text:
Q: com.google.firebase.database.DatabaseException: Characters are not supported, please strings I am new to Firebase. I am trying to save POJO that sent from Android to Realtime Database.
I have a POJO like this:
@IgnoreExtraProperties
public class Member implements Parcelable{

public String name;

public Member() {}

public Member(String name) {
    this.name = name;
}

public String getName() {
    return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {
    this.name = name;
}

/**=================== */
/** Parcelable section */
/**=================== */

public static final Parcelable.Creator CREATOR = new Parcelable.Creator() {
    public Member createFromParcel(Parcel in) {
        return new Member(in);
    }

    public Member[] newArray(int size) {
        return new Member[size];
    }
};

public Member(Parcel in){
    this.name = in.readString();
}

@Override
public int describeContents() {
    return 0;
}

@Override
public void writeToParcel(Parcel dest, int flags) {
    dest.writeString(this.name);
}
}

And activity like this:
package com.example.view;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.TextView;

import com.google.firebase.database.DatabaseReference;
import com.google.firebase.database.FirebaseDatabase;

import com.example.R;
import com.example.model.Member;

public class TestActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

DatabaseReference myRef;

Button button;
TextView text;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_test);

    FirebaseDatabase.getInstance().setPersistenceEnabled(true);
    myRef = FirebaseDatabase.getInstance().getReference();

    text = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_test);
    button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button_test);
    button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            sendDataToFirebase();
        }
    });
}

private void sendDataToFirebase() {
    String key = myRef.push().getKey();
    Member member = new Member("John");
    myRef.child("Member").child("john").child(key).setValue(member);
}
}

Then appear this error after I clicked the button:
E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.example, PID: 16332
com.google.firebase.database.DatabaseException: Characters are not supported, please strings
    at com.google.android.gms.internal.zg.zzao(Unknown Source)
    at com.google.android.gms.internal.zg.zzar(Unknown Source)
    at com.google.android.gms.internal.zh.zzas(Unknown Source)
    at com.google.android.gms.internal.zg.zzao(Unknown Source)
    at com.google.android.gms.internal.zg.zzan(Unknown Source)
    at com.google.firebase.database.DatabaseReference.zza(Unknown Source)
    at com.google.firebase.database.DatabaseReference.setValue(Unknown Source)
    at com.example.view.TestActivity.sendDataToFirebase(TestActivity.java:43)
    at com.example.view.TestActivity.access$000(TestActivity.java:15)
    at com.example.view.TestActivity$1.onClick(TestActivity.java:35)
    at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:5714)
    at android.widget.TextView.performClick(TextView.java:10926)
    at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:22594)
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:148)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7325)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1230)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1120)

I can't find out what's wrong with my code. I have followed tutorial from Firebase official website and others tutorial. I followed them carefully and I've tried many times. I have googling for hours, but no hope.
Hope will get some solution or advice from this community.
Many thanks :)

A: I faced same issue when i was initializing an element of object in its constructor without passing the value for it. Like :
public class ChatMessage {
private String messageText;
private String messageUser;
private String messageTime;
private String photoURL;

dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm aa");

public ChatMessage() {
}

public ChatMessage(String messageText, String messageUser, String photoURL) {
    this.messageText = messageText;
    this.messageUser = messageUser;
    this.photoURL = photoURL;
    **this.messageTime = dateFormat.format(new Date()).toString();**
}

public String getMessageText() {
    return messageText;
}

public void setMessageText(String messageText) {
    this.messageText = messageText;
}

public String getMessageUser() {
    return messageUser;
}

public void setMessageUser(String messageUser) {
    this.messageUser = messageUser;
}

public String getMessageTime() {
    return messageTime;
}

public void setMessageTime(String messageTime) {
    this.messageTime = messageTime;
}

public String getPhotoURL() {
    return photoURL;
}

public void setPhotoURL(String photoURL) {
    this.photoURL = photoURL;
}

}
Then i changed it to :
    public class ChatMessage {
private String messageText;
private String messageUser;
private String messageTime;
private String photoURL;

public ChatMessage() {
}

public ChatMessage(String messageText, String messageUser, String photoURL, String messageTime) {
    this.messageText = messageText;
    this.messageUser = messageUser;
    this.photoURL = photoURL;
    this.messageTime = messageTime;
}

public String getMessageText() {
    return messageText;
}

public void setMessageText(String messageText) {
    this.messageText = messageText;
}

public String getMessageUser() {
    return messageUser;
}

public void setMessageUser(String messageUser) {
    this.messageUser = messageUser;
}

public String getMessageTime() {
    return messageTime;
}

public void setMessageTime(String messageTime) {
    this.messageTime = messageTime;
}

public String getPhotoURL() {
    return photoURL;
}

public void setPhotoURL(String photoURL) {
    this.photoURL = photoURL;
}
}

Using below lines in MainActivity to push POJO in FireBaseDataBase:
     ChatMessage msg = new
     ChatMessage(s,mUserName,null,dateFormat.format(new Date()).toString());
     mMessagesDatabaseReference.push().setValue(msg);

And this works for me now with firebase database. Hope this helps you too.
firebase-database pojo


RAFA BENITEZ has issued a strong denial of claims linking him with a move to Ligue 1.
The Newcastle boss is out of contract in the summer and talks over a new deal appeared to be stalling recently.
Toon owner Mike Ashley wanted Benitez to renew at the start of the season, while the Spaniard decided to wait and see whether his transfer demands were met first.
Amid the uncertainty, French outlet L'Equipe this week suggested Benitez had held talks with two employees from Score Agencies, a Lyon-based agency, in Manchester last month to discuss his future.
The article claimed the former Liverpool chief had agreed to join the project until September 1, and that he had an interest in managing in Ligue 1.
But Benitez dismissed those reports on Friday, uncharacteristically revealing a glimpse into where his future lies.
"I read the story," he told reporters when asked about the L'Equipe article.
Fans on Tyneside are desperate for Benitez to renew his contract at St. James' Park as they near Premier League safety for yet another season.
Newcastle take on Crystal Palace this weekend, another club who should avoid the drop this term.
"They have pace, ability and they are quite dangerous," Benitez added.
Newcastle welcome the Eagles to St. James' Park on Saturday.
And Benitez will be hoping his side perform better than during the 2-0 defeat to Arsenal on Monday.
CHELSEA boss Maurizio Sarri needs to be pragmatic away at Liverpool on Sunday.


text:
The Slings & Arrows
GRAPHIC NOVEL GUIDE
North American Publisher / ISBN: Marvel - 0-7851-3895-1
Contains adult content?: no
Does this pass the Bechdel test?: yes
Positive minority portrayal?: yes
Categories: Superhero
Spider-Man canvas mounted wall art
Amazing Spider-Man by JMS Ultimate Collection volume 3
Mark Brooks
Mike Deodato
Review by Frank Plowright
Three multi-chapter stories occupy the bulk of this collection. 'The Book of Ezekiel' draws a line under the plots writer J. Michael Straczynski set in motion suggesting there's more to Spider-Man's seemingly random origin, 'Sins Past' is the most divisive story of his run, and 'Skin Deep' an alternative take on an old villain.
There are a pair of shorter stories opening the volume. Teaming Spider-Man with Loki, Asgardian God, may seem a complete mismatch, but with Loki having no particular axe to grind and a tricky problem at hand, it's a story that works well. Straczynski endows Loki with a nobility rarely seen during his villainous manifestations, and Spider-Man plays well off that. In the other there's a child at a turning point in his life, while Mary-Jane undergoes a depressing experience of attempting to renew her acting career. When both elements are believably portrayed in this fashion a super-villain is surplus to requirements.
To this point Ezekiel had been a mentor to Spider-Man, helping him explore the ramifications of his origin, but he'd not always been as selfless as he might wish. This is brought into focus as Spider-Man faces a danger that can't be seen off with fists and webbing. 'The Book of Ezekiel' is an unusually philosophical tale for Spider-Man, and as such won't be to all tastes despite a novel threat, but it's also a very individual view of what constitutes Spider-Man that segues in neatly with all established material.
It's also the final chapter illustrated by John Romita Jr, whose already stylised art gradually morphed into something even more blocky and gritty over the course of his run. A naturally superb storyteller, he was equally at home with superhero action and character moments. The same could be said of his successor Mike Deodato, someone who tinkers with his styles, here presenting a more naturalistic approach than Romita Jr, which is equally accomplished.
'Sins Past' is a troublesome story possibly more palatable to those unfamiliar with Peter Parker's first great love Gwen Stacy. Those readers will experience a cracking adventure story featuring a new Green Goblin, the possibility that she may still be alive and Parker's life consequently passed through the mangle. Spider-Man fans who are familiar with her are more likely to agree with the online controversy that greeted this story when first published.
The Molten Man was an early Spider-Man villain who's slipped into obscurity, and in 'Skin Deep' Straczynski updates the idea via a former classmate of Peter Parker's returning. Charlie Weiderman also suffered the daily indignities of school life, and also became a talented scientist, lacking only the funding to achieve his vision. Having dealt with the spider aspect of what made Spider-Man, Straczynski delves into the youthful Peter Parker's character, cleverly using Weiderman as a contrast. Mark Brooks illustrates the sequences involving the pre-Spider-Man Parker in wide-eyed manga-referenced style, and the entire story builds rather nicely to a shocking conclusion (sample art).
The content had previously been published in still easily obtained individual volumes titled after the primary stories, and spread over the hardback collections The Best of Spider-Man volumes 4 and 5, which renders the high price rather mercenary.
© 2017 Slings & Arrows

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Kudos doesn't just enhance your corporate culture – it fits right in. Customize virtually every element, and make it a mirror for your organization.
From your logo to your corporate colors, Kudos can easily be made to match. Upload your own icons, stickers, awards and badges so your Kudos program reflects where your organization is headed.
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Whether you add one, or thousands, it's a breeze. Our integrations and SSO capabilities save you time by letting you pull user information from systems like Yammer and Active Directory. We also have a SCIM User Provisioning API that can be integrated with your HRMS systems.
Use your own words to communicate with the team for a deeper connection. Birthday and work anniversary emails are automatic, so you never miss a cause for celebration.
View all your people in one spot! Each Kudos user has a fully customizable User Profile that can be accessed from the Directory at any time.
Run detailed reports at any time to get a high-level overview on company engagement levels, or go deep and segment information based on individuals, departments, locations and types of messages sent. Reports are easily exported and pair great with internal initiatives like performance reviews.
Software as a Service has a lot more perks beyond affordability.
Our cloud-based system requires no complex downloads or installs. You'll be rolled out and giving recognition before you know it.
While we're constantly improving and upgrading features, you can sit back and relax. We auto upgrade it all; your users never miss a beat.
Never worry about the system's capacity. Kudos' cloud platform is highly reliable and built to handle surges and spikes in user traffic.
Bring Kudos To Your Organization!
Kudos is simple to roll out, and even simpler to use, but that doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Our client service team can help you with everything from uploading users to long-term engagement planning.


