"I'd always assumed it was the booze and stuff... Now I've found it all stems from the family... a doctor in Los Angeles tried to tell me I had multiple sclerosis. And I believed him until I had a second opinion. When I told my sisters she said, 'Not you as well? Mum had that and Auntie Elsie and your grandma.' I'm like, 'Thanks for f**king telling me'. Me walking around thinking I've got some drug paralysis."
Turns out that Ozzy will now have to take daily medication for the rest of his life to combat the involuntary tremors associated with the condition.
We're not too worried as Ozzy seems pretty indestructible and we're quite happy for him to continue milking MTV executives for as long as he lives. The man gave us some of the best music ever recorded which in our eyes gives him the right to do whatever the hell he wants. Anyone who takes the piss out of the guy does nothing but show their own lack of understanding and should be forcibly placed in a room and played Vol 4 twenty-four hours a day for a year.


Bánh đúc is a Vietnamese bánh (cake). There are two main types of bánh đúc, the white Northern Vietnamese cake and the green Southern version.
In northern Vietnam, bánh đúc is a cake made from either non-glutinous rice flour or corn flour. It is white in color and has a soft texture and mild flavour. It is typically garnished with savory ingredients such as ground pork, tôm chấy (grilled ground shrimp), fried onions, sesame seeds, salt, peanuts, lime juice, and soy sauce or fish sauce. Although it may be eaten on its own, it may also be served hot, accompanied by steamed meat or mushrooms.
Bánh đúc is available at small stalls and is eaten throughout the day.
A plate of southern Vietnamese bánh đúc colored with Pandanus amaryllifolius leaf extract, and topped with sweetened coconut milk and sesame seeds.
Mấy đời bánh đúc có xương, mấy đời dì ghẻ lại thương con chồng.
The literal meaning is: "bones are never found in bánh đúc, just like a stepmother never loves her husband's own children." This couplet is used to describe something very unlikely to happen.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bánh đúc.


ICON Media is the design-build communications division specializing in customized digital signage solutions. Our in-house team of creative multimedia designers, digital integration strategists, audio visual specialists, IT consultants, and field technicians provide full end-to-end solutions including consulting, content design and development, hardware and software procurement, project management, and network management. Serving corporations and retail clients all over North America, our experience with hardware and integrating digital signage and interactive technologies has given us a strong foundation for developing effective digital content strategies.
Traditional LCD videowalls, mosaics and flexible OLED walls.
Complete, top quality, customized LED solutions for indoor and out.
Large format multi-touch surfaces, gestural control, motion detection, or physical buttons; you name it, we have implemented.
Video processing and redundancy is crucial in large format multimedia installations. We ensure maximum performance and uptime no matter what!
Whether it's a customized mount for a unique digital structure or a sleek frame to put that finishing touch on your display, we have you covered.
Large scale architectural projection mapping for permanent and event applications.
Bring your physical products to life with mapped holographic technology.
Our team of professional photographers & videographers will add an extra level of professionalism to your project.
VR is an emerging technology that can transport you to new worlds and environments. Our team can create your "soon to be" CAD environments and visualize them in virtual reality, before your investment is made.
Our designers take time to understand your objectives, the environment and the audience to create unforgettable experiences.
We use a combination of industry leading software to create effective content that enhances your brand and captures your audience.
Everything starts with a content strategy; we are experts at developing streamlined strategies that get results.
Give the public a chance to speak up and share via their favorite social media apps; twitter, facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and SMS can be aggregated and displayed in a customizable layout.
Disrupt your content loop with up-to the millisecond live feed images & information; sports, amber alerts, campaigns; be the first to take it live!
Our team has relationships with some of the largest content providers around the world. We can assist with negotiating, integrating and moderating the appropriate feeds for your network.
Mobile apps such as place-based wayfinding, loyalty, and gaming can be linked with your digital signage network to engage and captivate your audience.
Digital signage, system design, structure and framing, network implementation, monetization, and content strategy.
Our technology agnostic approach puts your solution design first. Solution requirements determine which hardware we use for the job.
Success just doesn't happen, it's planned for. Careful execution is our specialty.
We offer top quality installation services across North America. From small to large to VERY large displays, we have you covered.
Software is only a small part of the equation. Effective content management requires collaboration, trusted processes, redundant systems and quality assurance. Let us help you get into a rhythm that ensures you get the most out of your network.
Our state-of-the-art 24/7 network operations control centre (NOC) gives us the ability to proactively monitor your network and react to issues quickly to minimize service disruptions.
We are a data-driven society, especially when it comes to retail. So much information is at our fingertips, but what does it all mean? Our team of analysts can help develop key performance indicators (KPI) to help better understand your digital signage network, more importantly, your audience.
Technicians are always on standby to respond to issues reported by our NOC. If a tech is needed on site, they will be there within the same day to make things right again.


If you are looking for solidly acted, and a polished looking, action thriller, Mile 22 should satisfy; besides it's always fun to watch some knuckles get bloodied, and shiny things go boom!
When Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg work together we, the moviegoers, are undoubtedly prepared for a fast-paced and excitement-filled movie ala Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor. We are also likely to be treated to an action film that is able to connect its characters to the audience.
Mile 22 delivers an action-centric, yet, otherwise, flawed, thriller. The film's taught, and tense opening sequence belies the rest of the movie's performance, never living up to the expectations set in the first 20 minutes.
We are introduced to James Silva (Mark Wahlberg- The Departed, Boogie Nights) and his Second in Command, Alice Kerr (Lauren Cohan- The Walking Dead, Supernatural). After a quick backstory, explaining the recruitment of the bright yet angry young Mr. Silva by the CIA, we learn the premise of the film from the inimitable John Malkovich, portraying the Overwatch Leader, Bishop.
An elite paramilitary team called Overwatch is tasked with transporting a police officer (Iko Uwais) with vital information about a potential terrorist attack 22 miles across Southeast Asia from the American embassy to an airfield. With the help of high-tech communications expert Bishop (John Malkovich) and second-in-command Alice (Lauren Cohan), leader Jimmy Silva (Mark Wahlberg) and his team must outrun local military, police and gang leaders to complete their mission.
At just over 90 minutes, the film desired to deliver a taut, action thriller but falls a bit short in many of its intended targets, including providing us with characters that we can connect with. Being the first part of a three-part film series, this could have been on purpose to leave the backstory for part 2.
Unfortunately, there's not enough time spent getting to know the characters. Even after seeing Lauren Cohan's troubled relationship with her ex-husband and her separation from her daughter, at the end, after almost being killed, bringing Iko Uwais safely to the airport, she is told by Wahlberg to "Go be a Mom for 6 days" She replies, "I'll be back in 5." Really? Mother of the year, in training.
What is a bit upsetting is the limited use of Iko Uwais (Raid: Redemption, Star Wars Ep 7) martial art skills. His frenetic, explosive martial arts choreography was so heavily edited it looked amazing but not spectacular. While most of the fight set pieces were well choreographed by Iko Uwais they left us with a feeling of what-might-have-been.
It isn't an entire loss. Mile 22 provides standard action fare, with a bit of an unforeseen twist, and leaves off with the promise of a continuation, which we may never see, given the lackluster box office. Hopefully, it will do better in the home market and we get to see a sequel sometime soon.
The Universal Blu-ray provides us with an MPEG-4 AVC 1080p resolution and it looks great. The environments are sharp, even in the dimly lit interiors of the apartment building sequence; through the smoke and gunfire, we are treated to great clarity, especially up close fight scenes, the blood and drops of sweat seem ready to roll off the screen. What is a very nice surprise is when you redeem the digital code (iTunes Only) for Mile 22 you get the 4K version digitally.
The audio, while not Dolby Atmos, is DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless, and provides a solid atmosphere for an active playground. Explosions, gunfire, even the conversations in the Overwatch Command, as well as the Russian ops center, all provide a vibrant, rich tapestry, which plays well in surround sound.
The extras are short (none over 4 minutes in length) and to the point and lack the depth of many other special features we come to expect from a major studio release. A few of note are Overwatch, Introducing Iko Uwais, and Iko Fight. It was also interesting to see how Columbia doubled as the Far East. I really enjoy his other films and was looking forward to seeing him unleashed here. His talents are a bit hampered by the quick edits, but if you are a fan, you will appreciate him in this movie.
All in all, Mile 22 is a flawed, but fun action film. It could have used another 20 minutes to develop the characters and elaborate on the plot. Mile 22 doesn't deliver Jack Ryan or Jason Bourne but if you are looking for solidly acted, and a polished looking, action thriller, Mile 22 should satisfy; besides it's always fun to watch some knuckles get bloodied, and shiny things go boom!
Here's hoping for Mile 22 Part 2 and Raid 3!
For more information about Mile 22 visit the FlickDirect Movie Database.


