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3D Printed Models
Architectural Model Making Projects in India by RJ Models
Architectural Model Making Projects in India by RJ Models Tom Cheng 2019-01-30T06:57:31+00:00
Amazing Architectural Model Making Projects in India by RJ Models
Introduction of RJ Models:
Architectural Designers require physical scale models in India to evaluate and reveal innovative ideas of new projects before they are built.
At present, model making service in India is in growing demand.
RJ Models has a vibrant team of model makers in India providing services on various domains in the field of architectural models.
Since the inception of RJ Models, we have created flexible platforms for information exchanging between Indian clients and our model making experts.
Being driven by clients' requirements and rich experience, RJ Models became one of the major model suppliers in India.
And we have formed competitive advantages of providing the Indian clients with the most satisfied scale models.
Following the international standards strictly, RJ Models promise that every architectural model we manufacture has a superlative quality.
Using sophisticated materials and high-tech technologies, RJ Models has achieved the highest possible standard of model making industry.
Our pioneering architectural model making techniques enable us to produce the finest quality presentation tools in India.
These architectural models assist Indian clients in interpreting their design concepts by adding more value and enjoyments to the projects.
RJ's scale model makera in India are innovative proficiency to help the clients to present their outstanding idea as a true spectacle.
Our specialists are able to come to Indian to complete the miniature model installation and lighting adjustments.
The repeat commissions prove that RJ Models did a satisfying job in assisting prestigious Indian clients in interpreting their visions.
Our esteemed Indian clients were appreciating us for producing superior quality scale models to embody their designs.
1. Omkar Worli Residential Model
Scale: 1: 75
Size: 3500mm x 5500mm
Production Time: 45 days
Omkar is a new residential project at Worli,Mumbai, by Omkar Realtors.
This ultra-luxurious residential complex feature three residential towers and equipped with bespoke amenities, such as the meditation room, private theater and sky pools, etc.
In order to satisfy the client's requirements to impress the viewers and fully demonstrate the fine details, the architectural model is made at the scale of 1:75, which is quite distinctive compared to the usual residential models.
Due to the relatively large scale, the height of this residential model reaches the shocking 5.5m; meanwhile, a large amount of aluminum alloy, iron and plexiglass are used in this model to show an eternal beauty, and the final architectural model weighs over 600 kilograms.
The residential model is equipped with thousands of lights, including warm yellow interior lights for each dwelling unit, hidden white lights in the colonnade, and very unique light columns on the road.
This architectural model is placed in the center of the exhibition hall in India, with a huge electronic screen behind it that can change colors to match the lighting changes inside the model, simulating the appearance of the building at the different time in one day, giving the viewers a more direct visual experience.
2. Omkar Worli Interior Model for India
Worli is designed to be a mixed-use development project which would feature extravagant residences for distinguished inhabitants in a notable location in Mumbai. Shown here is the interior representation of a typical apartment of one of the prominent luxurious buildings.
RJ Models aims to provide a seemingly realistic version of the real model. The interior design provides a contemporary and lavish lifestyle to the future residents. Furniture arrangement and other internal upscale amenities of this 1:25 scale model were selected and put in place following exactly the architectural design drawings brought by the client.
Since it presents abundant precise details about the project with its photorealistic look, this interior replica was displayed at a few real estate events after completion. The model serves as a means of dialogue between the developer, potential investors and housing buyers. Our client was very pleased with the final results.
To make the transportation easier and protect it from human damage RJ's model makers build a customized pedestal together with a Plexiglas cover. Lightning effects were accomplished using LED and natural sunlight to showcase the model during different times of the day.
3. Forum Club House Architectural Model in Mumbai
Size: 2000mm x 1600mm x800mm
Presented here is the modern concept of designing club house buildings, containing various recreational facilities. This miniature model is a 1:40 scale replica of the luxury Forum Club House located in the central area in Mumbai.
Bringing the most relaxing and pleasurable experience to their customers, all in one place, was the ultimate goal behind this design. The lush landscaping transmits a feeling of tranquility weather you are enjoying the mini football field, the party lawn or the private swimming pool on the terrace.
The majority of parts on this interior model were laser cut out of ABS and acrylic. RJ's professional model makers carefully crafted and fabricated the other decoration components as well, giving an outstanding appeal to the model.
What makes this model a perfect tool for fundraising is also the lift up function, to fully showcase the interior design of each floor. LED lights were installed to highlight the visually impressing details and offer a better perspective.
Publicly displaying the model is easily done, due to the manageable scale that allows taking it to various sales events. The client was very satisfied with the final product as it exceeded their expectations.
3. India Tower Architectural Model
Scale: 1: 200
India Tower is an outstanding symbol designed to celebrate Mumbai as the leading innovative and cultural hub of India. Redefining the skyline of the metropolis, this office tower is considered to be a modern landmark as it will dominate the development landscape of the city.
Featuring residences, amusement areas and high-end shopping to attract local and international travelers and investors, this dynamic new destination has a high potential importance for the further development of the local economy and urbanization process.
Fabricating this office tower model was not an easy task for our model makers. The entirely enamel building facades required extremely careful glass-sheet pasting work to perfectly present the vigorous geometrical appearance. High performance acrylic was also used to add extra resistance and reduce the overall weight of the two meter tall model.
RJ Models created a pleasant and relaxed luxury atmosphere by adding some micro-light-emitting diodes along the border rods to simulate the outlying structure lines.
Advanced modeling making techniques plus refined handcraft skills enabled our architectural model making team to complete this stunning glass and steel office tower model in only 4 weeks.
4. The Atmosphere Interior Model Making for Kolkata, India
Being the first residential sky sculpture in India, Atmosphere is a high-class grandeur residence build in Kolkata.
Our client selected one typical mock-up apartment and commissioned RJ Models to design the interior model as a means to promote property sales of this ultra-luxurious residential model making project.
Great effort was put in designing every interior element precisely, to ensure that the interior model would match the client's desire for a splendid representation.
The potential residents can get a feel of the place where they could enjoy an extravagant and elegant lifestyle only by looking at the interior model making for India.
Marketing through this method has resulted in increased interest and more potential customers, bringing them even closer to the real experience.
RJ's model making team used Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) Router and laser cutting techniques, to engrave the majority parts of the interior model.
Professionally selected miniature furniture fittings and other decorations were installed, providing the viewers with a thorough vision of the interior model and allowing them to easily identify different room functions.
To further showcase the sophistication and grace of the interior model, lighting effects were created to bring attention to the spacious area and small details of this work of art.
5. Mumbai Airport in India
Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport Terminal 2 can also be labeled as a beautiful piece of art and a treasure of India, due to its unique features.
Designed by SOM, the airport model covers an area of 410,000 square meters.
Defying the industry's stereotypical design of a city hub facility, the completed airport is a breakthrough in architecture, starting from the extended columns to the coffered ceilings embracing a sacred and beautiful interior.
GFRG material was used to create the coffered roof with 3D engraving machine.
GFRG is a type of reinforced fiberglass material that is naturally white and can be seamlessly pieced together to create a complete structure.
RJ Models use 3D software to draw the roof skylight windows before producing the airport model for India.
Using excellent skills of craftsmanship and 3D printing technology makes it possible to accurately process the 3D model data to produce the airport model components.
LED lights were also fitted to the interior of the model, to produce an accurate depiction of the real life structure with lights being scattered through the coffered roof of the airport model.
Using these professional tools ensures a high standard product and delivers a structure that meets both the architect's and quality control requirements, while shortening the production lifecycle of the actual model to only one month.
RJ Models has created a truly remarkable masterpiece, worthy of being dubbed a palace for India.
6.Bangalore Airport Model by SOM
Bangalore Kempegowda International Airport Terminal 2, used Garden City as a theme for their concept design.
This was due to SOM's aim to design the airport as a natural extension to Bangalore's greenish landscape.
The airport design has a glossy white appearance being stretched symmetrically in four directions.
Soft lighting is diffused from the base of the airport model onto the airplane parking bay.
The unique roof outline is beautifully lit, further enhancing the visually appealing structure details.
RJ's architectural model makers as a professional model building company, showed once again their professionalism and skillful experience.
Striving for utmost accuracy in the airport model building, guarantees an authentic and remarkable 3D work of art.
Aiming for consistencies with the building specifications while still being able to envision the real life environment, allows their imagination to flourish.
Sculpting the modern building shape required both traditional and high-tech model making techniques to be used, and it took RJ Models only 30 days to complete.
This 1:600 scale airport model provides the designers relative freedom when it comes to the usage of model making techniques.
Focusing on the materials used and the building form, without excess details, is enough to demonstrate the airport design concept effortlessly and to maintain a high delivery standard by this model building company for India.
7. Club House Model Building in India
Planned to be a dominant community place for the development of the location area, this club house was designed as a part of a large master plan development in India.
RJ Models, as a famous model building company for many India clients, has been contracted to build this elegant 1:40 scale model for the client.
Including a wide range of health and recreational facilities such as swimming pools, drinking lounge, gym, yoga studio and meeting rooms, the finished model acts as a promoting tool to increase the future ownership and attract valued guests.
Miniature 3D people and objects were placed across this interior model, making it come alive.
RJ's model makers added a lift function to the upper floor, exposing the interior design details of the building from different angles.
According to the overall architectural design style, together with the traditional Indian architecture and modern design, RJ's architectural model makers focused elaborately on selecting furnishing and decorations for both the internal and external space of this aesthetically pleasing model.
Impressive lighting effects were added to this interior model to further optimize the visual effects.
The finished product was placed in the client's sales office for marketing purpose as it could provide the viewers a 360° vision of the relaxing and luxurious club house.
8. Siddha Sky for Residential Model in India
Siddha Sky was designed to be another new famous landmark in the city of Kolkata, India.
These three 340 feet high towers are linked together with an exceptional skywalk on the rooftop.
Rising majestically above the landscape, these contemporary residential buildings were designed to be the city's most attractive residences as they provide panoramic and amazing views.
Since this architectural wonder was planned to be part of Siddha's affordable housing projects, the primary design intention of this flawless project was to provide the future residents with a modern and pleasant lifestyle at an affordable price, resulting in an unforgettable experience.
To achieve excellent quality results, this architectural model was fabricated mainly from high-performance acrylic and laser cutting technology.
Model building company, RJ Models replicated the comprehensive skywalk on the rooftop by adding various amenities like leisure pools and lush greens to bring more vitality.
Illuminating the interior of the residential building model can bring a delightful sense of warmth and comfort to the viewers.
Ensuring that the order meets the high detail standard requested by the client, our architectural model makers in Kolkata spent approximately one month thoroughly crafting and building residential model elements.
The final product had a quite captivating effect when it was put on display during sales events and public exhibition.
9. Interior Culb House Model Making of Atomsphere in Kokata
Atmosphere Club House in Kolkata is constructed on top of the exceptional well known bridge that connects the two skyscrapers together on the rooftop.
Designing this sophisticated and futuristic looking model required great effort and persistence from out team of architectural model makers in Kokata.
Sprayed with a silver paint to illustrate the metallic curved façade, the innovative exoskeleton was fabricated mainly from high-performance acrylic.
Our client in India firmly believed that the more detailed and visionary the interior would be, the better it would communicate with the viewers.
So the final club house model does an amazing job in showcasing the unique space for all sorts of recreational activities.
Including a fabulous detailed range of amenities and luxurious accessories such as swimming pools, outdoor sports facilities, cafeteria, pavilions and party lawns, this exceptional model serves as a means of promoting sales and attracting potential guests from all over the world.
Magnificent lighting effects were installed, to bring out the extremely precise details and light up the night sky.
Morphing together the fluidity of the metallic structure with the greenery and luxurious spaces on top, this elegant bridge is used to hold evening parties and other private events.
RJ's architectural model makers in India put lots of effort into this project, to ship the final model to the client on time.
Up to now, RJ Models has completed a lot of remarkable scale models for Indian clients.
Our architectural model makers pay attention to the smallest of details to ensure every scale model we produced is of the highest quality.
These miniature models not only assisted Indian designers in developing their projects but also offers infinite points of view to the viewers.
Contact RJ Models & Start Making You the Top
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First, Keith reports on his recent trip to the UK, including stories about Portmeirion, the Sir John Soanes Museum, UK Games Expo, and a boardgames meetup group called London On Board. Meanwhile, Andy's just been working and watching TV. Moving on to media, they touch on Fahrenheit 451, The Americans, Legion, The Crossing, Into the Badlands, Dirk Gently, and Westworld, and then spend a lot of time discussing Solo.