When we were little, we thought they were grapes." That's the response a Charlestonian will give when asked about the vivid, violet wisteria vines that bloom in springtime.
Wisteria grows into these beautiful cascades that drip down gates and walls across downtown. They get so big; they resemble purple waterfalls. It's a surreal site, as captured by my friend and local photographer Olivia Rae James on her blog here.


Austin Wintory will be appearing IN PERSON both nights!
"A humanistic triumph...a stirring tribute to the invisible people in our world who might end up changing our lives."
"Feels like something Dickens might have written, if he had lived in the cinema age: it's both tear-jerking and oddly spiritual."
"Whimsical and touching Mona Achache's adaptation is wistful perfection."
"Suggests a sort of Gallic Harold and Maude."
"A film that gives you everything: laughs, tears, charm and -- best of all -- the unexpected."


Located on Upper Cheyne Row, one of London's most sought after addresses, sits a former architect's studio turned c.7,000 sq. ft. super-home. Discreetly tucked away behind a sleek minimalist front exterior, the residence is entered through the main corridor onto a jaw-dropping 2,000 sq. ft. reception room characterised by 4m high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows and large glazed sliding doors opening onto an abundance of outside space.
On the market for £22 million with leading estate agents Russell Simpson and Knight Frank, the four-storey home also comprises five bedrooms – one of which is a master bedroom suite complete with stairs onto a private study and roof terrace – kitchen/breakfast room, TV room, family room, gymnasium and fitness studio, patio gardens on the ground floors, as well as secured off-street parking for two cars.
Occupying land once part of the adjacent Our Most Holy Redeemer & St. Thomas More Church (built in the 1800s) the home retains elements of the church's former rear wing, damaged during a Second World War bombing raid. The home perfectly blends a section of the historic Grade II Listed building with crisp modern design, using full-length glazed windows.
The main living quarters of the home are spaced across two floors. The reception room occupies the majority of the ground floor, complete with access to the East Garden and quaint patio garden. Leading on from the reception room is an open-plan kitchen complete with Miele appliances, breakfast bar and full-length glazed windows opening onto an outdoor courtyard flanked by the historic stone wall.


We believe God the Holy Spirit is eternally God, co-equal and co-existent with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is the divine personality sent by God the Son to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment (John 16:7-8). As we express saving faith in the death and resurrection of God the Son, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 1: 13-14). The Holy Spirit fills and controls those who, in submission, seek to walk in the fullness of the Spirit (Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:16-18). In the life of the believer the Holy Spirit performs a ministry of comfort, illumination, sanctification and intercession. He bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16). In all the ministries of the Holy Spirit His purpose is to glorify God the Son (John 16: 14).
We believe that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen.1: 1); and that all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3). We believe Genesis chapters one and two give the literal account of creation.
We believe that the angels are God's messengers and that they were created to serve before the presence of God. They live by the will of God for the purpose of God (Heb. 1:7,14).
We believe when the Holy Spirit came upon the whole body of believers on the Day of Pentecost, it was the fulfillment made by John the Baptist and the promises of Christ to His own during His earthly ministry. The disciples were individually endued with power to witness concerning Christ, and collectively baptized into one body, which was the formation of the Church, which is His Body (Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33, 14:16-17, 26,15:26, 16:7-15; Luke 24:46-49; Acts 1:4-5,8; 2:1-4,38). We further believe that since the time the Gospel went to the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius and the believing Gentiles received the Holy Spirit that without delay, tarrying, praying, laying on of hands or any other condition save faith, all who believe in Christ are born of the Spirit, and by (in) the Holy Spirit baptized into the body of Christ (Acts 10:44, 11:18; John 3:3-6; Eph. 1:13, 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 1 John 2:20-27; 1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19-20; Rom. 8:9-¬15; 1 Cor. 12:12-13). We also believe that the New Testament distinguishes between being indwelt by the Spirit, which is true of all believers, and being filled with the Spirit, which is the believer's privilege and duty (compare Eph. 1:13-14 with 5:18). There is one baptism with(in) the Spirit, and it is into the body of Christ, but there are many fillings. Pentecost is an historical event and not repeated.
We believe in the spiritual unity of all true believers in Christ; that all who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God are members of the church, which is His body, the bride of Christ. "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all members of that one body being many, are one body; so also is Christ." 1 Cor. 12:12-13.
We believe the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of Christ for His own in the air.
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" 1 Thess. 4:16-17.
We believe that the period of the great tribulation in the earth will end with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth, just as He ascended from the earth, in person on the clouds of heaven, and with power and great glory, accompanied by His bride, the church, to introduce the millennial age, to bind Satan and place him in the abyss, to lift the curse which now rests upon the whole creation, to restore Israel to her own land and to give her the realization of God's covenant promises, and to bring the whole world to the knowledge of God (Dt. 30:1-10; Isa. 11:9; Ezek. 37:21-28; Mt. 24:15 – 25:46; Acts 15:16-17; Rm. 8:19-23; 11:25-27; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; Rev. 19:11-21; 20:1-3).
"Behold, I come quickly Amen, even so come Lord Jesus."


Import, manage, process, and showcase your photographs — from one shot to an entire shoot — with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 software. Master your workflow with powerful sorting, selecting, and organizing tools. Target specific areas of your photos for precise adjustments, or enhance overall color, exposure, and tonal range nondestructively on more than 190 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD. Then present your images in dynamic slide shows and interactive web galleries, or use flexible templates to create prints.


Mario Street Fight is great fighting game. Play as one of the Mario bros. in this epic brawler. Player 1: W,A,S,D - Move. U,I,O,K,L - Action. J - Confirm. Player 2: Arrow Keys - Move. Numpad 2,3,4,5,6 - Action. Numpad 1 - Confirm.
Flash 11181 | 0Fight your martial way to the east in this cold blooded hack and slash type action packed action game called "The Journey To The East".Use the arrow keys to move around, A,S,D keys..
Flash 12929 | 0Celebrity Scrap Club is awesome RPG game. Customize your character and set their attributes with a point system. Lay the smack down! Equip your battle guy in his fanciest shirt bef..
Flash 11652 | -2Why complete a dozen levels to face the end boss if you can go head-to-head right now!! WASD to move, J to attack. K to boost, L to limit break (depends on sword type) press spaceb..
3d 2637 | 1Ben 10 Destroy All Aliens: Battle with Waybig is a great 3D action game. Ben 10 needs your help to defeat Big Way. Become Stinkfly and attack from the air using the stinger or rele..


