text:
Dolgin Andrey
Randomized Algorithms with Splitting
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
Professor Emeritus Reuven-Yacov Rubinstein (Deceased)
Professor Leonid Mytnik
We present a new generic randomized algorithm, called the splitting or cloning algorithm, for combinatorial optimization, counting and sampling uniformly on complex sets, such as the set defined by the constraints of an integer program. Similar to the original classic randomized algorithms our one uses a sequential sampling plan to decompose a "difficult" problem into a sequence of "easy" ones. It presents, in fact, a combination of MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo), like the Gibbs sampler, with a specially designed splitting mechanism. The latter runs in parallel multiple Markov chains by making sure that all of them run in steady-state at each iteration.
Main results obtained are:
1. We show that the splitting algorithm can be efficiently used not only for optimization and counting but for generating uniform samples on discrete sets. Without introducing a proper splitting mechanism, MCMC fails. Thus, in spite of the common consensus on the classic MCMC as being a universal tool for generating samples on complex sets, we found that it fails to generate points uniformly distributed on discrete sets, such as the set defined by the constraints of an integer program. We provide valid statistical tests supporting the uniformity of generated samples by the splitting method.
2. We show how to incorporate the classic capture-recapture method into the splitting algorithm in order to obtain a low variance estimator for the counting quantity representing, say the number of feasible solutions on the set of the constraints of an integer program.
3. We present a combined version of the splitting and cross-entropy (CE) algorithms and provide some complexity results.
4. We present supportive numerical results, while solving quite general counting problems, like counting the number of satisfiability assignments in a SAT problem, counting the number of feasible colorings in a graph, calculating the permanent, the number of Hamiltonian cycles, the number of 0-1 tables, and calculating the volume of a polytope, as well as solving integer and combinatorial optimization, like TSP, knapsack and set-covering problems.


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Winner of the Virginia Romance Writers of the USA Holt Medallion Award of benefit, Romance Writers of America's Gulf Coast Silken Sands Readers' selection megastar Award, and Heartland Romance Writers of the US convey Me The Spark Award. Voted one of many most sensible 10 ancient Romances for 2013 through readers within the RomCon Readers' Crown Awards.
A determined younger girl ... woman Louisa Barrick will do something to avoid wasting her property and the village that depends upon it, but if she attempts to exploit a rakish privateer in her scheme, issues don't end up as deliberate.
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Category: Science Blog
Neat stuff from the world of science and technology
Shocking!
Anyone who has traveled internationally has almost certainly cursed the various electrical systems of the world. Why do North America and Japan have one type of plug, while the UK and Ireland have another? And how come those plugs are different from plugs used in India, Thailand, South Africa and Switzerland… all of which are different from each other? And how did China and Argentina end up using the same plugs as Australia and New Zealand?
In short, you might wonder why there isn't a "universal plug". If you think about it, though, the real question is… why would there be a universal plug?
When electricity first came to homes in the United States and other countries, it was only used for lighting. And light bulbs were wired directly into the electrical system. Indeed, part of the reason early bulbs lasted so long – like the Centennial Light at a fire station in Livermore, California – was because replacing a bulb meant calling an electrician to remove the dead bulb and wire a new one in.
This, of course, was a huge expense and inconvenience, so a slew of inventors came up with ways for customers to easily replace bulbs themselves. One version became more popular than all others, and it probably shouldn't surprise you that it came from Thomas Edison. The "Edison screw" became the standard base for almost all household light bulbs in North America and Europe. So now, people could replace bulbs by simply unscrewing the dead one from the fixture and screwing a new one in.
The Edison Screw, via Wikipedia
What few imagined at the time, though, was the birth of electrical appliances like toasters and radios. Early versions of these products were also wired directly in to the electrical system, which was a huge pain: to move a radio from one room to another, you'd have to call an electrician, and you'd possibly have to repair busted plaster or drywall the electrician would have to open to get to the wires running through the walls.
So inventors went back to the drawing board again, and came up with something like this:
photo via Amazon
This is a modern device that screws into a light socket, provides two outlets you can plug any two-prong device into, and a pass-through socket you can screw a bulb into. But in the early days, there wasn't a single standard for electric plugs, and were all kinds of different plugs on the market in the US. A toaster might use one type of plug, a radio another. If you wanted to use the two devices on the same adapter, you'd have to make sure they used the same plug, or have an electrician rewire one device with the appropriate plug.
Finally, in 1904, a man named Harvey Hubbell II was awarded a patent for the modern American electrical plug, now called a "Type A" plug. Some time later, a third (ground) prong was added; this is called a "Type B" plug. Type A & B are used throughout North America, Japan, most of Central America and the Caribbean.
While all this was going on in the US, conflicting plugs and systems were raging all over Europe and the UK, too. Inventors there came up with systems and plugs that worked well for their countries, and eventually standards were settled there as well.
So why didn't anyone ever talk about a universal plug? Because there wasn't a need for one. International travel wasn't nearly as common as it is today, and those lucky enough to travel overseas usually didn't want to bring lamps with them. International trade in electrical devices wasn't common, either, since each country had its own manufacturing base. And by the time portable devices like electric razors and radios became common, electric standards had been set. Thus, travelers have been forced to buy plug adapters and power converters ever since.
In 1986, the International Electrotechnical Commission got tired of all the different plug types in Europe and created a new type of plug – Type N – they hoped would become the standard throughout the entire European Union, and perhaps the world:
Photo via worldstandards.eu
But the EU didn't consider it a top priority, and since any mention of new plugs set off unending bickering between EU members, the whole matter was shelved for good in the mid 1990s. And the idea was a non-starter in non-EU countries like the US and Japan as they all had plugs that worked fine… or were at least "good enough" not to incur the massive expense of switching over to a new plug for no good reason.
But one country was interested in a new type of electric plug: Brazil. At the time, Brazil had at least ten (ten!) different types of plugs in common use throughout the country. In 2001, the Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (Brazilian Association of Technical Standards) adopted Type N as the sole electric plug to be used throughout the country. Hooray!
There's just one little catch, though: although the country has had a single standard for electric plugs for 14 years now, Brazil is one of the only countries in the world that doesn't have a standard voltage! As unbelievable as it might seem, most of Brazil's 27 states use 220 volts, but there are a few that use an older 127 volt standard. So an electric coffeemaker bought in the state of Minas Gerais will blow up if plugged into an outlet in the Distrito Federal… and because every device now uses the same Type N plug, there's no visual warning to prevent you from doing that!
Technology: one step forward, one step back.