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Accountant Was the "Last Man Standing" – Court Orders Questioning of Non-Party
Judges hearing family law matters are granted very wide-reaching powers by legislation, in order to ensure that justice can be done for the litigants. Among those is the power to order that non-parties – meaning individuals who are not directly involved in the litigation as either plaintiff or defendant – can be questioned or forced to disclose information or documents that might be relevant to the trial or proceeding.
In Ontario, this power is specifically granted by the Family Law Rules, but it is not unfettered: Judges must still consider the circumstances and weigh certain factors, including potential delay, any unfairness to the party requesting it, and whether the information is easily available elsewhere. The court can then exercise its discretion in determining whether to make an order which essentially drags a third-party into the family litigation.
This was precisely the court's task in a case called Elgner v. Elgner. There, the couple separated after a traditional marriage lasting 33 years. The husband was 63, and the wife was 62. The couple were wealthy and there were multiple family law proceedings; at one point the court had temporarily ordered the husband to pay the wife $110,000 per month in support.
A key issue in the litigation was the husband's attempt to exclude $86 million from his net family property. He claimed that they were corporate rather than personal funds that had been generated as part of a corporate buy-out and estate freeze that took place back in 1993, involving a company with which he had virtually no involvement.
This meant that determining the nature and source of that disputed $86 million was of chief concern to the parties. Unfortunately – and aside from the husband and wife themselves – the only person who was still alive and available to give evidence on that point was the accountant who had been involved in the transaction. (The lawyer who acted on the estate freeze, for example, had died and the wife was in the process of bringing a court motion to obtain access his computer hard drive). Even though the accountant was not part of the proceedings between the couple, the wife wanted to question him.
She therefore asked the court for an order compelling him to submit to questioning. The court agreed with her request.
Even though the accountant would be giving evidence based on his recollection from 20 years ago, the proposed exclusion of the $86 million was the single most contentious and largest financial issue in the case. He was an important factual witness and, under the circumstances, it would be unfair to force the wife to proceed with the family litigation without allowing her to question him.
Elgner v. Elgner, 2010 ONSC 5238 http://canlii.ca/t/fn2q4
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It pains me to see anyone with bra bulge and it's just as noticeable on women with a little body fat as it is on women that have a higher percent of body fat. You don't have to be a certain age, weight or body type to have bra bulge, you just need an elastic band bra!
There I am, at the gym, sweating away on the Elliptical machine when a very attractive woman gets on the machine in front of me. You know the type, works out daily, drinks almond milk and never indulges in anything with frosting. Her matching yoga pants and top are so cute but all I can focus on is... yes, you guessed it, HER BRA BULGES!!!! Yikes!
What I want to say to this lovely woman is "Hello, I'm Staci Berner, the founder and CEO of Shapeez, and you may not know this but you have unnecessary back bulges from your bra. I'd love to introduce you to our smooth back Sportee sports bra. It's a fashionable smooth back bra with a breathable, wick-able mesh back with an integrated full support bra that was designed to smooth and slim your back and give amazing support while working out." Of course I never just go up to a stranger and tell them they have back bulges and I have the solution, but I'd LOVE TO!
To my fellow Shapeez Girls, maybe we could stop this epidemic together and help those women who could look so much better but haven't found Shapeez yet. Help us spread the word about Shapeez and together we can make the world a smoother, slimmer place.


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Jim D'ARCY
Leinster House, Kildare Street IE - - Dublin 2
jim.darcy@oireachtas.ie
from 27/01/2014 to 09/10/2016 (Substitute-Ireland)
Working language: English
MP's role(s) in Committee(s) and Sub-Committee(s)
Declarations of interests
No declaration available yet
Reports and committee opinions
Motions, Written Declarations, Questions
02/10/2015 | Doc. 13900 | Motion for a resolution The promotion of social competencies through education for a more cohesive society
27/01/2015 | Doc. 13686 | Motion for a resolution The status of former presidents of the Parliamentary Assembly
30/09/2014 | Doc. 13614 | Motion for a resolution Strengthening the rule of law in South-East European countries through targeted reform of the legal system
Votes on adopted texts
23/04/2015 | Resolution 2050 | The human tragedy in the Mediterranean: immediate action needed
25/06/2014 | Resolution 2003 | Towards a better European democracy: facing the challenges of a federal Europe
09/04/2014 | Resolution 1988 | Recent developments in Ukraine: threats to the functioning of democratic institutions


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Michelle Cristina Fazzari est une lutteuse canadienne née le  à Hamilton (Ontario).

Carrière
Michelle Fazzari remporte la médaille de bronze dans la catégorie des moins de  aux Championnats du monde 2017.

Aux Championnats panaméricains, elle remporte l'or en 2014 et 2017 et le bronze en 2006. Elle est aussi médaillée d'or aux Jeux de la Francophonie 2013.

Elle est médaillée d'argent aux Jeux du Commonwealth de 2018 en moins de 62 kg.

Notes et références

Liens externes

Lutteuse canadienne
Lutteuse aux Jeux olympiques d'été de 2016
Naissance en juillet 1987
Naissance à Hamilton (Ontario)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


On a boat trip in sri lanka after ajurveda treatment.
Watch the first pictures in the new gallery. Underwater videos with the GoPro 4 Hero Silver digital camera are coming soon.
beautiful reefs near the beaches, nice for snorkeling even.
This innovative diving & snorkeling website is still under construction. You will find the best snorkeling places on earth here in our Map (coming soon). Please stay tuned. Yours Dagmar Schmidt-Neuhaus Webmaster crimsonfish.com & CEO www.tukani.de.