Aquarium Cray Fish for Sale and Care. Pet Crayfish Care.
Crayfish can be kept as pets in freshwater aquariums. They are easy to feed and will eat what ever they can find like fish food, algae walfers, or whatever they can catch. So you will need to be careful that they don't eat your fish and aquarium plants. Their preferred food is shrimp pellets and vegetables.
Bluegill or bass make a better companion choice for the crayfish than smaller fish that can be caught and eaten. But if you have dwarf crayfish the larger fish could eat them.
Pet crayfish like to hide so if you have two much stuff on the bottom of your tank you might not see them much. But be sure to provide them something to hide under so they can feel safe in their surroundings.
Crayfish are excellent scavengers and will help keep your tank clean. They like to create mounds or trenches in the gravel on the bottom of your tank to make a barrow for themselves.
The dwarf crayfish (Cambarellus patzcuarensis) usually won't eat your aquarium plants and are fairly non-aggressive and can be kept with small fish. They only grow to 1.5 inches or less so make a better choice for fish tanks with small fish.
Be careful not to release your crayfish in the local streams since they could damage the local habitat. Crayfish come in many different colors. Blue, black, brown, red, pink, gray, green, yellow and purple.
Below are many excellent sources to find pet crayfish care and many types of cray fish for sale.
Do you want something unusual in your fish tank? If so crayfish would make a nice addition and enhance your aquarium. Just make sure your fish are larger so they don�t get eaten. However if the fish are a lot larger they will eat the crayfish so your tank creatures need to be carefully balanced so none will disappear. Crayfish like to eat vegetation but need more than this. Most fish stores sell shrimp pellets that they can eat and this should keep them in good health.
Pet crayfish like to hide so if you have two much stuff on the bottom of your tank you might not see them much. But be sure to provide them something to hide under so they can feel safe in their surroundings. These tiny creatures will help to clean your tank because they are bottom feeders and will eat what fish discard. They also come in many different colors from blue to red. The ones that are sold in pet stores are usually really tiny and may only grow a little over an inch. Don't release these into the wild. If you get tired of them give them to your local pet store.
If you catch the ones from the wild they will grow larger. As a child these were the ones I kept as a pet. I would keep them for a couple of weeks and let them go again once I got tired of them. The best trick to catch them is to muddy the water. I swish my feet along the bottom of the creek causing the mud to come up and cloud the water. As soon as the water carried the cloudy water downstream I would hunt and sure enough these creatures would be out. They like the cover of darkness or muddy water so they can hide from their enemies. They feel safe and venture out of their hiding places when the water is dark.
You had to hunt fast as they will go back into hiding as the water clears. I would sometimes find several each time I muddied the water. I also had them as pets and never ate them. I would have been horrified to find someone catching them for dinner. However I know some do but hope my readers are of the "keeping them for pets" kind.
Crayfish made good additions to your fish tank. However you need to be careful that the fish aren�t so small that the crayfish will harm them or that the fish so large they eat the crayfish.
The photo here shows a blue crayfish. You can find them in many colors from blue to white.
They will clean the bottom of the tank and eat whatever they find. They also eat plants and garbage along the bottom. This is why they are classified as unclean meat. They make a lot better pets then something on your plate.
What do these critters eat? Pet stores will sell shrimp pellets that will satisfy their hunger. It would also be good to give them a little green to eat like lettuce and such. Be sure to remove anything left over as it could cloud your aquarium water.
This photo shows one that was caught in the wild. If you catch one of these critters for your tank remember that will grow to around five to six inches so be prepared to have a large tank or let them go as they get to big for your aquarium.
Many pet stores sell dwarf crawfish that will stay small enough for most fish. They only grow to about an inch long. These are cute and won�t eat your average size fish.
If you get tired of them don�t ever let your creatures go in the wild. Either they will quickly die or else spread and could harm the local environment.
When I was a child I liked to catch them and keep them for awhile. The best way I found to catch these crawfish was to go to the local creek.
I would wade around and muddy the water. The crawfish would think that it was getting dark and safe to come out.
As soon as the water would clear enough for me to see they would be scrambling back under the rocks but not in time, enabling me to grab them.
This pretty creature in the photo above would make a nice pet. It looks gold in color and I have never seen these for sale.
They are native to Alabama and Georgia in the United States and might show up on eBay once folks discover their nice color.


text:
'From Chicago . . .': How Ayo Dosunmu Reacted to 1st Bulls' Start
By K.C. Johnson	• Published December 6, 2021
Dosunmu represents Chicago in 1st Bulls start originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Ayo Dosunmu carries himself with a maturity that belies his tender age of 21, both on and off the court.
But the rookie from Morgan Park HIgh School and University of Illinois flashed some innocence when he failed to fully understand a line of questioning about being introduced as "from Chicago . . ." before his first NBA start Monday night.
Typically, players are introduced by their colleges. And since Dosunmu stayed in state and played at the University of Illinois, he didn't at first fully grasp a question about the development.
Ayo Dosunmu 2 hours ago
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"They asked me," Dosunmu said. "I'm from Chicago. Chicago, Illinois, it's all the same thing really. Chicago is in Illinois. But I'm from Chicago. I love Champaign, but I'm from Chicago."
The choice carries significance because it's how the Chicago Bulls used to introduce Derrick Rose.
"Yeah, he's from Chicago too," Dosunmu interjected, innocently. "We're both from the south side."
Told by a reporter the significance of Dosunmu's introduction mirroring that of Rose's, the rookie finally understood.
"Ohhhhh, OK. There we go," he said, capping a humorous exchange. "That's a bonus of course because he's a legend and everything he did for the city of Chicago. Being from Chicago of course, there are areas I look up to his journey."
But then Dosunmu flashed the aforementioned maturity and spoke with eloquence about the introduction.
"I like to be proud to say I'm from Chicago because I know the ups and downs of the city," Dosunmu said. "I've been here my whole life. I've seen so many things, so much tragedy. For me to be in this position, doing what I love at the highest level, anytime I get an opportunity to show love to where I came from, I always love to do that."
Click here to follow the Bulls Talk Podcast.
Copyright RSN


text:
2019: R-APC Will Determine Next President - Galadima
Buba Galadima.
National Chairman of Reformed All Progressives Congress, Buba Galadima says nobody would win the presidential election in 2019 without the group's endorsement.
The leadership of the new splinter group in the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Reformed All Progressives Congress (r-APC) has vowed that no one will win the presidential election in 2019 without its endorsement.
The group, whose support base is mainly from the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) political bloc in the APC, last Thursday formally declared its existence and listed several national and state officers of the faction.
Speaking in an interview on Saturday, National Chairman of r-APC, Buba Galadima said that one of the reasons for the emergence of the faction was the failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration to fulfill the promises made to the people.
Also read: 3 Quick Steps To Get New BOUNCE FOOTBALL Feature
Galadima, who is regarded as a very close ally of President Buhari's until lately, said the President betrayed him by abandoning him and others who were part of the political struggle to make him President.
He said the President had disappointed those of them that gave him support because he was unable to perform.
"He betrayed me on the agreement to better the lives of Nigerians, to bring reconciliation to Nigerians, to build the economy, to build the infrastructure," he said.
The rAPC Chairman said that the only way President Buhari could get the support of Nigerians for his second term bid was if he "performs and is able to deliver dividends of democracy according to the party's manifesto."
Don't forget to share this article with your friends
Also Watch: Why African Teams Crashed Out Of 2018 World Cup | Over The Bottles


text:
World » Europe » France » Ile-de-France » Paris
Popular topics in Paris
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I resumed mountain biking last year, after a three-decade hiatus, and consider myself a beginning or intermediate biker. Roy made me feel comfortable at Northstar within a few hours. I returned the following day and biked for several hours by myself and had a blast.
Lift-accessed mountain biking is just one development that has made the sport more accessible and fun, he said. Bike technology has improved, with lighter frames and shock absorbers on the front and back wheels minimizing strain for the rider. The manufacturer Specialized Bicycle Components has provided new bikes and increased educational requirements for the school's instructors, Roy said.
Both Northstar and Kirkwood offer lift-assisted mountain biking in Northern California, along with four other ski resorts in the eastern Sierra and Southern California, according to the website MTBparks.com. Ski resorts have increasingly turned to mountain biking to attract visitors in the summer.
Some mountain biking purists object to the cost; Northstar charges $54 for a lift ticket. But riders at the resort said the ticket is a worthwhile splurge, even if it is not part of their regular biking routine. I agree: The cost is one reason I would not do it regularly, along with the crowds and resort buildings, which distract from the sense of backcountry exploration that convinced me to return to mountain biking.
Still, for pure biking enjoyment, it's hard to beat the ski resorts. The lifts really are a game changer.
"That's the whole reason you come here," said Carlos Salas of San Jose, who brings his three children to Northstar a couple of times each summer.
"There are days when I don't even pedal," said Roy, explaining that the lifts and the slope of the mountain do all the work.
Other benefits of biking at ski resorts include groomed trails, which means less dust and obstacles such as big rocks, and man-made features you can ride, such as embankments and jumps.
Northstar operates a gondola to get riders from the parking lot to the heart of the mountain. The gondola cars alternate with platforms for the bikes, which is the same way the two ski lifts serving the bike trails run.
Once at the top of the mountain, the broad expanse of Martis Valley and mountains fill the view. A couple of trails feature views of Lake Tahoe, which sits behind Northstar.
The trails cover most of the front mountain, but biking is limited to two runs on the resort's backside locations. The trails are wide fire roads and narrower single track and have difficulty ratings just like ski runs, with green and blue runs being easier and black diamond and double diamond offering harder rides. Some trails are for bikers only, some for bikers and hikers, and some for hikers only. I saw few hikers there. The toughest, steepest ski runs are closed to bikers.
Roy's class lasted about four hours. He mostly explained the basics and observed how we rode. The key points were to keep our feet on the pedals just above the arch, for maximum power.
Stand most of the time, he said, with your body in a slightly crouched "ready" position like the ones used in tennis and skiing. And keep your index fingers on the brakes, only depressing them halfway when needed, so you don't send yourself flying off the bike.
My one fall was the result of forgetting the last lesson. When I started to skid in some rubble, I hit only the rear brake all the way, increasing my slide until the bike came out from under me. I brushed off the dirt with a smile.
The next day I returned to Northstar to ride alone, which is a lot more fun than getting a lesson. My comfort, however, was the result of Roy's instruction.
I rode trails at every difficulty level except for black double diamond, which are narrow and winding and contain wooden jumps that aren't easily avoided. I could take the jumps on the single black diamond runs more slowly or go around them. Riders on the double diamond runs go much faster than those on the easier runs.
For those new to downhill biking, I recommend two black diamond trails, Woods and Coaster. Woods winds through forest, with some jumps and banked curves, but nothing too intense. I felt the sense of exploration there that I look for in mountain biking.
Coaster is classic single track, with plenty of curves, some with wood embankments and jumps. The trail has enough thrills to race the pulse but breaks them up enough to make a crash less likely.
Ski lifts don't eliminate the physical fatigue of mountain biking. My legs were sore from standing so much. But I also got in a lot more thrills, without the strain of the grueling ride uphill. All fun and no pump – biking might never be the same again.