The Mostly-Science Post of the Day
I have a big 'ol pile of sciencey-type stuff on my desk I've been meaning to post… so let's do this thing:
You probably don't think about it much, but people who create international websites have a constant stream of pains-in-the-ass to deal with on a daily basis. We all know that British English spells some things differently than American English ("colour" vs. "color"), and that British people write their dates differently than Americans do ("10 January 2014" vs. "January 10, 2014"). But have you ever thought about the grammar quirks of the hundreds of other countries? This video from the guys at Computerphile breaks it all down, and makes you appreciate the developers at Facebook so much more:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j74jcxSunY&list=UU9-y-6csu5WGm29I7JiwpnA
Interested in cryptography but don't know how it works? Check out this video, also from Computerphile, about how public key crypto works. It's amazing how clever people can be sometimes:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSIDS_lvRv4&list=UU9-y-6csu5WGm29I7JiwpnA
You may not know this, but American soldiers often use a dozen or more radios while out on patrol. You might think this is due to parochialism between the services: the Army has their radios, while the Navy, Air Force and Marines have their own systems 'cos they think theirs is "better". And yes, there is a bit of that. But it's mostly due to physics: the type of radio you need to briefly communicate with warplanes hundreds of miles away isn't the same kind of radio you need for frequent communications with headquarters a dozen miles away, which isn't the kind of radio you need for near-constant communication with fellow soldiers only yards away. The US Army spent $6 billion working on a "soft radio" that could quickly be reconfigured to meet any possible need. And, as Ars Technica notes, it was a total disaster. Read this article, not just for the tech behind it all, but how changing the scope of a project during the project can lead to disaster.
Having said that, while we always think of the Pentagon when it comes to massive-scale government waste, things are not always what they seem. Back in the 1980s, there was a "scandal" in which the Pentagon allegedly paid $600 for a hammer. Come to find out, the real story was a bit more complicated: the Pentagon needed to make some repair kits for a specialized device. The company contracted to make the kits had to do some R&D for the project: they were repairing a custom-made product after all. When it came time to bill the government, the folks at the Pentagon for some reason insisted that the contractor spread the R&D costs equally across the project. So instead of paying $5 million in R&D and $15 each for hammers, the R&D costs were $0 and the hammers appeared to cost $435 (which the media later conflated to $600). It's an accounting thing. If you were to take your car to a mechanic, and he put four $2 spark plugs in your car and charged you $75 for the labor, most people would understand the difference between parts and labor. Journalists back in the 80s apparently did not, and bemoaned the Pentagon spending almost $21 each for $2 spark plugs,
I'm bringing all this up because of the recent stories about how the Army "wasted" $5 billion on a camouflage pattern that didn't work. Again, this is more about lazy journalism than wasted tax dollars: the Army did try a new camouflage pattern, and no, it didn't work. But they actually spent well under $100 million on the design. That's hardly chump change. But the other $4.9 billion was spent on new uniforms and other gear with the new camo pattern on it. The Army actually used most of that equipment… so how much did it actually waste? It's like when a company decides to change its logo. You often hear that "[company's] new logo cost $100 million". Of course, the actual logo probably cost around $100,000 to design, with another million or two thrown in for research (to make sure the new logo doesn't have an offensive or negative meaning in dozens of countries) and legal fees (to make sure it doesn't look too much like some other company's logo). The other $95 million is for new uniforms, new paint jobs on trucks or planes, new stationary, updating the company's website, etc. But even if a company decides to go back to their previous logo a few years later, how much is actually wasted? Certainly the cost for the new logo and research and legal fees. But employees need uniforms, trucks need to be repainted, and the website was probably going to need some other update anyway.
There is, however, an amusing aspect to this: when the Army decided to change their camo, they had a complicated, bureaucratic process for doing so. When the Marines decided that they needed new camo, they went to their sniper school in Virginia and asked a couple of guys to come up with a better color scheme. So the snipers went to a nearby Home Depot and found some paint samples. Done and done.
The idea of blood transfusions has been around for a remarkably long time. It wasn't tested scientifically until the 1600s, however. It was a disaster, mostly because doctors of the time were trying to transfer blood between species – putting goat blood into a human, for instance. In 1817 a British physician named James Blundell finally hit upon the idea of human to human transfusion. This seemed to work a tiny bit better: in some cases it worked, but in most cases it did not. Why that was became a huge mystery for medicine, and it wasn't until 1900 that blood types were discovered. Despite humanity knowing about blood types for over a century, we know very little else about it. Why do European populations have different blood type ratios than Africans and Asians? Why do we even have blood types at all? If you don't have an answer to that question, rest easy: science doesn't either. This amazing story from Ars Technica talks about how much we know, and really, how much we don't know, about the blood in our veins.
In medieval times, secular courts often transferred "undesirable" cases to church courts, where the accused would be subjected to "trial by ordeal". You probably learned about these in history class, but if not you've probably seen a movie or TV show where someone accused of a crime was made to do something horrific, like stick their arm into boiling oil to retrieve an object at the bottom of the pot. The theory was that an innocent would be protected by God, while a guilty person would not. So, after a few days, the person's wounds would be checked, and the person's guilt or innocence determined by how well they'd healed. It sounds barbaric, but economist Peter Leeson argues (PDF) that such trials were actually a clever bit of game theory devised by priests, probably based on the Judgment of Solomon. If you're not up on your Old Testament (specifically 1 Kings 3:16-28), two new mothers come to King Solomon for help. One mother claimed that the other had accidentally smothered her son while sleeping, and had secretly swapped the other's son for hers. Solomon thought about it for a while, and called for a sword. He intended to cut the baby in two, so that each mother could have half the baby. One mother said this was fine with her, while the other cried out for Solomon to stop, that the other woman could have the baby. Solomon reckoned the latter woman to be the baby's mother, since a baby's true mother would rather give the baby away than see it hurt. It's one of the earliest written examples of game theory, and Leeson thinks those "trials by ordeal" were just a variation on that. Leeson has done statistical analysis of such trials, and his theory appears to be correct, Incidentally, Leeson thinks that priests knew who was guilty before the "ordeal" even happened (which is the whole point), and for innocent people the "boiling" oil was actually "uncomfortably warm" instead.
For decades, historians and anthropologists have tried to paint Native Americans as eco-aware pacifists who didn't know of war and strife before those eeeeviiillll Europeans showed up. Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler disagrees, and in a recent paper he argues that the most violent period in Native American history happened some time in the 1200s. Kohler even argues that, as far as "genocides" go, what happened to the Mesa Verde people of modern day Colorado was worse, percentage-wise, than what happened in the 20th century in China or the Soviet Union. It's an interesting read, to be sure.
Ever heard of Vulcan Point in the Philippines? Probably not. But you might be interested to know that for years it was thought to be the largest island on a lake on an island on a lake on an island.
I'll break that down for you: Vulcan Point is an island on Main Crater Lake. Main Crater Lake is a lake on Taal Island (also called Volcano Island). Taal Island is an island on Lake Taal, which is located on the island of Luzon in the Philippine island chain:
If all that wasn't enough, Vulcan Point is actually a cone of the Taal Volcano, which is active. Which makes Vulcan Point the world's largest volcano in a lake (Main Crater Lake) on a volcano (Taal Volcano).
Now you probably noticed that I said that Vulcan Point was thought to be the largest island on a lake on an island on a lake on an island. That's because last year some intrepid Google Earth explorers found a larger island in a lake on an island on Victoria Island in Canada.
Located in Canada's extreme north, Victoria Island is the eighth largest island in the world – 83,896.5 square miles, about the size of Idaho, which is 83,570 square miles (or 217,291 km2 vs. 216,632 km2 for our metric friends). And here's the amazing thing: it's likely that no human being has ever set foot on the island! As of 2009, the population of Victoria Island is 1,875 people, and there are no settlements anywhere near the unnamed island.
According to this post on Live Science about the discovery, Canada already has some notable island trivia. Canada is home to Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron (the world's largest island in a lake) and Nettilling Lake on Baffin Island (the world's largest lake on an island).