Dr. Md. Moarraf Hossen graduated from Chittagong Medical College in 1985. He did DMRT from BSMMU, Dhaka in 1990 and FCPS in Radiotherapy from BCPS, Dhaka in 1994. He received WHO Fellowhip Training on Radiation Oncology and IAEA Fellowship Training on Radiation Treatment, both at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. Dr. Moarraf served at a number of reputed institutions, including as R.S Radiotherapy at Chittagong Medical College & Hospital, and as Assistant Professor - Radiotherapy at Dinajpur Medial College, Dhaka Medical College & Hospital, and National Institute of Cancer Research & Hospital. He has significant experience in the management of cancer patients and modern Oncology practices including Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy.


text:
in: Trope, Older Than the NES, Video Game Interface Elements,
Videogame Culture
Attract Mode
"Hey, hey, hey! Are you ready to have some fun? I got some kicking music, and I'm ready to see you drive! Get those coins out of your pocket, throw them in the machine, and let's get started! CRAZY TAXI!"
—Announcer, Crazy Taxi
"Winners don't use drugs."
—William S. Sessions, Director, FBI (as seen on the attract mode of all video games imported into the US between 1989 and 2000, as required by law.)
An arcade game that isn't being played goes into "attract mode," (sometimes called "advertise mode", "demo mode" or "game over mode"[1]) which is intended to attract passersby to play the game.
Typical attract modes show several of the following elements:
The game being played by itself (with varying degrees of skill)
Cutscenes showing the game's Backstory
Lists of high scores
Tutorials explaining how to play the game
A table of values for Scoring Points (often including at least one "mystery" value in games of the Space Invaders era)
The occasional PSA exhortation not to use drugs
Pinball games made since circa 1990, with alphanumeric or dot-matrix displays, also have attract modes similar to those in video games.
Arcade games with an attract mode will almost always have blinking text on the screen telling the player to "Insert Coin". Or they may have "Game over" meaning that at the moment, the game was unplayable. Of course.
Attract modes still appear in many console games today, to persuade customers in retail stores to buy the game, the console or both, although the attract mode often consists merely of playing the opening FMV again if the game is left idle at the title screen too long.
Attract modes that specifically show gameplay or plot elements are Precaps.
Examples of Attract Mode include:
In the infamous arcade game Berzerk, one of the earliest uses of a voice chip in arcade games is apparent when the game says, "Coin detected in pocket," during the attract mode.
In the equally infamous game Sinistar, the game does more than simply try to attract players — it actually taunts them, using its voice chip. Phrases such as "Beware, I live!" and "Run, coward! I am Sinistar!" were frequently heard in arcades whose managers didn't shut off the voice during the attract sequence (according to MAME, each Sinistar machine is fitted with a HC-55516 voice synthesizer chip). It wasn't a cheap game to own for most arcade owners.
Sonic the Hedgehog's idle mode was somewhat controllable. In some versions of the game, holding A, B and C would prevent Sonic from being able to jump. Most notable during the Green Hill Zone Act 1 section, as Sonic would run straight into the game's first enemy and die.
Super Mario Land 2 also had demos you could control with a specific button combination. Normally, the demos would end after a set number of button presses, but one of the demo stages was actually beatable in that amount. Doing so would crash the game.
The game for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has one of these, an amazingly cinematic trailer-esque sequence set to the movie's main theme music.
Mario Kart games have always had several attract modes, playing in sequence if you left the title screen undisturbed. The original SNES game had modes showcasing two-player Grand Prix, Time Trial, Battle Mode and one-player Grand Prix.
The Wii version even has Mario and Luigi demonstrating how to race with the included Wii Wheel like they are the players in the real world before going to a more traditional in game attract mode.
The arcade game Galaga had an attract mode that, due to a bug, you could actually control...and reset the machine, even.
Salamander 2 also has an interactive attract mode, though it's implemented on purpose.
Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles had a pretty cool one where the different Jedi show off their powers.
Super Metroid has several sets of demos, the initial ones just showing normal gameplay but progressing far enough into the game would unlock demos that actually show various tips and tricks, most of them being obscure stuff you wouldn't think of doing such as the charge beam-powerbomb combos and fancy ways to use the Speed Booster.
The attract mode in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes had, besides showing off the game, a title screen theme that did not play anywhere else (a snippet of it appears before the credits).
The NES port of Arkanoid would show demo play from different levels, up to level 23. A bug enabled you to trick the game into thinking the Game Over screen from these demos were real, enabling you to use a continue and start the game at level 23.
Dead Space has an attract mode that showcases the many ways you can die in the game.
Not only coin-op arcade games do this. Console games, too, will have attract modes that activate if idle, for use in video game stores. Ghost Hunter's attract mode features the voice of Michael Gambon booming out, "There are thousands of ghost stories... into some intrude the living."
Most console RPGs will have some sort of story-related sequence play out while waiting for the player to press Start. Some examples which aren't just the opening sequence which would automatically play when you start the game:
Chrono Trigger's montage of events from various time eras accompanied by the very appropriate track "Premonition".
Xenosaga 2's haunting vocal melody played while a mysterious device is being assembled. It's the ES Asher having its Vessel of Anima being installed (or rather, the ES Asher being built around the Vessel of Anima).
Final Fantasy VIII's "Overture" illustrating the weapons of the main characters in black and white.
Final Fantasy IX contains brief cuts of other FMVs in the game as well as a sweeping view of the world map which isn't seen anywhere else. Similarly, Final Fantasy XII's attract mode mainly consists of cuts from existing FMVs.
Final Fantasy X 2's homage to FF 8 involves a gorgeous piano melody illustrating monochrome examples of weapons belonging to various dresspheres, with the main characters suggested nearby but never shown.
Final Fantasy Tactics (the original release) has no less than three or four totally separate FM Vs that cycle around, ranging from story introduction to gameplay footage to just cool stuff.
Vagrant Story, in an interesting take, shows an FMV that features a dancer playing Mullenkamp, the deity of one of the factions in the game. It's notable in that it's the only FMV in the entire game, and features practically nothing about the game itself. Leave the game unattended a while longer, and it will show the meeting at the VKP Headquarters where Ashley first gets his assignment.
The DS rerelease of Final Fantasy IV features an awesome FMV introducing nearly all the characters, and making use of both screens (occasionally by having credits on one screen, action on the other, and also having action going on both screens, such as the shot of the Tower of Babil.)
It also spoils certain plot-points in the game.
The Tales Of series generally has anime cutscenes with fast-paced (often vocal) music. Sometimes it's the only anime cutscene other than the ending. Similarly with Valkyrie Profile.
Add Atelier Iris do that list.
The Wild Arms series also uses anime cutscenes set to some song. Later games alternate this with some random battle demonstrations, but the first game actually showed a very plot-related ingame cutscene of some backstory... that you never see anywhere else. The remake kept this.