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Understanding exoplanets
L. Welbanks, N. Madhusudhan, N. Allard, et al. 'Mass-Metallicity Trends in Transiting Exoplanets from Atmospheric Abundances of H2O, Na, and K.' The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2019). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab5a89. Picture: Starry Starry Skies (Artist's Concept). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Luis Welbanks is lead author on the most extensive study of atmospheric chemical compositions of exoplanets to date.
Measuring the abundances of these chemicals in exoplanetary atmospheres is something extraordinary, considering that we have not been able to do the same for giant planets in our solar system yet, including Jupiter, our nearest gas giant neighbour.
Luis Welbanks
The most extensive survey of atmospheric chemical compositions of exoplanets to date has revealed trends that challenge current theories of planet formation and has implications for the search for water in the solar system and beyond.
A team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and including Gates Cambridge Scholar Luis Welbanks [2017], used atmospheric data from 19 exoplanets to obtain detailed measurements of their chemical and thermal properties. The exoplanets in the study span a large range in size – from 'mini-Neptunes' of nearly 10 Earth masses to 'super-Jupiters' of over 600 Earth masses – and temperature, from nearly 20C to over 2000C. Like the giant planets in our solar system, their atmospheres are rich in hydrogen, but they orbit different types of stars.
The researchers found that while water vapour is common in the atmospheres of many exoplanets, the amounts were surprisingly lower than expected, while the amounts of other elements found in some planets were consistent with expectations. The results, which are part of a five-year research programme on the chemical compositions of planetary atmospheres outside our solar system, are reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Luis is lead author.
"We are seeing the first signs of chemical patterns in extra-terrestrial worlds, and we're seeing just how diverse they can be in terms of their chemical compositions," said project leader Dr Nikku Madhusudhan from the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, who first measured low water vapour abundances in giant exoplanets five years ago.
In our solar system, the amount of carbon relative to hydrogen in the atmospheres of giant planets is significantly higher than that of the sun. This 'super-solar' abundance is thought to have originated when the planets were being formed, and large amounts of ice, rocks and other particles were brought into the planet in a process called accretion.
The abundances of other elements have been predicted to be similarly high in the atmospheres of giant exoplanets – especially oxygen, which is the most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium. This means that water, a dominant carrier of oxygen, is also expected to be overabundant in such atmospheres.
The researchers used extensive spectroscopic data from space-based and ground-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Gran Telescopio Canarias in Spain. The range of available observations, along with detailed computational models, statistical methods and atomic properties of sodium and potassium, allowed the researchers to obtain estimates of the chemical abundances in the exoplanet atmospheres across the sample.
The team reported the abundance of water vapour in 14 of the 19 planets, and the abundance of sodium and potassium in six planets each. Their results suggest a depletion of oxygen relative to other elements and provide chemical clues into how these exoplanets may have formed without substantial accretion of ice.
"It is incredible to see such low water abundances in the atmospheres of a broad range of planets orbiting a variety of stars," said Madhusudhan.
"Measuring the abundances of these chemicals in exoplanetary atmospheres is something extraordinary, considering that we have not been able to do the same for giant planets in our solar system yet, including Jupiter, our nearest gas giant neighbour," said Luis who is doing his PhD at the Institute of Astronomy.
Various efforts to measure water in Jupiter's atmosphere, including NASA's current Juno mission, have proved challenging. "Since Jupiter is so cold, any water vapour in its atmosphere would be condensed, making it difficult to measure," said Luis. "If the water abundance in Jupiter were found to be plentiful as predicted, it would imply that it formed in a different way to the exoplanets we looked at in the current study."
"We look forward to increasing the size of our planet sample in future studies," said Madhusudhan. "Inevitably, we expect to find outliers to the current trends as well as measurements of other chemicals."
These results show that different chemical elements can no longer be assumed to be equally abundant in planetary atmospheres, challenging assumptions in several theoretical models.
"Given that water is a key ingredient to our notion of habitability on Earth, it is important to know how much water can be found in planetary systems beyond our own," said Madhusudhan.
2017 PhD Astronomy
Churchill College
My experience in life taught me not to conform with the stereotypes imposed by those in power. I believe that every person can achieve greatness and should be allowed to fulfill their dreams. Being a Mexican, I see science as the means to take down the walls built by those trying to divide us, empower people to make informed decisions and appreciate that all lives have equal value. My passion for science transformed into a deep curiosity to understand our universe and the conditions that allowed for our existence. My desire to understand the world took me from Mexico to Canada where I became the first person at the University of Calgary to finish two majors in physics and astrophysics in four years. Later, I joined Dr. Rachid Ouyed and his group to study the Quark Nova, its astronomical signatures and implications. Now in Cambridge, I am honoured to join Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan and his group in studying and characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets. We are as close as we have ever been to understanding our place in the universe and the uniqueness of our existence. The quest for habitable planets thrills me and I believe that this excitement is shared with the rest of humanity. My path to becoming a Gates-Cambridge scholar has not been linear and I owe a large amount of gratitude to every person who believed in me and helped me become who I am. I hope this opportunity will allow me to inspire others to pursue their goals and create scientific opportunities in Latin America.
Previous Education
Gut bacteria links to immune responses in the brain
Bugs in the gut may hold the key to protective immune measures in the brain which could have implications for diseases such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, according to a new study led by Gates Cambridge Scholar Zachary Fitzpatrick. A paper based on his PhD research has recently been published in Nature and it highlights […]
Exploring the social barriers to take-up of green technology
How can rural communities be encouraged to take up green energy solutions? A new study co-authored by Gates Cambridge Scholar Ramit Debnath investigates the social barriers to uptake of household appliances fuelled by green energy. Based on research on more than 14.5K households in rural communities in Rwanda, the study, published in Renewable Energy, found […]
A new technique to decode the way the nervous system works
How do the billions of neurons in the human brain work together to give rise to thought or certain types of behaviour? A new study led by Gates Cambridge Alumnus Eviatar Yemini [2007] outlines a colouring technique, known as NeuroPAL (a Neuronal Polychromatic Atlas of Landmarks), which makes it possible – at least in experiments […]
An innovative approach to plant protection
Shauna-Lee Chai is passionate about working on wicked problems, about using her entrepreneurial skills to improve the lives of others and about seeing the big picture, something she says her experience as a Gates Cambridge Scholar contributed to. Her expertise is in invasive plant species and for three years she was Board Director of the […]