The Mettle to Melt Medals
It's a pretty well-known fact that that the Nazis financed their portion of World War II in part by seizing the gold reserves of the nations they conquered. It's hard to know exactly how much gold was stolen by the Nazis: contemporary accounts are a confusing hodgepodge of metric, Imperial and troy units, and books on the subject don't always make it clear whether they're using historical or inflation-adjusted currencies. But it's certain that the Nazis seized tons of gold throughout Europe and sent it back to Germany, where it was melted down and recast with the Nazi stamp.
What is less known, however, is that the Nazis also banned the export of gold from Germany in the 1930s. At the time, the German government faced the dual problem making reparation payments to the Allies while simultaneously (illegally) rebuilding their armed forces. What's worse, any Jews, academics, intellectuals and leftists who could afford to leave Germany did, taking their gold with them. Germany's gold reserves fell to unsustainably low levels, hence the law forbidding anyone to take gold out of the country.
Which made the actions of two German scientists – Max von Laue and James Franck – a crime. Both men had sent their Nobel Prizes to the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. The Institute's founder and leader – Niels Bohr – promised to keep the medals safe for the men.
The only problem was the Germans launched the invasion of Denmark and Norway – Operation Weserübung – on April 9, 1940. The Danes held out for a whopping six hours before giving up, but there was method to their madness: in return for their quick surrender, the Nazis allowed the Danes a fair amount of autonomy, and Denmark was arguably the safest place to be in Nazi-occupied Europe.
But the Nazis did go door to door throughout Copenhagen, looking for gold, Jews or anything of interest to the Reich. Bohr knew the Nobel Prizes would be a death sentence for von Laue and Franck. After all, they were not only made of 23 karat gold – which was illegal to export – they also had the recipient's names inconveniently inscribed on them. And von Laue was a vocal opponent of the Nazis and Franck was Jewish. If the Gestapo found the medals… it would be bad.
A Hungarian chemist named Georgy de Hevesy was working in Bohr's lab that day. He suggested to Bohr that they bury the medals. Bohr rejected the idea, as it was only a matter of hours before the Nazis arrived, and they certainly would notice any recently disturbed dirt on campus grounds. So de Hevesy had another idea: there was a chemical in the lab, a mixture of three parts hydrochloric acid and one part nitric acid known as aqua regia. It has several uses in the lab and it's one of the few chemicals that will dissolve gold. Perhaps they could just… dissolve the medals?
Bohr agreed, so the men put the Nobel Prizes in the aqua regia. The thing is, though, aqua regia breaks down gold slowly. Dissolving the medals might have taken days or even weeks! And so the two men spent several very nervous hours watching the medals ever so slowly dissolve. I imagine it was like a scene in a movie where the Good Guy copies a bunch of files to a flash drive while being hunted by the Bad Guys, and we all watch as the agonizingly slow progress bar tracks the copy: 20% complete… 30% complete… 40% complete. Only in real life this chemical process went on for hours and hours!
Continue reading "The Mettle to Melt Medals"
Good News, Southerners!
For years, there's been this notion that the South is home to the fattest people in the nation. Well, come to find out, people in the South aren't necessarily fatter… they're just more honest.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have been conducting a long-term study called "Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke", or REGARDS for short. They've found that people in the South tend to have higher blood pressure, more cases of diabetes, and more strokes than other regions of the country. And, like most folks, they assumed that it's because of higher obesity rates in the South.
However, when they started weighing people themselves, they found that the numbers didn't add up. So they started weighing people in other parts of the country, and found that those numbers really didn't add up.
Come to find out, most of the data used to determine obesity rates comes from the Centers for Disease Control's "Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System" study. And that data comes from telephone interviews. And guess what? People tend to lie in telephone interviews. People in the South were simply more honest about their weight compared to people in other parts of the country.
According to the folks at UAB, who conducted their own obesity study which divided the country into the same nine regions the US Census Bureau uses, the most obese part of the country is the "West North Central" region (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and the Dakotas). The "East South Central" (Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky), which has always ranked first in the CDC studies, came in fifth in the UAB study.
No word on where the "South Atlantic" region (which includes the Carolinas, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and Virginia) is on UAB's list.
In their investigation, UAB also found that women are much more likely to underreport their weight than men… but men are much more likely to overreport their height which, of course, makes their weight issues seem like less of a problem.
Read more here. Link to their study in the journal Obesity here.
The "Monty Hall" Problem
For years I'd heard about the "Monty Hall" math problem, and I could never wrap my head around it. I'd read about it in a magazine or newspaper, or on a web site and it always seemed so counter-intuitive. But this year I finally figured it out, and thought I'd share my "solution" with the Internet in case some mathematically-challenged folks want it explained to them in simple English.
The problem comes from the old TV game show Let's Make a Deal. Host Monty Hall would pick an audience member and show him three numbered doors. Behind one of the doors was a genuine prize, like a car or vacation. Behind the two other doors were booby prizes called "zonks". These were usually live goats for some reason, but would sometimes be wrecked cars or junk furniture. The audience member would pick a door. Hall would reveal a booby prize behind one of the other doors, then ask the contestant if he or she wanted to switch their pick to the other door.
The actual math part of the problem addressed whether it was better to stay with your original choice or switch to the other door. Mathematically, switching increases your odds of winning to 66%, while staying with your original choice only allowed for a winner 33% of the time. So my question was always… why? Doesn't it seem like the odds don't matter? There are only two doors left, so shouldn't your odds be 50:50 regardless of whether you switch doors or keep your initial choice?
No. You see, this problem has to do with timing and knowledge.
Let's imagine that instead of 3 doors, Hall shows you, the contestant, 100 doors. You choose one of the doors (let's say door #23). At that point in the game, you have a 1 in 100 chance of picking the right door… because you chose 1 door, and there are 100 total doors. Ergo, 1 in 100. But then Hall opens 98 of the losing doors and asks if you want to switch. At this point in time, choosing to switch gives you a 99% chance of winning, because you now know which of the 98 doors are losers, whereas before you lacked that knowledge.
If it helps, think of the doors as groups. With your first pick, you chose 1 door. There is one door in that group. But if you switch, you not only get the second door, you're also getting the 98 losing doors, too. So the second group contains 99 doors – the 98 losers plus the door you switched to. You'd be a fool not to switch to this second group!
Of course, the exact odds will vary based on the total number of doors. And that's where my confusion came from. With one door out of the picture, it appears that you only have two to choose from, and it's natural for humans to have two choices and think 50:50 odds. It's also worth nothing that if you came in to the game after the first door had been picked, then your odds really would be 50:50.
Math… so confusing!
GT Researchers Make Power Out of Nothing
Researchers at Georgia Tech have come up with a way to pull electrical power out of thin air… sort of.
Basically, they've taken an ink solution containing silver nanoparticles and printed a grid onto paper or plastic (pic above). The grid pulls electromagnetic energy out of the ambient environment, providing around one milliwatt to a battery or capacitor… which is not a lot. However, the researchers hope to increase this to 50 milliwatts using advanced capacitors, and you can also use several such grids wired together to increase the yield.