Both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 feature orchestral remixes of their main themes accompanying a few verses of poetry and quick cuts of scenes that take place within the game.
Parasite Eve has a fast-paced, horrifying montage with FMV cuts interspersed with scientific DNA technobabble (similar to Metal Gear Solid 2).
The Game Boy Advance remakes of Final Fantasy IV and V feature one of the main themes from the game playing while a brief explanation of the story is shown.
Persona 3 (here) and Persona 4 (here) alternate between a short animated music video and a montage of gameplay and cutscene highlights playing over a second song. (The FES remake of Persona 3 has its own montage, separate from the original.)
Lux-Pain has an anime-style animated opening sequence, complete with Japanese vocals, that introduces the main characters and the silent plot. Not bad for a Nintendo DS game.
Nippon Ichi games either show story-related cutscenes or cycle through clips of gameplay demonstrating some of the more interesting moves available.
Madden games pick two random teams (that are not historical teams or NFL Europe teams), and pits them head to head in a full CPU-controlled game, using the current settings.
Many early First-Person Shooter games, starting with Wolfenstein 3-D, would display demo recordings of the game if left idle at the title screen. Interestingly, such demos almost always ended with the recording player's death.
Both Guitar Hero and Rock Band would have random songs being performed if left at the title screen for too long.
Guitar Hero 5 takes it a step further and has the attract mode be "Party Mode", which takes random on-disc or DLC songs (no customs, including Neversoft's) and has the currently set up band onstage performing them while allowing people to jump in and out at will on any instrument without worrying about failing. Additionally, anyone playing can pause without interrupting the song and switch difficulty or handedness, or even request a song change (which is one of the few actions that does stop playback).
Rock Band 2, on the other hand, loops between two songs: "Let There Be Rock" and the "Hello There" video.
Leaving the start screen on Zelda games idle for a time usually brings up something. In the two original NES games, players were treated to a scrolling explanation (famously misspelled, in The Legend of Zelda) of the game's plot. Most recently, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess features an attract mode with a lengthy montage of cutscenes and game action set to some of the game's best music. Ocarina of Time also has one that shows brief scenes of the Fire Temple, the Spirit Temple or the Forest Temple.
...to GO!! to SHINE!!
"Transcending history and the world, a tale of souls and swords eternally retold." (title screen without intro)
"The heroes finally meet under the star of destiny" (gameplay demo)
Movie example, or rather game-within-a-movie example: "Greetings Starfighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada!" (Especially noteworthy in that the movie also shows the game's glitched Attract Mode, when the machine goes nuts in response to detecting either Centauri or an alien assassin in the vicinity.)
Glider PRO, if left too long on the title screen, will start an automated playthrough of Demo House.
Some games in the Mortal Kombat series allowed you to move a joystick or press a button to show certain high score lists during attract mode. Very nice if you wanted to see whether someone had beaten your best score without waiting around. The arcade version of Ultimate MK 3 had a fake character, a purple ninja named "Rain", appear in attract mode, although he became playable in the home versions and later games.
Bioshock has a particularly chilling one.
Not all classic coin-ops had gameplay demo sequences. The attract mode of The Tower of Druaga consists entirely of the title screen, the high score table, the title screen again, the Opening Narration, the title screen again, etc.
Other examples are Baby Pac-Man, Spy Hunter II (not to be confused with the sequel to the remake), and Xenophobe.
Later Ace Combat games would feature a video sequence if left alone at the title screen. Most of the time it's just a trailer for the game itself.
Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games alternate between replaying the opening movie and gameplay footage. Generally not very exciting footage, for some reason.
Atari's eight-bit home computers (the 400 and 800 and later variants) had what was commonly referred to as "attract mode" built-in. In truth, this feature was more akin to a primitive screensaver, simply cycling the color palette after about nine minutes of no input, in order to avoid screen burn. (This, of course, didn't preclude games from including a "real" attract mode).
DJMAX Technika 2 has one of the more interactive examples; during the Attract Mode, most of the time there are buttons that allow you to cycle between the tutorial, the score rankings, and the song preview. The former two are straightforward enough, but song preview allows you to select a song to hear a brief clip of, so you can hear what it sounds like before starting a game.
Coin operated kiddie rides gotten on the bandwagon since the early 90s. Many Japanese and Italian made rides would play a snippet of the song that it would play while running (which may or may not be accompanied with speech inviting kids to ride the thing). Those made in the UK plays back speech snippets (which among other things, invites any passing kids to play with it, explains the type of coins accepted by the ride as most rides originating from the country are multi-coin capable, as well as the vendor's service phone number), but music sample is optional and not all rides play it. Some are just plain illogical (the interactive van series of rides by R.G. Mitchells are often cited by parents as Nightmare Fuel- this is why). Certain new china-made rides are starting to have an attract mode too, which has nothing to do with whatever music the ride actually plays. Many new lower end rides however do not have an attract mode at all.
Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX+ has a song during the attract mode called "Stay Where You Are" where a female singer repeats the title over and over. Guess what the game wants you to do.
Left to its own devices, the main menu of Devil May Cry plays some helpful demos of Dante's moves in combat, as well as a story trailer.
Kirby Super Star, a game made up of several sub-games, will play a series of story sequences explaining the plot of each of the sub-games if you let it sit at the title sequence long enough. What most people don't realize is that letting the game cycle through these scenes twice will play an extra scene that acts as a prologue to the final sub-game, Milkyway Wishes. Since many players are unlikely to ever find this scene, the final boss appears to be a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere.
Though each sub-game will show its plot at its own sub-title screen as well.
Night Trap has this.
The Touhou games do the standard showing off how the game is played thing. Why isn't entirely clear, considering that you're not going to find them in an arcade and there's not a whole lot of tricks to show.
Some Super Robot Wars titles have a sequence of Mecha performing their signature moves with theme songs playing.
Fire Emblem games give short descriptions of units while they show off their moves. Genealogy of the Holy War adds some dialogue and map shots.
The latter's actually contained over 40 possible scenes, progressively unlocked by completing multiple playthroughs or ending with a better rank. Most notably, some confirm important plot points that are only hinted at in the actual story, such as Levin dying at the end of the 1st gen and being resurrected by Holsety.
Chrono Cross has one that shows some events that don't actually happen in the game, and with characters that you can't have at the points displayed, and has The Dream That Time Dreams/Time of the Dreamwatch play. Except for in one obscure alternate ending, this is the only time it plays.
↑ The third name came about because "Game Over" was often displayed during attract modes
Older Than the NES
Video Game Interface Elements