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DoD watchdog clears Microsoft JEDI win, but admits it was blocked from investigating Trump interference claims
No interference claim procurement managers
Sebastian Moss
The Department of Defense Inspector General cleared the military's decision to award a contentious major cloud contract to Microsoft.
Competitor Amazon claimed that the JEDI contract, worth as much as $10bn over a decade, was unfairly awarded to Microsoft, due to interference by the President of the United States. The company alleges that Trump dislikes its CEO, Jeff Bezos, due to his ownership of the Washington Post.
Amazon sued the DoD last year and won an injunction in February. Last month, DoD asked the court to allow it to review the contract award.
After an investigation, the IG found that the award "was consistent with applicable law and acquisition standards," but admitted that it was unable to fully investigate White House interference "because of the assertion of a 'presidential communications privilege.'"
The IG said that it reviewed 31.2GB of e-mails to reach the decision, and interviewed several pertinent individuals - just not about communications with people working at the White House.
Innocent until proven [redacted]
– Sebastian Moss/DCD
In a 317-page report, the inspector general's office found that giving the JEDI contract to a single company rather than dividing it across multiple awards was "consistent with applicable acquisition standards."
Making the contract a single award also saves a significant sum, the Procuring Contracting Officer claimed. A single task order could take up to a year to complete, with the "estimated cost of administering and executing a task order as $127,851.84 in a multiple award scenario and $2,595.71 in a single award scenario.
"Over the potential 10-year contract, estimating 4,032 task orders per year, the DoD could save in excess of $500 million in contract administrative costs under a single-award contract."
That assumes, however, that the contract would have been split into thousands of smaller contracts - while some JEDI detractors instead called for it to have been split into just a handful of still large contracts.
The report found that a Pentagon employee committed ethical misconduct, as contract detractors like Oracle alleged, for failing to disclose that he was negotiating a job with Amazon while working on JEDI.
But the IG said that the "bit player" made minimal contributions to the procurement process, and did not influence the outcome.
The report "makes clear the DoD established a proper procurement process," Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw said. "It's now apparent that Amazon bid too high a price and is seeking a do-over so it can bid again."
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The IG report claimed that procurement officials "were not pressured regarding their decision on the award of the contract by any DoD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House."
However, it was unable to interview White House officials - including, as Amazon had wanted, President Trump.
"Several DoD witnesses [were] instructed by the DoD Office of General Counsel not to answer our questions about potential communications between White House and DoD officials about JEDI," the IG report stated.
"Therefore, we could not definitively determine the full extent or nature of interactions that administration officials had, or may have had, with senior DoD officials regarding the JEDI Cloud procurement."
White House Counsel only allowed witnesses to provide written answers to questions where presidential communications privilege was not invoked, and that it would review any answers first.
As there were no guarantees over which questions would be answered, and the fact that "it would unduly delay the report, it would not allow for an interview and inevitable follow up questions, and it would not assure that we would be receiving full information from the witnesses. We therefore declined to proceed in this manner."
Questions about no questions
An AWS spokesperson told DCD that "this report doesn't tell us much. It says nothing about the merits of the award, which we know are highly questionable based on the Judge's recent statements and the government's request to go back and take corrective action.
"And, it's clear that this report couldn't assess political interference because several DoD witnesses were instructed by the White House not to answer the IG's questions about communications between the White House and DoD officials."
Democrat politicians were equally critical, with Representative Adam Schiff tweeting: "When he's not firing Inspector Generals, Trump is obstructing their investigations. Here, he's hiding communications about a DOD contract for Amazon, a company Trump has repeatedly tried to punish because its founder owns the Washington Post.
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"The corruption is in plain sight."
Senator Jack Reed concurred, releasing a statement saying that the "report is troubling and incomplete." He said that it "also raises the specter that President Trump suddenly fired the independent DOD watchdog because of his willingness to ask tough questions."
Acting Inspector General Glenn A. Fine was fired by Trump on April 7, just a week after being named chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, overseeing the $2 trillion stimulus funds signed into law by President Donald Trump in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
It is not clear why Fine was fired, but the move came amid a host of other firings - primarily against employees involved with the impeachment trial.
"President Trump is abusing the coronavirus pandemic to eliminate honest and independent public servants because they are willing to speak truth to power and because he is so clearly afraid of strong oversight," Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said at the time.
Screw Amazon?
Much of the case claiming the President acted against Amazon relies on public statements and tweets.
Another core element is the claim that Trump in 2018 told then-Defense Secretary James Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of a chance to bid on JEDI.
The quote came from the book Holding The Line by Mattis' chief speechwriter and communications director, Guy Snodgrass. He alleges Mattis recounted Trump's request to a small group of DoD officials, and added: "We're not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically." Mattis later resigned, and then was fired.
Through his attorney, Snodgrass told the Inspector General that "he stood '100%' behind the account of this incident in his book."
Mattis told that IG that before he was fired he ate lunch with President Trump about once a week when their schedules permitted it, but never talked about JEDI. He said he was aware of President Trump's "disgruntlement" with Amazon, but only due to media reports.
When specifically asked about Snodgrass' book Secretary Mattis said that he "cannot confirm" the former staff member's account and added, "I don't recall the President's words on this [JEDI]."
On whether Trump told him that he did not want Amazon to win the contract, he replied:"I don't recall that. It could have happened but I just don't recall those words.
"Again, I knew his dissatisfaction with Amazon. I mean I knew that loud and clear. I knew that before he, you know if he and I spoke on the phone about it I was already aware from early on his views of Amazon, Washington Post, and Jeff Bezos, but I don't recall us having a discussion about it."
He added: "I knew he probably wouldn't like it much if Amazon won, but that frankly wasn't my concern as long as we did it right."
Then-Deputy Secretary Shanahan told the IG that he didn't recall a meeting like the one described in the book.
Several other individuals allegedly at the meeting were asked by the IG if Mattis told them Trump had said to "screw Amazon," or if he had ever mentioned White House communications regarding JEDI. The four individuals were instructed by Agency Counsel not to answer.
Pro-democracy groups file in support of Amazon's JEDI court case
While Microsoft criticizes AWS' "sensationalist and politicized rhetoric"
Admiral Craig S. Faller was asked if he talked to staff about pressure from or communications with the White House related to the JEDI Cloud procurement, but Agency Counsel also instructed him not to answer.
As for those more directly involved in the procurement contract, most said that they were aware of Trump's dislike for Amazon due to media reports, but that it did not influence them.
The unnamed Cloud Computing Program Manager said that she "was personally involved in every aspect of the source selection," and it was "not true" that the President became personally involved in JEDI. Public statements attributed to the President "had no impact whatsoever" and "there was just no influence" on her actions. Claims that the President influenced the procurement in a way that disadvantaged Amazon was "completely ridiculous" and "almost insulting," she said.
Chris Lynch, former director of the Defense Digital Service, said that he "literally could not give a shit" about the President's public statements about Amazon and Jeff Bezos, and added that the White House had zero influence on his actions.
A section of the report appears to show that both the CCPM and Lynch were contacted by White House officials, but the section is heavily redacted.
Elsewhere in the report, it is disclosed that the DoD at one point inadvertently sent confidential Microsoft documents to Amazon.
"The Inspector General's report now reveals that Amazon also received Microsoft proprietary information it should not have received or used - information that the IG states could potentially give it 'an unfair advantage in the cloud services marketplace,'" Microsoft's deputy general counsel Jon Palmer said in a blog post.
"Now that Amazon has this retained knowledge of Microsoft's proprietary information, a complete re-do can only hurt Microsoft and benefit Amazon."
Palmer claimed: "Amazon would have you believe that it lost the award because of bias at the highest levels of government. But Amazon, alone, is responsible for the pricing it offered."
Judge believes AWS "likely to succeed" with at least part of JEDI court case
DARPA plans shift from AWS and on-prem to fully cloud by 2022
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Resperate is a new device and is revolutionising the nature of blood pressure treatment. Blood pressure sufferers throughout the world are catching on to the amazing potential of Resperate and their lives are changing because of it. Those with high blood pressure are able to reduce or stop their blood pressure medication and some with low blood pressure are able to get rid of low blood pressure symptoms.
Resperate uses biofeedback to control your blood pressure and the idea behind the Resperate device is not new.
Biofeedback has been used for decades to change internal body functions such as heart rate, bowel speed and adrenaline release. Yoga students and martial arts experts say they can control blood pressure by focus and medidation. Resperate brings that ability to us all. If you learn to use Resperate then you might not need drugs or blood pressure medications. At the least, you will be able to reduce the number of tablets you need to take each day.
So how does Resperate work?
Well, in very simple terms, the Resperate device teaches you to control your own blood pressure. If you devote about twenty minutes a day to practicing with the machine you'll quickly notice a big difference. And it really does work - not just in lowering blood pressure but in reducing overall stress and tension levels. High blood pressure isn't known as "Hyper - Tension" for nothing!
The makers say that Resperate takes around eight weeks to have its effect, but some research studies show that it acts more quickly than that. It works by bringing blood pressure control to a conscious level and, because of that, you can use Resperate to reduce high blood pressure or to treat low blood pressure.
If you have low blood pressure problems then Resperate can truly be a godsend because there are few other effective treatments available.
Research studies have shown that Resperate can reduce blood pressure by about twenty points on the scale. For most patients this is very significant and will benefit their health enormously. Reducing medication will also make most blood pressure patients feel better because many effective blood pressure tablets have problematic side effects.
Resperate retails for around three hundred dollars. As a one off cost it's not cheap but in the longer term it may save you many times that amount.
Resperate works. If you have high blood pressure or low blood pressure then you really ought to take a close look at what it has to offer.
Gordon Cameron MD is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He suffers from high blood pressure himself and has used Resperate to great effect. Follow these links to his website for more information about Resperate or about high blood pressure treatment.


text:
Today Tonight Tomorrow
Written by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Recommended by Lacey Love - Library Director
"A dizzying, intimate romance." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Funny, tender, and romantic." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The Hating Game meets Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by way of Morgan Matson in this unforgettable romantic comedy about two rival overachievers whose relationship completely transforms over the course of twenty-four hours.
Today, she hates him.
It's the last day of senior year. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been bitter rivals for all of high school, clashing on test scores, student council elections, and even gym class pull-up contests. While Rowan, who secretly wants to write romance novels, is anxious about the future, she'd love to beat her infuriating nemesis one last time.
Tonight, she puts up with him.
When Neil is named valedictorian, Rowan has only one chance at victory: Howl, a senior class game that takes them all over Seattle, a farewell tour of the city she loves. But after learning a group of seniors is out to get them, she and Neil reluctantly decide to team up until they're the last players left—and then they'll destroy each other.
As Rowan spends more time with Neil, she realizes he's much more than the awkward linguistics nerd she's sparred with for the past four years. And, perhaps, this boy she claims to despise might actually be the boy of her dreams.
Tomorrow…maybe she's already fallen for him.