The technology, which would be insanely cheap if scaled to production levels, has many possible uses, such as environmental sensors (to power seismographs in remote locations, for instance), or as part of a distress sensor (in life rafts or industrial applications, for instance), or to power RFID tags in commerce, or to power inexpensive (easily hideable and movable) bomb sniffers at airports, or even to power stress sensors underneath bridges, where solar power is not an option.
Read more about it here. Go Jackets!
Happy Birthday, Neptune!
Yes, this is a week late, but uh… better late than never and all that.
Happy "first" birthday, Neptune!
Our solar system's last "real" planet (I'm still torn about Pluto) was discovered on September 23, 1846. Neptune is far too dim to be observed with the naked eye, so it wasn't until the telescope was invented that it could even be seen. However, although it was observed by astronomer after astronomer, every last one of them thought Neptune to be a star (with "them" including Galileo, Jérôme Lalande and John Herschel). In 1781, British astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus, and by 1846 it was clear that Uranus had some orbital oddities that could only be explained by the presence of another planet. Thus, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system discovered by mathematical means, not observation. Interestingly, Neptune's massive moon, Triton, was discovered by English astronomer William Lassell just 17 days later.
Neptune is the forth largest planet by diameter and the third most dense in the solar system. It orbits the Sun at an average distance of 30.1 AU (astronomical units, the average distance from the earth to the Sun). It takes Neptune 165 years to circle the Sun, thus, if there were people on Neptune, they'd be celebrating the first year anniversary of when earthlings discovered their home.
Here's a cool video from the BBC's 1999 series The Planets about Neptune:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29wfzotaBIg
Even cooler, here's a sound recording from the Voyager mission. This isn't what the planet actually sounds like to human ears; it's what the radio waves coming from Neptune sound like. And it's really cool:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwnpXll_A_E
I love Neptune! It's my favorite planet after earth!
The McGurk Effect
The McGurk effect is an illusion that proves that what we hear is directly affected by what we see. It seems counter-intuitive that the sense of hearing can be affected by our vision, but it's true. Check out this short clip from the BBC show Horizon to see how it works:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypd5txtGdGw
What makes the McGurk effect so especially interesting is that the illusion always works, even after the subject knows how it works. Most optical illusions, by contrast, seem to not work once the subject understands how it works. But the McGurk effect appears to be a fundamental part of the human mind.
Read more about it at Wikipedia here.
Posted on September 10, 2010 May 30, 2018
Golf Ball vs. Steel
Here's a cool video of a golf ball being shot at a steel plate at 150mph. The video, shot at 70,000 frames per second, shows the ball being squashed flat, then morphing back into shape:
Neat, huh?
Die In Shanghai
Nikonn
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I get exited when the time is a siteswap.
Here's the 5-ball siteswaps 771 and its pseudohalfshower 861, connected in a single run. Filmed 1996.
Here's the 5-ball siteswap 915, done six times connected.
This is my favorite way to enter, reverse and exit a five ball shower. From cascade 5, 678 is the entrance, 91 (repeated) is the shower, and 817161 is the exit. To reverse, throw 8181818 and then you can throw 91s from the other side.
This is my first juggling video. It's made on 1st December 2008 at the Phoenixhof in Hamburg (one day before I celebrated my 8th birthday).
If you want to only watch one, watch this one. /nHere's a method to generate siteswap transitions based on where all the balls actually land; making them all work out amounts to creating a sequence. This is my favorite method, and it produces rather easily, all the possible transitions within the context of the throws that you've decided to mess with, either out of necessity (when throws collide) or by choice (when they don't). /nIf you're trying to come up with a way to write an algorithm for producing transitions, I would suggest that this way is the best way. It's deterministic, for one, and it's comprehensive, for another. /nThis is part 1... stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!!
The stunning conclusion to the Throw Sequence method, for asynch tricks. In this case I derive some transitions from 714 back into 741. This one also shows how to do a 0, and why I like numbers and not letters to denote siteswap throws.


text:
by Louis Sachar
Used Mass Market
This winner of the Newbery Medal as well as the National Book Award features Stanley Yelnats, a kid who is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.
"[W]ry and loopy....[A] dazzling blend of social commentary, tall tale and magic realism. Readers (especially boys) will likely delight in the larger-than-life (truly Texas-style) manner in which Sachar fills in all the holes, as he ties together seemingly disparate story threads to dispel ghosts from the past and give everyone their just deserts." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure." Kirkus Reviews
"We haven't seen a book with this much plot, so suspensefully and expertly deployed, in too long a time. And the ending will make you cheer....Louis Sachar has long been a great and deserved favorite among children, despite the benign neglect of critics." Horn Book
"This delightfully clever story is well-crafted and thought-provoking, with a bit of a folklore thrown in for good measure." Mary Ann Capan, VOYA
Winner of the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award This #1 New York Times bestselling, modern classic in which boys are forced to dig holes day in and day out is now available with a splashy new look.
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.
It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment--and redemption.
Includes a double bonus: an excerpt from Small Steps, the follow-up to Holes, as well as an excerpt from Louis Sachar's new middle-grade novel, Fuzzy Mud.
"A smart jigsaw puzzle of a novel." --The New York Times
WINNER OF THE BOSTON GLOBE-HORN BOOK AWARD
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE CHILDREN'S BOOK
SELECTED FOR NUMEROUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR AND ALA HONORS
Louis Sachar is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Holes, which won the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Christopher Award, as well as Stanley Yelnats' Survival to Camp Green Lake; Small Steps, winner of the Schneider Family Book Award; and The Cardturner, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, a Parents' Choice Gold Award recipient, and an ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book. His books for younger readers include There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, The Boy Who Lost His Face, Dogs Don't Tell Jokes, and the Marvin Redpost series, among many others.
In this funny yet poignant story, a boy embarks on a personal journey that changes his life, as he spends the summer paying for a crime he didn't commit.
Stanley Yelnats, falsely arrested for stealing a pair of sneakers, is sentenced to serve time at Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention facility in the middle of a Texas desert. Having never attended summer camp, Stanley naively believes this to be a new opportunity. He is soon faced with a group of unhappy, unaccepting campers (inmates) and an evil warden who uses the boys to dig holes in search of buried treasure.
As the summer progresses, Stanley makes some startling discoveries about himself, the true meaning of friendship, and the ancient curse that has haunted his family for generations. In a parallel story about Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather," the mystery of the curse is unveiled and Stanley, in his efforts to help a friend, suddenly finds himself in control of his own destiny and the fate of his unlucky family.
"I never talk about a book until it is finished. It took me a year and a half to write Holes, and I never told anyone anything about it during all that time. I do this for a variety of reasons, but mainly motivation. By not allowing myself to talk about it, the only way I can let it out, is to finish writing it.
"I write five or six drafts of each book. I start with a small idea, and it grows as I write. My ideas come to me while I'm write. The story changes greatly during the first few drafts. By the time a book is finished, it is impossible for me to say how I got the various ideas.
"I was born March 20, 1954, in East Meadow, New York. My father worked on the 78th floor of the Empire State Building. When I was nine, we moved to Tustin, California.
"I went to college at the University of California, as Berkeley. During my last year there, I helped out at an elementary school–Hillside School. It was my experience there that led to my first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, which I wrote in 1976.