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AUDL Reset: Captains, Hot Stove
By Adam Ruffner
The offseason is really hitting its stride, with teams completing tryouts and roster announcements in full swing. We're still just over two months away from the start of the 2020 regular season in April, but there's definitely a buzz going around the league already.
Captain Announcemments
Hustle leadership
The Atlanta Hustle have named a squad of team leaders for 2020 in Matt Smith, Kelvin Williams, Austin Taylor, and Javier Ortiz. The Hustle finished 5-7 last year, failing to make the playoffs for the third straight season.
Smith and Williams have been with the Hustle since day one, and are the franchise leaders in goals and blocks, respectively. Smith enters 2020 with the third most goals (266) all-time in league history, and has never scored fewer than 30 goals in a season during his five-year career in Atlanta. Wiliams has led the team in blocks each of the last four seasons, and was the Hustle's Integrity Award nominee in 2019.
A focal point of the Hustle offense since joining the team in 2016, Taylor has amassed 80 assists, 39 goals, and 966 completions (95.00 percent rate) in 44 career regular season games.
Ortiz is a defender entering his sixth professional season in the AUDL, and second in Atlanta. He played five games for the Hustle in 2019 before getting sidelined with an injury.
San Diego Selects Tran And Radlauer As 2020 Captains
Coming off the best season in franchise history, the San Diego Growlers have selected a pair of homegrown players—Michael Tran and Scott Radlauer—to represent the team. The Growlers won their first West Division title in 2019, and made their first appearance at Championship Weekend before begin eliminated by Dallas in the semifinals.
Tran has been one of the most reliable handlers in the division the past two seasons, completing over 900 throws and helping guide one of the best scoring units in the AUDL. He's particularly effective in the redzone, and despite his primary role as a thrower, moves extremely well in space, collecting 41 goals in 2018 and 2019 combined, including the playoffs.
Radlauer has emerged as one of the top shutdown defenders in the league since joining the Growlers in 2018. He was voted "Best Cutter Defender" in the West in 2019, and finished ninth in the AUDL with 18 blocks.
Matis And Vohnoutka Return As Minnesota Captains For the second straight season, Bryan Vohnoutka and Brandon Matis will assume captainship duties for the Minnesota Wind Chill. The Wind Chill have been one of the most active teams this offseason, adding Matt Rehder and Mark Lloyd to an already talented roster, and will enter the 2020 season with a lot of expectations despite failing to reach the postseason last year.
The team's lone All-Star selection in 2019, Vohnoutka has been one of the best downfield scoring threats in the division the past two seasons. He has back-to-back seasons of 30+ assists and 30+ goals, and his 42 goals last year tied him for 10th in the AUDL.
The franchise leader in games played and the sole Wind Chil player to play every season since the team's inaugural season in 2013, Matis has led a Minnesota defense that routinely is among the league's best in takeaways. He has 50 assists, 78 goals, and 66 blocks in 84 career games.
Roster Movement
Martin Re-Signs WIth Philly
A defender his first two seasons in the league, Greg Martin was primarily used in an receiving role last season for the Philadelphia Phoenix offense and excelled. He racked up 20 goals in just six games, limited by injury. A full season could make Martin a 40-goal scorer alongside teammate Himalaya Mehta.
Braun, Bloodgood, Maxstadt Re-Sign With DC
The DC Breeze continue their tear of re-signings, adding Garrett Braun, Xavier Maxstadt, and David Bloodgood among a host of other signings. DC has made the playoffs in each of the past four seasons, but will be joining the newly formed Atlantic Division in 2020.
A member of the All-AUDL Rookie second team, Braun excelled as an uptempo passer-receiver hybrid in the Breeze offense. His contibuted 33 scores to a DC offense that finished third overall in scoring efficiency in 2019; Braun completed 158 passes at a 95.20 rate as a rookie.
Maxstadt is returning for his third season with the Breeze. A big throw handler who often leads the team's counterattack from the D-line, Maxstadt has 39 assists and over 360 completions combined in his first two seasons in DC.
Bloodgood missed the entire 2018 season with an injury, but when healthy, has been one of the team's top defenders. A defender with a high field IQ and quick decision making, Bloodgood has excelled at jumping throwing lanes and initiating the counterattack immediately; he has 31 assists and 27 blocks in 24 career regular season games for the Breeze.
Brock, Plew, Carpenter Return For Ninth Season
The Indianapolis AlleyCats are coming off a historic season for their franchise, and are continuing to build around the pillar of players that have been there from the beginning. League legends Cameron Brock, Keenan Plew, and Travis Carpenter—three of the AUDL's "Original Six"—are coming back, while All-Star receiver Rick Gross returns for his eighth season with the 'Cats.
Brock is the league's all-time leading goal scorer, having secured his 500th goal during the 2019 season, and holding a ridiculous 200+ goal advantage over second place all-time, which is held by his teammate Plew. Brock scored the fewest goals (38) in his professional career last year, but set a career high in completion percentage while failing to commit a drop in 11 regular season appearances.
Plew is the league's all-time leader in assists (358) and total scores (644), and second all-time in completions (3584). 2019 was also a down year for Plew in terms of raw scoring numbers, but the veteran passer still complmeted 464 throws at a career-high 97.70 percent rate for a semifinalist; he has over 1750 completions the past three regular seasons alone.
Carpenter had his best season as a pro in 2019, finishing on the All-AUDL FIrst Team and as an MVP finalist. He led Indy in assists, completions, and points played, doing a little bit of everything when the team called upon him in crucial situations.
Gross scored his fewest goals since 2016 last year, but still finished eighth in the AUDL with 46, to give a sense of the kind of streak he's been on the last three seasons. The 25-year-old already has 249 career goals, putting him seventh all-time.
Growlers Re-Sign Dunn And Goose, Add All-Star El-Salaam
The Growlers also re-signed two of the best offensive weapons in the West in All-AUDL First Teamer Travis Dunn and Jonathan Helton. They also went out and got an All-Star in free agency with the signing of Khalif El-Salaam for 2020.
Dunn is coming off back-to-back first team selections from 2018 and 2019, and has led the Growlers in assists in each of the past two seasons. He has four consecutive 30+ goal seasons, and over 1000 career completions in five seasons with San Diego.
Helton is one of the all-time greats to have played in the AUDL, and the two-time MVP had one of his best seasons in his nine-year career with the Growlers in 2019. The 35-year-old finished second on the team in assists and fourth in goals while playing the most points since 2015.
El-Salaam has been one of the best all-around contributors in the West in his two seasons of play with Seattle. He was particularly effective in his last matchup against the Growlers, having the best individual performance of his career with six assists and seven goals on 41-of-43 throws.
Madison Veterans Return
After announcing Colin Camp and Kevin Pettit-Scantling as captains, the Madison Radicals have re-signed team vets Kevin Brown, Joshua Wilson, Andrew Meshnick, Thomas Coolidge. With the exception of Camp—who is the franchise leader in goals—the returners have all been with the team since the Radicals founding in 2013.
Despite the Radicals poor performances last year, they still led the league in points allowed and team defensive efficiency. And with the return of longtime defensive stalwarts Pettit-Scantling, Wilson, Meshnick, and Coolidge, Madison figures to once again have one of the top defensive rotations in 2020.
Edmonds Re-Signs With Thunderbirds
Thomas Edmonds now joins Max Sheppard as the only committed members so far to the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds 2020 roster. I mentioned it on Twitter, but Edmonds had one of the most impressive offensive seasons in the league last year. He was one of just seven players in the league to have 40+ assists and 500+ completions, and of that group, the only one to score 30+ goals.
In an effort to raise racial awareness and increase accessibility of the sport in local communities, the AUDL is launching a diversity initiative. The AUDL has started by becoming a major sponsor for the Color of Ultimate showcase game that took place this past weekend—the league will continue to make announcements in the coming weeks about further efforts.
First Toss Of 2020
You know we're getting closer to the opening pull when the first new Tuesday Toss of the year drops. This one is particularly worth your time, as it covers the moves of two AUDL legends in Mark Lloyd and Kurt Gibson.
First Look At Boston
Blizzard conditions couldn't keep 80 players from @bostongloryaudl tryouts this past Saturday. Look out @theAUDL, we're comin for you! pic.twitter.com/kj6I3U4tKU
— Boston Glory (@bostongloryaudl) January 20, 2020