text:
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text:
British Columbia, Canada - Vancouver Island - Rules of Land, Sea, and Air: Bears, Orcas, and Eagles - Classic Escapes
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British Columbia, Canada – Vancouver Island – Rules of Land, Sea, and Air: Bears, Orcas, and Eagles
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The Pacific shores of Canada boast a bounty of wildlife nurtured on land and sea by the abundance of water. This is most true for an island, which is defined by its relationship with water. On Vancouver Island watch as sea lions and porpoises dart to and fro beneath your swift boat. Search for killer whales and look up to the sky for the majestic Bald Eagle. Visit with venerable giants at Cathedral Grove. Explore the lush rainforest at the Pacific Rim National Park, and walk along a dramatic shoreline riddled with driftwood to the chatter of commiserating Yellowlegs. Watch as black bears forage along the shore, and as gray whales breach. Here, steps away from the refinement of your civilized accommodations, is a water world bursting with life, which can be accessed with the ease of an outstretched hand.
Degree of Difficulty –
Day 1 - VANCOUVER
Arrive Vancouver, British Columbia, the jumping off point of your Canadian wildlife adventure. Tonight enjoy the sophisticated comfort of your hotel. MARRIOTT PINNACLE DOWNTOWN.
Day 2 - VANCOUVER/VANCOUVER ISLAND: CAMPBELL RIVER
Spend the first part of your day touring the city of Vancouver which was incorporated in 1867. The area that was the pre incorporated Vancouver held several names all of which were anchored around the old Hastings Mill. See Stanley Park, the old Gastown, Chinatown, Robinson Street, Canada Place and Vancouver Harbor. Take in lunch then head to the ferry and navigate across the Strait of Georgia to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Drive along the eastern shore of this, the largest island in western North America, to Campbell River, where you will take a nature walk in Elk Falls Provincial Park noted for its many picturesque waterfalls. Settle in at the renowned Victorian styled fishing resort. PAINTERS LODGE.
(B,D)
Day 3 - CAMPBELL RIVER/QUADRA ISLAND/ CAMPBELL RIVER
Leave your lodge and hop into a kayak for a sea based guided adventure to nearby Quadra Island. Wildlife guides will help you observe and identify the many species of animals that abound in these fertile waters. Many bird species can be found here including eagle, oystercatcher, heron, cormorant, gull, several species of duck, and geese. Within the water observe harbor seal, sea lion, porpoise, and sometimes whale. Return to Vancouver Island via ferry in the late afternoon. PAINTERS LODGE.
(B,L)
Day 4 - CAMPBELL RIVER/UCLUELET/PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL PARK
Make your way to Ucluelet on Vancouver Island's west coast, the portal into Pacific Rim National Park. Along the way stop off and savor a meal of Vancouver Island Dungeness crab. Visit the McMillan Provincial Park which protects an ancient stand of 800-year-old Douglas fir known as Cathedral Grove. This grove is all that remains of what was once a prodigious fir ecosystem which was decimated by fire and excessive logging. Continue on to your cozy home for the next three nights which occupies a private peninsula connected by a narrow causeway. Here, surrounded by water on all sides, you can take in the austere beauty of the area. WATER'S EDGE RESORT.
Day 5 - PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL PARK/ WHALE WATCHING
Today explore the many faces of Pacific Rim National Park. This dynamic reserve consists of three very distinct regions: Long Beach, the Broken Group Islands, and the West Coast Trail. The park encompasses an area of the Pacific coast known as the Graveyard of the Pacific for the number of ships lost to the difficulty in navigating the many islands and straits here. The West Coast Trail was created as a rescue route to aid those whose ships were dashed upon the rocky coastline. Spectacular vistas offer panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean to the west and long unbroken beaches offer quiet respite. Travel to Tofino after lunch where you will board a Zodiac for a whale watching excursion featuring humpback and gray whales in addition to an accompaniment of porpoises and waterfowl. Return to Ucluelet in the evening. WATER'S EDGE RESORT.
Day 6 - PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL PARK/BLACK BEAR WATCHING
Visit the Tofino Botanical Gardens in the morning for a lesson on the unique flora that thrives in the cool moist climate of the rainforest. Many bird species can be observed here as well, particularly in the mud flats where one can find Trumpeter Swan, Mallard, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Surf Scoter, and Bufflehead in abundance. After some pictures, take in lunch on your own at a local affair, then return to the Zodiac for a bear watching adventure. At a safe distance from shore you will see black bears on the shore and Bald Eagles soaring overhead while cruising the pristine waters of Clayoquot Sound. Note: This excursion is tide dependent, so it may occur early in the morning rather than after lunch. WATER'S EDGE RESORT.
Day 7 - CAMPBELL RIVER/VICTORIA
Journey back to Vancouver Island's east coast and down to Victoria at its southern tip. Along the way stop in Duncan, a city that boasts some 80 totem poles (the designs of which are copyrighted) about its perimeter, earning it the moniker "The City of Totems". The generous number of totems reflects the city's status as a large First Nations community. Head on to Victoria where after lunch on your own you'll be treated to a tour of the city, highlights of which may include the historic inner harbor area and the provincial houses of parliament. FAIRMONT EMPRESS HOTEL.
Day 8 - VICTORIA/ORCAS ZODIAC EXCURSION/ VANCOUVER/DEPART
Last day to take to the water in a swift Zodiac. The subject of today's observations will be the varied marine life found in the cool clear water of the Strait, and in particular orcas. With the use of a hydrophone you can overhear the songs of whales and your expert marine naturalist can point out other marine animals of interest. Return to shore for lunch on your own before departing for the airport and your return flight home.
Prices vary by season and package. Please inquire by phone at (800) 627-1244 or email info@classicescapes.com for more information and a pricing estimate.
Weather Reports - When To Go
For our Vancouver Island program, being detached from the continent allo ws the island to have a more tem- perate climate as the ocean air brings more humidity to the island, keeping it warmer, although a bit more rainy, too. In the s um- mer months, it is quite sunny and ideal for the activities outlined in our itinerary. The Fall is also wonderful for foliage viewing.
Nova Scotia & New Brunswick, Canada – Canada's Maritime Provinces – Wonders of Acadia & the Phenomenal Bay of Fundy
Mexico – In Search of the Mariposa Monarca
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Loved the entire Southern Africa trip. Not one part was boring or repetitive.
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My family and I had the best adventure ever.
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Signature Motorsport and Federal-Mogul Motorparts have joined forces with MINI South Africa to race a pair of brand new MINI John Cooper Works cars in the 2017 Sasol Global Touring Car (GTC) Production class in 2017.
The successful VW Cup team has retained the services of their newly crowned champion Chris Shorter who will race under the Champion umbrella, while the championship runner-up Brad Liebenberg will compete in a Ferodo-backed MINI John Cooper Works. The proven engineering talents of Shaun and Etienne van der Linde will design and build the cars in their Gauteng workshop.
GTC Production car class is designed to be a conduit for young drivers to migrate from the junior ranks of the sport into the top echelon GTC class. The front-wheel drive machines develop just over 200kW from their 2-litre turbo-petrol powerplants.
The Ferodo Young Driver Programme started in 2008 and has seen several graduates moving up the ladder of success. Gennaro Bonafede was the first beneficiary where Ferodo backed him all the way to production car racing and maintained their relationship until the series ended in 2015.
The most famous graduate from the programme is Kelvin van der Linde who went on to race – and win – in European sports car series. Sheldon van der Linde followed in his brother's footsteps and is also racing in one-make series in Europe.
The Champion brand is 109 years old and has a strong pedigree in racing with more than 400 Grand Prix victories, while other notable achievements include being fitted to the Concorde's Rolls Royce engines and in the original Model T Ford.
MINI has a long tradition of success in rallying dating back to their win in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, a feat repeated in 1965 and 1967. On the circuit, the MINI was successful from the time it hit the tracks of Europe winning the British Saloon Car Championship in 1961, just two years after the car was launched.
20-year-old Chris Shorter is delighted to remain with Signature Motorsport as they enter the exciting new GTC Production category. "The series looks very competitive and there are several new entrants rumoured for 2017. Our rivals have a year's head-start on us, but I have no doubt that we will be right up there fighting for wins within half a season".
"It is an honour to represent the re-entry of a prestigious brand like MINI into local motorsport. It will be a challenge for me to adapt to the car and for the team to set it up to extract the maximum from our package. I'm really looking forward to working with the Champion brand and can't wait for the start of the new season", Shorter added.
Brad Liebenberg, the 17-year-old runner-up in the VW Cup championship is thrilled to be included in Signature Motorsport's new racing programme. "I'm really happy to continue my association with Ferodo and I hope to be able to continue delivering the results out on the track. MINI has a long pedigree in motorsport and I hope to be able to add a small chapter to their success story".
Brad continued: "GTC is a new and growing category and from what I have seen this year, there has been some tremendously close racing in the production car class. Chris and I have the best team behind us and we all work well together. I know Signature Motorsport will engineer a great car and I can't wait to get out on track to start testing".