"I attended Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and graduated in 1980. I worked part-time as a lawyer for eight years as I continued to write children's books.
Holes is really two stories: one chronicles the unfortunate life of Stanley Yelnats and the other is a tall tale about Stanley's great-great-grandfather who meets his fate when he encounters Kissing Kate Barlow, a feared outlaw of the Wild West. Sachar's success at blending outlandish humor with poignant and heartwarming scenes makes this book ideal for reading aloud and for a novel study. Students will find satisfaction in the ending and celebrate the fact that the good guys win.
A sense of self, belonging, courage, and friendship are important themes to explore. Ideas and activities for interdisciplinary connections include the language arts, social studies, science, math, and arts curriculum.
Pre-Reading Activity
Have the class research juvenile detention centers in their state. Ask them to investigate the purpose of a juvenile detention center. How does the state work to rehabilitate juvenile offenders? What is the purpose of a probation officer? How is it determined whether a juvenile can be tried as an adult?
Thematic Connections
Stanley is overweight and considered a misfit by the boys in his school and neighborhood. Ask students to discuss why Stanley is an easy target for bullies. At what point in the novel does Stanley begin feeling that he is a part of the group? Who is the leader? How do the guys view Stanley at the end of the novel? How might Stanley be considered a hero? Involve the class in a discussion about how Stanley's heroic status might change the way his classmates view him when he returns to school in the fall.
Ask students to make a list of the campers and their nicknames. Discuss the significance of each boy's nickname. Why is Stanley called "Caveman"? How can nicknames "label" people and affect the way they feel about themselves? How does Stanley's self-concept change as the story progresses? Why does Stanley call Zero by his real name when they are in the desert together? Engage the class in a discussion about how Stanley and Zero help one another gain a more positive sense of self.
Ask the class to define courage. When does Stanley begin to show courage? Have students chart Stanley's courageous acts (e.g., stealing the truck). Which other campers might be considered courageous? What gives Stanley the courage to search for Zero? Discuss which characters in the parallel story demonstrate courage. Ask students to prepare questions they would most like to ask Stanley about his newly developed courage. How might Stanley answer their questions?
Stanley never had a friend before arriving at Camp Green Lake. Ask students to trace the development of Stanley's friendship with Zero. What are each boy's contributions to the friendship? When Stanley finds out that Zero is the person who stole the Clyde Livingston sneakers, he feels glad that Zero put the sneakers on the parked car. Explore why.
Interdisciplinary Connections
Stanley's father is an inventor. Although it is said that an inventor must have intelligence, perseverance, and a lot of luck, Stanley's father never seems to have such luck. Have students research inventors such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and the Wright brothers. How did luck play a role in their inventions?
Write a brief article for Science News about "Sploosh," the product to eliminate foot odor, invented by Stanley's father. Have students include comments from Mr. Yelnats that indicate that he has intelligence, perseverance, and finally a little luck.
Zero cannot read, but he is excellent in math. Have each student survey at least 20 adults asking them whether their strength in school was reading or math. Collect the data gathered by each student and have the class construct a graph that reveals the results of the survey. Study the graph and engage the class in a discussion about the importance of both subjects.
Play recordings of several ballads for the class. Ask them to compare and contrast a musical ballad and a tall tale. Divide the class into small groups. Have each pick one character from the book and write the lyrics for a ballad about that character. Ask groups to perform their ballad for the entire class.
Creative Drama/Theater
Stage a talk show with Stanley and Zero as the guests. Have the other boys from Camp Green Lake surprise them by coming on the show. What would the boys say to Stanley and Zero? What might Stanley, Zero, and the others say about the closing of Camp Green Lake? Ask Stanley to share what he learned most from his experiences there.
Stanley has always wanted to be an FBI agent. Find out the training that Stanley would need to accomplish his dream. What other types of law enforcement careers could Stanley investigate?
Teaching ideas prepared by Pat Scales, Director of Library Services. the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville, South Carolina.
1999 Newbery Medal Winner
Winner of the National Book Award
The Boston Globe — Horn Book Award
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
ALA Notable Children's Book
ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults
NCTE Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts
The New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
x"We haven't seen a book with this much plot, so suspensefully and expertly deployed, in too long a time. . . .Louis Sachar has long been a great and deserved favorite among children, despite the benign neglect of critics. But Holes is witness to its own theme: what goes around, comes around. Eventually." - - Starred, The Horn Book
x"A multitude of colorful characters, coupled with the skillful braiding of ethnic folklore, American legend, and contemporary issues is a brilliant achievement. There is no question, kids will love Holes." - - Starred, School Library Journal
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney[0-440-22065-3]
Monkey Island by Paula Fox[0-440-40770-2]
http://www.ala.org/alsc/newbpast.html
Kids Q&A
Read the Kids' Q&A with Louis Sachar
brunettegal418 , January 01, 2008 (view all comments by brunettegal418)
This cunning story told delightfully by Louis Sachar is a must read that will be enjoyed by everyone. Sachar's writing is clever and deeply captivating, while the storyline captures your imagination. By constantly developing the mysterious camp into an almost historical, magical mystery and adventure, Sachar has written a true masterpiece!
Laurel Leaf Library
Series info:
Copyright Year:
Series Volume:
Louis Sachar
Children s Young Adult-Social Issue Fiction-General
Homeless persons
Children s Young Adult-Social Issue Fiction
Children's 9-12 - Fiction - General
New, Mass Market, $8.99
Used, Mass Market, Starting from $2.50
New, Other, Starting from $18.40
Used, Book Club Hardcover, Starting from $3.50
Used, Book Club Paperback, Starting from $1.50
Used, Hardcover, Starting from $4.95


text:
RELIEF FUND 7
RESIST TRUMP
Ugandan Journalist Refugee Arrives in Miami After Speaking Against the Anti Gay Legislation
Posted on November 26, 2015 November 26, 2015 by Melanie Nathan
After much courage and hardship we welcome Andrew Ssebulime, a young hero, to America. An extraordinary journey by a resilient young man. Now our hope is that the Miami community will embrace Andrew and make him feel welcome!
By Melanie Nathan, November, 25, 2015.
A journalist, who fled Uganda in fear of his life, has finally been resettled by UNHCR as a refugee in the United States. This is another one of too many stories in the insidious upheaval caused by the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014 and its horrendous genesis and continued trajectory.
After almost two years of uncertainty and much difficulty, Andrew Ssebulime, a famed Ugandan journalist, arrived last week at Miami International Airport, ready to start his new life in the United States of America. If Uganda was a country that respected human rights, freedom of press and speech, Andrew may well still be enjoying a successful career in Uganda. But despite his talent and meteoric rise to fame, that was not to be.
Andrew Boarding flight to freedom
In 2012, Andrew SSebulime was excited to start his new job as a journalist for Record TV. A great future lay ahead of him. Soon he was promoted to assistant news manager and then hired to the much coveted presenter, taking on the morning program called "UG ON AIR." In the program he focused on Uganda's political, economic and social life, discussing topical issues from news articles and Parliament.
In December 2012 when Parliament started to debate the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHA), he opined on the air about how Parliament should rather spend its time on the "real issues facing Uganda". He believed there were pressing and urgent issues facing government that were being ignored, and that this was usurped with too much focus on homosexuality and the AHA. He spoke about the need for the enactment of laws that would serve to strengthen and empower the judiciary, to take on corrupt officials, all being an imperative use of Parliament's time, rather than the scapegoating of LGBTI people through the enactment of the AHA.