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


EU approval of the $66 billion buyout of US agri-giant Monsanto by German chemical firm Bayer will come on Wednesday, sources say.
The EU is set to greenlight the proposed blockbuster buyout of US agri-giant Monsanto by German chemical firm Bayer after securing concessions in order to win approval, sources close to the matter said on Tuesday.
Several sources told AFP that Bayer had won the greenlight that would be officially announced by the commission on Wednesday in Brussels.
Brussels launched an in-depth investigation in August into the $66 billion (56-billion-euro) deal, which would create the world's largest integrated pesticides and seeds company.
The European Commission, which serves as the powerful anti-trust regulator for the 28-nation European Union, at the time cited concerns it could reduce competition in key products for farmers.
Brussels is also under pressure by environmentalists who fear that the deal would give too much power to the world's leading manufacturers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the controversial weedkiller glyphosate.
The EU has won several concessions from Bayer including the announced sale in October by Bayer of parts of its agrochemical business to German rival BASF.
That deal would see Bayer sell the lion's share of its crop seeds units and its glyphosate herbicide business to BASF for 5.9 billion euros ($7 billion).
Earlier this month, BASF also committed to buying Bayer's vegetable seed business in a last minute concession to Brussels.
The deadline for the merger approval is April 5 and the Leverkusen-based Bayer has been confident the Commission will green-light its deal.
Both Bayer and the commission refused to comment.
Bayer chief executive Werner Baumann said last month that if it receives the Commission's go-ahead, the Monsanto deal could be completed sometime in the second quarter.
In a letter to EU Competition commissioner Margarethe Vestager, activists from Friends of Europe warned against the merger due to its consequences on the environment.
"Blocking this deeply unpopular merger would be a big win for the EU -– over a million citizens have called on EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager to block this merger from hell," the activists said in a statement.


text:
Journaling saved my life. I mean it. It is the biggest reason I didn't choose suicide as an option when I was a was young. When I was confused, I wrote and for some reason that brought me feelings of contentment, accomplishment, and relief.
Now I write with the intention of helping anyone else who might feel like they are alone in their suffering.
Mike's longing for discipline leads him across the contest stage where he accidently becomes Mr. Los Angeles Leather.
His search for the holy grail of a hyper-masculine erotic brotherhood has him soaking up books on fetish and advice from an endless parade of self-appointed experts.
Now, as he heads off to the biggest contest of them all, the Chicago, International Mister Leather competition. He wonders if he's got what it takes and if the "community" has what he really wants.
Mike has written for Instigator, Letherati, Savage Love, and been featured on the NPR affiliate, KCRW Strangers podcast. He has competed in, and won, exactly three leather titles including International Mister Leather. He created TRIBE – WeHo Gay Men's Discussion Group and the LA Band of Brothers. He lives in West Hollywood with his husband Garrett, teaches yoga in his spare time, and knows the proper crew complement of a Galaxy-class starship.
Coming of age is difficult under the best of circumstances. For gay youth raised with deeply held religious traditions, the experience can be both exhilarating and life threatening. Documenting these intense realities faced by me and my kind as we struggled to find a path for ourselves among the heteronormative mating rituals of small town early 80s America is what this book is about.
Mikel Gerle has been a pineapple picker, ballet dancer, International Mister Leather, government bureaucrat, and yoga teacher. He has ridden his bike 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles four times to raise money to combat HIV, the virus he as survived since 1987. He and his partner share their lives with their chosen family in Hollywood, CA.
He has written A View from the Podium and articles for Instigator Magazine and Leatherati. More information and his blog can be found at mikelgerle.com.
International Mister Leather (IML)
TRIBE Discussion Group


Juniors Cortez Edwards, Dominic Magee and Tyree Griffin helped Southern Miss defeat cross-town rival William Carey, 75-58. The win gives the Golden Eagles their first four game-winning streak in the Doc Sadler era.
The Golden Eagles struggled early in the first half, as they faced deficits as much as seven points at 24-17. William Carey never gave up the lead for the first 17 minutes of the first half. Early shooting trouble plagued Southern Miss as it was 1-for-10 from the three-point line and shot 29 percent from the field.
But the duo of Edwards and Magee put together a 14-4 run in the final minutes of the half to give Southern Miss a 28-26 lead.
Edwards mainly kept Southern Miss afloat in the first half with his 14 points, six of which came through perfect shooting from the free throw line.
In the second half, the Golden Eagles broke the game open at the 15:26 mark with an 11-2 run to put them ahead 49-38. This led to Southern Miss taking as much as a 19 point lead by the end of the night.
Edwards and Magee both finished with double-doubles which is the first time since 2011 that a pair of teammates posted double-doubles. Edwards finished with 28 points and 12 rebounds as well as shooting 10-for-12 from the free throw line. Magee finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds while Griffin finished with 14 points.
The Golden Eagles will go on the road to play No. 19 Florida State on Dec. 21 at 1 p.m. and then play Mississippi State in Jackson, MS on Dec. 23 at 6 p.m.


Freedom Fellowship Church of The Villages, FL is an exciting new ministry that began holding worship services on January 8th, 2017. We are a ministry that believes in God and Country, thus you see a combination of the CROSS and the AMERICAN FLAG in our logo. We want to send you a warm invitation to experience worship with us. We are non-denominational and practice three guiding principles, FAITH……FAMILY…..and FREEDOM! We believe that Jesus is the ONLY hope for our Nation, the Church, our Families, and our Lives! It is our desire to build a progressive ministry that holds on to conservative values and seeks to be BIBLICALLY CORRECT rather than POLITICALLY CORRECT. If you are searching for something dynamic and a little different, come see us. We are the perfect church for people who aren't.
Choose from past sermon and special event videos on demand.
Join a live chat while you watch!
kirk elliot presentation vid from Melvin Whittington on Vimeo.