text:
Ralph D. Russo
Published: March 8, 2021, 10:43 PM
Updated: March 8, 2021, 11:45 PM
Tags: Sports, Les Miles
Miles out at Kansas over behavior with women while at LSU
Published: March 8, 2021, 10:43 PM Updated: March 8, 2021, 11:45 PM
FILE - Kansas head coach Les Miles is shown before an NCAA college football game against Oklahoma in Norman, Okla., in this Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, file photo. LSU's former athletic director recommended in 2013 that Les Miles be fired as Tigers football coach because of his behavior with female student workers. Then-Athletic Director Joe Alleva's recommendation to former LSU President F. King Alexander is detailed in a newly released report into how the university handled sexual misconduct complaints. The report was released Friday, March 5, 2021, by the Husch Blackwell law firm. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) (Sue Ogrocki, Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Les Miles is out as Kansas' head coach just days after he was placed on administrative leave amid sexual misconduct allegations from his tenure at LSU.
Kansas announced Miles' departure Monday night, describing it as a mutual agreement to part ways. Miles has three years left on his original five-year contract with the school that pays him $2.775 million annually through December 2023 and includes several bonuses, among them a $675,000 retention bonus paid last November.
"I am extremely disappointed for our university, fans and everyone involved with our football program," Kansas athletic director Jeff Long said in a statement. "We will begin the search for a new head coach immediately with an outside firm to assist in this process. We need to win football games, and that is exactly what we're going to do."
The 67-year-old Miles was 3-18 in two seasons with the Jayhawks. Offensive coordinator Mike DeBord was named acting head coach.
"This is certainly a difficult day for me and for my family," Miles said in a statement. "I love this university and the young men in our football program. I have truly enjoyed being the head coach at KU and know that it is in a better place now than when I arrived."
Last week, LSU released a 148-page review by a law firm about the university's handling of sexual misconduct complaints campus-wide. One part described how Miles "tried to sexualize the staff of student workers in the football program by, for instance, allegedly demanding that he wanted blondes with big breasts, and 'pretty girls.'"
The report also revealed then-LSU athletic director Joe Alleva recommended firing Miles in 2013 to university officials.
Kansas placed Miles on leave later that day and said it would conduct a review of allegations against the coach that it had previously been unaware of.
Kansas said terms of the agreement with Miles on his departure will be released in the coming days.
Miles spent 11-plus seasons with LSU, leading the school to a national title in 2007. He was fired four games into the 2016 season.
Miles was investigated at LSU after two female student workers in the football program accused the coach of inappropriate behavior in 2012.
While that 2013 investigation by the Taylor Porter law firm found Miles showed poor judgment, it did not find violations of law or that he had a sexual relationship with any students. Taylor Porter also concluded it could not confirm one student's allegation that Miles kissed her while they were in the coach's car with no one else present.
In an email dated June 2013 and sent to the president of LSU, Alleva wrote Miles was guilty of "insubordination, inappropriate behavior, putting the university, athletic (department) and football program at great risk."
The Taylor Porter review had been kept confidential for about eight years until a redacted version of it was released this week after a lawsuit filed by USA Today.
For Kansas, Miles' departure is just the latest setback for what has been college football's worst Power Five program for a decade. The Jayhawks have not won more than three games in a single season since 2009.
Miles had been out of coaching for two years when Long hired him after the 2018 season, hoping a notable name and experienced coach could help break the apathy that has enveloped the Kansas program for a decade.
Long and Miles were friends dating to their time at Michigan in the late 1980s.
While recruiting has improved under Miles, little else has changed. The Jayhawks were winless last season for the third time in program history, losing by an average of more than 30 points per game.
Kansas has not had a winning season since 2008, the year before Mark Mangino was fired amid allegations of verbal and physical abuse. He was followed by Turner Gill, who won five games over two seasons, and Charlie Weis, who was 6-22 before getting fired four games into the 2014 season.
David Beaty was 6-42 in four seasons in charge of the Jayhawks and sued Kansas for withholding his buyout because of NCAA infractions. Beaty reached a $2.55 million settlement with the school last summer.
Now, with spring football practice around the corner, Kansas is starting over again, still stuck in a deep hole.
AP Sports Writer Dave Skretta contributed to this report.
More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25


I had to make a couple more...this time I cut the bodies as a Christmas tree triangle shape and stitched them with the machine which much speedier and gives a more robust result...depends if you just want to sit and hand sew, which is a very relaxing thing to do, or just want to get onto the making of these little beauties, as I did.
That's about it, I think I am done with these little ladies for the time being...after all, tomorrow starts the count down to Christmas...I have a planner to develop today, the lads need clear and unambiguous direction if we are to get the house all spruced up, (strange saying, we don't use spruce here, as decoration...), silver cleaning, decorations, gardening, external cobweb removal, et al.
From the little I have read, they appear to be like ATC's for doll makers...made to be given to specific people as a token of friendship, consolation, joy...whatever is required. They are never made to be sold. A sweet idea.
I had to have a go last evening, and I can see that they could become quite addictive, especially as they take so little time to make, can showcase your amazing embroidery, beading and other hand sewing skills and could utilise any of those hard to discard beautiful fabric and lace scraps that really aren't large enough to use for other purposes. They would be perfect to make with a granddaughter, if one had one, or a borrowed child who likes dolls and making things.
I really want to dig out my old laces and some nice fabric. Agnes is a tad too naive for my taste...although, as she is destined for Sarah and Karina's Christmas tree (whether they like it or not...Agnes has attitude!), I did give her a rather splendid gold tail and some gold beading to make her a bit festive. Also, I have a goodly little collection of gold coloured jewellery finding which I simply never use. It was great to have a little project to utilise some of them and gave me a good reason for tidying up my jewellery making box.
Agnes is made from a scrap of Sheridan sheet fabric, a crochet heart, a scrap of felt, a few beads and embroidery threads, plus the posh tail, as mentioned...she has lovely pouty lips made with raspberry seed beads. She has Mad Madam Mimm pink yarn hair. I have embroidered the year onto her botty.
The year has been embroidered onto her rump and a jump ring and lobster claw attached to the back of her head...she is ready for anything.
A couple of young fledgling starlings have taken it upon themselves to sit on some pots of succulents I have growing along the base of a mirror attached to our garden fence. They sit there day after day, admiring themselves in the mirror, squawking for a parent to fly in a picnic basket, and (the little delinquents), pruning the succulents.
I have had to remove the pots to a safe place until the birdlings are able to take themselves off to broader horizons, before they completely denude the little plants. The plants were all doing extremely well before they started their gardening activities. There are plenty of weeds they could be working on, after all.
I am not sure where this recipe came from..To my mind it is obviously English as Barley wine is one of the ingredients. I found it, many years ago, amongst my mothers very eclectic mix of cuttings and hand written recipes when writing them up for her. Dad and I had decided we needed to get her recipe drawer tidied up when she was away, visiting my sister and b-i-l in New Zealand who were expecting their first child. I am not sure if she was too thrilled about it, she probably could never find the recipe she needed ever again. Anyhow, I copied out this recipe and when I asked her about who had given it to her she could not remember and dismissed it as she had her own recipe that she preferred to use. I tucked it away, and many years later when I started cooking my own Christmas dinners, I found it and gave it a try. I love it and used it ever since, with just a few adjustments. Mum and dad loved it too, so much so that she adopted it for her puddings each year, and one of my s-i-l's did too. It has become a family favourite. Mind you, I have never made barley wine, and use milk as a substitute.
This recipe uses suet as the shortening agent but as Sarah will be eating with us at Christmas, I have replaced the suet with butter as she does not eat animal products, she is a bit selective, but butter in cakes and puddings is OK with her. Using butter instead of suet does not produce as rich a pudding, but her company more than makes up for that.
A few years back in late March, I was staying at a youth hostel on Bruny Island with some work colleagues. I had taken one of my puds (from the freezer) to share with the others as part of one of our shared meals over the weekend.
Staying there at the same time was a young German lad who had been sent off by his parents for twelve months to travel the world, before returning home to undertake compulsory national service. Something I believe occurs on leaving school and before commencing university. He explained that they had thought him too young to undergo that sort of rigorous training...it went through my mind as he was telling the tale that they hadn't thought him too young to undertake a very grand world tour completely unaccompanied at what seemed to me a very tender age, but I am sure they knew their son best. He was a delightful and very personable young man who had improved his language skills enormously (he told us) during the twelve months, and I am sure his life skills had developed at the same pace, (I had a son the same age and had some inkling). He was about to return home after this last few days in Tasmania and was very pleased to share our meals for the couple of days we shared the accommodation, as he had rather underestimated the availability of food sources on the island for someone without either vehicular transport, or fishing equipment.
I finally put together a little notebook for my personal use. It is the last of the stiff covers I made a while back when I had run out of Multi Matte Medium and used other glues to cover the cereal box covers I was preparing.
As a result, they all became too stiff and unwieldy for my taste, and they almost joined the veggie scraps in the compost bin...but I decided I may be able to use them, after all.
The other one I turned into a small diary for a great niece, and this is the last, at 10.2 cm x 14.8 cm, (4 x 53/4") with a 2.5 cm (1") spine, it is the perfect size for tossing in my bag, for notes, shopping lists etc.
I have put pockets inside the front and back covers only, using the same TH paper off cuts. The four fat signatures are made up of old parchment from my paper box, and lined exercise book pages.
I have used sewing themed heavy cardstock buttons bought at our local Reject Shop as my only embellishments. I removed the rather elderly and sticky double sided tape from the back of these and have glued them in place with some Helmar QD adhesive.
The closure for this one, as it will be living in my bag and I don't want it catching on anything, or coming open, is a fine elastic band pushed through a couple of holes in the back and tied in a knot. The knot is low profile enough not to be a nuisance, and the closure sits between the edges of the pages and the cover very neatly.
CAS(E) this sketch challenge is number 150...so how could I not participate! Besides, I needed a card for my dear DIL and had the stamp set and laminator all fired up to go. She loves blue, and silver, so the card almost made itself!
I used the PTI Sweet Peony stamp set, and the "happy" die from the same set. I cut out five layers of card with the die and layered them with matt medium to make a dimensional sentiment.
I used a SU ink, Pacific Point to stamp the final layer for the sentiment, quickly coating it with fine clear embossing powder and heat setting it to give it a little shine and to accentuate the colour a tad.
The "birthday" word was stamped directly on the card front and a plain dark blue scrap was used as a mat onto the Bazzill Marshmallow card base.
The butterflies were stamped with Versamark ink direct onto the card front and white heat embossed before being covered with silver foil and run through my laminator.
A final tizzying up with three pale blue sprinkles onto the card around the sentiment and a tiny silver sprinkle being adhered to the head of each of the butterflies and the card is done. I hope she likes it.
I have also revamped "Le Petit Journal" and will send this to her with the card. She journals quite a lot so I hope she gets some use out of it.
I even removed the seam binding closure and replaced it with a more workaday hair elastic, same blue but more practical. I find the seam binding loses it's looks way too fast for comfort. If I attach it while I am making the journal, it needs replacing before I give it away...but it does look pretty. I think I may have to work out how I can combine the two, a hair band and a seam binding bow...that way it would be meerly decorative and would not get damaged by the usual wear and tear.
Each signature now has a brown patterned kraft cover, plus a central pocket. I utilised the same kraft paper for the inside front pocket with it's cluster of sturdy journaling tags.
The central pocket in each signature has a plain kraft card inserted for a 4 sided photograph mat.
The last page and inside back covers both have several spots for journalling cards that she will be able to add throughout the journal.
Here is the bag of add-ons, tucked into the front pocket...this gift is good to go!
A also added a little (detatchable) dangly bit in my usual style, with fishing swivels, jump rings etc. One is a small colourful resin dragonfly, 1 is a TH heart locket with "us" as the text and the third is 3 blue glass beads (one of each of the sprouts) with a Swarovski crystal star on the end. I am a sentimentalist, after all.
The little Triple Corner Pocket construction shown above on the back of the last page was made some time ago from a great tutorial by Papercrafter45, that I made for another project and ended up not using.. As the main panel of this little pocket is a lovely deep blue, with gold stars, it has finally found a permanent home!
Tim has finally heard back regarding his sleep apnoea test results. (I have a photo of him all wired up for the night, but I am totally forbidden, on pain of death, to post it! Men are so vain). He has an appointment tomorrow morning.
The November SBB Cupcake Challenge image was quite unambiguous in it's statement...composed of red, green, holly and candles...so it didn't take me too long to decide to make an Easter Card...ha ha ...only kidding!
I decided to go with the traditional Christmas theme, and, as my head was still full of my previous card with the dimensional insert frame, I decided I might just as well get it out of my system and make another. I find that I do get a bit focused on whatever has caught my eye recently and until I have made one or two, ironed out any bugs and know just how things work, I tend to keep at it until either I give up or I have it down pat. Not just with making a card, either.
I decided to video the process, so here it is, watch here or on You Tube.
As described in the video, the finished card is measures 4.5 x 4.25 inches, with a 1/2 inch spine.
I coloured the back panel originally only with Squeezed Lemonade DI, but after some thought I added Tumbled Glass, Chipped Sapphire and Faded Jeans to darken the background and give some illusion of light from the flames. I think it looks better with the blue.
I cut out a couple of border holly leaf edges with my MS punch, plus a couple of the matching corner punch pieces in two different shades of green card. I DI'd the edges gently with Forest Moss DI and coated them in GA, for shine.
Three red candles and some orange red and yellow card "flames" were assembled and also coated with GA. These were fairly thick coats so while they dried I assembled the rest of the card base, using my favourite Bazzill marshmallow card stock. This card base measured nine inches by four and a half, and was scored at four and a quarter and four and three quarter inches, to form the spine.
Here is the card front, you can see the DI'd background, the candles and the glossed up holly leaves...I added some Xmas Red Stickles (their name, not mine!!), among the holly leaves. A small "Peace" sentiment was added as an afterthought, I really should have added it before completing the card, but I wasn't really sure I wanted a sentiment on the front.
Another view so you can see inside the frame to the concertina insert.
Here is the card, standing sturdily when open, just waiting to have a message inset adhered in...I think I know just the All-Things-Christmas enthusiast I can send this one to!
Well, that's about it from me, see you soon, I think I am just about challenged out!
Do you think I am just putting off making those Christmas puddings?