He notes:
"From UG ON AIR, news anchoring and reporting, I was given another program Public Platform, addressing local issues of the grass root citizens which all made me famous. It was because of my work on these programs that WBS TV which was more advanced, with a bigger viewership, and great command of the market share spotted me and head-hunted me from Record TV."
A big step forward in his career, Andrew started working on June, 01 2013, as a news anchor and reporter for WBS TV. He also started taking on feature writing in a segment called Kampala Amakula running a feature entitled "Male Sex Workers" and "Depicting the Ugandan Gay Community". It was a topic that was to be a significant part of his undoing. Life as he knew it was soon over for Andrew and he was fired, becoming a target for further persecution.
On December 23, 2013, mere days after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act by Uganda's Parliament, Andrew SSebulime received his marching orders, and in no uncertain terms. He stood accused – for his reporting the story in a manner that "condemned Parliament's passage of the Bill" – denoting, according to WBS , his support of the so called 'promotion of homosexuality.' For merely stating his opinion on the air, in a so called democracy where freedom of press is supposedly espoused under the Constitution, Andrew was accused of breaching the Stations moral obligations by supposedly "supporting the promotion of homosexuality."
Within hours of the AHA becoming law, through the signature of President Museveni, the journalist was a target not only for his firing but also for arrest.
The letter from WBS TV which is signed by Prof Gordon Wavamunno (*1), a man knighted by the Queen, terminating Andrew's employment, illustrates the anti-gay persecution and how the Bill impacted freedom of press, speech and people in employment:
Andrew describes the devolution of his status from famed Ugandan journalist to refugee:
"After the passing of the bill by parliament on the 20th of December 2013 and my subsequent dismissal from WBS TV because of my support to the gay community things became impossible for me. I was arrested on the 25th of February 2014 only one day after President Museveni had signed the bill into law. Luckily enough, I managed to skip out of jail on a police bond of 800,000 UGX. With these happenings, noon was turned into darkness and I knew the next step would be lynching me, since people had started taking matters into their own hands. I was then outed on the morning program as a gay journalist, and so I had no choice but to run for safety and on the 23rd of April 2014. I crossed over to Kenya through Malaba border."
The UNHCR process felt unending. Living there as an urban refugee in a slum, without the ability to work, was traumatizing. All through the difficult and ongoing process, I had no idea what was coming next or how I would survive to see the day I would be resettled. I often became despondent. I had a written interview followed by oral interview, after which I was told to go for the decision several months later. I had many interviews and delays thereafter. At one point I suffered serious fever and could not make the interview. Finally, almost an entire year later, I received my mandate and then it took almost another year for the USA to accept me an for me to resettled.
I was constantly exhausted, often very hungry, and extremely uncomfortable. I feared losing all my health and I had to watch my back as it was never safe."
At the time of advocating for Andrew, he told me: "I cannot work – I am degraded as a human being. I stay with a group of five people at Kawangware – we are living in sickening unsafe and deplorable conditions. It has been months of hell."
Andrew Standing in his new kitchen, shared with 3 other refugees from African countries.
Now finally Andrew has arrived in the Miami area with three other LGBT refugees resettled from Kenya. His difficulties are not over as it takes a great deal of orientation to settle in the USA as a refugee. LGBT refugees who arrive in the USA have very little and are in great need of community and friendship. Unlike other refugees, LGBT refugees have usually been rejected by family and depend on new community to offer meals, outings and donations of clothing and other needs.
A local agency has been appointed to his resettlement. It is their job to help Andrew obtain his benefits, open a bank account, and find employment.
Speaking to Andrew this week, after his long journey to Florida, he notes: " Its a complete rebirth and another chance and opportunity to rebuild my life again after two years of idleness, shattered dreams and aspirations. A big thank you Melanie and the entire African Human Rights Coalition. My need now is finding someone to teach me Spanish and help me kick start off my new life. Not forgetting a concerted effort towards those who are still in the long and difficult process."
As Executive Director of African HRC – I disclose that we worked with Andrew Ssebulime to provide advocacy, resources and strategy during his process. It is my hope that people will reach out and offer friendship and support to Andrew and his comrades in Miami and the surrounding area.
If you would like to volunteer for a meal, friendship etc. to help Andrew and his fellow refugees please contact me at [email protected]
Donations direct for refugees can be made via CLICK HERE – currently approximately 300 LGBT refugees still await resettlement in Kenya
Donations to support African Human Rights Coalition's work: CLICK HERE –
Andrew in Miami signing his agency documents
READ MORE ABOUT LGBT REFUGEES IN KENYA HERE .
(*1) Wavamunno, the coward who fired Andrew Ssebulime, has an honorary doctorate degree from Makerere University, Uganda's oldest institution of higher learning, and from Nkumba University. He is a professor in business and entrepreneurship at Makerere and is the current chancellor at Nkumba. In January 2013, the Queen of the United Kingdom bestowed upon Wavamunno the British royal order of chivalry as a knight in the order of Saint John. Recipients of knighthoods in this order are not normally entitled to the honorific of "Sir". The award was in recognition of his philanthropic work with St. John Association of Uganda, where he has been a member since 1983. He currently serves as the chairman of the association. African HRC plans to protest the knighthood based on human rights infractions by Wavamunno.
Shopping for his first Thanksgiving in the USA
Posted in NEWSTagged Andrew SSebulime, Anti-gay, Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014, FLORISA, Gay, Gordon Wavamunno, journalist, Kawangware, Kenya, MIAMI, refugee, RESTTELMENT, UG ON AIR, Uganda, Ugandan, UNHCR, WBS, WBS TV
Uganda Passes Repressive Anti NGO Bill
One Reason We May Never Eradicate AIDS
5 thoughts on "Ugandan Journalist Refugee Arrives in Miami After Speaking Against the Anti Gay Legislation"
Wako says:
I am happy for you brother stand for what is right and always be proud of who You are.
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jerbearinsantafe says:
Reblogged this on Fairy JerBear's Queer/Trans News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
A Ugandan journalist escapes to the USA…
Eleanor Burns says:
That letter from the Professor just tells you all you need to know about these people. Self-righteous, pompous, vindictive, and very badly proofed if I may say…
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Over at Frequent Miler this morning I wrote about one of today's eBay Daily Deals. For today only (these deals don't usually last that long), Paypal Digital Gifts is selling $100 Staples e-gift cards for $85 with a limit of 5. That is a pretty good deal in and of itself, but I thought I would breakdown my approach and show you how you could go even further.
One of the great things about eBay lately has been targeted eBay Bucks promotions. Right now many eBay users (including myself) have been targeted to receive 4X eBay Bucks. Normally you receive a 2% rebate via eBay Bucks, however with this promotion that jumps to 8%. Pretty good.
Additionally, for some reason purchases of gift cards from Paypal Digital Gifts via eBay have been paying 5X Ultimate Rewards points when you pay with a Chase Ink card. Another nice return on investment.
Finally, both BeFrugal and Top Cashback are paying a 1.5% return at eBay. Not much, but it is better than nothing and when combined with all of the other savings, the math is very nice.