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San Francisco's Carpool Tunnel talks upcoming album 'Bloom,' joining Pure Noise Records
Pure Noise Records/Courtesy
By Skylar De Paul | Senior Staff
Thank u, Netflix: 'ariana grande: excuse me, i love you' is glamorous relic of live performance
Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold offers simple company with 'A Very Lonely Solstice' livestream
'In The Darkest Of Nights, Let The Birds Sing' is a lame duck from Foster The People
"Has it really been a year?" the San Francisco-based indie rock band Carpool Tunnel asks in its newest single, "Empty Faces." The questioning line was recorded sometime last fall, but the song didn't release until Dec. 3 of this year — and it now feels heavier than anyone could have anticipated in a pre-pandemic world.
For lead guitarist Brad Kearsley, lead vocalist and guitarist Ben Koppenjan, drummer Danny Stauffer and bassist Spencer Layne, this single marks a celebratory milestone: "Empty Faces" is Carpool Tunnel's first song released under its shiny new label, Pure Noise Records. Having signed in July and announced the big transition on the day the single broke, the band is feeling ever grateful and ready to see where this new step will lead them.
"The things that we want to do, we feel like we can just actually do now, as before it was this giant mountain we had to climb," Kearsley said in an interview with The Daily Californian. "And it still is a mountain we have to climb, but it's becoming a lot clearer at the end of the tunnel."
Quarantine restrictions have temporarily limited some of what's to come — tours, album release celebrations and festival circuits — but in the meantime, the band has been tapping into its creative potential and adapting to fresh songwriting and production methods.
"We write music all for the same reason," Koppenjan said, "and that's partly as a therapeutic reason, but also we all have the same vision of (creating) music for people that understand the way that we're feeling."
Now, Carpool Tunnel is reaching more listeners than ever due to Pure Noise's promotion and some good old-fashioned online virality. After posting a live rendition of the "Drake & Josh" theme song "I Found a Way" on TikTok, the band saw its monthly listener count rise by about 10,000, and the video currently sits at more than 220,000 views.
Although the group's sound is a departure from the typical Pure Noise artist, the band members have been following the record label — which was originally founded in Berkeley — closely since their teenage years, taking inspiration from local Pure Noise bands and even the East Bay's own Green Day frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong.
On Jan. 11, Armstrong surprised the crowd at a Carpool Tunnel show in Oakland's The Golden Bull, simultaneously giving the band a surreal experience of its own. "In the middle of playing our song 'Impressions,' I looked to the left and (Armstrong) was standing there just watching us," Kearsley said. "I was just like 'Holy f— … OK, now really don't screw up.' "
But it wasn't always packed crowds and star-studded lineups. The band went through its fair share of 10-hour drives and late nights, sometimes out of state, only to be met by a three-person audience and the venue owners.
"There is something to gain from everything," Kearsley said. "Whether we meet one person at the venue that likes us and now has that personal connection or we see something that's like 'Wow, that was crazy. Good thing we went on this trip' — whatever it is, we try to make something out of everything. … Nothing is a waste, it's life experience and band experience."
The band is gearing up for its debut full-length release, appropriately titled Bloom, next year. Recorded in October 2019, the streamable LP is meant to capture the essence of a live Carpool Tunnel concert. The record's release will mark another first for the band, but longtime fans can rest assured that they have probably already heard most of Bloom performed live at past shows.
Bloom doesn't have an announced release date yet, but the band is already hoping to have its sophomore album recorded sometime toward the beginning of next year.
"Now that we've had all this time to not play shows and be at the same house for like four months together and write all these new songs, I think it gave us a lot more clarity in terms of what we really want to create and what we really want to do as a band," Koppenjan said.
After living together, evolving internal communication as a band and facing personal growth as individuals, Carpool Tunnel has opened hefty doors into a new era of songwriting, performance and opportunity — postponed tours or not.
"Our taste has obviously changed in three years, but our purpose of the band is the same," Kearsley said. "We want to spread love and good energy and create music that helps people live through their life and give them an experience that they can benefit from, and that's kind of been the goal from the start."
Contact Skylar De Paul at [email protected]. Tweet her at @skylardepaul.
Ben Koppenjan, Bloom, Brad Kearsley, Carpool Tunnel, Danny Stauffer, Drake & Josh, Empty Faces, Pure Noise Records, Spencer Layne, Tik Tok


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Home / Travel Guides - Las Vegas / What To Do In Las Vegas
what to do in las vegas
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Chase Your Dreams in Sin CityBehind the GlitzWhat to Do in Las VegasLas Vegas Travel with KidsBest Restaurants in Las VegasBest Attractions in Las VegasLas Vegas in 3 DaysZiplinesLas Vegas CasinosGamblingLas Vegas SightseeingLas Vegas Sports and RecreationShopping in Las VegasLas Vegas NightlifeLas Vegas Performing ArtsLas Vegas Production ShowsLas Vegas EventsExplorer PassLas Vegas BuffetsLong HaulingBenny BinionTravel TipsFind the Best Displays of Artists' and Movie CostumesTop U.S. Destinations That Nearly Guarantee SunshineInspector Picks: 10 Lodgings with Gorgeous Greenery and Scenery5 Great Vegas Attractions Most People MissShopping and Dining Las Vegas Style5 Old-School Vegas Restaurants Locals Love5 Cheap Las Vegas Attractions for $10 or Less
The massive Vegas Strip hotels look positively Lilliputian from the top of the Stratosphere Tower (2000 Las Vegas Blvd. S.), the tallest freestanding tower in the U.S. If your stomach's made of steel, take a spin on the tower-top Insanity—The Ride.
Vegas also has the tallest observation wheel in the world. Spend a half-hour riding the High Roller (3545 Las Vegas Blvd. S.).
The "Ocean's Eleven" crew celebrated its successful Bellagio (3600 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) heist in front of the resort's dancing fountains—a signature Strip spectacle choreographed to lights and music. Head inside to smell the flowers at the Bellagio Conservatory, a botanical display that changes its whimsical theme with the seasons and often takes a Lewis Carroll-esque turn down the rabbit hole.
CityCenter Las Vegas (3720 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) brings contemporary architecture to the often-cartoonish Strip. Aesthetically speaking, this complex of buildings (three hotels and a residential tower) couldn't be further from outlandish Arthurian castles and chlorinated Venetian canals. Wander through crazy-expensive The Shops at Crystals mall and sleek ARIA Resort & Casino (3730 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) and decide for yourself if that's a good thing.
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The original heart of town beats under a 90-foot-high canopy embedded with 12.5 million LED lights. Fremont Street Experience (425 Fremont St.) shows feature eye-popping animation synchronized to music and run nightly on the hour from dusk to midnight.
Everything from all-you-can-eat crab legs to Middle Eastern barbecue to cheesecake will threaten that taut belly at a Vegas buffet. Local restaurants include the gourmet high end ($40 and up) with super spreads at the Wynn Las Vegas (3131 Las Vegas Blvd. S.), Caesars Palace and Bellagio.
In the 1960s, mile-high marquee letters spelled out names like Sinatra, Liberace and Newton. Nowadays high-tech production shows rule the Strip. If you can't score seats for Cirque du Soleil's "The Beatles LOVE" show at The Mirage (3400 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) during your vacation, try "Zumanity" at New York-New York (3790 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) or "Mystère" at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino (3300 Las Vegas Blvd. S.).
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Hit the casinos and roll the bones, lay chips on double-zeros or put big money on a football game. Las Vegas will thank you—or perhaps wish you'd never come to town. The downtown joints offer lower minimum bets and slightly better payout rates. If you want the full Strip casino experience, try the plush gaming floor at Encore Las Vegas (3121 Las Vegas Blvd. S.).
Jackpots come in handy at the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop (713 Las Vegas Blvd. S.), the once-anonymous establishment that's become a Vegas shopping sensation since "Pawn Stars" premiered on the History Channel. Fans will likely recognize some of the merchandise—from Civil War muskets to Muhammad Ali memorabilia—the "stars" have bought from customers.
Pull a little black dress or designer dress shirt off the boutique rack and strut your stuff at a Strip nightclub. Choose a hot destination for dancing such as Tao at The Venetian Las Vegas (3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) and XS at Encore Las Vegas. And there's always the chance you'll see a celebutante behaving scandalously.
Fun things to do on the Strip for free include watching the 50-foot-high faux volcano in front of The Mirage, which erupts nightly.
Perhaps the most essential of all Sin City travel experiences is simply walking down the Las Vegas Strip at night and feasting your eyes on what is arguably the most dazzling display of neon and LED lights on the planet.
Chase Your Dreams in Sin City
Behind the Glitz
Las Vegas Travel with Kids
Best Restaurants in Las Vegas
Best Attractions in Las Vegas
Las Vegas in 3 Days
Ziplines
Las Vegas Sports and Recreation
Shopping in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Nightlife
Las Vegas Performing Arts
Las Vegas Production Shows
Las Vegas Events
Las Vegas Buffets
Long Hauling
Benny Binion
Find the Best Displays of Artists' and Movie Costumes
Top U.S. Destinations That Nearly Guarantee Sunshine
Inspector Picks: 10 Lodgings with Gorgeous Greenery and Scenery
5 Great Vegas Attractions Most People Miss
Shopping and Dining Las Vegas Style
5 Old-School Vegas Restaurants Locals Love
5 Cheap Las Vegas Attractions for $10 or Less
Las VegasHotels
Las VegasAttractions
Las VegasRestaurants
Las VegasCampgrounds
Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel
3400 Paradise Rd. Las Vegas, NV 89169
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Autograph Collection
3708 Las Vegas Blvd S. Las Vegas, NV 89109
Homewood Suites by Hilton Las Vegas Airport
230 Hidden Well Rd. Las Vegas, NV 89119
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Clark County's sales tax is 8.25 percent. The county also imposes a 12 percent tax on lodgings, with an additional 1 percent tax for properties within the city of Las Vegas boundaries.
311, or (702) 828-3111 (also valid for TTY)
Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center, (702) 733-8800; MountainView Hospital, (702) 962-5000; Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center, (702) 853-3000; Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center, (702) 961-5000; University Medical Center, (702) 383-2000; Valley Hospital Medical Center, (702) 388-4000.
3150 Paradise Rd. Las Vegas, NV 89109. Phone:(702)892-0711 or (877)847-4858
McCarran International Airport (LAS) is about 10 miles south of downtown Las Vegas via Las Vegas Boulevard and 3.5 miles south of the Las Vegas Convention Center via Paradise Road, just a few minutes' drive from the Strip's southern end. One of the nation's busiest airports, it serves most major airlines.
Hertz offers discounts to AAA members; phone (702) 262-7700 for the airport, (800) 654-3131 for the Strip.
Greyhound Lines Inc., 200 S. Main St., is the major bus company serving Las Vegas; phone (702) 384-9561.
Major cab companies include Ace, (702) 888-4888; Checker/Yellow Cab/Star, (702) 873-8012; and Whittlesea Blue Cab, (702) 384-6111. Base activation fee is $3.50 and $2.88 for each mile, plus 54 cents for every minute the cab is waiting or traveling under 8 to 12 mph. Trips to the airport incur a $2 surcharge. Payment by credit card incurs a fee of $3.
The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) provides bus service to most parts of the city. The most useful to visitors are the Deuce double-decker buses serving the Strip. The buses operate 24 hours daily, run every 7-10 minutes and stop at nearly every Strip hotel property.