Illinois started 4-12 and 0-5 in the B10 as they have played the #4 schedule and have two freshman as their leading scorers. The Illini have gone 6-6 since that start but are coming off a stretch of 3 straight losses at Wisconsin and at Purdue plus vs Penn St. Northwestern has lost 9 straight going 1-7-1 ATS and in their last 5 games have shot 35.5%. Illinois is playing with revenge and was 0-11 from downtown in that game. Look for them to step up here at home Sunday evening on the Big10 Network.
*10* Nuggets/Spurs Game 6 POWER-HOUSE ~ Off MASSIVE 4-0 SWEEP, 2-0 in NBA!


text:
NBC Cancels 'Aquarius'
Sam - David DuchovnyCharles Manson - Gethin AnthonyBrian - Grey DamonEmma - Emma DumontCharmain - Claire HoltEd - Chance Kelly
The period drama won't return for Season 3.
It is being reported that NBC has officially pulled the plug on Aquarius after two seasons. The David Duchovny drama, in which he played a cop on the trail of Charles Manson, had a tough go of things throughout its two-summer run on the network. Despite a promising start last year, the show never managed to find the mass appeal it was looking for.
Aquarius premiered solidly for NBC back in the summer of 2015 and was rewarded with an early Season 2 renewal. When ratings tapered off, it was quietly moved to Saturdays where it would finish out its run. The network remained optimistic, though, and stuck to its word to bring the show back for another season in 2016.
Unfortunately the show struggled once again this summer, forcing NBC to once-again push the ratings-challenged series off to Saturday nights in order to offset its low viewership numbers. Not surprisingly, a third season was not looking good, and back in August NBC president Jennifer Salke admitted as much, stating that bringing Aquarius back once again would be "tough".
Season 3 Unlikely For 'Aquarius'
NBC Renews Aquarius
@pcmd
The sun will explode in 1 billion years. You can guarantee that it will end then. Or are you one of those people who reads the last chapter first. Tv is not about guarantees but about the show being good.
oh that's hilarious... users simply input my username when they want to post something offensive :) I'm famous and loved :)
Should have had more gay sex. An evil cult is not complete without gay sex and incest.
The plot and story were shit anyways. The least they could give us is some worthwhile sex scenes to make it tolerable.
pmcd - They catch him.
great acting, great writing, but NBC killed this show before it could take off. it is really too bad, this show would do great on netflix
DavidDuchovnyWhyWontYouLoveMe
The show had potential, but never knew what it was. Is it about Manson? Is it about civil rights? Is it a procedural? Is it all of the above, sort of, and none of that too? Manson has a fascinating history that this show made boring. The acting was great, but that can only take you so far, when you can't commit to what the show is or what it's about.
I watched 2 episodes and didn't care for it. I never understood why anyone would want to watch a series based on Charles Manson.
The next time I start a show I'd like some kind of guarantee that it has an ending.
This is literally the first that I'm hearing of this show. Not a joke. I seriously didn't know it was a thing.
mortysnerd
Trying to make a pc show from an age not pc. All tv made for advertising consumers and the show did not win over the "Dancing With the Stars" crowd. Tie-in the Zodiac, the weird cults floating around then, and later Son of Sam and you would have something strange maybe worth watching. Maybe