All that is great, but what should you do with the gift cards. One option is to buy merchandise at Staples and resell it. If you want to go that route, the AAdvantage Portal is currently paying 5X AAdvantage miles at Staples to further your savings. Since I am not a reseller, I will forward you to Big Habitat for some ideas.
The other option (other than to buy stuff you need/want) is to resell the gift cards. To find the best rate I searched Gift Card Granny and found that a number of gift card resellers would buy the card at 86%. For a second I got excited, however for that rate they require you to mail in the physical gift cards. These are e-gift cards so that won't work.
Fortunately I did find that Cardpool would pay me 81% for just submitting the codes online. (Update: You can also receive an additional 4% back by going through Top Cashback to Cardpool.) Sure I would be taking a loss on the price I paid at eBay, but overall I am still coming out ahead. It took about 15 minutes for the Staples e-gift cards to come via email and I was able to quickly go to Cardpool, enter the codes and checkout. They had confirmed the balances and mailed a check within an hour.
It is important to note that I spent a total of about 10 minutes to complete this transaction from beginning to end. It was as quick as placing an order, waiting for the gift cards to come via email and then entering the codes in Cardpool's site. While the profit wasn't substantial, it is still a very nice ROI considering the time spent.
Since I write about deals like this all of the time, I thought this post might be helpful to some of you. If you are interested in gift card churning, Chasing the Points has a very interesting series of posts about it. Did you buy Staples gift cards with this deal? Let me know in the comments and have a great afternoon!
Next articleA Mandatory Waiting Period to Apply for Credit Cards?
By the way, buyers can only pay for these with a credit card on EBay (through PayPal) when their PayPal account is at zero…then a buyer gets to select Credit Card as an alternative payment method; otherwise it will draw from a buyer's PayPal account.
Is it true that one's Paypal account has to have zero balance in order to be able to use credit card alternatives? I have $400 in my PayPal balance connected to my eBay account so I am hesitating to pull the trigger. Your advice is greatly appreciated.
Yes you have to transfer out the balance before you can pay with a credit card. If there is a balance it will take the balance first before applying another form of payment.
You can use a cashback site to cardpool which would give one 4% back and also you can request Amazon instead of a check from Cardpool and they would give you 6% extra. For me Amazon is the same as cash.
Somehow I missed Top Cashback for 4%. I looked at a couple of other portals and they had changed the language to show only for purchases. Thanks for pointing that out.
Staples got strict with their gift cards. They don't allow purchases of other gift cards (retail or Visa/MasterCard/Amex) or even postage stamps any more.
Yes they have really cracked down.
FYI, you can also use the GoWallet app on iOS or Android to exchange your Staples eGift Card for a Gift Card Mall eGift Card, which you can then use to buy any of the gift cards etc that Gift Card Mall sells. Of course they'll only offer you the same 81% that CardPool does, and you won't have the option of going through a portal for more cash back.
I emailed the people at the other GCM… giftcardmart.com and even though I didn't meet their bulk selling requirements with this small order, they were happy to allow me to sell the cards to them electronically at 85.5% as long as I forwarded the paypal confirmation too.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing that data point. Hopefully it will help others.
You can't use the AAdvantage Portal for reselling as these gift cards are in-store use only.
While it does say on the listing that these can't be used online, my experience is different. These are normal Staples e-gift cards, so I am thinking that language is leftover from when the Staples website didn't allow gift cards to be used.
I can't guarantee 100% since I already sold mine, but I am almost certain these cards can be used on Staples.com.
I understand that, but terms are not always correct. (In fact, quite often the terms are wrong.) Up until recently Staples didn't accept gift cards online, which is probably where the terms come from.
I already purchased and received my cards. While I didn't use them on Staples.com I can confirm they are normal e-gift cards just like I have received from every purchase ever. Previously I have used the same exact type of cards on their website.
I activated the 4x ebay bucks, but my total bucks payout for 5 cards only shows $8.50. Have you already received the $34 in bucks for your purchase?
Yes it showed I would be earning $34 on the checkout screen and the $34 is already showing in my account.
I signed for the ebay bucks with the hope that they would give me the 4x, but that didn't occurred. Is there a way to receive that promotion? Right now I would get "You'll earn $1.70 in eBay Bucks." for one card.
You had to be targeted unfortunately. They have been sending them out every couple of weeks, so hopefully a new one will come soon!
Was a minor annoyance but hopefully it goes through and won't be an issue if I ever do this again. I've purchased many times through cardpool over the last 1-2 years, but never sold through them. I'm realizing that many of these deals aren't as quick as the typical 5-10 minutes we initially think they'll be. IME there always seems to be a few issues that surface so I typically allow for more time (mentally) to get it all done so that it's not a frustrating experience overall.
The issue could be that this is the first time you have sold to them. I have sold to Cardpool before, so my transaction processed fine.
Thinking back, I had a similar issue with them the first time I was selling. I believe they asked for a copy of my ID. There is a lot of fraud, so they are careful with new sellers I think.
Those who do this a lot get bulk seller accounts which eliminates a lot of the red tape. Thanks Anthony!


text:
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
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(in DIV)

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web2py Web Framework

    Generated by Epydoc 3.0beta1 on Sun Oct 21 16:56:48 2012

      http://epydoc.sourceforge.net

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


If you're living with a five-acre lawn, you might be used to having a powerful riding lawn mower. Until recently, however, your friends with smaller yards did not have as many choices. A new John Deere lawn mower is designed to fill that niche and give a similar boost of power to those with smaller yards.
Sloping lawns and uneven grass.
Scattered tree, shrub and flower bed layouts.
Easy installation and removal of attachments and accessories.
The series also has two models (155C and 190C) with adjustable lumbar seats and a more comfortable, soft grip steering wheel.
The 100 series includes three new John Deere lawn mowers, all with engines designed to start quickly. This saves the time and aggravation of having to crank the engine several times.
Attachments for collecting and mulching lawn clippings.
Side-discharging features to efficiently move lawn clippings out of the way.
As you check out new lawn mowers, look for models that offer convenience, flexibility and extra power. These features will help making mowing the lawn an enjoyable experience.


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Costco Is Facing COVID Outbreaks In These Major Cities
West coast Costco's have now seen over 400 positive cases.
By Amanda McDonald
Days after news broke of a COVID-19 outbreak among 145 employees at a Yakima, Wash. Costco warehouse, information about cases at locations in another city are coming to light.
According to the Los Angeles County Health Department, eight Costco locations across the city are dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks with over 300 employees testing positive. The warehouses in Burbank, Culver City, Lancaster, Los Feliz, Monterey, Santa Clarita, Van Nuys, and Woodland Hills are being included on the list of Los Angeles County non-residential settings meeting the criteria of three or more confirmed positive tests. (To help keep yourself safe against the virus, here is The One Vitamin Doctors Are Urging Everyone to Take Right Now.)
The number of staff cases at these locations ranges from 15 at the Lancaster store to 71 at the Culver City warehouse in Marina Del Ray. Like the Seattle-area Yakima location, all LA Costco's are still open, according to the website. Eat This, Not That! has reached out to the grocery store chain for any information about additional safety measures and cleaning at these locations.