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Button ready to extend deal with McLaren
Aug.30 – 2009 world champion Jenson Button is fully prepared for deal extension at McLaren Mercedes. The Champ joined the McLaren on a two-year, £6 million contract in 2009 with a choice to extend it by a further year.
Button and team point to that they need to extend the working relationship, but McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is keen to tie Button down to a multi-year contract while Jenson Button hopes the team triggers the one-year opportunity.
Question about the next year deal, Button replied: "Well, if he (Whitmarsh) takes up the option… All he has to do is say yes, and I will say yes because I want to be here next year.
"It's up to the team as to when they approach me, but for me I'm the happiest I've been with the car."
But, according to Telegraph Sport 'both sides is to agree a long-term deal which will suit both parties – Button will seek to cut down the number of PR days and sponsorship activities he must perform – McLaren are known to work their drivers harder than any other team – while the team, whose business model is sponsor-driven, will seek to strike the right balance between his salary and their commercial revenues.'
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Sunday December 8, 2019 21:02 319
'When the Moon was Full' to vie at Political Filmfest of Carcassonne
'When the Moon was Full' is to vie at the 2nd Int'l Political Film Festival of Carcassonne in France.
Fajr-applauded movie 'When the Moon was Full' is to vie at the 2nd edition of the International Political Film Festival of Carcassonne in France.
The main competition section of the French film festival will host Narges Abyar's award-winning movie.
'When the Moon was Full' will be in contention with 6 other feature films from around the globe.
The flick will have its third international premiere at the International Film Festival of Carcassonne as it was previously screened at the 24th Busan Int'l Film Festival in South Korea as well as the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival where it succeeded to grab the Audience Award of the event.
The big winner of the 37th Fajr Film Festival 'Night of the Full Moon' recounts a true love story of Abdul-Hamid Rigi, a member of the Jundallah terrorist group.
Hamid Rigi marries Faezeh Mansouri, a woman from Tehran. Faezeh is forced to leave her homeland along with her brother, Shahab, to live in Pakistan where they find themselves involved in the Jundallah rebel activities.
The Rigi brothers were arrested by Iranian security forces and were executed in 2010.
The movie was nominated in 13 categories at the 37th Fajr Film Festival and garnered six main Awards of the event, including Best Director, Best Film, Best Leading Actor (Shakiba), Best Leading Actress (Shakerdoust), Best Supporting Actress (Sadr-Orafaee), and Best Makeup (Iman Omidvari).
Elnaz Shakerdoust, Houtan Shakiba, Fereshteh Sadr-Orafaee and Shabnam Moqaddami are among the cast of the film.
The International Political Film Festival (FIFP) is a film festival for the general public and schools.
This festival will highlight the works, French and foreign, of fiction and political documentaries of cinema and television. The festival will bring 5 days of screenings, passion, exchanges and meetings.
The second edition of the event will be held from 10 to 14 December, 2019.
MM/FM
'When the Moon was Full'
When the Moon was Full
International Film Festival of Carcassonne
Who were Shakerdoust contenders in France?
'When the Moon was Full' wins in France
Iran Cinema Organization attends Cannes
'French Relation' finishes shooting in Italy
'Taken' director to attend Fajr festival
FIFF receives mass submissions so far
Iran film 'Mermaid' tops Cannes filmfest
Iran thespians head to Shakespeare festival


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Biological and Psychological Theories and Criminal Behavior
Categories: Air Pollution
Increased crime levels have become a significant problem in the United States. Researchers have attempted to address these problems by looking deeper into the human body. This research has given law enforcement a broader understanding of why certain human characteristics can contribute to crime. Criminal behavior is said to have no singular driving force. Therefore, internal and external factors such as elevated levels of hormones, psychosis, and personality characteristics and environmental contamination can act as a contribution. This essay will address how biological and psychological theories have an underlying contribution to criminal behavior.
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Body chemistry theories such as elevated levels of hormones have been shown to cause disruptive behaviors in both males and females. For example, increased levels of testosterone have been linked to negative behaviors. According to Criminal Justice Research, "Researchers
have found that higher levels of this hormone are associated with increased levels of violence and aggression, both in males and females. Criminal samples have been found to have higher testosterone levels when compared with noncriminal samples, although these levels were still
within normal limits" (Criminal Justice Research, 2015).
Although individuals with therapeutic levels of testosterone are not seen to be aggressive or contentious, heightened levels can lead to dominance and early signs of criminal involvement. Studies have shown that males who possess
an enhanced level of testosterone can have a higher sex drive and be more prone to committing rape. Additionally, the abuse of steroids has been shown to increase testosterone levels in males to an unhealthy level. Steroids are primarily used by bodybuilders who inject themselves with an
anabolic androgenic solution that may cause hypomania or manic episodes.
Professor P
The abuse of steroids has attributed to the acts of robbery, assault, and battery.
Studies have also shown that females who possess higher levels of testosterone exhibit aggressive dominant behaviors. These behaviors often stem from a subtle change in hormones. Environmental factors such as inadequate living conditions and exposure to contaminants have contributed to violent tendencies and social aggression. Environmental factors have been proven to elevate violent behaviors. For example, exposure to toxic chemicals can play a part in the alteration of one\'s mood. Studies have shown that pregnant mothers and children are greatly affected by these encounters. Women who consumed alcohol or smoked while pregnant were more likely to have children with health problems. "Prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs has the potential to cause a wide spectrum of physical and developmental challenges for these infants" (NCSACW, 2019). Drug exposure and second-hand smoke during fetal development have caused effects such as behavioral and developmental delays in later years. Additionally, lead has been shown to hinder a child\'s developmental process. According to Schmalleger (2018), lead interferes with normal brain development in children by destroying the myelin sheaths that surround the brain cells, interfering with neurotransmission. Lead poisoning and air pollution can hinder an individual\'s ability to properly develop often causing damage to parts of the brain. Short-term contamination of lead in water has resulted in a spoke of blood lead levels in humans.
As a result, levels of aggression and violent tendencies have increased from childhood into adulthood. In addition, psychological theories such as psychosis and personality disorders have been shown to cause disruptive behaviors in both males and females. Psychological theories differ
greatly from body chemistry theories in that they are generally linked to mental illness. For example, temperament and emotional stability allow individuals to behave in an appropriate manner. In early childhood and infancy, temperament that is uncontrolled can predict criminal tendencies later in life. For instance, negative mood in childhood can lead to undesirable behaviors. Personality characteristics are primarily linked to antisocial behaviors that detach
them from the social norms. For example, individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia are often classified as psychotic and tend to show these signs young adulthood. These signs can include delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia. Due to the mental abnormalities they possess, they can
develop a pattern of violent behaviors. According to Schmalleger (2018), "Psychopaths, many of whom are known as effective manipulators, and who clearly understand the motivations of others, are said to disassociate emotionally from their actions and lack empathy or sensitivity toward others." Although psychopaths have an understanding of their actions and surroundings, they are more likely to commit crimes due to a lack of emotion or remorse. Studies show that, "Anger related to delusions was strongly linked with attempting to harm others. After adjusting for other factors, 31% of the minor violence could be attributed to anger connected with delusions" (Szalavitz, 2013). Personality characteristics often stem from temperament that is
developed throughout childhood.
In my opinion, both biological and psychological theories can explain why some individuals have the potential to commit crimes over others. Crimes aren't generally derived from one single factor, but instead from multiple factors. Individuals may suffer from poor environmental factors or personal occurrences that can lead them to be psychologically unstable. For example, personality traits and mental disabilities contribute to the crimes committed today. Someone who behaves in an extreme manner will believe their actions are acceptable, whereas society may believe they are not. Biological theories, such as hormones, can greatly affect how one functions. Men who experiment with steroids can experience roid rage which leads to a loss of impulse control. In addition, an individual living in an area that is contaminated with toxins and impoverished is more likely to experience increased brain damage compared to someone
who lives in an uncontaminated area. I believe that dysfunctions occurring in ones brain will affect their ability to make informed choices. These four theories explain the underlying causes of criminal behavior executed by human beings.
Biological and psychological theories have helped contribute to the identification of criminal behavior in humans. Theories show that human behavior results from a variety of factors, including internal and external influences. These influences can have a negative impact on individuals resulting in unpredictable behavior. Studies conducted on genetics, brain function, and mental disabilities provide law enforcement with the knowledge and understanding of what contributes to violent criminal behavior.
Biological and Psychological Theories and Criminal Behavior. (2021, Oct 31). Retrieved from http://envrexperts.com/free-essays/essay-about-biological-and-psychological-theories-and-criminal-behavior
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In this video, I'm going to show you guys how to use a mod that allows you to adjust the speed in Terraria. The app that you will need to do this is Game Guardian, the APK download will be linked below. Once you open up the mod menu, you can either speed up or slow down the game. Enjoy!
Thanks for watching! Make sure to leave a LIKE if this video helped you out and SUBSCRIBE for more Terraria content!
I made this video while on vacation so used my dads computer to upload this.
Gameplay, Update videos, Hacks and Tutorials!!!
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OnlyOnAOL: Elena Kampouris on her 'Big Fat Greek' craving
Donna Freydkin, AOL.com
Apr 5th 2016 11:15AM
By: Donna Freydkin
For starters, with her flowing blonde hair, Elena Kampouris doesn't look like she'd be the half-Greek daughter of Toula Portokalos, played by Nia Vardalos in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2," now in theaters.
And that's why New Jersey actress Elena Kampouris is beyond thankful that she listened to her dad and put herself on tape to audition for the role of Paris, the daughter of Vardalos and her movie husband, John Corbett. Paris wants to leave the nest. Mom isn't quite enamored of the idea. (Watch our interview with Vardalos above).
See more: OnlyOnAOL: Nia Vardalos has one word for naysayers: move
"I don't look like a typical Greek girl. I knew my chances were slim. I knew I would get rejected and it would break my heart and I'd be disowned by my Greek family," says Kampouris, who's half-Greek in real life. "Nia looked past the surface and believed in me. I've only been doing this for four years."
By this, she means appearing in Jason Reitman's "Labor Day" and "Men, Women & Children." And just completing her very first magazine cover shoot, despite inclement weather.
"It was very fun. We were shooting out in the pouring rain in the streets of New York. It was freezing," she says.
To make Kampouris believable, she was brunette in "Greek Wedding," and says she's hit the jackpot with her movie and TV families. She's learned that on set, you can't be difficult or precious, and punctuality is a must. Plus, kindness isn't optional, as she learned from working with Adam Sandler on "Women & Children."
"I have a miniature English bulldog named Petunia. Adam Sandler is so cool. He let me go into his trailer and play with his bulldog, whom he brings everywhere on set. He's just really awesome. He plays basketball with the cast and has lunch with the extras," she says.
Speaking of food, what's Kampouris' Greek go-to concoction? "My first dish would be grilled octopus drenched in lemon," she says.
We'll take that with a side of Windex.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 24: Nia Vardalos of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2' attends AOL Build Speaker Series at AOL Studios In New York on March 24, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/WireImage)
Actress Nia Vardalos arrives at the 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California February 26, 2011. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENTERTAINMENT)
LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 09: Nia Vardalos arrives at the The Hollywood Reporter's Annual Women In Entertainment Breakfast at Milk Studios on December 9, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
ASPEN, CO - JANUARY 23: Nia Vardalos accepts Logo's New Now Next award from Margaret Cho during the Logo New Now Next Honors From Aspen Gay Ski Week on January 23, 2016 in Aspen, Colorado. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Logo)
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 06: Nia Vardalos arrives ahead of the Sydney premiere of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 at Event Cinemas George Street on March 6, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Don Arnold/WireImage)
TODAY -- Pictured: Nia Vardalos appears on the 'Today' show on Monday, March 14, 2016 from Rockefeller Plaza in New York -- (Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 15: Nia Vardalos attends the'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2' New York Premiere at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 theater on March 15, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Donna Ward/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 18: Actress Nia Vardalos visits the SiriusXM Studio on March 18, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)
LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 344 -- Pictured: (l-r) Actress Nia Vardalos during an interview with host Seth Meyers on March 22, 2016 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
THE CHEW - Nia Vardalos is the guest, Tuesday, March 22, 2016 on THE CHEW, airing MONDAY - FRIDAY (1-2pm, ET) on the ABC Television Network. (Photo by Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images) CARLA HALL, MICHAEL SYMON, NIA VARDALOS, DAPHNE OZ, CLINTON KELLY
Elena Kampouris