text:
Impressions Upon Experiencing "There Is No Edge to Imaginary Things": a response by Kathleen Rooney and Martin Seay
"There Is No Edge to Imaginary Things" written by Olivia Cronk and Phil Sorenson
Directed by Logan Berry
Performed by Chris Darnell, Dylan Fahoome, Ruth Forberg, and Sara Zalek
Lighting by Cassandra Kendall
with Art Direction by Michaela Heidemann
From the third and final Doing Drugs and Dying in Space Festival by the Runaways Lab Theater at the Otherworld Theater
image credit: Joe Goudreault
Caveat lectorem: the emphasis in the above title should fall upon "impressions," both because the account that we provide below is impressionistic, and because we cannot offer an impartial review, given our friendships with the director and two of the performers. That being said, "There Is No Edge to Imaginary Things"—a short play written by Olivia Cronk and Phil Sorenson, directed by Logan Berry, and performed by Chris Darnell, Dylan Fahoome, Ruth Forberg, and Sara Zalek—struck us as the show-stopping standout of the generally very solid Doing Drugs and Dying in Space Ritual, a festival of short plays staged by the Chicago-based Runaways Lab Theater in November 2019 at the Otherworld Theatre, a science fiction and fantasy venue on the city's north side.
Influenced by punk, goth, and psychedelia, the Runaways characterize their work as "primo weirdo" (and sometimes "squalid maximalist") theater. The 2019 Ritual was the company's third and final; as in prior years, and as the name suggests, its call for submissions requested plays of under ten pages that include a) a character doing drugs and b) a character dying in space. The Facebook event write-up for the Ritual promised, "At the edge of the universe: a FLOODED GRAVEYARD:: a beadazzled cow skull, a broken synthesizer, + tens of thousands of pill bottles, glass pipes, and dirty needles litter a field of boiling limbs, skeletons, and putrid, viscid fluids:: A shadow:: an OBELISK: Nihil Et Amplius! DO DRUGS, DIE IN SPACE!" The festival delivered.
Impression 1: DDADIS III was the strongest festival to date. All three have been worth seeing, but this one felt the most thoughtfully curated and the most cohesively assembled, with the sequence serving the individual plays, as well as the arc of the whole show through their juxtapositions.
Impression 2: Prior to opening night, Zalek previewed her performance in "There Is No Edge to Imaginary Things" with this tweet: "I intend to tickle those hairs on the back of your neck, even amidst the comic and ridiculous." Reader, she did.
Impression 3: On the second night of the Ritual, "There Is No Edge" co-playwright Cronk tweeted, "I know that I am an enthusiastic user of language to convey my adoration of pieces of art: BUT, OMG, @TheRunawaysLab show last night COMPLETELY blew my mind. I am still coming down from the trip. This is not hyperbole. It was just skin peeling piano on fire birds screeching good." Reader, this was not hyperbole.
Impression 4: We saw the Ritual on its third and final night. As we entered, Berry asked one of us—Martin, who serves on the Runaways' board—to hold a prop that would feature in some unspecified way in one of the plays: an animal-print handbag. Berry asked only that Martin have the bag in his lap throughout the Ritual's second act. Berry suggested, but did not quite say, that the company wanted to be sure the bag would be held by someone who would be okay with a somewhat intense engagement with the performance. Martin took the bag, without looking inside. Berry seated us where we'd need to be in order for the bag to be accessible during the performance. (This prior coordination was not apparent to the rest of the audience.)
Impression 5: "There Is No Edge" was the thirteenth of fifteen plays in the festival, falling between two very brief but generally effective absurdist/slapstick pieces. Determining its placement must have been no small consideration for the Runaways, for reasons we would soon discover. The play opened with a domestic scene, Zalek sweeping testily while declaiming a dense and perplexing text:
a whole room of farting in a wet bathing suit
the poodle skirt with musical note applique
woman head cake
woman head cake art deco plate
a seat at dinner
pastel cotton briefs
the duplicating licorice I've already asked after five times,
almost like freckles on the reflection, that stiffness of the face up against the loose shimmer
Impression 5a: Zalek, it must be said, is an extraordinarily intense presence, with an incriminating gaze and precise, expressive movements. While we had seen many excellent performances that night, the sight of her clutching a broom as the lights came up on "There Is No Edge" dramatically shifted the vibe, elevating the stakes, introducing an element of legitimate danger. While shit had been weird, it was about to get very weird.
Impression 6: By way of certain objects—given voice by the other three performers, indistinct mounds hunched under fabric—Zalek's increasingly unhinged woman-in-a-nightgown was directed toward an aperture, one that seems to lead not only out of the room but out of the world. The play's atmosphere changed; Zalek's motions became more expansive and insinuating, then licentious, sprawling atop audience members in the front row, and finally ecstatic and grasping.
Impression 7: At that point the woman began to advance on the animal-print handbag in Martin's lap, tightly flanked by the three other hunched performers, who were chanting "Take Frinton's jewels." (Martin, it seems, was Frinton, although the play did not explain who Frinton was or how he came by his jewels.) Zalek's outstretched hands hovered over the bag for what seemed to Martin like a very long time while the performers shouted and shined bright lights into his face. It was hilarious and quite upsetting, and in retrospect it was a good move for the Runaways to recruit a board member as their unwitting Frinton; a random audience member might well have reacted negatively to the experience.
Impression 8: The woman eventually took the bag and returned to center stage and sure enough, it contained jewels, with which she adorned herself. The show went pretty rapidly nuts after that, with terrifying noise building over the PA system, disorienting lights, and eventually Zalek carried offstage through the aperture, into darkness, her retreating face aglow in a blacklight, its expression ambiguous and extreme.
Impression 9: Increasing noise, strobelights, the stage occupied by the three other performers, no longer draped, now revealed as non-human, multi-limbed, insectoid but soft, larval, their skins marred with wounds and stained with excrescence, like sordid tardigrades at the tail end of an apocalyptic binge. The costumes put Kathleen in mind of Rei Kawakubo's work at Commes des Garçons, with all their grotesque protuberances and polyps. The performers continued to recite texts, which immediately dissipated in the cacophony. Frenzied, abject, concupiscent, the three beings danced the show to death.
Impression 10: To a greater extent than the other plays in the Ritual, the show aimed toward the boundaries of what's easily intelligible as drama, into areas that might be more comfortably classified as performance art or a staged poem. (Playwrights Cronk and Sorenson are both poets, and co-edit a literary magazine, The Journal Petra.) The emphasis on language and the ambiguity of the words and gestures allowed multiple (but not infinite) interpretations, thereby giving a lot of agency to the audience in addition to shocking them with the absurd and grotesque content.
Impression 11: Like—but to an even greater degree than—several of the other plays in the Ritual, "There Is No Edge" was at some fundamental level a work of cosmic horror, a play about crossing and/or collapsing boundaries, particularly the limits of the human (and not simply human beings themselves, but human systems of perceiving and understanding and ordering the world). This theme was evoked through the unsettling presence of the aperture, and also through Berry's direction, which made recurrent and effective use of concealment and layering: the draped performers, the jewels hidden in the handbag hidden in the audience, the complex lighting (including the use of the blacklight, with its unveiling of unsuspected fluorescence), and the sound design (which rendered much of the play's text unintelligible, present but masked, and therefore potentially more dangerous).
Impression 11a: The performers also used a video camera during the performance, running its real-time output to a handheld projector. Sometimes they shot close-up views of Zalek's actions and projected them onto the stage floor, or onto other surfaces, revealing every element of the theater as writable, and also as obstructive. At one point they projected the image of Zalek's face onto her face: a mise-en-abyme of masks, a thing distorted and obscured by itself.
Impression 11b: "Visible things always hide other visible things," the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte once wrote. "Our gaze always wants to penetrate further so as to see at last the object, the reason for our existence."
Impression 11c: There is no last object.
Impression 12: The tone of "There Is No Edge" blended fear and farce, the comic and the erotic, and of course death into an atmosphere that arced and crackled across the surprisingly narrow gap between disturbing and cute.
Impression 13: Afterward, when Kathleen asked her what it was like to be in the play, Zalek—who is an accomplished performance artist, Butoh dancer, and poet, but not a performer who often works with spoken text—emailed, "Memorizing the text I thought would be near impossible for me and I couldn't even imagine how I was going to speak that text in front of people, or make it even remotely relatable." But she added that "Logan was so persistent and had a vision the entire time and never doubted that I could create an atmosphere of extreme tension, an authentic quality, a hair-raising kind of experience. I still don't know exactly how I did it, or what made it so palpable for people. Maybe I finally have a bit of understanding why people are drawn to horror. I myself cannot watch it. I guess it's very close to the way we feel, this abstract poetry floating around in our minds as we attempt to process our reality/environment."
Impression 14: Afterward, Martin emailed Berry that "That image of Sara's face in blacklight as she was being carried off will be making regular appearances in my nightmares until I fucking die." His email also stated: "The first time I ever had an attack of kidney stones it was painful, but what was most upsetting about it was that I was experiencing that pain in parts of my body where I had previously never had any sensation in at all, and where it wouldn't have occurred to me that I ever might have sensation. 'There Is No Edge' was exactly like that, only awesome. Art is cool."
Impression 15: Sometimes Kathleen looks at the night sky and thinks, "This is never going to last." "There Is No Edge to Imaginary Things" rendered that feeling both a petrifying threat and a liberating promise.
Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press and a founding member of Poems While You Wait. Her most recent novel is Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (St. Martin's Press, 2017) and her next novel, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey will be published by Penguin in Fall of 2020. She teaches at DePaul and lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay. More from Kathleen Rooney on PRJ.
Martin Seay's debut novel The Mirror Thief was published by Melville House in 2016. Originally from Texas, he lives in Chicago with his spouse, the writer Kathleen Rooney.
Grip Slip: a response by Carole McCurdy


Pumpkin, mushroom and chicken risotto.
add diced pumpkin and chicken and simmer gently continuously stirring for about 15-20 minutes until rice and pumpkin is cooked.
Leave to rest with the lid on for about 10 minutes to finish cooking and serve.