Is Keynote the best app to create widgets for your iBooks?
The cool thing about eBooks created with iBooks Author is they can be interactive. However, most of the traditional publisher offerings are only slightly better than their print counterparts. By and large, they don't do a good job capitalizing on the features offered in this relatively new medium. Most teacher created textbooks, by contrast, do a much better job using interactivity and are therefore much more compelling.
This interactivity typically comes in the form of widgets. The widgets built into iBooks Author will only take you so far. Before long teachers are looking for ways to create their own widgets. I'm going to contend that Keynote is the best app you can get to create custom widgets for your iBooks. That said, I should also mention that I'm a big fan of Tumult Hype, but I believe Keynote is the best place for most teachers to start. There are lots of great general tutorials out there for learning the basics of Keynote, some created by me and some created by other very talented people. These will get you up and running in Keynote, but are not focused specifically on using Keynote with iBooks.
I've created a number of posts showing how to use Keynote to enhance your iBooks. So, in an effort to win you over to my way of thinking, here are a variety of ways you can use Keynote to enhance your students' learning.
Interactive Maps – Create maps like the ones showed off in E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth books. The same technique could also be used in a variety of widgets where you want to highlight or contrast various parts of an image.
Math Practice Widget – Build something like Tara Maynard's ultra cool math practice widget. This is set up to allow students to get the level of help they need while working on problems.
Interactive Videos – Have a dialog with your students through video, where your students' answers to questions lead to different responses from you. Get your students think, not just watching.
Downsize your iBook – Create Keynotes with voiceovers to replace some of your screen-cast videos.
Create your own Clipart – Never worry about violating copyright nor about finding just the right clipart or icon for your book.
Create custom animations – You can actually use Keynote as a simple animation tool.
Keynote as Video Editor – Believe it or not, you can create some pretty cool video effects in Keynote.
I like to embed a lot of videos in my iBooks Author projects. These videos can often push the size of my iBooks up to an unacceptable size. One way I get around this is to create YouTube widgets in a program like Hype or using a web service like Bookry. However, this means students must have in internet connection to view the videos. Requiring the internet can sometimes be a problem which is why I like to try to include full videos when possible.
As it turns out, many of my videos are screencast tutorials. These often simply show a static screen with my mouse moving to and clicking a button to bring us to the next static screen. This can easily be reproduced with a series of screenshots put into Keynote. I use an Animate Action or Magic Move Transition to move a cursor from one location on the screen to another, or to highlight a a particular item. Then all I need is a voice over.
Currently audio files will not autoplay on the iPad, but videos will. So in-order to add a voiceover I need to add in a video. Now this seems like it might be a bit counter productive as I was trying to not add a video in the first place. The video I make for this is tiny, consisting of only a solid background and recorded audio. I make these using Quicktime. Simply select "New Screen Recording" from the "File" menu and then drag a rectangle over a plain white portion of your screen when prompted. I discussed using a video for a voiceover in my video on Tara Maynard's Interactive Math Practice Widget.
You can see some examples of my finished video replacements in an iBook on using Google Drive in education I made for my school last summer. The content is slightly outdated now, but you can still see how I used Keynote to replace screencasts. In this iBook I didn't use a single video nor HTML5 widget.
I should note that videos playing in a Keynote widget will not have video controls, so there is no way to pause them nor replay them. With this in mind I'd recommend adding linked buttons to replay a slide as well as buttons to go forward or back as needed. The replay button was not something I added to the Keynotes in my book, but I will in the future.
I wouldn't replace all of my screencast videos but I will be using Keynote more and more in the future to replace videos. One of the things I like about replacing videos with Keynote is you can easily have playback require student input to progress. This is important for two reasons. First is the student is more likely to pay attention if they have to click to continue and secondarily the passes can give time for reflection or note taking.
Finding the perfect textbook for your class really is an impossible task. Each one you look at is missing some critical component or if one does have everything, it uses an approach that you think won't work with your students. Even if you somehow find the perfect book, it is typically the most expensive book you've looked at. In the end you end up selecting a book that is the best compromise of several competing factors. Not the best but instead, the least bad. The alternative is to not use a textbook or to create your own textbook.
With this in mind I encouraged the teachers of our freshman Integrated Science Class to create their own textbook for the first year of our 1:1 iPad deployment. This was a huge undertaking so I encouraged them to dive into ck-12 to assemble a series of books to use with their students. The books were saved as ePubs and distributed through iTunesU.
The ePubs, while very nice, have some limitations. The ck-12 materials often have videos and interactive elements scattered throughout. In order to use these, the students must leave their book and go onto the web. Not a big deal, but often once students leave their books many never make it back again. For next year we want to make the books more encapsulated, removing the need for students to leave the book to work with the interactive elements. Enter iBooks Author. The last update Apple gave iBooks Author the ability to import ePubs. Now we can take the work that was already done and repurpose it.
Import into your iBooks Author template of choice. All of the content will come in as a single chapter.
From your chapter with everything copy all of the content for a chapter and paste it into the chapter you created for it. Keep going until you've done this with all the chapters.
Work on Formatting: All of your images are "inline" you might want to use the Inspector to change them to Floating or Anchored so you can put them where you want them to be.
Create Widgets for interactive content.
Point 7, "Create Widgets" is the hard part. iBooks Author doesn't give you the ability to embed most web content directly. It does, however, give you the ability to add in HTML5 widgets. I typically build my HTML5 widgets in Tumult Hype. Totally awesome program. I haven't looked at the newest update yet but I will probably buy it. They do offer an educational discount, making it much more affordable. A less nerdy, as well as free, way would be to use Bookry to make your widgets. Once we get some of the books converted I'll post them here.
Below is my walkthrough of using Hype to embed a YouTube video in your iBook. You could use the same process for a lot of other web content as well.
When people are learning to make iBooks with iBooks Author they often want to have cool widgets for their students to interact with. As I've shown in previous posts, you can create some pretty easily with Keynote. I really like showing teachers how to use Keynote to do this because if they use a Mac they already have it. When you couple this with a free image editor, Gimp, you can do some really cool stuff.
The example here is not one I've used to teach my students, but one I used at last year's iBookHack. From a teaching standpoint it might not be very good, I'm not really sure since I don't teach social studies. It's just an example of how you might create an interactive map to use with your students. The first video below walks you through using Gimp to create your maps. The second shows you how to use Keynote to bring them together as an interactive widget you can drop into an iBook.
I've been involved in iBooks Author teacher training with Anthony DiLaura for a few years now. You can find out about our hackathon coming up this summer at the ibookhack site.
While working on the iBookHack project I've gotten to meet some amazing educators. One of these is Tara Maynard. Tara saw a cool HTML5 math practice widget in an iBook and she wondered if it would be possible to put something like it in her own books. I showed her how she might reproduce the basic idea of the widget in Keynote and she went on to create this great template. She has shared it so you can use it as a starting point for your own practice widget. If you need a little help you can check out my video below.
The problem is shown, if there are accessibility concerns a button is included that will read the problem aloud to the student. Each problem can provide a hint to help aid students in independent practice and finally the solution is provided so students can get instant feedback to see if they were correct. Since it is made in Keynote the problem, hints, or solution can include pictures or videos as well. Overall it is a great interactive element to include in an iBook and doesn't take a lot of technical skills to implement.
The core idea of this widget centers on creating a "Links Only" presentation in Keynote. If you need a little more information on this you should check out another video I made, which is also included below.
For the last couple of summers I had the pleasure to work along Tony DiLaura, Dave Bast and some great educators committed to making their own content with hopes of replacing traditional textbooks at iBooks Hackathons. I'd put together some material for those hackathons and I thought I'd share some of it here.
When I teach I try to always ask questions and never give answers. I want my students to struggle a bit and discover the answers through experimentation and discussion. This is very difficult to do in the videos I make. Due to the nature of video I don't really give students time to think, nor do I give them a chance to investigate different answers. Derek Muller hit on a solution to this on his Veritasium YouTube Channel. YouTube allows you to put clickable hotspots on videos. Derek uses these to link to other videos he's made. He set up a kind of choose your own adventure allowing viewers to think about different answers to questions and each answer has it's own video.
I thought this was an awesome way to get students thinking and set out to try it myself. But as it turns out, these hotspots don't work on mobile devices, including iPads. We're in the midst of becoming a 1:1 iPad school, so I don't want to rely on cool internet features that I know won't work on mobile devices.
After some though, I realized I could create the same sort of effect using either Keynote or Tumult Hype. Once created I can drop them into an iBook as an interactive widget and my students will be able to actually grapple with questions in their book rather than simply being presented with the answers. Each solution has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here's the version I made with Hype (I'm not sure this link will work correctly) to use with my students.
One big advantage with Keynote is it is easy to work with and if you have a Mac you probably already have it. Keynote's biggest disadvantage is there is no way to control the video once it starts in an iBook widget. The video starts and then runs to completion, no pausing or rewinding.
In Hype you do have the video controls. The other big advantage in Hype is you can embed YouTube videos. I don't know of any way to have YouTube videos auto-play in Hype. As far as I know, there is currently no way to embed a YouTube video in a Keynote. Embedding YouTube videos means you must have internet access to view, but it keeps the iBook size down to manageable levels. Unfortunately Hype is not free. It costs $30, but if you're going to be making iBooks it might be worth it in the long run. Make sure you buy it through the Tumult Education Store to get the discounted price.
I've already written a bit about iBooks Author and how awesome it is for creating resources to share with your students. I know some of you are probably rolling your eyes about now and thinking something along the lines of, "More iPads in education… When will this fad die?" Whether or not iPads in the classroom are a fad or not is really immaterial at this point. Like it or not, many schools are already or will be going one to one with them. So we should probably find the best way to use this technology to support our students.
Last year Dan Spencer put me in contact with Tony DiLaura. Tony is an educator from Zeeland Michigan. He is also excited about the potential impact of teacher created textbooks using iBooks Author. His goal is to bring educators together to collaboratively create resources that can be used to make the creation of these books easier. After some discussion the idea of the iBooks Hackathon was born.
We will officially kickoff the Hackathon at this year's MACUL conference. Then in June we will have two workshops, one on the east side of Michigan and the other on the west side. At these workshops we hope to bring educators together into groups and begin working on cool resources. Throughout the summer these groups will continue to work and in August we will take what has been created to that point and have the official launch of what will hopefully be a large collection of resources for other educators to use.
if you are interested in participating you can check out our Google+ Community as well as our page in the MI-Learning section of MACUL's website.
This summer it looks like I will be helping run an iBooks Teacher Academy for teachers in my school. We'll be partnering with a local university (more on this later) so we'll be able to offer SB-CEUs and/or university credit. Our plan is to use this to help leverage the technology we already have in our building. Last summer we bought a cart of iPads and for the most part we've only been using them as a portal to the internet. When we bought the cart we knew this would be the primary way it was utilized, but now we're hoping to move beyond this.
Our secret plan is to get teachers investing in professional development to change the way they think about teaching with technology. Our summer training will only be three four hour days. The focus of the workshop will be split between how to use programs to author interactive iBooks and TPACK (when did this change? I thought it was TPCK). We don't simply want to show teachers how to use the tools. We want to help them think about how to use the tools to teach better.
So how will we accomplish this in 12 hours? The short answer is we won't. We're also planning a series of three to four more 90 minute meetings during the following school year. These will be a chance to get back together and share what we've been working on and get feedback. I'm also planning on pushing for an online collaborative component. I've run some staff training in the past and I've not gotten much traction with any online stuff I've done after the fact, so I'm not dead set on including this. I will be thinking about it through and I'll post details to my blog if anyone is interested on following our progress.
So, why iBooks Author? Because it is really slick. Yes, I know you're locked into the Apple iPad ecosystem. But, at it turns out that's ok at thins point. That said I'll be watching for Inkling Habitat when it becomes available to the public "later this year". Our focus is not only on the specific tool, but how we can use the tool to create pedagogically appropriate content for our students. This last is what I'm excited about.
Below is a my latest iBooks 2.0 demo video. I made it in part to advertise the possibilities to our staff while at the same time testing out the capabilities of Camtasia Mac 2 and Reflection (which lets me mirror my iPad on my computer). I highly recommend both programs!