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Settlement of Claim for Birth Injuries due to an Undiagnosed Antepartum Haemorrhage
A judge at Dublin High Court has approved the final settlement of a compensation claim for birth injuries due to an undiagnosed antepartum haemorrhage.
Marlis Flood had a medical history of antepartum haemorrhaging prior to attending the Rotunda Hospital on March 30th 2006 complaining of an abdominal pain. Marlis – who was near her delivery date – was admitted into the hospital, but discharged three days later.
On April 3rd, Marlis returned to the hospital again complaining about her pain, but was sent home – only to return the following day when her pain got worse. An examination revealed that Marlis was dilated, she was admitted and her daughter Caoimhe was born later that evening.
However, due to an alleged failure to address Marlis´ concerns about abdominal pains when she had a history of antepartum haemorrhaging, and an alleged avoidable delay in delivering her child, Caoimhe suffered hypoxia in the womb and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was born.
For the first year of her life, Caoimhe had to be fed via a tube and will she will require full-time care for the rest of her life as she is a spastic quadriplegic. On her daughter´s behalf, Marlis made a claim for birth injuries due to an undiagnosed antepartum haemorrhage against the Rotunda Hospital.
Liability for Caoimhe´s birth injuries was denied; but in 2012, the hospital agreed to a €1.3 million interim settlement of compensation without an admission of liability. This week, the claim for birth injuries due to an undiagnosed antepartum haemorrhage returned to Dublin High Court for a final settlement of the claim to be approved.
At the approval hearing, Mr Justice Bernard Barton was told the circumstances leading up to Caoimhe´s birth and the consequences of the hospital´s alleged negligence. The judge approved the €2.6 million final settlement of Caoimhe´s claim for birth injuries due to an undiagnosed antepartum haemorrhage, saying that he was very relieved for the Flood family that the claim had finally and completely been resolved.
UK Birth Medical Negligence, UK Emergency Room Medical Negligence, UK Failure to Diagnose, UK Hospital Medical Negligence


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Meteor Crusher
Meteor Crusher in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.
Meteor Crusher (メテオクラッシャー, Meteokurassha?) is a recurring ability in the series. It is an ability used exclusively by Tifa Lockhart. The user charges towards the opponent with a quick flurry of punches, then knocks them upwards and away.
1.1 Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
1.2 Dissidia Final Fantasy NT
Meteor Crusher is an aerial physical Bravery to HP attack for Tifa, learned at the start of the game. It requires 30 CP to equip (15 when mastered), 130 AP to master, and has Melee High priority. Meteor Crusher has a few variations to it. By holding down the button for a short time and then releasing it, Tifa will rush foe with a flurry of punches which crushes Guards and destroys stage elements. By holding down the button for a medium amount of time and then releasing it, it increases the distance the attack will go while retaining all of its normal attributes. By holding down the button for a long time and then releasing it, it greatly increases the distance the move will travel. If a HP attack is used during the charge, Tifa will unleash a flurry of punches on the spot. If the X button is pressed during the charge, Tifa will use a feint to cancel the charge at the opponent.
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT[edit | edit source]
This section about an ability in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it.
[view · edit · purge]A meteor or "shooting star" is the visible streak of light from a meteoroid or micrometeoroid, heated and glowing from entering the Earth's atmosphere, as it sheds glowing material in its wake. Meteors rarely explode in the Earth's atmosphere. The term has become associated with quickness with the adjective "meteoric." In the context of myth and superstition, meteors and comets sighted in Ancient and Medieval Europe were once held as ill omen, said to be the message of the heavens' displeasure of man's affairs to herald grave catastrophes.
Pieces that withstand atmospheric ablation are known as meteorites, but the name of the spell in the series refers to the overall phenomenon.
Retrieved from "https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Meteor_Crusher?oldid=3236136"
Section needed (Dissidia Final Fantasy NT)


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New Orleans Hard Rock hotel under construction collapses; at least 1 dead, multiple injured
(WVUE)
NEW ORLEANS, La. - A Hard Rock Hotel and Casino building under construction in downtown New Orleans partially collapsed on Saturday, killing at least one person and injuring more than a dozen others.
Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed the fatality to reporters near the scene. Three people were originally unaccounted for, officials said, but by mid-afternoon, one of those individuals was said to have transported themselves to the hospital and was in stable condition.
Of the two other individuals still missing, New Orleans Fire Department Chief Timothy McConnell said "We believe we know where they are but we are unable to locate them at this time," adding that search teams used drones to pan the building but were unable to find the individuals.
The chief confirmed that an urban search-and-rescue team was preparing to sweep the building for the two missing people despite fears of an additional crane collapse.
"One they think they can get them safely," McConnell said adding that the other "we're not sure" because the area that the person is believed to be trapped is "a very unstable part of the building."
"We assume they are alive," McConnell said.
"This remains a very fluid and dangerous situation and every few minutes something is falling," Edwards said, warning people to stay away from the area.
McConnell said they received a call about the fallen building around 9:14 a.m. Saturday. He said the top six floors of the building collapsed and that the rest of the construction was "very unstable."
He confirmed the death and that two people were missing. He reported 18 people were taken to the hospital by EMT officials.
EMS Director Dr. Emily Nichols also added that the number of individuals who transported themselves to the hospital was "somewhere in the double digits." She also said that all who had been hospitalized are in stable condition and several patients have been discharged.
"It's still a very dangerous situation," he said. "The crane is still in place but it is unsupported and very dangerous. We are in the process of evacuating the buildings in the perimeter."
McConnell said that the crane is approximately 270 feet tall and more, possibly larger equipment will be needed to stabilize it.
Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for the uptown side of Bienville Street, the downtown side of Canal Street and lakeside of Burgundy Street as well as additional road and traffic closures spanning further out of the area, officials announced.
The building collapse was caught in a dramatic video.
The cause of the collapse wasn't immediately known.
"The frame of the building is considered stable but is unsupported, and therefore the situation is considered dangerous and residents are strongly encouraged to avoid the area until further notice," LaTonya Norton, a spokeswoman for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. said.
The fire department ordered the evacuation of nearby buildings.
"It sounded like a -- I don't know how to describe it -- like a building coming down," said Matt Worges, according to Nola.com. He witnessed the collapse from a Tulane School of Public Health classroom in a nearby building.
"It looked like the concrete just slid from the top all the way down to the street," Worges said. "The concrete just started to slide down the side."
The building was under construction at the corner of Rampart Street and Canal Street, a broad boulevard just outside the the city's famous French Quarter, lined with restaurants, hotels and retailers. Canal, which carries six lanes of traffic divided by a wide median where streetcars roll, separates the Quarter from the city's main business district.
The development calls for 350 hotel rooms and condominiums. Plans were unveiled last year. The hotel was scheduled to open in the spring.
Read updates at FOXNews.com.
Delta flight attendant sits, comforts jittery passenger in touching photo


