towards a particular product or marketing campaign.
Sentiment analysis allows retailers to understand the sentiment of their customers in real-time, thereby helping in tweaking their products, store layouts, online presence and branding.
For marketers, predicting the lifetime value of customers is critical to ensure they're targeting the right group. If the cost of acquiring shoppers is more than their lifetime value or if they churn too soon, then the acquisition efforts become futile.
Retailers desire high-value customers, and retail analytics can make them easily identifiable. However, acquiring high-value customers alone won't do the trick. Instead, they must be retained and by monitoring the spending habits and purchase history of customers, marketers can send specialised discounts or incentives.
Another way a customer can bring more value to a retailer is through word-of-mouth promotion. Customers who are more likely to post user-generated content (UGC) on social media networks will help in bringing more awareness to the brand and ultimately, sales.
For retailers, establishing brick and mortar stores means investing a considerable amount of money. As the location is among the top factors that determine a store's success or failure, investors can leverage analytics to make better decisions.
By considering the demographics of an ideal customer, access to public transportation, post code, crime rates, competitor analysis and foot traffic of the area, retailers can make data-driven decisions for higher success rates.
Graph showing the difference in foot traffic trends across various retail property types. Image Credit: spglobal.com
Retail analytics can help businesses analyse foot traffic trends and determine the right number of floor associates they require at specific locations and timings. Retailers can also benefit from demand forecasting, supply chain optimization and promotional analysis, to name a few others.
Image Credit: medium.com
Retaining customers that bring in the most value is critical and retail analytics makes that possible. By taking into account parameters such as shopping and spending history, in-store visits and referrals, retail analytics can shed light on valuable customers and help businesses streamline their promotional activities.
By analysing the rate of sale and shelf life of each product, retailers can identify the optimal quantity each store location requires at a particular time – all while avoiding wastage due to expiration or mishandling.
As consumer interests change continually, predictive analytics can enable retailers to identify upcoming trends such as new designs in a jewellery line and optimize their supply chain processes accordingly.
Retailers can also discover undesirable aspects of a specific product and tweak them accordingly. For example, they can look into customer survey data, social media discussions and purchase trends of a product to see whether it is accepted or needs further modifications.
For retailers having thousands of stores with hundreds of employees in each, tracking the performance of each individual can be tedious, especially if they rely on traditional techniques. With retail analytics, employers can look into the sales performance of each employee, along with other parameters such as log time, customer satisfaction and many other factors.
Image Credit: sourcingjournal.com
With more than 2000 stores, spread across 95 countries, the ALDO Group, famous for their fashion range, would have had a hard time without retail analytics. The company now uses a mobile reporting app to access analytics, which was made possible by the mobile business intelligence platform SAP BusinessObjects Roambi.
Before employing the mobile solution, stakeholders in the company had a hard time tracking the sales, store traffic and customer data. They used to rely on KPI reports sent out as multiple PDFs.
Sample report by Raombi for the ALDO Group. Image Credit: blogs.sap.com
By the time these reports made it to the district managers, they were outdated. With the addition of retail analytics into the system, managers could monitor the key performance indicators in real-time, and that too in a visually pleasing way.
The ALDO group also uses big data analytics for monitoring payment and billing and for fraud detection, especially during days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Image Credit: jckonline.com
Founded in 2010, BaubleBar is an e-commerce fashion store that offers affordable jewellery. The company's marketing team extensively uses retail analytics to attract new customers, all while keeping the existing customers loyal to the brand. Here's how:
The company has an internally-built software program that allows marketers to gather customer metrics such as their age, colour choices, geographical location, and most importantly, their preferences (what they like and dislike).
Additionally, the team also utilises data collected from social media networks to see what the customers are discussing. By analysing all these data sets, BaubleBar can predict upcoming trends in jewellery and incorporate the findings into their supply chain – allowing them to come up with products before they hit the mainstream.
This way, the company can stay relevant and cater to the growing needs of its customers. Predictive analytics is critical for the company as the supply chain process of a new product will take around four weeks.
Zookies Cookies promoting on Twitter. Image Credit: twitter.com
Zookies Cookies sells flavoured dog cookies and mixes both online and in-store. During their initial days, they weren't sure about which flavours to produce the most. To make sure they were manufacturing the right quantity of each flavour, they relied on retail analytics.