All but a few of the 30 employees of the biggest private employer in Culbertson, Mont., a plant that made cooking oil by crushing safflower seeds, got pink slips just five days before Christmas in 1996.
Jennifer Kessner, the controller, was one of the lucky few, but she worried about her future employment. There were no other jobs in this town of 900 (700 now) for an accountant with a college degree.
Kessner and her husband realized immediately they might have to move away. If her co-workers did the same, the resulting housing glut might leave them no choice but to let the bank take their home.
Twenty-five miles away in Medicine Lake, Mont., Bill Schell, general manager of Sheridan Electric Cooperative, also was losing sleep, worrying about the impact losing the plant would have on residential rates. It was the co-op's biggest load by far.
At stake were $500,000 in annual revenue and one of the sturdier local economies in the utility's northeastern Montana service territory.
Culbertson is on the Lewis and Clark Trail, just a mile from the breathtakingly rugged Missouri Breaks, which rise up from both banks of the Missouri River. It had several restaurants and a casino, a hospital, a high school, and the stalwarts of a healthy Main Street: a hardware store, a supermarket, and a pharmacy.
That winter, Sheridan Electric's board of directors voted unanimously to try to save the plant. The membership soon lined up behind it, voting two to one in favor of buying the business.
Co-op officials talked a local farmer, Neil Turnbull, into managing the plant. He had worked there 15 years earlier when it was owned by Continental Grain, an international giant. With the right business plan, he was sure it could be successful again. "Since I was from this area and had been watching what was happening, it really tugged at me," he told RE Magazine at the time.
Working capital came from local and state banks, both in Montana and North Dakota, and from start-up grants provided by both states, since the area lies within what's called the Mon-Dak economic region. Sheridan Electric spent about $2 million on new equipment and worker training.
Member Services Director Rick Knick, now the co-op's CEO, went from farm to farm writing crop contracts. The co-op needed about 65,000 acres of safflower to break even. The plant also processed sunflowers, canola, flax, and other oilseeds.
The plant reopened as Montola Growers, Inc., or MGI, in June 1997, to the great relief of Kessner and the 25 or so other households that depended upon it. Sheridan Electric operated it successfully until 2005 and then sold it to a company that planned to produce safflower-based biodiesel fuel.
In 2015, the plant was sold again and converted for reclaiming fracking water from the Bakken oil patch, which spreads north and east from Culbertson up to Saskatchewan. Oil now is 70 percent of Sheridan Electric's load.
Kessner never lost her job or her home. She rode the ups and downs of the oilseed business until landing on solid ground in 2010 as the chief financial officer at Roosevelt Medical Center, the small hospital and nursing home in Culbertson.