In order to keep all employees and customers safe, Costco has Special Operating Hours from 9 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday for those 60 and older, and anyone with disabilities or who is immunocompromised. In addition, all guests aged three and older are required to wear a face mask that covers their mouth and nose at all times, and the Hearing Aid department, Costco Optical, the jewelry department, and the floral department are all closed. The food court continues to serve a limited menu.
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Amanda is a staff writer for Eat This, Not That!. Read more
Coronavirus // Costco // Grocery Shopping // Grocery Stores // News
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D.O.P. Mozzarella Bar and Restaurant (Singapore)
bibikgourmand August 5, 2016 March 5, 2018
D.O.P. Mozzarella Bar and Restaurant at Robertson Quay
A play on the European Union scheme of Protected Designated Origin, DOP Mozzarella Bar & Restaurant by Luca Iannone, one-time owner of Capri Italian Restaurant at Bukit Timah, opened without fanfare at Robertson Quay in early July.
As its name implies, the restaurant prides itself on buffalo mozzarella from the owner's hometown of Campania, where cheeses are made according to strict production rules that comply with the Consortium for the Protection of Buffalo Mozzarella. Founded in 1981, it is the only institution recognized by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to protect and promote mozzarella di bufala DOP from Campania.
Make your own antipasto
While buffalo mozzarella is the star of the show at DOP, it is far from being the main cast and a quick glance at the glass-encased chiller at the bar will reveal other mozzarella options like smoked buffalo mozzarella, treccia, home made burratina (from cow's milk rather than buffalo milk) and burrata (from Puglia). These are best sampled via the "Make Your Own" antipasto (S$27) where diners pick one mozzarella, one side dish and one cold cut from a selection. We had a parcel of house made burratina, some deliciously warm caponata as well as a mix of cold cuts including Parma ham, salami and mortadella. (4/5)
Additionally, DOP also offers an extensive menu of "sfizi" (Italian for snacks).
Slow-cooked octopus
Don't miss the octopus from Italy slow-cooked for three hours with tomatoes, capers and olives (S$19). Served in a cocotte, the little chunks of octopus are coated thickly in its braising liquid and are good on its own or slathered richly on accompanying toasts. (4/5)
If you're game for more cheeses, try the "fior di latte" (mozzarella cheese made from pasteurized or unpasteurized cow's milk), a parcel of mozzarella weighing 125g is stuffed with Parma ham, sundried tomatoes and basil, battered and deep-fried. Eat it hot so that the outside remains crisp and the insides all "melty" and enrobed with umami from the stuffing. (3.75/5)
Gnocchi, porcini, walnut
DOP also serves up some rustic plates of pasta and risotto like the little pillows of homemade gnocchi tossed with sliced porcini mushrooms and whole walnuts in a creamy mascarpone cheese sauce (S$21). Or the homemade scialatielli (a type of thick and short pasta that looks like linguini or fettucini) served warm with melted caciocavallo (a stretched-curd sheep or cow's milk cheese with a tear-drop, edible rind) in the cheese's melon-like, hard rind. (3.75/5)
Flourless chocolate almond cake (in the foreground)
Have these with the affordably priced wines (starting from S$9 per glass or S$40 per bottle) and don't leave without trying the flourless chocolate almond cake (S$10).
60 Robertson Quay #01-04A The Quayside, Singapore 238 252 | +65 6908 0830 | dop.restaurant
© Evelyn Chen 2013
Please note that the reviews published on this blog are sometimes hosted. I am under no obligation to review every restaurant I've visited. If I do, the reviews are 100% my own.
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5 feel-good stories from Australia's big winners in 2020
January 7, 2021 January 7, 2021 by DiceDealer
Winning massive sums of money is a great experience for anyone on the receiving end. It warms the heart to hear how people's lives are changed for the better in an instant. But now and then there is a feel-good story about an Australian big winner that is out of the ordinary – one that goes beyond the average tale and leaves a mark on your heart.
We have endeavoured to recount 5 endearing encounters with Aussie lottery winners this month that will either bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eye.
Queensland Bushfire Victim Turns Winner
In January 2020, one happy man from Mount Croydon (south of Brisbane) was elated to find out that he was the proud big winner of a division one lottery jackpot to the value of $1 million.
He was one of the scores of victims affected by the Queensland bush fires in 2019, losing his home in the blaze. Unfortunately, the house was not insured, which had left him wondering if he would ever be able to rebuild it and recover the loss.
"All that was left of the home was a few charred teacups. "We didn't know if we would ever be able to rebuild but now we definitely can."
It seems that the win was a joint effort, as the unnamed man claimed that he had used his wife's lucky numbers to win the draw.
Lotto Win Giveaway
In April 2020, a South Australian retiree was one of seven winners to share the division one X Lotto draw jackpot. He won $613,000 in prize money, but surprisingly won't be keeping any of it. He said:
"I'm giving it all away to my family! I'm going to pay off my children's mortgages and give some to my friends. The only thing I might buy myself is a nice new comfortable bed."
The winner claims that he is comfortable and has no need for more than he already has. This man seems to have learned that the secret to a happy life is to look after those whom you love.
Man to Take A Bite out of His Winnings
In August, a Sydney man reaped the rewards of the entire Powerball jackpot of $10 million for himself. While most people's wish list would be headlined by a fancy car or a big house, this 50-year-old man immediately went about pricing a set of new teeth. He stated:
"I haven't smiled in 20 years because my teeth are so bad," the man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told a lottery spokesperson this morning. "The first thing I want to get is some implants. I've spent the night looking at them online."
He went on to say that he would probably buy a new house (as he was renting) and would donate a sizeable sum to an animal charity that he supported.
The windfall couldn't have come at a better time for this multi-millionaire, as he had recently lost his job because of the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. One thing can be said of this story – He now has a lot that he can smile about!
Grandad to Visit Grandbaby for the First Time
The COVID-19 pandemic has upset many lives and left many in tears this year. Well, one grandad became a lot happier in October, when he won $1 million in the lottery.
Due to strict lockdown measures in Victoria, he has not been able to visit his newly born grandson who lives out of state. While the laws are still quite strict and gatherings are not permitted, he still hopes to at least get to meet the new addition to his family. He said:
"We'll celebrate at another time. I'll use this prize to help my family. They're very, very important to me."
It's so wonderful to see heaps of money go to people who are not greedy. This way, far more lives are affected for the good because of the wins.
Struggling Man Can Catch up on Mortgage
A struggling Sydney airport worker who has had his hours cut by the Corona Virus pandemic now has 1.2 million reasons to relax and take a load off.
He hadn't realised he had won the $1.2 million prize until he received the life-changing call from lottery officials. The unnamed man exclaimed:
"I had no idea. I hadn't checked my ticket yet. I play every week, and I never thought I'd win that much. The most I've ever won is $1000."
He told the lotto officials that he had been struggling to pay his mortgage with his reduced salary but exclaimed that he could now pay the whole thing off and not have to stress about work while things sorted themselves out.
Get Your Wins Before the Year is Out
We could all do with big wins to help ease the stresses of daily life. While we never advocate that you play with more than you can afford, we do encourage you to enjoy some online gambling at one of our Aussie-friendly DiceDealer online casinos. Big winners are made every day online, and who knows, the next one could be you!
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