With the help of Shopify and Google Analytics, the company was able to collect critical customer data such as their past purchases and geographical location, and understand who its customers are. The company also looked at the number of returning customers and also measured the average time a customer visits their online store before making a purchase.
With analytics, Zookies Cookies was able to understand the flavour their customers were interested in the most, thereby optimizing their supply chain process.
Zookies Cookies promotes their products through Nationwide Pet Insurance. Image Credit: softwareadvice.com
Through analytics, Zookies Cookies also found that many of their customers are existing customers of Nationwide Pet Insurance. This helped them run highly targeted marketing campaigns, which resulted in better sales.
A merchandise retailer with thousands of stores around the world had issues with determining the stock-keeping unit level (SKU, which refers to the specific items stored at a particular store or location).
The goal of the analytics solution provider was to help the retailer's store operation team to reduce the inaccuracies with demand forecasting and predict with less than 5% error for at least 95% of the stores.
An example demand forecasting dashboard. Image credit: mi9retail.com
The analytics solution provider started with setting up a proper system that could fetch the in-store sales data along with tools to measure the changes in the data collected. After that, predictive analytics was used to improve the precision of forecasting, along with statistical methods such as regression analysis and mixed modelling.
The implementation of the solution helped the retailer to initiate a weekly process that would forecast the demand with reasonable accuracy, with a majority of the stores brought under 5% error. The retailer was also able to pinpoint stores that needed manual intervention to boost productivity.
Image Credit: entrepreneur.com
Amazon extensively uses retail analytics across all its product and service range. On a global scale, Amazon can be considered as a leader when it comes to collecting, storing, processing and analysing customer data, to determine customer preferences and spending habits. Here are some of the ways Amazon does it.
Personalized recommendation by Amazon. Image Credit: blog.manugarri.com
Amazon uses a collaborative filtering engine (CFE) to analyse your
Previously purchased items
Items present in the online cart
Products which you rated or reviewed
Product browsing history
By analysing such pieces of information, the personalized recommendation system is capable of coming up with relevant product recommendations. By doing so, Amazon generates 35% more sales annually.
Amazon's (patented) anticipatory shipping model extensively uses big data analytics to predict the products you're likely to purchase. This method is also capable of predicting when and where you'll need a specific product.
The items are then shipped to a local warehouse or distribution centre so that they'll be ready to be shipped at the very moment you order them. With the help of predictive analytics, Amazon can reduce shipping costs and delivery time.
Example of Price vs. Demand (units sold), Sales revenues, and Gross profits, for one product. Image credit: business-case-analysis.com
With price optimization, Amazon attracts more customers and experiences an increase in annual profits by an average of 25%. Optimization is performed by taking into account
Your browsing activity, order history and preferences
Competitors' pricing
Expected profit margin (and many other factors)
The product prices are usually updated every 10 minutes as the data is updated and analysed. This way, Amazon can optimize its profits, even on less-popular products.
To reduce the delivery time and shipping costs, Amazon uses supply chain optimization to find the closest warehouses or vendors, with respect to your location. This helps Amazon reduce shipping costs by 10 to 40%. Amazon also uses big data analytics for delivery route optimization and product groupings to minimise delivery time and costs.
Amazon analyses the highlighted words and notes that Kindle readers share with their peers. By doing so, Amazon is able to tap into the reading preferences of a customer, which helps in sending out relevant e-book recommendations.
Image Credit: fortune.com
The French cosmetics brand Sephora wanted to analyse the foot traffic to their stores, in order to optimize their online marketing, in-store sales promotion and employee management strategies.
For that, a retail analytics company combined data from POS (point of sale) systems, video cameras and people counting systems to analyse the trends in footfalls.
An example foot traffic analysis dashboard. Image Credit: bluefox.io
The resultant was a retail video analytics solution that gives store managers actionable insights on footfall statistics, peak timings and consumer trends with more than 95% accuracy. The solution also helps in determining the correlation between the frequently-visited product sections and the most-sold product categories.
The worldwide retail analytics market is expected to be valued at US$9.5 billion by 2025, with a growth rate of 18% in the next five years. With extensive adoption of technologies such as IoT, RFID tags and Wi-Fi positioning, retailers will have more data to analyse – which will help in making better, profitable and customer-oriented decisions.
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