# Set GRDIR environment accordingly to site-package installation.
Create a C string from a Python string, bytes or unicode object.
# ... then encode it as utf-8, moving any encoding issues from C to Python.
first data point and ending at the last data point.
Draw a quiver plot on a grid of nx*ny points.
The values for `x` and `y` are in world coordinates.
Draw marker symbols centered at the given data points.
scale factor and color index.
Draw a text at position `x`, `y` using the current text attributes.
The values for `x` and `y` are in normalized device coordinates.
height, character up vector, text path and text alignment.
Allows you to specify a polygonal shape of an area to be filled.
style, fill area style index and fill area color index.
of the given cell array.
The values for `xmin`, `xmax`, `ymin` and `ymax` are in world coordinates.
ending at the last data point.
If `method` is > 0, then a generalized cross-validated smoothing spline is calculated.
If `method` is 0, then an interpolating natural cubic spline is calculated.
If `method` is < -1, then a cubic B-spline is calculated.
Specify the line style for polylines.
Define the line width of subsequent polyline output primitives.
on the workstation multiplied by the line width scale factor.
This value is mapped by the workstation to the nearest available line width.
The default line width is 1.0, or 1 times the line width generated on the graphics device.
Define the color of subsequent polyline output primitives.
Specifiy the marker type for polymarkers.
Polymarkers appear centered over their specified coordinates.
Specify the marker size for polymarkers.
multiplied by the marker size scale factor.
Define the color of subsequent polymarker output primitives.
Specify the text font and precision for subsequent text output primitives.
The appearance of a font depends on the text precision value specified.
precision for GR and produces the highest quality output.
Set the current character expansion factor (width to height ratio).
text expansion factor is 1, or one times the normal width-to-height ratio of the text.
Sets the current text color index.
`settextcolorind` defines the color of subsequent text output primitives.
GR uses the default foreground color (black=1) for the default text color index.
Set the current character height.
0.027 (2.7% of the height of the default window).
Set the current character text angle up vector.
`setcharup` defines the vertical rotation of subsequent text output primitives.
The text up vector is initially set to (0, 1), horizontal to the baseline.
Define the current direction in which subsequent text will be drawn.
Set the current horizontal and vertical alignment for text.
alignment and vertical baseline alignment.
Set the fill area interior style to be used for fill areas.
primitives. The default interior style is HOLLOW.
Sets the fill style to be used for subsequent fill areas.
for the interior style, the fill style index is unused.
Sets the current fill area color index.
`setfillcolorind` defines the color of subsequent fill area output primitives.
GR uses the default foreground color (black=1) for the default fill area color index.
these options for all subsequent output primitives until another value is provided.
assumes that the axes limits are greater than zero.
plotted. If you desire log scaling or mirror-imaging of axes, use the SETSCALE function.
The left horizontal coordinate of the window (`xmin` < `xmax`).
The right horizontal coordinate of the window.
The bottom vertical coordinate of the window (`ymin` < `ymax`).
The top vertical coordinate of the window.
[0,1] x [0,1], in world coordinates, as the normalization transformation window.
`setviewport` establishes a rectangular subspace of normalized device coordinates.
The left horizontal coordinate of the viewport.
The right horizontal coordinate of the viewport (0 <= `xmin` < `xmax` <= 1).
The bottom vertical coordinate of the viewport.
The top vertical coordinate of the viewport (0 <= `ymin` < `ymax` <= 1).
An indicator specifying whether clipping is on or off.
`setclip` enables or disables clipping of the image drawn in the current window.
boundaries, and they will be drawn to the edge of the workstation window.
By default, clipping is on.
Set the area of the NDC viewport that is to be drawn in the workstation window.
The left horizontal coordinate of the workstation window.
The right horizontal coordinate of the workstation window (0 <= `xmin` < `xmax` <= 1).
The bottom vertical coordinate of the workstation window.
The top vertical coordinate of the workstation window (0 <= `ymin` < `ymax` <= 1).
surface. The aspect ratio of the workstation window is maintained at 1 to 1.
Define the size of the workstation graphics window in meters.
The left horizontal coordinate of the workstation viewport.
The right horizontal coordinate of the workstation viewport.
The bottom vertical coordinate of the workstation viewport.
The top vertical coordinate of the workstation viewport.
the current world coordinate space.
Minimum value for the Z-axis.
Maximum value for the Z-axis.
Angle for the rotation of the X axis, in degrees.
Viewing angle of the Z axis in degrees.
used for mapping corresponding output primitives into the current window.
defined to create basic mathematical expressions and Greek letters.
The values for X and Y are in normalized device coordinates.
The character string is interpreted to be a simple mathematical formula.
Greek letters depending on the case of the keyword.
Draw X and Y coordinate axes with linearly and/or logarithmically spaced tick marks.
The interval between minor tick marks on each axis.
between major tick marks. Values of 0 or 1 imply no minor ticks.
Negative values specify no labels will be drawn for the associated axis.
coordinate unit. Major tick marks are twice as long as minor tick marks.
to outward facing (or vice versa).
the linear or logarithmic transformation established by the `setscale` function.
Draw a linear and/or logarithmic grid.
The world coordinates of the origin (point of intersection) of the grid.
between major grid lines. Values of 0 or 1 imply no grid lines.
lines are drawn using black lines and minor grid lines are drawn using gray lines.
Draw a standard vertical error bar graph.
Draw a standard horizontal error bar graph.
Draw marker symbols centered at the given 3D data points.
Display axis titles just outside of their respective axes.
Draw a three-dimensional surface plot for the given data points.
`nx` * `ny` data points. Z describes the surface height at each point on the grid.
rectangular mesh. Contour lines may optionally be labeled.
Define a linear interpolated colormap by a list of RGB colors.
are applied. The first element must be 0.0, the last element 1.0.
If no `positions` are given the `colors` are evenly distributed in the linear interpolated colormap.
Otherwise the values of `positions` define the particular position of the color in the colormap.
Open and activate a print device.
Filename for the print device.
Open and activate a print device with the given layout attributes.
Draw a rectangle using the current line attributes.
Draw a filled rectangle using the current fill attributes.
Draw a circular or elliptical arc covering the specified rectangle.
Fill a circular or elliptical arc covering the specified rectangle.
Draw simple and compound outlines consisting of line segments and bezier curves.
Set the arrow style to be used for subsequent arrow commands.
`setarrowstyle` defines the arrow style for subsequent arrow primitives.
The default arrow style is 1.
Set the arrow size to be used for subsequent arrow commands.
`setarrowsize` defines the arrow size for subsequent arrow primitives.
The default arrow size is 1.
Draw an arrow between two points.
Draw an image into a given rectangular area.
source cast on the graphics objects.
Change the coordinate transformation according to the given matrix.
Open a file for graphics output.
Filename for the graphics file.
to create mathematical symbols and Greek letters using LaTeX syntax.
Draw a triangular surface plot for the given data points.
Draw a contour plot for the given triangle mesh.
input points are located on a grid, described by `x`, `y` and `z`.
The target grid ist described by `xq` and `yq`.
Returns an array containing the resulting z-values.
Display a point set as an aggregated and rasterized image.
Display a line set as an aggregated and rasterized image.
NaN values can be used to separate the point set into line segments.
Draw volume data using the given algorithm and apply the current GR colormap.
Returns the minimum and maximum data value that were used when applying the colormap.
The minimum data value when applying the colormap. If it is negative, the actual occurring minimum is used.
The maximum data value when applying the colormap. If it is negative, the actual occurring maximum is used.
Returns the version string of the Python package gr.
Returns the version string of the GR runtime.
Returns the combined version strings of the GR runtime and Python package.


Discrete And Combinatorial Mathematics: An Applied Introduction by Grimaldi, Ralph P. and a great selection of similar Used, New and Collectible Books available now at AbeBooks.co.uk. educational technology research and development pdf Description. This fourth edition continues to improve on the features that have made it the market leader. The text offers a flexible organization, enabling instructors to adapt the book to their particular courses: discrete mathematics, graph theory, modern algebra, and/or combinatorics.


Everyday personal training for our own health.
What keep u, me or u all on whole world to wake up and run, bike train in -17*C or lower. Or in normal day/hot day when there is +30*C. Each of us has his own life style,endurance, strength, condition, power, speed and self-esteem. We know how much we can afford and we can push the limits of our persistence with each training. When we strengthen ourselves after each physical effort, so-called regeneration comes with help or recovery. Every one got problems but we all unite when there is a way to train ourself for ourself, it's a little paradox if someone look at it. Every day activity make us stronger right? yes but its is our personal win every day that keep us stronger day by day :). Some pass us day by day like i mentioned before but they don't know that we don't do it for stats(not all of them). We do it for are own health that depends of our hard work.
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text:
The 1912–13 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois.

Regular season
The 1912–13 season saw yet another head coach arrive in Champaign-Urbana to work with the Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team.  Ralph Jones left an impressive legacy behind in West Lafayette, Indiana where he was head coach of Purdue for three years. During his tenure at Purdue, Jones compiled an impressive record of 32 wins with only 9 losses resulting in two conference championships.  Jones was credited by some with originating the fast break in basketball. After leading the Fighting Illini to two additional conference championships and one national championship, Jones left to coach at Lake Forest Academy. In addition to coaching basketball, Jones was head coach of the Chicago Bears from 1930–33, where, among other achievements, he was credited with the revival of the T-formation and the use of a man in motion to throw off the defense.