April 27 - At least nine people are killed and 20 injured in an explosion in Damascus as U.N. monitors carry out field visits in the troubled country. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) A suicide bomber kills nine people and wounds 20 outside a central Damascus mosque, in another blow to a peace plan that the United Nations says President Bashar al-Assad has failed to honour. The blast ripped through worshippers at the Zain al-Abideen mosque, which was under heavy security for Friday prayers, often a launchpad for anti-Assad protests, opposition activists said. State media said security officials were among the wounded. A resident who spoke to security officials at the scene said a man had approached soldiers near the mosque and detonated a bomb belt when challenged. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Earlier, a loud blast was heard in the capital's al Sinaa district near a garage used by government buses and pro-Assad militiamen tasked with preventing demonstrations. Shopkeepers said the first blast hit a black Mercedes, which caught fire. The driver was wounded but no one else was hurt. Central Damascus has been spared much of the violence, although Friday's blasts occurred less than a week after a car bomb near an Iranian cultural centre in the capital. A handful of U.N. ceasefire monitors are already on the ground in Syria and U.N. officials said the full advance team of 30 out of a planned 300-strong presence would be there by Monday.


Craig's Quotes | Just Sharing Some of My Favourite Thoughts Collected and Jotted Down over the Years. Enjoy…"Together, one mind, one soul at a time, let's see how many people we can impact, empower, encourage and perhaps even inspire to reach their fullest potentials. Change YOUR world and you help change THE world…for the better"


Could it be that the way you see the world and organize information is radically different from your users? Is it possible that what makes sense to you, does not make sense to them, and is negatively impacting your website?
Each person has built up a model of how the world works based on their personal experiences. This set of assumptions is built around relationships between different concepts, and not all of those assumptions are necessarily intuitive.
For example, most of us would agree that tomatoes should appear in the salad aisle of a supermarket, despite the fact that a tomato is, in fact, a fruit. Yet our shared mental model associates tomato more with salads than it does fruit.
As a freelancer, team, or business working with a client to deliver an ecommerce site, things become even more complicated as we do not all share the same mental models, and that can lead to different people interpreting information in very different ways.
Want to ensure your designs are converting visitors?
We recently launched the Designing for Conversion course series on Shopify Partner Academy. This three-part series will teach you to leverage psychology, design principles and techniques, and testing to create designs that convert.
Visit Shopify Partner Academy to access the courses today.
The majority of us will conclude that Gill is going to complete a financial transaction. But if you were particularly passionate about fishing or enjoyed kayaking, you may infer Gill was going to a river bank.
Context and our personal experiences can change the meaning of a phrase.
No doubt you can see how this can have consequences on things like site navigation, and that the choice of labelling could have a significant impact on our ability to easily understand a website.
You might be thinking that in most circumstances people share a similar mental model, and there is indeed a degree of truth to that. But there is one serious exception.
We start to see a significant difference in perception when there is a discrepancy between the levels of knowledge people have on a subject. This problem comes up often when creating a website because the people building the website often understand the subject matter considerably more than those using the website.
That problem typically manifests itself in the website creator using terminology that doesn't match the mental model of the person using the website. Either they don't understand the language used or have to think hard about its meaning. In either case, this is going to reduce the likelihood of them converting.
For example, I once ran a usability test session for a university website where 16-year-old high potential students routinely found themselves lost in the alumni section of the website, despite it having no relevance for them. The reason was that they didn't know what Alumni meant, and so when they couldn't quickly find the answer they were looking for elsewhere, they theorized that it might be in the alumni section. As you can imagine, this didn't help users find the answers they needed to make a decision about which university to attend.
Unfamiliar terminology such as the word 'Alumni' on a university website can cause confusion.
The answer to this problem is to ensure you understand the user's mental model and to reflect that on your client's website. You can do this through user research and by looking at the terminology they use when searching the website, or even the wording they use on social media. However, the most useful technique you can use for navigation is card sorting.
You might also like: Designing With the User's Context in Mind.
If you haven't done card sorting before, don't worry. It's very straightforward.
The first step is to print out no more than 30 critical pieces of content on separate index cards. Cards for an ecommerce site, for example, might include phrases such as "delivery", "returns", or "payment management." Alternatively you could put different products on each card and see how users group them into categories.
In fact, if you have ever undertaken top task analysis, this makes a great starting point.
Next, we are going to ask users to sort the cards into groups. They can sort the cards in any way that makes sense to them. You can do this online using a tool like OptimalSort, or you can do it in person with people individually or in groups.
OptimalSort is an excellent tool for managing card sorting.
Once users have sorted the cards into piles, ask them to label those groups with whatever titles makes the most sense to them. That will give you some inspiration for the labelling of sections in the information architecture and ensure you reflect the terminology your audience uses.
Regarding how many people you do this exercise with; well that depends on available time. Even doing this activity with five or six people is better than nothing, but the more people you survey, the more statistically accurate the results.
An open card sorting session won't leave you with a perfect top-level information architecture, but it will leave you a lot more informed about how users view things, and give you some ideas about how sections could be labelled.
With the open card sorting done, you can now create a draft information architecture based on what you've learned. That's not going to be an exact science, but the open card sorting exercise should help you avoid the common pitfall of making the information architecture reflect your mental model, rather than that of your users.
Where possible, use the labelling and groupings created by users in the card sorting exercise, but don't feel constrained by it. You will have more content to organize than you showed to users, so some changes will be required.
You might also like: Frictionless Experience: How to Create Smooth User Flows.
Once you've created a draft information architecture, we can now validate its effectiveness with users through another card sorting exercise, but this time we will take a slightly different approach.
Instead of our previous approach, we're going to do a closed card sorting exercise. That differs from the previous method we used (I explain how exactly it differs below).
This time we are going to print out more cards. Feel free to print out as many as 60 cards, each with a task or question printed on them.
Now we are going to ask the user to organize the cards again. But this time we are going to ask them to arrange those cards into a series of groups you pre-defined at the start of the exercise. Each 'bucket' will relate to a top-level section on the website.
Closed card sorting organizes content into groupings.
By doing this, you can validate whether your top-level architecture matches the user's mental model. If the users put their index cards in the same groups as you intended, then you know your information architecture works. If they don't, you know you have some work to do.
You will find that this kind of approach will make it considerably easier for users to find content, and that in turn is going to make a big difference to their cognitive effort. The lower their cognitive load, the more likely they are to take action.
But understanding a user's mental model can have a more direct impact on conversion. That's because it can allow you to shape your product and services to create a more relevant experience, providing a competitive advantage.
You might also like: How to Use Smart Defaults to Reduce Cognitive Load.
Imagine for a moment that you wanted to take a city tour and needed to organize it. You would probably start by asking yourself what kind of city you would like to visit. Would you prefer a historical trip or are you looking for somewhere full of entertainment and with a great nightlife? Or maybe you have an idea in your head of how far you are willing to travel.
You may have a rough idea of when you want to go, but the chances are there is some flexibility. You know you want to go over a weekend, but you could take the Friday off and make it a long weekend, and it could be either the first or third weekend in the month.
Yet when you go to book this experience online, nothing about what you are presented with matches that thought process. Before the site shows you any possibilities, you have to choose the city and the exact dates. It fails to match your mental model.
Travel booking sites often fail to match people's mental model of arranging a holiday.
Even when you have decided on a city, booking hotels doesn't get any easier. One of the big factors when choosing a hotel is its accessibility to the key attractions you want to visit.
Most hotel booking sites will allow you to sort and filter hotels by distance from a particular point, but how useful is that in most cities? You care about how long it takes to get to an attraction, not its physical distance. A 10 minute underground ride might be preferable to a 45-minute walk, but be approximately the same distance. It would be better to have a hotel further away near a direct underground line than being closer but needing to walk.
Hotel booking is another example of where site owners ignore the way people are approaching a decision.
When designing and building websites, this idea of matching the user's mental model to the products and services our clients offer can be applied in many circumstances. For example, as web designers the user's mental model should inform how products are categorized, sorted, and filtered.
Understanding the thought process people go through in these scenarios will make an enormous difference in how your or your client's website works. If you can match your user's mental model, it will make your offering far more attractive because it will feel more natural—and at the end of the day, users pick easy every time.
How do you ensure the website's you build match the mental models of users? Share your insights in the comments section below!


I have a question regarding the Menubar.
I am using it in a project I am working on and noticed the following problem. I use disabled state of the items to mark the currently active MenuItem. It works well except for one thing. When I navigate via a Button that just uses the push method of react-router-redux through this.props.history, everything is rerendered correctly, but the MenuItem created by the NestedMenuItem inside the Menubar is not updated and still has disabled set to true for the last active item.
Every props and states seem to be ok and every render method is called as expected. Only the MenuItem is not updated and still shows disabled: true in its properties and the render method is not called for this component either.
Is that expected behaviour or am I doing something unexpected or wrong?
We'll check and get back to you.
Could you please provide a plunker for us to replicate?
I created a simple plunker to showcase the problem. When you klick the button a new Menuitem is added and the disabled state switches from first to second menuitem. As you can see the new item is rendered correctly, but the disabled state stays with the first menuitem.