Roster

Source

Schedule

Source

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!colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Non-Conference regular season
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!colspan=9 style="background:#DF4E38; color:#FFFFFF;"|Big Ten regular season

Bold Italic connotes conference game

References

Illinois Fighting Illini
Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball seasons
1912 in sports in Illinois
1913 in sports in Illinois

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


On Election Day back in 1940, in front of PS 97 in Brooklyn, I carried a poster for FDR. I was 7 years old and a fervent Jewish-Umbilical-Cord-Democrat. How could I not be? My parents, uncles, cousins and friends knew nothing else but Roosevelt, Socialism and The Party. As I matured I got the message that our Supreme Leader whose picture adorned our living room wall was a Jew hater. From then on it was the candidate and not The Party that got my vote and support. And my major considerations when casting my vote became Israel and the survival of world Jewry. We Jews had been suckered enough by political blindness. Never again for me!
Trump has had no official, governmental relationship with Israel, but his history as an American businessman speaking out and acting for Israel's support is rock solid.
• In 1982, as chair of the New World Foundation, she contributed $15,000 to Yasser Arafat and his terrorist group, the PLO.
• In 1991, as first lady, she was the first politician to advocate for a Palestinian state.
• In 1999, in Ramallah, she kissed and hugged Suha Arafat, displaying her support after hearing the terrorist's wife claim that Israel murdered Palestinian women and children by poisoning their water supply.
• Hillary's recent e-mail scandals have revealed a constant stream of "hate Israel" messages from the likes of her anti-Israel advisers such as George Soros, Sid and Max Blumenthal, Thomas Pickering, all urging her continued harsh anti-Israel stance.
• Let's also consider her top aide, Huma Abedin, who together with her whole family are devout Muslim Brotherhood operatives.
Google the above to discover the likes of those on whom she relies for counsel.
Florida and its 600,000 plus Jews are likely to be key in the election of our next president. If Israel and the future of American Jewry are of concern to you, please consider not voting for The (usual) Party and Hillary but for Republican candidates together with Donald Trump, who will extend his support for Israel from the White House.
Bergstein is a retired NYC school principal and an outspoken advocate for Jewish/Israel causes.


Comcast Corp. this week announced plans to acquire contact management company Plaxo. As a result, Comcast will add social networking functionality and other services to its websites: Comcast.net, Fancast.com and Fandango.com. The company's cable subscribers will, at some point, be able to access the social networking features through their set-top boxes and other cable-related devices. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Plaxo enables users to stay connected by allowing them to automatically update their contact information through updates it sends to their friends' address books. Plaxo also runs Pulse, a social networking site.
According to news reports, Comcast has been focused on expanding the features of its Comcast.net site as part of an overall Internet expansion strategy.
This is a very interesting development, and it represents a merging of media types that could be a sign of things to come.
Comcast recognizes the strong and growing interest in social networking among consumers. And as social networking continues to engage people online, it's a smart move by Comcast to add such capabilities to its websites to draw people there. Of course, once people visit for the social networking aspects, the goal will be to keep them there to take advantage of Comcast's other online offerings.
Comcast, like most cable providers, have already been attempting to become all things to all people--as they have, in recent years, bundled television, phone and Internet services in one package for consumers. If it's successful, this Plaxo deal will further connect Comcast to customers seeking a "one-stop-shop" media services company.


text:
What Are the Benefits of Reflexology Massage?
By Alison Boots
Reflexology is the ancient art of foot massage which originated in China and which was also known to the Ancient Egyptians. It is believed that energy runs through the body in channels known as meridians and that massage of the feet stimulates these energy channels, promoting healing and relaxation. Every part of the foot corresponds to an area of the body, and massage of the feet stimulates the corresponding part of the body so that receiving a reflexology massage is regarded as the equivalent of a full body massage.
Reduction of Stress
The most obvious effect of reflexology massage is that of stress reduction. The techniques of reflexology include finger or thumb walking--where the reflexologist walks the finger or thumb over different areas of the feet in a set sequence--and massage and kneading of the foot using the whole hand. The experience is generally firm, but gentle, and should never cause discomfort or pain. According to "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Reflexology," people of any age or sex--the elderly, women, men, teenagers, children and babies--can derive positive benefits from reflexology."
Although results vary from individual to individual, the soothing action of reflexology generally leaves the recipient feeling deeply relaxed and peaceful afterwards.
Reflexologists believe that that illness is caused by blockages in the meridians or energy channels. These blockages inhibit the flow of life enhancing energy, also known as 'chi,' causing the accumulation of negative energy, resulting in pain or disease. There are over 7,000 nerve endings in the feet, and these are connected to the whole body through the central nervous system, to the whole body. Massage of the feet, and therefore these nerve endings, stimulates the body, promoting self-healing. Says Ali Headeach, reflexologist from Margate, United Kingdomg, "The massage is designed to restore the delicate balance between the different body systems and functions, and when this happens harmony is restored. As a consequence of this, and because reflexology is so relaxing, it is also very effective in pain relief, as tension is taken out of the body and stress reduced, so pain is also reduced."
Effects of Reflexology
Reflexology increases the flow of energy, increases the circulation and stimulates the digestive system. It is so effective at this that most people feel a need to pee after a session, and are nearly always thirsty, as toxins are eliminated from the body. It is also recommended that you do not drink alcohol in the 24 hours before or after a session, as the effects of the alcohol can be multiplied. It is also inadvisable to have reflexology if you have a pacemaker fitted, or if you have diabetes.
Reflexology Research: What is reflexology
International Federation of Reflexologists: About reflexology
"The Complete Illustrated Guide to Reflexology;" Inge Dougans; 1996
Based in the UK, Alison Boots has been writing professionally since 2007. She has had work published in "Writing Magazine" and "Writers Forum" in the UK. She is also the editor and designer of a 16-page monthly magazine. Boots holds a diploma in holistic therapies from Thanet College in Kent.
How to Locate the Reflexology Colon Zone
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Join us on the 2006 ComputerWorld/Network World Canada Live Tour as it rockets its way across Canada, engaging IT professionals with informative and insightful forums about the unique issues that challenge and influence IT professionals. These FREE half-day conferences and exhibits feature keynote addresses by industry experts, plus the chance to network and interact with other network professionals and peers over complimentary breakfast.
Wireless Networking to the (Wi)MAX AT CAPACITY – No seating available.
Get ready for WiMAX, one of the most significant breakthrough technologies in wireless communications. But what is WiMAX, what value does it deliver, and how will it revolutionize the mobile business world?
Find these answers by joining editor-in-chief Dan McLean and special guest Mike Dixon, VP Networks from Motorola Canada, on Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 for Wireless Networking to the (Wi)MAX another in a series of the ComputerWorld / Network World Canada Live Tour in Toronto!
Learn what WiMAX delivers to mobile business enterprises today and what promise it holds in high-speed wireless networking tomorrow. Get ready for true mobile multimedia, including the ability to send and receive voice, data and video.
What is WiMAX and how does it work?
What does WiMAX mean for you and your business enterprise?
How will broadband wireless affect existing services?
Dan McLean, IT World Canada editor-in-chief and publisher for ComputerWorld Canada and Network World Canada, also writes a bi-weekly eInsider column for the Globe and Mail. Dan is a former research director for IDC Canada and an often-cited expert on Canada's IT industry.
Mike Dixon, is Vice-President of Motorola Canada and Director of Motorola's Wireless Networks Business Unit in Canada. Prior to joining the Wireless Networks Business Unit in 1994, Mr. Dixon was Manager, Field Service and Systems Integration for Private Radio Communications Systems for Motorola Canada.
Attendees will receive a complimentary event CD-ROM.
Space is limited for this free exclusive event!
Request your personal invitation today!